Quotes from Paul Brunton

When it seems humanly impossible to do more in a difficult situation, surrender yourself to the inner silence and thereafter wait for a sign of obvious guidance or for a renewal of inner strength.

Such excessive preoccupation with his faults is not a truly spiritual activity but, on the contrary, a highly egoistic one.The recognition of his own faults should make a man humbler, when it is beneficial, not prouder, which the thought that he ought to have been above these faults makes him.

Man is more miserable, more restless and unsatisfied than ever before, simply because half his nature--the spiritual--is starving for true food, and the other half--the material--is fed with bad food.

He is beginning to master wisdom when he tries to learn how not to try.

Living in the present moment means living according to truth and principle (but not according to hard rigid dogma) flexibly applied in the particular way required by the immediate situation in which you are. Such a way of living leaves you free, not ruled tyrannically by imposed regulations which may not at all suit the particular case.

The ordinary man is aware of his surroundings, first, by naming and labelling them; second, by linking them with past memory of them; and third, by relating them to his own personal self. The illumined egoless man is simply aware of them, without any of these other added activities.

It may be considered folly by common opinion but this refusal to destroy life unnecessarily, this reverence for it, must become a deeply implanted part of his ethical standard.

Whoever wants the "I" to yield up its mysterious and tremendous secret must stop it from looking perpetually in the mirror, must stop the little ego's fascination with its own image.

Every morning is like a new reincarnation into this world. Let us take it then for what it is and live each moment anew.

Appetite has really become an artificial and abnormal thing, having taken the place of true hunger, which alone is natural. The one is a sign of bondage but the other, of freedom.

Among the values of meditation is that it carries consciousness down to a deeper level, thus letting man live from his centre, not his surface alone. The result is that the physical sense-reactions do not dominate his outlook wholly, as they do an animal's. Mind begins to rule them. This leads more and more to self-control, self-knowledge, and self-pacification.

When spiritual seeking becomes too complicated, its exercies too elaborated, its doctrines too esoteric, it becomes also too artificial and the resulting achievements too fabricated. It is the beginners and intermediates who carry this heavy and unnecessary burden, who involve themselves to the point of becoming neurotics.

Although the pure truth has never been stated, nevertheless it has never been lost. Its existence does not depend upon human statement but upon human sensitivity. In this it is unlike all other knowledge.

The seeker after stillness should be told that the stillness is always there. Indeed it is in every man. But he has to learn, first, to let it in and, second, how to do so. The first beginning of this is to remember. The second is to recognize the inward pull. For the rest, the stillness itself will guide and lead him to itself.

The succession of thoughts appears in time, but the gap between two of them is outside time. The gap itself is normally unobserved. The chance of enlightenment is missed.

Now an extraordinary and helpful fact is that by making Mind the object of our attention, not only does the serenity which is its nature begin to well up of its own accord but its steady unchanging character itself helps spontaneously to repel all disturbing thoughts.

The philosophic outlook rises above all sectarian controversy. It finds its own position not only by appreciating and synthesizing what is solidly based in the rival sects but also by capping them all with the keystone of nonduality.

Pursue the enquiry 'Who am I?' relentlessly. Analyse your entire personality. Try to find out where the I-thought begins. Go on with your meditations. Keep turning your attention within. One day the wheel of thought will slow down and an intuition will mysteriously arise. Follow that intuition, let your thinking stop, and it will eventually lead you to the goal.

Those who spend sufficient time on the mystical quest, and with sufficient keenness and guidance, find it infinitely inspiring because it links them—however remotely weakly and momentarily—with an infinite power, an infinite wisdom, an infinite goodness.

There is really nothing to be achieved here; only something to be accepted-the fact of your own divinity.

War is still going on in the hearts and minds of men. This is where it must first be stopped, for it is there that the explosives, whether they later take the form of small bullets or tremendously destructive atom bombs, begin their existence.

Compassion is the highest moral value, the noblest human feeling, the purest creature-love. It is the extreme social expression of the divine soul of man. Because he is able to share his feelings, where both are in reality connected in harmony by the presence of this soul in each one. One consequence of this habit of compassion is that an immense understanding of human nature fills his entire being.

The study of the self will one day prove the master-key to open all philosophical doors, all scientific conundrums, all life's locked problems. Self is the ultimate—it is the first thing we know as babes; it will be the last thing we shall know as sages. The greatest certainty in knowledge comes only in the sphere of self. We

It is a grave misconception to regard the mystical progress as passing mostly through ecstasies and raptures. On the contrary, it passes just as much through broken hearts and bruised emotions, through painful sacrifices and melancholy renunciations.