OMNIPRESENCE
It is always there, the only reality in a mind-made
world.
(28.1.17)
That which is
at the heart of all existence–the world’s and yours–must be real, if anything
can be. The world may be an illusion, your ego a fiction, but the ultimate
essence cannot be either. Reality must be here or nowhere. 28.1.15
We can not ever know the Divine which is Transcendent but
we can acknowledge that it IS. We may
however know the Divine which is Immanent, recognize, perceive, and feel its
presence. 25.1.120
No one can see the Real yet
everyone may see the things which come from it.
Although it is itself untouchable, whatever we touch enshrines its
presence. 28.1.22
The omnipresence of the Infinite Mind carries great
meaning for us individually. For it signifies that this Mind is not less
present and not less active in us too. 25.1.23
DOUBLE
VIEWPOINT // DOUBLE PURPOSE
Once the double viewpoint is understood and set up as the
necessary starting point, the timed measure and the timeless order fall into
his scheme of things. Practical experience carries him through the ordinary existence,
and divine experience–the eternal Now–is not displaced by it. Success in
living the philosophic life and maturing the mentality it requires makes this
possible.(P) (19:2.12)
The
necessity of employing the double viewpoint leads to the acceptance of paradox
as being the nature of truth. The practising philosopher finds that he must
live in time as well as simultaneity, extension as well as infinity, mind as
well as MIND. Were he to be simplistic he would create confusion.
(19:2.37)
The
subtler mental equipment must be energized and developed before he can use the
subtler ideas of philosophy in the higher stages of this quest. First comes the
idea of mentalism. Beyond that comes the idea of simultaneity–that he both is
and is not a twofold being. 2.4.74
Paradox is both the
primal and the final truth. Life, whether we approve of it or not, is like that.
Things are dual and so is man’s nature a pairing of negative and positive. But
even more is the entire cosmos itself both real and unreal. (26:3.1)
Paradox is the only way to view both the
immediate and the ultimate at the same time. (19:2.30)
How can a
person fully express himself unless he fully develops himself? The spiritual
evolution which requires him to abandon the ego runs parallel to the mental evolution
which requires him to perfect it. 8:1.158
The cosmos
is neither a phantom to be disdained nor an illusion to be dismissed. It is a
remote expression in time and space and individuality of that which is timeless
spaceless and infinite. If it is not the Reality in its ultimate sense, it is
an emanation of the Reality. Hence it shares in some way the life of its
source. To
find that point of sharing is the true object of incarnation for all
creatures within the cosmos.
26.1.179
If
the worldly man agitatedly sees the event against the background of a moment,
if the philosophic student calmly sees it against the background of an entire
lifetime, the sage, while fully aware of both these points of view, offsets
them altogether by adding a third one which does not depend on any dimension of
time at all. … The philosophic student
discovers the mission of time; it heals sorrows and, under karma or through
evolution, cures evils. The sage solves the mystery of timelessness, which
redeems man. (P 243) (19:2.8)
The declaration of Jesus that
whosoever will save his life shall lose it, is uncompromising. It is an eternal
truth as well as a universal one. It is needed by the naive as well as by the
sophisticated. …
Such an achievement may seem very far off from human
possibility and indeed we find in history that not many have either cared, or
been able, to realize it, for it is far too painful to the ego. But the
metaphysical truths of successive rebirth on earth and of the unreality of time
should give some comfort here. The first teaches a great patience while men
labour daily at the task of remaking themselves. The second teaches that the
Overself is even now ever present with all, that in the eternal Now there is no
futurity and that theoretically the possibility of its realization does not
necessarily belong to some distant rebirth. 8.4.230
The mind can know as a second thing, as an
object, that which is outside itself. This applies to thoughts also. If it is
to know anything as it really is in itself, it must unite with that object and
become it, in which case the distinction of duality disappears. For instance,
to know a person, one must temporarily become that person by uniting
with him. Otherwise, all one knows of that person is the mental picture, which
may not be similar to the real person. Similarly, the Ultimate Consciousness is
not something to be known as a second being apart from oneself. If he knows it
in that way he really knows only his mental picture of it. To know it in truth
he has to enter into union with it and then the little ego disappears as a
separate being but remains as part of the larger self. The wave then knows
itself not only as a little wave dancing on the surface of the ocean, but also
as the ocean itself. But as all the water of the ocean is ONE, it can no longer
regard the millions of other waves as being, from the standpoint of ultimate
truth, different from itself. To render this clearer still, during a dream he
sees living men, houses, animals, and streets. Each is seen as a separate
entity. But after he awakens, he understands that all these individual entities
issued forth from a single source–his own mind. Therefore they were all made
of the same stuff as his mind, they were non-different from it, they were not
other than the mind itself. Similarly when he completes the Ultimate Path he
will awaken from the illusion of world-existence and know that the
entire experience was and is a fragmentation of his own essential being, which
he now will no longer limit to the personal self, but will expand to its true
nature as the universal mind. The dream will go on all the same because he is
still in the flesh, but he will dream consciously and know exactly
what is happening and what underlies it all. When this happens he cannot go on
living just for purely personal aims but will have to enlarge them to include
the welfare of all beings. This does not mean he will neglect his own
individual welfare, but only that he will keep it in its place side by side
with the welfare of others. 21.5.170
STILL AND
ACTIVE
An ever-active
Mind within an ever-still Mind–that is the real truth, not only about God but
also about man. 25.1.9
The Real can’t be
merely static, actionless; this aspect is one of its faces, but there are two
faces. The other is dynamic,
ever-active. On the path, the discovery
of its quiescent aspect is the first stage; this is mysticism. But the world is always confronting him and
its activity has to be harmonized with inner peace. This harmonization can only be established by
returning to the deserted world (while still retaining the peace) and making
the second discovery–that it, too, is God active. Only then can he have unbroken peace, as
before it will be intermittent. He then
understands things in a different way.
24.3.310
It is one and the
same Reality which appears in different ways to beings on different planes of
perception. If it is true that they are
dealing only with Appearance because they are perceiving only its forms, it is
equally true that, as soon as they discover what it is that projects these
forms, they will discover that life is a harmonious whole and that there is no
fundamental conflict between the so-called worldly life and the so-called
spiritual life. (Perspectives 21.65)
Once the double viewpoint is
understood and set up as the necessary starting point, the timed measure and
the timeless order fall into his scheme of things. Practical experience carries
him through the ordinary existence, and divine experience–the eternal Now–is
not displaced by it. Success in living the philosophic life and maturing the
mentality it requires makes this possible. (19:2.12)
The cosmic order is divine intelligence expressed,
equilibrium sought through contrasts and complementaries, the One Base
multiplying itself in countless forms, the Supreme will established according
to higher laws. The World-Mind is hidden deep within our individual minds. The
World-Idea begets all our knowledge. Whoever seeks aright finds the sacred
stillness inside and the sacred activity in the universe. (p. 361)
WHERE WE
MEET GOD
God’s immanence is
reflected throughout the whole universe. God’s reality is indicated by the very
existence of the universe. God’s intelligence is revealed by the intelligence
of the creatures in the universe. (26:1.208)
He discovers that Consciousness, the very nature of mind under all its
aspects, the very essence of be-ing under the personal selfhood, is where man
and God finally meet. He knows that God
indisputably exists, not because some religious dogma avers it but because his
own experience proves it. 25.1.39
The little centre of consciousness
that is myself rests in and lives by the infinite ocean of consciousness that
is God. The first momentary discovery of
this relationship constitutes a genuine religious experience, and its expansion
into a final, full disclosure constitutes a philosophic one. 25.1.31
The Short Path is, in
essence, the ceaseless practice of remembering to stay in the Stillness, for
this is what he really is in his innermost being and where he meets the
World-Mind. 23.1.97
The
ego to which he is so attached turns out on enquiry to be none other than the
presence of World-Mind within his own heart. If identification is then shifted
by constant practice from one to the other, he has achieved the purpose of
life. (8:1.127)
With every thought we break the divine stillness. Yet
behind all thoughts is Mind. Behind all things that give rise to thoughts is
Mind. 28.1.10
… Everyone knows that they are aware of themselves, others, the world. But that awareness exists also in an unlimited uninterrupted way they do not know. Yet to the extent that we have this limited kind of consciousness we derive from It, share the spirit, are part of it. 21.2.98
…When we recognize that the Real is continuous with its Appearance and that the latter is indeed the very incarnation of it, when we understand that the vast universe is a presentation by the Mind to the Mind, the tendency to scorn the flesh and desert the world itself deserts us.
“The
God in the sun is the “I” in me” –this put tersely is the essence of man’s
relationship to divinity. A whole book may be needed to explain it, a whole
lifetime to get direct experience of its truth as insight. 25:1.1
IN TUNE WITH THE INFINITE
When the masculine and feminine temperaments within us
are united, completed, and balanced, when masculine power and feminine
passivity are brought together inside the person and knowledge and reverence
encircle them both, then wisdom begins to dawn in the soul. The ineffable reality and the mentalist
universe are then understood to be non-different from one another.
25.2.120
He comes to see the whole
cosmos as a manifestation of the Supreme Being.
It follows that involuntarily, spontaneously, he brings himself–mind
and body, heart and will–into harmony with this view. (p. 361)
The
universe is not only a thought of World-Mind, but is a “self-revelation” of the
World-Mind…
…Thus mentalism renders it easier to understand three
great truths:
First, the universe is God made manifest.
Second, God must be immanent in the world just as our
mind is immanent in every thought.
Third, because it has a mind behind it, the
universe must possess a consistent meaning. WOTO Ch11