Search for the Infinite

India has attracted several travelers who visited this auspicious land. Many came and settled here. Many others found their Guru here. Some of them took stories from Indian scriptures and sages to the West, mesmerizing them more. One such traveler was Paul Brunton. He travelled across India, met several gurus and came up with a compendium on his experiences, on Yoga, scriptures etc. called – ‘A Search in Secret India’.

Raphael Hurst (pen name Paul Brunton), was born in 1898 in London. He is best known as one of the early popularizers of Neo-Hindu spiritualism. He broke the shackles of three dimensions in 1981. 

Some excerpts from the book:

1. “Life always continues.” he answers cryptically. “Death is but a habit of the body”.
2. I perceive with sudden clarity that the intellect creates its own problems and then makes itself miserable trying to solve them. This is indeed a novel concept to enter the mind of one who has hitherto placed such high value upon intellect. (141)
3. “I have frequently given myself up to meditation up on the truth, but I see now signs of progress.” “How do you know that no progress has been made? It is not easy to perceive one’s progress in the spiritual realm.” (145)
4. As you are so is the world. Without understanding yourself, what is the use of trying to understand the world. (146)
5. Setting apart time for meditation is only for the merest spiritual novices. A man who is advancing will begin to enjoy the deeper beatitude, whether he is at work or not. While his hands are in society, he keeps his head cool in solitude. (157)
6. – that a man can be perfectly spiritual without running away to caves, and that he can reach the highest attainments of Yoga while carrying on with worldly avocations. (230)
7. No one is excluded from this divine consciousness; it is man who excludes himself. (306)

Read the point 2 again in light with point 5 of the post – The Crest Jewel of Intellect. There subtle match between 2 points, from two very different sources.

The books covers several spiritual practices such as Body Control Yoga, Signs of a Yogi, Sound Yoga, Astrology etc.

‘A Search in Secret India’ has been translated into more than 20 languages. In 1930, the author embarked on a voyage to India, which brought him into contact with gurus & sages such as Meher Baba, Vishuddhananda Paramahansa, Paramacharya of Kanchipuram and Ramana Maharishi.

With just above 300 pages and 17 chapters, the book is an interesting journey across India, covering several places – Mumbai (then Bombay), Ahmednagar (Meher Baba), Arunachal in South India (Ramana Maharishi), Kanchipuram, Dayalbagh, Varanasi, Calcutta etc.