3 Review(s)

Paul Brunton was among the most eloquent inspirers of independent, individualized modern spirituality. From his early years as an effective popularizer of meditation to the masterful West-East philosophical synthesis of his maturity, he was both a debunker and a revealer-with special gifts for evoking the living presence of the heart's noblest ideals. Reflections, volume eight in The Notebooks of Paul Brunton, contains primarily PB's reflections about himself-50 years of research, practice, and writing-and the people, influences and events he considered significant in his life. This is a mosaic of autobiographical excerpts from Paul Brunton's personal notebooks. It brings together a variety of the author's most personal thoughts and observations. Paul Brunton was an intensely private and naturally unassuming man. He continually sought for effective ways to bring his ideas to the public mind and keep his own personality at a low profile. When pressed to describe himself, he usually said that he was a researcher-which he defined as one who creates new knowledge. Maturing with a century that brought more changes than the previous thousand years, he witnessed the advent of the automobile, the airplane, radio, television, and nuclear power, and devoted his life to a path of spiritual discovery suitable for this epoch of turmoil and transition. The inner and outer aspects of this quietly paradoxical individual were remarkably different from one another. Inwardly, Paul Brunton was a tirelessly exacting scholar and researcher of philosophical and religious ideas and practices. Outwardly, he dedicated himself to sharing his hard-earned understanding in the simplest, most inspiring and nontechnical form he could develop. In him, the poet's reverence for beauty and the scientist's reverence for truth demanded the creation of a mutually satisfying common language. The process gave birth to a voice that bridges an earlier and a future time.