THE PAUL BRUNTON Philosophic Foundation has published as The Notebooks of Paul Brunton sixteen volumes of Paul Brunton’s writings that were primarily penned after the publication of The Wisdom of the Overself. These contain twenty-eight categories of spiritual study that supplement and expand the ideas found in the earlier books. In this appendix, we have included a few selections from The Notebooks (and one quote from The Wisdom of the Overself) that pertain to the chapters in The Hidden Teaching Beyond Yoga. These selections are indicated by volume number, and three additional numbers for easy reference. The first is the category number, the second the chapter number within the category, and the third is the ID number. Also indicated are the locations in The Notebooks that contain substantial material on the topics under consideration. The Notebooks are available to read, search, and acquire on the Foundation website www.PaulBrunton.org.
One thousand years ago the doctrine of mentalism was taught at Angkor, according to an inscription of that time which I saw there, the inscription of Srey Santhor. It likened the appearance of the doctrine in the world of faith and culture to the sun bringing back the light. (v.13: 21-introductory para #1)
The philosopher today has a twofold path: to cultivate the gentle feeling of Overself in the heart within and to study the mentalness of the world without. A whole new generation is beginning to seek a better and higher life physically and emotionally, as well as more understanding of what it is all about. Here is where absorbing the knowledge of mentalism leads to dissolving the futility of materialism. (v.13: 21-introductory para #2)
Two things have to be learned in this quest. The first is the art of mind-stilling, of emptying consciousness of every thought and form whatsoever. This is mysticism or Yoga. The disciple’s ascent should not stop at the contemplation of anything that has shape or history, name or habitation, however powerfully helpful this may have formerly been to the ascent itself. Only in the mysterious void of Pure Spirit, in the undifferentiated Mind, lies his last goal as a mystic. The second is to grasp the essential nature of the ego and of the universe and to obtain direct perception that both are nothing but a series of ideas which unfold themselves within our minds. This is the metaphysics of Truth. The combination of these two activities brings about the realization of his true Being as the ever beautiful and eternally beneficent Overself. This is philosophy. (v.13: 20-4-134)
See also v.8: 12-1-1 and v.8: 12-1-2 for Paul Brunton on his life, initiations, and writings.
Now comes the crux of the whole matter. So far as I can follow the teachings of the ancient sages, the path which stretches before mankind appears to have four gates set at intervals along its course. The first is open to the great majority of mankind and might be named “religion, theology, and scholasticism.” The second is open to a much smaller number of persons and could conveniently be named Mysticism. The third which is rarely opened (for it is heavy and hard to move) is “the philosophy of truth,” while the final gate has been entered only by the supermen of our species; it may be titled “Realization.” Few readers would care to wander with me into the wilderness whither it leads. I refuse to tarry in the limited phases of development and have gone forward in further quest of the sublime verity which is presented to us as life’s goal by the sages. I value tolerance. Let others believe or follow what suits or pleases them most; I trust they will allow me the same freedom to continue my own quest. (v.8: 12-5-176)
Because in the second chapter of The Hidden Teaching Beyond Yoga I mentioned three ancient texts—Bhagavad Gita, Ashtavakra Samhita, and Gaudapada’s Mandukya Karika—it was supposed that my exposition of the hidden philosophy was entirely drawn from them alone. A wholly exaggerated importance was thus given them by several readers. Indeed, in the case of the third title, the teaching there given is as much opposed to my own on some points as it is in agreement on others. These three titles were mentioned only in passing just to show how I was introduced to the literature of the hidden philosophy, to illustrate a single phase out of several in my mental development, and for no other purpose. They represented only a beginning of my delving into those mysterious ancient texts which were written with sharp style-point on palm leaves now time-browned. From this first start, I went on to explore a wide range until I discovered and studiously plodded through, either alone or with learned pundits, a hundred others which were equally or more important—some, like the Yoga Vasistha Maharamayana (a huge work of several thousand pages), were lying half neglected because of their forbidding bulk, whereas others like the little Ratnavali were no longer extant in modern India but had become treasured classics in cold Tibet. The bulk of my exposition consists of important material that is not mentioned by these three books. My knowledge has been derived from several other Asiatic sources besides the Indian ones. Secondly, because I prominently mentioned my interest in the palm-leaf philosophical texts, it was wrongly believed that the entire teaching presented here is only a theoretical elaboration of such musty old writings. The texts were named in the reference partly for the benefit of Indian readers, who form a noticeable proportion of my audience, and partly for the benefit of those who like to lean upon the authority of antiquity. (v.8: 12-5-209)
See also:
Category 20 (v.13): What is Philosophy?;
v.14: 22-8-24 and v.15: 23-8-178 on “The Yoga of the Uncontradictable.”
See:
Category 16 (v.11): The Sensitives, chapters 1 and 2;
Category 20 (v.13): What Is Philosophy? chapter 4.
There is a kind of understanding combined with feeling which is not a common one here in the West, indeed uncommon enough to seem more discoverable and less puzzling in the Asiatic regions. It is puzzling for four reasons. One is that it cannot be attributed to the intellect alone, nor to the emotional nature alone. Another is that it provides an experience so difficult to describe that it is preferable not to discuss it at all. A third is that although the most reverent it is not allied to religion. A fourth point is that it is outside any precise labelling as for instance a metaphysics or cult which could really belong to it. Yet it is neither anything new or old. It is nameless. But because there is only one way to deal with it honestly—the way of utter silence, speechless when in contact with other humans, perfectly still when in the secrecy of a closed room—we may renew the Pythagorean appellation of “philosophy” for it is truly the love of wisdom-knowledge. (v.13: 20-1-129)
Human existence cannot have its goal in meditation alone, however rich the experiences may be which such meditation brings. For the deepest possible experience of meditation is to empty consciousness of the world-experience and thus to point out its unreality. But That which does the pointing, and that which is having the experience, and the experience itself—all, in the end, originate from the Real. The discovery of the unreality of the world is useful, for it offers the needed complete detachment from our bonds. But this cannot be the unique, the sole highest purpose of our existence, for then there would be no need to continue existence in the body after the discovery. A mystic must move on and seek the still farther realization which shows the world under a new light and offers an entirely new standpoint for understanding it. And this is that the uniquely real is not less present in the world than in his meditation, only it is present in a different way. It is like the dreamer who wakens to the fact that he is dreaming and who continues to dream but knows all the time that it is a dream experience. In just the same way the highest realization is that the Real is Consciousness—the pure, the ultimate Consciousness—but this consciousness can take different forms and yet still remain what it really is. (v.13: 21-5-171)
There are three stages on the path of world inquiry. The first yields as its fruit that the world is but an idea, and this stage has been reached from the metaphysical end by thinkers such as Bishop Berkeley, and nearly reached from the scientific end by such a man as Eddington. The second stage involves the study of the three states, waking, dreaming, and deep sleep, and yields as its fruit the truth that ideas are transitory emanations out of their permanent cause, consciousness. The third stage is the most difficult, for it requires analysis of the nature of time, space, and causation, plus successful practice of yoga. It yields as its fruit the sense of Reality as something eternally abiding with one. (v.13: 19-introductory para #1)
See also:
Category 20 (v.13): What Is Philosophy? chapter 1;
v.13: 20-1-127 and v.13: 20-1-131 on the name “philosophy”;
v.13: 20-4-120; v.16: 25-1-116; v.13: 21-5-173 on the stages of philosophy;
v.11: 16-1-41 on the propagation of mystical teachings;
v.16: 25-2-7 on enlightenment and grace.
See:
Category 2 (v.3): Overview of the Practices Involved;
Category 20 (v.13): What Is Philosophy? chapter 3, “Its Requirements”;
v.4: 5-1-1 on the philosophic care of the body.
See:
v.13: 21-4-7 on the result of mentalistic understanding;
Category 12 (v.8), chapter 2 on “Grand Truths and Common Speech”;
Category 7 (v.5), chapters 4 and 5 on abstract thought and semantics.
Truth existed before the churches began to spire their way upwards into the sky, and it will continue to exist after the last academy of philosophy has been battered down. Nothing can still the primal need of it in man. Priesthoods can be exterminated until not one vestige is left in the land; mystic hermitages can be broken until they are but dust; philosophical books can be burnt out of existence by culture-hating tyrants, yet this subterranean sense in man which demands the understanding of its own existence will one day rise again with an urgent claim and create a new expression of itself. (v.13: 20-5-262)
If he wishes to get at Reality, he may follow any mental discipline that helps him sharpen reason, tranquillize the mind, develop moods of abstraction, and completely concentrate thinking. All the different yogas, religions, and so on are more or less imperfect steps in this direction, so he is at liberty to invent his own. They are all only means, not ends. Parallel with this, he must thoroughly master and make his own by conviction the strange truth that All is Mind. This he can get even from the Western philosophy of the school of Idealism. He can study the books of Berkeley and Eddington, the idealistic portions of Schopenhauer, and also good interpreters of Immanuel Kant—as he writes a most unintelligible style. But he should take care to seek only for the proofs of philosophic Idealism in their works, rejecting all their theological and other speculations. In this way he can build a foundation for the higher and more advanced work which must come later. He must think his own way to truth, for the aim is to develop insight and not to become a mere metaphysical speculator or bookworm. Once he grasps this, it will not be so difficult to penetrate to the secrets of the ancient sages, for they are all based on this fact: that the world which we sense through the five senses is purely a mental world, that we know only what the mind tells us, that matter is a supposition to account for the solidity and tangibility of our sense-impressions. The mystic and the yogi, when sufficiently advanced, each makes a somewhat similar discovery in his reverie or trance, but he makes it only as a feeling and a transient one at that. It is only by thorough reasoning that the permanent understanding of it can be got. (v.3: 2-4-98)
See also:
Category 7 (v.5): The Intellect;
Category 20 (v.13): What Is Philosophy? chapter 4 “Its Realization Beyond Ecstasy”;
20-4-150; 20-4-152; 20-4-178; 20-4-183 (all v.13) on intuition and insight.
Can we ever escape from the relativity which affects everything from an ant to an aeon? In a universe where everything is in process of continuous change and is ever becoming something else, where nothing has a self-existence that is really enduring, where every ephemeral change seems the only reality at the moment, can we hope to find something that exists by its own right and forever exists unchanged in itself? Reality that IS? The answer is provided by philosophy. Our intellects and senses may misapprehend it and perceive form without perceiving its essence. Nevertheless, reality interpenetrates everything and goes out into all things. There is nothing here in this space-time without its share in reality. Hence philosophy bids us see through the multitudinous forms of the world into the unity upon which they are grounded, without, however, letting our consciousness lose, as the mystic loses, the forms themselves. And this unitary substance is none other than Mind-essence itself. (v.13: 19-2-4)
Is there some precise universal criterion of truth which will be applicable at all times and under all circumstances, in short, something unchanging and therefore supreme? For scientists know that the great principles which formed landmarks in the history of science were really successive stages on the route towards the precise truth. Science changes, its doctrines change, and its earlier approximations are replaced from time to time by more accurate points. We cannot hope to find an ultimate truth nowadays, when science itself is so rapidly on the march. There remains, however, one unfailing all-embracing fact which will forever remain true and which cannot possibly change. Indeed, every advance in experiment and theory made by enterprising scientists will only help to verify this grand discovery. What is it? It is that the whole world which every department of science is busily engaged in examining is nothing but an idea in the human mind. Physics, chemistry, geology, astronomy, biology, and all the other sciences without a single exception are concerned solely with what is ultimately a thought or series of thoughts passing through human consciousness. Here, therefore, we possess a universal law which embraces the entire field in which science is operating. This is an ultimate truth which will stand immortal, when every other hypothesis formulated by science has perished through advancing knowledge. (v.13: 21-4-170)
Consciousness can assume different forms, can operate on different space and time levels, so that it is relative. But it can also remain itself and assume no form; it is then what has been called absolute, not relative. But to reject the possible existence of all these other forms, however temporary they may be, as do those Indians who limit themselves solely to the doctrine of nonduality—fascinated as they are by the reality of the Real and the illusoriness of the unreal, so that they forget whether they are real or unreal—is to forget that he who holds the doctrine is himself a human being. He who comes back from the mystic experience of universality comes back to a human form, is himself a human being, however divine in his inmost essence. The Absolute is not a human being and can have no possible point of view, but the human being must have a humanized philosophy and can have a point of view. What is he to do after recognizing the opposition between the absolute and the relative consciousnesses, between the real and the unreal? The answer is and must be the double point of view. Not, mind you, the double nature of Truth, but the double point of view for us, humans: the one being empirical, practical, earthly, and rational, the other being ultimate, divine, intuitive. (v.13: 19-2-23)
See also:
Category 19 (v.13): The Reign of Relativity;
Category 21 (v.13), chapter 4 on “The Position of Modern Science.”
Only when an object is registered in consciousness is it really seen at all. Not even all the physical details of vision constitute the real experience of seeing it, for the awareness of it is not a physical experience at all. (v.13: 21-2-11)
The statement that we can know only our own sensations and that we do not experience the world directly constitutes the very beginning of the doctrine of mentalism. (v.13: 21-2-32)
If he does not wish to trouble his head, he can comfortably accept the appearances of things; but then he will be living only in the comfort of illusion. If however he wants to ferret out what is real in existence he must put himself to some trouble. He must persevere, read and re-read these pages until the meaning of it all dawns suddenly upon him, as it will if he does. It is perfectly natural for man to regard as the highest reality the experiences which impress themselves most forcibly upon him, which are those gained externally through his physical senses, and to regard as but half-real the experiences which impress themselves least forcibly upon him, which are those created internally by his own thoughts and fancies. But if he can be brought, as a true metaphysics can bring him, to arrive intellectually at the discernment that when he believes he is seeing and experiencing matter he is only seeing and experiencing thought, and that the entire cosmos is an image co-jointly held in the cosmic and individual minds, he will not unconsciously set up all those artificial resistances to the mystical intuitions and ultramystical illuminations which wait in the future for him. (v.13: 21-4-7)
Men are too deceived by their perceptions of the world around them, too ignorant of the ultimate in scientific atomic research, to believe that its “substance” is totally immaterial, is in short a Void. In this matter, their infatuation with their bodily senses makes the deep subtle thinking required to pierce this ignorance even harder still. (v.13: 19-5-30)
Category 21 (v.13), chapter 1 on “The Sensed World”;
v.13: 21-2-98 and v.13: 21-1-27 on the reality of consciousness.
Space is simply the way in which our minds see the world; that is, it is purely mental and not really outside us. The corollary to this is that as all things have their being in space, they must likewise have their being in the mind. But mind alone can only entertain mental visitors; it is too subtle to receive non-mental materials. Mind cannot receive that which is wholly dissimilar to it. Therefore all things must enter it as ideas only. (v.13: 21-2-160)
We must firmly grasp this principle, that the only objects we know, the only world of our experience, have no existence apart from the mind. They do not and cannot subsist externally by themselves. That which projects them into space is mind, and as space itself is within the mind, their independent existence is sheer illusion, or Maya as Indians call it. We must look behind their illusory independence into the mind from which they spring. (v.13: 21-2-81)
Telepathy is possible not because thought can travel in space but because space is actually in thought. (v.13: 21-5-54)
There is, however, no single frame of time in which thoughts can be molded. For time, as we have seen, is a variable because it is an idea; it offers an unlimited variety of ways in which events might arrange themselves. There are a number of different frames and one of them is used for waking sensations while another is for dream perceptions. For the experience of a clock hour spent suffering the pangs of acute toothache will be much longer than the hour spent with a sweetheart. Time is ultimately mental. (v.13: 19-4-16)
Creation as an act is different from creation as a fact. Advaita challenges the reality of the first but admits the second in the sense that it does not deny the existence of the world. But the question “How did God create the world?” does not admit of a simple accurate answer. In the first place it is oversimple and therefore inadequate; secondly it is mis-stated and omits at least two other questions the answers to which are prerequisite to an answer to the question in its present form. The infinite principle of Mind does not will or create the Universe, but within its seeming darkness there arises a point of light which becomes the centre of a potential universe. A first beginning of the Universe has never happened, because the Universe is a manifestation of Mind, the reality which, existing in timeless duration as it does, has never had a beginning itself. (v.13: 19-4-75)
See also:
Category 19 (v.13), chapter 4 “Time, Space, and Causality”;
v.13: 19-2-8 on the double standpoint in reference to time.
The world is never really given to us by experience nor actually known by the mind. What is given is idea, what is known is idea, to be transcended only when profound analysis transforms the Idea into the Reality. (v.13: 21-2-105)
It is absurd even to suggest that there is an external world wholly outside of one’s consciousness and wholly independent of it. One knows only certain changes of mental awareness, never of externals. The mind can only know its changes of individual consciousness. All its observations, each of its inferences, everything it knows—these lie enclosed within that consciousness and are never beyond it.
One’s knowledge of anything whatsoever is simply one’s thought of it. This is not to be confused with one’s right thought of it. It is a conscious mental state, and even other persons are but appearances within this state, creatures in the cosmic dream. To follow this line of reflection to its inevitable end demands courage and candour of the highest kind, for it demands as ultimate conclusion the principle that knowledge being but ideas in the mind, the whole universe is nothing but an immense idea within one’s own mind. For the very nature of knowledge is thus internal, and hence the individual mind cannot know any reality external to itself. It believes that it observes a world without when it only observes its own mental pictures of that world. (v.13: 21-2-108)
The object which the senses directly establish contact with is regarded as one thing; the mental impression they have when thinking of that object is regarded as another and totally different thing. This is a very simple and apparently very obvious view of the matter. To the ordinary mind, by which I mean the metaphysically unreflective mind, the statement is unarguable and its implied division of Nature into mental and material, uncontestable. But if you analyse the way you perceive objects you will find that both the perceiver and the perceived are inseparable in the act of perception. You cannot show a duality of idea and thing but only a unity of them. (v.13: 21-2-177)
We know only our mental states, although some of them appear as things. We see only our mental images, although some of them appear to be outside. (Paul Brunton, The Wisdom of the Overself, chapter 2 “The Meaning of Mentalism” (Berkeley CA: North Atlantic Books, 2015).)
See also Category 21 (v.13), chapter 2 “The World as Mental.”
When a mystical seer proclaimed on the basis of his own insight that the reality of the universe was not matter but mind, educated people could afford to disregard his proclamations. But when leading scientists themselves proclaimed it on the basis of verifiable facts and rational reflections, they could not help giving their confidence to it. Consequently, those who have seriously absorbed the latest knowledge have been falling away from intellectual materialism. It is indeed only the uneducated, the half-educated, the pseudo-educated, and the word-educated who today believe in this miserable doctrine. (v.13: 21-4-167)
There is only one mind and all such names as cosmic mind, over-mind, and so forth are merely imperfect and partial concepts of that ultimate single mind which philosophy puts forth in order to help students advance to a higher stage. These concepts are not false, however. They represent aspects of the same ultimate mind as seen from different standpoints. As these standpoints are not the highest they do not yield the final truth. It will be well therefore for him to accustom himself to the highest standpoint and to remember always that there is but one mind, one reality, one principle, one substance, one being only. All things are forms or shapes which it appears to take temporarily. The key to the understanding of these admittedly difficult points is to think of the universe seen during dream and then to remember that that universe itself, its seas and continents, its peoples and animals, its happenings in time, its distances in space, do not exist apart from the mind of the dreaming person; that even if millions of people exist within that universe they are nothing else than ideas passing through the mind of the dreamer; and that their ultimate stuff or reality is mind although to the dreamer they appear real, as do also water, fire, gas, and even the ninety-odd chemical elements. Now he must try to regard the waking universe in the same way, with this difference: that because the ego is one of the dreamed-of figures in the waking dreams it must be eliminated if one is to break through the dream and ascertain that it is a dream in the universal mind. (v.13: 21-3-44)
The thought of the external world comes from the Universal Mind (God) originally, while thoughts which pertain to personal characteristics come out of the subconscious tendencies developed in previous incarnations. In both cases the power which initiates thoughts is outside the conscious self but for that very reason is irresistible. The work of the Spiritual Quest is to enter into co-operative activity with God, on the one hand, and to conquer those subconscious tendencies, on the other. (v.13: 21-3-56)
The mental character of the world of our experience, once accepted, changes our religious, metaphysical, scientific, moral, and practical attitudes. Much in it does not need much thought for us to realize how grave is the importance of this fact, how momentous the results to which it leads! (v.13: 21-5-15)
See also:
Category 21 (v.13), chapter 3 “The Individual and World-Mind”;
Category 21 (v.13), chapter 3 on “Individual Mind and the World Image”;
v.13: 19-2-58; v.13: 21-5-18; and v.13: 21-3-57.
It is because men are deceived by their senses into accepting materialism that they are deceived by their ego into committing sin. Mentalism is not only an intellectual doctrine but also an ethical one. (v.13: 21-4-10)
It is absurd even to suggest that there is an external world wholly outside of one’s consciousness and wholly independent of it. One knows only certain changes of mental awareness, never of externals. The mind can only know its changes of individual consciousness. All its observations, each of its inferences, everything it knows—these lie enclosed within that consciousness and are never beyond it.
One’s knowledge of anything whatsoever is simply one’s thought of it. This is not to be confused with one’s right thought of it. It is a conscious mental state, and even other persons are but appearances within this state, creatures in the cosmic dream. To follow this line of reflection to its inevitable end demands courage and candour of the highest kind, for it demands as ultimate conclusion the principle that knowledge being but ideas in the mind, the whole universe is nothing but an immense idea within one’s own mind. For the very nature of knowledge is thus internal, and hence the individual mind cannot know any reality external to itself. It believes that it observes a world without when it only observes its own mental pictures of that world. (v.13: 21-2-108)
The Hidden Teaching Beyond Yoga makes stiff reading because it was intended for the critical scientific and philosophic minds who are drawing nearer to this line of thought, but there are a number of paragraphs throughout the book which will be helpful to the student of mysticism also. He should study the portions that appeal most to him. This book tells something of the Ultimate Path, although the actual practices are reserved for The Wisdom of the Overself. The ultimate aim is to build a balanced personality, where reason and feeling will both be well-developed and harmonized. In the advanced stages of the final path, the faculty of true insight will be born, and it is this which acts as the harmonizing agent. The last chapter of the book indicates a desire to serve mankind. This may be done by contributing to the reconstruction which must come later. This is the justification of the Quest, that it can and shall not only give the individual inner peace, intelligent understanding, and a perfect world-explanation, but that it also can and shall give society guidance in solving the great problems which face it. (v.8: 12-5-218)
See also:
Category 9 (v.6): From Birth to Rebirth, chapter 3 “Laws and Patterns of Experience”;
Category 11 (v.7): The Negatives, chapter 3 “Their Presence in the World”;
Category 13 (v.9): Human Experience, chapter 4 “The World Crisis”;
Category 21 (v.13): Mentalism, chapter 4 “The Challenge of Mentalism”;
Category 21 (v.13): Mentalism, chapter 5 “The Key to the Spiritual World.”