READER : Paul Brunton - The man who brought the best to the west: The Secret Path

The Secret Path - Paul Brunton

One of the very interesting books, I read from yester years is "The Secret Path" by Paul Brunton (October 21, 1898 - July 2, 1981) who was a British philosopher, mystic, traveler, and guru and the book I am discussing here was first published in 1934. It’s an interesting book which gives a simple path of attaining many powerful things through the power of Meditations.

If Brunton can not be credited with introducing Yoga to the West because of the existence of other previous luminaries such as Blavatsky, Vivekananda and Yogananda, at least he holds a preeminent position in bringing to the West the best the Orient has to offer: the doctrine of Mentalism. No other writer but Brunton has declared Mentalism to be the esoteric doctrine of the Orient. Brunton is also the only writer to differentiate Oriental Mentalism from Berkeley's.

As the theory of relativity, according to Einstein, brings space and time together so does mentalism unite spirit and matter; this phenomenon is explained by Brunton as being inherent in imagination.

Paul Brunton expounds the doctrine of mentalism in his magnum opus, first in part one which is introductory and preparatory titled The Hidden Teachings Beyond Yoga and last but not least in a revelatory work named The Wisdom of the Overself. According to Joscelyn Godwin, "...Since discovering Brunton's work in the 1960's I have found no reason to discard their philosophical principles."

So here it is for the readers to see for themselves if it leads to Nirvana or an empty High.

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INTRO

Paul Brunton (October 21, 1898 - July 2, 1981) was a British philosopher, mystic, traveller, and guru. He left a journalistic career to live among yogis, mystics, and holy men, and studied Eastern and Western esoteric teachings. Dedicating his life to an inward and spiritual quest, Brunton felt charged to communicate his experiences about what he learned in the east to others. His works had a major influence on the spread of Eastern mysticism to the West. Taking pains to express his thoughts in layperson's terms, Brunton was able to present what he learned from the Orient and from ancient tradition as a living wisdom. His writings express his view that meditation and the inward quest are not exclusively for monks and hermits, but will also support those living normal, active lives in the Western world.

He served in First World War, and later devoted himself to mysticism and came into contact with Theosophists. In the early 1930s, Brunton embarked on a voyage to India, which brought him into contact with such luminaries as Meher Baba, Sri Shankaracharya of Kancheepuram and Sri Ramana Maharshi. Brunton's first visit to Sri Ramanasramam R. took place in 1931. 

Brunton has been credited with introducing Ramana Maharshi to the West through his books "A Search in Secret India" and "The Secret Path".

The following thoughts that I have had got me thinking from the book which I thought will be good to share with my friends….

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“The Secret Path”

Paul Brunton

• Kant said “there were two outstanding wonders of God’s creation. The starry heaven above and the mind of man within.

• The solar system turns without thine aid, Live, Die! The universe is not afraid. - By Zangwill 

• Why is that the thing which interests every man most is – himself? 

Because self is the only reality of which we are certain. All facts of the world around us and all thoughts in the world within us exist for us only when our own self becomes aware of them. Self see the earth and the earth exists. Self is conscious of an idea and the idea exists. (Thoughts of Descartes)

• Berkeley, by the process of acute thinking arrived at the same position. He showed that the material world would be non-existent apart from some mind to conceive it,

• Self is the ultimate – the first things we know as babies; it will be the last thing we shall know as sages.

• First seers, watching the wanderings of thought within their own minds, discovered that there was something which came into action when thinking momentarily stopped. That something was the first faint intimation of the soul

• Eckhart – God is centre of the man

• Thomas A Edison – The hours that I have spent with Mr. Edison have brought me the real big returns of my life; to it I attribute all I have accomplished.

• The morning thinking (meditation) creates a current of spiritual wisdom and strength which will flow beneath the whole of the day’s activities and thoughts. Those who think it folly to attend to our spiritual attitude before we have attended our worldly concerns put second things first and first things second.

• Meditation will produce most results by being regular every day, rather than in fits and starts, because its something that gradually soaks in by repeated. Daily effort.

• The next point to observe is that certain physiological and psychological conditions are advisable if success to be attained with les difficulty. An easy body posture put the mind at ease. A body in discomfort tends to make the mind uneasy.

• There is mysterious quality in twilight which links it with the great spiritual currents that nature releases in regular rhythm.

• Thought control is hard to attain. Its difficulty will astonish you. The brain will rise in mutiny. Like the sea the human mind is ceaselessly active. But it can be done.

• The senses fight and try to cling on to the material world as it’s the nature of senses to be attached to the physical world. The power to hold on to a train of thought with great tenacity, to grasp it with scorpion-ic claws and not let go, is the power to concentrate and makes MEN. Masters of thought are true masters of Men.

• When the moral weakness and emotional unbalances are conjoined with mystical practices, the result is not elevation of mind into spirituality but degeneration of mind into mediumship. The practice of meditation without the cultivation of ethical and intellectual safe guards can lead to self deception, inflated egoism, hallucination and even insanity.

A Technique for self analysis - A great adventure of self-enquiry

A key to success in practice of self analysis is “think very slowly” Second is to formulate your words mentally. 

First watch your own intellect in its working. Note how thoughts follow one another in endless sequence. Then try to realize that there is someone wo thinks. Now ask: Who is this thinker?

Therefore, to know oneself is to find that point of consciousness from which observation of these changing moods may take place. 

This was the celebrated attitude of Descartes. 

He maintained that there mere act of thinking involved the existence of a thinker, of the one who carries on this reflective activity. “Je pense, done je suis”(I think therefore I am), was his famous philosophical proposition. It was a tremendous claim and found its powerful opponents. And its logical result was compelled to infer that this thinking, this “I” was intrinsically immaterial and therefore independent enough to have its own existence apart from the fleshly body with which its nevertheless so intimately bonded. T

Mind is like a restless monkey, but chain it to the post of a single object, tether it to the stake of one line of thought; then only will the monkey recognize you as its master, and be more ready to obey your orders.

Though the man is with the higher power which may be called God, the fact remains that he has lost the consciousness of this unity. And unless he makes observation, or in true prayer, to detach himself increasingly from his external existence, it is unlikely that he will recover this divine consciousness.

Thinking is power which may bind us or set us free. The average man unconsciously uses it for the former purpose; the meditator of self inquiry uses it to gain freedom.

Intuition: Immediate understanding. 

• Rational thought provides us with a splendid instrument wherewith to comprehend life and the world up to a point, but it is a mistake to imagine that it is there for the only instrument available to us. Intuition is one such instrument and many times it works without any conscious effort on our part. 

• When the reasoning, thinking intellect subsides its activity, the intuition has a clear field in which to manifest itself. It’s therefore necessary to find some means to reduce the constant agitation of the intellect. This can be done by a twofold process.  

1. The first consists of an effort to direct thoughts along a single channel of certain kind i.e. concentration upon an exalted abstract idea (Meditation) 

2. Control of breathing: The reason is there exists a profound connection between breath and thought. The movements of breath beat time, in a most remarkable fashion, with the movements of thought. Most people undervalue the powers of the breath but the early Jesuits in the west and the early yogis in India knew better, for they embodied the breathing exercise in their system of training.  

The breathing exercise mentioned here by Paul Brunton is similar to the one as in pranayam, so here I am giving a link of pranayam technique for you all, if interested to follow.

Awakening to the Intuition 

Humility is the first step on the secret path – and it will also be the last. For before the divinity can begin to teach him through its own self-revelation he must first become teachable, i.e. humble.

Intellectual ability and learning are admirable things and adorn a man, but intellectual pride puts up a strong barrier between him and that higher life which is ever calling to him, albeit silently. Hitherto, the entire student’s effort at finding the true self have been positively directed, personally willed, conscious and voluntary. He is now almost at the point where there should be a complete reversal of procedure, where the personality must cease making any further efforts because it has reached the end of its tether.

The whole process of mediation is simply to select this one higher topic of self enquiry out of the multitude of ideas, to think firmly up that alone and of nothing else. Then when the attitude and the quality of concentration are thus strongly developed, the student drops even this special line of thinking withdraws inward and a question who it is that is thinking. One inevitable result of all these practices will be that your attitude towards things, people and events will gradually change. You will begin to express the qualities which are natural to the over self, the qualities of noble outlook, perfect justice, the treatment of one’s neighbour as oneself.

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ॐ नमः शिवाय 

Om Namah Shivaya

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