Source Text
Landmarks on the spiritual path
Acknowledgment of an unseen order “Were one to characterize the life of religion in the broadest and most general terms possible, one might say that it consists of the belief that there is an unseen order, and that our supreme good lies in harmoniously adjusting ourselves hereto.” William James
Yet if we live long enough, inevitably we see the truth of the Old Testament proverb: “Many
In his famous Autobiography of a Yogi, Paramhansa Yogananda remembered the words of one of his teachers, the “levitating saint” Bhaduri Mahasaya: “The divine order arranges our future more wisely than any insurance company … The world is full of uneasy believers in an outward security. Their bitter thoughts are like scars on their foreheads. The One who gave us air and milk from our first breath knows how to provide day by day for His devotees.” In Taoism, this unseen order or force is known as the Tao.
Carl Jung suggested that when a person enters the world, they represent a question to which their life has to provide an answer. Most people never consider their lives in this way, but spiritual experience brings the realization that, because we are created beings, we must have been created for a reason.
Self-knowledge is the discovery of who God intended us to be, but it is up to us whether we will express that idea or promise in our actions in the real world.
“If you think of yourself as something, then God cannot clothe himself in you, for God is infinite.”
Equanimity is having a mind that does not instantly divide everything into good or bad, like or dislike, but sees that things simply “are.” This is the opposite of how most people live. These realizations of oneness are usually only fleeting; however, such glimpses of nonduality, were they to become more common and longer, would transform our lives.
The following quote ends with a line from the Koran that captures the Muslim feeling for the closeness of God: “They were a people that had grown up in silence and solitude between a hard sky and a hard earth; hard was their life in the midst of these austere, endless spaces; and so they could not escape the longing after a Power that would encompass all existence with unerring justice and kindness, severity and wisdom: God the Absolute. He dwells in infinity and radiates into infinity—but because you are within His working, He is closer to you than the vein in your neck …”
warrior’s power comes precisely from choosing the state of their own mind; the “mood” of the warrior means being defiant of circumstances at all times.
AI Summary
50 Spiritual Classics Second Edition by Tom Butler-Bowdon presents key insights from the Yoga tradition. The 10 passages above capture the essential teachings.
Core Themes:
- [To be expanded]
Key Passages: Highlights 1, 3, and 10 are particularly representative.
This entry was generated from Readwise highlights. Expand with additional context as appropriate.