Spiritual pride is the most subtle form of egotism. Many believers on the path are terrible egotists, blocked from light by their storehouses of intellectual facts.

It is dangerous to attempt to store knowledge, with which you try to prepare yourself for each moment.

By such a preparation, you sever the life line to the Presence. Instead of living spontaneously, you will be living a play actor’s life of prepared speeches and actions, that all too often are out of place when that vital moment arrives.

Perhaps you will speak your mind, but this will also be out of turn. Perhaps you might forget your rehearsal, and again act unwisely during the performance.

In that moment for Truth, all the mental speeches are washed away, and you forget what you so carefully planned. Again you are conquered by the world, reacting as a frightened animal—running or fighting against that moment with words or deeds that will make you sorry later.

Then again, you might be paralyzed by the excitement of the moment, standing speechless with fear, unable to function for fear of making the same mistakes of the past.

Perhaps you will have prepared a nice long speech against your foe; but it turns out that your enemy is somewhat repentant and apologetic. Therefore, instead of blasting him, you now bend over backwards to please him, in order to compensate for the guilty feeling in your resentful soul.

This, too, constitutes a moment badly met. Badly-met moments in experience lead to guilt and fear, and the use of a complex variety of defensive and offensive methods with which you try to offset your inadequate feelings.

These feelings continue to grow as long as we fail to meet life on time. We must learn how to live life by faith and insight.

Through our compulsive planning and analysis we only blind ourselves from inward perception. We demonstrate our faithlessness when we depend upon our cunning, planned analysis.

We must then learn to rely upon the revelation that bubbles up inside ourselves, with which we can successfully conquer each moment.

We must be careful not to try too hard to recall those revelations, for this would again reveal our egotistical hunger to store wisdom in our intellect.

The essence of true wisdom is trust in God. Whatever grace is given us in the form of intuitive understanding for that moment should merely be observed in our hearts.

"...learn to rely upon the revelation that bubbles up inside..."

We should know in our hearts that we can rely upon that same power to again show us that knowledge. When true insight is bestowed upon us, it tends to trigger thousands of new ideas that will parade through our minds for minutes, days, weeks, or perhaps months.

However, this practice of receiving the seeds of insight is cultivated only when we cease struggling to sterilize the insight by rote memorization, for our insight is a seed that must be allowed to grow and flower effortlessly.

You must be willing to lose sight of that initial seedling revelation, while an entire new framework of thought grows up inside of you, proceeding out of that magic seed. If you will ponder upon this presentation, you will see that insight as a result of your love of Truth.

That wordless revelation carries with it the genes of a gigantic parade of thoughts that will remold your mind from that inward Source.

This parade of thoughts will be the outgrowth of the inner insight, and the cause of the renewed grouping of ideas.

The mind, thus retrained, becomes a more efficient, more receptive, and more perceptive vehicle with which to see and to express the delicate refinements of Truth.

We may also mention the tremendous physical benefits of this wonderful process.

So, when you begin to learn the techniques of meditation, be careful that you do not commit the terrible blunder of enjoying the excitement of Truth in the erroneous way, saying in your heart: “This is so good, that if only I could have more of these thoughts, perhaps I would feel better.”

This is the moment when you will tend to rush forward in impatience, ravenously gathering facts; but at that moment you will be blocking off your wondrous inside story.

This is a sly trick of the falling ego; for the external study is the food that serves to revitalize and nourish the pride of achievement. Therefore, do not be afraid to forget— for what was once revealed will be revealed again, if and when it is needed.

Keep your mind free from the burden of spiritual knowledge, which can be the most dangerous of all forms of knowledge.

If you free your mind in this manner, you will learn to live successfully out of each moment, for you then will be demonstrating faith.