R: The previous two posts were mild. What I’d like to do here is to discuss the means by which a person like me could obtain a kind of excellent and powerful spiritual consciousness, the best quality path possible. Brunton once wrote about “the short path”. This was presumably about the means to attain the highest spiritual consciousness in as short as time possible. He didn’t really discuss the Sun although he did describe some Light meditations. I will quote it here:
” … Short Path is not concerned with time and therefore not with progress. Thinking only of the timeless Overself. No idea of progress, no desire, it does not matter. Real Self is always changeless.
On the Short Path the Overself is the Guru and the aspirants depend directly only on the Overself. On the Short Path the Guru question does not come into consideration. Guru is outside themselves, but God is inside on the Short Path stage.
Short Path—he lives in the Sunlight, because he lives in Truth, the only reality – like looking, being in the sun … The Short Path is a cheerful Path, a Path of happiness.
In the Short Path there are usually much fewer exercises to practise. It is not necessary to sit down specially to meditate, but to try to be always in meditation.
Picture an ethereal aura of pure, white, electrifying Light all around you. Then, imagine this magnificent Light is actually pulling you upright by the top of your head. Its compelling force should, as a result, automatically straighten the spine, and the back of your trunk, neck, and head form a perfectly erect line. Finally, imagine the Light is pervading inside the whole of your body.
Try to see and feel that the aura of Light has an actual substance and that It is becoming part of you, that you are melting into It, becoming one with It. Next, think of it as being the pure essence of Love.
Think of the white Light as being Nature’s intelligent and recuperative Life-Force. Let it pour in, through the top of your head, passing directly to the solar plexus centre, which is the region which must first be worked on and affected if the healing force is to become efficacious. Thence send it to any afflicted area, remaining there. Feel Its benevolent, restorative, and healing presence working upon it … ”
S: Are you on this path?
R: Well, I’m really spending time with working to understand it better.
S: This is an ancient path you know.
R: Yes, and that’s what has got me so interested in how distractions don’t have to hinder the focus. I know that the ancient Persians and the Egyptians, and many other cultures, the North American natives, the Japanese, they all walked on this process.
S: Truly.
R: …. ” His role is to play witness of what he is, how he behaves, the thoughts he admits, just as if he were witnessing someone else. This move-over from the actively-engaged person to the watcher who is impersonal and disengaged even in the midst of action, is one from drift to control.”