The night was warm and receptive. My courtyard banana trees at Cresleigh Homes Rocklin Trails had not been touched by a freeze this Winter, and grew thick and drowsing as every against the stucco walls. The wild impatiens and lantana were glowing in the overgrown beds, and the fountain, the fountain with its cherub, was making its crystalline music as the water splashed from the cherub’s horn into the basin. This way to the palace. Point your car along a winding drive-way up the green hillside shaded with great elm trees. Enter the wide and friendly doorway and look at the murals in our lobby. They will tell you the story of our industry. As you go through the offices, you will probably marvel as we did at all the comforts and services we have. Imagine a sea of blonde desks with tan chairs, outdoor lighting pouring everywhere, roomy offices with individually-controlled air-conditioning and area-controlled Music by Muzak coming out of walls. We need few private secretaries. All we have to do is pick up a phoning device and dictate our message to a disc that whirls in a sunny room in another part of the building. Here a pool of stenographers type all day long with buttons in their ears. We do not see them and they do not see us, but they know our voices. #RandolphHarris 1 of 14

A high-speed pneumatic tube system winds through the entire building. We send material from one office to another not by messenger but by torpedo containers traveling twenty-five feet a second. Simply have the attendant put your paper, magazine, or memo in the plastic carrier. One inters the container in the tube, dials the appropriate number, and, whoosh, it is shot across the building. There is a complete sound system throughout headquarters. If, for example, a bad storm is forecast, there will be an “Attention Please,” and you may go home early. At noon, enjoy movies in an auditorium the size of a small theater, visit the library, watch the World Series on Color TV, or play darts and table tennis in the game room. The finest catering service and a staff of friendly waitresses bring you luncheon. Then go to the company store, pitch horseshoes, or take a brief stroll under the elms. What happens to an office when it is offered facilities like these? At first there were a few small complaints. The main difficulty is that we find it all but impossible to get off the campus. You can speed several miles to town for a quick lunch. Otherwise you stay on the grounds until closing. City employees everywhere have the chance to renew, at least slightly, their connection with the World during lunch hours. When we first came many of us rambled in the woods and picked flowers, but we seldom do that anymore. #RandolphHarris 2 of 14

As for our work-efficiency, I think it has diminished a bit as a result of what one of my friends calls “our incestuous situation.” When you are isolated in the country it is not easy to feel that sense of urgency that distinguishes most business people. I sometimes have a feeling of being in limbo. More than ever one feels—ungratefully—over-protected. While on the job, I actually cannot feel hot or cold. I cannot even get sick. This will sound ridiculous, but when the company obtained a supply of influenza shots, I found myself in the absurd position of refusing one. For some reason I wanted a chance to resist the flu in my own way. What is the moral of all this? I am not quite sure. However, do not beings, perhaps, love something besides well-being? Perhaps one is just as fond of suffering? Perhaps suffering is just as great a benefit to one as well-being? In the Crystal Palace (suffering) is unthinkable. You believe, do you not, in a crystal palace which shall be forever unbreakable—in an edifice, that is to say, at which no one shall be able to put out one’s tongue, or in any other way to mock? Now, for the very reason that is must be made of crystal, and forever unbreakable, and one whereat no one shall put out one’s tongue, I should fight shy of such a building. #RandolphHarris 3 of 14

The origins of power are also the origins of aggression. For aggression is one use—or misuse—of power. Aggression springs from an innate tendency to grow and master life which seems to be characteristic of all living matter. Only when this life force is obstructed in its development do ingredients of anger, rage, or hate become connected with it. Power comes from the root meaning “to be able.” In this sense, it is interesting that ability and power are used together, and it has a lot to do with nature and nurture. We seem to be born with something of this power motivation in us. However, this does not at all cast the die in favor of the nature side of the dichotomy, for this power motivation is formed in terms of security, status, and prestige. These characteristics are certainly social and are learned by the developing infant from and in one’s culture. As one watches a child building with blocks and then knocking the construction down to build it again, one realizes that power and aggression have beneficial values. From there the child goes on to explore, to experiment, to master one’s World as best one can and as far as one’s level of development enables one. At origin, aggressiveness is almost synonymous with activity. If Dr. Freud had been right in supposing that our chief aim is blissful satiation, it would be hard to explain this exploratory behavior. #RandolphHarris 4 of 14

It is also likely that our children are striving for superiority. What we learn from psychotherapy is applicable to the growing child: if the authority present, either therapist or parent, condemns the activity before the child has established that beachhead of ability and power, the child will have difficulty establishing it later and will probably learn it with some admixture of hostile aggression. Thereafter one will tend to do the act in question with some anger and rebellion to compensate for the condemnation of authority. In origin the infant shows one’s power and aggressiveness always in conjunction with its opposite—for instance, with one’s need to be dependent and to be nourished. The whole process of growing up can be seen as beginning with the severing of the biological tie to the mother (when one is born from the womb, where everything was done for one automatically). After the cutting of the umbilical cord, one has to learn to form relationships on a psychological basis. Each venturing forth represents a use of one’s individual power and ability, and one then comes back to one’s mother. The nutrient side of this development manifests itself in one’s need to be cared for and to be loved, and the aggressive side in one’s need to assert oneself, to protest if necessary. The former is the “yes,” the latter is the “no.” #RandolphHarris 5 of 14

If one’s aggressiveness is blocked, as is often the case with suburban middle-class children, one will tend to remain forever dependent. Or if one’s need for love and care is unmet, one may well become destructively aggressive and spend one’s life wreaking revenge upon the World—as is sometimes the cause with children in any socioeconomic class. Or if one has no boundaries, nothing against which to test one’s strength, no opposition in the firmness of parents, one may turn one’s aggression against oneself in nail-biting and self-recrimination or senseless anger against anyone who happens to come along. The child’s mobility can be seen as a way of increasing the distance one can move from one’s mother. It is a practice of independence from her, a practice which increases through life regardless of where one’s actual mother is or whether she is alive of dead. An unfortunate upbringing can turn the individual’s powers to destructive ends. A male patient was periodically seized by uncontrollable anger against his wife and children, in which he would loose endless invectives and pound his wife in rage with his fists. #RandolphHarris 6 of 14

It turned out the husband who was physically attacking his wife in rage had been the son of a lady of the night, and that when he was a very small child he had often been used by his mother as a conversation piece to make contacts with different men in cafes. Then the mother would take the man to her room, while the child sat at the table for an hour or so alone. During his school years he lived with her grandparents and was generally ostracized by people in the village because of his upbringing. He recalled going to the houses of women who gossiped about him and then defecating on their doorsteps as revenge. When other children had parties to which he was not invited, he would often go to the edge of the group and ask for some ice cream and cake. He had developed a sense of caring for feeding his rabbits and other animals at home, but this affection was a lonely one, and he never overcome his nervousness in an intimate situation with his peers. It is entirely understandable that such an upbringing would lead to destructive rage and aggression in later human situations. The normal development of an infant requires the love and care of the parent along with one’s own capacity to explore and increase one’s sense of mastery day by day. “Let e do it” is a recurrent entreaty in small children; and wise mothers encourage their children to do as much as possible for themselves, however tiresome it may be to wait patiently while the child takes minutes to tie a knot which the adult can tie in seconds. #RandolphHarris 7 of 14

Reading Grimm’s Fairy-Tales and playing cops and robbers and war games may not be harmful for children, as for some, it allows them to release their aggression. For other children, who cannot separate fiction from reality, it can be dangerous. If society is in danger, it is not because of a being’s aggressiveness but because of the repression of personal aggressiveness in individuals. Parents who are anxious that their children not to turn into warmongers may, by proscribing war games and the like, be cultivating just the opposite. They are more likely to create the very type of personality which they are concerned to avoid. For the child needs all the aggressive potential one can get to protect and assert one’s growing individuality. If its pursuit would mean defeating the purposes of the self, it is well known that an acute hostile impulse may be the direct cause of anxiety. One example may serve for many. Mark goes on a hiking trip with Elsa, to whom he is deeply devoted. Nevertheless he feels acutely and savagely infuriated against her because his jealousy has somehow been aroused. When walking with her on a precipitous mountain path he gets a severe attack of anxiety, with heavy breathing and heart-pounding, because of a conscious impulse to push the girl over the edge of the path. The structures of anxiety like these is due to an imperative impulse which, if yielded to, would mean a catastrophe for the self. #RandolphHarris 8 of 14

In the great majority of persons, however, a direct causal connection between hostility and neurotic anxiety is far from evident. In order, then, to make it clear why I declare that in the neuroses of our time hostile impulses are the main psychological force promoting anxiety, it is necessary to examine now in some detail the psychological consequences which result from a repression of hostility. Repressing a hostility means pretending that everything is all right and this refraining from the fighting when we ought to fight, or at least when we wish to fight. Hence the first unavoidable consequence of such a repression is that it generates a feeling of defenselessness, or to be more exact, it reinforces an already given feeling of defenselessness. If hostility is repressed when a person’s interest are factually attacked it becomes possible for others to take advantage of one. The experience of a chemist, Giovanni, represents an everyday occurrence of this kind. Giovanni had what was regarded as nervous exhaustion as a consequence of too much work. He was unusually gifted and very ambitious, without knowing that he was. For reasons we shall leave aside he had repressed his ambitious strivings and hence appeared modest. When he entered the laboratory of a great chemical firm another member of the staff, Kirk, a little older in years and higher in rank that Giovanni, took him under his wind and showed every sign of friendliness. #RandolphHarris 9 of 14

Because of a series of personal factors—dependence on others’ affection, previous intimidation concerning critical observation, not recognizing one’s own ambition and hence not seeing it in others—Giovanni was happy to accept the friendliness and failed to observe than in reality Kirk cared for nothing but his own career. And it stuck him but dimply that on one occasion Kirk reported as his own idea which was relevant for a possible invention but which was really Giovanni’s idea, one that had formerly expressed to Kirk in a friendly conversation. For the flicker of a moment Giovanni was distrustful, but because one’s own ambition factually stirred up an enormous hostility in him, he immediately repressed not only this hostility but with it also the warranted criticism and distrust. Hence he remained convinced that Kirk was his best friend. Consequently when Kirk discouraged him about continuing a certain line of work he took the advice at face value. When Kirk produced an invention that Giovanni might have made, Giovanni merely felt that Kirk’s gifts and intelligence were far superior to his own. This by having repressed his distrust and his anger Giovanni failed to notice that in crucial questions Kirk was his enemy rather than his friend. Because he clung to the illusion that he was liked, Giovanni relinquished his preparedness to fight for his own interests. He did not even realize that a vital interest of his own was attacked, and consequently could not fight for it, but allowed the other to take advantage of his weakness. #RandolphHarris 10 of 14

The desire of an individual to join a group can never be given more than qualified approval. However, if one feels certain that something may be gained by associating with other seekers, and if one is successful in finding a group devoted exclusively to the search for the highest Truth, it may be all right for one at that particular phase of one’s development. There is need of a school where an effective form of service would be the giving of practical initiation into prayer for inexperienced beginners, and the guidance of development for inexperienced beginners, and the guidance of development for experienced intermediates. This could do much good. A single meeting for prayer is usually enough: individuals could then be left to work out for themselves the contact thus given, returning to the school periodically for further and more advanced instruction. Instead of being found out, the particular needs and special tendencies of the individual seeker will be ignored and even suppressed in the endeavour to conform one to the system. There is both good and bad in this. Which of these one will receive depends upon the competence of the teacher, if one has one, or the mental attitude one takes toward the system itself—upon one’s blind slavish adherence to it or intelligent, open-eyed use of it. #RandolphHarris 11 of 14

One is under no obligation to stay fixed in an ashram or group merely because one once entered it. The time comes when the aspiring philosopher feels that one will get no actual benefit from one’s studies and make no personal progress unless one enters the second stage and begins to work on oneself. It is then that one will perceive, if one is not too foolish, that most of these groups and cults are of no further use to one. We must be prepared in advance not to expect too much from human institutions, for the simple reason that they are administered by or composed of human beings, that neither they nor the institutions are perfect, that any claim to the contrary is a roseate dream, any belief in the affirmative is naïve, and the person holding it is inexperienced. I am not criticizing those who follow such ways or advocate such teachings, nor venturing to judge their rightness or wrongness. The need for, and the usefulness of, group organization is admitted. However, I feel there is an equal need for a different approach, for independence from all group organizations; there is room for a path which avoids joining. This need not be misunderstood. There are those who like the first way and they will have to follow it. There are others who will prefer the second way. I am among them. Both ways are needed but by different people. Those who feel their own path or school or cult calls to them should heed it. It is right for them. However, they should not be so narrow as to proclaim it to be the only way to God. #RandolphHarris 12 of 14

When all illusory ideas are discarded, one will be able to see directly into the truth, and to see it without delay. For what need could there then be to pass through progressive stages? The name “lightning flash of insight” should not be allowed to give the impression that its swiftness is its most important attribute. That is merely incidental. What constitutes its essential attribute is its introducing an entirely different state of mind, an entirely new kind of perception, within us so that we are transformed in ourselves along with the World with which we are in relation. When the ego finally falls out of the picture, it does so with the swiftness of a flash of lightning. Enlightenment seldom comes all at once. However, in the case of rare geniuses or of those with rare good karma, the possibility is certainly there. That illumination can be quite instantaneous in some cases, only gradual in other, and entirely absent in most, need not be an enigma. Even when they are beneath the surface, the workings of the law of recompense are still the same. Even though one becomes enlightened, one should continue to work for several more decades to obtain more understanding. When enlightenment comes through philosophic preparation for it, the experience is sudden, direct, unexpected, and spontaneous. It comes to some minds with the force of a Himalayan mountain torrent rushing out from a narrow gorge. #RandolphHarris 13 of 14

Enlightenment may come slowly or suddenly but in the second case it has the effect of Sunlight bursting through the sky. Those geniuses who get a lasting illumination by direct gift of Grace without having worked, studied, prepared, or trained for it, are rare. Everyone has to undergo the gradual development and patient ripening that a flowering bush has to undergo. The calmness which one carries inside oneself, and which is apparent in all one’s bearing, has not arisen out of nothing. It has come to one out of long struggle and after varied suffering. When we sin, we are like the foolish man who jumped from the airplane. No matter what we do on our own, only a crash-landing awaits us. We are subject to the law of justice, which, like the law if gravity, is exacting and unforgiving. The spirit in each of us naturally yearns for family love to last forever. Pour out your heart to God. Hold on to this illumination against the intrusions of negative personal habits and negative personal characteristics is another matter and success can happen. When conditions are ripe and prerequisite qualification fulfilled, the truth spontaneously shows its self-revealing character. It may come as an instantaneous flash of understanding or as a vision of cosmic drama, but most often it comes quite slowly in bits and pieces. The holy joy may visit you but cannot stay in you if both the primal energy and the ego are staying in you. Purify yourself of one and empty yourself of the other, if you would convert a passing glimpse into the permanent union. #RandolphHarris 14 of 14