The Short Path to Enlightenment: Instructions for Immediate Awakening

by Paul Brunton

The mind is drawn so deeply into itself and becomes so engrossed in itself that the outer world vanishes utterly. The sensation of being enclosed all round by a greater presence, at once protective and benevolent, is strong. There is a feeling of being completely at rest in this soothing presence. The breathing becomes very quiet and hardly perceptible. One is aware also that nourishment is being mysteriously and rhythmically drawn from the universal Life-force. Of course, there is no intellectual activity, no thinking, and no need of it. Instead, there is a k-n-o-w-i-n-g. There are no desires, no wishes, no wants. A happy peacefulness, almost verging on bliss, as human love might be without its passions and pettinesses, holds one in magical thrall. In its freedom from mental working and perturbation, from passional movement and emotional agitation, the condition bears something of infantile innocence. Hence Jesus’ saying: “Except ye become as little children ye shall in no wise enter the Kingdom of Heaven.” But essentially it is a return to a spiritual womb, to being born again into a new world of being where at the beginning he is personally as helpless, as weak, and as dependent as the physical embryo itself. (23-7-11) Everything that intrudes upon the mental stillness in this highly critical stage must be rejected, no matter how virtuous or how “spiritual” a face it puts on. Only by the lapse of all thought, by the loss of all thinking capacity can he maintain this rig...