The attempt to suppress pride out of guilt simply does not work. It is not helpful to label the energy of pride a “sin” and to suppress it in ourselves out of guilt, to hide it, or pretend that we do not experience it. What happens is that energy subtly takes on a new form, known as spiritual pride. We do not feel comfortable in the presence of those who are prideful; therefore, pridefulness blocks communication and the expressive love. Although we love those who are prideful about specific accomplishments, we love them in spite of their pride and not because of it. Feeling guilty about pride as a spiritual sin only locks it in and, as we have said, is not really the answer. The real answer is merely to let  out it by examining its true nature. Once we see pride for what it is, it is one of the easier emotions to surrender to. What is the purpose of pride? What is its payoff? Why do I seek it? For what does it compensate? What do I have to realize about my nature in order to let pride go without a feeling of loss? The smaller we feel within, the more we have to compensate for an inner sense of inadequacy, unimportance, and valuelessness by the substitution of the emotion of pride. #RandolphHarris 1 of 5

The more we surrender our negative emotions, the less we will rely on the crutch of pride. In its place, there will be a quality that the World calls “humility” and that we subjectively experience as peacefulness. True humility is distinct from the paradox of “pride in one’s humility” or “false modesty,” seen frequently in the public arena. False modesty is the pretense of self-diminishment with the longing that others will recognize the accomplishments that one is so proud of, but too proud to brag about openly. True humility cannot be experiences by the person who is said to possess it, because it is not an emotion. Truly humble cannot be humbled. They are immune to humiliation. They have nothing to defend. There is no vulnerability and, therefore, the truly humble do not experience critical attacks by others. Instead, a truly humble person sees the critical verbalization by another person as merely a statement of the other person’s inner problems. #RandolphHarris 2 of 5

Morality lay not in our relationships with what we know, but in how admirably we deal with what we do not. In the face of what we do not understand, how curious are we? How fearfully strict? How deferential to others? When a person says things like, “You think you are pretty good, don’t you?” what the truly humble person would see is that the other person has a problem with envy, and their question has no basis in reality in the first place. There is nothing to be offended by and no need to react. In contrast, for a prideful person, this question would be viewed as an insult and lead to hurt feelings, verbal comeback, or even a violent end in some cases. However, far away under the blue sky, above the green tree, far away in the open country, in the fields and the woods, the life of spring is unfolding now, mysterious, lovely, rich, and holy beyond the understanding of weak, sinful man. My Heaven is the human body, health, intelligence, talent, inspiration, love and the most absolute freedom imaginable, freedom from violence and lies, no matter from what from the latter two take. #RandolphHarris 3 of 5

End-of-history thinking is yet another example of how our minds try to order the untidy World. The tendency to airbrush away ambiguity is so deeply ingrained that it is not so surprising that we streamline history, too, or view the past as important only for the role it played in getting us to where we are now. We tend to think that we are developed, fully realized, complete. What has been exists as little as what has never been and that something of great importance now past is inferior to something of little importance now present. If only the present counts, then past sorrows no less than the past pleasures do not count. People who enjoy the richness of their comprehensive life will not in old age envy the young because instead of possibilities they have the realities of their past. Some people use envy as a cheap consolation and the attempts to cover up deep and inevitable misery that are the stock in trade of a great deal of popular psychology. Many great human beings are bound to feel inferior on certain occasions. #RandolphHarris 4 of 5

To a man dying of cancer it is small consolation to reflect that there was a time when he was happy and flourishing; and while there are undoubtedly some antiquated people who do not envy the young, it may be suspected that more often the kind of talk advocated by the prophets of beneficial thinking is a mask for envy and a defense against exceedingly painful feelings of regret and helpfulness in the face of aging and death and now unalterable past. “Have you forgotten that this is my flat? That I am the one who has made you welcome here! That you exist because of me! Out of my house, you wretched little ingrate, get out now before I throw you down the steps! You are a power slut, that is what you are, using every edge of your sex or youth can give you, a moral Lilliputian in grown-up shoes, a career adolescent, a professional child! You do not know the meaning of philosophical insight, nor spiritual engagement, or true growth! Out, out of here now, Heir to the Harris Legacy, what a fiasco that must have been, go beat up on your mortal family at Fifth Street, rave at them until you drive them out of their minds and they crack you over the head with their shovel and bury you alive in the backyard.” #RandolphHarris 5 of 5