Advanced Contemplation: The Peace Within You

The Notebooks of Paul Brunton #15

by Paul Brunton

Advanced Contemplation takes the high road, a direct route to the deepest mystical states-yielding permanent results of a metaphysical, transpersonal, and universal nature. The Peace Within You is an uplifting approach to the peace which passeth understandingat the core of every human being, showing how its rich serenity can be conciously integrated into daily living.

382 pages, Paperback

First published November 30, 1987

About the author

Paul Brunton was a British philosopher, researcher, mystic, and adventurer. He left a journalistic career to live among yogis, mystics, and holy men, and studied a wide variety of Eastern and Western esoteric teachings. With his entire life dedicated to the spiritual quest, Brunton felt charged with the task of communicating his knowledge and experiences in layperson's terms. He was one of the first persons to write accounts of what he learned about spirituality in the East, and his works have had a major influence on the spread of Eastern philosophy and mysticism to the West. Paul Brunton continued to write after his final publication in 1952, and a significant portion of his large archive of original writings was posthumously published by Larson Publications as "The Notebooks of Paul Brunton" (in 16 volumes). The entire archive will soon be housed at a university (2017) and available to read online (2019).

Reviews

[Mark David Vinzens · Rating 5 out of 5]

Paul Brunton is one of the great philosophers of the modern age. A philosopher in the true sense of the word: an illuminated human being, a true Gnostic, someone who has tasted and realized the living truth within the spiritual heart of his deepest being. It is a great delight to read his notebooks. In my humble opinion, the most important insight of the book is expressed in this beautiful passage:

“It would be wonderful if everyone, everywhere, could slip so easily into the kingdom of heaven, and just as easily stay there forever. But alas! the facts of human nature forbid it. People require teaching, training, purifying, disciplining, and preparing, before they can do so […] Purification of the heart and calming of the mind are necessary prerequisites for penetrating into the Overself […] The attempt to ignore order of development in the Quest, to leap from the lowest to the highest stages, to miss all the intervening ones, is an attempt to get something for nothing. It cannot succeed. For the influx of Spirit needs a chalice clean enough to be fit for it, large enough to hold it. What would happen if the influx were poured into a dirty, cracked, tiny, and weak vessel? […] the mind, nerves, emotions, and body of the man shall be gradually made capable of sustaining the influx of the Solar Force, or Spirit-Energy.”
― Paul Brunton, Advanced Contemplation: The Peace Within You

The idea that enlightenment can be achieved without effort is an illusion. In all likelihood it will be a long and challenging hero's journey and the seeker of truth will be confronted with the dark night of the soul. Only those who are willing to give everything to obtain the Philosopher's Stone of Divine Truth will find it. Before the Divine blesses us with the unsurpassable grace of enlightenment, it will test us. Only those souls who have proven that they are worthy will succeed. Any serious pursuit of enlightenment must begin with the purification of the heart. That is the reason why our divine Master Jesus, peace and blessings be upon him, said: „Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God“ (Mt 5: 8) In other words: if we walk the path with patience, steadfastness and perseverance, then we can and will eventually succeed because it is a cosmic law. The holy grail of nearness, intimacy and union with the Divine Beloved is given to those who never give up.