The mind can be drugged, put to sleep; it can be put to sleep pleasantly or violently, and during this sleep there may be dreams. But a mind that is made quiet by discipline, by ritual, by repetition, can never be alert, sensitive and free. This bludgeoning of the mind, subtly or crudely, is not meditation. It is pleasant to chant and to listen to ... See more

This change cannot possibly be brought about without knowing oneself, self-knowledge. This is not knowledge of the “higher self” or knowledge of some “supreme consciousness,” for they are still within the field of thought. Unless one understands one’s self, the self of every day—what it thinks, what it does, its devotions, its deceptions, its ambit

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