Selected from
The Wisdom of the Overself
by Paul Brunton
PB E-Teaching #11- KARMA, Part 2
By detaching a fragmentary part of our daily program for the simple purpose of stilling the mind, ‘going into the silence’ and aspiring intensely for the divine Light to pass into and through us for the blessing of mankind, a mental channel may be opened to attract higher forces to our earth. This practice is best done in an unobserved place or at the window of a room whilst seated in a chair with legs uncrossed, for it should be followed at dawn or sunset facing towards the sun. It should be continued until a feeling of loving response arises, which feeling can come within ten or twenty minutes in most cases.* Here is a chance for those who have felt the need of a high and holy Cause in whose service they could lose themselves and for which they could forget themselves. If grace for the individual man is procurable only by a change of thought, that is a veritable repentance, it is equally true that grace for a whole people is procurable on the same terms.
*For full detailed instructions see “The First Meditation” in Chapter XIV, The Wisdom of the Overself.
They (mankind) possess today an opportunity not only to put wrongs right but also to attain a truer view of life, to comprehend that it is not meaningless but has an exalted purpose, that it is their privilege to co-operate in securing the fulfillment of this purpose within their own lives, and that their brief hours on the stage of universal existence could become the prelude to ineffable ones. Mankind have been estranged from the inner sources of truth and hope for so long that the more sensitive are now beginning to experience the thirsts and hungers of a veritable drought… .Human life is not a stagnant pool. There is a sacred Something back of us which demands and must have expression and growth, which must break through as inevitable as tomorrow’s sun must destroy tonight’s darkness.
The doctrine of historical cycles has warned us that there is no unimpeded progress toward perfection, that stagnation and retrogression inevitably make their contributions too, human nature being what it is. But it has also shown us that although there are always periods when mankind degenerates morally, there are at least as many other periods when it advances morally. And it is the latter which, in the ultimate reckoning, will have the last word. For karma tends to educate a man and his own Overself tends to draw him to itself.
All that wars against human unity, that would turn the hand of man against his brother, will one day infallibly perish. None of us dare hope to see such a day, for quick millenniums are the cheap delusions of wishful thinkers, but all of us may hope to find within ourselves even now this same sacred principle and thus assure ourselves of its truth. We may safely take our stand on the oneness of essential being. We may wait quietly for the World-Mind to reclaim its own progeny. For we are ever moving towards the morrow. If, meanwhile, we endeavour to co-operate reverently and intelligently with its plan, and at the same time aspire toward that region where the atmosphere is timeless, our patience will not sink into lethargy.
This is the grand goal towards which all living creatures are moving… There is no need to lose heart. No single defeat of true ideas and no violent devolution of revered ideals could ever be really definite in this ancient war of light against night. Hope is the beautiful message of the unknown goal, the star that blazes when all else is dark, the encouragement of the sublime Perfect to the struggling Imperfect.
– The Wisdom of the Overself, Chapter X, “The War and the World”