Paul Brunton, The Notebooks of Paul Brunton (1988)

Volume 15: Advanced Contemplation / The Peace within You, Prefatory

************************

From Chapter 4: SEEK THE DEEPER STILLNESS

1

When the personal ego's thoughts and desires are stripped off,

we behold ourselves as we were in the first state and as we

shall be in the final one. We are then the Overself alone,

in its Godlike solitude and stillness.



2

One feels gathered into the depths of the silence, enfolded by it

and then, hidden within it, intuits the mysterious inexplicable

invisible and higher power which must remain forever nameless.



3

A life with this infinite stillness as its background and centre seems

as remote from the common clay of everyday human beings, and especially

from their urban infatuation with noise and movement, as the asteroids.



4

This stillness is the godlike part of every human being.

In failing to look for it, he fails to make the most of

his possibilities. If, looking, he misses it on the way,

this happens because it is a vacuity: there is simply

nothing there! That means no things, not even mental

things, that is, thoughts.



5

The spirit (Brahman) is NOT the stillness, but is found by humans

who are in the precondition of stillness. The latter is their human

reaction to Brahman's presence coming into their field of awareness.



6

That beautiful state wherein the mind recognizes itself for what it is,

wherein all activity is stilled except that of awareness alone, and even

then it is an awareness without an object this is the heart of

the experience.

Paul Brunton (1898-1981)

The Notebooks of Paul Brunton,

Volume 15, Larson Publications,

Burdett, New York, 1988

************************

From Paul Brunton's Notebooks: A Prayer For The World