It was peaceful here as we went through the purification. All was beauty around me. Looking at an amazing Sunset, the sky was luminous with two long streaks of light yellow clouds, lending a radiance against which the Sun sank toward the sea. The great red-orange ball, getting larger as it neared the horizon, seemed to reach out too eagerly to make passionate contact with the houses located at Cresleigh Rocklin Trails. Just as the Sun seemed ready to dip below the horizon, it hesitated a moment and spread out its radiance as though to remind us of its mastery of our Universe. Then suddenly it was gone, leaving behind a sky and a sea painted with every kind of riotous red and lustrous yellow in every combination. Yes, it is a palace fit for an Emperor. When the Lord made the World, was it not Wisdom who said the new humanity will be universal, and it will have the artist’s attitude; that is, it will recognize that the immense value and beauty of the human being is possessed precisely in the fact that one belongs to the two kingdoms of nature and the spirit. A well-dressed man stood next to me at the rail watching the Sunset. From his tiny tailored moustache and his dark complexion I imagined that he was Turkish. He said something to me I did not understand, and we both smiled a little apologetically because I could speak no Turkish and he apparently knew no English. #RandolphHarris 1 of 16

Nonetheless, we immediately recovered our dignity nodding toward the same Sunset which captivated us both, a bond between us as we watched nature’s brilliance overflow on to the profligate sea. On the other side of me stood a blondish woman, perhaps in her early twenties, with deep grey eyes and smooth features. I imagined her to be Scandinavian. However, when she also smiled at me and murmured, “Schon, schon,” I knew she was German. It was only later that I began to realize that these two persons, my companions in watching nature’s magnificence, knew that the quest was the most important adventure in the human experience. The strange thing about beauty is that it wipes away all boundaries and inspires us to realize our common humanity. Our destiny interweaves us with each other, and our arts make every war nowadays a civil war, a war against our brothers and sister and cousins no matter what nation they happen to belong to. Beauty overcomes distinctions between all people on this planet. In beauty we have a language common to all of us despite racial or cultural differences—and even despite national and historical enmities. For this very Egypt, to which I was then traveling, later shared with us in America the art objects found in King Tut’s tomb, and crowds of people stood in our twenty first century lines for hours for the privilege of seeing the statues in bronze and gold which had been buried with this king in ancient Egypt. #RandolphHarris 2 of 16

The colorful Turkish and Persian rugs virtually all over the World, came from the same part of the World as the man standing beside me. And when we think of the contribution of German-speaking peoples—from Boehme to Beethoven to Goethe to Hegel, et al.—our words may not be fully understood. All these are our common heritage of beauty, and never has there been any doubt that they belong to all civilized people. No matter how archaic, the things of beauty from African to Alaska, from China to Australia, from New York to India are the language of all beings who call themselves human. One who stands on the threshold of this Pat is about to commence the last and greatest journey of all, one which one will continue until returning to the presence of God. Once begun, there is no turning back or deserting it, except temporarily. And since it is the most important and most glorious activity ever undertaken, its rewards are commensurate. One cannot stake too much on the outcome of such exalted strivings. Even all that the World can offer falls far below what the quest can offer. If outer sacrifices and inner renunciations are called for, the compensation will be more than just. In the end one gains immensely more than one loses. So, if the quest bids one to do so why not let go freely? #RandolphHarris 3 of 16

The meaning and the end of all such work is to arouse mortals to see certain truths: that the intuitive element is tremendously more important than the intellectual yet just as cultivable if pursued through meditation, that the mystical experience is the most valuable of all experience, and that the quest of the Overself is the most worthwhile endeavour open to human exertions. If there is anything worth studying by a human being, after the necessary preliminary studies of how to exist and survive in this World healthily and wisely, it is the study of mortal’s own consciousness—not a cataloguing of the numerous thoughts that play within it, but a deep investigation of its nature in itself, its own unadulterated pure self. This is the higher cause that is really worth working for, the spiritual purpose that makes life worth living. The discovery of the Overself, the surrender to it, mortals fulfills the highest purpose of one’s life on this Earth. Each mortal has only a limited fund of life-force, time, and ability. One may squander it on Worldly pleasures or spend it on Worldly ambitions. However, if without neglecting the duties of one’s particular situation, one realizes that these are changing and transient satisfactions and turns instead to the quest of the Overself, one begins to justify one’s incarnation. In our discussion up to now we have taken some long, hard looks at the negative aspects of family relationships and their effects on our children’s lives. We might almost despair of the possibility of having healthy families. #RandolphHarris 4 of 16

And it is important to recognize that these emotionally damaging qualities are and always will be to some extent present in our families, for we are all caught up in the dilemma of our human imperfections. The business person who does not know that the true business for which one was put on Earth is to find the Overself, may make a fortune but will also squander away a lifetime. One’s work and mind have been left separate from one’s Overself’s when they might have been kept in satisfying harmony with them. Every mortal has another veiled identity. Until one finds out this mystical self of one’s essence, one has failed to fulfil the higher mission of one’s existence. However, the picture is not totally dismal by any means. Children do grow up in out families learning something about how to experience and express love, and the degree to which this occurs is not immutably fixed. It is possible to become more effective in our ability to love in spite of our fear and also possible to help our children become loving. The New Testament contains a profound psychological insight into the process by which children learn to love. The words are: “We love, because God first loved us,” reports I John 4.19. God is the first cause of love. If we pause to read: “We love, because we first experienced love,” the psychological impact becomes clear. And whether faith leads us to attribute the origin of love to God or not, we can agree that our experience of love comes to us through the imperfect channel of other persons. And the most significant persons for children are usually parents. #RandolphHarris 5 of 16

This experience of learning to love by being loved is much more profound than simply seeing and imitating the behavior of loving persons. It has much more to do with the children’s emerging ideas and feelings about one’s self, which tend either to free one or inhibit one in one’s ability to experience and express love. In the discussion of the rejection cycle it was emphasized that all people experience feelings of rejection that lead to feelings of worthlessness and self-hate. The experience varies greatly in the degree of feelings of rejection, but it is universal. Now, as we look at the beneficial side of the picture, it can be shown that a cycle of acceptance is taking place in children’s lives during the same years the rejection cycle is establishing personality difficulty. The acceptance cycle, too, is a universal experience. Again it is a matter of degree. The acceptance cycle begins with the child’s earliest experiences of love and acceptance. This process, too, beings long before the child can form thoughts. In fact it probably begins within the first few hours of life. The sensation of touch plays a very important role. The gentle, loving, stroking touches of the mother when she is enjoying the baby are undoubtedly enjoyable to the baby. And when the infant, as it nurses from the nourishment of the mother or feeds from the bottle, is cuddled and cooed over, the physical and emotional warmth communicates itself. #RandolphHarris 6 of 16

When these experiences are contrast with those that sometimes occur when the woman is very frightened of emotional closeness, it becomes very apparent that even these early experiences tend toward a sense of acceptance or rejection. Consider the effect on the child, for example, of the mother who is in strong conflict about her feminine roles, who forces herself to naturally nourish her child because she feels she should do so, although doing it makes experience unpleasant feelings because of her conflicting emotions about it. Her feelings are certain to be reflected in the way she handles the child. Or another woman may be so frightened of the emotional involvement that she cannot permit herself to satisfy her own desires to cuddle the child. So she tends to withdraw and handle the child as little as possible. Still another woman may have a great deal of psychological conflict with eliminative functions and communicate her disgust in the way she changes and cleans the baby. As the child grows older the avenues by which one senses acceptance and love (or rejection) from one’s parents become more numerous and more subtle. When parents enjoy the child, trust the child, and listen to the child, respond to the youth as a human being worthy of respect, and encourages the child to accept increasing responsibly for one’s self without pushing one, one feels acceptance. #RandolphHarris 7 of 16

The sense of touch remains important. And sometimes it becomes more difficult. Some parents who found it relatively easy to enjoy expressing physical affection to their babies find themselves becoming less spontaneously affectionate to them as they grow older. The most important reason for this is probably the growing sense of vulnerability. The risk of being hurt by a baby seems rather remote, apart from the chance passing or catastrophic infirmary. However, as the child grows older and is able to express harsh feelings, we are put on notice in a multitude of ways that the age of innocence is past and that the possibility of emotional hurt is ever present. It is then that physical affection may not seem as natural. One mother, Alice reported it was difficult for her to express affection for her tends by directly hugging them. It is easy for her to smile at them and say nice words. This was probably because it was a relatively safe was of expressing affection. Because of her fears of being hurt and rejected by anyone she feels close, Alice finds this type of contact with her children more comfortable. She satisfies her need for closeness by saying, “I love you,” or “Have a great day.” And if Alice were more free to express affection directly, while it would be more helpful, the nice comments communicates some acceptance to the children and some desire to maintain their well being. #RandolphHarris 8 of 16

To the degree that the child experiences the security of parents who are able to communicate their love and acceptance in a relatively open and direct manner, one is likely to react with beneficial feelings towards oneself. The emotional logic of the child must be something like this: “These people who are so significant in my life love me and consider me to be of value. Therefore I must be worthwhile.” The beauty of the World is the co-operation of divine wisdom in creation. This perfecting is the creation of beauty; God created the Universe, and his son, our first-born brother, created the beauty of its for us. The beauty of the World is Christ’s tender smile for us coming through matter. He is really present in the universal beauty. The love of this beauty proceeds from God dwelling in our souls and goes out to God present in the Universe. It also is like a sacrament. This is true only of universal beauty. With the exception of God, nothing short of the Universe as a whole can with complete accuracy be called beautiful. All that is in the Universe and is less than the Universe can be called beautiful only if we extend the word beyond its strict limits and apply it to things that share indirectly in beauty, things that are imitations of it. #RandolphHarris 9 of 16

All these secondary kinds of beauty are of infinite value as openings to universal beauty. However, if we stop short at them, they are, on the contrary, veils; then they corrupt. They all have in them more or less of this temptation, but in very different degrees. There are also a number of seductive factors which have nothing whatever to do with beauty but which cause the things in which they are preset to be called beautiful through lack of discernment; for these things attract love by fraud, and all mortals, even the most ignorant, even the vilest of them, know that beauty alone has a right to our love. The most truly great know it too. No mortal is below or above beauty. The words which express beauty come to the lips as soon as they want to praise what they love. Only some are more and some less able to discern it. Beauty is the only finality here below. It is a finality which involves no objective. A beautiful thing involves no good except itself, in its totality, as it appears to us. We are drawn toward it without knowing wat to ask of it. It offers us its own existence. We do not desire anything else, we possess it, and yet we still desire something. We do not in the least know what it is. We want to get behind beauty, but it is only a surface. It is like a mirror that sends us back our own desire for goodness. It is a sphinx, and enigma, a mystery which is painfully tantalizing and titillating. #RandolphHarris 10 of 16

We should like to feed upon beauty, but it is merely something to look at; it appears only from a certain distance. The great trouble in human life is that looking and eating are two different operations. Only beyond the sky, in the country inhabited by God, are they one and the same operation. When they look at a cake for a long time almost regretting that it should have to be eaten and yet are unable to help eating it, children feel this trouble already. It may be that nice, depravity, and crime are nearly always, or even perhaps always, in their essence, attempts to eat beauty, to eat what we should only look at. Eve began it. If she caused humanity to be lost by eating it, should be what is required to save it. Two winged companions, to Angels are on the branch of a tree. One eats the fruit, the other looks at it. These two Angels are the two parts of our soul. A great light will shine to the ends of the Earth, and many nations will come to you from afar, the peoples of all the Earth, to dwell near to the name of the Lord, bearing in their hands gifts for the King of Heaven. I saw the light in my mind, and I grew sleepy in a beautiful soft sleep in which I could hear the words of the prayer as I lay on my bed, with my arm under my pillow. #RandolphHarris 11 of 16

No one is in Eden. There is no one there. No one is in Eden writing down the deeds of the World. However, some people say it is Enoch, but Eden is empty until the Lord should say that all the World will be Eden once again. The Lord does not break his covenants. God will come and his house will last forever. It is because beauty has no end in view that it constitutes the only finality here below. For here below there are no ends. All the things that we take for ends are means. That is an obvious truth. Money is the means of buying, power is the means of commanding. It is more or less the same for all the things that we call good. Only beauty is not the means to anything else. It alone is good in itself, but without our finding any particular good or advantage in it. It seems itself to be a promise and not a good. However, beauty only gives itself; it never gives anything else. Nevertheless, as it is the only finality, it is present in all human pursuits. Although they are all concerned with means, for everything that exists here below is only a means, beauty sheds a luster upon them which colors them with finality. Otherwise there could neither be desire, nor, in consequence, energy in the pursuit. For a miser after the style of Harpagon (a character in Moliere’s L’Avare), all the beauty of the World is enshrined in gold. And it is true that gold, as a pure and shinning substance, has something beautiful about it. The disappearance of gold from our currency seems to have made this form of avarice disappear too. Today those who heap up money without spending it are desirous of power. #RandolphHarris 12 of 16

The same crisis of freedom is present in psychotherapy, this curious profession which burgeoned so fantastically in American during the past century. The crisis can best be seen when we ask: What is the purpose of therapy? To be sure, to help people. And the specific purpose differs with the particular condition with which the person is suffering. However, what is the overall purpose that underlies the development of this profession of psychological helpers? Several decades ago, the purpose of the mental-health movement was clear: mental health is living free from anxiety. However, this motto son became suspect. Living free from anxiety in a World of hydrogen bombs and nuclear radiation and food and water shortages, housing crises, lack of funding for education, and rapidly decreasing numbers of high pay jobs? Without anxiety in a World in which death may strike at any moment you cross the street? Without anxiety in a World in which two-thirds of the people are malnourished or starving? The mental health movement, in promising a freedom from anxiety that is not possible, may have had a significant role in the current belief that it is a right to feel good, thus contributing to the burgeoning consumption of alcohol and the and the almost universal prescription of the tranquilizer by physicians. #RandolphHarris 13 of 16

The mental health movement has emphasized freedom from anxiety as the definition of health. However, finding that is not possible in the general run of life, people have assumed that the quickest way to achieve the freedom is through alcohol and tranquilizing drugs. Furthermore, if we did achieve freedom from all anxiety, we would find ourselves robbed of the most constructive stimulant for life and for simple survival. After many a therapeutic hour which I would call successful, the client leaves with more anxiety than one had when one came in; only now the anxiety is conscious rather than unconscious, constructive rather than destructive. The definition of mental healthy needs to be changed to living without paralyzing anxiety, but living with normal anxiety as a stimulant to a vital existence, as a source of energy, and as life enhancing. Is adjustment the purpose of therapy—that is, should therapy help people adjust to their society? Many people wonder who the psychotic is—the persons to whom the title is given or the society itself? Is the purpose of the therapist to give people relief and comfort? If so, this can also be done more efficiently and economically by drugs. Is the purpose of the therapist to help people to be happy? Happy in a World in which unemployment and inflation burgeon at the same time? #RandolphHarris 14 of 16

Such happiness can be purchased only at the price of repressing and denying too many of the facts of life, a denial that works directly against what most of us believe is the optimum state of mental health. I propose that the purpose of the psychotherapy is to set people free. Free, as far as possible, from symptoms, whether they be psychosomatic symptoms like ulcers or psychological symptoms like acute shyness. Free from compulsions, again as far as possible, to be workaholics, compulsions to repeat self-defeating habits they have learned in early childhood, or compulsions perpetually to choose partners of the opposite gender who cause continual unhappiness and continual punishment. However, most of all, I believe that the therapist’s function should be to help people become free to be aware of and to experience their possibilities. A psychological problem, I have pointed out elsewhere, is like fever; it indicates that something is wrong with the structure of the person and that struggles is going on for survival. This, in turn, is a proof to us that some other way of behaving is possible. Our old way of thinking—that problems are to be gotten rid of as soon as possible—overlooks the most important thing of all: that problems are a normal aspect of living and are basic to human creativity. This is true whether one is constructing things or reconstructing oneself. Problems are the outward signs of unused inner possibilities. #RandolphHarris 15 of 16

People rightly come to the therapist because they have become inwardly enslaved and they yearn to be set free. The crucial question is: how is that freedom to be attained? Surely not by a miraculous charming away of all conflicts. The soul that is prevented by circumstances from feeling anything of the beauty of the World, even confusedly, even through what is false, is invaded to its very center by a kind of horror. If you want to know the purpose of life, read Acts 17.2: “God made man [and women] to the end that one should seek the Lord.” It comes to this: Are we to worship mortals or God? Life offers mortals a variety of meanings, but in the end one meaning comes to the top of all the others and that is the meaning which shall reveal the truth about one’s relation to God. When one sees life whole and therefore sees it right, one will understand why Jesus declared, “Seek ye first the kingdom of Heaven and all these things shall be added unto you,” and why, if one is to insist upon any single renovation in human life, it must be its own self-spiritualization. If one is to put emphasis anywhere, it must be upon the rediscovery of the divine purpose of one’s Earthly life. If mortals only knew how glorious, how rich, how satisfying this inner life really is, they would not hesitate for a moment to forsake all those things which car their way to it. “The Lord hath made bare his holy arm in the eyes of all the nations; and all the ends of the Earth shall see the salvation of God,” reports 2 Nephi 16.20. #RandolphHarris 16 of 16