The Quest of the Overself - Paul Brunton




My favorite book by the author is "A Search in Secret India" which was an engaging, entertaining book. I was a fan immediately. Picking "The Quest of the Overself" off the JustBooks shelf, I was hopeful that this would be similar.

It wasn't.

This is Paul Brunton's textbook for the Western spiritual aspirant.

Brunton chooses antiquated English as his medium and couples that with a loopy indirect style for large segments of the book rendering this a difficult read from the start. The book begins with a 60 or 70 page defence of his earlier books (specifically "A Search In Secret Egypt") and an affronted Brunton continues to bristle for large runs stung as he perhaps was with a home audience who had passed their judgement simply on account of his choice of subject and his alien and fantastic proclamations.

In the second half of the book, Brunton gets to the core of his message and in these parts his style is direct and more refreshing, not to mention readable (thankfully). Towards the end, Brunton reverts to the jarring antiquated style suggesting that the front and the rear of the work were bolted on for the wrong reasons and mostly in the wrong mood.

All in all, this is a difficult read, but Brunton's description, exercises and suggestions are worth their weight ... antiquity or otherwise. A worthwhile but difficult read.

The Heart meditation is derived from Ramana Maharishi's teachings, but his meditations and exercises for visualization must have been original back then, making this a worthwhile effort on his behalf.