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The Full Development of the Individual is Conditioned by the Most Ruthless Struggle of Individuals

August 11, 2019 1:43 am

I was lying still somewhere, in an open place, on the rocky ground. I had the veil. I could feel the bulk of it, but I did not dare to reach inside and draw it out or examine it. Help the souls who are lost! Help them. Do not leave them in the whirlwind, do not leave them on Earth struggling to gain understanding. The deepest problems of modern life derive from the claim of the individual to preserve the autonomy and individuality of one’s existence in the face of overwhelming social forces, of historical heritage, of external culture, and of the technique of life. The fight with nature which primitive beings has to wage for one’s bodily existence attains in the modern form its latest transformation. The eighteenth century called upon beings too free themselves of all the historical bonds in the state and in religion, in morals and in economics. Being’s nature, originally good and common to all, should develop unhampered. In addition to more liberty, the nineteenth century demanded the functional specialization of beings and their work; this specialization makes one individual incomparable to another, and each of them indispensable to the highest possible extent. However, this specialization makes each being the more directly dependent upon the supplementary activities of all other. #RandolphHarris 1 of 15

The full development of the individual is conditioned by the most ruthless struggle of individuals; socialism believes in the suppression of all competition for the same reason. Be that as it may in all these positions the same basic motive is at work: the person resists being leveled down and worn out by a social-technological mechanism. An inquiry into the inner meaning of specifically modern life and its products, into the soul of the cultural body, so to speak, must seek to solve the equation which structures like the metropolis set up between the individual and the super individual contents of life. Such an inquiry must answer the question of how they personality accommodates itself in the adjustments to external forces. The psychology basis of the metropolitan type of individuality consists in the intensification of nervous stimulation which results from the swifts and uninterrupted change of outer and inner stimuli. Beings are a differentiating creature. Their minds are stimulated by the difference between a momentary impression and the one which preceded it. Lasting impressions, impressions which differ only slightly from one another, impressions which take a regular and habitual course and show regular and habitual contrasts—all these use up, so to speak, less consciousness than does the rapid crowding of changing images, the sharp discontinuity in the grasp of single glance, and the unexpectedness of onrushing impressions. #RandolphHarris 2 of 15

These are the psychological conditions which the metropolis creates. With each crossing of the street, with the tempo and multiplicity of economic, occupational and social life, the city sets up a deep contrast with small town and rural life with reference to the sensory foundations of psychic life. The metropolis exacts from beings as a discriminating creature a different amount of consciousness than does rural life. Here the rhythm of life and sensory mental imagery flows more slowly, more habitually, and more evenly. Precisely in this connection the sophisticated character of metropolitan psychic life becomes understandable—as over against small town life which rests more upon deeply felt and emotional relationships. These latter are rooted in the more unconscious layers of the psyche and grow most readily in the steady rhythm uninterrupted habituations. The intellect, however, has its locus in the transparent, conscious, higher layers of the psyche; it is the most adaptable of our inner forces. In order to accommodate to change and to the contrast of phenomena, the intellect does not require any shocks and inner upheavals; it is only through such upheavals that the more conservative mind could accommodate to the metropolitan rhythm events. #RandolphHarris 3 of 15

Thus the metropolitan type of being—which, of course, exists in a thousand individual variants—develops an organ protecting one against the threatening current and discrepancies of one’s external environment which would uproot one. One reacts with one’s head instead of one’s heart. In this an increased awareness assumes the psychic prerogative. Metropolitan life, this, underlies a heightened awareness and a predominance of intelligence in metropolitan beings. The reaction to metropolitan phenomena is shifted to that organ which is least sensitive and quite remote from the depth of the personality. Intellectuality is thus seen to preserve subjective life against the overwhelming power of metropolitan life, and intellectuality branches out in many directions and is integrated with numerous discrete phenomena. The metropolis has always been the seat of the money economy. Here the multiplicity and concentration of economic exchange gives an importance to the means of exchange which the scantiness of rural commerce would not have allowed. Money and economy and the dominance of the intellect are intrinsically connected. They share a matter-of-fact attitude, a formal justice is often coupled with an inconsiderate hardness. #RandolphHarris 4 of 15

The intellectually sophisticated person is indifferent to all genuine individuality, because relationships and reactions result from it which cannot be exhausted with logical operations. In the same manner, the individuality phenomena is not commensurate with the pecuniary principle. Money is concerned only with what is common to all: it asks for the exchange value, it reduces all quality and individuality to the question: How much? All intimate emotional relations between persons are founded in their individuality, whereas in rational relations beings are reckoned with like a number, like an element which is in itself indifferent. Only the objective measurable achievement is of interest. Thus metropolitan beings reckons with one’s merchants and customers, one’s domestic servants and often even with persons with whom one is obliged to have social intercourse. These features of intellectuality contrast with the nature of the small circle in which the inevitable knowledge of individuality as inevitably produces a warmer tone of behavior, a behavior which is beyond a mere objective balancing of service and return. In the sphere of the economic psychology of the small group it is of importance that under primitive conditions productions serves the customer who orders the goods, so that the producer and the consumer are acquainted. #RandolphHarris 5 of 15

The modern metropolis, however, is supplied almost entirely by production for the market, that is, for entirely unknown purchasers who never personally enter the producer’s actual field of vision. Through this anonymity the interests of each party acquire an unmerciful matter-of-factness; and the intellectually calculating economic egoisms of both parties need not fear any deflection because of the imponderables of personal relationships. The money economy dominates the metropolis; it has displaced the last survivals of domestic production and the direct barter of goods; it minimizes from day to day, the amount of work ordered by customers. The matter-of-fact attitude is obviously so intimately interrelated with the money economy, which is dominant in the metropolis, that nobody can say whether the intellectualistic mentality first promoted the money economy or whether the latter determined the former. The metropolitan way of life is certainly the most fertile soil for this reciprocity, a point which I shall document merely by citing the dictum of the most eminent English constitutional historian: throughout the whole course of English history, London has never acted as England’s heart but often as England’s intellect and always as her moneybag! #RandolphHarris 6 of 15

In certain seemingly insignificant traits, which lie upon the surface of life, the same psychic currents characteristically unite. Modern mind has become more and more calculating. The calculative exactness of practical life which the money economy had brought about corresponds to the ideal of natural sciences: to transform the World into an arithmetic problem, to fix every part of the World by mathematical formulas. Only money economy has filled the days of so many people with weighing, calculating, with numerical determinations, with a reduction of qualitative values to quantitative ones. Through the calculative nature of money a new precision, a certainty in the definition of identities and differences, an unambiguousness in agreements and arrangements has been brought about in the relations of the life-elements—just as externally this precision has been effected by the universal diffusion of pocket watches. However, the conditions of metropolitan life are at once cause and effect of this trait. The relationships and affairs of the typical metropolitan usually are so varied and complex that without the strictest punctuality in promises and services the whole structure would break down into an inextricable chaos. Above all, this necessity is brought about by the aggregation of so any people with such differentiated interests, who must integrate their relations and activities into a highly complex organism. #RandolphHarris 7 of 15

If all clocks and watches in Berlin would suddenly go wrong in different ways, even if only by one hour, all economic life and communication of the city would be disrupted for a long time. In addition an apparently mere external factor—long distances—would make all waiting and broken appointments result in an ill-afforded waste of time. Thus, the technique of metropolitan life is unimaginable without the most punctual integration of all activities and mutual relations into a stable and impersonal time schedule. Here again the general conclusions of this entire task of reflection become obvious, namely, that from each point on the surface of existence—however closely attached to the surface alone—one may drop a sounding into the depth of the psyche so that all the most banal externalities of life finally are connected with the ultimate decisions concerning the meaning and style of life. Punctuality, calculability, exactness are forced upon life by the complexity and extension of metropolitan existence and are not only most intimately connected with its money economy and intellectualistic character. These traits must also color the contents of life and favor the exclusion of those irrational, instinctive sovereign traits and impulses which aim at determining the mode of life from within, instead of receiving the general and precisely schematized form of life from without. #RandolphHarris 8 of 15

Even though sovereign types of personality, characterized by irrational impulse, are by no means impossible in the city, they are, nevertheless, opposed to typical city life. The passionate hatred of the metropolis is understandable in these terms. The nature of some beings discover the value of the alone in the unschematized existence which cannot be defined with precision for all alike. From the same source of this hatred of the metropolis surged their hatred of money economy and the intellectualism of modern existence. The idea of introducing Questers to the Quester has generally failed to effect the original purpose and has not seldom had disappointing results. It is better to recognize that this is an individual work, not to be identified with any group effort, even so small a group as two or three, let alone the larger ones of several dozen. People cannot blend so easily as to form a harmonious friendship or group, even if they are Questers. Yet many beginners in their enthusiasm try to create such friendships and have to learn their lessons when the friendship falls apart. It is better to let people find their affinity and form their companionships in a natural way. There is no duty laid upon anyone, whether teacher or taught, to give introductions unless a direct, intuitive bidding points to that duty. #RandolphHarris 9 of 15

Even where an organization is not actually obstructive or misleading, it is often cumbersome. Can the inquiring and aspiring person find no better refuge anywhere than some rigid church? Must one join some institution and have the rest of one’s life laid out for one by others even if it does violence to one’s own finer feelings and best reasonings? Must one join a crowd of other aspirants or attach oneself to some persuasive leader? It is a fact that many if not most do this, which shows the lack of strength in their minds and characters; but on the other hand a more popular way is easer and more comfortable. Belonging to an elite group, whether or not it be real as self-claimed, allows its members to feel superior, to be condescending, and to denigrate others. A movement may begin and seek to keep free from organization, administration, and authority, but it is unlikely to remain so. For human beings, fallible or ambitious, frail or emotional, will sooner, or later seek to impose their ideas, will, or themselves on the others. Few are willing to sacrifice their desire for the gregarious support offered by joining an organization and therefore few see how this binds them to its strict and rigid doctrines, imprisons them in its practices or methods, and obstructs their free hearing of the intuitive voice of their own soul. #RandolphHarris 10 of 15

With the capacity of hostility to generate anxiety the relation between the two is not exhausted. The process also works the other ways around: anxiety in its turn, when based on a feeling of being menaced, easily provokes a reactive hostility in defense. In this regard it does not differ in any way from fear, which may equally provoke aggression. The reactive hostility too, if repressed, may create anxiety, and this a cycle is created. This effect of reciprocity between hostility and anxiety, one always generating and reinforcing the other, enables us to understand why we find in neuroses such an enormous amount of relentless hostility. When the intensification of hostility through anxiety is realized it seems unnecessary to look for a special biological source for destructive drives. This reciprocal influence is also the basic reason why severe neuroses so often become worse without any apparent difficult conditions from the outside. It does not matter whether anxiety or hostility has been the primary factor; the point this that is highly important for the dynamics of a neurosis is that anxiety and hostility are inextricably interwoven. I am not enamoured overmuch of this modern habit, which forms a society at faint provocation. A being’s own problem stares one alone in the face, and is not to be solved by any association of others. Every new society we join is a fresh temptation to waste time. #RandolphHarris 11 of 15

The great mistake of all spiritual organizations is to overlook the fact that progress or salvation is a highly individual matter. Each person has one’s unique attitude towards life; each must move forward by one’s own expanding comprehension and especially by one’s own personal effort. Some people are held spellbound by others because their statements matter. Some authorities speak out of their own doubt-ridden souls—souls which always existed on the boundary. Many are called to give doubt to the faithful and faith to the doubters. Doubting is the symbol of the growing process, and may lead one into the mist interesting and even thrilling phenomena. To doubt constructively requires that one be well fortified with knowledge; the person who knows very little cannot take the risk the doubting requires. When we bring doubt to the faithful, that means these faithful are soundly based and can stand—and even need to stand—looking into the abyss of doubt. They are the one who can take the risk which confronts anyone who gazes into the Holy Void. It takes more than knowledge to doubt; it takes courage. Richness is a product of prolonged and multitudinous doubting. Doubting in this sense is a rich and adventurous back-packing among the high mountains; one’s knowledge gives one a firm footing on the trail but one’s doubt give the sense of venture. #RandolphHarris 12 of 15

Doubt opens new trails to the unknown; one learns new paths; one sees new things on the trip; there are fresh winds blowing from different directions. Doubt in this sense is expressive of the courage to venture when one never knows where one will come out. To venture cases anxiety, but not to venture is to lose one’s self. The courage to doubt for the enlightened is one’s quest for the Holy Void and the use of the soul and love as our teacher. It means our lives are far from simple but at the same time they are glorious. Some may accuse one of being an atheist, but it also means that thousands of others will see one as their guide to meaning, to mystery and blessedness. To live in doubt is to live in ecstasy. It means no loner to live life continually under the phrase “in spite of.” As our faith increase, we will unequivocally know it is because we are seeking the truth and not merely because we are told to believe is the right thing to do. When the masculine and feminine temperaments within us are untied, completed, and balanced, when masculine power and feminine passivity are brought together inside the person and knowledge and reverence encircle them both, then wisdom begins to dawn in the soul. The ineffable reality and the mentalist Universe are then understood to be non-different from other another. #RandolphHarris 13 of 15

Where both unity and diversity are experienced and the individual is able to attain both these levels, one is surely gifted with insight. However, if diversity has to be blotted out before becoming aware of unity, this may be regarded as a penultimate faculty; that is, the insight is genuine but is still not fully mature. Everything depends on the capacity of the individual. When one’s mind moves entirely and wholly into the One Infinite Presence, and when it settles permanently there, the divided existence of glimpse and darkness, of Spirit and matter, of Overself and ego, of Heaven and Earth, will vanish. The crossing over to a unified existence will happens. The state of nonduality is a state of intense peace and perfect balance. It is so peaceful because everything is seen as it belongs—to the eternal order of cosmic evolution; hence, all is accepted, all reconciled. For the heart in inner harmony and for which everything is one, no difference exists between this and that. Why is it that despite all the visible and touchable counter-attractions, despite the innumerable failures and long years of fruitlessness, so many beings have sought through so many ages in so many lands for God, for wat is utterly intangible, unnamable, shapeless, unseen, and unheard? #RandolphHarris 14 of 15

Because the simple but astonishing fact is that the Overself, which is the presence of God in them, is part of their nature as human beings is why we search for God! Mysticism is nothing more than the methodical attempt to wake up to this fact. The soul which metaphysics points to in reasoning, mysticism establishes in experience. We all need to feel the divine presence. Even the being who asserts that one does not is no exception. For one indirectly finds it just the same in spite of oneself but under limited forms like aesthetic appreciation or Nature’s inspiration. Even if all contemporary mystics were to die out, even if not a single living being were to be interested in mysticism, even if all mystical doctrines were to disappear from human memory and written record, the logic of evolution would bring back both the teaching and the practice. They are two of those historical necessities which are certain to be regained in the course of humanity’s cultural progress. Because the Overself is already there within one in all its immutable sublimity, beings have not to develop it or perfect it. One has only to develop and perfect one’s ego until it becomes like a polished mirror, held up to and reflecting the sacred attributes of the Overself, and showing openly forth the divine qualities which had hitherto lain hidden behind itself. #RandolphHarris 15 of 15

You Follow Me and I Will be Your Guide and Lead You Forth through an Eternal Place there You Shall See the Ancient Spirits!

July 14, 2019 12:12 am

Remember, beginnings are always hard and most are artificial. It was the best of times and the worst of times—really? When! And all happy families are not alike; even Sarah Winchester must have realized that. Please understand, there is no nobility in this. I do not believe that rescuing one poor mortal from such a fiend can conceivably save my soul. As one of the Sons of Liberty of the American Revolutionary War of 1775, I have taken life too often defending the thirteen colonies—unless one believes that the power of one good deed is infinite. I do not know whether or not I believe that. What I do believe is this: The evil of one murder is infinite, and my guilt is like my beauty—eternal. I cannot be forgiven, for there is no one to forgive me for all I have done. Nevertheless I like saving those innocents from their fate. I feel an obligation to a World you love because that World for you is still intact. It is conceivable your own sensitivity might become the instrument of madness. You speak of works of art and natural beauty. I wish I had the artist’s power to bring alive for you the Vince of the fifteenth century, my master’s palace there, and the love I felt for him when I was a young boy. Oh, if I could only make those times come alive for either you or me…for only an instant! What would it be worth? #RandolphHarris 1 of 20

And what a sadness it is to me that time does not dim the memory of that period, that it becomes all the richer and more magical in light of the World I see today. If you would persuade, you must appeal first to interest rather than intellect. This courage will not be the opposite of despair. We shall often be faced with despair, as indeed every sensitive person has been during the last several decades in this World. However, courage is not the opposite of despair; it is, rather, the capacity to move ahead in spite of despair. Nor is the courage required mere stubbornness—we shall surely have to create with others. Yet, if you do not open your own original ideas, if you do not listen to your own being, you will have betrayed yourself. Also you will have betrayed our community in failing to make your contribution to the whole. A chief characteristic of this courage is that it requires a centeredness within our own being, without which we would feel ourselves to be a vacuum. The emptiness within corresponds to an apathy without; and apathy adds up, in the long run, to cowardice. That is why we must always base our commitment in the center of our own being, or else no commitment will be ultimately authentic. When we focus our attention on the actual neurotic difficulties, we recognize that neuroses are generated not only by incidental individual experience, but also by the specific cultural conditions under which we live. #RandolphHarris 2 of 20

In fact the cultural conditions not only lend weight and color to the individual experiences but in the last analysis determine their particular form. It is an individual fate, for example, to have a domineering or self-sacrificing mother, but it is only under definite cultural conditions that we find domineering or self-sacrificing mothers, and it is also only because of these existing conditions that such an experience will have an influence on later life. Courage, however, is not to be confused with rashness. What masquerades as courage may turn out to be simply a bravado used to compensate for one’s unconscious fear and to prove one’s machismo, like the hot fliers in World War II. The ultimate end of such rashness is getting one’s self killed, or at least one’s head battered in with a police officer’s billy club—both of which are scarcely productive ways of exhibiting courage. When we realize the great import of cultural conditions on neuroses the biological and physiological conditions, which are considered by Dr. Freud to be their root, recede into the background. The influence of these latter factors should be considered only on the basis of well established evidence. #RandolphHarris 3 of 20

Courage is not a virtue or value among other personal values like love or fidelity. It is the foundation that underlies and gives reality to all other virtues and personal values. Without courage our love pales into mere dependency. Without courage our fidelity becomes conformism. The word courage comes from the same stem as the French word Coeur, meaning “heart.” Thus just as one’s heart, by pumping blood to one’s arms, legs, and brain enables all the other physical organs to function, so courage makes it possible for all the psychological virtues. Without courage other values wither aware into mere facsimiles of virtue. This orientation of mine has led to some new interpretations for a number of basic problems in neuroses. Though these interpretations refer to disparate questions such as the problem of masochism, the implications of the neurotic need for affection, the meaning of neurotic guilt feelings, they all have a common basis in an emphasis on the determining role that anxiety plays in bringing about neurotic character trends. In human beings courage is necessary to make being and becoming possible. Assertion of the self, a commitment, is essential if the self is to have any reality. This is the distinction between human beings and the rest of nature. The acorn becomes an oak by means of automatic growth; no commitment is necessary. #RandolphHarris 4 of 20

The cute little puppy similarly becomes an intelligent and brave dog on the basis of instinct. Nature and being are identical in creatures like them. However, a man or a woman becomes fully human only by his or her choices and his or her commitment to them. People attain worth and dignity by the multitude of decisions they make from day by day. These decisions require courage. This is why courage is considered as ontological—it is essential to our being. If one believes that the essentials of psychoanalysis is possessed in certain basic trends of thought concerning the role of unconscious processes and the way in which they find expression, and in the form of therapeutic treatment that brings these processes to awareness, then what I present is psychoanalysis. If pursued one-sidedly and without foundations in the basic discoveries of Dr. Freud, even a productive insight into psychological processes can become sterile. We cannot escape the fact that all psychological problems are necessarily profoundly intricate and subtle. If there is anyone who is not willing to accept this fact one is warned not to read any further least one find oneself in a maze and be disappointed in one’s search for ready formulae. Unfortunately reading about one’s satiation will not cure one; in what one reads one may recognize others much more readily than oneself. We use the term neurotic quite freely today without always having, however, a clear conception of what it denotes. #RandolphHarris 5 of 20

Often the term neurotic is hardly more than a slightly high-brow way of expressing disapproval: one who formerly would have been content to say lazy, sensitive, demanding or suspicious, is now likely to say instead neurotic. Yet we do have something in mind when we use the term, and without being quite aware of it we apply certain criteria to determine its choice. First of all, neurotic persons are different from the average individuals in their reactions. We should be inclined to consider neurotic, for example, a young lady who prefers to remain in the rank and file, refuses to accept and increased salary and does not wish to be identified with her superiors, or an artist who earns thirty dollars a week but could earn more if he gave me more time to his work, and who prefers instead to enjoy life as well as he can on that amount, to spend a good deal of his time in the company of women or in indulging in technical hobbies. The reason we should call such persons neurotic is that most of us are familiar, and exclusively familiar, with a behavior pattern that implies wanting to get ahead in the World, to get ahead of others, to earn more money than the bare minimum for existence. These examples show that one criterion we apply in designating a person as neurotic is whether one’s mode of living coincides with any of the recognized behavior patterns of out time. #RandolphHarris 6 of 20

If the girl without competitive drives, or at least without apparent competitive drives, lived in some Pueblo Indian culture, she would be considered entirely normal, or if the artist lived in a village in Southern Italy or in Mexico he, too, would be considered normal, because in these environments it is inconceivable that anyone should want to earn more money or to make any greater effort than is absolutely necessary to satisfy immediate needs. Going father back, in Greece the attitude of wanting to work more than one’s needs required would have been considered absolutely indecent. Thus the term neurotic, while originally medical, cannot be used now without its cultural implications. One can diagnose a broken leg without knowing the cultural background of the patient, but one would run a great risk in calling an Indian boy psychotic because he told us that he had visions in which he believed. In the particular culture of these Indians the experience of visions and hallucinations is regarded as a special gift, a blessing from spirits, and they are deliberately induced as conferring a certain prestige on the person who has them. With us a person would be neurotic or psychotic who talked by the hour with his deceased grandfather, whereas such communication with ancestors is a recognized pattern in some Indian tribes. #RandolphHarris 7 of 20

A person who felt mortally offended if the name of a deceased relative were mentioned we should consider neurotic indeed, but one would be absolutely normal in the Jicarilla Apache culture. A man mortally frightened by the approach of a menstruating woman we should consider neurotic, while with many primitive tribes fear concerning menstruation is the average attitude. Another example, people who consider storming area 51 are neurotic for they do not know what dangers the government could be protecting us from. The conception of what is normal varies not only with the culture but also within the same culture, in the course of time. Today, for example, if a mature and independent woman were to consider herself a fallen woman, unworthy of the love of a decent man, because she had had pleasures of the flesh, she would be suspected of a neurosis, at least in many circles of society. Some one hundred and seventeen years ago, this attitude of guilt would have been considered normal. The conception of normality varies also with the different classes of society. Members of the feudal classes, for example, find it normal for a man to be lazy all the time, active only at hunting or warring, whereas a person of the small bourgeois class showing the same attitude would be considered decidedly abnormal. #RandolphHarris 8 of 20

This variation is found also according to gender differences, as far as they exist in society, as they do in Western culture, where men and women are supposed to have different temperaments. For a woman to become obsessed with the dread of growing old as she approaches the forties is, again, normal, while a man getting jittery about age at that period of life would be neurotic. However, not necessarily in the age of information, with all the obstacles and increased competition. Nowadays, single men may worry about growing old around age forty also because their energy is fading and they never did anything they consider noteworthy to achieve the success they desire and still do not have kinds and know they are burning out. To some extent every educated person knows that there are variations in what is regarded as normal. We know that in China, many of the people have a different diet than Americans. We know that some cultures have different conceptions of hygiene and cleanliness; that the medicine-man has different ways of curing the sick from those used by the modern physician. That there are, however, variations not only in customs but also in drives and feelings, is less generally understood, though implicitly or explicitly it has been stated by anthropologists. #RandolphHarris 9 of 20

For good reasons every culture clings to the belief that its own feelings and drives are the one normal expressions of human nature, and psychology has not made an exception to this rule. It is also true that there is a legitimate need for more consumption as beings develop culturally and have more refined needs for better food, objects of artistic pleasure, book and so forth. However, of crazing for consumption has lost all connection with the real needs of beings. Originally, the idea of consuming more and better things was meant to give beings a happier, more satisfied life. Consumption was a means to an end, that of happiness. It now has become an aim in itself. The constant increase of needs forces us to an ever-increasing effort, it makes us dependent on these needs and on the people and institutions by whose help we attain them. Each person speculates to create a new need in the other person, in order to force one into a new dependency, to a new form of pleasure, hence to one’s economic ruin. With a multitude of commodities grows the realm of alien things which enslaves beings. Many beings today are fascinated by the possibility of buying more, better, and especially new things. One is consumption-hungry. The act of buying and consuming has become a compulsive, irrational aim, because it is an end in itself, with little relation to the use of, or pleasure in the things bought and consumed. #RandolphHarris 10 of 20

The original front-porch lamp was recently restored, refurbished, and reinstalled! Looks good for over 100 years old!

To buy the latest gadget, the latest model of anything that is on the market, is the dream of everybody, in comparison to which the real pleasure in use is quite second. Modern beings, if one dared to be articulate about one’s concept of Heaven, would describe a vision which would look like the biggest booty or department store in the World, showing new things and gadgets, new ways of busting down and twerking, and oneself having plenty of money in which to buy them and make it rain. One would wander around open-mouthed in this heaven of “muffins” and gadgets and commodities, provided only that there were ever more and newer and bigger things to buy, and perhaps that one’s neighbors were just a little less privileged than one. Significantly enough, one of the older traits of middle-class society, the attachment to possessions and property has undergone a profound change. In the older attitude, certain sense of loving possession existed between a being and their property. It grew on one. One was proud of it. One took good care of it, and it was painful when eventually one had to part with Pointe du Lac mansion and plantation because it could not be used anymore. There is very little left on this sense of property today. One is ready to forget brand loyalty and throw away the BMW for a Tessela, ditch granny’s Victorian for a loft. One loves the newness of the thing bought, and ready to betray it when something newer has appeared. #RandolphHarris 11 of 20

Some are lovable because they admit to their human problems at every step and never pretend to artificial virtues. In some cases, we are aware that we have reached an impasse similar to Matthew Arnold’s Dover Beach, a place that is bare, with only a hint of humanity in a light that reflects the gleams is gone, with tremulous cadence slow, and bringing the eternal note of sadness. We go astray from the straight road and awake to find ourselves alone in a dark wood. A dark World of not only sin but of ignorance. It becomes difficult to understand oneself or the purpose of one’s life and this may require some high ground, some elevation of perspective, by which to perceive the structure of one’s experience in its totality. Our sights may still be set high above the Mount Everest, the peak of joy, but we are unable to make our journey there by ourselves. In this sense, we become like a patient. On the mountainside our way is blocked by three beasts: the Lion of violence, the Leopard of malice, and the She-wolf of incontinence. And down the Lion’s track, a She-wolf drives upon us, a starved horror ravening and wasted beyond all belief. She seems a rack for avarice, gaunt and craving. Oh, the many souls she (the city of Sacramento) has brought to endless grief! #RandolphHarris 12 of 20

A person’s hell may consist of confronting the fact that his mother never loved him; or being stuck in a city where nothing but nightmares seem to happen; or it may consists of fantasies of destroying those a person loves most, like Medea destroying her children; or undergoing the hideous cruelty released in wartime when it becomes patriotic to hate and kill. The private hell of each one of us is there crying to be confronted, and we find ourselves powerless to make progress unassisted against these obstacles. Without qualified guidance, the labour of the aspirant becomes a process of trial and error, of experiment and adventure. It is inevitable, consequently, that one should sometimes make mistakes, and that these mistakes should sometimes be dramatic ones and at other times trivial ones. One should take their lessons to heart and wrest their significance from them. In that way they will contribute toward one’s growth spiritually. The duty of the aspirant to cultivate one’s moral character and to accept personal responsibility for one’s inner life cannot be evaded by given allegiance to any spiritual authority. When anyone begins to make real advance, one emerges into real need of an individual path unhampered by others, undeflected by their suggestions. The inner work must then proceed by the guidance of one’s own intuitive feeling together with the pointers given by outer circumstances as they appear. #RandolphHarris 13 of 20

The necessity of a teacher is much exaggerated. One’s own soul is there, ready to lead one to itself. For this, prayer, study, and right living will be enough to find its Grace. If one has sufficient faith in its reality and tries to be sensitive to its intuitive guidance one needs no external teacher. If one has sufficient inner resources from which to draw, it is not really necessary to have the guidance of an adept. For those who have such inner guidance, spiritual progress may be made quite satisfactorily. However. Each aspirant has in the end to find one’s own expressive way to one’s own individual illumination. Outside help is useful only to the extent that it does not attempt to impose an alien route upon one. Philosophy is more modest in its claim than mysticism. It makes no arrogant claim to lead beings to identify oneself with God. If the identity is a complete one, then reason alone tells us tat an absurd situation will immediately arise. If it is only a partial one, then no mystic has ever been specific enough to tell us which part of God one has become nor competent enough to distinguish the parts. The fact is that no being that we know of has ever done so, no being that we know of could ever do so. #RandolphHarris 14 of 20

Those mystics who talk of becoming united with God have fallen into the dualistic fallacy. They talk as though God were separate and apart from themselves. The truth is that they already exist within God and do not need to become united with him. What they need is to become conscious of God—which is a different matter. Beings are not God, God is not human, but there exists and unbreakable relation between the two. The pantheist who is so intoxicated by one’s discovery of the truth that God is everywhere present and consequently in oneself too, that one does on to the pseudo-discovery that one and God are one, is simply one who is too vain to acquiesce in one’s own limitations. This danger of misinterpreting one’s own experience besets the mystic at this stage. Because one feels oneself to be in the presence of Deity, one believes the one is Deity. However, the finite can never contain the Infinite. Deity transcends human beings. The danger of being’s deifying themselves afflicts the mystic path. This mind-madness must first be frankly admitted as a danger, for then only can it be guarded against. We are only linked with the divine. We are but a small token of the greater Mind which spawned us. We are but the merest hint of That which is behind one in the present, was in the past, and shall be in the future. #RandolphHarris 15 of 20

The true explanation of mystical ecstasy is not union with God but union with the Soul. When consciousness is successfully turned in on its own deepest state, which is serene, impersonal, and unchanging, it receives the experience of the divine Soul, not of the Godhead. It brings us nearer to the Godhead but does not transform us into it. We discover the divine ray within, we do not become the Sun itself. The mystic attains knowledge and experience of one’s own soul. This is not the same as knowledge of the ultimate Reality. The two are akin, of course—much more closely than the little ego and the Real are skin. However, the Godhead is the Flame of which the soul is only a spark; to claim complete union with it seems blasphemous. When a being says that one has communed with God, be one a great prophet in trance or a humble person in prayer, like when Abraham says God told him to offer his son Isaac as a sacrifice, the truth is that one as really communed with something within oneself which is so closely related to God that one may perhaps be pardoned for one’s error. However, still it is not God. It is one’s soul of the Overself. When one believes one is communing with God one is actually communing with one’s own inner reality. The enlightenment that seems to come from outside actually comes from inside oneself. #RandolphHarris 16 of 20

In one’s great ecstasy one feels oneself to be a supernormal, super-powerful, super-wise, and preternatural. If one rashly declares that one is God, one is to be pardoned. The human being cannot go farther in its pilgrimage than the discover of one’s own origin, one’s Overself. The soul constitutes both the connection between beings and God and the ultimate attainment of beings. The best a being can hope for, in rising above the ego and the World, is to rise into awareness of one’s true soul. This is valuable enough but it is not the same as looking into God’s mind or becoming untied with God’s being. Those theologians who describe the mine merely show us the capacity or quality of their speculations and imaginations. Those mystics who describe the being, really describe their own souls. Sometimes people feel they are totally disregarded because of who they are. For example, Mercedes feels no one cares for her feelings or rights; they assume she simply has none. Such situations which she reflects and creates in her reality would themselves suffice to destroy any nascent individual sense of self-esteem if it were present in here. Anything she does in trying to save her life is useless; this-is-the-way-the-World-is. #RandolphHarris 17 of 20

Since these same kinds of thoughts occur in many people almost at the beginning of therapy, we have to ponder if these are attitudes that Mercedes is really facing in her day to day life, or if we are in someway alienating her. Mercedes seems like a nice person, docile, and a harmonizer in the community. When I first saw Mercedes, a young woman, she looked like a West Indian, striking and exotic in appearance. She explained that she was one-quarter Cherokee Indian, one-quarter Scotch, and the remaining half African American. She is married to a European professional man. She went to college—and I.Q test gave her a score of 140. At college she joined a sorority where she went through all the proper motions and emotions. However, a strange logic of injustice is present in person who are forced to accept the fact that others have all the rights and they have none. He mother not only knew what was going on—but actively abets it. Shortly after Mercedes began therapy, she became pregnant by her husband. Then I noted a tremendously interesting phenomenon. Every couple of weeks when she came in reporting that she had begun to bleed vaginally-which was in her judgment as well as medically a symptom predicting a miscarriage—she would also report a dream. She was having premonitions people were attacking and trying to kill her. The consistent simultaneity of this kind of dream and the bleeding as a harbinger of a miscarriage was what struck me. #RandolphHarris 18 of 20

At first I tried to draw out the anger I assumed the young woman must feel toward her assassins. She would sit there mildly agreeing with me but feeling nothing at all. It was clear that she was totally unable to muster any conscious rage toward those who were out to kill her. This, again, contradicts all logic: when someone is out to kill you, you ought to feel rage; that is what anger is for biologically—an emotional reaction to someone’s destroying your power to be. She believed that having her baby was inviting death at her hands. We were confronted with the likelihood of spontaneous abortion. Some rage had to be expressed, and I was the only other person in the room. So I decided, not wholly consciously, to express my rage in place of hers. Each time she began vaginal bleeding and brought in such an episode, I would verbally counterattack those who were trying to kill her. What did these blankety-blank people mean by trying to kill her for having a baby? That gossip bitch must have known what was going on and pushed her into it. She was continually sacrificing Mercedes on the altar of homage to her master, to keep him—or for whatever Godforsaken other exploitative reason. Mercedes had done her best to work her and be honest. And there these people still have the power to prohibit her from having the one thing she wants, a baby! #RandolphHarris 19 of 20

Eventually, the baby was safely born at its appointed time, to the great joy of Mercedes and her husband. They picked out a nice family name that signifies a ne beginning in the history of the World. She and her husband were totally unconscious, so far as I could determine, of this significance. However, I thought it fitting, indeed—a new race of man was born! Like Prometheus, against all odds, they stole fire from the gods and gave it life. Our relationship in therapy was a magnetic force. Some rage was required against the destroyers. We were playing for keeps—to keep a fetus in her womb. This was not mere catharsis or abreaction in the usual sense of those words. The stakes were life itself—her baby’s. Mercedes was also fighting for the right to exist, to exist as a person with the autonomy and freedom that are inseparably bound up with being a person. She is fighting for her right to be—if I may use the verb in its full and powerful meaning—and to be, if necessary, against the whole Universe. Mercedes later stated she would not have made it without therapy—“I got my strength from you to stand against those looking to harm me”—but obviously it was her strength when she got it, and it was she who did the standing. The realization of the Overself enables us to taste something of the flavor of the World-Mind’s life. We are made in the image of God, but we are not the full measure of God. #RandolphHarris 20 of 20

Strong Family Cultures Will Help Our Children Live in the World

June 24, 2018 3:05 am

Some families are in jeopardy of being lost. Values are the prime target of the adversary, as well are the sanctity of marriage and the central importance of families. It is the duty of parents to teach their children to keep the commandments of God. Our morals and spiritual values provide an anchor and the safe harbor of a home where each child of a loving Heavenly Father can be influenced for food and acquire eternal values. People who feel the love and support of their parents are proud of the example they have set. This makes life so enjoyable for many families that the children want to follow in the footsteps of the parents, to continue on through experiencing the same joy that had been theirs in their younger days. Some parents always find the time to take the family on vacation and they can count on fun experiences. As a result of such a solid background, the children are not able to turn from the teachings of their parents because their actions would reflect on their parents’ character. Culture is defined as the way of life of a people. There is a unique gospel culture, a set of values and expectations and practices common to all followers of God. This gospel culture, or way of life, comes from the plan of salvation, the commandments of God, and the teachings of living prophets. It is given expression in the way we raise our families and live our individual lives. #RandolphHarris 1 of 5

However, so much has changed during our lifetime. The effects of childhood trauma, including emotional neglect or abuse in childhood, can have alarmingly potent effect on our psyche as we enter adulthood, event to the extent of rewiring the brain. The children of narcissistic parents, those who meet the diagnostic criteria for Narcissistic Personality Disorder, know this all too well, having been raised by someone with a limited capacity for empathy and an excessive sense of grandiosity, false superiority and entitlement. Children of narcissistic parents are programmed at an early age to seek validation where there is one, to believe their worthiness is tied to the reputation of their families, and to internalize the message that they can only sustain their value by how well they can serve the needs of their parents. If given at all, they have lived an existence where love was rarely given. As the child of a narcissistic parent or parent, one is taught that they are not inherently worthy, but rather that there worth depended on what they could do for the narcissistic parent and how compliant one is. The emphasis on appearance, status, reputation is at an all-time high in households with a narcissistic parent. Due to the narcissistic parent’s grandiosity, false mask and need to be the best, children in these situations are probably part of a family that was presented in the best possible light, with neglect taking place behind closed doors. #RandolphHarris 2 of 5

There is something really disturbing about parents who compete with their kids. Women who strive to be as hot as their teenage daughters. Parents threatened by the success of their adult children. Men who date girls the same age as their son’s girlfriend or daughter. And men who actually date their son’s girlfriends. Some parents even conspire with the children’s enemies to hurt their own kids because they envy them so much. So how have we gotten to this place? We all know that times have changed—and parenting is much more difficult as a result. Some parents feel like they did not have a chance to live the life they wanted so they take out their anger usually on one child who reminds them of what they would like to be. Let us take a closet look and find a way out of this madness and toward a better way to parent. Shine a light on yourself, rather than on your child. Get out of the mindset that your child is the enemy and you must win. Win what? No matter how your child behaves, you must commit to parenting from thoughtfulness, not anxiety, jealousy, and reactivity. Keep in the forefront of your mind that even at times of high stress, you are an adult and your children are supposed to learn from you. You want your children to look back and think of you as someone who loved God, followed the laws, and did everything possible to protect them, instead of sabotaging their lives and setting them up to fail. #RandolphHarris 3 of 5

As adults, some people know that their parent or parents are bad and do not have their best interest at heart, but they still talk to them because they know their parents will not live forever and want to enjoy them while they are around, while secretly praying that their parent will repent and start showing them rest and unconditional love. Strong leaders focus on the preservation of their own integrity. They have a willingness to take responsibility for their own emotional well-being and do not try to make other people happy by changing their character. Being a strong leader is a quality that will actually help your child want to be led by you, rather than battle you. Remember that you are on your child’s team, not on the opposing side. You should not be sharing the personal business with their enemies who happen to be dangerous nor plotting to end the life of your own child. Some people saw that Casper the Ghost is a cautionary tale about Richie’s parents from Richie Rich killing him for insurance money. The Bible predicted that in the last days, “They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against daughter daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law,” reports Luke 12.53. #RandolphHarris 4 of 5

Lessons taught in the home by goodly parents are becoming increasingly important in today’s World, where the influence of the adversary is so wide spread. As we know, he is attempting to erode and destroy the very foundation of our society—the family. In cleaver and carefully camouflaged ways, the wicked one is attacking commitment to family life throughout the World and undermining the culture and covenants of faithful believers in God. Parents must resolve that teaching in the home is a most sacred and important responsibility. We must train up our children in the way he or he should go, this responsibility ultimately rests on the parents. According to the great plan of happiness, it is goodly parents with the care and development of Heavenly Father’s children. Parents should also pray in earnest, asking our Eternal Father to help them love, understand, and guide the children the Lord sent to them. It is also a good idea to hold family prayer, scripture study, and family home evenings and eat together as often as possible, making dinner a time of communication and the teachings of values. Parents should also share their testimonies often with their children, commit them to keep the commandments of God, and promise the blessings that our Heavenly Father promises his faithful children. Our strengthened family cultures will be a protection for our children from the fiery darts of the adversary embedded in their peer culture, the entertainment and television news. #RandolphHarris 5 of 5

It is Me Against the World–You Have Been Sentenced to a Life of Pain and Suffering!

March 13, 2018 12:54 am

We must learn to get our own broadcasting station in order. We must tune our own receiving sets. It may take time and effort, but the goal we seek is worth the journey, and the prize that is offered is worthy of our effort. Heaven is lost only because we lack the idea of harmony; it was destined from the foundation of the World that right should finally win and that love should concur all. We all are spiritual and mental broadcasting stations. There is a silent force flowing from us in every direction at all times. How necessary it is that we assume the role of announcer and the broadcaster. How necessary that we write our own program and deliver it ourselves. It is a law, a vibration which reproduces the word of God, the intonation, the inflections are broadcasted. As we pursue the building of this sure foundation, I am fearful that some of us may have lost sight of our divine responsibility to nurture each other in this process. We cannot force love and respect and admiration. We cannot force faith and testimony of truth. Even though we cannot force those things that matter most, there are ways we can help one another. That is, we can prepare hearts to obtain a deep and abiding testimony that God is the Savior of the World. #RandolphHarris 1 of 13

If things have soul, then they can also suffer and become neurotic: such is the nature of the soul. Care of the soul therefore entails looking out for things, noticing where and how they are suffering, seeing their neuroses, and nursing them back to health. We do not usually concern ourselves with the state of things and tolerate much more ugliness and neglect in the things of our society than we should endure. We do not seem to realize how much our own pain reflect the ailments of our things. There is no separation between out soul and the World soul. If the World is neurotic, we will share in that disorder. If we are depressed, it may be because we are living or working in a depressed building. People impeded by either illness or frailty often feel demeaned by the World around them. Rejections come at them from all directions, from random strangers to providers of medical care. To many, the disabled serve as constant visible reminders to the able-bodies that the society they live in is shot through with inequality and suffering, and that they live in a counterfeit paradise. As God tunes the great musical instruments of creation, on the strings of this great World guitar are angels, humans, and things. We all vibrate sympathetically like different octaves of the same time, our human hearts pulsing in the same rhythms as those of the material and spiritual. World#RandolphHarris 2 of 13

We participate in the fate and condition of our objects, just as they participate in ours. Dignity is a solitary attribute. Other people can detract from it, but we have to replenish it on our own. In situations of physical incapacity, self-possession is maintained by literal holding onto oneself in spite of every possible infringement. A man disabled in a car accident claimed that he learned that it was considered bad form for him to behave like a normal person in certain situations. When someone is frightened or in pain, speaking up is not easy. Tasks are given priority over feelings, productivity over kindness. Is the cancer that afflicts our human bodies essentially the same as the cancer we see corroding our cities? Is our personal health and the health of the World one and the same? Many people tend to think that the World is their enemy, that it is full of poisons that attack us, seeding us with illness and death. “It’s just me against the World. Nothin’ to lose. Witnessin’ killings, leavin’ dead bodies in abandoned buildings. More bodies being buried, I’m losing my homes in a hurry, they are relocating to the cemetery. Got me worried stressin’, my vision is blurred. The question is will I live? No one in the World loves me. I’m headed from danger, don’t trust strangers,” reports Tupac Shakur in Me Against the World. #RandolphHarris 3 of 13

Although the late Tupac Shakur was a young man, many senior citizens and children can relate to him. My friend’s son was afraid to go to school today because of all of the mass shootings he has been hearing about on television news. And the elderly fear leaving their houses. A sixty-six-year-old woman with degenerative arthritis decided to give up leaving her house because on the street she feels like a crippled old lady, a nothing because of how people look away from her. And how the drivers behave, constantly almost running her over with their cars like it is some kind of funny joke to see fright in someone’s eyes as a 2,000 -5,000-pound piece of metal comes close to striking them with a force that could end their lives. Some of them even yell curses. And the lady made up her mind that she is safe and secure in her house. She has plenty to read and a lot to think about. She goes on to say, “If I really want to see what is going on out there, I can look out my windas (windows).” If the World soul and our own souls are one, then as we neglect and abuse the things of the World, we are at the same time abusing ourselves. If we are to attempt to develop a sound practice of ecology, we need to tend to our inner pollutions at the same time, and if we are to attempt to clean up our personal lives through therapy or some other method, we will bed at the same time to tend to the neuroses of the World and to the suffer of people and things. #RandolphHarris 4 of 13

Medical contempt hurts as much as any illness. Amidst pressures to hurry, patients who slow things down are regarded as obstacles. Those who cannot hear or see well or may have issues with mobility, or who ask that information be repeated, or who need to discuss their problems thoroughly are especially dreaded by hurried staff in many medical facilities. When it comes to human life, people need good quality treatment. We only get one body and if serious conditions are overlooked or not treated that person could lose their precious life or suffer an irreversible condition that may impair the quality of their life all because an analysis has a vice, or malicious intentions. No one wants to be held captive and helpless. Care of the soul requires that we have listen and see the World’s suffering. In many American cities, streets and open spaces are littered with abandoned refuse—old tires, appliances, furniture, paper, feces, urine and garbage. Houses are boarded up, windows are smashed, wood is rotting, weeds have grown wild, grass is brown, and trees are dying. We behold such a scene and think, the solution is to solve the problem of poverty. However, why not feel for the things and people themselves. We see things and people in a suffering condition—sick, broken, and dying. This disease before us is our failure in relation to the World. #RandolphHarris 5 of 13

What is it in us that can allow people and the things of the World to become so distressed and to show so many symptoms without a nursing response from us? What are we doing when we treat people and things so badly? After some people have endure hardships and see how much more life they have to live and what can possibly go wrong, they want to let go to avoid feeling decades more of unnecessary pain. After a serious surgery and a “questionable hemorrhage, which was going to causing him to lose so much blood that he was going to die, this is how one young man responded. “Please, please, get these doctors to listen to me. They are going to transfuse blood into me any minute, blood that I do not want. I do not care where I am bleeding. Why doesn’t anyone listen? I am ready to die. I have had a good life. Now I just want to lie here, in peace. Please, can you make them understand? They keep coming in here and patting me on the arm and telling me it will be all right, but they do not cancel the transfusions. Maybe they will listen to you, a nice young lady, if you tell them for me.” When someone is frightened or in pain, speaking up to this extent is not easy. If a physician talks quickly and uses obscure language, the person is doubly silenced. People whose physical powers are constricted cannot live by American values, which presume that one is able-bodied and independent. #RandolphHarris 6 of 13

Those who are not self-sufficient cannot control the outcomes of ordinary tasks, let alone their larger undertakings. They dare not invest their self-esteem solely in what they are able to accomplish, and they cannot afford to live for a future that may be more difficult than their present or past. Veronika Decide to Die is a movie about a young lady (Sarah Michelle Gellar) in the midst of a struggle. She felt powerless, and had to learn a way to react to all the negative messages around her in order to survive. Proving that she was still strong, capable, and attractive was a message she tried to give to a negative World a dozen times a day. Veronika felt she was stuck in a soul sucking financial job, and she was tired of evolving. She has no personal life and was morbidly depressed. Veronika had expected life to be like a strong whiskey, but felt she was being force fed a weak tea. One day, she took a hand full of pills to end her life, but she woke up in a mental hospital and now had a heart condition. Her botched suicide attempt caused an aneurysm in her heart, and she only had a week left to live. Older people who have retained their good health and full physical capacities often find themselves similarly estranged. By virtue of age, most no longer go along with our culture’s preference for the future over the past, and retirement may have hurtled them into days more focused on being than doing. Watching their peers cope with physical problems, they may regard their self-sufficiency as a perishable privilege. It addition to these pressures, everywhere they look aging itself is scorned. #RandolphHarris 7 of 13

Deflecting disdain on so many levels at once takes considerable stamina. Instead, many people, older and young, absorb the contempt and begin to despise themselves for no longer being capable to fulfill American values. They shrink themselves down to the size of these degrading expectations, taking on an outer demeanor which constrains their self-expression but which is regarded by others as more acceptable for their age, gender, race, culture or status. Older or disabled people who insist on remaining themselves face an exhausting divergence between who they know themselves to be and how others treat them. They feel drained each time strangers respond to them as if they are discounted or worthless members of society. These individuals are regarded as something alien, a foreign species. While our leaders fight for the rights of illegal immigrants and provide them with lawyers and financial assistance. Destructive reactions, such as the tendency to equate old age or disability with mental deficiency, are surprisingly common, and many people have no place to turn. A well-intention young senator, who is an advocate for illegal immigrants, gave a group of older people a tour around the Senate Chamber. He treated them a little like schoolchildren; explaining the legislative process in words of one syllable and shouting, as if they could not speak any English. #RandolphHarris 8 of 13

Finally, turning to one of the group, the Senator asked, “And what used you to be?” The old man fixed an evil eye on him and replied, “I still am.” Self-preservation can sometimes be accomplished in a sentence. Usually, however, the struggle is more protracted and the feelings that are aroused cannot be handled so succinctly. Repeatedly treated as simple-minded, many people begin to question their intelligence and competence. So little regard reaches older and disabled people from the outside World that their inner stores of confidence may slowly become depleted. Far more is involved than what occurs at the given moment of an encounter when elderly or disabled individuals meet the able-bodied every day. It is a history of learned inferiority. Aged and disabled people must constantly find ways to override other people’s inability to see them. Labels often prevent us from seeing beauty. Much like the trashed-out areas of our cities, the billboards, the thoughtless destruction of buildings that have memory and a long past, and the construction of cheap housing and commercial buildings—these and countless other soulless ways of dealing with things and people indicate anger, a rage at the World itself. #RandolphHarris 9 of 13

When our citizens spray-paint a trolley or subway or a bridge or a sidewalk, or the side of a historical building, clearly they are not just angry at society. They are raging at the things of the Word, we have to find some insight into this anger, because at a certain level those people who are desecrating our public places are doing a job for us. We are implicated in their acting out. Why does our culture seem so angry at things and people? Why do we take out our frustrations upon the very things that could potentially make our World into a satisfying and comforting home? One answer is may be that when we are cut off from soul and its sensitivity to get great spans of time and even timeless elements, we long painfully for an ideal future and for immortality. Things have a different lifespan than humans; they can outlast many generations. Historical buildings remind us of a past we were not part of. Those past times represent our desire for immortality. If our life efforts are directed toward making a new World, toward growth and constant improvement, then the past will be the enemy, a reminder of death. Concentration on growth and change erodes appreciation for the eternal realities, those parts of the self that transcend the limits ignorance. However, the soul loves the past and does not merely learn from history, it thrives on the stories and vestiges of what has been. #RandolphHarris 10 of 13

Our history, like many elder and disabled people, youth, and other vulnerable groups, hold fiercely to our remaining capacities. For society, and each and every person, there is a limit to the amount of surrender we are able to countenance without losing ourselves. Acts of self-assertion do not have to be monumental to be vitalizing. One of the powers of soul, is a vision of life that embraces past, presence, and future in a way that transcends ordinary awareness. A soul of sensibility awakens an appreciation for old ways and ancient wisdom, for buildings that hold in their architecture and design the tastes and style of another era. Soul loves the past and does not merely learn from history, it feeds on the stories and vestiges of what was. We are also so angry at things and people that we feel no longer serves us. Abusing things and people is no way to have power over anything, it is actually a way of displaying that you are helpless and weak. Many of the rusting objects and rotting builds decorated with graffiti that pollute our city streets are outmoded or no longer functioning tools. If we define a thing or people only in terms of their function, when they no longer function the way we would like, or refuse to, we have no feeling for them. We discard them without a proper burial. And yet, old things and people who have been through tremendous struggles eventually reveal that they hold a great deal of soul. #RandolphHarris 11 of 13

Our history and people and bits of evidence of past times seem literally to glow with soul. Do not be afraid to talk to God, as he is the oldest soul maker in the World. Always remember that God speaks a certain kind of language and there is nothing negative in it. We believe in prayerful, affirmative life above anything else. We believe in actually talking to God and then letting God answer. God is unquestionably transcendent. He is wholly other than the World he made. God is the pure and unsullied Mind of the Universe, transcending virtue, transcending knowledge, transcending the good itself. God is the World’s prime mover. God is beyond thought and being. God is an independently existing entity. God will always respond to us. We shall always receive the comfort and consolation we need, the inward sense of security and well-being that everyone must have to be happy and whole. Let us find a new wavelength for our mental instruments, and as surely as we do this we shall begin to broadcast on this wavelength. We shall discover that we are not only helping ourselves, but we are helping everyone around us. #RandolphHarris 12 of 13

First of all, we must be sure that we are right inside, and then learn to trust ourselves because we have faith in God. Let us tune our mental instruments to success and happiness, to the idea of physical wholeness, and above everything else to the comforting thought that there is a love in the Universe which by its very presence dissolves all hate; there is a faith that neutralizes all fear; there is a confidence that brushes aside every doubt. God never deserts us, and we shall never have to convince God to be Good. All we have to do is reverse our whole mental and spiritual outlook on life and then the miracle will take place, because what goes out must return. We live in an intense reality. Somewhere along our journey in the mortal World, we must find a faith greater than all our doubts and fears and uncertainties. Somewhere along the line we must find a love greater than all animosity. And we must find a peace beyond our confusion. This is the pathway that we are all seeking, whether or not we know it, and we are being guided by a loving intelligence which evermore seeks to being us peace and comfort, cheer and good-will, happiness and success, healthy and abundance. And we are willing to enter into a covenant with our God to do his will, and to be obedient to his commandments. #RandolphHarris 13 of 13

God is the Most Dynamic Reality in the Universe

March 11, 2018 10:01 pm

Some doors are heavier than others and the longings of the human heart is life everlasting. The chance to explore unlived life awaits us as long as we are alive, but only if we are willing to succumb to radical change. Irrespective of age, we mourn for those loved and lost. Mourning is one of the deepest expressions of pure love. It is a natural response in complete accord with divine commandment: “The shalt live together in love, insomuch that thou shalt weep for the loss of them that pass away.” (D&C 42.45.) When we lose a near and dear friend, upon whom we have set our hearts, it should be a caution unto us. Our affections should be placed upon God and his work, more intensely than upon our fellow beings. In many respects, once we recognize our mortality we open ourselves to the discoveries that incite growth of our nature. Long before we speak the words, we receive reminders that we have a finite amount of time on Earth. As seedlings of God, we barely blossom on Earth; we fully flower in Heaven. Some people cling to physical powers, both as their chief tool for coping with life, and as the most important element in their self-definition. Since physical powers inevitably decline, such people tend to grow increasingly depressed, bitter, or otherwise unhappy as they grow older. When hardship heaps its heavy load upon us, good may still be gleaned because after much tribulation comes the blessings. #RandolphHarris 1 of 10

While we are still full of youthful vigor, we tend to feel cheated when mishaps interfere with our strivings. Physical incapacity reverses this stance: we expect some portion of our desires will be frustrated, and we are relieved when our preferences are satisfied. Physical and spiritual trials provide continuing challenges in life. Each of us can provide illustrations from personal experience. Many of us, for instance, are at the twilight of life and endure long and difficult days. We know well the meaning of that divine injunction to endure to the end. To varying degrees, unlived life is everyone’s plight. Our time is finite, our abilities are uneven, and we have to forsake some goals in order to attain others. These limitations are there all along, but erosion of independence finally forces us to reconcile ourselves to them. Everything here on Earth is in a continual flux which allows nothing to assume any constant form. All things change round about us, we ourselves change, and no one can be sure of loving tomorrow what one loves today. When it comes to us, let us make the most of peace of mind, taking care to do nothing to drive it away. Everyone knows that we can be deeply affected by the things of nature. A certain hill of mountain can offer a deep emotional focus to a person’s life or to a family or community. #RandolphHarris 2 of 10

Can anyone believe that the Great Creator would provide for life and growth and achievement only to snuff it all into oblivion? Reason says no. When my great-grandparents lived in New City, New York, they bought a large house on Strawtown Road. They planted and tended an orchard with great care. The house was graceful to look at from the outside, and inside it was filled with old paintings and photographs, beautiful furniture and plants, stained glass windows and gorgeous wood floors. There was a grand piano in the parlor, and a built in curved wooden bench in the foyer, along with a marvelous fireplace. In front of the house were several lush trees that offered privacy, shade, and beauty for the family and many other people who visited the house. The trees are like members of the family, bound to us as individuals of another species. Many things have a soul. We know these feelings of attachment to things, but we tend not to take them seriously and allow them to be part of our World view. What if we took more seriously this capacity of things to be close to us, to reveal their beauty and express their subjectivity? The result would be a soul-ecology, a responsibility to the things of the World based on appreciation and relatedness rather than on abstract principle. #RandolphHarris 3 of 10

A real relationship with nature has to be fostered by spending time with it, observing it, and being open to its teachings. Any true relationship requires time, a certain vulnerability, and openness to being affected and changed. A deep ecological sensibility can come only from the deep soul, which thrives in community, in thing that it is not detached from the heart, and in relatedness to particulars. It is a simple idea: if we do not love things in particular, we cannot love the World, because the World does not exist expect in individual things. Really, this truth we have found marks but the beginning of a new day, a new experience, a new life—a life no longer disturbed by fear nor haunted by doubts or filled with regrets of the past or misgivings over the future—a life that can be lived in its fullness today, and a life that will extend through all our tomorrows in an ever-broadening arena of experience, an ever-deepening realization of a presence and a power and a peace that gives us complete security and an ever-greater vision of the more that is yet to come. Care of the World is a tending to the soul that resides in nature as well as in human beings. God is the only power and the only presence there is, and God is right where we are. We live and move and have in our being God. God’s being moves through us and manifests itself in what we are doing. #RandolphHarris 4 of 10

We cultivate a sense of home wherever we are, in whatever context. The things of the World are part of our home environment, ad so a soulful ecology is rooted in the feeling that this World is our home and that our responsibility to it comes not from obligation nor logic but from true affection. Without a felt connection to thins we become numb to the World and lose that important home and family. The penury we see on our city streets is a reflection of a deeper destitution we feel in our hearts. Care for our actual hoses, then, however humble or grand, is also a care of the soul. No matter how much money we have, we can be mindful of the importance of beauty in our homes. No matter where we live, we live in a neighborhood, and we can cultivate this wider piece of Earth, too, as our home, as a place that is integrally bound to the conditions of our hearts, as a noble instrument in the hands of God. We thank God our Eternal Father for a more tolerant day and greater understanding. The sunshine of goodwill is upon our people. As long as the heart is involved, care of the place will follow. Perseverance is vital to success in any endeavor, whether spiritual our temporal, large or small, public or private. Think seriously of how important perseverance, or the lack of it have been in your own endeavors. Essentially all significant achievement results largely from perseverance. #RandolphHarris 5 of 10

Did you ever stop to think that you are a spiritual and mental broadcasting station, and that the messages are going out from you in all directions, perhaps even while you are asleep—messages which have an influence on your environment and the people around you? And since everything moves in circles, the messages you broadcast will come back to you. Gather miraculous inner strength and be grateful for the effect of love upon you. We each have trials and challenges to overcome as we strive to keep on the right course. Often the most important trials are those we must face and subdue privately within our own hearts. We are told that the mental atmosphere of a home can influence a dog, cat, or canary to the extent that they become neurotic when surrounded by unhappiness or criticism. There is a place where our physical bodies begin and leave off, but the mind has no such limitations, and our thoughts penetrate everything around us. Perseverance is essential to us in learning and living the principles of the gospel and that will determine our progress as we strive to each exaltation. #RandolphHarris 6 of 10

The pursuit of excellence should be major work of our lives. Many people, however, give little thought to it. Perhaps they feel that it is not possible for anyone to reach perfection in this life, and so they let the immediate pressures dominate their actions. While it is true that we cannot attain perfection in a total sense in this life, it is also true that we can attain perfection in many specific areas of activity. We are all broadcasting stations, whether or not we know it. Our thoughts, feelings, and emotions, our faiths and fears, tend to make an imprint on our environment. We are also receiving sets, but it does not follow that we must tune in to every program being broadcast. When we want to listen to a certain program we tune our radios to its wavelength. The program already is within the ether in the room, but it does not affect our instrument until we tune in to it. It is fascinating to think that we are both mental broadcasting stations and receiving sets. And it will be even more wonderful when we learn to broadcast only the kind of messages that we wish to have return. Furthermore, if we fail to do what we can and should do in this life, we may deprive ourselves forever of the opportunity to do those things later on and thus lose great eternal blessings. #RandolphHarris 7 of 10

Heaven is not reached at a single bound, but we build the skyscraper by which we rise from the lowly Earth to the vaulted skies, and we mount to its summit round by round. If a person’s mind is filled with animosity and resentment people will feel it, whether or not one says a word. This animosity arouses within others who have resentment and animosity a feeling like one’s own. One’s thoughts tune in to theirs, and theirs immediately respond by following back into the receptive individual. One accentuates the other. One the other hand, if we are surrounded by people who have resentment and animosity, but we have none, we will not tune in. Their vibrations bypass us, and their antagonism does not arouse an equal antagonism in us because we are not broadcasting on the same mental wavelength. It is the same with everything in life. A person whose thought is filled with the fear of failure tunes in to and picks up vibrations of failure wherever that individual contact them; to one’s own negative thought there is added a great mass of negative thoughts, until finally it seems that the only thing one can think about is failure. In a way, this individual’s will and imagination become hypnotized, because one is tuning in to so much negation. When a person’s mind is upset, disturbed, and unhappy, all one mentally hears is discord because one’s inner ear is listening to a continuous turmoil. #RandolphHarris 8 of 10

Conversely, a person whose thought is filled with the idea of success, who has faith and confidence in oneself and what one is doing, will tune in to the successful thoughts around one, the thoughts of faith and optimism and happy expectancy. When you get into bed at night, rehearse the things you have accomplished during the day. Allow yourself to feel the satisfaction that comes of work completed or even partially completed. A person who confidently expects good things to happen, expects to be respected, and who expects to find happiness in life where one foes, will not only be broadcasting these thoughts which will make other people happy; one will be receiving them in return. Because one feels friendly, people will respond with friendliness. We all wish to be like this. We not only want to be whole ourselves, because no one can be happy unless he or she is whole, but we want to help others. We not only wish to broadcast good news; good news is what we want to receive. We may not see it now, but everything we do, every day we live is for a purpose. And we have a Heavenly Father who will always be there to life us up and cheer us on. #RandolphHarris 9 of 10

We care so much about one another as we walk together on our journey. I know Heavenly Father will bless each of us as we pray, work hard and give time a chance. We should decide to think on the affirmative side of life, or accentuate the optimistic and eliminate the pessimistic. In doing this we must make up our minds that we are not going to receive the criticism nor the negative state nor the animosity of anyone. And let us not forget the importance of keeping our minds in a state of good-natured flexibility. If a tree did not bend with the breeze, it would break under a strong wind. We have to be flexible and tolerant as well as optimistic and affirmative. Remember that for everyone who passes out of this World someone else comes in life. Life is a river always flowing, and life itself never get tired, worn out, nor exhausted; it never depletes itself. Also, we do not have to morbidly scan all the accidents any more than we have to listen to the negative conversation. More and more we are coming to see what it means to accentuate the beneficial and eliminate the negative. God is still the supreme power, and the divine spirit is still present with us no matter where we are. We must learn to tune in to the mind of God, for when we do we are tuning in to the most dynamic reality in the Universe. #RandolphHarris 10 of 10

The Soul Exists Beyond Our Personal Circumstances and Conceptions

March 10, 2018 9:56 pm

The soul exists beyond our personal circumstances and conceptions. There is a dimension to human dialogue that is more subtle and often quite difficult to recognize. For if dialogue can grow, it can also deteriorate, slowly and subtly, to the point where an individual can be trapped in a totally impoverished relationship without even being able to recognize what happened or why. The process is very similar to the way the body grows and ages, on a day-to-day basis, without any visible change. The very fact that a person can tolerate deteriorated dialogue and sometimes even encourage it is something that we would often prefer to deny, for reflecting on the implications is not pleasant. In situations where there is an erosion or dissolution, there is only one kind of success: the ability to draw others to us rather than drive them away. Dependency has its own rules of conduct and its own route to mastery. Under the pressure of this necessity, many people change more deeply than ever before in their lives. Since dialogue involves reciprocal sharing with other human beings, its deterioration must also be reciprocal, and each person must share part of the responsibility. An individual can only receive to the extent that one gives, and, in that sense, dialogue is mirror of this personality. Exposing vulnerability is a reflexive process: the more of ourselves we reveal to others, the more of ourselves we reveal to others, the more others tend to reveal of themselves. #RandolphHarris 1 of 8

Some people come off with a very authoritarian style of behavior and that can be so hurtful that it will wear out the good will of one’s associates. Understanding the life-threatening nature of the lack of dialogue makes it easier to comprehend the radical, often aggressive manner in which many people flee from situations of deteriorated dialogue. Sometimes individuals who have been married for years suddenly up and leave without warning, to live with another person. However, our personality styles are not as frozen as we might think. When an individual drops their hard façade after he or she finds out that one has pushed one’s situation to the limit and are left with no other means of fending off abandonment, their worst dread. Treating our friends and family and spouses with courtesy and respect will serve as a lifeline and could later strike an individual as a revelation. Our faults tend to get worse before they can get better. If self-centered people do not change as they get older, the result is an increasing sense of vulnerability that transforms the normal losses and changes of aging into insults, outrages, and terrors. Some people may that being with a self-centered person is a lot like being choked to death in their current environment, that their very existence is being threatened. Dialogue had deteriorated below a certain critical threshold, until one of the partners can no longer tolerate the isolation. #RandolphHarris 2 of 8

Through the ravages of dependency, many emerge transformed because they have no other choice. They reach the point where they are both appalled by themselves and afraid that they will be left alone. There are only two ways in which it is possible to get rid of anger, worry, fear, despair, or the other undesirable affections. One is that an opposite affection should overpoweringly break over us, and the other is by getting so exhausted with the struggle that we have to stop—so we drop down, give up, and do not care any longer. Out of this emptiness, we derive a readiness for the arrival of a new self. The exhaustion of the lower and the entrance of the higher emotions are often simultaneous. Some people may not be doing anything else but pour out all their grievances, endlessly repeated. They may not make confessions about their injustices of which they have been a victim, but of the things for which he or she blames oneself. We may feel overwhelmed. As we listen, an immense tenderness may invade our hearts because we see the person who has been going through turmoil visibly transform. Their crabbed features may gradually unbend, lighting up, becoming beautiful. #RandolphHarris 3 of 8

Conversations are accelerated by conversations, a combination of speaking and being heard, expression and reception. Humility in the conversation is one’s frank acceptance of all experiences, just as love in the relationship is simply the sense of beauty that reveals to the World its body and its soul. Attending a Roman Catholic Mass, people are often struck by the translation of ancient prayers they know well from the antiquated days, when the Mass was sung in Latin. “Lord, only say the word and my soul shall be healed.” We no longer make a distinction between soul and self. It could be tempting to place the idea of care of the soul in the category of self-improvement. However, the soul has an infinite depth of a person and of a society, compromising all the many mysterious aspects that go together to make up our identity. Sometimes when we listen to an individual and say very little, it allows the other person’s presence and tender response that would not have known what it is to be perceived as beautiful. Whether through prayer or a human-to-human exchange, we turn painful discoveries into new growth when our efforts are witnessed and appreciated, rather than expended in isolation. #RandolphHarris 4 of 8

Our souls, the mystery we glimpse when we look deeply into ourselves, is part of a larger soul, the soul of the World. This World and soul affects each individual thing, whether natural or human-made. You have a soul, the trees in the forest have a soul, and even our cars have a soul. Most unsettled by deterioration or an erosion of independence are those who have spent their adulthood shunning close relationships. Maturation mandates contact with others, often in physically intimate ways and with a frequency that permits little concealment. When such people are forced to depend on others for their survival, they are thrust into the very aspect of life that once brought them their greatest hurt and disappointment. By revisiting early sources of pain, we finally allow for their revision. Overwhelmingly negative attitudes toward other people and life can be corrected only be reconsidering the situation n which the faulty interpretation was made. People generally do not attempt this kind of reexamination without some social pressure or without finding that they have no other options. They may be drained financially; often they are cut off from their own children and their social circle; their careers are placed in jeopardy and sometimes ruined; material possessions that they have slaved for years are quickly cast aside. #RandolphHarris 5 of 8

People often wake up to reality when they are sick because the central threat is to the individual’s very existence, their humanity. Life is dialogue, and when the idea of being left alone crashes over the individual like a tidal wave, it is a major threat to life, as is readily verified in health statistics. People hate being so weak. When an individual cannot lift a laundry basket without getting chest pain, they realize they need intimate relationships. They want people to bring them pies and kid around with them. A world of needs exists in addition to our own. Many people cannot give credence to the needs and sufferings of others until they have been helpless themselves. Those who are cold and indifferent to the sufferings of others may nevertheless learn that it is in their best interest to be of assistance to others, if only because they realize that someday they may need such help themselves. The shell of some have built around their emotions melts, and their defenses—a wall built of humor, acerbity, and cynicism—falls before a welling of emotion that is a total departure from one’s usual state of mind. Sharpe edges of themselves become porous and weak. People can reach into their soul more easily, and they, in turn, become more compassionate. After enlightenment, people do not set hard borders around their identity; they are suffused with a kind of peacefulness, almost a sense of joy. It may all seem very strange. #RandolphHarris 6 of 8

To the modern person who may think of the psyche as a chemical apparatus, the body as a machine, and the manufactured World as a marvel of human brainpower and technology, the idea of the soul might seem strange indeed. The best some forms of psychology can do with our occasional intuitive sensation that all things are alive is to explain the phenomenon as projections, the unconscious endowment of human fantasy onto an inanimate object. After losing both of his parents at a young age, a young man suppressed his own needs in order to devote himself to caring for his younger siblings. He then maintained this self-containment long into his adult life. It was not until he had a vulnerable moment so many years later he allowed other people to take care of himself and see into him. It is quite a different approach for individuals who are used to being strong and independent to allow things themselves to have vitality and personality. In this sense, care of the soul is a step outside the paradigm of modernism, into something entirely different. Our own position changes when we grant the World its soul. Then, as the things of the World present themselves vividly, we watch and listen. We respect them because we are not their creator and controller. They have as much personality and independence as we do. #RandolphHarris 7 of 8

After we spend our lives focusing on externals, and regard anything else as idle daydreaming our perspectives change as we mature. When externals are applied to the stretch of life that lays ahead of us when we are aging, in old age, facing serious ailments which we may not recover from, the possibility of dying and the possible World beyond leaves us absolutely nothing. The inner landscape, once it is really discovered and lived in, is aglow. When we discuss concerns that we never have verbalized during our active business careers: feelings of vulnerability and fear, and questions about the value of what we have done with our lives it offers hope. Gradually, we can become dedicated to helping others make the shift from external to internal reverence. The thing that happens when we pray aright is simple. We create an attitude of complete acceptance in our own minds. When we do this, the Law of God, which is all powerful, begins to operate on this acceptance and begins to rearrange all the facts and activities of our lives in such a way that we have accepted will actually transpire in our experience. How wonderful to realize that at last we have located the divine presence at the only place we could recognize it—within ourselves, within everything. And how wonderful it is to know that at least we have reached our goal. #RandolphHarris 8 of 8

God is Looking for People Who Have Faith that is Demonstrated

March 5, 2018 10:25 pm

No one lives without accumulating stories. Many things in life offer useful guidance toward finding spiritual values in the World. The spirituality of a place might be marked with a well or drawing on the ground, or a monument, like a castle or mansion. When we place markers on historical battlefields or on houses where our ancestors were born, or where significant historical figures lives, we are performing a genuine spiritual act. We are honoring the special spirit that is attached to a particular place. Family is also a source and focus of spirituality. In many traditions a home shrine and special photographs honor family members. Rites of family gatherings, visits, storytelling, photographs albums, keepsakes, and even tapes of elderly relatives recording their recollections can be spiritual acts that nourish the soul. “The final state of the soul is to dwell with God or be cast out (1 Nephi 15.35).” The opportunity to voice memories to a person who both cares and understands is the most satisfying kind of completion. Story-telling is therefore far more valuable than it may seem. Realizing that such stories allow us to make an ending and find worth in the past elevates remembering and listening to their actual stature. We widen our solitudes by esteeming our memories and making use of them, instead of guarding them in a secret chess, disregarding them, or keeping them to ourselves. #RandolphHarris 1 of 7

Action and speech are indeed the two activities whose end result will always be a story with enough coherence to be told. The most important and challenging way to honor our ancestors is to fulfill our personal and potential life’s purpose here on Earth. It can take a lifetime to know our parents in their full humanness. As we get older, our respect for our parents’ achievements increases, as does our sympathy for their disappointments and letdowns. The more our own lives twist in unexpected and humbling directions, the more we realize that our parents had been similarly buffeted. We become our parents’ retrospective peers, seeing more of them as we attain each decade. To be fully understood, vulnerability has to be lived rather than merely witnessed. It is not easy to imagine that one’s own body, which is so fresh and often so full of pleasant feelings could slow down, become tired, and may not be as agile as it once was. One cannot imagine it and, in the end, one does not want to. Many of the realizations that rush upon us as we mature are simply not attainable earlier in life. When our parents need our help prior to passing into Heaven, the period after they pass away, and the time of life when we ourselves are weak and near passing, changes our perspective on life and what we scrutinize. #RandolphHarris 2 of 7

Indeed, it is this period of the relationship that is perhaps the most difficult and, at the same time, the most significant. However, knowing that there is a God who strongly protects against intrusion and violation might help nurture that spirit in our own lives and honor it in others. We may discover that there are ways to be spiritual that do not counter the soul’s needs for body, individuality, imagination, and exploration. Eventually, we might find that all emotions, all human activities, and all spheres of life have deep roots in the mysteries of the soul, and therefore are holy. As children, the chief illusion we project upon our parents are that they know what they are doing and that they have control over what happens. It does not occur to us that what appears to be inflexibility may actually be a cover for confusion, or what comes out of anger may stem from stress, or what seems to be neglect and a lack of concern may be the consequence of depression. If we allow them to account for themselves and to acknowledge the extent to which their actions stemmed from their own weaknesses, all of this can make sense later. The more hurtfully our parents treated us as children, the more crucial it is for us to try to ascertain the wounds of their upbringing. Otherwise, their weaknesses become holes into which we pointlessly pour or resentment. #RandolphHarris 3 of 7

Everyone of their failures has a story behind it, a history which has been carried forward and re-expressed rising out of a collective need for stronger union between the human and the divine. Exploring the implications of the soul allows us to learn our parents’ history and to see them as people, rather than to react blindly against them and risk replicating their hurts in our own lives. Turing the furor of our reactions into a reasonable quest for understanding is made easier when we are granted full access to our parents’ histories. Formal teachings, rites, and stories of religions provide an inexhaustible source of reflection on the mysteries of the soul. While listening to our mother or father, we might find ourselves standing in the powerful, streaming currents of time and fate. This may represent the stream of events and persons in which the individual finds one’s place. No one lives without making mistakes and incurring regrets, yet we all hope to be worthy of regard in the end. We learn from these formal sources how to understand and deal with the soul in special circumstances, and also how to understand similar images when they appear in dreams. We all hope that our parents survive into extended old age. Many cultures maintain that we each have a unique destiny to fulfill. #RandolphHarris 4 of 7

It is nice to have many generations in families being alive at the same time, leading to new opportunities for reworking and repairing relations between parents and children. This will also further the collective growth and maturation in the spirit realms. We are all children of parents, yet the ability to picture our parents as children can easily elude us. Like nothing else, such glimpses across generations permits us to comprehend those who shaped us and ultimately ourselves. We must find our soul’s purpose as an ethical and loving person. The ancestors are seen as allies in this process of remembering and a reservoir of power and backing to help us embody our potential in this lifetime. Conversely, when we have lost touch with a sense of greater purpose, if we are fortunate, the ancestors may bring about life changes aimed to guide us into greater contact with our soul’s longing and increased awareness of the agreements made before our birth. This may be an inspiring metaphor of the willingness to step courageously into the river of existence, instead of finding ways to remain safe, dry, and unaffected. The notion of reciprocity, of being helped and then helping in return, appeals to our basic requirement for balance and order. When children watch their parents take time out of their bust lives to help their parents, they learn that devotion can persist. #RandolphHarris 5 of 7

Children should realize that if they regret the longevity of their parents, they will actually be regretting their own future longevity. As we get to know our parents better, we have new opportunities for correcting old misconceptions. One young man was shocked by something his father did. His father never let anyone near his checkbook. However, he got a really bad trimmer in his hand, but still insisted on paying all his bills himself. One day, out of the blue, he called his son up and asked him to come over to help him write out checks. The son could not believe it. He was incredibly nervous when he sat down next to him to do it. Although he handles million-dollar budgets for his company, his hand also started to shake because he was so honored to help his father with his precious checkbook, as it was a bonding experience. In a way, the father was allowing his son to participate in the ritual of becoming the man of the house. His father’s trust was sweeter to this son than his achievement in the corporate World. Also, the father had the opportunity to see how important he was in his son’s life, despite his son’s having garnered every external success. #RandolphHarris 6 of 7

Extending leniency to our parents gives us hope that someone will do the same for us when we reach this position of physical need and spiritual reckoning. Even fumbled efforts at helpfulness and reconciliation are significant reckoning. Even fumbled efforts at helpfulness and reconciliation are significant for the hope that they instill and the example they set. People feel blessed to have their parents live so long and that hope is the essence of the commandment to honor our parents, making the prospect of living a long life less frightening. Whatever helps us to become more ethical, on even kilt, and open-hearted is one of the most powerful and sincere offerings we can make to our ancestors. An individual must take time every day to remind oneself that we are also spirits, that we are one with God, and to try to being about a deep realization that there is a power greater than oneself sustaining us; a wise counselor guiding us; a generous provider who is ready and willing to meet the needs of everyday life. We do not deny either the body or the mind, but we do affirm the spirit as the supreme presence and the superior principle of all life. We do come from this thing that we call life, or God, and we are fundamentally spiritual beings even while in the flesh. Therefore, in order to be whole, we must establish a right relationship within this trinity of our being, which is thought, feeling and action. #RandolphHarris 7 of 7

Have Faith in the Future

March 4, 2018 4:16 am

Challenges are intended to be opportunities of growth. Developing a philosophy for motivation is a great way to learn to overcome hardships. One has to seek new interest within their remaining abilities. Living requires courage under all circumstances, but especially when old age or disability is something an individual is dealing with. We have to exert a deliberate effort daily to make life as good as the body allows. Our will to live a circumscribed life arises directly from our realizing the value of each ability we have retained and each new capacity we have required. It is like maintaining neatness in a household that is always on the verge of becoming unorganized: there can be no slackening of attention, or discouragement rushes in. People who find themselves in a state of decline feel like they are cut off from what was once a self. They face frustrating disruptions in their routines of writing, gardening, and seeing friends. Gradually, however, people start to look at things from another perspective. Ascension is possible when all that has to be given up can be gladly given up—because other things have become more important. Slowing down and watching the light changing on the porch, rather than hastening to get things done, accords both with the rhythms of exhaustion and the need for repose. #RandolphHarris 1 of 6

Faith and character are intimately related. Being thankful for the things we are still able to do allows individual to awaken and feel overwhelmed by a sense of gratitude; it is like a sixth sense, like waking to the scent of fresh laundry or to the sounds of a baby singing as the sunrises in the sky. It is a humbling feeling. It is impossible to leave God out of anything, for do we not realize that God means the very intelligence by which we understand this law, the very consciousness by which we it? God is not left out. The very inspiration which cases us to inquire into this law is the ever-present spirit of God forever seeking self-expression through us. Unless our use of this law is impulse by love and unity, we shall be automatically shut out from the most effective use of it. Let us once more remind ourselves that the Universe is foolproof and that the Holy of Holies is entered only through the sanctuary of the heart, purified by love, directed by reason. The more feeling we put into our conviction, and the more faith we have in divine givingness, the more perfectly we shall be complying with the law; hence we shall have greater power over it. Historically, legends and ritual are in tandem. A people tells its stories of creation and of its deities, and then it worships these deities and celebrates its creation in rites. #RandolphHarris 2 of 6

While legends are a way of telling stories about felt experience of faith and culture, rituals are actions that speak to the mind and the heart. We should return, then, to our central theme with renewed hope and increased vigor, and most certainly with an exuberant enthusiasm; with something of the spirit of an adventurer or explorer who goes out to discover new countries. The untold good which the creative spirit has placed at our disposal awaits the magic touch of our consciousness to spring into expression for us, filling the cup of our desire with its manifold of gifts. Who does not wish to be well, happy, and prosperous? Is there any normal person who desires to be inactive, impoverished, and in pain? Of course not! And there is not a voice within each of us forever proclaiming and insisting upon this divine potentiality? This urge to express is natural. Feeling unexpressed is frustration, but energy converted into action is accomplished, and we can be certain that the eternal is with us and never against us when we are never against anyone else. Moreover, we can be certain that the prayer of faith will lift up the chalice of expectancy for the outpouring of the spirit, that one may receiver from it all that one’s soul can contain. #RandolphHarris 3 of 6

In many respects, however, adult dignity makes us lonely. Children express their hurts and readily seek comfort from others, while we guard ourselves against our sorrows and pass the years with our most vulnerable feelings shielded from view. People know us by our defenses, by the social masks we wear when we expect to be scrutinized. As we mature, we cry less. We learn better and better how to inhibit our feelings, show self-control, how not to weep. However, many of us cry inside. That makes it harder. Our tears are dry. Tears that are not shed go away slowly and return frequently. Such suffering, many of us cannot adequately describe. Therefore, it is reasonable to believe that many people in this World cry dry tears much of the time. Pain, psychological or physical, can pull us out of adult solitude, to our embarrassment and our relief. We each retain the sensitivity of a seasoned adult, but it takes a catastrophe—pain or sheer helplessness—for us to express ourselves directly as a youngster might. Many adults do not want the full extent of their suffering to be exposed. We eventually progress to a further kind of dignity, but not without first relinquishing several layers of privacy. Faith in the power of obedience to the commandments of God will forge strength of character available to us in times of urgent need. #RandolphHarris 4 of 6

Vulnerability evokes powerful feelings in both the susceptible and the strong. We do not have to understand these feelings as much as we need to respond to them. Through our responses, we learn about the aspects of ourselves and our relationships that may have been concealed for years. We return to the yearnings of our youth. Ritual maintains the World’s holiness. Knowing that everything we do, no matter how simple, has a halo of imagination around it and can serve the soul enriches life and makes the things around us more precious, more worthy of our protection, and care. In a life that is animated with ritual, there are no insignificant things. When traditional cultures carve elaborate faces and figures on their structures, they are acknowledging the soul in ordinary things, as well as the fact that simple work is also ritual. Tradition is an important part of ritual because the soul is so much greater in scope than an individual’s consciousness. The body must be properly care for, and we should come to understand that body-mind relationships. We must also never forget that people are primarily spiritual beings with a mind and body. It is only wen these three are brought together that we can hope to have health, happiness, and success. Exercise in faith in true principles builds character; fortified character expands our capacity to exercise more faith. As a result, our capacity and confidence to conquer the trials of life is enhanced. #RandolphHarris 5 of 6

Intellectual acknowledgment of one’s ultimate fragility is no match for the yield of lived experience. We are always aware that we are vulnerable to illness, but we do not quite believe in its likelihood until it actually happens to us. If many of our physical troubles come from an inward sense of uncertainty and insecurity, it follows that we must find a security greater than that insecurity which comes from a sense of being isolated from the Universe, separated from the cause of our being, or apart from God. A consistent, righteous life produces an inner power and strength that can be permanently resistant to the eroding influence of sin and transgression. When faith is properly understood and used, it has dramatically far-reaching effects. Such faith can transform an individual’s life from maudlin, common everyday activities to a symphony of joy and happiness. The exercise of faith is vital to Father in Heaven’s plan of happiness. We must have faith in the capacity to discover hidden characteristics and traits that can transform life. Truly, faith in the Savior is a principle of action and power. Faith is a foundation building block of creation. God created the most remote galaxies as well as composed quarks, and the smallest elements of matter we know today. #RandolphHarris 6 of 6

Obligations Curtail Our Freedom to Waste Ourselves

March 3, 2018 10:01 pm

People who are kind, generous, and compassionate give others a striking affirmation of the intrinsic worth and importance of human beings. After being reduced to bodily terms, we are never the same. For the rest of our lives, we are unable to forget how much it is possible t be in need of others. We approach our relationships differently from then on, emphasizing those bonds which seem likely to withstand the tests of time and strain, and putting less effort into bonds of convenience. The nature of our aspirations changes along with the style of our relationships. We start asking different things of life. Considering how common impairments are, how tremendous the spiritual change it brings, it becomes clear that each has our own special demons and divine figures, our own other-World landscapes and struggles. As a result of these changes, people suffering from detriment or restriction can often tell in a glance whether someone they meet has every had the experience of being helpless. They notice that a gap separates them from those who continue to be beguiled by good health. They watch as friends and relatives go on living from day to day as if they are invincible, dwelling inside a privileged deception. People suffering from ailments are not star athlete’s, who can take a hit and keep on ticking, and sometimes unnecessary psychological stress can make their condition worse, as it can amplify the pain they are experiencing or cause other conditions to flare up. #RandolphHarris 1 of 8

Healthy people often find themselves distracted by the crude exterior of affliction, bypassing much of the complexity going on beneath the surface. Knowing what to say and do in the presence of a person who is incapacitated requires an awareness of what it is like to have time on one’s hands and to be at the mercy of others, but also knowledge of the range of emotions that arise in reaction to helplessness itself. A man spent several weeks confined to his bed. He was seriously ill and was unable to get out of bed, or move at all, even if it was only to go from laying on one side to laying on the other side. It was in that state of extreme helplessness that he saw how much a person can be in need of others. He was in need not only of his doctors, nurses, and medical staff, but also of God and spiritual help. Not only for medical care, but for comforting words or gestures. The problem of impairment raises two fundamental questions…Why me? (the questions of bafflement), and What can be done? (The question of order and control). We oppose the lessons of helplessness, hardening ourselves against the indignities and rejecting the forced revisions of our priorities. We hope only for recovery and for a return to self-sufficiency. Anything less invokes bitterness. We want to see more clearly and hear more sharply the themes that are special to us. #RandolphHarris 2 of 8

The important thing is to realize that, although life seems to be a matter of literal causes and effects, in fact we are living our deep stories, often unconsciously. We are condemned to live out what we cannot imagine. People suffering from an aliment or disability first blame the condition. One says, “If only I was not elderly or disabled or pregnant, life for be better for me.” Then they blame other people, saying, “Life would be better if people did not treat me like I football player.” Then, we finally realize it is what we put out there is what determines how our life is and how people treat us. We make our life good—it does not just happen. There are countless pitfalls on the way our of misery. Focusing relentlessly on what has been lost, comparing oneself to others, aspiring for things that are out of reach, and placing blame on others are only some of the most common snares. Each personal variation is uniquely painful. Soul work involves an effort toward increasing awareness of these situations that form the foundations of our lives, for if we become familiar with the characters and themes that are central to our conditions, we can be free from their compulsions and the blindness that comes upon us when we are caught up in them. #RandolphHarris 3 of 8

When culture and language fail to acknowledge the difficulty of receiving, the dependent person is left doubly burdened, in disliking the help that cannot be repaid and in feeling guilty about the dislike. People know that when someone visits them, that they are simply being visited. They know that one is in receipt of a charitable act and that there is no true relationship. One knows they have nothing in common with the individuals coming to see them, they know all too well. We have often heard people who are elderly or disabled say, “Look at my life—all I do is eat and sleep. What kind of life is this?” They equate their lack of productivity activity with worthlessness. Some people take their mind off of their pain by thinking about what does work right. The most important thing to do is to keep the spirit supple. When we return to our central thought that the prayer of faith shall save the sick and God shall rise the individual up, we must remember that the prayer of faith is definite—it is faith in something and about something. This type of prayer is not generalized, but specific. It is conscious and definite. The prayer of faith is a prayer which expresses faith about some particular thing. What is included is a specific want, or definite need. #RandolphHarris 4 of 8

If one was praying for a home, one would not be asking for an automobile. If one were praying that his or her neighbor be healed, one would not be asking for money with which to take a trip. In order to enjoy the soulfulness of mythic life, we need a deep inner faith that allows us to know and visit our own deep strata where meaning and values truly are formed. Ritual is an action that speaks to the mind and heart, but it may not make sense in a literal context. In church, people do not eat bread in order to feed their bodies, but to nourish their souls. It is a higher symbolic act. If we could grasp this simple idea, that some actions may not have an effect on actual life, but speak instead to the soul, and if we could let go of the dominant role of function in so many things we do, then we might give more to the soul every day. Frail people try to conceal their needs as much as they can and they like to keep their conditions private. Social workers have been admitted to many apartments where it is more like people are living in private cells, concealing the evidence of their incapacities and averting their eyes from each others’ problems. Usually their presence is only accepted because something had necessitated their help. It was discovered in one such instance that a client had been sitting in the dark for weeks. The light bulbs had burned out in the ceiling fixtures, and he had no floor or table lamps. #RandolphHarris 5 of 8

Rather than ask one of his neighbors to help, he had been reading by daylight and going to bed when it became too dark to see. His back was hurting and he could barely move without experiencing a great deal of pain, as if his spine was going to snap. Therefore, keep in mind, the one who gives help is more powerful than the one who receives it. Knowing what to do for a person suffering from an impairment and what to cease doing begins with understanding what life is like from that person’s perspective. Without this comprehension, there is a tendency to worry about the wrong things and to give assistance in the wrong ways. Learning all that we can about being dependent allows us to fall short of the ideal to the right extent. Sometimes fear can strike a disabled or elderly person like a malignancy, sapping every and power and attention from their daily lives. They are afraid of the process of their ailment, they are afraid of increasing loss of control, they are afraid of the outcome, and they are afraid of dying. They fear how their families and friends see them, how they feel about them and how their condition affects their lives. #RandolphHarris 6 of 8

However, what can be even more difficult is when people do not know or cannot see that you are disabled or have a diminished capacity and they force you to work, harass you, physically attack you, use you for money, and threaten you because they know they can get away with it. For young people who are physically disabled, it is like experiencing one’s old age prematurely. They are locked into a parallel isolation, shamed by feelings they do not dare confess. These individuals are frightened because they are young and still have a lot of life to live and are deteriorating much sooner than they are supposed to. They do not have a professor of whatever to understand them and how they feel, and their economy of friends tends to shrink. People do not know how to behave toward them, and it is easy to lose heart for coping. Sometimes they have no spirit for anything, like their heart finally dropped out of them. Theses youngster even get bullied and attacked by people who are much older than them, but have not yet experienced what it is like to have fractured vertebrae in their spine, or whatever. However, they have courage. Courage that comes for their belief in God. The Word courage comes from the Latin cor for heart. We give ourselves fresh heart by pulling our attention away from what has been lost. #RandolphHarris 7 of 8

It is not that fear and disheartenment can be willed away, but we have to turn our focus in a direction most favorable to their alleviation. The consciousness that heals is definite and deliberate; it is a specializing of the Universal Law. In this law we may have absolute and implicit confidence, but we must also remember that the law can do for us only what it does through us. Its energy and creativeness must be interpreted through our belief and imagination. This is but another way of saying that if we want the principle of electricity to light our living room we must provide a fixture which makes it possible for the electricity to become a light. When we pray in faith we receive what things we pray for. If we believe that we shall receive them, we shall receive them. There is a specific, definite thing we are to receive, but we are to receive it as we believe. For many, relief and happiness can come by understanding the relationship between peace of conscience and peace of mind and by living the principles upon which both of these blessings are founded. God wants each of his children to enjoy the transcendent blessing of peace of conscience. A tranquil conscience invites freedom from anguish, sorrow, guilt, shame, and self-condemnation. It provides a foundation for happiness. It is a condition of immense worth, yet there are few on Earth that enjoy it most often because the principles upon which peace of conscience is founded are either not adequately understood or followed. #RandolphHarris 8 of 8

Our Memories of the Family are a Significant Part of the Mythology

March 3, 2018 3:02 am

We have lost a certain depth in the way we understand our experiences, using language that is often doubletalk and shallow in order to describe complex and profound aspects of life. Resentment is a reliable gauge of when assistants are doing more than they should. The problem with heeding this measure is that there are ongoing pressures to deny its validity. Dedicated assistants insist that they are doing fine. At all costs, they want to avoid evoking in the person that they are assisting fear of abandonment and to keep from revealing that the care has become taxing. They conceal their feelings and strive to maintain a contented exterior. Eventually, their pretense isolates them from the person who needs their assistance, and any previous intimacy become veiled by this effort to hide the truth. A myth is a sacred story set in a time and place outside history, describing in fictional form the fundamental truths of nature and human life. Mythology gives to the invisible and eternal factors that are always part of life but do not appear in a literal, factual story. Most of the time, when we tell a story about our lives, we couch it in purely human terms. When was the last time you talked about monsters, angels, or demons when you were describing some strongly felt experience? Myth reaches beyond the personal to express an imagery reflective of archetypal issues that shape every human life. #RandolphHarris 1 of 5

When we are trying to understand our problems and our suffering, we look for a story that will be revealing. Our surface explanations usually show their shortcomings; they do not satisfy. And so we turn to family themes. Unacknowledged weariness puts a barrier between the ill people and those who assist them. However, the feelings leak through in subtle ways. My son says he likes fixing me dinner every night, but he looks so tense when he is here. He comes right over from work, and his wife holds dinner at their house until he gets home. He smiles, makes chitchat, but I know he is racing against times. Sometimes he looks like he is going to explode, his face is so tight, but he keeps on smiling. I wish he could just say it is too much for him. I would be disappointed, do not get me wrong, but TV dinners would not kill me. People can see beneath cheerful demeanor that their child is suffering, but do not want to initiate their release from the obligation. Many are afraid, not of TV dinners, but of the loneliness that would await them on a nightly basis if they spoke up and urged their child to only visit them on weekends. The worst consequence of silence, however, is the gap it leaves between them. When you notice your child can no longer speak to you beyond chitchat, it is clear that one has become an unmentionable problem in their life. #RandolphHarris 2 of 5

Our memories of the family are a significant part of the mythology by which we live. We can learn things like the notion of exchange. For example, trading frequency for quality, guilty silence for relieving honesty. Dependent people and their helpers can release each other from guilt, but gestures must be mutual if they are to be effective. The reward for recognizing resentment as a limit is enjoying the elderly or disabled person’s company again. To feel that one can give pleasure and to receive small acts of sweetness is a fair exchange for new hours’ wait. A spiral of good feeling is set in motion between parent and child, which will replace the negative snowball that has been evolving between family members as the child becomes more and more weary of the care. If given the chance, few people would choose being waited on over being enjoyed. When we analyze what the prayer of faith means we discover that it is a statement of belief in some power which is able, ready, and willing to do the healing. At first, this may seem like a rather cold-blooded analysis, for to pick a prayer of faith apart seems to rob it of its sentimentality. Nevertheless, if we would arrive at a state of consciousness that heals we must be willing to analyze some of those things which seem so intimate and so holy that we that we dislike even to mention them. #RandolphHarris 3 of 5

Some of those who are calling out for help are the honest in heart who are earnestly seeking the truth, but they do not know where to find it. The prayer of faith may be thought of as a petition, as a beseeching, or as an agonizing cry of the soul for deliverance, but whatever we term it and from whatever viewpoint we look at it, we discover that it still is an attitude of thought, a way of thinking, a movement in consciousness. If the prayer is one of faith, then this mental movement is one of acceptance, for faith is an acceptance unqualified by denial. Complete faith is absolute and beneficial. Faith is the attitude of one who makes a complete mental surrender. It can arise only through a consciousness of complete abandonment. To the consciousness of faith there are no longer any arguments against its conviction. Faith has no opposites; it is an uncompromising mental attitude, and this is exactly what the prayer of faith is. It is a prayer, a petition, or a beseeching stated in come form of mental acceptance, unqualified belief, unquestioned trust. While the burden of petition and the necessity of faith rests on the one making the petition or having the faith, the response to this petition and this faith is made by some creative agency which has the power and the willingness to perform the act. It is God who raises us up. #RandolphHarris 4 of 5

We make some strong claims in faith. We do not apologize for that. We have that responsibility. We have the truth. We are proclaiming the truth. When we consider how we help others, give it careful, prayerful thought. Some of those who are calling out for help are confused and disturbed by this complex, somewhat contradictory World in which we live, a World that has many crosswinds and crosscurrents, and even some whirlpools that can entrap and destroy. Let us remember that. Many of these people are yearning for the inner peace and joy that really can come only through love of God and love of family and from keeping God’s commandments. If from thence thou shalt seek the Lord thy God, thou shalt find him, if thou seek hum with all they heart and with all thy soul, we shall know the truth, and the truth shall make us free. That implies that there is a truth which, known, automatically becomes demonstrated. Civilizations may come and go, empires may flourish and decay, time may pass, and change may deface all previous experience, but law is eternal. Thus, the scientist learns to depend on law. As we are able to perfect our lives, the blessings we have become more meaningful, and we experience that inner joy and peace for which there is no substitute. #RandolphHarris 5 of 5

Randolph Harris II International Institute

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You Follow Me and I Will be Your Guide and Lead You Forth through an Eternal Place there You Shall See the Ancient Spirits!

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