{"author":"Paul Brunton","author_id":"Paul+Brunton","total_quotes":31,"quotes":[{"text":"It may be considered folly by common opinion but this refusal to destroy life unnecessarily, this reverence for it, must become a deeply implanted part of his ethical standard.","author":"Paul Brunton","tags":["ethics","nonviolence","vegetarianism"],"id":354,"author_id":"Paul+Brunton"},{"text":"Whoever wants the 'I' to yield up its mysterious and tremendous secret must stop it from looking perpetually in the mirror, must stop the little ego's fascination with its own image.","author":"Paul Brunton","tags":["ego","self-knowledge","wisdom"],"id":8318,"author_id":"Paul+Brunton"},{"text":"The ordinary man is aware of his surroundings, first, by naming and labelling them; second, by linking them with past memory of them; and third, by relating them to his own personal self. The illumined egoless man is simply aware of them, without any of these other added activities.","author":"Paul Brunton","tags":["experience","spiritual"],"id":19462,"author_id":"Paul+Brunton"},{"text":"He is beginning to master wisdom when he tries to learn how not to try.","author":"Paul Brunton","tags":["effort","inspirational","wisdom"],"id":72483,"author_id":"Paul+Brunton"},{"text":"Such excessive preoccupation with his faults is not a truly spiritual activity but, on the contrary, a highly egoistic one.The recognition of his own faults should make a man humbler, when it is beneficial, not prouder, which the thought that he ought to have been above these faults makes him.","author":"Paul Brunton","tags":["ego","faults","humility","pride","sin","spiritual"],"id":76076,"author_id":"Paul+Brunton"},{"text":"The seeker after stillness should be told that the stillness is always there. Indeed it is in every man. But he has to learn, first, to let it in and, second, how to do so. The first beginning of this is to remember. The second is to recognize the inward pull. For the rest, the stillness itself will guide and lead him to itself.","author":"Paul Brunton","tags":["meditation"],"id":109320,"author_id":"Paul+Brunton"},{"text":"As his mind becomes purer and his emotions come under control, his thoughts become clearer and his instincts truer. As he learns to live more and more in harmony with his higher Self, his body's natural intuition becomes active of itself. The result is that false desires and unnatural instincts which have been imposed upon it by others or by himself will become weaker and weaker and fall away entirely in time. This may happen without any attempt to undergo an elaborate system of self-discipline on his part: yet it will affect his way of living, his diet, his habits. False cravings like the craving for smoking tobacco will vanish of their own accord; false appetites like the appetite for alcoholic liquor or flesh food will likewise vanish; but the more deep-seated the desire, the longer it will take to uproot it--except in the case of some who will hear and answer a heroic call for an abrupt change.","author":"Paul Brunton","tags":["discipline","habit","health","yoga"],"id":110764,"author_id":"Paul+Brunton"},{"text":"If outer events bring him to a position where he can bear them no longer and force him to cry out to the higher power in helplessness for relief, or if inner feelings bring humiliation and recognition of his dependence on that power, this crushing of the ego may open the door to grace.","author":"Paul Brunton","tags":["crisis","ego","grace","prayer","trials"],"id":111929,"author_id":"Paul+Brunton"},{"text":"Deep down within the heart there is a stillness which is healing, a trust in the universal laws which is unwavering, and a strength which is rock-like. But because it is so deep we need both patience and perseverance when digging for it.","author":"Paul Brunton","tags":["inspirational","self-knowledge"],"id":120411,"author_id":"Paul+Brunton"},{"text":"That deep silence has a melody of its own, a sweetness unknown amid the harsh discords of the world's sounds.","author":"Paul Brunton","tags":["meditation","peace"],"id":122550,"author_id":"Paul+Brunton"}],"pagination":{"page":1,"page_size":10,"total":31,"pages":4,"next":"?page=2\u0026page_size=10"}}