He should not rest satisfied with hazy notions of mentalism but should get its principles in sharp, clear focus. If necessary he should return and reconsider them until they are well understood. This may demand hard work but it is well worthwhile.    (#26577)

Mentalism has evoked disdain, ridicule, or attempts to refute it, but none has successfully done so.    (#26579)

I have met very few people who really understand what is the simplest of all mystical, religious, and metaphysical tenets and yet, at the same time, the most important of them all--mentalism.    (#26581)

It is a measure of the depth, subtlety, and freedom of a man's mind how far he can follow the thread of mentalism to a point where he himself must refute materialism.    (#26582)

It is by repeatedly returning to an idea so utterly strange as this mentalism, learning to know it well and making oneself thoroughly familiar with it, that the materialistic resistance to it is gradually diminished.    (#26583)

When the understanding of mentalism attains maturity the conviction of its truth attains finality. There will be no foothold for doubt. Thereafter the mentalist's attitude becomes unshakeable.    (#26585)

Everyone sees first only the absurdity of mentalism; some, proceeding to investigate, become bewildered by it; a few, persevering until they master it, see its truth.    (#26586)

A rare few understand and know the truth of mentalism; they have validated it intellectually and verified it experientially: its mystical side is open to them daily and they pass into it nightly. But the great mass of people have never even heard of it.    (#26589)

Inevitably, as his reflections on mentalism continue and deepen and his intuitions assert themselves, a man comes to the time when it triumphs. Then, subtly, what he regards as reality changes and shifts from matter to mind.    (#26590)

It would be better to keep silent than to make concessions out of weakness to the multitude's bias or incredulity. For mentalism is admittedly hard to apprehend until the last stages of meditation alters its level. The ego's heavy weight falls off his shoulders then: it imperceptibly lets go.    (#26592)

If the understanding of the truth of mentalism sinks deep enough, it will become lasting enough in the same way that the understanding of two plus two equals four remains an established knowledge.    (#26593)

Belief in materiality is natural because men need form and images, something touchable, whereas only developed minds can receive into consciousness abstract ideas like mentalism's truth and reality. Hence materiality--that is, maya, deception, illusion--is easily accepted.    (#26595)

The central truth of mentalism is both easy and hard to understand.    (#26596)

Mentalism is not to the taste of most people. It does violence to their common sense. It is too little known, hence has few followers. There are two kinds of truth: one is the truth of appearances, and the other is hidden deep down. The first is easy to understand; the other requires much work on one's own mind to get it sharp enough to recognize what is so elusive.    (#26597)

Put in the shortest way, mentalism is the teaching that all human experience is mental experience. But this truth does not come by itself to the uninstructed.    (#26598)

A special kind of patience is needed to gain a correct understanding of mentalism. The key idea that the world's existence (including our own, since we too are a part of it) is in the end a mental one can be set down in a single sentence. But the clear and full grasp of all its implications could absorb the larger fraction of a lifetime for many persons, or a few months only for others.    (#26599)

It is not easy to perceive the truth of mentalism: if it were, religion would not have been needed nor mysticism practised. Thought and feeling must struggle with themselves, and suffer, before illusion is shifted out of the way.    (#26600)

Many who tried to understand mentalism have complained that they could not do so. Such an intellectual failure is understandable. The old thought-habits need a total reconstruction. The new ones, bringing in new ideas, must be learned until acceptable and then practised patiently.    (#26601)

The fact is that there are few actual mystics but many more would-be ones. Consequently there are few who fully recognize, understand, and accept this truth of mentalism.    (#26602)

A man needs to be extremely scrupulous about his own thinking, about what it contains of influences, suggestions, and preconceptions, before he can reflect philosophically about the Truth. That few persons arrive at mentalism is mostly because they fail to do so.    (#26607)