It is so important to find balance in life whether we are diving into worldly pleasures or on a quest for spirituality………
Sharing some thoughts from “The Notebook of Paul Brunton”
There is a point of view which rejects the attitude that destitution and poverty are the only paths to spirituality and replaces it by the attitude that a simple life and a small number of possessions are better. The poverty-stricken life is usually inadequate and unaesthetic. We need a sufficiency of possessions in order to obtain sufficiency of living, and an aesthetic home in order to live the beautiful life. How much more conducive to success in meditation, for instance, is a well-ordered home, a refined elegant environment, a noiseless and undisturbed room or outdoor spot! But these things cost money. However much the seeker may saturate himself in youthful years with idealistic contempt for the world’s values, he will find in time that even the things important to his inner spiritual life can usually be had only if he has enough money to buy them. Privacy, solitude, silence and leisure for study and meditation are not free, and their price comes high.
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To live the simpler life is not the same as to live an impoverished life. Our wants are without end and it is economy of spiritual energy to reduce then at certain points. But this is not to say that all beautiful things are to be thrown out of the window merely because they are not functional or indispensable.
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It is not the world that stands in our way and must be renounced but our mental and emotional relationship with the world: and this needs only to be corrected. We may remain just where we are without flight to ashram or convent, provided we make an inner shift.
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There is something crazy in this idea that we were put into the world to separate ourselves from it.
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He who enters upon this quest will have plenty to do, for he will have to work on the weaknesses in his character, think impartially, to meditate regularly, and to aspire constantly. Above all he will have to train himself in the discipline of surrendering his ego.
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