Quotessence
Home / Authors / Paul Brunton
Paul Brunton

Paul Brunton Quotes

Journalist

Filter quotes by topic

AllPaul BruntonAwakeningContemplationEnlightenmentMeditationPerennial PhilosophyPhilosophia PerennisSpiritualMenSelfrealizationGnosisEgoHigherSelfAcceptingEmotionFactsHeartHigher SelfIllumination

Famous Paul Brunton Quotes

“This then is the ultimate truth--that in our inmost nature we are anchored in God, inseparable from God, and that the discovery of this heavenly nature is life's loftiest purpose. Even now, already, today, we are as divine as we ever shall be. The long evolutionary ladder which by prophets and teachers, gurus and guides we are bidden to climb toilsomely and slowly and painfully need not be climbed at all if only we heed this truth continually, if we refuse to let it go, if we make it ours in all parts of our being--in thought, feeling, faith, and action.”

EnlightenmentAwakeningContemplationGnosisSelfrealizationPaul Brunton
Book:Advanced contemplation: The peace within you
Create image

“It would be wonderful if everyone, everywhere, could slip so easily into the kingdom of heaven, and just as easily stay there forever. But alas! the facts of human nature forbid it. People require teaching, training, purifying, disciplining, and preparing, before they can do so […] Purification of the heart and calming of the mind are necessary prerequisites for penetrating into the Overself […] The attempt to ignore order of development in the Quest, to leap from the lowest to the highest stages, to miss all the intervening ones, is an attempt to get something for nothing. It cannot succeed. For the influx of Spirit needs a chalice clean enough to be fit for it, large enough to hold it. What would happen if the influx were poured into a dirty, cracked, tiny, and weak vessel? […]  the mind, nerves, emotions, and body of the man shall be gradually made capable of sustaining the influx of the Solar Force, or Spirit-Energy.”

EnlightenmentAwakeningKingdom Of HeavenSpiritual TransformationPaul BruntonPerennial PhilosophyPurification Of The Heart
Book:Advanced contemplation: The peace within you
Create image

“He sees the truth as with a jolt. There it is, within his own being, lying deep down but still in his own self. There never was any need to travel anywhere to find it; no need to visit anyone who was supposed to have it already, and sit at his feet; not even to read any book, however sacred or inspired. Nor could another person, place, or writing give it to him--he would have to unveil it for himself in himself. The others could direct him to look inwards, thus saving all the effort of looking elsewhere. But he himself would have to give the needful attention to himself. The discovery must be his own, made within the still centre of his being.”

MeditationAwakeningContemplationGnosisSelfrealizationPaul BruntonPhilosophia Perennis
Book:Advanced contemplation: The peace within you
Create image

“1. Do all meditation work with open eyes, with the Buddhic smile. 2. Keep attention inside on the No-thought state and refrain from unnecessary talk. 3. When residual impressions from the last incarnation come in, ignore them. 4. Kill out the mind. Be free from its activity. Stay in the Void.”

MeditationAwakeningContemplationGnosisPaul BruntonBuddhic Smile
Book:Advanced contemplation: The peace within you
Create image

“There comes a stage, whether in meditation or in the ordinary daily experience of life, at which he has to cross over from doing, trying, and managing things by his own self alone and when he can let go and open himself to the higher force--when he can submit his ego to its ordinances, its commands, or to its whispers.”

AwakeningContemplationHigher SelfSpiritual TransformationDivine GuidancePaul Brunton
Book:Advanced contemplation: The peace within you
Create image

“It is true that philosophy is quite aware of the Buddhistic picture of life, of the sorrows and sicknesses which drag him down at times. That is why it makes equanimity a leading item of the inner work upon himself, why it becomes so necessary. But it is also true that moments, moods, and glimpses are also possible when there is uplift, and he can confirm for himself that the human link with the higher power is a very real thing.”

BuddhismEnlightenmentAwakeningIlluminationPaul BruntonPerennial Philosophy
Book:Advanced contemplation: The peace within you
Create image

“One of the most valuable forms of yoga is the yoga of constant remembrance. Its subject may be a mystical experience, intuition, or idea. In essence it is really an endeavour to insert the transcendental atmosphere into the mundane life. The method of this exercise is to maintain uninterruptedly and unbrokenly the remembrance of the soul's nearness, the soul's reality, the soul's transcendence. The goal of this exercise is to become wholly possessed by the soul itself. This constant remembrance of the higher self becomes in time like a kind of holy communion […] "Be with IT" is the best advice for those who can understand it.”

AwakeningSelfrealizationPaul BruntonPerennial PhilosophyRemembrance Of GodThe Yoga Of Remembrance
Book:Advanced contemplation: The peace within you
Create image

“Everything is taken away from him; he is nothing and has nothing; yet he still feels one thing which utterly compensates for this loss. He feels the presence of the Overself [...] In the practice of Indian Yoga, Nirvikalpa Samadhi is considered to be the farthest point to which the practitioner can travel. Nirvikalpa Samadhi is the condition of the emptied mind, without any trace of thought, whether of the world or of the person himself; yet fully aware [...] So many conversations on the words of Jesus have taken his sentence "I and my Father are one" to mean a kind of union like marriage. But they overlook the fact that married couples still remain couples, still express the number two. Jesus did not say, "I and my father are two." The number one is definitely not two. For Jesus found, as every other man who attains that stage of consciousness finds, that when contemplating the Infinite Life-Power (which he named the Father) he himself vanished. There was then no other consciousness except that of the Infinite itself. For That was the substratum of his own "I." But what happened in his contemplation two thousand years ago still happens today; the same discovery is made when the illusion of egoity vanishes.”

EnlightenmentAwakeningOnenessContemplationPaul BruntonUnion With The Divine
Book:Advanced contemplation: The peace within you
Create image

“The Surangama Sutra chooses, as the best meditation method for the present historic cycle, the one used by Avalokitesvara. It disengages bodily hearing from outward sound, then penetrates still deeper into the void beyond this duality, then beyond ego and its object, until all opposites and dualities vanish, leaving absoluteness. Nirvana follows as a natural consequence. In other words, disengage consciousness from the senses and return to pure Consciousness itself.”

EnlightenmentAwakeningContemplationNondualityPaul BruntonAvalokitesvaraThe Surangama Sutra
Book:Advanced contemplation: The peace within you
Create image

“Life remains what it is--deathless and unbound. We shall all meet again. Know what you are, and be free. The best counsel today is, keep calm, aware. Don't let the pressure of mental environment break into what you know and what is real and ultimately true. This is your magic talisman to safeguard you; cling to it. The last word is--Patience! The night is darkest before dawn. But dawn comes.”

EnlightenmentAwakeningIlluminationPaul BruntonPhilosophia PerennisTimeless Wisdom
Book:Perspectives: The Timeless Ways of Wisdom, The Notebooks of Paul Brunton
Create image