Paul Brunton Philosophic Foundation homepage > Notebooks of Paul Brunton > Category 25: World-Mind in Individual Mind

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World-Mind in Individual Mind

The highest attainment in philosophy, that of the sage, comes from a union of the sharpest, subtlest thinking and of the capacity to enter the thought-free state--a combination of real knowledge and felt peace--balanced, united, yielding truth. This is what makes the sage, whose understanding and peace are his own, who does not depend upon any outside person. Yet it is not the little ego's emotion nor its intellectuality which has brought him to this truth. It is the highest human mind, the finest human feeling. The total man cannot lose what he has attained. It is the higher power working inside the human being.

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He does not regard greatness to be in him but only behind him. Neither vain ambition nor false egoism can deceive him about the inner reality of his psychological situation. He understands and feels that a power not his own and not human is using him as its human instrument, that a larger mind is overshadowing his ego.

1. Their Meeting and Interchange
   • God is in Man
   • Man is not, does not become, God
   • Fallacy of ``Divine Incarnation''
2. Enlightenment Which Stays
   • Glimpses and permanent realization
   • Sudden or gradual?
   • Enlightenment comes quietly
   • Naturalness of the attainment
   • Degrees of enlightenment
   • Nonduality, sahaja, insight
   • Conscious transcendental sleep
   • Individuality remains
   • World continues
   • General effects of enlightenment
3. The Sage Part 1
   • The race of sages
   • Remarks on specific illuminates
   • Differences in attainment, expression
   • Wisdom beyond bliss
   • Qualities, characteristics of the sage
4. The Sage Part 2
   • God alone is perfect
   • Sage not easily recognized
   • Isolation, privacy, reticence
   • Sage is usually misunderstood
   • Sages merit veneration
5. The Sage's Service
   • A full identity of interest
   • Help the sage gives
   • Effects of the sage's presence
   • Sage as catalyst for higher powers
   • Sage works with few directly
6. Teaching Masters, Discipleship
   • Teaching and non-teaching illuminates
   • Advice, warnings to would-be teachers
   • Value of a qualified teacher
   • Seeking the sage
   • Approaching the sage
   • Qualifications for discipleship
   • Master-disciple relationship, general
   • Master is symbol of Overself
   • True relationship is internal
   • Eventual graduation of disciple