More full of visions than a high romance? What, but thee Sleep? Soft closers of our eyes! Low murmurer of tender lullabies! Light hover around our happy pillows! Wreather of poppy bubs, and weeping willows! Silent entangler of beauty’s tresses! Most happy listener! when the morning blesses thee for enlivening all the cheerful eyes that glance so brightly at the new Sun-rise. But what is higher beyond thought than thee? Fresher than berries of a mountain tree? More strange, more beautiful, more smooth, more regal, than wings of swans, than doves, than dim-seen eagle? What is it? And to what shall I compare it? It has a glory, and naught else can share it: The though therefore is awful, sweet, and holy, chasing away all Worldliness and folly; coming sometimes like fearful claps of thunder, or the low rumblings Earth’s regions under; and sometimes like a gentle whispering of all the secrets of some wond’rous thing that breathers about us in the vacant air; so that we look around with prying stare, perhaps to see shapes of light, aerial limning, and catch soft floating from a faint-heard hymning; to see the laurel wreath, on high suspended, that is to crown our name wen life is ended. Sometimes it gives a glory to the voice, and from the heart up-springs, rejoice! rejoice! Sounds which will reach the Framer of all things, and die away in ardent mutterings. #RandolphHarris 1 of 16

No one who once the glorious Sun has seen, and all the clouds, and felt one’s bosom clean for one’s great Maker’s presence, but must know what’tis I mean, and feel one’s being glow: Therefore no insult I give one’s spirit by telling what one sees from native merit. The principal faculties of the brain use the ministry and help of this spirit; it is their vehicle. The fountain of all the spirits is in the heart. The spirit is the most universal instrument of the soul. Spirit is not only the soul’s instrument; it is the mean, a sacred band of unite, between soul and body. Spirit is a most subtle vapour, which is expressed from the blood, and the instrument of the soul, to perform all one’s actions; a common tie or medium betwixt the body and soul, as some will have it. I am sure there is a common Spirit that plays within us, yet makes no part of us: and that is the Spirit of God, the fire and scintillation of that noble and mighty Essence, which is the life and virtue of the Sun. Conceive light invisible, and that is spirit. The spirits are minute, imperceptible substances, breathlike and flamelike, quite separate from inert particles of matter. They move so much as to seem never at rest. They help to account for natural movement and change, for they come into being and pass away. #RandolphHarris 2 of 16

To maintain itself, nonvital spirit feeds on adjacent particles of matter, the evidence of its activity being illustrated by rust in metals, and the shrinkage of flesh and the slowing down of bodily organs in human beings. In all animate life, the living spirit is he efficient cause and vehicle of motion. Although movements of the body that were observable and local cold be explained in part nu sensory action, the initiation and persistence of them could better be accounted for by assuming a pervasive, dynamic, spirit-substance than some mysterious force or soul. One does not go far in effect in either explaining nature or in examining her if at every point of difficulty one calls upon a vague force, invents an entity, or devises a special principle to fit the case. Rather, one looks for the simplest thing, the single principle, that will account systematically for the largest number of pehnomena. Now, we will assume a spirit and inquire by what efforts a spirit so small and tender can put in motion bodies so gross and hard. Spirit in the human being is a substance so responsive to the two sources of knowledge that it reverberates to each—to God’s revelations and to human’s observations of nature, the informations of revelation and of sense differ no doubt in matter and manner of entrance and conveyance to us; yet the human spirit is one and the same; and it is but as if different liquors were poured through different funnels into one and the same vessel. #RandolphHarris 3 of 16

The human spirit responds both to divine sources of stimulation and to natural things. This is the kind of spirit human use when they exercise the faculties of one’s soul—one’s understanding, reason, imagination, memory, appetite, and will. As the instrument of human’s faculties it is both efficient cause and vehicle without which there is no human behavior. The spirit is an extremely tenuous substance continuous with itself throughout the body. It is capable of being dilated by heat and cold—these being two qualities of matter—and responds instantly to movement and caused movement. The spirit is not only endowed with power, not just of motion, but of reason, imagination, sense, memory, and desire. One will not have to think out the needed reaction, for it will flow naturally and spontaneously out of one’s inner being. The enlightened individual’s consciousness remains permanently serene and equable, at the same level whatever conditions prevail. Compassion—a quality so real and vibrant in the Italians but sensibly practical in the English and Americas, so infrequent in the French but present in the Indians—is natural, quiet, and devoid of sentimentality in the enlightened individual. One may still have one’s hygienic reactions, one’s aesthetic preferences, one’s individual tastes. One may still retain human aversions to dirty bodies, attractions to refined habits. #RandolphHarris 4 of 16

Enlightenment has not turned one into an indifferent robot or a frozen creature or a zombie deprived of feeling. However, one’s personal discrimination is calmly practiced: behind it there is an impersonal detachment. There is something which is always kept in reserve, a part of oneself is enclosed and which keeps other beings at a distance, however cordial is one’s outer self. This enables one to keep always calm, whatever the outer provocations may be, to hold to an intense inner stillness. One does not hope for anything nor wish for any special piece of good fortune—not because one is too pessimistic about life, but because one is so serene that one has stopped looking for something to come to one from outside that would bring happiness, stopped holding on to others, and stopped dreaming. THIS is reality; what the World can give is a dream. When the hour comes to desert the body, one will be ready for the fated event, without that desperate struggle to hold onto a form which has served its purpose seen too often in the unenlightened. Such is one’s freedom from common ego-obsession and such the stretch of one’s compassion, that one makes whomever one talks with feel that one is genuinely and deeply interested in his or her particular affairs. There is a friendliness in one’s look, goodwill in one’s face, that make acquaintance easy. #RandolphHarris 5 of 16

A being can take from the printed words what one is unable to hear from the spoken word. The truth-seeker will be wise to make use of such outward helps as appeal to one. They may be the written word, the printed book, the molded statuette, the pictorial representation, or the human photograph—always provided they are referable to a genuinely inspired source. One should study the words and works, the lives and examples of practising mystics, and follow in their footsteps. Good books are not to be disdained, despite contemptuous references by fanatical mystics or ill-balances ascetics. Negatively, they will warn one against misleading elements likely to cause a deviation from one’s correct course. Positively, they will guide one where no personal guide is available. However, one must beware of imaging that the pleasures one derives from spiritual reading is any sign that ne is making progress in spiritual living. It is easier to read lofty thoughts than to think them out for oneself, and to live them is the most difficult of all. Books, too, serve as guides if they are properly used, that is, if their limitations are recognized and if their authors’ limitations are acknowledged. In the first case it is the intellect’s own inability to transcend thought that stops it from realizing the truth. In the second case it is the evolutionary status of the being’s ego, and the accuracy of one’s attitudes—themselves victims or controllers of one’s emotions, passions—which matter. #RandolphHarris 6 of 16

For if one’s mind cannot register the impact of truth, because of the blockage set up partially or even all around one, the author’s work will reflect one’s ignorance. One cannot teach what one does not know; one’s own mental obscurity can lead only to the reader’s obscurity. Yet such is the deceptiveness of thought, that a wrong or false idea maybe received and held in the mind under the belief that it is right or true one. The writings of these Masters help both the moral nature and the intellectual mind of the responsive and sensitive, who are excited to the same endeavour, exhilarated to the same level, and urged to realize the same ideas. These stand out from all other writings because they contain vivid inspiration and true thought. The very fine writings of philosophers and mystics of all times may bring into one’s life some emotional inspirational and intellectual guidance, even, possibly, stimulating one’s power of will. Through the lone, inavoidable years of struggle on the Quest, they can, to that extent, act the part of a teacher or guide. However, it must be remembered that some are infinitely more worthwhile than others, and it is essential for one to be able to discriminate between what is true and helpful and what is false worthless. Now let us look at quite a different form of enslavement and liberation brought about by our finitude in this World. #RandolphHarris 7 of 16

In contrast to much of what has been said and much of what I myself have said against technology, I want to speak for the saving power of the technical control of nature. This is a bold statement to make in a period when such control has reached a peak and, at the same time, its injurious and destructive aspects have become more manifest than ever. Every technical invention elevates humans above their terrestrial stage, liberating one from much drudgery, conquering the narrow limits of one’s movements in time and space, saving one from innumerable smaller and greater evils to which one is subject as a part of nature, for instance, unnecessary pain and unnecessary death. These technical innovations have been broken in body and mind by being suddenly deprived of them. We know the destructive possibilities in technology; we know that it can annihilate all life on Earth and bring history to an end. We also know that it can keep human’s spirit away from salvation in a deeper and more lasting sense. We know that it can transform beings themselves into a thing and a tool. Nevertheless, in the great feat of technical control we have a break-though of the eternal into the temporal; they cannot be ignored when we speak of saving power and salvation. In the ancient World, great political leaders were called saviors. #RandolphHarris 8 of 16

The reason the ancient political leaders were called saviours is because they liberated nations, and groups within them from misery, enslavement, and war. This is another kind of healing, reminiscent of the words of the last book of the Bible, which say in poetic language that the leaves of the tree of life are for the healing of the nations. How can nations be healed? One may say: They can be liberated from external conquers or internal oppressors. However, can they be healed? Can they be saved? The prophets give the answer: If there is a small minority, a group of people who represent what the nation is called to be, Nations are saved. They may be defeated, but their spirit will be a power of resistance against the evil spirits who are detrimental to the nation. The question of saving power in the nation is the question of whether there is a minority, even a small one, which is willing to resist the anxiety produced by propaganda, the conformity enforced by threat, the hatred stimulated by ignorance. The future of this country and its spiritual values is not dependent as much on atomic defense as on the influence such groups will have on the spirit in which the nation will thin and act. And this is true of humankind as a whole. Its future will be dependent on a saving group, embodied in one nation or crossing through all nations. #RandolphHarris 9 of 16

There is saving power in humankind, but there is also the hidden will to self-destruction. It depends on every one of us which side will prevail. There is no divine promise that humanity will survive this or the next year. However, it may depend on the saving power effective in your or me, whether it will survive. (It my depend on the amount of healing and liberating grace which works through any of us with respect to social justice, racial equality, and political wisdom.) Unless many of us say to ourselves: Through the saving power working in me, humankind may be saved or lost—it will be lost. However, in order to be the bearers of saving power, we must be saved ourselves; the wall separating us from eternal life must be broken through. And here is one thing which strengthens the wall and keeps us sick and enslaved. It is our estrangement and guilt which are the impediments which keep us from reaching eternal life here and now. The judgment against us which we confirm in our conscience is the sickness unto death, the despair of life, from which we must be healed in order to say yes to life. Healed life is new life, delivered from the bondage of the evil one. Here the last two petitions of the Lord’s Prayer become one petition: forgive our trespasses, and deliver us from the evil one—this is one and the same thing. #RandolphHarris 10 of 16

 And if we call Jesus, the Christ, our saviour, then we mean that in him we see the power which heals up by accepting us and which there is reconciliation with ourselves, with our World, and with the divine Ground of our World and ourselves. And now the last question: Who shall be saved, liberated, healed? The fourth gospel says: The World! The reunion with the eternal from which we come, from which we are separated, to which we shall return, is promised to everything that is. We are saved not as individual, but in unity with all others and with the Universe. Our own liberation does not leave the enslaved ones alone, our own healing is a part of the great healing of the World. Therefore, two other petition of the Lord’s Prayer also ask the same: Save us from the evil one, and Thy Kingdom come! This Kingdom is His creation, liberated and healed.  When we look from time and eternity, this is what we hope for. Deliver us—heal us—that is the cry of everything that is; of each of us in unity with all humankind and in unity with the whole Universe. The divine answer is: I shall return to me what is separated from me because it belongs to me. I am liberating you today as I did before and will do in the future. Today, when you hear these words, “I am liberating you, I am healing you,” do not resist! #Randolphharris 11 of 16

Understanding is the basis of care. What you would take care of you must first understand, whether it be a petunia or a nation. If you would care for your spiritual core—your heart or will—you must understand it. That is, you must understand your spirit. If you would form your hear in godliness or assist others in that process, you must understand what the heart is and what it does, and especially its place in the overall system of human life. Some years ago The Reader’s Digest ran, at intervals, helpful articles on the various parts of the body: the ear, the lungs, the foot, the stomach, and so forth. The aim was to put readers in better position to care for their physical healthy. The titles were always similar: “Hi, I’m Joe’s Liver” (or lung, or foot, and so on). The properties and structure of the liver or other organ would be described, and its role in the body as a whole explained. Then there would be some discussion of how to keep that particular body part in good condition and to assist it in its function. Now we might have titled this essay, “Hi, I’m Joe’s Heart”—in the spiritual sense of “heart.” Its aim is to explain the nature of the heart (spirit, or will) and its function in the person as a whole. In order to do this we will take a look at the whole person and distinguish the various aspects, including the heart. #RandolphHarris 12 of 16

This is not an easy task under any circumstances, but it is made triply difficult by the fact that the nature of the person is, today, a battlefield of conflicting academic, scientific, artistic, religious, legal, and political viewpoints. In our culture, it is the academic that governs the idea systems of our World and opposes traditional views of human nature—specifically, the Judeo-Christian or biblical understanding of human life. Today, you will hear many presumably learned people say that there is no such thing as human nature, or that human beings do not have a nature. Now, there is a long historical development back of this view, which we cannot deal with here, and it is not entirely without an important point. However, that point is mis-made in the statement that human beings do not have a nature. It then becomes a part of unchecked political and moral rage against identity that characterizes modern life. This is a rage predicated upon the idea that identity restricts freedom. If ai m a human being, as opposed to, say, a brussels sprout or a zebra, that places a restriction upon what I can do, what I ought to do, or what should be done to me. Now, this embattled state of human nature tells us at least two things: First, it tells us that the issue of human nature is of great importance—to important for us to leave alone. If we are to have anything useful to say about spiritual formation and about the spiritual life that Jesus brings, we must deal with it. #RandolphHarrs 13 of 16

Otherwise, what we say will have no relation to the concrete existence of real human beings, and this, unfortunately, is all too often the case in speaking of the spiritual. Second, it tells us that the confusion now publicly prevailing over the makeup of the human being may not be due to its inherent obscurity. Rather, it may be due to the fact that it is a field where strongly armed prejudices—assumptions about what must be the case, “do not bother me with facts”—prevent even well-intended people from seeing what, at least in basic outline is fairly obvious, simple, and straightforward. We especially have in mind opinions to the effect that a human being is purely physical, just a terrestrial being—basically, just as the human brain. Or the opinion that human beings are, as such, good, or not to be forced to do anything that do not want to do. Or the opinion that human beings do not actually have a nature and that all classifications of them—male/female, African/European, and so on—are social constructions with no reality apart from the judgements and motivations of social groups or cultures. At present, governmental and social institutions are heavily invested in such opinions favoring the social construction of the human being. #RandolphHarris 14 of 16

 This current state of affairs may prevent otherwise thoughtful people from seeing the value of what has traditionally been regarded as the best of common sense about life and of what has been preserved in the wisdom traditions of most cultures—especially in two of the greatest World sources of wisdom about the human self, the Judeo-Christian and the Greek, the biblical and the classical. Now, when we set aside contemporary prejudices and carefully examine these two great sources, I believe it will become clear that heart, spirit, and will (or their equivalents) are words that refer to one and the same thing, the same fundamental component of the person. However, they do so under different aspects. “Will” refers to the component’s power to initiate, to create, to bring about what did not exist before. “Spirit” refers to its fundamental nature as distinct and independent from physical reality. And “heart” refers to its position in the human being, as the center or core to which every other component of the self owes its proper functioning. However, it is the same dimension of the human being that has all these features. Merciful and most loving God, by Whose will and bounty Jesus Christ our Lord humbled Himself for this—that He might exalt the whole race of humans; and descended to the depths for the purpose of lifting up the lowly; and was born, God-Man, by the virgin, for this cause—that He might restore in humans the lost celestial image; grant that Thy people may cleave unto Thee, that as Thou hast redeemed them by Thy bounty, they may ever please Thee by devoted service. #RandolphHarris 15 of 16

These spiritual subjects are becoming more widely known and more studied than they were a half century ago. There has been quite a follow of literature, original works, commentaries, and translations in our time making both mystical and philosophic ideas more available. It is not possible for most earnest seekers living in the free countries to come into possession of teaching. Be present, O Lord, to our supplications; and let Thy people, who were framed by Thy making and restore by Thy power, be also saved by Thy continual operation, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Grant, we beseech Thee, Almighty God, that as we are bathed in the new light of Thine Incarnate Word, that which shines by faith in our minds may blaze out likewise in our actions; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Grant to us, Almighty God, that as Thy Salvation, wondrous with a new and Heavenly light, went forth in this World to redeem life on Earth, so it may ever beams forth in the renewal of our hearts; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord. “Remember, remember that it is upon the rock of our Redeemer, who is Christ, the Son of God, that ye must build your foundation; that when the devil shall send forth his mighty winds, yea, his shafts in the whirlwind, yea, when all his hail and his mighty storm shall beat upon you, it shall have no power over you to drag you down to the gulf of misery and endless wo, because of the rock upon which ye are built, which is a sure foundation, a foundation whereon if people build they cannot fall,” report Helaman 5.12. #RandolphHarris 16 of 16

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