Solitude is strength; to depend on the presence of the crowd is weakness. The man who needs a mob to nerve him is much more alone than he imagines.

While the mind remains so fixed in its own personal affairs, be they little or large, it has no chance to open up its higher levels. When attention and emotion are kept so confined, the chance they offer of this higher use is missed. The peace, truth, and goodness which could be had are untouched.

Now an extraordinary and helpful fact is that by making Mind the object of our attention, not only does the serenity which is its nature begin to well up of its own accord but its steady unchanging character itself helps spontaneously to repel all disturbing thoughts.

When it seems humanly impossible to do more in a difficult situation, surrender yourself to the inner silence and thereafter wait for a sign of obvious guidance or for a renewal of inner strength.

Although the pure truth has never been stated, nevertheless it has never been lost. Its existence does not depend upon human statement but upon human sensitivity. In this it is unlike all other knowledge.

The ego will always be able to find ways to keep the aspirant busy in self-improvement, thus binding him or her to the fact that the self is still there behind all the improvements. For why should the ego kill itself?

All methods and techniques - and of course all human beings who propound them - are merely instruments to help the student obtain a methodless, technique-free, teacherless state.