When a person comes to his real senses, he will recognize that he has only one problem: "How can I come into awareness of, and oneness with, my true being?" 1:1.130 The Notebooks of Paul Brunton
The soul is most certainly there but if people do not turn inwards, and attend to it, then for them it is not there. But really it is always there and the failure to recognize its existence is really the failure to turn attention away from the endless multitude of things which continuously extrovert it. PB “Adventure of Meditation” WP 43/15
The Overself is always present but our attention seldom is. (22:3.16)
The absence of the ego is the presence of the Overself. But this is only a surface impression in the person's thought, for the Overself is always present. (22:3.58)
It is the unique contribution of the Short Path that it takes advantage of the Overself's ever-present offer of Grace. 23.1.134
…The very fact you have consciously begun the quest is itself a manifestation of Grace, for you have begun to seek the Overself only because the Overself's own working has begun to make it plain to you, through the sense of unbearable separation from it, that the right moment for this has arrived. …You are not really walking alone. The very love which has awakened within you for the Overself is a reflection of the love which is being shown towards you.
…Thus the very search upon which you have embarked, the studies you are making, and the meditations you are practicing are all inspired by the Overself from the beginning and sustained by it to the end. The Overself is already at work even before you begins to seek it. Indeed you have taken to the quest in unconscious obedience to the divine prompting. And that prompting is the first movement of Grace. [“The Workings Of Grace” ]
Glimpses From The Notebooks of Paul Brunton:
Glimpse is PB’s word for the direct immediate, but not permanent, experience of yourself as shifted out of the ego. It has a very wide range, but at its deepest is a dip into the Void. See Randy’s article on my website.
Everything else can be known, as things and ideas are known, as something apart or possessed, but the Overself cannot be truly known in this way. Only by identifying oneself with It can this happen.
We can know the Overself only by being it, not by thinking it. It is beyond thoughts for it is Thought, Pure Mind, itself. 22:3.190, 191
The glimpse may be best compared to a moment of wakefulness in a long existence of sleep. 22.4.7
It is the highest possible form of self-recognition. It is the discovery of who and what we really are. 22.4.36
When a man's consciousness is turned upside-down by a glimpse, when what he thought most substantial is revealed as least so, when his values are reversed and the Good takes on a new definition, he writes that day down as his spiritual birthday. 22.4.88
What better thing can he find than the divine Overself! That would be the decisive moment of his entire bodily existence, as establishing himself permanently in its fullness and finality would be the grandest sequel. 22.4.89
The ever-presence of Overself means that anyone may attain it here and now. There is no inner necessity to travel anywhere or to anyone in space or to wait years in time for this to happen. Anyone, for instance, who attends carefully and earnestly to the present exposition may perhaps suddenly and easily get the first stage of insight, the lightning-flash which affords a glimpse of reality, at any moment. 22.3.4
Enlightenment is always "sudden" in the sense that during meditation or reverie or relaxation the preliminary thought-concentrating gestatory period usually moves through consciousness quite slowly until, at some unexpected moment, there is an abrupt deepening, followed by a slipping into another dimension, a finding oneself alive in a new atmosphere. 22.6.10
What, it has been asked, if I get no glimpses? What can I do to break this barren, monotonous, dreary, and sterile spiritual desert of my existence? The answer is if you cannot meditate successfully go to nature, where she is quiet or beautiful; go to art where it is majestic, exalting; go to hear some great soul speak, whether in private talk or public address; go to literature, find a great inspired book written by someone who has had the glimpses. 22.5.1
If you have enough confidence to trust in the teaching, and to move in the direction toward which it guides you, sooner or later the future will be lighted by these small fugitive glimpses.(P) 22.5.12
If few attain the wonder of Overself consciousness, it is because few can lift their minds to the level of impersonality and anonymity. But what all cannot do with their minds, they can do much more easily with their hearts. Let them approach enveloped in love, and the grace will come forward to meet them. By its power, the ego which they could not bring themselves to renounce will be forgotten. 22.5.32
It should be remembered that whatever kind of meditation is adopted, the glimpse which comes from it comes because we have provided the right condition for its appearance, not because our own doing makes the glimpse appear. For it comes from the realm of timelessness with which we come into some sort of harmony through the intuitive nature. What we do is in the realm of time, and it can only produce effects of a like nature. 22/5/46
The glimpse is as much subject to grace as the Enlightenment which endures forever. It happens outside our own will, although inside our consciousness. (22.5.83)
If you have enough confidence to trust in the teaching, and to move in the direction toward which it guides you, sooner or later the future will be lighted by these small fugitive glimpses.(P) 22.5.12
If he is tempted by these sudden glimpses to enquire whether there is a method or technique whereby they may be repeated at will, he will find that there is and that it is called meditation. If he wishes to go farther and enquire whether his whole life could continuously enjoy them all the time, the answer is that it could and that to bring it about he needs to follow a way of life called The Quest.(P) 22.5.29
When the glimpse happens, a person comes out of himself. It may follow his admiration of a beautiful scene in Nature or his appreciation of a beautiful poem or his simple relaxed mood, but in each case he lets go of his taut self-consciousness. This allows the entry of grace. 22.5.34
All that a man knows and experiences is a series of thoughts. There is only one exception and that, in most cases, remains usually as an unrealized possibility. It is when he discovers his being. Here thinking is not active, would in fact prevent the discovery if not reined in at the proper point. Here, in this private paradise, knowing and experiencing are one. 22.5.7
The point where the personal ego establishes contact with the Overself is reached and passed only through a momentary lapse of consciousness. But this lapse is so brief--a mere fraction of a second--that it may be unnoticed. A presence enters his consciousness and comes over him, a benign feeling to which he is glad to surrender himself, a mysterious solvent of his egotism and desires. 22.5.8
The value of letting oneself pass this point can hardly be overestimated, even though it be done only during the limited sessions of meditation or the casual periods of unexpected visitations. For from them peace, wisdom, sanity can be emanated. At this point there is the mysterious division between human normal meditation and divine contemplation, between discursive thinking and its dissolution as the divine self takes over, between mental concentration and release into still, timeless being, between imagery and pure Consciousness. 22.5.9
Follow this invisible thread of tender holy feeling, keep attention close to it, do not let other things distract or bring you away from it. For at its end is entry into Awareness. (P) 23.7.21
When the personal ego’s thoughts and desires are stripped off, we behold ourselves as we were in the first state and as we shall be in the final one. We are then the Overself alone, in its Godlike solitude and stillness. Perspectives 24.53
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