The God within the mind distinguishes between virtue and vice, to which allows instinct and social love to flourish. Growth of knowledge begins with the imaginative proposal of hypotheses, a matter of individual and unpredictable insight that cannot be reduced to rule. Celebrate the new aspects of your experience that were born as a result of your willingness to let old habits, behaviors, and attitudes pass by. There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle, the other is as though everything is a miracle. The difference between the two may not only be the key to happiness, but the key to sanity; research from the National Social Survey reports a high correlation between spirituality and mental health. Advances in adulthood spirituality are what allow a person to be the author of his or her own moral life. Adults who have done the demanding work of discovering their own spiritual beliefs are more able than others to make moral decisions and stand by them, even if the decision causes them some pain. These people make the best leaders. Reading and studying the scriptures makes us conscious of the many conditional promises made by the Lord to encourage obedience and righteous living. Remind yourself that every time you have ever let go of something good, you have gotten something else you could appreciate. “Learn wisdom in youth to keep the commandments of God, reports Alma 37.35. #RandolphHarris 1 of 6

Several experiences in the World are instructive to us regarding the importance placed by the Lord on keeping commitments and on being committed to following the commandments and direction God has given us. “Be strong and of a good courage: for unto this people shat thou divide for an inheritance the land, which I swear unto their fathers to give them,” Joshua 1.5-6. The World was created by God, so it is God’s World. However, some people have chosen to act on a primitive level and they are trying to force that consciousness on the World. However, regardless of how ungodly people behave, we subscribe to the covenants of the Lord, these stories of spiritual rebirth and leadership reflect our psychological truths. Many scholars believe that adulthood offers the best opportunity for deep conversion of the spirit because it is during this period that a person experiences a convergence of life skills, confidence, pain over the harsh realities and compelling necessities of life, and a desire to rethink inconsistencies or untenable spiritual beliefs. “Only be thou strong and very courageous that thou mayest observe to do according to all the law, so that thou mayest prosper withersoever thou goest,” reports Joshua. Unexpected struggle and newly acquired leadership can encourage us to take full possession of our moral life. Only after we completely integrate and own our personal spiritual beliefs can we embrace the social and political problems of the World. #RandolphHarris 2 of 6

Even if people have grown up with a strong faith, our faith needs to be reaffirmed or replenished in adulthood. For mature life presents us with a wonderful chance to transcend the boundaries of our own identity and participate in the greater reality of nature, the cosmos, and the God-source. Science is not a system of certain, or well-established, statements. Our science is not knowledge (episteme): it can never claim to have attained truth, nor even a substitute for it, such as probability. We do not know: we can only guess. Life, as we live it today, is more highly socialized, more urbanized, more—so far as external relationships are concerned—standardized than it used to be. The World has become uncomfortably small; we have not yet gained a complete control of our excessive procreational activity; so that there are far too many of us, and, being so closely crowded together, we have to adopt all sorts of new precautions to avoid friction and permit of the greatest amount of mutual freedom available within our unduly narrow frontiers. So many of the old traditional social taboos having become antiquated or no longer adequate, there has been a furious activity in making new laws and regulations, without a due recognition of the fact that old taboos can only be replaced by new taboos, and that mere legal enactments, enforced, or left unenforced, by paid officials or the police, to be effective must themselves become taboos, printed on the fleshly tablets of the individual citizen’s heart. #RandolphHarris 3 of 6

When we return to our home in Heaven, and go to meet God, we are not going to be asked why we did not become a Messiah nor find a cure for spina bifida. Instead, we will be asked, “Why did you not become you?” The idea of becoming oneself may strike you as a bit odd. Clearly, you are already yourself. Others recognize you as you. Who else could be you? At the core of each of us, however, is an essential self, one we have been trying to uncover. God is an eternal Being, what seems to us simple mortals as a drear immensity of wasted time is to him but the twinkling of an eye. We now have good reasons to believe that the surviving life forms are those which adapt to the environment rather than those for whom the environment has been adapted by a beneficent Overseer. “Have not I commanded thee? Be strong and of good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee withersoever thou goest,” reports Joshua 1.9. Sometimes we need courage for what we have to do. We need the Lord’s help at every step. Here is a commitment of the Lord to provide that help. With faith in the Lord, we are able to go forward, knowing that God is directing us in the way we should go. Through our obedience we will have success, and although we do not know exactly how we will succeed, we now   have confidence in the result. “Sanctity yourselves: for tomorrow the Lord will do wonders among you,” reports Joshua 3.5. #RandolphHarris 4 of 6

Victory will surely come and it will depend upon our willingness to do the will of the Lord. “This day will begin to magnify thee in the sight of all the World, that they may know that, as I was with Moses, so I will be with thee,” reports Joshua 3.7. Understand that the miracles of the Lord will continue. Do precisely as instructed, and the promise of the Lord will be fulfilled. The instructions no doubt might seem unusual, but your faith in the outcome should urge you on. The result, of course, will be another long series of miracles that are promised by those who are committed to follow the commandments and the directives of the Lord. God pervades the World; the passions follow the leadership of rational insight; people are here to contemplate and to act. Humanity is the continuous and uninterrupted tradition of the human race, and it is the divinity of God that must be accepted to save our souls. The wisdom and providence of humanity preside infallibly over the realization of progress. At the end of progress there is sociocracy, a new absolutist social regime based on science and the religion of spirit and matter, of God and the World. As we travel down the pathways of mental mastery, physical vigor, emotional vitality, interpersonal effectiveness, exceptional competence, and spiritual serenity, we will undoubtably notice that the key to becoming one’s true self in each of these areas is accepting who we are, making the most of it, and living honorably, rather than becoming something or someone else. #RandolphHarris 5 of 6

The Lord’s will cannot be altered by anything anyone else might do. Be firmly in control of your actions and have your eyes fixed on the commandments of the Lord. Be committed to obedience. Surely the Lord loves, more than anything else, an unwavering determination to obey his counsel. Think of the real you as Sleeping Beauty—beautiful, though untouched and untired—lying behind an overgrowth of brier bushes so tangled that anyone who tried to get in from the outside must ultimately fail. True happiness can only be found once the spell is broken. Your spell, which includes the limitations of circumstance, societal expectations, and your own fears, has, with any luck, begun to break as you performed the spiritual renewal practices and have given yourself some much-needed time and attention. In the moment of such a union the soul has become God, or, rather, is God; the soul has reascended to its original source. And the Lord said, “I will prepare a stone, which shall shine forth in darkness unto light, that I may discover unto my people who serve me, that I may discover unto them the works of their brethren, yea, their secret works, their works of darkness, and their wickedness and abominations. If they do not repent, I will destroy them from off the face of the Earth; and I will bring to light all their secrets and abominations, unto every nation that shall hereafter possess the land,” reports Alma 23-25. #RandolphHarris 6 of 6