Ultimately, everything is more mysterious than we can imagine. The need for philosophy arises from the apparently irreconcilable opposition between different elements in our spiritual life—between subject and object, religion and science, freedom and determination, reason and desire. Unless we reconcile these antagonisms in a higher unity, we cannot achieve the spiritual harmony without the highest achievements of humankind are possible. While none of us can escape our limited mental maps of the World, we can sample from other cultures and subcultures and discover new ways of looking at things. To teach the material of knowledge, one is given a sense of perception and the mind then goes to work on it, ordering by concept supplied by itself. There are no objects until thought has done its work. Thought enters into the very constitution of experience. And further, the process of knowing is dominated by an idea of Reason, which drives the mind to seek a form of experience in which all differences are seen as elements in a single system. We can, in a sense, begin to triangulate the truth.  #RandolphHarris 1 of 6

Activity confines us to appearances and bars us from things-in-themselves. Our knowledge of objects will be imperfect insofar as we fail to recognize that they are only partial aspects of the ideal whole toward which reason points. We can refine our necessarily aggressive preconceptions (as what we learn morphs into habit), but until we are part of eternal life, we will not learn everything. Until then there remain vast areas of knowledge—of ideas, people, and places—where our mental models are not fully informed. Yet we can be bighearted and acknowledge these gaps. We can work, persistently, to seek out the contradictions our minds naturally work to eliminate. When we can establish the power of human beings to determine their conduct by reference to the self, as a permanent center, as distinct from its relatively isolated and transient desires, we become inspired and eradicate contradictions. Healing beings in a wound, an imperfection—a wound inherent in the nature of life itself—and is an attempt either to learn to live with the wound or to heal it. A self-conscience being seeks self-satisfaction, not just the satisfaction of this or that desire. And in this power of determining conduct by reference to the self lies human freedom.  #RandolphHarris 2 of 6

Many people have been in situations that they have tried to help another person, but that other person never does anything in return, never gives back to the relationship, but constantly needs you. And no matter how many times you forgive him or her, you are reminded of what they did to hurt you and how much of it was intentional and you get upset. Although you may love an individual, life is about self-preservation and if someone is not helping you in return, you have to save yourself. No one wants to live in a state of conflict habitual. Studies have shown that a high need for closure hurts healing. Cultivating ambiguity helps us keep an open mind and empathize with different viewpoints. When we assemble, we can take the uncertainties in our lives and create something out of them. The most obvious and visible effect of letting go of negative feelings is a resumption of emotional and psychological growth and the solving of problems, which often have been long-standing. There is pleasure and satisfaction as we begin to experience the powerful effects of eliminating the blocks to achievement and satisfaction in life.  #RandolphHarris 3 of 6

We soon discover that the limiting thoughts and negative beliefs, which we have naively held to be true, were all merely the result of accumulated negative feelings. When the feelings are let go, them the thought pattern changes from feeling constricted to feeling a sense of freedom and being happy. Entire areas of life can open up. What used to be awkward or unexpressed can become effortless and joyously alive. Surrender at great depth is complete when a person has let go of needing or wanting a physical healing to occur. A state of peace about the situation is reached when all three aspects of illness—physical, mental, and spiritual—have been addressed and the final outcome or wished-for recovery has been surrendered. Peace comes with total inner surrender to what is clearly the known method or program that is usually followed. Repressed and suppressed feelings require counter energy to keep them submerged. It takes energy to hold down our feelings. As these feelings are relinquished, the negativity is now freed for constructive use. #RandolphHarris 4 of 6

Because we let go, there is an increase in available energy for creativity, growth, work and interpersonal relationships. The quality and enjoyment of these new activities increases. Most people are too exhausted to bring a really high quality into their experiences unless the negative programs opposing them have been resolved. Take a guess as to how much you have changed over the last ten years on a scale from 1 to 10. Now, on the same scale, estimate how much you will change over the next decades. How do your two ratings compare? Do you assess your past changes differently from how you predict your future ones? Most people do. Vulnerability can be a risk, especially emotionally, but not doing what we can to access it is a bigger risk. Turning toward our pain is an enormously important step in our personal evolution. It does not matter how small the step is, so long as we take it, and keep taking it. Because we are conditioned to turn away from or avoid our pain, turning toward it may feel counterintuitive, at least at first.  #RandolphHarris 5 of 6

About 50 percent of all patients hospitalized for heart disease show moderate to severe depression, with the most severe depression usually accompanying the more serious disease. It has been estimated that up to 33 percent of all patients who have had a heart attack fail to return to work not because of physical problems but because of psychological problems. This failure to return to work will itself often lead to increased social isolation, loneliness, and depression—all of which are quite certain to affect the heart adversely. The problems cause by this new type of loneliness may ultimately be lethal. Love and affection are major influences on the human heart. To end your suffering, enter your pain. This means getting to know it and its roots, exploring it deeply, moving through it slowly but surely. You cannot emerge from your pain unless you enter it, and this begins with turning toward it. For me, my pain came from being alone, but I realized maybe being alone was the best thing for me because being there for someone who only uses one and is never there, is basically a painful form of being alone. Each of our emotions is worth getting to know very, very well—its nature, its purpose, its expression, its containment, its value, one’s history with it, one’s use and misuse of it. #RandolphHarris 6 of 6