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Men love their desires, for gratification seems sweet to them, but its end is pain and vacuity; they love the argumentations of the intellect, for egotism seems most desirable to them, but the fruits thereof are humiliation and sorrow. When the soul has reached the end of gratification and reaped the bitter fruits of egotism, it is ready to receive the Divine Wisdom and to enter into the Divine Life. Only the crucified can be transfigured; only by the death of self can the Lord of the heart rise again into the Immortal Life, and stand radiant upon the Olivet of Wisdom.
Life is more than motion, it is Music; more than rest, it is Peace; more than work, it is Duty; more than labour, it is Love; more than enjoyment, it is Blessedness; more than acquiring money and position and reputation, it is Knowledge, Purpose, strong and high Resolve.
Not to act and accomplish now is not to act and accomplish at all.
To live in thoughts of what you might have done, or in dreams of what you mean to do, this is folly: but to put away regret, to anchor anticipation, and to do and to work now, this is wisdom.
Say to yourself, "I will live in my Ideal now; I will manifest my Ideal now; I will be my Ideal now; and all that tempts me away from my Ideal I will not listen to; I will listen only to the voice of my Ideal." Thus resolving, and thus doing, you shall not de-part from the Highest, and shall eternally manifest the True.
Virtue consists in fighting sin day after day. but holiness consists in leaving sin, Unnoticed and ignored, to die by the wayside; and this is done, can only be done, in the living now. Say not unto thy soul, "Thou shall be purer to-morrow"; but rather say, "Thou shalt be pure now." To-morrow is too late for anything, and he who sees his help and salvation in to-morrow shall continually fail and fall to-day.
Thy sins are not thyself; they are not any part of thyself; they are diseases which thou hast come to love. Cease to cling to them, and they will no longer cling to thee.
A MAN should be superior to his possessions, his body, his circumstances and surroundings, and the opinions of others, and their attitude towards him. Until he is this, he is not strong and steadfast. He should also rise superior to his own desires and opinions; and until he is this, he is not wise.
To detach oneself from every outward thing, and to rest securely upon the inward Virtue, this is the Unfailing Wisdom.
In whatever condition a man finds himself, he can always find the True; and he can find it only by so utilizing his present condition as to become strong and wise.
Fear is the shadow of selfishness, and cannot live where loving Wisdom is. Doubt, anxiety, and worry are unsubstantial shades in the underworld of self, and shall no more trouble him who will climb the serene altitudes of his soul. Grief, also, will be for ever dispelled by him who will comprehend the Law of his being.
ceasing from all wrong he can never be wronged; ceasing from all deceit he can never be deceived.
No evil can happen to the righteous man who has cut off the source of evil in himself; living in the All-Good, and abstaining from sin in thought, word and deed, whatever happens to him is good; neither can any person, event, or circumstance cause him suffering, for the tyranny of circumstance is utterly destroyed for him who has broken the bonds of sin.
Perfect Love is perfect Patience.
Perfect Love is perfect Trust.
Perfect Love is perfect Power.
Perfect Love is perfect Wisdom. The man who loves all is the man who knows all.
Love illuminates the intellect; without it the intellect is blind and cold and lifeless.
Perfect Love is perfect Peace.
To give the reins to inclination is the only slavery; to conquer oneself is the only freedom.
All true genius is impersonal. It belongs not to the man through whom it is manifested; it belongs to all. It is a diffusion of pure Truth: the Light of Heaven descending on all mankind.
He who would be great let him learn to be good. He will therefore become great by not seeking greatness. Aiming at greatness a man arrives at nothingness; aiming at nothingness he arrives at greatness. The desire to be great is an indication of littleness, of personal vanity and obtrusiveness. The willingness to disappear from gaze, the utter absence of self-aggrandizement is the witness of greatness.
Littleness seeks and loves authority. Greatness is never authoritative, and it thereby becomes the authority to which the after ages appeal.
He who seeks, loses; he who is willing to los...
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Be thy simple self, thy better self, thy impersonal self, and...
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Claiming personal authority, a man descends into littleness; practising goodness, a man ascends into greatness. The presumptuousness of the small may, for a time, obscure the humility of the great, but it is at last swallowed up by it, as the noisy river is lost in the calm ocean.
What the worldly-minded call troubles they regard as pleasant tasks of Love and Wisdom.
He who loves can never want. The universe belongs to Goodness, and it therefore belongs to the good man. It can be possessed by all without stint or shrinking, for Goodness, and the abundance of Goodness (material, mental, and spiritual abundance), is inexhaustible. Think lovingly, speak lovingly, act lovingly, and your every need shall be supplied; you shall not walk in desert places, and no danger shall overtake you.
Make no compromise with self. Cease not to strive until your whole being is swallowed up in Love.
To love all and always—this is the Heaven of heavens.
All that you do, let it be done in calm wisdom, and not from desire, impulse, or opinion; this is the Heavenly way of action.
Purify your thought-world until no stain is left, and you will ascend into Heaven while living in the body.
Undeveloped souls are merely unopened flowers.
Hell is the preparation for Heaven; and out of the debris of its ruined hovels are built pleasant mansions wherein the perfected soul may dwell.
Life is full of beginnings. They are presented every day and every hour to every person. Most beginnings are small, and appear trivial and insignificant, but in reality they are the most important things in life. See how in the material world everything proceeds from small beginnings. The mightiest river is at first a rivulet over which the grasshopper could leap; the great flood commences with a few drops of rain; the sturdy oak, which has endured the storms of a thousand winters, was once an acorn; and the smouldering match, carelessly dropped, may be the means of devastating a whole town by
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Even if your worldly duty does not demand it, it is wise to make of it a duty, and begin the day strongly by shaking off indolence.
How are you to develop strength of will and mind and body if you begin every day by yielding to weakness?
Men and women are totally unaware of the great losses which they entail by this common indulgence: loss of strength both of mind and body, loss of prosperity, loss of knowledge, and loss of happiness.
Order, definiteness, purpose eternally and universally prevail, and he who in his operations ignores these mathematical elements at once deprives himself of substantiality, completeness, success.
Not only great happiness but great power arises from doing little things unselfishly, wisely, and perfectly, for life in its totality is made up of little things.
the true path - the path of duty, of earnest and undivided application to one’s daily task - along which alone will-power and concentration of thought can be wholesomely and normally developed, remains unknown, untrodden, unexplored even by the elect.
A man must learn how to grow little by little and day after day, by adding thought to thought, effort to effort, deed to deed.
True will-power consists in overcoming the irritabilities, follies, rash impulses and moral lapses which accompany the daily life of the individual, and which are apt to manifest themselves on every slight provocation; and in developing calmness, self-possession, and dispassionate action in the press and heat of worldly duties, and in the midst of the passionate and unbalanced throng.
The man who sets his whole mind on the doing of each task as it is presented, who puts into it energy and intelligence, shutting all else out from his mind, and striving to do that one thing, no matter how small, completely and perfectly, detaching himself from all reward in his task - that man will every day be acquiring greater command over his mind, and will, by ever- ascending degrees, become at last a man of power - a Master.
Put yourself unreservedly into your present task, and so work, so act, so live that you shall leave each task a finished piece of labour - this is the true way to the acquisition of will-power, concentration of thought, and conservation of energy.
Until this is done those other and higher places which are waiting for you cannot be taken possession of, cannot be reached.
just as the strong doing of small tasks leads to greater strength, so the doing of those tasks weakly leads to greater weakness.
What a man is in his fractional duties that he is in the aggregate of his character.
The weak man becomes strong by attaching value to little things and doing them accordingly. The strong man becomes weak by falling into looseness and neglect concerning small things, thereby forfeiting his simple wisdom and squandering his energy.
The truly honest man is honest in the minutest details of his life.
