He is beginning to master wisdom when he tries to learn how not to try.
The ego will always be able to find ways to keep the aspirant busy in self-improvement, thus blinding him to the fact that the self is still there behind all his improvements. For why should the ego kill itself?
Peace is a costly privilege-to be fought for, attained and won. It comes only from a conquered mind.
Every discussion which is made from an egoistic standpoint is corrupted from the start and cannot yield an absolutely sure conclusion. The ego puts its own interest first and twists every argument, word, even fact to suit that interest.
You may accept the inevitable with bitterness and resentment or with patience and grace. Mere acceptance is not sufficient.
The world is our school for spiritual discovery.
Accept the long night patiently, quietly, humbly, and resignedly as intended for your true good. It is not a punishment for sin committed but an instrument of annihilating egoism.
While the mind remains so fixed in its own personal affairs, be they little or large, it has no chance to open up its higher levels. When attention and emotion are kept so confined, the chance they offer of this higher use is missed. The peace, truth, and goodness which could be had are untouched.
The artist must raise the cup of his vision aloft to the gods in the high hope that they will pour into it the sweet mellow wine of inspiration.
No man who has lived through a temporary spiritual experience is ever likely to forget it. His days will be haunted until he sets out to seek ways and means of repeating it.
Although the pure truth has never been stated, nevertheless it has never been lost. Its existence does not depend upon human statement but upon human sensitivity. In this it is unlike all other knowledge.
Study everything, join nothing.
All methods and techniques – and of course all human beings who propound them – are merely instruments to help the student obtain a methodless, technique-free, teacherless state.
Every test successfully met is rewarded by some growth in intuitive knowledge, strengthening of character, or initiation into a higher consciousness.
Meditation is THE fundamental practice of the Quest.
Now an extraordinary and helpful fact is that by making Mind the object of our attention, not only does the serenity which is its nature begin to well up of its own accord but its steady unchanging character itself helps spontaneously to repel all disturbing thoughts.
Our greatest illusion is disillusion. We imagine that we are disillusioned with life, when the truth is that we have not even begun to live.
Whoever wants the “I” to yield up its mysterious and tremendous secret must stop it from looking perpetually in the mirror, must stop the little ego’s fascination with its own image.
God needs no worship, no praise, no thanksgiving. It is man himself who needs the benefit to be derived from these activities.
This withdrawal from the day’s turmoil into creative silence is not a luxury, a fad, or a futility. It dissolves mental tensions and heals negative emotions.