The Soul is One of the Few Places Left Where One Can be Private–The Edge of Sleep Can be Such a Precious Time!

The edge of sleep can be such a precious time. I felt that quickening again, that prodding from the depths of my soul that some great change was taking place in me, a vital change—another nagging thought that, some to do with language. What was it? One gets thrilled and frightened at the same time in the presence of the soul because it reminds one about one’s past, present, and, most, of the possibilities of future. A basic cause for sublime embarrassment about using the divine name—the doubt about God Himself. Such doubt is universally human, and God would not be God if we could possess Him like any object of our familiar World, and verify his reality like any other reality under inquiry. Unless doubt is conquered, there is no faith. Faith must overcome something; it must leap over the ordinary process that provide evidence, because its object is possesses the whole realm where scientific verification is possible. Faith is the courage that conquers doubt, not by removing it, but by taking it as an element into itself. I am convinced that the element of doubt, conquered in faith, is never completely lacking in any serious affirmation of God. It is not always on the surface; but it always gnaws at the depth of our being. #RandolphHarris 1 of 17

We may know people intimately who have a seemingly primitive unshaken faith, but it is not difficult to discover the underswell of doubt that in critical moments surges up to the surface. Religious leaders tell us both directly and indirectly of the struggle in their minds between faith and unfaith. From fanatics of faith we hear beneath their unquestioning affirmations of God the shrill sound of their repressed doubt. It is repressed, but not annihilated. On the other hand, listening to the cynical denials of God that are an expression of the flight from the meaning of life, we hear the voice of a carefully covered despair, a despair that demonstrates not assurance but doubt about their negation. And in our encounter with those who assume scientific reasons to deny God, we find that they are certain of their denial only so long as they battle—and rightly so—against superstitious ideas of God. When, however, they ask the question of God Who is really God—namely, the question of the meaning of life as a whole and their own life, including their scientific work, their self-assurance tumbles for neither one who affirms nor one who denies God can be ultimately certain about one’s affirmation or one’s denial. #RandolphHarris 2 of 17

Doubt, and not certitude, is our human situation, whether we affirm or deny God. And perhaps the differences between them is not so great as one usually thinks. They are probably very similar in their mixture of faith and doubt. Therefore, the denial of God, if serious, should not shake us. What should trouble everyone who takes life seriously is the existence of indifferences. For one who is indifferent, when hearing the name of God, and feels, at the same time, that the meaning of one’s life is being questioned, denies one’s true humanity. It is doubt in the depth of faith that often produces sublime embarrassment. Such embarrassment can be an expression of conscious or unconscious honesty. Have we not felt how something in us sometimes makes us stop, perhaps only for a moment, when we want to say “God”? This moment of hesitation may express a deep feeling for God. It says something about one who hesitates to use it. Sometimes we hesitate to use the word “God” even without words, when we are alone; we may hesitate to speak to God even privately and voicelessly, as in prayer. It may be that doubt prevents us from praying. And beyond this we may feel that the abyss between God and us makes the use of His name impossible for us; we do not dare to speak to Him, because we feel Him standing on the other side of the abyss from us. #RandolphHarris 3 of 17

This can be a profound affirmation of God. The silent embarrassment of using the divine name can protect us against violating the divine mystery. We have considered the silence of tact and the silence of honesty concerning the divine name. However, behind them both possesses something more fundamental, the silence of awe, that seems to prohibit the speaking of God altogether. However, is this the last word demanded by the divine mystery? Must we spread silence around what concerns us more than anything else—the meaning of our existence? The answer is—no! For God Himself has given humankind names for Himself in those moments when He has broken into our finitude and made Himself manifest. We can, and must use these names. For silence has power only if it is the other side of speaking, and in this way becomes itself a kind of speaking. This necessity is both our justification and our being judged, when we gather together in the name of God. We are an assembly where we speak about God. We are a church. The church is the place where the mystery of the holy should be experienced wit awe and sacred embarrassment. However, is this our experience? Are our prayers, communal or personal, a use or a misuse of the divine name? #RandolphHarris 4 of 17

Do we feel the sublime embarrassment that so many people outside the churches feel? When, as ministers, we point to the Divine Presence in the sacraments, are we gripped by awe? Or, as theological interpreters of the holy, are we too sure that we can really explain God to others? When fluent Biblical quotations or quick, mechanized words of prayer pour from our mouths, is there enough sacred embarrassment in us? Do we preserve the respectful distance from the Holy-Itself, when we claim to have the truth about God, or to be at the place of His Presence or to be the administrators of His Power—the proprietors of the Christ? How much embarrassment, how much awe is alive in Saturday or Sunday devotional services all over the World? And now let me ask the church and all its members, including you and myself, a bold question. Could it be that, in order to judge the misuse of God’s name within the church, God reveals Himself from time to time by creating silence about Himself? Could it be that sometimes He prevents the use of his name in order to protect His name, that He withholds from a generation what was natural to previous generations—the use of the word God? Could it be that godlessness is not caused only by human resistance, but also by God’s paradoxical action—using beings and the forces by which they are driven to judge the assemblies that gather in His name and take His name in vain? #RandolphHarris 5 of 17

When speaking of him, is the secular silence about God that we experience everywhere today perhaps God’s way of forcing His church back to a sacred embarrassment? It may be bold to ask such questions. Certainly there can be no answer, because we do not know the character of the divine providence. However, even without an answer, the question itself should warn all those inside the church to whom the use of His name comes too easily. The entire being, who feels all needs by turns, will take nothing as an equivalent for life but the fulness of living itself. Since the essence of things are as a matter of fact disseminated through the whole extent of time and space, it is in their spread-outness and alternation that one will enjoy them. When weary of the concrete clash and dust and pettiness, one will refresh oneself by a bath in the eternal springs, or fortify oneself by a look at the immutable natures. However, one will only be a visitor, not a dweller in the region; one will never carry the philosophic yoke upon one’s shoulders, and when tired of the gray monotony of one’s problems and insipid spaciousness of one’s result, will always escape gleefully into the teeming and dramatic richness of the concrete World. So abstract concept can be a valid substitute for a concrete reality except with reference to a particular interesting he conceiver. #RandolphHarris 6 of 17

The interest of theoretic rationality, the relief of identification, is but one of a thousand human purposes. When others rear their heads, it must pack up its little bundle and retire till its turn recurs. The exaggerated dignity and value that philosophers have claimed for their solutions is this greatly reduced. The only virtue their theoretic conception need have is simplicity, and a simple conception is an equivalent for the world only so far as the World is simple,–the World meanwhile, whatever simplicity it may harbor, being also a mightily complex affair. Enough simplicity remains, however, and enough urgency in our craving to reach it, to make the theoretic function one of the most invincible of human impulses. The quest of the fewest elements of things is an ideal that some will follow, as long as there are beings to think at all. However, suppose the goal attained. Supposed that at last we have a system unified in the sense that has been explained. Our World can now be conceived simply, and our mind enjoys the relief. Our universal concept has made the concrete chaos rational. However, now I ask, Can that which is the ground of rationality in all else be itself properly called rational? It would seem at first sight that it might. One is tempted at any rate to say that, since the craving for rationality is appeased by the identification of one thing with another, a datum which left nothing else outstanding might quench that craving definitively, or be rational in se. #RandolphHarris 7 of 17

No otherness being left to annoy us, we should sit down at peace. In other words, as the theoretic tranquility of the boor results from one’s spinning no further considerations about one’s chaotic Universe, so any datum whatever (provided it were simple, clear, and ultimate) ought to banish puzzle from the Universe of the philosopher and confer peace, inasmuch as there would then be for one absolutely no further considerations to spin. A difficult is solved, a mystery unriddled, when it can be shown to resemble something else; to be an example of a fact already known. Mystery is isolation, exception, or it may be apparent contradiction: the resolution of the mystery is found in assimilation, identity, fraternity. When all things are assimilated, so far as assimilation can go, so far as likeness hold, there is an end to explanation; there is an end to what the mind can do, or can intelligently desire. The path of science as exhibited in modern ages is toward generality, wider and wider, until we reach the highest, the widest laws of every department of things; there explanation is finished, mystery ends, perfect vision is gained. However, unfortunately, this first answer will not hold. #RandolphHarris 8 of 17

Our mind is so wedded to the process of seeing an other beside every item of its experience, that when the notion of an absolute datum is presented to it, it goes through its usual procedure and remains pointing at the void beyond, as if in that lay further matter for contemplation. In short, it spins for itself the further absolute consideration of nonentity enveloping the being of its datum; and as that leads nowhere, back recoils the thought toward its datum again. However, there is no natural bridge between nonentity and this particular datum, and the thought stands oscillating hither and tither, wondering “Why was there anything but nonentity; why just this universal datum and not another?” and finds no end, in wandering mazes lost. When the attempt to fuse the manifold into a single totality has been most successful, when the conception of the Universe as a unique fact is nearest its perfection, the carving for further explanation, the ontological wonder-sickness, arises in its extreme form. The uneasiness which keeps the never-resting clock of metaphysics in motion, is the consciousness that the non-existence of this World is just as possible as its existence. The notion of nonentity may thus be called the parent of the philosophic craving in its subtilest and profoundest sense. #RandolphHarris 9 of 17

Absolute existence is absolute mystery, for its relations with the nothing remain unmediated to our understanding. One philosopher only had pretended to throw a logical bridge over this chasm. Hegel, by trying to show that nonentity and concrete being are linked together by a series of identities of a synthetic kind, binds everything conceivable into a unity, with no outlying notion to disturb the free rotary circulation of the mind within its bounds. Since such unchecked movement gives the feeling of rationality, he must be held, if he has succeeded, to have eternally and absolutely quenched all rational demands. However, for those who deem Hegel’s heroic effort to have failed, nought remains but to confess that when all things have been unified to the supreme degree, the notion of a possible other than the actual may still haunt our imagination and prey upon our system. The bottom of being I left logically opaque to us, as something which we simply come upon and find, and about which (if we wish to act) we should pause and wonder as little as possible. The philosopher’s logical tranquility is thus in essence no other than the boor’s. They differ only as to the point at which each refuses to let further considerations upset the absoluteness of the data one assumes. #RandolphHarris 10 of 17

The boor does so immediately, and is liable at any moment to the ravages of many kinds of doubt. The philosopher does not do so till unity has been reached, and is warranted against the inroads of those considerations, but only practically, not essentially, secure from the blighting breath of the ultimate Why? If one cannot exorcise this question, one must ignore or blink it, and, assuming the data of one’s system as something given, and the gift as ultimate, simply proceed to a life of contemplation or of action based on it. There is no doubt that this acting on an opaque necessity is accompanied by a certain pleasure. There is an infinite significance in fact. Necessity is the last and highest point that we can reach. It is not only the interest of ultimate and definitive knowledge, but also that of the feelings, to find a last repose and an ideal equilibrium in an uttermost datum which can simply not be other than it is. Such is the attitude of ordinary beings in their theism, God’s fiat being in physics and morals such an uttermost datum. Such is also the attitude of all hard-minded analysts and Verstandesmenschen. Of experiences as a whole no account can be given. However, meditating attempts may be made. The peace of rationality may be sought through ecstasy when logic fails. #RandolphHarris 11 of 17

To religious persons of every shade of doctrine moments come when the World, as it is, seems so divinely orderly, and the acceptance of it by the heart so rapturously complete, that intellectual questions vanish; nay, the intellect itself is hushed to sleep,–thought is not; enjoyment it expires. Ontological emotion so fills the soul that ontological speculation can no longer overlap it and put her girdle of interrogation-marks round existence. Even the least religious of beings must have felt when loafing on the grass on some transparent summer morning, that swiftly arose and spread round one the peace and knowledge that pass all the argument of the Earth. At such moments of energetic living we feel as if there were something diseased and contemptible, yea vile, in theoretic grubbing and brooding. In the eye of healthy sense the philosopher is at best a learned fool. It is a matter of complete assurance and scientific observation for the truth seeker that God exists, that beings have souls, that we are here on Earth to become untied with this soul, and that one can attain true happiness only by following good and avoiding evil. One is not a quester after saintly prestige: one will not outwardly try to present oneself as a holy person. #RandolphHarris 12 of 17

One could never make a commercial business out of spiritual uplift, nor even turn it into a paid professional career. How different from those ambition leaders whose pretended motive of serving humanity is really a cover for the service of their own ego. People may think a person who is attuned to their soul exercises infinite tolerance and patience. This is because they have no standard by which to measure the qualities of one’s rhythm of consciousness. Tolerance and patience imply their opposites. People who are connected to their soul reactions conform to neither. One literally lives where they do not apply. The set of conditions which for the ordinary being gives rise to the possibility of tolerance and patience or their opposites is for one an opportunity for reflection. Such a beings has no enemies, although one may have those who regard one as their enemy. For hate cannot enter one’s heart; goodwill towards all is its fragrant atmosphere. In all relations, whether as a friend or a partner or spouse, one is possessing, but one requires in return to be unpossessed. Here, then, is the point which I see the new mission of humanity, to rise up incomparably higher than all those preceding. Up until the present, many people have been principally occupied with the material aspect of reality. From now on one must give their attention to reality as a living function. #RandolphHarris 13 of 17

The soul is one of the few places left where one can be private. The soul’s existence is not persuasion, but knowledge—it is an instrument of choice, and the choice is always yours, not your elected or designated leaders. The adept has no indispensable need to know. One is being, which is one’s foundational consciousness—pure, unmixed with mental images or thoughts, and not dispersed in the existence of the five sense. One does not seek and will not accept those who are already members of any society or group which provides them with instruction, for one will not interfere between the teacher and the taught. Truth must be sought in its fullness, not as a supplement to the teaching of others. For one will not adulterate truth. The truth one has to give is not the same as that taught by one and one does not want to distort it to fit such misconceptions. One who has found one’s genuine self does not need to pose for the benefit of gushing disciples. One obtains the deepest satisfaction merely from being oneself. What other may say about one in praise cannot being one anything like pleasures which one’s own higher consciousness beings one. One’s ever-present calmness is not a mask for secretive emotions, inner conflicts, mental tensions, or explosive passions. #RandolphHarris 14 of 17

One has paid a high price for this serenity. One has accepted the necessity of walking alone, the shattering of all illusions, the denudation of human desire, and the funeral of animal passion. The illuminated individual’s conduct in this World is a guided one. One’s senses tell one what is happening in the World about one, but one’s soul guides one to a proper evaluation of those sense reports. In this way one lives in the World, but is not of it. Of one alone is it true today that one’s is a spiritual life. One possesses a largeness of heart at all times, an immense tolerance towards the frailty of faulty men and women. Most of the studies throw light on the attitudes on the part of the helping person which makes a relationship growth-promoting or growth-inhibiting. A careful study of parent-child relationships denotes that parental attitudes towards children, the “acceptant-democratic” seemed most growth-facilitating. Children of these parents with their warm and equalitarian attitudes showed an accelerated intellectual development (an increasing I.Q.), more originality, more emotional security and control, less excitability than children from other types of homes. Though somewhat slow initially in social development, they were, by the time they reached school age, popular, friendly, non-aggressive leaders. #RandolphHarris 15 of 17

When parents’’ attitudes are classed as “actively rejectant” the children show a slightly decelerated intellectual development, relatively poor use of the abilities they do possess, and some lack of originality. They are emotionally unstable, rebellious, aggressive, and quarrelsome. The children of parents with other attitude syndromes tend in various respect to fall in between these extremes. I am sure that these findings do not surprise us as related to child development. I would like to suggest that they probably apply to other relationships as well, and that the counselor or physician or administrator who is warmly emotional and expressive, respectful of the individuality of oneself and of the others, and who exhibits a non-possessive caring, probably facilitates self-realization much as does a parent with these attitudes. When one has fully accomplished this passing-over, all the elements of one’s lower nature will then have been fully eliminated. The ego will be destroyed. Instead of being enslaved by its own senses and passions, blinded by its own thoughts and ignorance, one’s mind will be inspired, enlightened, and liberated by God. Yet life in the human self will not be destroyed because one has entered life in the divine God. However, neither will it continue in the old and lower way. That self will henceforth function as a perfectly obedient instrument of the soul and no longer of the animal body or intellectual nature. #RandolphHarris 16 of 17

No evil thought and no animal passion can ever again take hold of one’s mind. What remains of one’s character is therefore the incorruptible part and the immortal part. Death may rob one of lesser things, but not of the thing which one cherishes most. Having already parted in one’s heart with what is perishable, one can await it without perturbation and with sublime resignation. When we comprehend what it is that must go into the making of a truth seeker, how many and how diverse the experiences through which one has passed in former days, we realize that such a being’s wisdom is part of one’s bloodstream. The free soul is a living room to an ordinary citizen, a treasury to a researcher, and a chamber of horrors to a dictator. “Thou also sayest, except we repent we shall perish. How knowest thou the thought and intent of our hearts? How knowest thou that we have cause to repent? How knowest thou that we are not a righteous people? Behold, we have built sanctuaries, and we do assemble ourselves together to worship God. We do believe that God will says all humans,” reports Alam 21.6. Not only does God supply infinite riches to our soul, but we may sit at home, and yet be in all quarters of the Earth. The eternal access to God is not a privilege, but a necessity for any free society. #RandolphHarris 17 of 17