That perfect tranquility of life, which is nowhere to be found but in retreat, a faithful friend, and a good soul. When I look into my soul, I cannot understand why I ever step out of it. Our neighborhoods represent the best and last frontier in our collaborative efforts to advocate for and improve the lives of our community members. It is within the structure of neighborhoods that our family develops, incorporates values, and even learn the skills necessary for responsible citizenship. If you thoroughly know anything of value, teach it to others. Healthier personalities have the ability to find and maintain relationships of love and friendships in the World. This ability insures that a healthier person will have access to relief from the existential loneliness in which we all live. It will be noted that I used the term “relief.” Loneliness is not a disease of which one can be cured; it is instead an inescapable fact of human existence. Less healthy personalities, cut off as they are from the fount of their real selves, find themselves terrible company. They cannot long tolerate solitude, and they run willy-nilly into busy-work, or superficial companionship with others. They do not, however, truly encounter another person and enter into dialogue with one. Hence, the feeling of loneliness, of not being known and understood, chronically nags at them like a stone in their shoe or a headache. #RandolphHarris 1 of 18

The healthier personality, because one is less self-concealing and has readier access to one’s own fantasy, feelings, and memories, is less afraid of solitude when this is one’s lot; and when one is with others, one can feel secure enough in one’s own worth that one can let encounter and dialogue happen. During the process of such dialogue, the shell which encapsulates one as a separate, isolated being ruptures; and one’s inner World expands to include the received World of experience of the other. When the dialogue ends, one has experienced oneself in the new dimensions evoked by the other person, and one has learned of the personal World of another—thus one has enlarged and changed. The less healthy personality defends oneself against being so affected and changed in one’s contact with others. One “rubs shells,” or clinks one’s character armor against that of the other person, but does not meet the other. There is no encounter. Just as a healthy personality dares to let oneself be the one he or she is, so does he respect, even cherish and defend, the “suchness,” the idiosyncrasy, of the other person in one’s World. One eschews sneaky efforts to manipulate the feelings, thoughts, and actions of the other; hence one truly experiences the other person as an other, as a source of being, different in some respect from oneself and similar to one in other ways. #RandolphHarris 2 of 18

The less healthy person dares neither to let oneself be, nor to trust the being when one is not trying to control the being. In one’s transactions, one seeks always to influence the other, if in no other modality than in the way in which one will be seen and experienced by the other. In the extreme instances of unhealthy personality, the individual actually (this can only be stated metaphorically) detaches one’s ego from one’s body and functions as a spectator and manipulator of one’s own depersonalized body as it transacts with the other person. This depersonalized body is then manipulated before the other, in the hope that the other’s experience of and responses toward this counterfeit person can thus be controlled: robots performing before others who are perceived as robots. However, when people make a profession of their stigma, the majority group leaders are obliged to have dealings with representatives of other categories, and so find themselves breaking out of the closed circle of their own kind. Instead of leaning on their crutch, they get to play golf with it, ceasing, in terms of social participation, to be representative of the people they represent. Also, those who professionally present the viewpoint of their category may introduce some systematic bias in the presentation simply because they are sufficiently involved in the problem to write about it. #RandolphHarris 3 of 18

Although any particular stigma category is likely to have professionals who take different lines, and may even support publications which advocate different programs, there is uniform tacit agreement that the situation of the individual with this particular stigma is worth attention. Whether a writer takes a stigma very seriously or makes light of it, one must define it as something worth writing about. This minimal agreement, even when there are no others, helps to consolidate belief in the stigma as a basis for self-conception. Here again representatives are not representative, for representation can hardly come from those who give no attention to their stigma, or who are relatively unlettered. I do not mean to suggest here that professionals provide the stigmatized with the sole public source of reminder as to their situation in life; there are other reminders. Each time someone with a particular stigma makes a spectacle of oneself by breaking a law, winning a prize, or becoming a first of one’s kind, a local community make take gossipy note of this; these events can even make news in the mass media of the wider society. In any case, they who share the noted person’s stigma suddenly become accessible to the normal immediately around and become subject to a slight transfer of credit or discredit to themselves. #RandolphHarris 4 of 18

By being now embraced by the masses, the situation of the stigmatized individual’s situation thus leads them easily into living in a World of publicized heroes and villains of their own stripe, their relation to this World being underlined by immediate associated, both normal and otherwise, who bring them news about how one of their kind has fared. When one considers one set of individuals, from whom the stigmatized person can expect some support, those who share one’s stigma and by virtue of this are defined and define themselves as one’s own kind. The second set are—to borrow a term once used by homosexuals—the “wise,” namely, persons who are not perceived as part of the dominate group but whose special situation some times has made them intimately privy to the secret life of the stigmatized individual and sympathetic with it, and who find themselves accorded a measure of acceptance, a measure of courtesy membership in the clan. Wise persons are the marginal beings before whom the individual with a fault need feel no shame nor exert self-control, knowing that in spite of one’s failing one will be seen as an ordinary other. An example may be cited from the World of a woman of the evening. Although she sneers at respectability, the lady, particularly, the woman of the evening, is supersensitive in polite society, taking refuge in her off hours with Bohemian artists, writers, actors and would-be intellectuals. There she may be accepted as an off-beat personality, without being a curiosity. #RandolphHarris 5 of 18

Before taking the standpoint of those with a particular stigma, the person perceived as normal who is becoming wise may first have to pass through a heart-changing personal experience, of which there are many literary records. And after the sympathetic normal makes oneself available to the stigmatized, one often must wait their validation of one as a courtesy member. The self must not only be offered, it must be accepted. Sometimes, of course, the final step does seem to be initiated by the normal; the following is an example of this. “I do not know whether I can or not, but let me tell of an incident. I was once admitted to a group of African American boys of about my own age with whom I used to fish. When I first began to join them, they would carefully use a term of endearment in my presence. Gradually, as we went fishing more and more often, they began to joke with each other in front of me and call each other the more derogatory term of endearment. The change was in their utilization of the word when joking after the precious inability to use the word at all. One day when we were swimming, a boy shoved me with mock violence and I said to him, ‘Do not give me that (expletive) talk.’  He replied, ‘You bastard,’  with a big grin. From that time on, we could all use the term of endearment but the old categories had totally changed. Never, as long as I live, will I forget the way my stomach felt after I used the term of endearment without any reservation.” #RandolphHarris 6 of 18

Heaven lies within and without us, it is true. But in most cases, only by the intervention of some authentic spiritual genius do we seem able to translate this into actuality for ourselves. Life is teaching us all the time but its voice needs a human being as a more direct medium, its lessons need human speech or writing to gain clearer utterance. If we never tried to seem a little better than we are, how could we improve or train ourselves from the outside inward? And the same impulse to show the World a better or idealized aspect of ourselves finds an organized expression in the various professions and classes, each of which has to some extent a cant or pose, which its members assume unconsciously, for the most part, but which has the effect of a conspiracy to work upon the credulity of the rest of the World. There is a cant not only of theology and of philanthropy, but also of law, medicine, teaching, even of science—perhaps especially of science, just now, since the more a particular kind of merit is recognized and admired, the more it is likely to be assumed to be worthy. Thus, when the individual presents oneself before others, one’s performance will tend to incorporate and exemplify the officially accredited values of the society, more so, in fact, than does one’s behavior as a whole. To the degree that a performance highlights the common official values of the society in which it occurs, we may look upon it, in the matter of Durkheim and Radcliffe-Brown, as a ceremony—as an expressive rejuvenation and reaffirmation of the moral values of the community. #RandolphHarris 7 of 18

Furthermore, in so far as the expressive bias of performances comes to be accepted as reality, then that which is accepted at the moment as reality will have some of the characteristics of a celebration. To stay in one’s room away from the place where the party is given, or away from where the practitioner attends one’s client, is to stay away from where reality is being performed. The World, in truth, is a wedding. One of the richest sources of data on the presentation of idealized performances is the literature on social mobility. In most societies there seems to be a major or general system of stratification, and in most stratified societies there is an idealization of the higher strata and some aspiration on the part of those in low places to move to higher ones. (One must be careful to appreciate that this involves not merely a desire for a prestigeful place but also a desire for a place close to the sacred center of the common values of the society.) Commonly we find that upward mobility involves the presentation of proper performances and that efforts to move upward and effort to keep from moving downward are expressed in terms of sacrifices made for the maintenance of front. Once the proper sign-equipment has been obtained and familiarity gained in the management of it, then this equipment can be used to embellish and illumine one’s daily performances with a favorable social style. #RandolphHarris 8 of 18

Perhaps the most important piece of sign-equipment associated with social class consist of the status symbols through which material wealth is expressed. American society is similar to others in this regard but seems to have been singled out as an extreme example of wealth-oriented class structure—perhaps because in America the license to employ symbols of wealth and financial capacity to do so are so widely distributed. Indian society, on the other hand, has sometimes been cited not only as one in which mobility occurs in terms of caste groups, not individuals, but also as one in which performances tend to establish favorable claims regarding non-material values. The caste system, for example, is far from a rigid system in which the position of each component is fixed for all time. Movement has always been possible, and especially so in the middle regions of the hierarchy. A low caste was able, in a generation or two, to rise to a higher position in the hierarchy by adopting vegetarianism and teetotalism, by Sanskritizing its ritual and pantheon. In short, it took over, as far as possible, the customs, rites, and beliefs of the Brahmins, and the adoption of the Brahminic way of life by a low caste seems to have been frequent, though theoretically forbidden. #RandolphHarris 9 of 18

The tendency of the lower castes to imitate the higher has been a powerful factor in the spread of Sanskritic ritual and customs, and in the achievement of a certain amount of cultural uniformity, not only throughout the caste scale but over the entire length and breadth of India. Nature herself is forever silently voicing these majestic truths and if we are unable to receive them from her lips, as we usually are, then we must receive them from a teacher’s lecture. We know that the mere reading of books and journals is not enough, and our essential conviction (as also the acknowledgment of the Old World since time immemorial) is that a personal guide who can instruct and inspire one to travel through the twilit jungle land which lies between ignorance and truth is indispensable. This missing element in many quests is the spiritual guide. One of the greatest helps to convert our timid thoughts and our trembling wishes into deeps is the inspiration received from a superior mind. Most beings find they need a concrete symbol to receiver their devotion and concentrate their aspiration. In short, they find they need a Spiritual Leader, be one historical and of the past, or contemporary and of the present. It is said that wisdom comes with experience. However, the enlightened who offer to impart it, whether in person or in writing, may save us some of the effort and suffering which accompany experience. #RandolphHarris 10 of 18

In fact, of course, there are many Hindu circles whose members are much concerned with injecting an expression of wealth, luxury, and class status into the performance of their daily round and who think too little of ascetic purity to bother affecting it. Correspondingly, there have always been influential groups in America whose members has felt that some aspect of every performance ought to play down the expression of sheer wealth in order to foster the impression that standards regarding birth, culture, or moral earnestness are the ones that prevail. Every generation has to find its own way through these mysteries and to these truths anew, despite the heavy freight of recorded teachings and revelations which it receives from all the previous ones. This is why new prophets have always been needed to provide the very antiquated clues. Something or someone is needed to draw us from the ego to God. When one finds out that all one’s efforts at self-improvement are movements around a circle, that the ego does not really intend to give itself up in surrender to the soul and therefore only pretends to do so, one realizes that left to oneself one cannot succeed in really changing one’s inner centre of gravity. If one is to free oneself from such a hopeless position, help is needed from some outside source. #RandolphHarris 11 of 18

It is not that teachers make a difference—they make the difference for the future. Students need to know that you care before they care what you know. The home environment is a most powerful factor in determining the level of growth achievement of individuals, people’s interest in learning, and the number of years of education the individual will receiver. It accounts for more of the person’s motivation in learning than does the educational curriculum or the quality of instruction in our education.  The soul is the most enduring of memorials, the trustiest monument for the presentation of an event or a name or an affection; for it, and it only, is respected by wars and revolutions, and survives them. The purposes of human evolution require the presence at all times through human history of some spiritually fulfilled individuals to act as guides or teachers. At no period has the race been left entirely without them, no matter how bleak, how savage, or how materialistic the period has been. While the dream is still continuing, one cannot help taking its scenes and figures as being quite real. However, if someone rings a bell until one awakens from the dreaming state, one will then see that both scenes and figures were mere figments of one’s own imagination. In a sense, the teacher of philosophy acts as this awakener did, except that one directs one’s efforts to the sense-deceived consciousness of everyday life. #RandolphHarris 12 of 18

It is not enough to set up a spiritual ideal for one to attain. One needs also the psychological help, the emotional and mental re-education which can remove large obstructions to that attainment. No seeker is so wise, so informed, so perfect, or so balanced as not to need the constructive criticism and expert counsel of a true spiritual guide. Such is the World today, with its tensions and greeds, its confusions and wrongs, its ignorance and evil-doing, that if anyone has a store of virtue and an awareness of divinity, people have need of them and hence of one. There is too little of the one and hardly any of the other among us. A being needs comfort and support in these times more than in ordinary times. Where can one best find them? By sitting humbly in intellectual discipleship under those who have been blessed by the higher power with the revelation of its own existence. One can absorb from them a certitude that the World is still ruled by higher laws and its history by higher purposes. “And because of your diligence and your faith and your patience with the word in nourishing it, that it may take root in you, behold, by and by ye shall pluck the fruit thereof, which is most precious, which is sweet, and which is above all that is sweet, and which is white above all that is white, yea, and pure above all that is pure; and ye shall feast upon this fruit even until ye are filled, that ye hunger not, neither shall ye thirst,” reports Alma 32.42. #RandolphHarris 13 of 18

Certainly we do not intend to deride any good thing, and we are thankful for whatever truly helps human beings in their desperate life upon the Earth. Nothing else would be compatible with the spirit of Jesus. The constant love of God is extended to every human being who ever lives, sometimes in places and postures that God himself would not prefer, but still with some good effect. However, whether or not a spirituality adequate to human need and producing genuine renovation of the heart can be a matter of mere human abilities is a question of fact. To be mistaken about it will have consequences of the most serious nature. In any case, we may be sure of this: the formation and, later, transformation of the inner life of humans, from which our outer existence flows, is an inescapable human problem. Spiritual formation, without regard to any specifically religious context or tradition, is the process by which the human spirit or will is given a definite form or character. It is a process that happens to everyone. The most despicable as well as the most admirable of persons have had a spiritual formation. Gangsters as well as saints ae the outcome of spiritual formation. Their spirits or hearts have been formed. We each can become a certain kind of person in the depts of our being, gaining a specific type of character. And that is the outcome of a process of spiritual formation as understood in general human terms that apply to everyone, whether they want it or not. #RandolphHarris 14 of 18

Fortunate of blessed are those who are able to find or are given a path of life that will form their spirit and inner World in a way that is truly strong and good and directed Godward. The shaping and reshaping of the inner life is, accordingly, a problem that has been around as long as humanity itself; and the earliest records of human thought bear eloquent witness to the human struggle to solve it—but with very limited success, one would have to say. True, some points in human history have shown more success in the elevation of the human spirit than others. However, the low points far exceed the high points, and the average is discouragingly low. Societies the World around are currently in desperate straits trying to produce people who are merely capable of coping with their life on Earth in a nondestructive manner. This is as true as of North American and Europe as it is of the rest of the World, though the struggle takes superficially different forms in various areas. In spiritual matters there really is no “Third World.” It is all Third World. When a child of God undertakes a public task or mission one will neither over nor under do one’s work. One will do exactly what is required. The enlightened being expressed self without selfishness, individuality without individualism. One possesses a sense of infinite leisure, a manner devoid of all haste, a willingness to achieve one’s ends little by little. #RandolphHarris 15 of 18

Although fully deserving it, one is too humble to demand and always too embarrassed when offered nay special reverence. One’s personality is one with one’s teaching: one’s life incarnates, practices, and actualizes it. One is content to let then attribute to others the help they are getting from one. One’s ego needs no gratitude and no recognition and would not know what to do with them if they came. One rejoices in their progress as the chief thing. What one gives one gives freely and asks for no requital. Since one’s life itself is not fixed but moves incessantly, one cannot congeal one’s thought into fixed doctrines that are strict and rigid or one’s character into fixed attitudes. One will put forth whatever wisdom indicates in any situation and to any question, not solely what the past indicates—which is what accumulated knowledge or a lined-up character really does. One’s mind is free, one’s policies always fresh. One is neither orthodox nor unorthodox. Naturally such a fluid standpoint will not find approval from the many who have to wear a partisan or fanatic label. The self-renounced illuminate sits beside the gleaming river of life and dips one’s pitcher like others into those troubled waters of passion or pain. Yet one wears an inscrutable smile which perhaps says: “I see all and know all. If I drink with you, it is to be you. If I remain with you, it is to help you. For paradoxically, I sit also at this river’s source.” #RandolphHarris 16 of 18

If someone knows what I do not yet know, if one has trodden father on this path, then it is well to learn from one if one will teach me. The instruction and criticism of a qualified living guide are worth having. However, owing to the rarity of such guides, many seekers are unable to find one. One should appreciate the value of finding a master worthy of being followed. The inner demand of the one will attract in time the outer meeting with the other. No maniac can sure oneself. We dare not leave the treatment of humanity’s mania entirely to humanity themselves. The help of sane outsiders is needed. However, it should be given indirectly and unobtrusively. If the more mature, older, and more experience nightingales find it necessary to give lessons in singing to the younger ones, why not the same situation among human beings? It is the greatest irony of human’s existence that in the end one will be saved from one’s meanness and misery not by those who shout the loudest but by the quietest, the most silent of one’s fellows. For the power and knowledge which one will gain from discipleship with them will be what one needs above all else—power over the baseness in oneself and knowledge f the divine World-Idea. “Then my brethren, ye shall reap the reward of your faith, and your diligence, and patience, and long-suffering, waiting for the tree to bring forth fruit unto you,” reports Alma 32.43. #RandolphHarris 17 of 18

I must say I find the news very educational. The minute somebody turns it on, I go to my library and read a book. The love of learning, the sequestered nooks, and all the sweet serenity of the soul is found when we open our hearts to God. O God, Who hast made this most sacred night to shine with the illumination of the True Light; grant, we beseech Thee, that as we have known the mystery of that Light upon Earth, we may also perfectly enjoy it in heaven; through the same as Jesus Christ our Lord. Grant, O Merciful God, that He Who was born to be the Saviour of the World, as He is the Author of our divine birth, so may be Himself the Bestower of our immortality; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord. Almighty and everlasting God, Who hast willed that on the Nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ, Thy Son, should depend the beginning and the completion of all religion; grant us, we beseech Thee, to be reckoned as a portion of Him, on Whom is built the whole  salvation of humankind; Who with Thee. We beseech Thee, O Lord, bestow on Thy servants the increase of faith, hope, and charity; that as they glory in the Nativity of Thy Son our Lord, they may, by Thy governance, not feel the adversities of the World; and also that what they desire to celebrate in time, they may enjoy to all eternity; through the same as Jesus Christ our Lord. #RandolphHarris 18 of 18

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