' The Long and Short Paths '...

Contradictions between the two Paths:

one is the ego and the other the Overself without ego.

The Short Path is without plane, intuitive, like Sudden Enlightenment.

On the Long Path they are looking step by step to get out of the darkness of their ignorance.

The next important point: on the Long Path many students want experiences--mystical, occult, psychical ones.

It is the ego wanting them and the satisfaction of progressing.

The ego feels important.

In the Short Path there is no desire for inner experiences of any kind.

When you are already in the Real, there is no desire any more.

For experiences come and go, but the Real does not.

Now you see why the popular religions are only attempts to get people to make a beginning to find God, but are not able to go too far and too quickly.

For those who are more developed and less bound to attachments, the teacher gives the Short Path.

In the teachings of Jesus and Buddha we find both Paths.

People have different stages of evolution and can therefore take what suits them.

The teacher gives them what they understand from their level of understanding.


-Paul Brunton