Thoughts for Aspirants, compiled of Notes and Writings of N. Sri Ram, The Theosophical Publishing House, Adyar, Madras, India, 1957
Thoughts for aspirants
N. Sri Ram
With the sword of my will, I carve for myself a throne in the realm of the Spirit, which I shall ascend.
Contents
[ in the original booklet there are 15 more chapters. There is also a second volume. So, if you find this book somewhere, buy it! - well worth your cash. The esteem people have for it can be seen from the fact that new E.S. (Esoteric Section) members often receive it as a gift on the day they enter the E.S. ]
I
Self-Realization
- The whole process of evolution, for the Spirit, is an awakening to the truths, and the means of implementation of those truths, that are eternally present in itself. What was implicit has to become explicit.
- What man really seeks is not perfection which is in the future, but fulfillment which is ever in the present.
- To know the not-Self in one's nature is the pathway to knowledge of the Self.
- One must seek in the depths of one's consciousness the vitalizing centre of one's being, the fundamental origin of all one's developments.
- When you discover for yourself, however dimly, that you are rooted in something that is infinitely vast and potential, you have found the soil wherein you grow unconsciously into a most wonderful tree, the tree of life blended with knowledge.
- Progress from the standpoint of the Spirit is from peak to peak, one form of perfect synthesis to another, from a completeness to another yet more beautiful completeness.
- Long not for anything which will give a greater conceit of self, but for a truer realization of that selfless Self which is the centre and origin of every being.
- If you dig into yourself, you will discover how much of yourself is an amalgam of egoism and conventionality.
- Man has to discover for himself that what he thinks as being himself, what he calls "myself," is an illusion, a maya , which is but a cloak of many colors like those that appear on a bubble in the sunlight.
- Since all truths pertaining to oneself are realizations of oneself, they must be part of ourselves, our realized being.
- We have to achieve the true and perfect expression of that which is inmost in ourselves - which is the release of ourselves from our prison-house.
- The meaning of the whole universe is contained in the Self. That Self is in the heart of each man, and it is his very nature to seek that meaning by action and by experience.
- The way of Self-Realization, as shown in the ancient books, is the way of repudiation, a withdrawal from all things external to the Self.
- Man begins to unfold that which he eternally is only through reliance on himself. The uniqueness that is each individual being is the true separation of self from Self, of the individual centre from the universal Manas.
- Man is more than his environment. It is from the innate quality of the Spirit in him, his inner storehouse, that he draws those ideas, his intuitions, which unify his perceptions of the external world instantaneously with a value which is qualitative and not quantitative, and which he embodies in the works of his culture - those achievements which belong not only to one particular time but to all times, and mark the path of his upward progress.
- You can never realize anything with the mind, unless you have already realized it intuitively in a passive state. What is first known within, in the region that to us is dark, is later brought into light.
- Shut off every confusing thought, and you will find that instinct of rightness which is the instinct of Nature.
- He who becomes the master of himself can become master over all that is related to himself. Self-mastery implies self-knowledge and that self-sufficiency which is only in love.
- Our wishes are often the progeny of our weaknesses; our fancies the creation of our wishes; and these fancies, when they become adjusted to the frame of our minds, are all too apt to be mistaken for facts.
- Remember that the whole sense of one's importance is merely an evaluation of self by self.
- It is only when man realizes that there is in himself no centre around which he can build permanently, that he will begin to seek and cna find that true centre, which is everywhere and nowhere.
- Beware of the worm of self-conceit that feeds on the faults of others; destroy the sense of self-importance which eats like a canker the bud of one's pure aspirations.
- In the increasing realization of that freedom which resides eternally in the Self, and in the transcendence of karma that takes place simultaneously, lies the soul's progress.
- Know for yourself the way along which you should go - do not depend on others.
- It is I alone who frame on those other lips the words that may hurt me.
- Our growth consists not merely in an increase of ideas, but also in a capacity to feel in a million and one ways.
- The dark night must descend before a new dawn. Should not, then, one's whole nature return to a primeval virginity before it can put forth the rarest new flower?
- The Alone is the unity, and the "flight of the alone to the alone" is a process of realization, which is achieved in perfect stillness. When you are alone in the pure spiritual sense, which is withdrawal from all that in yourself has been molded from without, you find yourself in that other Alone which is the uncreated Unity.
- Each must discover the heavenliness, the expanding universe of his own being.
- Before we can transcend limitations, whether in our own nature or in the circumstances around us, we must try to understand what it is that they are meant to teach.
- Each must discover his own way in life, and that way lies in his heart. Let him delve deeply into the depths of his being; his true centre is not far from there.
- Every primeval withdrawal from the battle of life, merely because it involves stress and strain which we think is too much for us, fails to fulfil the object with which we have entered that battle.
- Progress, whether for individuals, groups or the whole of humanity, is by decisive choices made from time to time, forced by the development of a situation which, as it mounts up, calls for its own resolution. Life in matter is a series of crises and resolutions.
- No one can gain a true knowledge of himself without facing adversity and overcoming difficulties. But in developing the dynamism to overcome, there must be naught of the spirit of aggression or aggrandizement.
- The moment we are aware of a hindrance in our nature to that fulfillment which all Life unconsciously seeks, aware of it as a fetter upon ourselves, that moment we are on the way to its abolition.
- The joy and the pain, the reaching up and falling back - all are gathered up finally into the experience of a realization from which nothing thereafter can shake us.
- It is the direction of our progress that matters - not where we stand at present.
- Man, in his own true nature, is eternally free and blissful; he needs but to realize this truth and know himself, by withdrawing from everything other than his Self. This alone constitutes his true liberation.
- I am no more - and no less - than a law of Life's expression.
- Each of us contains within himself the formula of his creation, his uniqueness, according to which is his expansion in time, the curve of his progress.
- I struggle with myself; I cannot escape from myself; let me re-shape myself in terms of that which is Universal.
- For him who has realized himself as the one Self, there is no grief, no set-back, no disturbance.
- No individual can ultimately fail. The Divinity which descends into humanity is bound to re-gain its original state.
- The hour will come for dissolving the knots and attachments of time,
forged by memory and centred in the self. - It is only when there is self- knowledge, resulting in perfect control over and unification of ourselves, that we can offer our will to be part of the one Spiritual Will, which in reality is in ourselves and is ourselves.