Desani: "Bowen rightly calls his chapters lessons."
Might be beings living or dead who have agreed to help people who do Bowen’s meditations.
Nothing is false; nothing is true. All things that exist are but masks of truth. Accept no thing, reject no thing. Learn from the study of all - but above all learn from the learner. Desani: "A great meditation."
In some individuals the actual experience of the artist might be had through Bowen’s techniques).
Think of no being whether a fellow-man or an aspect of your own self-hood as a friend or foe … think of each and all as teachers.
Harmlessness is a female or negative virtue. It is a virtue that is difficult thing to retrieve from this wisdom. In most aspects harmlessness manifests by refusing to inflict injury on a person. Most negative aspect of harmlessness is refusal to permit injury to be done. Charity is the male complement of harmlessness and may be defined as an active will. Increase the sum total of good in the world.
Fight evil forces to balance things, not for love of self.
A state of balance should be achieved in a thought of self that does not act but surveys the activity of its lower aspects that can manifest.
Purity is not found in self-indulgence or asceticism. Asceticism is another name for self-indulgence. Desani: "A shrewd observation."
Self-reliance. But self-reliance in a special sense. You're not relying upon self because in which self should reliance be placed when the self goes on changing? Wisdom of today proves yesterday's wisdom false. A satisfactory philosophical answer is not good enough. But an answer that is good enough comes through experience. Experience is always best. Use your imagination. Ask your self what authority it has to judge. No reply will come. To question authority is to slay it. Turn mindfulness to these selves … they will die. Sit quietly, watching a problem until the answer arises. The learner self has no fixed resting place. Self is rather an endless ladder which you mount step-by-step.… As you treat each step you name it ‘self’ you prove to your self that your reliance is upon a higher self which your experience will help you reach. Upon what therefore does your reliance rest? Not on the step on which you stand … nor on the next which you will reach, but on the ladder … which is Self.
Apply Hermetic postulates to our problem … as is the inner so is the outer; as is the great, so is the small; as it is above, so it is below. There is but one life and one law. How to apply to purity? The law of analogy opens all gates to knowledge. As with all keys, application of this postulate has certain dangers.
Key to success is always natural duty. "Whatever thy hand might find to do, do it with all thy might." Major conclusion: Virtue is most certainly found by strictest concentration upon the duty at hand.
"Speak truth when compelled to speak; if not keep silent." This aphorism is often quotes with approval and at first sight seems to express wisdom — and indeed it does if wholly understood — but doesn’t by those who quote it.
True virtue is unmanifest. It can be approached only through equipoise of its negative and positive phenomenal aspects.
The lower self-hood — temporary personality — must live in itself and by so living work out its life cycle and die. To give it continual life by identifying one's self with it is an error.
In striving to be positively harmless in every situation you can think of you, will also be forced to be harmful. That is life. Real virtue cannot exhibit itself in action, for it is life. Your condition should be regarded as fields of experience. They exist for your instruction - nothing more. Being indifferent to victory and defeat: there lies freedom.
The wise person (the Occultist) knows that nothing that exists is devoid of value.
In his world – under conditions that he lives in he becomes most harmless when he refrains equally from inflicting harm and from permitting harm to be inflicted.
Select for your practice situations that could easily occur in life: use newspapers, books. No need to be in a hurry about solving these problems. “The disciple should not desire to obtain, but only to be.”
Every work of art should induce experience. Knowledge, to be of any use, must be based on experience.
All of our personalities must be nourished.
To enter into association with those mental images and thus to have experiences as real as and even more profitable than any obtainable in objective life. One might go through experiences of several lifetimes in one night. But this is planned act; different than being a victim of imagination. Not indulgence.
Aim of true occultism: to live by laws.
An aspirant creates a situation in imagination that will give you a problem in life. In that situation please manifest these specific virtues. Desani: "Very pretty."
A pure being utilizes all experience and converts it into knowledge.
The nearest experience is most profitable.
Every individual is born into the exact field of experience that he is most likely to profit from. You gain from life what you bring to life; you receive in accordance with your gifts.
Assume yourself to be not affected by any self and watch lower self then brings about these questions: asks, doubts, fears. Watch.
These should be understood for the Prince of Peace – the higher self – must descend into the lower self – minister to darkness – unite them within his own being and then rise again. Desani: "Compare this with the Bhagavad Gita which describes Krishna as untouched by good or evil."
The lower selfhood — temporary selves, personalities — must live in itself and by so living work out its life cycle and die. You give it continual life by identifying with it.
When all is almost won the most subtle enemy will appear which is spiritual pride or self-righteousness. The victim says to himself, “I have attained.” to so claim is to break away from life – everbecoming into a separate state.
No indulgence: witness. Nothing in absolute present should be missed. Else a piece of knowledge might slip by.
To regard (certain appetites) as evil, as so many good persons – especially nominal Occultists do – is to demonstrate one’s bondage to them.
On negative impulses and habits: These are primitive selves which have been denied satisfaction in childhood. Very few civilized people have conscious, rational reasons for their habits. They are a cause of senseless strife and fear of strife. The 'Prince of Peace' must descend into darkness, meet the Lower Self (the little selves, the inner Imps) and reform it. [The so-called 'Prince of Peace' is the higher/observing self.]
Conscious habits might be called appetites. Properly used, these appetites can be the nourishment upon which the being grows. Mental appetites are an indication of the needs of the being.
Habits are used by higher self as a means of growth. Each [habit] is a step: either an ascent or descent. “The vices of men become steps on the ladder one by one as they are surmounted.”
Every habit has a brain that repeats “Do it again, again.”
There is always a being that is presiding. The more perfectly it educates then the more perfectly the being functions. You can always call forth from the inner being to judge the current experience.
Semi-conscious action works best when not disturbed by the higher self. A plank two feet wide is easy to walk on when it is on the ground. When between two tall buildings it is very frightening because the action ceases to be semi-conscious.
A human being is a set of physical and mental habits. Physical habit produces a habit of thinking, shapes the mind. Someone may have given you a habit – it might not be yours. Can be bequeathed by the dead: a form of enslavement.
We think we are in control but it is a host of unruly selves that impel us to act into spheres of activity of their own – not to our betterment.
