With this category, we encounter another major turning point of the quest: the point at which the ego relinquishes the practices and pace to the Overself. On the Long Path we initiate our development through our own effort. For guidance on the Long Path we must rely on our own intelligence and feelings, strengthened by the external influence of friends, teachers, and sacred literature. This point of view is established in category two, Practices for the Quest, and is maintained through the categories that follow, dealing with the nature of this quest, the structure of the ego, the experiences of mysticism, the study of philosophy, and the understanding of mentalism. All these work toward weakening our identification with the ego and strengthening our awareness of the Overself.
The practices and attitudes presented in Advanced Contemplation deepen this contact with the Overself until the ego must surrender to its guidance both in daily life and in meditation. Here we begin the quest anew, with a direct comprehension of the goal for the first time. At last we come to know that nothing else matters, that there is nothing outside the quest. Up to this point the quest may be an intermittent affair, a confusing journey through the misconceptions and misdirections of the ego; hereafter, the student moves in light along the mysterious path of spiritual attainment. This is because the quester is no longer primarily concerned with battling the ego; the focus is now on living always in the presence of the Overself.
Advanced Contemplation explores the nature of this redirection of attention from ego to Overself and shows us how it can be done. Then The Peace Within You shows us how to live inside the quest, inside the stillness of the Overself, once this transition has occurred.
As we look through the topics in The Notebooks, we can see that P.B. considers the quest as ascending through three levels: the physical, the subtle, and the mental. As P.B. examines each level, he alternates between objective understanding and subjective awareness. For example, in The Sensitives (category sixteen) P.B. acquaints us with the misconceptions and ignorance about the psychic realm. This acquaintance prepares the way for The Reverential Life (category eighteen), where we turn our hearts toward the image of the Overself in the subtle plane of interior feeling. P.B. repeats this pattern in categories nineteen through twenty-two: First he defines the characteristics with which mind imbues experience and the nature of the mind itself (nineteen through twenty-one); then he lifts our awareness beyond the mental plane into the intuitive awareness of the Overself (twenty-two).
This pattern of alternating objective and subjective perspectives reaches its conclusion in Advanced Contemplation. On a first reading, this category may appear to have two sections: the first five chapters, which include the definitions of the Short Path and its combination with the Long Path, and the last three chapters, which describe various techniques for advanced meditation, including contemplations of the Void. However, a closer reading will show that this category is a whole.
The difference between the extroverted state of mind, treated in the first five chapters, and the introverted mind, treated in the last three chapters, must become very slight if this stage of the quest is to be successful. In fact, in the next category, The Peace within You, this difference vanishes as completely as it can. This blending of the objective and subjective perspectives is a central point for the interplay of these two categories, which are bound together as one volume in the printed edition. In the opening chapter of Advanced Contemplation, P.B. tells us to begin and end with the goal, to turn 180 degrees around--not away from the ego, but toward the Overself. He tells us to face the Overself always, and in all ways: to orient our daily life and activities towards the achievement of its presence, and to devote our meditations not to its symbols or signs but to itself alone. This single-minded focus on the transcendent Overself naturally draws the extroverted mind and the introverted mind more closely together, since the primary content of either one is now the same. When P.B. describes the Void as a contemplative state, he makes it clear that no sort of subject or object can exist in that state, and that the stillness it generates cannot be accurately described in either context alone.
Another point P.B. makes in Advanced Contemplation is that the Short Path gets its name neither from its speed of attainment nor from its ease of accomplishment, but from the directness of its approach to the quest. Like a solitary ascent of a challenging cliff-face, the Short Path keenly focuses the mind on the demands of spiritual development. This approach is a necessary stage of the quest, and one whose dangers are real if we make the assault unready and unaware. The nature of these risks and remedies is discussed in the second and third chapters. Having made the challenge and the warnings clear, in chapter four P.B. describes exactly how we can make the changeover to the Short Path. Then, in chapter five, P.B. adds his wonderful sense of balance to the picture, pointing out the place of the Long Path's milder approach--as first separate, then interwoven with, and finally combining with the Short Path to become the philosopher's way of life. So P.B. begins by presenting the Short Path as a challenge to the quester, but concludes by stating that the Short Path, when balanced by the Long Path, becomes the "way'' of living in the radiant presence of the Overself.
The chapters of Advanced Contemplation are arranged as a development from simple to more advanced stages of practice. The fundamental stages, however, are only briefly described here, as they have been fully discussed in earlier categories. We recommend that readers review Practices for the Quest (category two) and Meditation (category four) as a part of studying Advanced Contemplation. Category two gives a full consideration of the Long Path; it may be helpful to read chapters one and nine there before reading chapters four and five of the present category. It is likewise especially important to review the section titled "Levels of Absorption'' in the first chapter of Meditation (category four) before reading the meditation exercises and experiences in chapters six through eight of Advanced Contemplation. That section defines and describes all the stages of meditation, right up through advanced contemplation, and gives some indication of how to recognize them. Readers who have already studied Meditation will notice that we have repeated nine paras from that section as a reference guide to P.B.'s description and definition of the various stages of meditation and contemplation; see paras 52-60 in chapter seven, "Contemplative Stillness," below.
We should also mention that chapter three, "The Dark Night of the Soul,'' is not a topic P.B. originally assigned to this category. These paras were originally scattered throughout the various categories. We felt, however, that having all this material in one place would be useful to individuals confronted with this difficult experience, and that the subject--while not exactly belonging in Advanced Contemplation--does depend upon ideas and practices first described here. This artificial gathering of a topic into one place by the editors is very rare in the Notebooks series--almost all topics were originally given their placement into specific categories by P.B.
Editorial conventions here are the same as stated in the introductions to Perspectives and The Quest. Likewise, (P) at the end of a para indicates that it also appears in Perspectives, the introductory volume to this series.