If in earlier eras a select tiny minority alone could take hold of the basic truths of mentalism, because they alone had the educational preparation, the intellectual development and emotional refinement, the personal leisure and the will to do so, in this era the ordinary man may, at least in part, do so. Teachings and revelations formerly regarded as inaccessible in his case can now have more interest and some meaning for him.    (#26608)

The theory of mentalism is not understandable by the ordinary man when he is presented with it for the first time. It then seems puzzling as the hieroglyphics on an Egyptian papyrus. But if the same man will perseveringly study the explanations of it, eventually light will break in on his mind and he will see its truth.    (#26610)

In dealing with those who have not evolved enough to understand, much less accept, such a high doctrine as mentalism, it becomes necessary to modify, simplify, or even withhold it for a time.    (#26612)

Whether we begin by accepting no knowledge not born out of common experience or whether we begin by accepting conclusions derived from transcendental dogmas, the end will be the same: mentalism!    (#26614)

It is the easiest of acts to reject mentalism but the hardest to refute it.    (#26615)

The sensation which a man experiences when he first begins to investigate mentalism is something like the one he experiences when standing on his head.    (#26616)

By applying either his belief in, or his knowledge of, mentalism and throwing everything into Mind, he practises nondualism and gets rid of the divided subject-object attitude. This work may take many years or it may not: it must be done calmly, patiently, without attempting to measure progress--itself an obstructive idea.    (#26618)

Those who have not had the inward revelation granted them, who have not awakened what the Hindu yogis call antardrishti, a kind of clairvoyant insight, often believe that mentalism is mere theory and that its talk of the world's unreality is mere verbalism. Even some among the seers have not seen this, although they have seen much else that fleshly eyes cannot. Sri Aurobindo in India, for instance, disputed mentalism, although his neighbour and contemporary, Ramana Maharshi, fully accepted it. Rudolf Steiner in Switzerland likewise disputed it although J.J. van der Leeuw, his Dutch contemporary, understood and explained it. This situation is strange, but among the sages with whom I found the deepest penetration into the nature of things and who were nearly all mentalists, some observed that the capacity to receive and understand the mentalist doctrine was the sharpest of all tests to which a truth-seeker could be subjected.    (#26619)

No one yet has successfully refuted the logical truth of mentalism. Yet few people feel it to be true and therefore few can bring themselves to accept it. It is easy for a solitary mystic here and there who has been granted the revelation through his mystical experience, to adhere stubbornly to the statement that the world is a product of consciousness. But for others belief wavers and doubt undermines.    (#26622)

It is strange how illuminated mystics have been unable to agree with each other on the question of mentalism and its truth. Among the moderns, Rudolf Steiner vehemently opposes it, whereas Ramana Maharshi strongly upholds it. Among the ancients, Patanjali deliberately attacked it, whereas Gaudapada specially advocated it. And if we leave the mystics for a moment and turn to the scientists, the same puzzling contradiction will be found: Thomas Henry Huxley and Sir Arthur Eddington bravely endorsed mentalism, whereas Einstein openly ridiculed it. How, when these great minds cannot settle the problem of mentalism once and for all, can the lesser ones of the mass of humanity hope to solve it?    (#26624)

There is one sentence in Professor Joad's book entitled God and Evil in which he mentions that after studying and teaching philosophy for thirty years he is unable to make up his mind either way about the truth of mentalism. This, if anything, should be a caution against its quick rejection, even though it is admittedly not an argument in its favour.    (#26625)

We are moving in a subtle and delicate world when we are moving in the world of mind. It is necessary to comprehend our terms carefully and correctly if we are to understand the teaching of mentalism truthfully.    (#26628)

The Indians have built an entire metaphysical system--the Advaita--around the Upanishadic statement: "The Self alone exists." This might be called spiritual solipsism. To experience during meditation a state confirming this belief is their highest goal. The mind's power to create its own "inner experiences" is known, a power once alluded to by Ramana Maharshi as "expectancy" but which we in the West call "suggestion." The higher phases of Buddhist psychology refer to an almost identical experience as the Advaitic, but in their reference the Self does not enter the picture and its existence is never affirmed. In Mentalism it is understood that consciousness can shed its thoughts during the experience of Mental Quiet--also similar--including thoughts of the world and even of the individual ego, but it is not therefore claimed that these thoughts have no existence too and have never had any at any time. All this shows once again that mystic experience, even in its more advanced stage, is one thing and its interpretation--usually unconsciously made and religiously influenced--is another.    (#26629)

Mentalism leads neither to solipsism (one's own existence is the only existence) nor to Hindu Advaita's denial of the World's existence. The first is a misreading and consequent misunderstanding of it caused by a failing to see that the individual ego is itself a projection of Mind. The second fails to see that as an experience in the field of awareness of that ego, as a given and fundamental idea in that consciousness, it is a coexistent and not to be denied without impairing sanity.    (#26630)

We celebrate the tough logic of mentalism, its metaphysical truth and practical power.    (#26631)

There are cults which take the truth of mentalism but misapprehend and pervert it by fallacious reasoning. They do this in order to, as they believe, gain prosperity and regain health.    (#26633)

But if mentalism solves some of the major problems of existence, it raises some minor ones of its own. These perplex the beginner.    (#26635)

All life is a paradox, being at once a combination of reality and appearance. An obstacle to the comprehension of mentalism is that one persistently, if unconsciously, views the world from the standpoint of the lower personality, which is extremely limited, and not from that of the higher individuality, which transcends both the intellect and the senses. Even life on earth in the body is really a kind of mystical experience from the standpoint of the mentalist but it is only a blurred, vague, and symbolic one. The thinking intellect finds it hard to grasp this situation because it is itself something which has been greatly filtered down out of the higher individuality. Mentalism can be understood up to a point through the use of reasoning but after this point it can only be understood through the use of intuition.    (#26636)

The truth of mentalism can be appreciated and accepted only by those who are either mentally competent to do so or intuitively ready for it. If any man cannot free his mind sufficiently from the erroneous suggestions with which either scientific materialism or religious dogma have straitjacketed it, he will reject the idea. And if he cannot ponder the questions involved with sufficient discernment and penetrate them with sufficient depth, he will reject it too.    (#26642)

The deceptions bred by an unreflective attitude towards the reports of sense and an unintuitive one towards the feeling of personality, enter so deeply into his mental principle because of their growing prevalence during a large number of births that they become almost an integral part of it. The melancholy consequences of this disposition are an inability to believe in mentalism and an incapacity to progress in mysticism.    (#26644)