In so complex a thing as human nature, it is hard to find rules without exceptions. The World, or cosmos, is an organic whole animated by a World soul or an entelechy that is revealed in the structure, function, and connection of its parts. We cannot know the real nature of things, but only their appearances and effects. God, or the Absolute, in creating the cosmos out of nothing, created it not as something external or alien to him (for then it would limit the Absolute, which is impossible), but as an emanation of his own nature; the World is God as becoming, the divine fused with nothingness. Many people speak of karma, and it usually means what goes around comes around. The path to creating a good destiny or fate, has to do with a person’s actions in this state of existence, and their actions and words are what brings them their reality. This path has the following stages: right views, right aspirations, right speech, right conduct, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right contemplations. It all has to do with one’s frame of mind and the aspirant and the mystical knowledge of the ultimate truth for the serenity that goes with it.  #RandolphHarris 1 of 6

The goal is to restore good health. We have been taught that humans have free will, but how can this true? If God tells us that we have to be good in order to receive his grace, how can we really have free will? Good actions lead to grace and this restricts accountability to a narrow and extrinsic sphere of material liberty. Some people do not know good behavior from deviant behavior and will do things like donate to charity and become spokes people for underrepresented groups as a means of masking their bad behavior and making themselves feel better about their wicked behavior. Others do charity work because they really care about people and the community and truly want to save lives. Practical psychology is a great means of understanding acceptable human behavior because it is more concrete and explains why certain behaviors are unhealthy and why others behaviors are good, and this will help to heal the human will from sin. However, revelation is essential to this healing process. The human will’s independence of the intellect is important in revelation.  People have it within their power to reflect, to weigh, and to appreciate, before they act. #RandolphHarris 2 of 6

When food is scarce, and when food is plenty, a wolf grows bold. Some religions ban the taking of life; stealing; wrong sexual relations; wrong use of speech (not just lying; malicious gossip, for instance, even if true is forbidden); and the consumption of drugs and alcohol. And this is why some people practice celibacy. Also, intoxicants are banned, since it is held that these cloud such awareness. Mediating between the Absolute and the cosmos, uniting them both within itself, is a third being—Sophia, the principle of divine wisdom. As the World of Platonic ideas, Sophia is the ideal basis of the cosmos; as the object of divine love, purely receptive and conceiving everything within herself as the womb of being, Sophia is eternal femininity; as the principle of the Divine within the created, she is the World soul, or entelechy; as a participant with the Trinity in the generation of the cosmos, she is kind of a fourth hypostasis in God. However, still, the ultimate metaphysical identity is consubstantiality of God and the cosmos. Nonetheless, humans are not by nature destitute of truth and love, nobility and purity—the annals of the World show how untrue it is.  #RandolphHarris 3 of 6

Many people still are confused with the problem of evil and human freedom. Evil, perhaps, can be attributed to the nothingness or nonbeing that is the substratum of the cosmos: through the willfulness of created beings, nothingness is actualized as a chaotic force erupting into the created World, which in itself is not evil but simply incomplete. And yet, it not much of human kind itself, pushing on its blind way, driven by a dream of its greatness and its power upon the dark paths of excessive cruelty and of excessive devotion. Therefore, human freedom must be a doctrine of self-creation: humans are free even in act by which one comes into existence, for God allows humans to collaborate in their own creation; at the same time, Sophia guides history by kind of necessity. If one sees success from within the labyrinthine path, sees the kind of soul involved in success, sees also what success looks like from the point of view of the soul of the World, well, the whole quality of success changes. One things it through thoroughly from the side of the individual and from the side of the World and this thinking through becomes a way of ensouling. This kind of thinking forms the path to freedom because the forces of the soul have been released. #RandolphHarris 4 of 6

We find this direction of soul movement in individual development. In early life of a person, during childhood, all the powers of the soul are bound up in bodily development; they make the body. Later, during adolescence, the soul forces go into the development of the ego—the ego is simply consciousness as a mirror of the body. By body here, we are speaking more of thoughts, memories, sensations, and images that one already has; these are all reflected in what is called the ego. Later, these creating forces of soul become more and more free. Violence belongs to imagination as its inherent shaping force, and when it does not have the container of image it goes wild because something essential has been removed. In present culture violence, itself has become a dominant image as if it were expressing a need for attention. Nearly every contemporary film centers on violence and lack of beauty. During the medieval person, Christianity proclaimed the strictly spiritual nature of God and Christ and stigmatized all material existence as the work of the Devil.  #RandolphHarris 5 of 6

In Medieval times, the Bogomiles rejected the doctrine of the Incarnation and of the bodily life of Christ as well as every material aspect of religious thought and practice—sacraments, the cross, church edifices, and ecclesiastical ceremonies. They advocated asceticism and simple spiritual devotion. Even with all considered, the World God created is good, and when human begin to work alongside God in creation, things become very good. Time is not the mind’s form of comprehending the events it perceives. The heart says yes there is something here to behold beyond what I think or feel about it. The heart does not strive after meaning, but rather allows the things to disclose themselves. Therefore, the true nature of humans is far from being in itself evil; it abounds with benevolence, charity, and pity, coveting praise and honor, and shunning shame and disgrace. Bad education, bad habits, and bad customs, debauch our nature, and drive it headlong as it were into vice. No one is born into the World without one’s allotment. Nature equips all creatures with what is most expedient for them.  #RandolphHarris 6 of 6