The Wisdom of the Overself (The Path to Self-Realization and Philosophic Insight)

Inspired by Paul Brunton's years spent with sages in Asia, The Wisdom of the Overself and its companion volume The Hidden Teaching Beyond Yoga were written at the request of these remarkable teachers, who rec ognized that Brunton had a significant role to play in the transmission of traditional wisdom to the West. Here is a profound re-creation of these teachings, brought to life and made accessible by Brunton's insights. In print since the 194.os, Brunton's works are considered to be among the most comprehensive, clear, and practical guides on the path to enlightenment.

Brunton unfolds the grand vision for human development by investigating consciousness as the source of all experience; how to move from ego centered life to the transcendent reality; the interplay of karma, free will, and grace; the nature of evil and suffering; how to awaken intuition and penetrative insight; the passage through death to rebirth; and psychic experiences and mystic visions. He also provides seven ultramystic exercises to open the door to higher consciousness, including a healing meditation on the sun; practices for transforming the future, dream, and sleep; and a meditation on the timeless self. These techniques lead to the deepest spiritual realizations-to the true "Wisdom of the Oversell."

This new edition has been updated to incorporate Brunton's final revisions. It includes a new fore-word plus supplementary reading material selected from the author's archives by the Paul Brunton Philo-sophic Foundation.

Paul Brunton (1898-1981) is generally recognized as having introduced yoga and meditation to the West. His writings are among the most popular and Authoritative sources of information on Eastern philosophies and meditation systems.

This new edition of The Wisdom of the Oversell first published in the early 194os, is perhaps even more relevant today. Now there is a much larger audience of seekers who hunger for spiritual transformation and who arc following paths both inside and especially outside traditional religions.

The path to freedom from suffering and the fulfilment of life's purpose handed down to us through the millennia in both the East and West has often borne the instruction, "Know Thyself: But understanding this path clearly and fully is challenging for modern-day Westerners due to the old cultural contexts in which those teachings are embedded.

Paul Brunton ("PB; as he referred to himself) grappled with these cultural ,obstacles at a time when very little was available in Western languages. PB traveled tirelessly to discover living teachers and little known texts, and through the breadth of his experience and insight, he recreated for the first time in English a systematic explanation of this liberating doctrine and its practices. II, understanding and following is spiritual seekers arc led to realize their (herself and its relation with the World-Mind (fresh terms PB created that Ldp fret the reader from misleading conventional associations with the words Sour and "God"). Between 1934 and 1952, he wrote ten books that guide the spiritual aspirant ever deeper, culminating in a grand vision of reality in The Wisdom of the Oversell.

It is impossible to convey the majesty of The Wisdom of the Oversell. Together with his prior book, The Hidden Teaching Beyond Yoga, PB leads the Eerier in a progressive, rational manner to freedom from the materialistic preconceptions about the nature of self and the world. His writings awaken the individual to his or her divine roots and reveal the world's intelligent and interdependent basis, through demonstrating the oneness of all. PB formulates teachings as mentalism, the doctrine that posits the experience of the world as consisting only of thoughts, whether those thoughts are sensations, images, feelings, memories, visions, concepts, et cetera. When experience is investigated properly and thoroughly, there is no separate "scuff" that can be discovered other than contents of consciousness. Self and world have Mind as their unific foundation. As he writes: "This does not mean that the world is so utterly illusory that it is non-existent. It has a relative existence for everyone. But the enlightened ones are aware of the truth that Mind-in-Itself is there. They know it also by the wonderful experience of cosmic consciousness when everything falls away-including their own personal ego-and only THAT remains."

Materialistic thinking, which wrongly believes that humans are limited by their skin and that the world is separate and external, is forever destroyed in the realization that Mind alone is. PB unfolds this insight for students as would a caring, sagacious elder. He opens our eyes through his teachings to recognize these truths with every bit of our being: insight and love are our birthright; life is grandly significant; and compassionate action is the natural and only real choice.

Especially since the x96os there has been a wonderful, hope-giving explosion of information and teachers available on every type of spiritual pursuit and path for self-development, from Buddhism, Advaita Vedanta, yoga, and nondualism, to a myriad of self-help techniques. Without a basic framework to guide the student, it is easy to become confused as to what is essential to one's growth and what is not. PB provides a broad perspective by which philosophic and mystical teachings can be understood and evaluated for oneself. Today, for westernized, scientifically oriented searchers for truth, his teachings remain, in our opinion, unmatched in their scope, depth, and ability to trans-form confusion into lucid, joyous, inspired living.

**Contents and Sample Pages**