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August 18 - October 1, 2019
there came a rift between guru and disciple when the author began experimenting with mescaline and LSD as tools toward enlightenment. Prabhavananda was adamantly opposed to the use of drugs, and drugs used as a short cut to spiritual awareness. Huxley’s guru claimed that drugs were a deterrent to spiritual growth—if you were a fool when you entered the drug-induced visionary state, you remained a fool when you returned to normal consciousness. Whereas a genuine spiritual experience would leave one transformed and enlightened as witnessed in the lives of the great saints and spiritual geniuses.
That the Ground is at once transcendent and immanent.
to achieve this unitive knowledge of the Godhead is the final end and purpose of human existence.
That the more there is of self, the less there is of the Godhead; and that the Tao is therefore a way of humility and love, the Dharma a living Law of mortification and self-transcending awareness.
People like their egos
get a bigger kick out of bullying and self-adulation than out of hum...
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and in default of an adequate religious hypothesis the choice between some lunatic idolatry, such as nationalism, and a sense of complete futility and despair.
have preferred the risk—no, the positive certainty—of such disasters to the tiresome whole-time job of seeking first the kingdom of God.
God is.
The final end and purpose of every human being is the unitive knowledge of God’s being.
Because He is ours and immanent, God is very close to us.
The saint is one who is as close to God as God is close to him.
the life of prayer is also a life of mortification, of dying to self.
the more there is of self, the less there is of God.
I am feeling STUFFED...so full of self that i am utterly distracted.
Our pride, our anxiety, our lusts for power and pleasure are G...
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Would that i could cultivate such AWARENESS
Such service is always idolatry,
God’s kingdom cannot come unless we begin by making our human kingdoms go.
also the respectable ones—the kingdoms of the scribes and pharisees, the good citizens and pillars of society, no less than the k...
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Beauty arises when the parts of a whole are related to one another and to the totality in a manner which we apprehend as orderly and significant.
But the first principle of order is God,
finally,
on the plane of conduct, in the love and gentleness, the confidence and humility, which give beauty to the relationships between human beings.
Where is my gentleness?
How am i loving?
To the knowledge of this Pure Interval we shall come only when we have learned to mortify attachment to creatures, above all to ourselves.
Moral ugliness arises when self-assertion spoils the harmonious relationship which should exist between sentient beings.
that chaotic disorderliness which characterizes creatures when they try to live independently of God.
God is love,
the earlier stages of the spiritual life God is apprehended predominantly as law.
“Thou shalt love God with all thy soul, and with all thy heart, with all thy mind and with all thy strength. And thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.”
Idolatry consists in loving a creature more than we love God.
all have one thing in common: namely,
self-...
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God must increase. I must decrease.
I must FAST from my precious moral superiority...my love of intellect...my certain self love that sets me at odds with others.
even in men’s most heroic sacrifices to high causes and noble ideals, self-love has its tragic place.
sacrificing one part of our unregenerate being to another part which we and other people regard as more creditable.
Self-love still persists,
prevents us from obeying perfectly the first of the two g...
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peace is one of the fruits of the spirit.
also one of the roots.
peace is a necessary condition of ...
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Peace the fruit is the peace which passes all understanding; and it passes understanding, because it is the peace of God.
Interior peace has many enemies.
How can i so desire peace and still hold on to my prideful criticisms of others?
the moral plane
the plane of feeling,
the plane of the intellect
The overcoming of these enemies is a most laborious and often painful process, requiring incessant mortification of natural tendencies and all-too-human habits.
All my life Ive advocated for PEACE -while harboring thoughts, feelings and attitudes that are divisive.
How can i expect to achieve peace unless i acquire the internal disposition?
How will i work for this change of heart?
What will i do DAILY to create Peace in the core of my being?
the Imitation:
“All men desire peace but few indeed desire those things which make for peace.”
holiness is spiritual health,
HOLD thid thought!
a man is holy to the extent to which he has become single-minded, one-pointed, perfect as our Father in heaven is perfect.
In our unregenerate condition we are divided beings,
creatures of many moods and multiple personalities.
