“Thought has imprisoned us: thought may release us.” PB
Part of the path of philosophy is reading quotes from inspired masters. The paras are to inspire you, giving hints about the other, unseen but vast dimension of our being—here called Overself—its nature, presence and glimpses.
See the Notebooks of Paul Brunton: Overself presence (22.3); Long and Short path; remembrance and contemplation (23.1, 23.5, 23.6); the philosophic quest (20.4, 20.5),
Perhaps the greatest value of the words of the sage is simply telling us Yes! it is really so, it is there. Think about a jar of honey that you can’t find a crowded closet– and you give up looking. Then your trusted friend says: “I saw it there it is there.” And now, with this assurance, you search in earnest.
Read until you find one that resonates, stop and reread, underline, take it in—not like a novel or newspaper. You are responsible for putting it into practice– as you allow it to change your mind, to recognize and remember reality. Enjoy.
Or find a para in The Notebooks at random, and use it for a while. Allow the inspired words to guide you and transform you: keep them in mind and take them to heart. Each para is an invitation to a meditation.
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Anthony: I tell people, “Memorize something that you like very much– one of the great philosophers, a statement or a paragraph or page.” But it has to be something that is compelling, interesting, mysterious, and attracts your attention. You memorize that and then you sit down. You say it to yourself. You concentrate your attention on it and you try to squeeze out, extract all the meaning that it has. Sometimes you could do it in a few days, sometimes it takes a couple of weeks. That would be an easy way to start. Anthony Damiani Looking Into Mind p.6
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The object of all this thinking is to awaken within him a mood of soul, a mental atmosphere and even an emotional condition of aspiration toward Truth which will provide an appropriate stage for the entry of illumination. PB Quest of the Overself p. 71.
From The Notebooks of Paul Brunton:
Constant reflection on metaphysical and ethical themes reaches a point where one day its accumulated weight pushes him around the corner into a mystical realization of those themes no less surely than meditation might have done. 7.2.2
Thinking can put together all sorts of theories and speculations and even discoveries. But only when it dies down and lets the pure quietened mind come to rest in the very essence of consciousness, at peace with itself, with nature, with the world, only then is there a deep sense of utter fulfilment. 7.1.87
The thought of the Overself may easily open the gate which enters into its awareness. 7.1.28
Continued and constant pondering over the ideas presented herein is itself a part of the yoga of philosophical discernment. Such reflection will as naturally lead the student towards realization of his goal as will the companion and equally necessary activity of suppressing all ideas altogether in mental quiet. This is because these ideas are not mere speculations but are themselves the outcome of a translation from inner experience. While such ideas as are here presented grow under the water of their reflection and the sunshine of their love into fruitful branches of thought, they gradually begin to foster intuition.(P) (20:4.66)
The way to use a philosophic book is not to expect to understand all of it at the first trial, and consequently not to get disheartened when failure to understand is frequent. Using this cautionary approach, he should carefully note each phrase or paragraph that brings an intuitive response in his heart’s deep feeling (not to be confused with an intellectual acquiescence in the head’s logical working). As soon as, and every time, this happens, he should stop his reading, put the book momentarily aside, and surrender himself to the activating words alone. Let them work upon him in their own way. He is merely to be quiet and be receptive. For it is out of such a response that he may eventually find that a door opens to his inner being and a light shines where there was none before. When he passes through that doorway and steps into that light, the rest of the book will be easy to understand.(P) (14:4.149)
What is the purpose of your reading? Is it merely to kill time? But if you are out to learn, if you want to feel that you have progressed as a result of your reading, then you must realize that there is a wrong way and a right way to read. Remember you have not mastered any study until you can restate it in your own words. The best way to master the essence of a book or lecture is to select only the meaning of it, state it in your own words, and apply the meaning to examples drawn from your own experience, and not from the lecturer’s or author’s.
The wrong way merely wastes time for the serious student. It scatters your thoughts and diffuses your mental powers. It weakens your mental energy. And when you try to remember what you have read the net result is–nothing! Moreover the wrong way has no effect upon your active life–the way you work and live. That remains unbenefited by your study. Now there is a better way to read. 7.3.297
AND:
The topic with which all such metaphysical thinking should end after it has pondered on mentalism is that out of which the thinking principle itself arises–Mind–and it should be considered under its aspect as the one reality. When this intellectual understanding is brought within one’s own experience as fact, when it is made as much one’s own as a bodily pain, then it becomes direct insight. Such thinking is the most profitable and resultful in which he can engage, for it brings the student to the very portal of Mind where it stops activity by itself and where the differentiation of ideas disappears. As the mental muscles strain after this concept of the Absolute, the Ineffable and Infinite, they lose their materialist rigidity and become more sensitive to intimations from the Overself. When thinking is able to reach such a profound depth that it attains utter impersonality and calm universality, it is able to approach the fundamental principle of its own being. When hard thinking reaches a culminating point, it then voluntarily destroys itself. Such an attainment of course can take place deep within the innermost recesses of the individual`s consciousness alone. 28.2.99