I've been enjoying and challenged by reading Paul Brunton lately. He was born in 1898, fought in WW1, and travelled the world in his spiritual search. I don't agree with all he writes, but there is great
wisdom in much of it. What follows are a variety of quotes from a spiritual notebook he wrote towards the end of his life. He writes about what he calls the spiritual Quest ... turning to God in faith and experiencing the Holy Spirit in us.
Brunton wrote this mid-20th century, and I've kept the language as is, even though it uses male pronouns for
"human beings." These are written in stand-alone paragraphs ... they're more like a collection of sayings than an extended train of thought. Feel free to skip around, and, as we say in recovery, "take what you like and leave the rest." ...
Who does not prefer joy to grief? The instinct is universal. There is a metaphysical basis for it. Individual beings
derive their existence from a universal Being, whose nature is continually blissful [and loving]. This is dimly, briefly echoed in the satisfactions of earthly desires. The quest of spiritual fulfillment is really the search for a fuller and more lasting share in the Divine Peace, the true heaven which awaits us in the end.
The average person seeks to enjoy
himself. Do not think that the truly spiritual man does not seek to enjoy himself too. The difference is that he does it in a better way, a wiser way.
The vision of the world and the understanding of life which a person receives from the lips or books of others will never be so true nor so real as that which he makes his own. What shall it profit a man if he
hear a thousand lectures or read a thousand books but has not found the Spirit? The student must advance to the next step and seek to realize within his own experience that which is portrayed to him by his intellect. And this is possible only by his entry upon the spiritual quest.
With every day that passes, a man makes his silent declaration of faith in
the way he spends it. It is a poor declaration that modern man makes when he brushes aside all thought of prayer and meditation as something he has no time for.
When a man comes to his real senses, he will recognize that he has only one problem: 'How can I come into awareness of, and oneness with, my true being?' For it is to lead him to this final question
that other questions and problems have staged the road of his whole life. This answered, the way to answer all the other wills which beset him, be they physical or financial, intellectual, or familiar, will open up. Hence Jesus' statements: "Seek ye first the kingdom of heaven and all these things shall be added unto you," and "To him who has [spiritual understanding] shall be given [what he personally needs].'
He who lacks the capacity to worship something higher than himself, to revere something better than himself, is already inwardly dead before his body is outwardly dead.
So long as a man does not know the most important part of himself and the best part of his possessions, so long will he remain the blind
creator of his own miseries and the duped plaything of his own trivialities.
There is no other way to true happiness, as distinct from the false kind, than to follow the path which the Higher Power has set for him. This is to preach a hard doctrine, but a true one.
So long as a man does not experience his real self, so long will he be unhappy. The possession of material things and the indulgence in material pleasures only alleviate and palliate this unhappiness, and that temporarily.
The ceaseless longing for personal happiness which exists in every human being is a right
one, but is generally mistaken in the direction along which satisfaction is sought. For all outward objects and beings can yield only a transient and imperfect delight that can never be equivalent to the uninterrupted happiness of life [in right relationship to God].
