Paul Brunton Quotes

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

Find the god in your own heart and you will understand by direct intuition what all the great teachers, real mystics, true philosophers and inspired people have been trying to tell you by the tortuous method of using words.

Solitude is strength; to depend on the presence of the crowd is weakness. The man who needs a mob to nerve him is much more alone than he imagines.

Your self is sacred; be true to it.

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.

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.

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.

The source of wisdom and power, of love and beauty, is within ourselves, but not within our egos. It is within our consciousness. Indeed, its presence provides us with a conscious contrast which enables us to speak of the ego as if it were something different and apart: it is the true Self whereas the ego is only an illusion of the mind.

Deep down within the heart there is a stillness which is healing, a trust in the universal laws which is unwavering, and a strength which is rock-like. But because it is so deep we need both patience and perseverance when digging for it.

Look how the smaller birds greet the sun, with so much merry chirruping and so much outpouring of song! It is their way of expressing worship for the only Light they can know, an outer one. But man can also know the inner Sun, the Light of the Overself. How much more reason has he to chirp and sing than the little birds! Yet how few man feel gratitude for such privilege.

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.

Nothing matters so much that we should throw ourselves into a state of panic about it. No happening is so important that we should let ourselves be exiled from from inner peace and mental calm for its sake.

That deep silence has a melody of its own, a sweetness unknown amid the harsh discords of the world's sounds.

When every situation which life can offer is turned to the profit of spiritual growth, no situation can really be a bad one.

Study everything, join nothing.

Our greatest illusion is disillusion. We imagine that we are disillusioned with life, when the truth is that we have not even begun to live.

God needs no worship, no praise, no thanksgiving. It is man himself who needs the benefit to be derived from these activities.

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.

Outwardly one's life may suffer every kind of limitation, from bodily paralysis to miserable surroundings, but inwardly it is free in meditation to reach out to a sphere of light, beauty, truth, love, and power.

Peace is a costly privilege-to be fought for, attained and won. It comes only from a conquered mind.

Whoever lives in the spirit lives in perennial peace. It is a happy peace, a smiling peace, but one is not lost in it. One is aware also of the suffering which exists around him or her and the world at large.

While the mind remains so fixed in its own personal affairs, be they little or large, it has no chance to open up its higher levels. When attention and emotion are kept so confined, the chance they offer of this higher use is missed. The peace, truth, and goodness which could be had are untouched.

This withdrawal from the day's turmoil into creative silence is not a luxury, a fad, or a futility. It is a necessity, because it tries to provide the conditions wherein we are able to yield ourselves to intuitive leadings, promptings, warnings, teachings, and counsels and also to the inspiring peace of the soul. It dissolves mental tensions and heals negative emotions.

All methods and techniques - and of course all human beings who propound them - are merely instruments to help the student obtain a methodless, technique-free, teacherless state.

Every discussion which is made from an egoistic standpoint is corrupted from the start and cannot yield an absolutely sure conclusion. The ego puts its own interest first and twists every argument, word, even fact to suit that interest.