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Page 1 of 11912 · PDF PAGE 85
69 probably be the first to admit that if any man were really tired of life, in his deepest being, a state very different from that in which a man goes about saying he is tired of life, he could manage somehow or other to kill someone first. “ Νονν the man whohas experienced any of the more intense forms of Dhyana is thus liberated. The Universe is thus destroyed for him, and he for it. His will can therefore go on its way unhampered. One may imagine that in the case of Mohammed he had cherished for years a tremendous ambition, and never done any…
1912 · PDF PAGE 30
…nd tremendous that those Who experience it are in the gravest danger of losing all sense of proportion. By its light all other events of life are as darkness. Owing to this, people have utterly failed to analyse it or to estimate it. They are accurate enough in saying that, compared with this, all human life is absolutely dross; but they go further, and go wrong. They argue that “since this is that which transcends the terrestrial, it must be celestial.” One of the tendencies in their minds has been the hope of a heaven such as their parents an…
1912 · PDF PAGE 33
…s. Such at least was the attitude which Gotama Buddha adopted. Nor shall he be alone. Again it may be pointed out that the contemplative life is generally opposed to the active life, and it must require an extremely careful bal- ance to prevent the one absorbing the other. As it will be seen later, the “vision of God,” or “ Union with God,” or “ Samadhi,” or whateverwe may agree to call it, has many kinds and many degrees, although there is an impassable abyss between the least of them and the greatest of all the phenomena of normal consciousne…
1912 · PDF PAGE 90
74 lessness of dreams,' he ascribes them (rightly) to a disordered mind. The philosopher looks upon waking life with similar contempt ; and the person who has experienced Dhyana takes the same View, but not by mere pale intellectual conviction. Reasons, hoWever cogent, never convince utterly; but this man in Dhyana has the same commonplace certainty that a man has on waking from a nightmare. “ I wasn’t falling down a thousand flights of stairs, it was only a bad dream.” Similarly comes the reflection of the man who has had experience of Dhyana: “…
1912 · PDF PAGE 89
… a belief of the unreality of its own experiences. It may not be what it seems; but it must be something, and if (on the whole) ordinary life is something, how much more mus that be by whose light ordinary life seems nothing! The ordinary man sees the falsity and disconnectedness and purpose-
1912 · PDF PAGE 11
…xt, let the breath-rhythmbe low, Easy, regular, and slow; So that thy being be in tune With the great sea’s Pacific swoon. Third, let thy life be pure and calm, Swayed softly as a windless palm. Fourth, let the will-to-live be bound To the one love of the profound. Fifth, let the thought, divinely free From sense, observe its entity. Watch every thoughtthat springs; enhance Hour after hour thy vigilance! Intense and keen, turned inward, miss No atom of analysis! Sixth, on one thought securely pinned Still every whisper of the wind! 1x
1912 · PDF PAGE 107
…y conditions of time, race, climate and language. There is an essential identity in the method. . Indeed! . It was the great work of the life of Frater Perdurabo to prove this. Studying each religious practice of each great religion on the spot, he was able to show the Identity-in-diversityof all, and to formulate a method free from all dogmatic bias, and based only on the ascer- tained facts of anatomy, physiology, and psychology. . Can you give me a brief abstract of this method? . The main idea is that the Infinite, the Absolute, God, the Ove…
1912 · PDF PAGE 53
…impossible to combine Prana- yama properly performed with emotional thought. It should be resorted to immedi- ately, at all times during life, when calm is threatened.
1912 · PDF PAGE 8
…sword, with rack and stake, pro- duced this “belief,” which is contrary to, and destructive of, all real religious experience. The whole life of Frater Perdurabo is now devoted to seeing that you obtain this living experience of Truth for, by, and in yourselves! SOROR VIRAKAM (Mary d’Este Sturges).
1912 · PDF PAGE 59
…eing solely a branch of athletics. We may then dismiss Yama and Niyama with this advice: let the student decide for himself what form of life, what moral code, will least tend to excite his mind; but once he has for- mulated it, let him stick to it, avoiding opportunism ; and let him be very careful to take no credit for what he does or refrains from doing—— it is a purely practical code, of no value in itself. The cleanliness which assists the surgeon in his work would prevent the engineer from doing his at all. (Ethical questions are adequate…
1912 · PDF PAGE 82
…ssible to explain what this really means :i only experience can furnish you with apprehension. (This, too, has its analogies in ordinary life; the conceptions of higher mathematics cannot be grasped by the beginner, cannot be explained to the layman.) Α further development is the appearance of the Form which has been universallydescribed as human; although the persons describing it proceed to add a great number of details which are not human at all. This particular appearance is usually assumed to be “ God.” But, whatever it may be, the result …
1912 · PDF PAGE 81
…ulties and all the emotional facultiesare thrown into a sort of ecstasy by an occurrence which overthrows the mind,and makes the rest of life seem absolutely worthless in‘ comparison. Good literature is principally a matter of clear observation and good judgment expressed in the simplest way. For this reason none of the great events of history (such as earthquakes and battles) have been well described by eye-witnesses, unless those eye-witnesses were out of F
1912 · PDF PAGE 75
…nt. It suggests that what is really happening is that you are waking up from the sleep which men call waking, the sleep Whose dreams are life. There is another way to test one’s progress in this practice, and that is by the character of the breaks. Breaks are classed as follows: E'rsz‘ly, physical sensations. These should have been overcome by Asana. Secondly, breaks that seem to be dictated by events immediately pre- ceding the meditation. Their activity becomes tremendous. Only by this practice does one understand how much is really observed …
1912 · PDF PAGE 86
… is proved by the fact that many people who claim to have had this experience repeatedly continue to exercise the ordinary avocations of life without diminished activity. We may dismiss, then, the physiologicalquestion. It throws no light on the main problem, which is the value of the testimony of the experience. Now this is a very difficult question, and raises the much larger question as to the value of any testimony. Every possible thought has been doubted at some time or another, except the thought which can
1912 · PDF PAGE 42
…n is suddenly forgotten, the fact of the presence of the body is forgotten, and one will realize that during the whole of one’s previous life the body was always on the borderland of con-
1912 · PDF PAGE 83
… that the prophet has been able to constrain mankind to obey his law. It never occurs to him that any one can do otherwise. In practical life one can walk past any guardian, such as a sentry or ticket-collector, if one can really act so that the man is somehow persuaded that you have a right to pass unchallenged. This power, by the way, is what has been described by magicians as the power of invisibility. Somebody or other has an excellent story of four quite reliable men who were on the look-out for a murderer, and had instructions to let no o…
1912 · PDF PAGE 26
12 external influences are likely to be unfavourable. New faces, new scenes will disjturb us ; even the new habits of life which we undertake for this very purpose of controlling the mind will at first tend to upset it. Still, we must give up our habit of eating too much, and follow the natural rule of only eating when we are hungry, listening to the interior voice which tells us that we have had enough. The same rule applies to sleep. We have determined to control our minds, and so our time for meditation must take precedence of other hours. We …
1912 · PDF PAGE 27
…r loves and hates, our ambitions, our envies, and many other emotions. All these must be cut off. We must have absolutely no interest in life but that of quieting our minds. This is the object of the usual monastic vow of poverty, chastity, and obedience. If you have no property, you have no care, nothing to be anxious about ; with chastity no other person to be anxious about, and to distract your attention; while if you are vowed to obedience the question of what you are to do no longer frets: you simply obey. There are a great many other obst…
1912 · PDF PAGE 103
… the water; “ Samana,” and you begin to flash with light; the “ elements ” fire, air, earth, and water, and you can do whatever in natural life they prevent you from doing. For instance, by conquering earth, one could take a short cut to Australia; or by conquering water, one can live at the bottom of the Ganges. They say there is a holy man at Benares who does this, coming up only once a year to comfort and in- struct his disciples. But nobody need believe this unless he wants to; and you are even advised to conquer that desire should it arise. …