Mentalism says that most of one's misery is inflicted on oneself by accepting and holding negative thoughts. They cover and hide the still centre of one's being, which is infinite happiness.    (#13953)

To put the once-abstruse truths of mentalism into works readable, understandable, and nontechnical--just as had been done with yoga--was a further effort I made with enthusiasm but now, so many years later, its importance seems even greater than it did then.    (#14167)

To raise the half-buried, half-petrified figure of meditation from the desert sand, expose and clean it, explain and publicize it--this was only a first task. To advance further and awaken the juniors who undertook this inner work to the truth of mentalism--this was a second task.    (#14251)

Never at any time in my research did I depend on mere texts alone. There have been other and fresher sources: the living voice of reputed experts, my own metaphysical reasoning, and my own mystical experience. Equipped with a readiness to learn from even the most obscure expositor, an utter absence of conscious colour or racial prejudice, many years of advanced meditation practice, and a modicum of cultural preparation, I turned from the dead worm-bored manuscripts themselves to living men, discussing all the knotty historical, textual, metaphysical, and yogic-practice problems arising out of these studies with Sanskrit pundits, learned pontiffs, grave ascetics, mountain-dwelling hermits, contemplative mystics, heads of monasteries, and even specialist university professors. I did not hesitate to ask them hundreds of questions with plaguey persistence or to keep my critical faculties alive, for I sought to bring Oriental truth and not Oriental superstitions to the West. I also accepted a few mystical initiations from among those which were offered. The third source which has informed this exposition of the hidden teaching was an internal one. Being a practising and not merely a theoretical mystic, I sought whenever possible and whenever within the scope of my restricted powers to test and verify our revelatory statements before publishing them. For example, I succeeded in confirming in this way the truth of mentalism, a doctrine which forms the very basis of the hidden teaching. This happened during mystical semi-trances wherein I found the source of the surrounding things to be deep below the threshold of the wakeful mind. This single experience out of several is mentioned to dispel the misconception that these pages are merely an indulgence in academic theory, as also to encourage fellow pilgrims plodding farther back on the same road.

Nevertheless my attainment is only a limited one. I am unable to achieve similar verifications of certain other tenets. In such cases I have tried to check my declarations by those of ancient sages who, it is believed, themselves possessed the requisite capacity. Be that as it may, the labour of correlating all these fragments, the toil of eliminating the puzzling contradictions was an exceedingly heavy one. Abnormal reflective ability was needed to understand this philosophy and abnormal introspective ability was needed to describe its ultramystic experiences. The theme was indeed so far beyond an ordinary capacity that at times I strongly felt like renouncing it. I have elsewhere acknowledged our indebtedness to that practical philosopher His Highness the late Maharajah of Mysore for his patient personal encouragement in this undertaking. The immense mass of material which gradually accumulated within my head and notebooks was so confusing in parts that I had to reduce it to systematic shape by a comparative study and careful analysis which required so prodigious an amount of work that the excessive labour involved doubtless cut several years off my earthly life. It was only an iron determination to try to master something of Asia's highest wisdom that enabled me to persevere in putting all the pieces of this mosaic pattern together until they finally fell into proper places and an intelligible pattern came into view at last. Although India has been the central scene of these studies, conversations, and experiences, its insufficiencies compelled my visits to a number of other Asiatic countries upon the same quest, unexpectedly earning myself from His Holiness the aged Supreme Monk of Siam a gift of one of his personal treasures in the form of an ancient bronze statue of the Buddha as well as a Certificate of Merit.    (#14448)

When a mystic like Brunton writes strongly in advocacy of a revolutionary doctrine like mentalism, it is only a negligible few who are likely to be convinced that it is a true doctrine. But when a first-class scientist like Sir James Jeans writes even mildly in advocacy of it in his authoritative books, many will begin to sit up and take notice. For the name of Brunton means little today whereas the name of Jeans must be regarded with respect.    (#14577)

Another reason why I introduced these three titles into the prefatory chapter was that they were also symbolic and representative of major tenets of our philosophy. Thus, the Bhagavad Gita stood for inspired action, Guadapada's commentary on the Mandukya Upanishad for Mentalism, and Ashtavakra's Song for the concentration on Pure Thought.    (#15007)

The Wisdom of the Overself took up again the heavy task which was left unfinished in The Hidden Teaching Beyond Yoga, whose pages carried its reader into the strange difficult territory of mentalism and left him there as in a flinty wilderness, for the promised land of the sublime Overself still lay too far off to be discerned with the naked eye. Now, if he wished, it became possible for him to resume the mental journey and even carry it through to completion. The trail which others had cut for him would give right direction--no small gain in an enterprise which is indeed the protracted labour of a lifetime. This said, he is still likely to have hard going. The kingdom of heaven is not so easy to find as old creeds and modern cults imply by their glib tones of familiarity. Oh yes, they can lead him into their particular conception of it, their imaginary construction of it, but not into the reality itself.    (#15010)

My unfortunate tendency to labour a point too long has irritated some readers but helped others. The intention of all this repetitive statement was to present the same idea in its various aspects and thus help to make it clearer. Where such difficult and subtle metaphysical ideas as mentalism are in question, this clarification is needful.    (#15073)

Of what use to offer the subtlest ideas and most refined sentiments of philosophy to crude, untutored minds which could see only madness in mentalism, only horror in ego-merger, and which responds so predominantly to animal instincts?    (#15982)

Instead of falling into the common attitude of classifying the natural everyday side of human nature as hostile to the mystical inner side, as an incompatible opposite, why not bring both sides together in harmony? This can be done intellectually by understanding mentalism, and emotionally by appreciating or creating inspired art.    (#16079)

The concept of nonduality given by the Advaitins seems impossible to grasp and to accept to the normal Western mind and quite rightly so. This impasse must exist unless and until the situation is clarified and the only way to do so lies through mentalism. The human mind normally functions in a dualistic manner--that is, it identifies itself as a subject with an object of its consciousness outside. This dualism penetrates the practices followed on the Quest and the knowledge gained as a consequence of them. It cannot be got rid of until both subject and object are thrown into and unified by the pure consciousness--Mind--in which, from which, and by which all happens. In this connection a further point must be established. I have written admiringly of two great souls--Sri Ramana Maharshi and Shankaracharya of Kanchi, the spiritual head of South India. Now both these are strict followers of the original, the first Shankaracharya, who lived more than a thousand years ago, and they quote from his writings very frequently. Whoever studies those writings will discover that Adi Shankara, meaning the first Shankara, in his arguments against the Buddhists--especially those of the idealistic Yogacara and Vijnana schools--seems to reject idealism which is an incomplete form of mentalism. But let us not forget that Shankara was engaged in a campaign to reduce the power of Buddhism and increase the power of Hinduism. Let us not forget too that Buddha himself was not bound by any such bias; he was a free thinker and he did not hesitate to question the authority of the Vedas which Shankara followed and accepted. The Buddha rejected animal sacrifices and futile religious rituals, for instance. It is to Shankara's credit that he gave out the Advaitic teaching of nonduality--which is impossible for a Western mind in all its rationality to accept unless it falls into mysticism and yoga. Both the living Shankara and Ramana Maharshi were upholders of Hinduism. As I have said, the doctrine of nonduality is quite acceptable when presented with a mentalistic explanation or through a mystical experience, but not otherwise.    (#18696)

How can modern Western men hear or read the ancient Advaitic claim that this vast world does not really exist and understand, let alone accept, it? They are likely to receive the claim with enough incredulity to consider it not worth rebuttal. But those who are patient enough not to do so, and willing enough to look for the evidence in nuclear physics, which the Hindus of past times did not have (the Hindus of our time merely repeat their ancestors' words like parrots), may begin to find some reasonable sense in it. The case needs presentation in three stages. To put it quite briefly: the first reduces all material objects to their atomic elements, to electrons, ions, protons, and so on, and shows that they are composed of energies and are not at all what they seem to be. The second draws on the metaphysics of mentalism to lead into the profounder understanding that in the end all that is known of the energies is in consciousness. They are ideas. This deprives the world of reality, and presents its basic existence as immaterial and unsubstantial. The third stage turns away from the world to the ego which experiences that world. The "I" too is a complex of thoughts and as such not a continuing identity. But as a point of consciousness it derives from universal impersonal Mind, without beginning or end: THAT is the real underlying existence of the individual ego and its world, which do not and cannot possibly exist by themselves. In this sense they are described as non-existent.    (#18705)

Although the word Maya plays a prominent part in Advaita teaching and is given at least three meanings--inherent change, unreality, and appearance--it must be examined and analysed from the philosophic point of view with regard to the history of Advaita and its followers. From what has already been said about the nostalgia of the more spiritually minded of the Hindu peoples--their yearnings for these past glories and past times--this was carried to an extreme extent and made the present look more like a dream towards which they were looking for reality in vain. We must admire them for this fidelity to their ancient, very ancient, faith and teachers. But it must be remembered that as humanity slowly evolves through the ages, so must the teaching evolve with it to fit the kind of awareness they have developed and especially to correct it when it runs to extremes. The idea of mentalism, which says that all is in the mind and that Mind is indeed the real, must not be misunderstood and turned into a way of escape in order either to live in those past glories (as the Oriental did) or to excuse our own laziness, as we may do.    (#18717)

The modern Chinese Buddhist movement called Wei Shih taught as its fundamental tenet the principle of mentalism. The teachings are identical with and probably derived from the Sanskrit Yogacara school. Its chief centre was at Nanking, and from the doors of its "China Inner Knowledge College" there went forth a number of well-instructed disciples--both monks and laymen--some of whom I had the pleasure of meeting before the war. What has become of so essentially spiritual an institution under the atheistic dominance of present conditions? If it has met the fate of so many others, the balancing contribution which it could make to the new China is alas! no longer available. Some pilgrimages to such centres have been stopped, others discouraged. Some temples have been turned into secular schools. Large numbers of monks have been forced to discard their robes and have been driven back into civilian life. I know that Buddhism generally is regarded as a mere superstition by the Western-science-worshipping minds of today's Chinese youth and leadership. This attitude is both dangerous and fallacious. Although the Buddha, for his own monk-catching reasons, and because of the times and conditions in which he lived, emphasized the pessimistic world-view, and thus presented a one-sided teaching, he was in himself one of the most illumined men who ever lived.    (#18922)

Lu Hsiang-shan was a famous advocate and eloquent expounder of the mentalist teaching in twelfth-century China. Students came to his lectures in crowds from all districts in Eastern Cathay. Yet his ardent conviction of mentalism's truth did not diminish in any way his capability and efficiency as a government official. On the contrary, so satisfied were his superiors with his practical performance in minor positions that he was appointed governor and magistrate of the city of Ching-Men-Hsien, where he was highly successful in fulfilling all his responsibilities. He was offered a still higher promotion but refused it, for in between his duties and in leisure hours he also found time to teach students and give lectures.    (#19040)

It was the special contribution of the Wang Yang-ming school to synthesize the subtlest mentalism with the most practical routine of daily life, the holiness of fervent religion with the obligations to society, the discipline of self with the freedom of undogmatic mind.    (#19041)

Sir Francis Younghusband crossed the Gobi Desert on foot and explored it again on a later occasion. Mongolia, where it is positioned, as a Lamaistic Buddhist country, owed spiritual fealty to the Dalai Lama in Tibet. Sir Francis told me one day of a mysterious Mongolian whom he had met and who without uttering a single word aloud, purely by telepathic contact, had powerfully influenced his mind and given it a greatly broader spiritual outlook. Many years later I met this same adept, then an exile in Cambodia from his native land which had fallen to the Communist-atheist regime. Through the services of an educated Chinese disciple who was with him, we were able to converse about Buddhism and other matters. He gave out a teaching which formed the basis of mentalism and which was occasionally so subtle that it went above my head, but which I understood sufficiently to revolutionize my outlook. Some of its tenets were incorporated in the mentalism explained in my books The Hidden Teaching Beyond Yoga and The Wisdom of the Overself.    (#19125)

To one who has studied Dr. Steiner's teachings, we would say that they are an excellent preparation for present studies. Although the truth of mentalism is not accepted in the Anthroposophical teachings, Steiner's conviction that the West would have to shake off its servile attitude towards Eastern mysticism and develop a new tradition from its own inherent resources is a sound one. Today's needs are different from those of yesterday. He also emphasized the value and even the necessity of the scientific approach, which most mystics, nurtured in the Oriental tradition, underrate.    (#19255)

Regarding Blavatsky's teachings, it is not essential nowadays to know all that she taught. Nevertheless a book like her Key to Theosophy provides an excellent preparation for the study of philosophy. But present-day students do not need to study her writings first, as the point of view of the present teaching is different from that taken in her published work. In her esoteric instruction, her students were told to "reduce everything to terms of consciousness." This, of course, is pure mentalism.    (#19258)

With a little perception of the metaphysical truth in mentalism but a large application of it, the Christian Scientists have healed sickness and banished anxiety.    (#20421)