Advanced Course in Yogi Philosophy and Oriental Occultism

by Yogi Ramacharaka

Take these thoughts with you into the Silence, and let the truth sink into your mind, that it may take root, grow, blossom, and bear fruit. 1. "Kill out ambition." 2. "Kill out desire of life." 3. "Kill out desire of comfort." 4. "Work as those work who are ambitious. Respect life as those who desire it. Be happy as those are who live for happiness."

The gist of these teachings upon the subject of Ambition, may be summed up by saying: Kill out the relative Ambition, which causes you to tie yourself to the objects and rewards of your work, and which yields nothing but disappointment and repressed growth—but develop and express fully the absolute Ambition, which causes you to work for work's sake—for the joy which comes to the worker—from the desire to express the Divine Instinct to create—and which causes you to do the thing you have to do, the best you know how-better than it has ever been dine, if possible—and which enables you to work in harmony and unison with the Divine work which is constantly going on, instead of in harmony and discord.

To tear out a bad habit by the roots, requires almost superhuman strength of will, but to crowd it out by nursing a good habit in its place, is far more easier and seems to be nature's plan. The good habit will gradually crowd the bad one until it cannot exist, and then after a final struggle for life, it will expire. This is the easiest way to "kill out" undesirable habits and traits.

Again and again does pride, the tempter, come to bother us. Its existence is based upon the delusion of separateness, which leads us to imagine that we have no connection with other manifestations of life, and which causes us to feel a spirit of antagonism and unworthy rivalry toward our fellow beings, instead of recognizing the fact we are all parts of the One Life—some far back struggling in the mire of the lower stages of the road—others traveling along the same stage of the journey as ourselves—others still further advanced—but all on the way—all being bits of the same great Life.

5. “Kill out all sense of separateness.” 6. “Kill out desire for sensation.” 7. “Kill out the hunger for growth.” 8. “Yet stand alone and isolated, because nothing that is embodied, nothing that is conscious of separation, nothing that is out the eternal can aid you. Learn from sensation, and observe it; because only so can you commence the science of self-knowledge, and plant your foot on the first step of the ladder. Grow as the flower grows, unconsciously, but eagerly anxious to open its soul to the air. So must you press forward to open your soul to the eternal. But it must be the eternal that draws forth your strength and beauty, not desire of growth. For, in the one case, you develop in the luxuriance of purity, in the other, you harden by forcible passion for personal stature.”

9. “Desire only that which is within ye.” 10. “Desire only that which is beyond you.” 11. “Desire only that which is unattainable.” 12. “For within you is the light of the world, the only light that can be shed upon Path. If you are unable to perceive it within you, it is useless to look for it elsewhere. It is beyond you; because when you reach it, you have lost yourself. It is unattainable, because it forever recedes. You will enter the light, but you will never touch the flame.”

13. “Desire power ardently.” 14. “Desire peace fervently.” 15. “Desire possession above all.” 16. “But those possessions must belong to the pure soul only, and be possessed therefore by all pure souls equally, and thus be the especial property of the whole only when united. Hunger for such possessions can be held by the pure soul, that you may accumulate wealth for that united spirit of life which is your only true self. The peace you shall desire is that sacred peace which nothing can disturb, and in which the soul grows as does the holy flower upon the still lagoons. And that power which the disciple shall covet is that which shall make him appear as nothing in the eyes of men.” 17. “Seek out the way.” 18. “Seek the way by retreating within.” 19. “Seek the way by advancing boldly without.”

"The things that are for thee, gravitate to thee. Oh, believe, as thou livest, that every sound that is spoken over the round would which thou oughtest to hear, will vibrate on thine ear. Every proverb, every book, every by word that belongs to thee for aid or comfort, shall surely come home through open or winding passages."

The Spiritual Mind does not run contrary to reason—but it transcends Intellect—it goes beyond, and sees that which the Intellect cannot grasp.

When we learn to trust the Spirit, it responds by sending us more frequent Rashes of illumination and enlightenment. As one unfolds in Spiritual Consciousness, he relies more upon the Inner Voice, and is more readily able to distinguish it from the impulses from the lower p1anes of the mind. He

20. “Seek it not by any one road. To each temperament, there is one road which seems the most desirable. But the way is not found by devotion alone, by religious contemplation alone, by ardent progress, by self-sacrificing taboo, by studious observation of life. None alone can take the disciple more than one step onwards. All steps are necessary to make up the ladder. The vices of men become steps in the ladder, one by one, as they are surmounted. The virtues of man are steps, indeed, necessary—not by any means to be dispensed with. Yet, though they create a fair atmosphere and a happy future, they are useless if they stand alone. The whole nature of man must be used wisely by the one who desires to enter the way. Each man is to himself absolutely the way, the truth, and life. But he is only so when he grasps his whole individuality firmly, and, by the force of his awakened spiritual will, recognizes this individuality as not himself, but that thing which he has with pain created for his own sue, and by means of which he purposes, as his growth slowly develops his intelligence, to reach the life beyond individuality. When he knows that for this wonderful complex, separated life exists, then, indeed, and then only, he is upon the way. Seek it by plunging into the mysterious and glorious depths of your own inmost being. Seek it by testing all experience, by utilizing the senses, in order to understand the growth and meaning of individuality, and the beauty and obscurity of t...

21. “Look for the flower to bloom in the silence that follows the storm; not till then. It shall grow, it will shoot up, it will make branches and leaves and form buds, while the storm continues, while the battle lasts. But not till the whole personality of the man is dissolved and melted—and until it is held by the divine fragment which has created it, as a mere subject for grave experiment and experience—not until the whole nature has yielded, and become subject unto its higher self, can the bloom open. Then will come a calm such as comes in a tropical country after the heavy rain, when nature works so swiftly that one may see her action. Such a calm will come to the harassed spirit. And, in the deep silence, the mysterious even will occur which will prove that the way has been found. Call it by what name you will. It is the voice that speaks where there is none to speak, it is a messenger that comes—a messenger without form or substance—or it is the flower of the soul that has opened. It cannot be described by any metaphor. But it can be felt after, looked for, desired, even amid the raging of the storm. The silence may last a moment of time, or it may last a thousand years. But it will end. Yet you will carry its strength with you. Again and again the battle must be fought and won. It is only for an interval that nature can be still. “

The first indications of the coming of Spiritual Consciousness, is the dawning perception of the reality of the Ego—the awareness of the real existence of the Soul. When one begins to feel that he, himself, is his soul, rather than that he possess a wonderful something called the "soul" of which he really knows nothing—when, we say, he feels that he is a soul, rather than that he has or will have a soul—then that one is nearing the first stages of Spiritual Consciousness, if indeed he is not already within its outer borders.