I talked to her like this now and I said I was grateful that I had been allowed to come near her and her ancient secrets, and this feeling became physical. It was all over the surface of my skin and at the roots of my hair. I could feel tension draining from my face. I could feel it leaving my body. I was light all over, and the incense and the flowers were enfolding my spirit as I looked into the black centers of her deep brown eyes. I could almost hear hymns in this place. I could hear chants and ancient invocations. And I was no longer afraid. The beauty was too soothing, too grand. No mortal comes to the knowledge of one’s divinity through a crowd of other mortals. No human entity can discover its own relation to God through any group method. The way to spiritual awareness is entirely individual, essentially lonely, inescapably within oneself. That is to say, it is mystical. Insofar as religion succeeds in showing the way, it ceases to be religion and becomes, or rather, consummates itself in, mysticism. All the old mysteries collected in me, arousing me and sharpening me. “Father, I thank thee that thou hast given the Holy Ghost unto these whom I have chosen; and it is because of their belief in me that I have chosen them out of the World,” reports 3 Nephi 19.20.  #RandolphHarris 1 of 14

There was a superpresence, a creature of impossible whiteness and perfection who was nevertheless connected to everything around him—the clothes he wore, the stone railing on which he laid his hand, even the moment itself in which a small cloud passed over the bright half Moon. Many have lost too much that was precious to them and they see and learn a great deal very fast. Information comes to some in other ways as well. There were messages all on the walls throughout Europe. One must try to work out interpretations of scripture and life for themselves, not remained tied to obligatory ones imposed from without. They must begin to stand on their own individual resources or they will never rise to the level of direct spiritual communion at all. The tendency to look to one mortal or one organization as the sole repository of spiritual wisdom may become dangerous to their further progress. The currents of evolution and the circumstances of modernity have created new cultural values which in turn have lessened the need of such dependence. One proof of this assertion lies in the fact that the same line of change may be seen also in the social, political, and economic spheres. #RandolphHarris 2 of 14

To seek knowledge from unprejudiced sources is a rule hard to fulfill, because such sources are rare. The next best thing to be an unprejudiced seeker, and this is the ideal I have tried to follow. Sectarianism is everywhere, because institutions and organizations are everywhere. When flying the flag of independence, there is a better chance for the truth seeker. Civilization has at last created mortals who behave innocently. For the first time they look about themselves and say, “What the hell is all this!” Some people are creating great dark and evil systems of thought within themselves. Innocence is not an absence of experience, but an absence of illusions. A love and respect for what is right before your eyes. We have come into being at the end of an era, at a time when the World faces changes undreamed of. Some were born and grew to adulthood in a time when the ancient World, as we call it now, was coming to a close. Old faiths are worn out. A new god is about to rise. It has taken over 2,000 years to come back to skepticism, the level of practicality that was our daily frame of mind back then. However, history is by no means repeating itself. That is the amazing thing. #RandolphHarris 3 of 14

Look around you! Completely new things are happening in Europe. The value placed upon human life is higher than ever before. Wisdom and philosophy are coupled with new discoveries in science, new inventions which will completely alter the manner in which humans life. However, that is a story unto itself. That is the future. The point is that some were born on the cusp of the old way of seeing things. Many came of age without faith, and yet they are not cynical. We sprang up from a crack between faith and despair, as it were. We did not grow into adulthood expecting very much of others. And the burden of conscience is private, terrible though it might be. We never served the Christian god. That you can put in your mind right now. However, the forces of good and evil behind the names of Christ and Satan. The intolerance, the fanaticism of the narrower groups and religion has been brought in here too. Let the Western student of philosophy who takes it seriously enough to think, breathe in remembrance, and live actively by it, be warned and stay free, unjoined, unlabeled, spacious in outlook, understandingly tolerant in practice. Study both sympathetically and critically the other contemporary mystical movements but do not join them. Such is my general answer to the seeker who questions me about them. #RandolphHarris 4 of 14

The people that made some of us were worshippers of gods, true. And they believed in things that we do not believe. However, their faith hearkened back to a time long before the temples of the Roman Empire, when the shedding of innocent human blood could be done on a massive scale in the name of God. And evil was the drought and the plague of the locust and the death of the crops. I was made what I am by these people in the name of good. One should certainly examine and study other teachings, not necessarily for one’s acceptance, but for one’s boarding. Be a good student, but a bad joiner! For one will find it difficult to recognize the lineaments of full perfection either in the teaching or the practice of any existing institution or movement. However, the danger where is that one may overconcentrate on their study or practice, elevate side-routes into the main one, and finally get so absorbed in them certain are reservations in my advice, a certain watchfulness is needed during such studies. One should take care to be only an enquirer into these cults and not a follower of them. One should be first a sympathetic enquirer and then only exercise the philosophical right of severely critical examination. “Father, I pray thee that thou wilt give the Holy Ghost unto all them that shall believe in their words,” reports 2 Nephi 19. 21. #RandolphHarris 5 of 14

In the end, every aspirant must find one’s own. The path of another is dangerous. Unless a spiritual teaching has enough inspiration behind it to help one successfully tackle one’s gravest personal problems, it is not the right one—however much it may be so to others. For one needs grace, and does not call in vain. And it all seems more than ever the story of the Savage Garden, dancers in the Savage Garden, where no law prevails except the law of the garden, which was the aesthetic law. That the crops shall grow high, that the wheat shall be green and then yellow, that the Sun shall shine. Look at the perfectly shaped apple that the tree has made, fancy that! The villagers will run through the orchards with their burning brands from the Lenten bonfire, to make the apples grow. With so many cults, creeds, religious, sect, and societies claiming that their teaching is the only true one or that their path is the only path to salvation, the seeker will either get bewildered or be forced to do the right thing—which is to exercise one’s own independent judgement and not to accept any claim on its mere face value. “And behold, they began to pray; and they did pray unto Jesus, calling him their Lord and their God,” reports 3 Nephi 19.18. #RandolphHarris 6 of 14

Whoever loves truth in its fullness cannot put on the chains of a partisanship and stay confined in a church, a temple, or a mosque, a synagogue, a school of thought, a  theism, or an atheism. Therefore one cannot become an adherent to any one belief only, a convert to any one religion, a member of any one group, or a follower of any one mortal but must remain an independent, that is to say, a philosopher (philo = liker or lover, sophia = wisdom). One sees that all doctrines, all ways of belief and thought are steps on the way, satisfy some need of some persons, and hence are of service at some time. However, one sees not only that truth’s fullness is allied to one’s own freedom: it is also allied to namelessness. As Christians we know our inner conflicts about accepting or rejecting joy. We are suspicious of the gifts of nature which contribute to joy, because we are suspicious of nature itself, although we confess that it is Divine creation, knowing what God has spoken about his creation: “Behold, it was very good!” We are suspicious of the creations of culture which contribute to joy because we are suspicious of mortal’s creativity, although we confess that God has commanded mortals to cultivate the garden of the Earth which he has made subject to him. #RandolphHarris 7 of 14

And even if we overcome our suspicious and affirm and accept the gifts of nature and the creations of culture, we often do so with an uneasy conscience. We know that we should be free for joy, that as Paul says, “all is ours,” but our courage is inferior to our knowledge. We do not dare to affirm our World and ourselves; and if we dare to, in a moment of courage, we try to atone for it by self-reproaches and self-punishments, and we draw upon ourselves malicious criticism by those who never had dared. Therefore, many Christians try to compromise. They try to hide their feeling of joy, or they try to avoid joys which are too intense, in order to avoid self-accusations which are too harsh. Such an experience of suppression of joy, and guilt about joy in Christian groups, almost drive me to a break with Christianity. What passes for joy in these groups is an emaciated, intentionally childish, unexciting, unecstatic thing, without color and danger, without heights and depths. It is difficult to deny that this is the state of things in many Christian churches. However, now we hear the question from both the Christian and the non-Christian sides: “Is not joy, as observed in the Bible, something completely different from the joy of life, which is lacking in many Christians? Do not the Psalmist and Paul and the Jesus of the Fourth Gospel speak of a joy which transcends the natural joy of life? Do they not speak about the joy in God? Is not the decision to be a Christian a decision for the joy in God instead of for the joy of life?” #RandolphHarris 8 of 14

The fellowship of philosophy requires no ritual, no immersion, no strict and rigid doctrine confessions, no creedal test. It is free and non-sectarian. It shuts no one in, no one out. Philosophy is for the free mind, willing to live without organizational bondage, and understanding that what it seeks must be found and grasped for itself. Since the real essence of philosophy has only an inner content, which must be felt intuitively and grasped intellectually, but no outer form, it cannot become material for a cult, and organized group. It must lead each person on one’s own individual way, letting one grow naturally from within. One’s quest will then take the independent course proper for one, not made to conform to one suitably only to others. One who can commune with one’s soul by oneself does not need a church, a labelled religion. Society has no right to impose it on one. In their naïve adolescent gropings, the young who discard their traditional form of religion, feel something of this truth. One who loves their Spirit, who feels Its goodwill which excludes nothing, associate oneself with an enclosed group or community which excludes everyone who is not an adherent of its particular faith? #RandolphHarris 9 of 14

The refusal to join any ecclesiastical church or religious society does not leave a mortal spiritually homeless. If one faithfully exercises oneself in prayer and seeks to practice the presence of God, what better home could one have? Life is God’s, and God is the creative Ground of life. He is infinitely more than any life process. However, he works creatively through all of them. Therefore, no conflict is necessary between the joy in God and the joy of life. However, this first answer, great and joyful as it is, is not sufficient; for joy of life can mean many things. Joy seems to be the opposite of pain. However, we know that pain and joy can exist together. Not joy but pleasure is the opposite of pain. There are people who believe that mortal’s life is a continuous flight from pain and a persistent search for pleasure. I have never seen a human being of whom that is true. It is only of the beings who have lost their humanity, either through complete disintegration or through mental illness. The ordinary human being is able to sacrifice pleasures and to take pain upon oneself for a cause, for somebody or something one loves and deems worthy of pain and pleasures because one is directed not towards one’s pleasure but toward the things one loves and with which one wants to unite. #RandolphHarris 10 of 14

Three are the spheres in which the World of relation is built. The first: life with nature, where the relation sticks to the threshold of language. The second: life with mortals, where it enters language. The third: life with spiritual beings, where it lacks but creates language. In every relational act, through everything that becomes present to us, we gaze toward the train of the eternal You; in each we perceive a breath of it; in every You we address the eternal You, in every sphere according to its manner. All spheres are included in it, while it is included in none. Through all of them shines the one presence. However, we can take each out of the presence. Out of life with nature we can take the physical World, that of consistency; out of life with mortals, the physical World, that of affectability; out of life with spiritual beings, the nonetic World, that of validity. Now they have been deprived of their transparency and thus of sense; each has become usable and murky, and remains murky even if we endow it with shining names: cosmos, eros, logos. For in truth there is a cosmos for mortals only when the Universe becomes a home for one with a holy hearth where one sacrifices; and there is eros for one only when beings become for one images of the eternal, and community with them becomes revelation; and there is logos for one only when one addresses the mystery with works and service of the spirit. #RandolphHarris 11 of 14

The demanding silence of forms, the loving speech of human beings, the eloquent muteness of creatures—all of these are gateways into the presence of the word. However, when the perfect encounter is to occur, the gates are unified into the one gate of actual life, and you no longer know through which one you have entered. Of these three spheres one is distinguished: life with mortals. Here language is perfected as a sequence and becomes speech and reply. Only here does the word, formed in language, encounter its reply. Only here does the basic word go back and forth in the same shape; that of the address and that of the reply are alive in the same tongue; I and You do not only stand in a relationship but also in firm honesty. The moments of relation are joined here, and only here, through the element of language in which they are immersed. Here that which confronts us has developed the full actuality of the You. Here alone beholding and being beheld, recognizing and being recognized, loving and being loved exist as an actuality that cannot be lost. #RandolphHarris 12 of 14

This is the main portal into whose inclusive opening the two side portals lead. When a mortal is intimate with his life, the longing of the eternal hills wafts about them. The relation to a human being is the proper metaphor for the relation to God—as genuine address is here accorded a genuine answer. However, in God’s answer all, the All, reveals itself as language. If we desire something because of the pleasure we may get out of it, we may get the pleasure but we shall not get joy. If we try to find someone through whom we may get pleasures, we may get pleasure but we shall not have joy. If we search for something in order to avoid pain, we may avoid pain, but we shall not avoid sorrow. If we try to use someone to protect us from pain, one may protect us from pain but one will not protect us from sorrow. Pleasures can be provided and pain can be avoided, if we use or abuse other beings. However, joy cannot be attained and sorrow cannot be overcome in this way. Joy is possible only when we are driven toward things and persons because of what they are and not because of what we can get from them. When we perform it not because of what we produce but because of the pleasures with which it can provide us, or the pain against which it can protect us, the joy about our work is spoiled. #RandolphHarris 13 of 14

The pleasure about the fact that I am successful spoils the joy about the success itself. If we enjoy not the truth and the beauty, but the fact that it is I who enjoys them, our joy about knowing truth and experiencing beauty is spoiled. Only if it is free from the pleasure about having power, and if it is a method of something worthwhile, power can give joy.  If we use the other one as a means for pleasure or as a means to escape pain, love relations, most conspicuously relations between the genders, remain without joy. It is not an external law which warns us about certain forms of these relations, but the wisdom born out of past experiences which tells us that some of these relations may give pleasure, but that they do not give joy. They do not give joy because they do not fulfill what we are, and that for which we strive. Every human relation is joyless in which the other person is not sought because of what one is in oneself, but because of the pleasures one can give us and the pain from which one can protect us. “And behold, I am the light and the life of the World; and I have drunk out of that bitter cup which the Father hath given me, and have glorified the Father in taking upon me the sins of the World, in the which I have suffered the will of the Father in all things from the beginning,” reports 3 Nephi 11. #RandolphHarris 14 of 14

Cresleigh Homes

Good morning from Cresleigh Ranch! 👋 We are excited to share that pre-selling starts 22 June 2019 for Brighton Station and Mills Station. Mark your calendars and learn more about this community by clicking the link: https://cresleigh.com/
.