Books are the carriers of civilization. Without books, history is silent, literature dumb, science crippled, thought and speculation at a standstill. From these great writings, one will receive impulses of spiritual renewal. From these strong paragraphs and lovely words, one will receive incitement to make oneself better than one is. Their every page will carry a message to one; indeed, they will seem to be written for one. Every book which stimulates aspiration and widens reflection does spiritual service and acts as a teacher. Humankind owes to the child the best it has to give. The greatest gifts you can give your children are the roots of responsibility and the wings of independence. I find that this desire to be all of oneself in each moment—all the richness and complexity, with nothing hidden from oneself, and nothing feared in oneself—this is a common desire in those who have seemed to show much movement in therapy. To be that self which one truly is involves still other components. One which has perhaps been implied already is that the individual moves toward living in an open, friendly, close relationship to one’s own experience. This does not occur easily. Often as the individual sense some new facet of oneself, one initially rejects it. Only as one experiences such a hitherto denied aspect of oneself in an acceptant climate can one tentatively accept it as a part of oneself. #RandolphHarris 1 of 18

As developed nations, so many people have the desire to suppress the feelings with a glass of wine or some other substance, but that will only do more damage. Wine and other things should be enjoyed for pleasure, not to suppress feelings. We are human beings, and not robot, we need to feel our feelings or else we would not have them. Pain means that some kind of behavior modification is needed or we need to change or situation. By feeling pain, and handling it responsible and through prayer, God will direct us in new ways to change our experience for the better. However, as we open ourselves to internal feelings which are clearly not new to one, but which up to this time, one has never been able to fully experience, once we can permit ourselves to experiencing them one will find them less terrible and one will be able to live closer to one’s own experience. Gradually one will learn that experiencing is a friendly resource, not a frightening enemy. No longer is one so fearful of what one may find. One comes to realize that one’s own inner reactions and experiences, the messages of one’s senses and one’s viscera, are friendly. One comes to want to be close to one’s inner sources of information rather than closing them off. This is what we call self-actualizing. Their ease of penetration to reality, their closer approach to a terrestrial or child-like acceptance and spontaneity imply a superior awareness of their own impulses, their own desires, opinions, and subjective reactions in general. #RandolphHarris 2 of 18

Jack’s Favorite Steak Sandwich, Charbroiled United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) choice Harris Ranch 10 ounce New York Steak, served open-faced on grilled sourdough bread with shredded lettuce, tomato, and red onion.

This greater openness to what goes on within is associated with a similar openness to experiences of external reality. Self-actualized people have a wonderful capacity to appreciate again and again, freshly and naively, the basic goods of life with awe, pleasure, wonder, and even ecstasy, however stale these experiences may be for other people. Although an enlightened individual is ever at peace within oneself, one does not necessarily care to advertise this fact to the World by wearing a perpetual smile. For such a being all actions become ritual ones, all places sacred. Even if a negative reaction to some untoward event were to enter one’s mind, one would efface it instantly. The adept is capable of immense power on the occasions when one unleashes it. The illuminate is more likely to shun fame than to seek it. One’s humbleness is shown by the way one seeks anonymity. The exquisite peace and serene passionlessness of one’s days have been fully earned, the power to withdraw from one’s senses from objects whose pursuit wastes the lives of most beings has been gained in long meditations, the insights which reveals the presence of God in al things has been born out of one’s many self-denials and self-surrenders. Where other beings see nothing, sense noting, revere nothing, one does all these things. For one the Empty is the Full. #RandolphHarris 3 of 18

The life of such a being compares with the dead movement of a fixed spindle. While one sits calm within oneself, one’s hands and feet and brain work actively amidst the World. The self-actualized is not tainted by calculations of gain or loss for one is egoless in one’s reckonings. The quality of this being is utterly different from that of most beings. Such is the impression a sensitive observer must feel. If one talks out of one’s personal experience of the Spirit, it will not be an arrogant boast but a quiet statement of simple fact. Peace trails in the wake of such a being as foam behind a yacht. Closely related to this openness to inner and outer experience in general is an openness to and an acceptance of other individuals. As one moves to being able to accept one’s own experience, one also moves toward the acceptance of the experience of others. One values and appreciates both one’s experience and that of others for what it is. One does not complain about water because it is wet, nor about rocks because they are hard. As the child looks out upon the World with wide, uncritical and innocent eyes, simply noting and observing what is the case, without either arguing the matter or demanding that it be otherwise, so does the self-actualizing person look upon human nature both in oneself and in others. This acceptant attitudes toward that which exists, I find developing in clients in therapy. #RandolphHarris 4 of 18

Still another way of describing this pattern which I see in each client is to say that increasingly one trusts and values the process which is oneself. Watching my clients, I have come to a much better understanding of creative people. El Greco, for example, must have realized as he looked at some of his early work, that god artists do not paint like that. However somehow he trusted his own experiencing of life, the process of himself, sufficiently that he could go on expressing his own unique perceptions. It was as though he could say, “Good artists do not paint like this, but I paint like this.” Or to mov to another field, Ernest Hemingway was surely aware that good writers do not write like this. However, fortunately he moved toward being Hemingway, being himself, rather than toward someone else’s conception of a good writer. Einstein seems to have been unusually oblivious to the fact that good physicists did not think his kind of thoughts. Rather than drawing  because of his inadequate academic preparation in physics, he simply moved toward being Einstein, toward thinking his own thoughts, toward being as truly and deeply himself as he could. This is not a phenomenon which occurs only in the artist or the genius. Time and again in my clients, I have seen simple people become significant and creative in their own spheres, as they have developed more trust of the process going on withing themselves, and have dared to feel their own feelings, live by values which they discover within, and express themselves in their own unique ways. #RandolphHarris 5 of 18

One is no more capable of reviling other beings, let alone hating them. Such evil thinking cannot even begin to enter one’s mind but must die stillborn. No ugly qualities are left on one, no vicious remnants of the beast that became human. What one feels within oneself irradiated what one sees outside oneself. The inner strength that one has received enables one to endure adverse circumstances in a manner that truly makes the best of them in the best sense. The genuine illuminate will discourage all attempts at deification or oneself whereas the pseudo-illuminate glorifies in it. One’s eyes seem passionless to our own agitated ones. One’s mind seems impenetrable to our own easily read ones. Even if the ego still lives in one, it lives thoroughly purified and utterly checked. One’s principle trends of thought and conduct proceed from a level beyond it. One’s manner always imperturbable to the point of emotional aloofness, one’s views always impartial to the point of stepping aside from one’s own self-interest, one’s love of truth never deserts one. The simple knowledge of one’s own status has no personal pride in it; therefore, no need exists to hide it behind a false modesty. One may carry no outward credentials of one’s status yet there will be an inward presence of silent authority all about one, which not even one’s humility, one’s utter self-abasement can hide. #RandolphHarris 6 of 18

One is not outwardly too different from the rest of humankind. One is not cold, unfeeling marble statue nor entirely remote from human interests. It is easy to mistake one’s habitual reserve for cold disdain. However, it springs from a wish to refrain from interfering with others. If other beings irritate one, if problems beset one, one will not complain. This peace which one has found is unfaltering. Yet it is still important to understand what is meant by neurotic detachment. Certainly it is not the mere fact of wanting occasional solitude. Everyone who takes oneself and life seriously wants to be alone at times. Our civilization has so engulfed us in the externals of living that we have little understanding of this need, but its possibilities for personal fulfillment have been stressed by philosophies and religions of all times. A desire for meaningful solitude is by no means neurotic; on the contrary most neurotics shrink from their own inner depths, and an incapacity for constructive solitude is itself a sign of neurosis. Only if there is intolerable strain in associating with people and solitude becomes primarily a means of avoiding it is the wish to be alone an indication of neurotic detachment. Certain of the highly detached person’s peculiarities are so characteristic of one that psychiatrists are inclined to think of them as belonging exclusively to the detached type. The most obvious of these is a general estrangement from people. #RandolphHarris 7 of 18

In one, this general estrangement from people, strikes our attention because one particularly emphasizes it, but actually one’s estrangement is no greater than that of other neurotics. Some people, however, when they discover this characteristic, they are surprised and frightened because of their passionate need for closeness makes them so eager to believe that no gap between oneself and others exists. After all, estrangement from people is only an indication that human relationships are disturbed. However, this is the case in all neuroses. The extent of the estrangement depends more on the severity of the disturbance than on the particular form the neurosis takes. Another characteristic that is often regarded as peculiar to detachment is estrangement from the self, that is, a numbness to emotional experience, an uncertainty as to what one is, what one loves, hates, desires, hopes, fears, resents, believes. Such self-estrangement is again common to all neuroses. Every person, to the extent that one is neurotic, is like an airplane directed by remote control and so bound to lose touch with oneself. Detached persons can be quite like the zombies of Haitian lore—dead, but revived by witchcraft: they can function like live persons, but there is no life in them. Others, again, can have a comparatively rich emotional life. #RandolphHarris 8 of 18

Since such variations exit, we cannot regard self-estrangement, either as exclusive to detachment. What all detached persons have in common is something quite different. It is their capacity to look at themselves with a kind of objective interest, as one would look at a work of art. Perhaps the best way to describe it would be to say that they have the same onlooker attitude toward themselves that they have toward life in general. They may often, therefore, be excellent observers of the process going on within them. An outstanding example of this is the uncanny understanding of dream symbols they frequently display. What is crucial is their inner need to put emotional distance between themselves and others. More accurately, it is their conscious and unconscious determination not to get emotionally involves with others in anyway, whether in love, fight, co-operation, or competition. They draw around themselves a kind of magic circle which no one may penetrate. And this is why, superficially, they may get along with other people. The compulsive character of the need shows up in their reaction of anxiety when the World intrudes on them. All the needs and qualities they acquire are directed toward this major need of not getting involved. Among the most striking is a need for self-sufficiency. Its most beneficial expression is resourcefulness. #RandolphHarris 9 of 18

The aggressive type also tends to be resourceful—but the spirit is different; for one it is a prerequisite for fighting one’s way in a hostile World and for wanting to defeat others in the fray. In the detached type the spirit is like Robinson Crusoe’s: he has to be resourceful in order to live. It is the only way one can compensate for one’s isolation. A more precarious way to maintain self-sufficiently is by consciously or unconsciously restricting one’s needs.  If we remember that the underlying principle here is never to become so attached to anybody or anything that one or it becomes indispensable, we shall better understand the various moves in this direction. That would jeopardize aloofness. Better to have nothing matter much. For example, a detached person maybe capable of real enjoyment, but if enjoyment depends in any way on others one prefers to forego it. One can take pleasure in an occasional evening with a few friends but dislikes general gregariousness and social functions. Similarly, one avoids competition, prestige, and success. One is inclined to restrict one’s eating, drinking, and living habits and keeps them on a scale that will not require one to spend too much time or energy in earning the money to pay for them. One may bitterly resent illness, considering it a humiliation because it forces one to depend on others. #RandolphHarris 10 of 18

One may insist on acquiring one’s knowledge of any subject first hand: rather than take what others have said or written about Russia, for instance or about this country if one is a foreigner, one will want to see or hear for oneself. If it were not carried to absurd lengths, like refusing to ask for directions when in an unusual town, this attitude would make for splendid inner independence. Another pronounced need is one’s need for privacy. One is like a person in a hotel room who rarely removes the “Do-Not-Disturb” sign from one’s door. Even books may be regarded as intruders, as something from outside. Any question put to one about one’s personal life may shock one; one tends to shroud oneself in a veil of secrecy. A patient once told me that at the age of sixty-five he still resented the idea of God’s omniscience quite as much as when his mother told him that God could look through the shutters and see him biting his fingernails. This was a patient who was extremely reticent about even the most trivial details of his life. The need for justification more than anything else allows an element of subtle underground insincerity to pervade a personality, even though the person may be basically honest. It accounts also for the relentless self-righteousness which is a frequent character trend in neurotic persons, sometimes conspicuous, sometimes hidden being a complying or even self-recriminating attitude. #RandolphHarris 11 of 18

This attitude of self-righteousness if often confounded with a narcissistic attitude. Factually it has nothing whatever to do with any kind of self-love; it does not even contain any element of complacency or conceit, because, contrary to appearances, there is never a real conviction of being right, but only a constant desperate need to appear justified. It is, in other words, a defensive attitude necessitated by the urge to solve certain problems which, in the last analysis, are generated by anxiety. Observation of this need for justification is probably due the super-ego demands which the neurotic submits to in reaction from one’s destructive drives. There is another aspect of the need for justification which is particularly suggestive of such an interpretation. In addition to being indispensable as a strategical means of dealing with others, justification is also in many neurotic persons a means of satisfying the necessity to appear irreproachable in their own eyes. However, people moving toward being, knowingly and acceptingly, the process which one inwardly is and actually is allows one to move away from what one is not, from being a façade. One is not trying to be more than one is, with the attendant feelings of insecurity or bombastic defensiveness. One is not trying to be less than one is, with the attendant feelings of guilt or self-deprecation. #RandolphHarris 12 of 18

 Self-actualizing beings are increasingly listening to the deepest recesses of one’s physiological and emotional being, and find oneself increasingly willing to be, with greater accuracy and depth, that self which one most truly is. One client, as he beings to sense the direction one is taking, asks oneself wonderingly and with incredulity in one interview, “You mean if I would really be what I feel like being, that would be alight?” His own further experience, and that to many another client, tends toward an affirmative answer. To be what he truly is, this is the path of life which he appears to value most highly, when he is free to move in any direction. It is not simply an intellectual value choice, but seems to be the best description of the groping, tentative, uncertain behaviors by which one moves exploringly to what one wants to be. From this complete independence arises part of that authority which one’s speech is filled. One practices tolerance without the weakness of humanity, and the vacillations of one’s disciples, without condoning them. One neither approves nor disapproves of anyone. One conforms to the higher laws, one’s life is based on the cosmic life, one’s thought and attitude are in harmony with the cosmic order. Under the genuine friendly cordiality there is, although subtly felt, a measured distance of manner, a holding back in reserve and healthy detachment. #RandolphHarris 13 of 18

It is true that there have been historic figures among the self-actualized who conducted themselves with the tradition-bound aloofness of righteousness. However, there were others, and they were probably the majority, who were approachable in a more human way. These great elemental forces in one are purifying ones. To many people, the path of life I have been endeavoring to describe seems like a most unsatisfactory path indeed. To the degree that this involves a real difference in values, I simply respect it as a difference. However, I have found that sometimes such an attitude is due to certain misapprehension. In so far as I can I would like to clear these away. To some it appears that to be what one is, is to remain static. They see such a purpose or value as synonymous with being fixed or unchanging. Nothing could be further from the truth. To be what one is, is to enter fully into being a process. When one is willing to be what one truly is, change is facilitated, probably maximized. Indeed it is the person who is denying one’s feelings and one’s reactions who is the person who tends to come for therapy. One has, often for years, been trying to change, but finds oneself fixed in inauthentic behaviors one dislikes. It is only as one can become more of oneself, can be more of what one has denied in oneself, that there is any prospect of change. #RandolphHarris 14 of 18

An even more common reaction to the path of life I have been describing is that to be what one truly is would mean to be bad, evil, uncontrolled, destructive. It would mean to unleash some kind of a monster on the World. This is a view which is very well known to me, since I meet in an almost every client. “If I dare to let the feelings flow which are dammed up within me, if by some chance I should live in those feelings, then this would be a catastrophe.” This is the attitude, spoken or unspoken, of nearly client as one moves into the experiencing of the unknown aspects of oneself. However, the whole course of one’s experience in therapy contradicts these fears. One finds that gradually one can be one’s anger, when anger is one’s real reaction, but that such accepted or transparent ager is not destructive. One finds that one can be one’s fear, but that knowingly to be one’s fear does not dissolve one. One finds that one can be self-pitying, and it is not bad. One can feel an be one’s feelings of pleasures of the flesh, or one’s lazy feelings, or one’s hostile feelings, and the roof of the World does not fall in. The reason seems to be that the more one is able to permit these feelings to flow and to be in one, the more they take their appropriate place in total harmony of one’s feelings. One discovers that one has other feelings with which these mingle and find a balance. One feels loving and tender and considerate and cooperative, as well as hostile or lustful or angry. #RandolphHarris 15 of 18

When allowing oneself to feel one’s feelings, one feels interest and zest and curiosity, as well as laziness or apathy. One feels courageous and venturesome, as well as fearful. One’s feelings, when one lives closely and acceptingly with their complexity, operate in a constructive harmony rather than sweeping one into some uncontrollably evil path. Sometimes people express this concern by saying that is an individual were to be what one truly is, one would be releasing the beast in oneself. I feel somewhat amused by this, because I think we might take a closer look at the beasts. The lion is often a symbol of the “ravening beast.” However, what about him? Unless he has been very much warped by contact with humans, he has a number of the good qualities I have been describing. To be sure, the lion kills when he is hungry, but he does not go on a wild rampage of killing, nor does he overfeed himself. He keeps his handsome figure better than some of us. The lion is helpless and dependent in his puppyhood, but he moves from that to independence. He does not cling to dependence. He is selfish and self-centered in infancy, but in adulthood he shows a reasonable degree of cooperativeness, and feeds, cares for, and protects his young. He satisfies his desires for pleasures of the flesh, but this does not mean that he does on wild and lustful orgies. #RandolphHarris 16 of 18

The lion’s various tendencies and urges have a harmony within him. He is, in some basic sense, a constructive and trustworthy member of the species felis leo. And what I am trying to suggest is that when one is truly and deeply a unique member of the human species, this is not something which should excite horror. It means instead that one lives fully and openly the complex process of being one of the most widely sensitive, responsive, and creative creatures on this planet. Fully to be one’s own uniqueness as human being, is not, in my experience, a process which would be labeled bad. More appropriate words might be that it is a beneficial, or constrictive, or a realistic, or trustworthy process. Those with a well-kept heart are persons who are prepared for and capable of responding to the situations of life in ways that are good and right. Their will functions as it should, to choose what is good and avoid what is evil, you have to find your own state of mind, you are reaching out for another World, a place where dreams come true, a place to create, and the other components of your nature cooperate to that end. They need not be perfect; but what all people manage in at least a few times and areas of life, they manage in life as whole. And when we are told to have childlike faith, it means to retain the ability to believe in the supernatural, the impossible. #RandolphHarris 17 of 18

Children believe that glass door knobs are diamonds and that they have superpowers. They believe when they grow up that they will help bring about World peace. It is that type of faith in God, in the supernatural that adults need to have to manifest miracles. Almighty and everlasting God, Who hast hallowed this day by the Incarnation of Thy Word, and the Child-bearing of the Blessed Virgin Mary; grant Thy people to share in this celebration, that they who have been redeemed by Thy grace may be happy as Thine adopted children; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord. Almighty and everlasting God, the Light of the faithful and the Ruler of souls, Who hast hallowed us by the Incarnation of Thy Word, and the Child-bearing of the blessed Virgin Mary; we beseech Thee, let the power of Thy Holy Spirit come also upon us, and the mercy of the Highest overshadow us. O Christ, Almighty Son of God, come graciously on the day of Thy Nativity to be the Saviour of Thy people; that with Thy wonted goodness Thou mayest deliver us from all anxiety and all temporal fear, for Who livest and reignest will let our hearts be graciously enlightened by the His holy radiance so that we may escape the darkness of this World. By your guidance, we will attain to the country of eternal brightness; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord. “If a person has faith, one must need to have hope; for without faith there cannot be any hope,” reports Moroni 7.42. #RandolphHarris 18 of 18

BRIGHTON STATION AT CRESLEIGH RANCH

This is a modest yet charming copy of Ulysses S. Grant’s 1865 Italianate mansion. Made with stucco and stones with a mostly flat roof, wide bracketed eaves, and a small columned entrance, it presents classic elements of this style.

Rancho Cordova, CA |

Now Selling!

NOW SELLING! Brighton Station at Cresleigh Ranch is Rancho Cordova’s newest home community! This charming neighborhood offers an array of home types with eye catching architecture styles such as Mid-Century Modern, California Modern, Prairie, and Contemporary Farmhouse. These homes are designed by some of the most creative architects of the era—they are a symbol of a new democracy and a breaking away from the old. Cresleigh homes stand for something and evoke a spirit or the Romantic Movement by incorporating several architectural styles, all of them imitative of historic European models. However, the past is still idealized and traits such as spontaneity and individualism, that go hand-in-hand with freedom, are valued. The arts in general reflect this interest.

Cresleigh homes with its tall peaks and pointed arches of its entryways and narrow windows, reflect a romantic return to the age of chivalry, coupled with a Christian piety.  Some even say they are reminiscent of the Winchester Mansion. And although they are grand, the working family can afford a version of one of these homes because they were designed by carpenter builders. Examples of these picturesque houses can be seen on the Cresleigh Homes website and through North America. Lawns were introduced in the 1870s by the British and gardening was considered to be good hygiene because it allowed one to get exercise and fresh air. Another outstanding feature of Cresleigh Homes is that the interior detail reflect the exterior architecture, giving it a structural integrity not found in some other builder’s homes.

Home life is paramount. The love of the family, the love between husbands and wives, and above all, a mother’s love for her children, were felt to be an extension of God’s love, and therefore home is a little Heaven on Earth. Located off Douglas Road and Rancho Cordova Parkway, the residents of Cresleigh Ranch will enjoy, being just minutes from shopping, dining, and entertainment, and quick access to Highway 50 and Grant Line Road providing a direct route into Folsom. Residents here also benefit from no HOA fees, two community parks and the benefits of being a part of the highly-rated Elk Grove Unified School District. https://cresleigh.com/brighton-station/