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A Gift Given in Secret Soothes Anger
An important distinction sometimes made is that between knowledge of nature and knowledge of culture. The facts of nature do not change from age to age and from country to country; the facts of culture do. While there is general agreement among scholars in the field that social relationships provide the key to understanding the genesis of ideas, there are also far-reaching disagreements among several distinct schools, within which there are again individual differences. Money and work are, of course, intimately related. By splitting concerns for financial profit from the inherent values of work, money can become the focus of a job’s narcissism. Basically, pleasure in money can take the place of pleasure in work. Nevertheless, we all require money, and money can be an integral part of the work without loss of soul. The crucial point is our attitude. In most work there can be a close relationship between caring for the World in which we live (ecology) and caring for the quality of our way of life (economy). Money is the medium of exchange of our relationship to the community and environment in which we live. We pay our taxes, and the government provides for the basic needs of the community. It is the recognition that community is necessary and that it requires rules of participation. Money is central in our attempts to live a communal life. #RandolphHarris 1 of 5
The lives of some people are shaped by the lure of money, while others sense the temptation and take an ascetic route, in order to avoid being tainted. Either way, money retains its powerful position in the soul. However, if a person’s attitude toward money is essentially a defense against poverty, then this person may never truly experience wealth. The experience of wealth is relative to our state of mine. For some, being wealthy is having a mortgage paid off, car paid off, good health, and food to eat. For others, being wealthy might mean being rich, famous, owning a mansion and being the president of a successful corporation. Nonetheless, wealth is what you imagine it to be. Some people feel wealthy by having a loving family and someone to share their joy with. The basis for correct spiritual treatment starts with the idea that being is already perfect. The idea of perfection is the spiritual power which heals. From the standpoint of pure spirit, an unknown or hidden false cause would be just as unreal as a known or revealed one. We know that mind, or spirit, is pure, perfect, and complete, manifesting itself in physical form in and throughout all nature. The government of good is enforced through the law of human’s own divinity. “When justice is done, it brings joy to the righteous, but terror to evildoers (Proverbs 21.12).” #RandolphHarris 2 of 5
Power exists, and the action of this power is upon your word, or your word acts upon the power, no one knows which. For all practical intents and purposes, the power acts upon your word. If we do not feel any general sense of proprietorship toward the Earth, then we can think that it is someone else’s responsibility to keep the oceans clean and the air free of poison. From the perspective of the soul, wealth and poverty come together in responsible use and enjoyment of this World, which is only leased to us for a time. God knows who we are and that our little affairs are important, the answer is that God knows everything, not as big and little, but only as action and reaction, only as contemplation which produces its own reaction. Remember, that the same ingenuity, the same creative power that flows into the largest form also creates the smallest form. Comparatives do not belong in the Universe. They are merely differentiations in our own mind. The problem lies not in having too much nor too little, but in taking money literally, as a fetish rather than as a medium. If wealth is found by rejecting the experience of poverty, then it will never be complete. The soul is nurtured by want as much as by plenty. #RandolphHarris 3 of 5
God, who created the World, watches over the affairs of humans, the believer is committing oneself to a certain general view of the ultimate basis of the World, giving voice to certain, perhaps very indefinitely specified, expectations as to how things will ultimately turn out, expressing a basic sense of security in life, committing oneself to approach God in prayer and ritual in one way rather than another. And these functions are intimately dependent on each other. What is needed is a description of the relationships among these functions, one sufficiently complex to match the complexity of the subject matter. We have to distinguish between shadow qualities of money that are part of its soulfulness and symptoms of money gone wild. Greed, avarice, cheating, and embezzlement are signs that the soul of money has been lost. It is the nature of money to be exchanged. In fact, we sometimes refer to it as change. When a society becomes corrupted by money’s shadow, that society falls apart much like ancient Rome. However, a society that owns up to its financial shadow can be nurtured. We do not always need a lot of money to feel like adults. Some people end up with millions of dollars and still wonder when they are going to grow up. No clear line is drawn between symbol and object, between wish and fulfillment, between perception and fantasy. #RandolphHarris 4 of 5
Again, no sharp distinction is made between the object itself and the emotional reaction it evokes; emotional response is taken to be an integral part of the environment. As a result, none of our familiar standards of truth or objectivity are applicable. What is most real is what arouses the greatest intensity of emotional response and, particularly, what is felt most sacred. A Great load will fall from our mind if we will stop thinking about rich and poor or hard an easy. There are many Heavenly bodies millions of times larger than the Earth; there are many that are smaller, but the same Cause created them, not as big or little but merely as expression of itself. We know what it is to believe, opine, and wonder, and we know when we know. We know, noninferentially, that there are other persons. Possibly through religious experience, and in particular the experience of solemn awe, we know that God exists. We do not want merely inferred friends. Could we possibly be satisfied with an inferred God? Because beauty in its highest form is spiritual, it must suggest a deeper ethical meaning. When God puts a promise in your heart, you have to come to the place where you believe in that promise so strongly no one and no circumstance can move you. “The Lord detests different weights, and dishonest scales do not please him (Proverbs 20.23).” That means that be fair and honest. #RandolphHarris 5 of 5
Get Ready Like Royalty—Feel Like Royalty!
Open up your mind and it will sing to you. The love that goes out into our work comes back as love of self. Work is an important component of the spiritual life, it can be a path to holiness, and profoundly affects the soul. When we think of work, we only consider function, and so the soul elements are left to chance. However, the rituals that are taking place when one performs a task is the soul’s work: something of the soul is being created in the work of ritual. Ordinary actions, too, accomplish something for the soul. Yet, where there is no artfulness about life, there is a weakening of soul. It seems that the problem with most modern manufacturing is not a lack of efficiency, it is a loss of soul. If people had a deep sense of the truly magical nature of their product, they would take care of the souls of their products with sacred imagination. The same principle holds for all professions and for all forms of labor. We could say, then, that all work is sacred, whether you are building a castle, creating a beautiful stain glass window, or taking out the rubbish. A special window might help ritualize a house, or a dinning room table of a special design or select wood could transform the house into an arena that has imaginal depth that feels one’s soul. It may conjure up certain memories and fantasies that have significance. Or work may be a means of sorting out issues that have little to do with the work itself. It may be a response to fate. #RandolphHarris 1 of 8
We may find ourselves doing work that has been in the family for generations or working at a job that appeared after a number of coincidences and chance events. In this sense, all work is a vocation, a calling from a place that is the source of meaning and identity, the foundation of which are beyond human intention and interpretation. However, we can never do this unless we believe that we can, for the belief that we cannot binds us back to the antiquated precedents and compels us to accept only as much good as has been experienced in the past. If we can get firmly fixed in our mind that the principle of the soul is never bound by precedent, that the doing of new things in science through new discoveries always existed as a possibility, and there was nothing in nature which prohibited the larger experiences, we shall no longer be hypnotized by limitations of the past. It is possible that most of us go through life more or less hypnotized by what everyone has believed. We say that the good we desire cannot come to us because we have never experienced much of it, or there is not enough good to go around, of that God does not hear our prayers. Too often we turn over the possibilities of the individual life to the acceptance of the collective group. Not understanding soul, companies look to the work of other cultures and try to mimic their methods. #RandolphHarris 2 of 8
It is not possible to care for the soul while violating or disregarding one’s own moral sensibility. What we should break down is the hypnotic suggestions that bind us, and create new avenues in the mind for a fresh approach and a new outlook to the spirit. This is something every individual must do for oneself, but there must be a method or a way to begin. We have to start with the firm faith that we are dealing with power which is not bound. It is not limited. It is not only some power; it is all-power. It is not difficult to convince the mind of this, since plain reasoning compels one to accept such a viewpoint. Alchemy was a process in which raw material was placed in a vessel where it was heated, observed closely, heated some more, passed through various operations and observed once again. In the end, the result was an arcane product imagined mysteriously to be gold, the stone of the philosophers, or a potent elixir. Alchemy was a spiritual practice carried out for the benefit of the soul. Just like many of you work to benefit your family, who are part of your soul. Face it, the only reason many of you get out of bed everyday and go to work is because you believe that the qualities you produce are scared rituals which benefit your soul and are a way to honor God and the people and things you love. #RandolphHarris 3 of 8
You find your poetic inspiration in your home, family, garden, and furniture to keep going even when you are tired. We must assure ourselves that we have access to the power of God. We could never do this if we felt that the power was external to us, if it were something apart from or different from our own being. We discover that God is immediate and personal, a possibility latent within the self, and ready to be called upon and used. We could imagine our own everyday work alchemically in the same way. We work on the stuff of the soul by means of the things of life. This is an ancient idea. Ordinary life is the means of entry into higher spiritual activity. At the very moment we are hard at work on some Worldly endeavor, we are also working on a different plane. Perhaps without knowing it, we are engaged in the labours of the soul. The more deeply our work stirs imagination and corresponds to images that are sacred at the core of identity and fate, the more it will have soul. Having identified ourselves with the power which is law, and the presence which is the spirit, we must consciously increase our expectation and deepen our realization. This is done by prayer, communing with the divine, until gradually we so extend our concepts of life and the possibilities of living that we are no longer bound by our thought patterns of lack and limitation. #RandolphHarris 4 of 8
There are two ways of getting out of a trial. One is simply to try to get rid of the trial, and be thankful when it is over. The other is to recognize the trial as a challenge from God to claim a larger blessing than we have ever had, and to hail it with delight as an opportunity of obtaining a larger measure of divine grace. There is one life, that life is God, that life is my life now. This power, this presence, and this life are perfect, complete, whole, and happy. We identify the mind with this wholeness, happiness, and perfection, affirming its presence and embodying a certain feeling about it, and inward awareness. This practice must continue until the idea becomes real to us, not as though we were something apart from or approaching the reality, but as through we were operating from the very center of it, which of course we are. It is an extension or reflection of ourselves. When one concludes a successful business transaction, one feels good about oneself. When one builds their dream house or gets a new care, one stands back and contemplates it, feeling a surge of pride. However, if we allow ourselves to do bad work, the whole society suffers a wound to soul. When it is not possible to feel good about our work, then soulful pride, so necessary for creativity, turns into narcissism. Pride and narcissism are not the same thing; in a sense, they are opposites. #RandolphHarris 5 of 8
The product of our work should reflect a means of loving ourselves. However, if those products are not lovable, we are forced into a narcissistic place where we lose sight of the work itself and focus on our own personal needs. Love of the World and our place in it, attained largely by our work, turns into solipsistic craving for love. We will never achieve the flowing of our own natures until we find that piece of ourselves, that lovable twin, which lives in the World and as the World. Therefore, finding the right work is like discovering your soul in the World. There will be new thoughts, new ideas coming. We will open our whole consciousness to the influx of that which is larger and better, as we identify with inward peace and joy. At times, however, we may be confronted with negative arguments of set mental patterns which circumscribe, limit, and depress the mind. Our sense may try to insist that we follow the old established precedents as our true guide, since they have been adhered to by humankind from time immemorial. Contradict those vibes, they are so deceiving as the clouded heart. A major part of faith is trusting God when we do not understand why things happen the way they do. #RandolphHarris 6 of 8
We all know that God gives us opportunities. We have seen God give us favour, good situations, blessings, and promotion. That is the hand of God opening the World up for us. Right here, a certain amount of adventure, of imagination must be brought into play to create a feeling of acceptance which will break down those old thought patterns. We must understand that they are not the Truth of God’s Being, but merely monotonous repetitions of all the negative thought of the ages. We must know that our new declarations of truth have the power within themselves to completely destroy the old thought patterns. We are no longer hypnotized by the old thought patterns; we are no longer bound by negative precedents; we are no longer limited to what everyone has believed, because we know it has no truth, no reality, and no law to support it. It is but a phantom. It is obvious that climbing the ladder of success can easily lead to a loss of soul. Are there any moral problems in the job or workplace—making things detrimental to people or to the Earth, taking excessive profits or contributing to racial and sexist oppression? It is not possible to care for the soul while violating or disregarding one’s own moral sensibility. They will misconstrue your answers due to a lack of love. An alternative may be to choose a profession or projects with soul in mind. #RandolphHarris 7 of 8
Signs of love and therefore of soul are feelings of attraction, desire, curiosity, involvement, passion, and loyalty in relation to our work. When the soul is involved, the work is not carried out by a need for prestige alone; it raises from a deeper place and therefore is not deprived of passion, spontaneity, and grace. We are and always have been part of God’s Universe. Do not ask someone else to justify your belief, for this is confusion. We must in our own minds increase our faith, reaffirming its own position, which will awaken the mind to the greater influx of blessings. Just as surely as we do this, the prison walls of the lesser self begin to crumble, the horizon experiences begins to push itself father away, and, because more spiritual territory is taken in, greater experiences are bound to follow. “Fools mock at making amends for sin, but goodwill is found among the upright. Each heart knows its own bitterness, and no one else can share its joy. The house of the wicked will be destroyed, but the house of the upright will flourish (Proverbs 14.9-11).” Real satisfaction comes not in understanding God’s motives, but in understanding his character, in trusting in his promises, and in leaning on him and resting in him as the Sovereign who knows what he is doing and does all things well. Look at others with patient eyes, as some leave reality early due to the lack of love. #RandolphHarris 8 of 8
God is Shaping Us for Higher Things
How we spend our time—what we look at, sit on and work with—makes a difference, not only in terms of efficiency but for its effect on our sense of ourselves and the direction our imagination takes. Care of the soul requires ongoing attention to every aspect of life. Essentially it is a cultivation of ordinary things in such a way that soul is nurtured and fostered. Therapy tends to focus on distress or chronic problems. No one every goes to therapy to talk about their dreams, aspirations, hopes and goals. Therapy does not teach us how to accomplish anything. People just rehearse problems and do not really learn how to move forward. All of the ordinary things in life have a great deal to do with the condition of the soul. If we do not tend the soul consciously and artfully, then its issues remain largely unconscious, uncultivated, and therefore often problematic. The Law of Mental Equivalents means that everything that is consciously and subjectively embodied in our thinking tends to radiate an atmosphere, a vibration, a current of thought, and inward acceptance which automatically attracts to itself that which is like itself. Some business cover over their soulless conception of work with a veneer of fake walls, plastic plants, and pseudoart. If that is what we give to the workplace in the name of beauty, then that is the measure of soulfulness we will have at our job. #RandolphHarris 1 of 6
Storms make oaks take deeper roots. Soul cannot be faked without serious consequences. A green thought, in a green shade, surrounded by plastic ferns, we will be filled with plastic thoughts. Believe in God; believe that he is; believe that he has all wisdom, and all power, born in Heaven and in Earth. Allow your heart to find the comfort you seek in God. There shall be within the body of our thinking not only an acceptance of the good we desire, but an inward experience of the meaning of that good, a real sense and a real feeling that we now possess it. Exercise great faith and be filled with optimism, wisdom, and love for others. Have an attitude of perseverance. Trust the Lord and rely on him for strength, and the Lord will bless you. If we look to God for help, we will not be overwhelmed with the burdens of life. We will not feel incapable of doing what we are called to do or need to do. We will be strengthened, and our lives will be filled with peace and joy. We will come to realize that most of what we worry about is not of eternal significance—and if it is, the Lord will help us. However, we must have the faith to look up and the courage to follow God’s direction. Not only can we change our objective thinking, but by a process of careful treatment we can change the whole subjective field of our thought, because most of our thinking is unconscious. #RandolphHarris 2 of 6
Because much of our thought is unconscious, the mental embodiment of an idea or the true mental equivalent of something is not so much the word we speak as it is something we feel in the heart. Unconscious wishes are always active and ready to express themselves whenever they find an opportunity of allying themselves with an impulse from consciousness, and transferring their own greater intensity to the less intensity of the latter. It must, therefore, seem that the conscious wish alone has been realized in the dream; but a slight peculiarity in the form of the dream will put upon the track of the powerful ally from the unconscious. Architecture, colours, furnishings, decorations, give people a place of dignity. Architecture can touch on philosophical revelations, it is the favoured setting for many dreams, an indication of its special appeal to the imagination. Some houses are unusually orderly and clean, and people put special efforts into keeping the rooms spotless. This allows us to take a special look at the house in order to glimpse signs of the soul that are hidden in the everyday and common place. The house can be a path of contemplation, which allows people to take their mind off of their grief, and reflect on the chamber of the heart, a special space in the soul. #RandolphHarris 3 of 6
We all have a definite content of unconscious thinking, of unconscious expectations, of unconscious frustration and desire. This is just as much a part of the process of our thinking as the words we use consciously, and it is just as certain to be operated upon by the Law of Life. Our daily work and lives affect the character and the overall quality of life, but we usually overlook the way soulfulness can adhere to our benefit and shows us how to become more like God. This is sometimes a long and arduous process, for a person does not change all of the patterns of one’s thought in a moment. Rather it takes place little by little, until gradually the antiquated patterns become transformed into new ones by come inner alchemy of the mind, the operation of which we do not see but the manifestation of which we do experience. Encouragement to look up is a metaphor for remembering God. As we remember him and trust in his power, we receive strength. Our whole inner feeling will entertain and experiences goodness. Our expectations will be one of joy and pleasurable anticipation. All the antiquated thoughts of fear and doubt and uncertainty have vanished. There is nothing that can limit one. One’s memory is one of happiness; anticipation is one of joy; and our experience is one of pleasure. It is the means whereby we can receive the faith and strength to endure all things. #RandolphHarris 4 of 6
We must act on the direction we receive. We must look up and step up. And as we do, I know we will cheer up, for God wants us to be happy. We are Heavenly Father’s children. He wants to be a part of our lives, to bless us, and to help us. He will heal our wounds, dry our tears, and help us along our path to return to his presence. We should think about it and feel it, envision it, and try to think of the meaning of sanctification. Accepting it consciously, we should let it seek deeply into the unconscious, until the subjectivity of our thought shall have accepted its meaning; then we shall have arrived at the mental equivalent of the idea. Psychologist contend that a neurotic thought pattern will repeat itself with monotonous regularity until the pattern is changed. Advances in science and civilization come through breaking down the belief that things have to be the way they are because they have always been that way. However, the laws of nature or the principles that govern life know nothing about precedents. At one time we used tallow candles; now we have electric lights. There was nothing in nature that prohibited the World from having had electric lights ten thousand years ago, but no one knew anything about them. #RandolphHarris 5 of 6
When the day arrived on which somebody discovered the new possibility, the laws of nature complied and delivered the secret which made the new possible. The same thing has happened throughout the history of spiritual evolution, or the unfoldment of human’s thought about one’s relationship with God. People have prayed to a power higher than themselves and occasionally their prayers have been answered affirmatively. Perhaps they have always been answered in accordance with the way they have prayed. However, it has always been accepted that some prayers are answered while others are not. Because of this belief, a precedent was established which made the answer to prayer an unpredictable thing. This is one of the precedents which need to be broke, for we must allow spiritual activity a larger scope. The power of God can make Mount Vesuvius look like an early autumn flurry. When we realize that all the spiritual power there is is at our disposal, and that no matter how limited a viewpoint we may have had yesterday (with the limitations that follow that viewpoint), today we can increase our field of inward awareness, then we make possible a greater influx of the divine through the human, that is, through our own thinking. God is shaping us for higher things. #RandolphHarris 6 of 6
We Must Relate to Our Bodies as Having a Soul
Structures harness the extraordinary power of the imagination to transform the inner narratives that drive and confine our functioning in the World. The human body is the soul presented in its richest and most expressive form. We share of thoughts, physical sensations, ideas, ideals, hopes, and feelings and all life experiences. We call for a new appreciation for the laws of imagination to keep us moving into ever newer and deeper insights. Blame is a defensive substitute for an honest examination of life that seeks guidance in our mistakes. It is a way of averting consciousness of error. Rather than blame, we could respond. Of course, we can never undo what happened in the past, but we can create new emotional scenarios intense and real enough to defuse and counter some of those old ones. Sometimes our senses pick up sounds around us, but our attention sinks into an area sheltered from life. The healing tableaus of structures offer an experience that many may never have believed was possible for them: to be welcomed into a World where people delight in them, protect them, meet their needs, and make one feel at home. Listening to the messages of the body is not the same as blaming the individual. This seems to give people confidence and strength. #RandolphHarris 1 of 6
Wounding takes us deep into the invisible World. In the heroic struggle to be someone, to make life work and to find happiness, thing we do may inflict wounds on something much more deep than our beings. The very foundations of existence can be affected, and so disease and illness arise as from some profound, mysterious place, very much as a divine apparition. We know that panic symptoms (symbols) are maintained largely because the individual develops a fear of the bodily sensations associated with panic attacks. The attack may be triggered by something he or she knows is irrational, but fear of the sensation keeps them escalating into a full-body emergency. This could be because people are enduring pain and being forced to recall that pain over and over and dealing with things that threaten their peace, safety and security in real life. The experience of fear derives from primitive responses to threat where escape is thwarted in some way. People’s lives will be held hostage to fear until that visceral experience changes. The price for ignoring or distorting the body’s messages is being unable to detect what is truly dangerous or harmful for you, just as bad, what is safe or nourishing. Self-regulation depends on having a friendly relationship with your body. #RandolphHarris 2 of 6
When we do not feel safe in our own body, we usually have to rely on external regulations—from medication, drugs like alcohol, constant reassurance, or compulsive compliance with the wishes of others. Many people respond to stress not by noticing and naming it, but by developing migraine headaches, asthma attacks, intestinal disturbances, and some even experience internal bleeding. Suppressing our inner cries for help does not stop our stress hormones from mobilizing the body. Even though you may learn to ignore your relationship problems and block out your physical distress signals, they will show up in symptoms that demand your attention. It is important to focus on identifying the link between your physical sensations and your emotions. Accepting that we are wounded, we enter life differently than if our only concern is to overcome the wound. When we respond to the mysterious appearance of an illness, we live with responsibility to fate. If we allow sickness to lead us into wonder about the very base of experience, then our spirituality is strengthened. We wish joy instead of tears, gladness instead of sorrow, peace instead of disturbance, success instead of failure, life instead of death. #RandolphHarris 3 of 6
The modern body is an efficient machine that needs to be kept in shape so that its organs will function smoothly for as long as possible. We are already familiar with the mental law of cause and effect, with the idea that mind in action is law, and with the principle upon which all mental practice is based; that we are surrounded by God, and he receives the impress of our thoughts and action upon them. We cannot change the nature of the law, nor can we change the nature of our being, but we can think and act differently, and the law, being subjective to our thought, must change its tendency toward us. The World lives and breathes, and we can draw its spirit into us. What we do to the World’s body, we do to our own. God is the High Chancellor, and whatsoever a person does to you, is also what they shall reap. “Lord Almighty, you who judge righteously, and test the heart and mind, let me see your vengeance upon them, for to you I have committed my cause (Jeremiah 11.20).” This suggests that the various treatments employed on the physical plane have counterparts in the soul. In a very real sense, we do not cure our aliments, they cure us, by restoring our religious participation in life. We are not masters of this World, we participate in its life. #RandolphHarris 4 of 6
The new patterns of belief must be found in a higher consciousness and deeper realization of human’s position in the creative order as a dispenser of the divine gifts and as the recipient of the infinite will and willingness. We need to repudiate the belief that we are bound. We need to know that the spirit within us is now free, complete, and perfect. There is not a person living who cannot change one’s thought, at least somewhat. We can all improve and broaden our mental reaction right where we are, and with each new and better mental outlook there will come a corresponding reaction in our objective World. When we relate to our bodies as having soul, we attend to their beauty, their music, and their expressiveness. Our very habit of treating the body as a machine, whose muscles are like pulleys and its organs engines, forces its music underground, so the we experience the body as an instrument and see its musical tones only in illness. Fortunately, we still have a few institutions that foster an imaginal body. Fashion, for instances, brings a considerable amount of fantasy to the body. Cosmetics and perfumery are available to women, and cologne to men, and it can be an important aspect of cultivating the body’s soul. To understand the working of the law is knowledge, but to use it constructively is wisdom. #RandolphHarris 5 of 6
Tending to the body in all its physicality is an important part of the care of the soul. Daily we must consciously reverse our position in the law, knowing that we are no longer subject to the race suggestion of lack, limitation, want, or fear; knowing that the spirit is with us and for us and operating through us; knowing that all good is ours, and specifically declaring that the particular good we desire is now made manifest. We are not alone nor unacknowledged. The soul is involved in the perception of an intimacy between human personality and the World’s communing body. How marvelous is God to have allowed us to live on Earth—a place where the stranger can find rest, protection, and care. And once again, we feel the flush of soul as it becomes animated by a new appreciation for its own art. To truly enjoy life, faith and expectancy are necessary, and above all, a great inner flexibility. We must have a knowledge that we can change bondage into freedom one of the greatest joys we can contemplate. May the Heavenly Father command it and arrange it, and may the Holy Spirit appease the hearts of those against us. Come, Holy Spirit, enlighten the hearts of those who can favour us or those who can help us. #RandolphHarris 6 of 6
God Promises He Will Renew Your Strength
In darkness there is to be found a precious brilliance, our essential nature, distilled by depression as perhaps the greatest gift of melancholy. The one and only way to know what fear, anger, joy, or remorse is, is to actually experience those feelings. If we persist in our modern way of treating depression, as an illness to be cured only mechanically and chemically, we may lose the gifts of soul. Our identity is located deeply in the soul, rather than on the surface of personality. Identity is felt as one’s soul finding its weight and measure. Some people who are experiencing depression or sadness related to a situation that they have no way of controlling, and are not suffering from a behavioral problem or a chemical imbalance need to be careful. Recovery from depression can be a lot like recovering from a dangerous and deadly narcotic addiction. People who go into rehabilitation programs, to save their lives, from drug addiction often have to terminate relationships with the people that helped power and fuel their addiction. And after they are released from a rehabilitation program, they are most vulnerable. That is why it is advised that they stay away from their friends and family, who make hang out with people who use drugs. Even if only one or two people in the group use drugs, a recovering addict has to avoid them. #RandolphHarris 1 of 10
When a person is released from a rehabilitation program, their systems are pure and they may not be able to handle any drugs at all in their system, but may not be aware and could die much easier from an overdose. Correspondingly, people who are suffering from a situation they find intolerable and it has been going on a long time, and there is nothing the individual can do to change their circumstances, they have to do whatever they can to avoid the people who intentionally harassing them and using them as a source pleasure by humiliating them and reminding them of painful aspects of their lives and doing things to hurt that individual to make themselves feel better. People like that are wicked, and beyond help. Recovering from trauma is a lot like recovering from a drug addiction, in that sense. You have to stay away from the group, even if there is only one bad person in the group because depression can lead to suicide, and you have endured so much that you may not know how much more you can take before you end your own life. A sad or depressed mood is just part of the soul’s cycle. The depressed person sometimes thins that the good times are all past, that there is nothing left for the present or the future. #RandolphHarris 2 of 10
Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem, but sometimes the problem seems to be permanent. At the clinic, the patient states that he or she feels young and wants to live; and claims that one had no serious intention of killing oneself, but was only singing the lyrics of an operetta. One admits that, in retrospect, one might have been a little careless in showing oneself in a theater loge in the company of. Therefore, it is important to save yourself from this temporary problem, before you do something you may not be able to recovery from. These thoughts and feelings, sad as they are, favor the soul’s desire to be both in time and in eternity. Sometimes we associate depression with literal aging. Having been identified with youth, the soul now takes on important qualities of age that are beneficial and helpful. If age is denied, soul becomes lost in an inappropriate clinging to youth. However, there are also people who are mature, but have not been able to grow and experience adult life as they would like to, and that can also make them sad. It is like one has been promised straight whiskey, but fearing that one is being fed weak tea. Not everyone is clinging to youth, some people are trying to grow beyond their life circumstances. #RandolphHarris 3 of 10
It would be wrong to believe that all the foul deeds in this World are caused by corruption, as if baseness operated automatically with the insertion of a coin. There are people who gladly place the misuse of their knowledge and skills at the disposal of the ruling classes, in the expectation that they will be rewarded by positions, titles, medals, and riches. As we age, we get a sense of having lived through something, of being older and wiser. We know that life is suffering, and that knowledge makes a difference. Your life may not matter to others, it may be a joke to them, but that life is precious, it is all you have. One cannot enjoy the bouncy, carefree innocence of youth any longer, and there is a pleasure in a new feeling of self-acceptance and self-knowledge. Our age and maturity is a measure of nobility. Scholars can become easily depressed and have to find ways to counter their dark moods. However, there are also dangers of living without study and speculation, and without reflection on our lives. Some detest psychiatry because it feeds the individual’s hunger for power, and because, like journalism, it carries within itself vast potentialities for its abuse. The psychiatrist, whose capacity for well-considered action and hence one’s talent for corruptibility some consider slight, as essentially feebleminded. #RandolphHarris 4 of 10
The genius of insanity is thus opposed by the feeblemindedness of psychiatry. This psychiatric stupidity often turns into malice and even a maniacal desire to persecute. However, what is scary to people who do not believe in God is that there is a being, there is something, there is a force vastly more powerful than human beings. Do not allow people to box you in and make you feel that you make never break free of the chain that you are bound by. They do not know what God has planned for your life. If you allow depression to visit, you will feel the change in your body, in your muscles, and on your face—some relief from the burden of youthful enthusiasm and the unbearable lightness of being. Aging brings out the flavors of a personality. The individual emerges over time, the way fruit matures and ripens. Depression, aging, and individuality all go together: the sadness of growing old is part of becoming an individual. Melancholy thoughts carve out an interior space where wisdom can take up residence. As we age, our ideas, formerly light, rambling, and unrelated to each other, become more densely gathered into values and a philosophy, giving our lives substance and firmness. #RandolphHarris 5 of 10
A journalist is a person without any ideas but with an ability to express them; a writer whose skill is improved by a deadline: the more time they have, the worse the write. Depression is sometimes described as a condition in which there are no idea—nothing to hang on to. However, maybe we have to broaden our vision and see that feelings of emptiness, the loss of familiar understandings and structures in life, and the vanishing of enthusiasm, even though they seem negative, are elements that can be appropriate and used to give life fresh imagination. We can initiate a new creative series by the definite and deliberate contemplation of our own minds, and out of the new thoughts will some new things, for the law is a reflector only. We shall discover that the very law that bound us will now free us; the power that seemed to stifle us will bring emancipation. The very power which appeared to produce evil will produce the opposite if, as, and when we change our thought patterns. The changing of these thought patterns is more than a thing of the intellect; it is also a thing of feeling, of a deep, inner conviction. We must feel that we are one with the eternal reality, and that our word is spoke in complete reliance on it; therefore it cannot fail. #RandolphHarris 6 of 10
Sometimes, of course, depression, like any emotion, can go beyond ordinary limits, becoming a completely debilitating illness. However, in extreme cases, too, even in the midst of strong treatments, we can still look at the core of depression and find ways to overcome it. One of the greatest stressors associated with depression is that it will never end, that life will never be joyful and active. This is one of the feelings that is part of the pattern—the sense of being trapped, forever to be held in the remote of a labyrinth of haunts. One may feel constrained, with nowhere to go. This stress seems to decrease when we stop fighting it. We must get control of our thoughts, feelings, and emotions. Gradually, as we re-form our thoughts they will become subjective; they will sink into that place in mind which is the power within us and which must constitute the meeting place between the absolute cause and the relative effect which it projects. It may take time to do this, but think of the reward, the gift, the outcome. Keeping the goal in mind, refusing to be baffled or defeated, with uplifted thought and calm but definite purpose, we cannot fail. This is a starting point for a more grounded, open-ended kind of knowledge that never closes up in fixed opinions. #RandolphHarris 7 of 10
The emptiness and dissolution of meaning that are often present in depression show how attached we can become to our ways of understanding and explaining our lives. Often our personal philosophies and our values seem to be all too neatly wrapped, leaving little room for mystery. Depression comes along then and opens up a hole. Depression makes holes in our theories and assumptions, but even this painful process can be honored as a necessary and valuable source of healing. At first, we are prone to treat everything and everyone around us, in an attempt to influence our environment and other people, and to exercise control over things to our own liking. Most of us pass through this phase. As we progress in this science we come to realize that the aim of scientific treatment is not control of people and things. We treat ourselves, our own mind, our own consciousnesses, no matter what the desired end may be, and gradually we learn to include a larger and a more harmonious field of action. We learn that when we get our own consciousness straightened out, things in our external World adjust themselves to meet our new and better inward awareness. The final mystery is oneself. #RandolphHarris 8 of 10
Depression’s devaluation of human life, shows that cold remorse and self-judgment do not have to be seen as clinical syndromes, but as a necessary humility in human life that actually accomplishes something for the soul. We know who we are because we have uncovered the stuff of which we are made. It has been sifted out by depressive thought, reduced, in the chemical sense, to essence. Months or years focused on God and his love and healing power has allowed us to understand that everything bends back upon itself, even time, space, and light. This is divine intuition that teaches that everything which goes out will come back again. “All of you that are pure in heart, lift up your heads and receive the pleasing word of God, and feast upon his love; for you may, if your minds are firm, forever (Jacob 3.2).” If we deny or cover up anything that is home in the soul, then we cannot be fully present to others. Hiding the dark places results in a loss of soul; speaking for them and from them offers a way toward genuine community and intimacy. Even after you uncover piece after piece of the sacrifices you have made, and feel an intense regret, but discover the real core of your being and the loyalty to the things you love. #RandolphHarris 9 of 10
As you reflect on your core the feeling of guilt and depression will be replaced by a stronger individual, who is no longer manipulated. Do not focus on thoughts and experiences the sad feelings and turmoil is waiting in the for you. Especially when the first time around was so painful and apparently unsuccessful. Care of the soul does not mean wallowing in the symptom, but it does mean trying to learn from depression what qualities the soul needs. Allow the Angel of God to carry your soul out of the coldness, isolation, darkness, and emptiness away to its remote places where it is no longer quarreling and where it finds unique insight and enjoys a special vision. Experience teaches us what is best. We learn that God alone is eternal and that loves overcomes hate. We have brought chance into compliance with love, reason, and faith. We have caught the lightning and made it turn the wheels of industry. We have engaged the laws of nature and harnessed their energy to our purposes. Truth will enter into a new Heaven and a new Earth, a different consciousness. When consciousness is changed, experience automatically changes. Now in the thing we do rejoice. When you become weary and feel like quitting, there is a way to have your strength renewed—wait on the Lord. The reward is in the attempt. #RandolphHarris 10 of 10
The Soul is More Mysterious
The soul’s indications are many, but they are usually extremely subtle. In the process of civilization, the far most important thing is the aim of creating unity out of the individual human beings. It is true that the aim of happiness is still there, but it is pushed into the background. It almost seems as if the creation of a great human community would be successful, we should focus on the benefit of the soul. The soul does not necessarily benefit from long, hard work, nor from fairness of any kind. Its effects are achieved more with God than effort. While it is true that science must deal with cause and effect in practical applications, it is also true that in physics the antiquated idea of cause and effect has been eliminated, which means that things do not always work in the way they are supposed to, basing the performance on precedent. Just because an individual has worked a long time and is fair about it, does not mean one will have the benefits of soul one wants. Nor should any individual enter such work innocently, agreeing to work hard, and then expect something for their labour. This consumer logic is based on fairness and reasonableness, and has nothing to do with the way the soul operates and may be the least effective way to seek out the soul’s power. #RandolphHarris 1 of 6
The soul is more mysterious. The developmental process of the individual can thus be expected to have special features of its own which are not reproduced in the process of human civilization. Just as a planet revolves around a central body as well as rotating on its own axis, so the human individual takes part in the course of development of humankind at the same time as one pursues one’s own path in life. However, to our dull eyes the play of forces in the Heavens seems fixed in a never-changing order; in the field of organic life we can still see how the forces contend with one another, and how the effects of the conflict are continually changing, as though it were the envelope of the soul. Much of the civilization of the future may oppress the life of the individual today. We lose opportunities to know ourselves for our motives and our secrets because people just want to open our boxes and pry into our lives when we may not even to share a cup of coffee with them. Disregard for privacy, increasing technology is at the forerunner of this conflict. Do we need to expose everything that is hidden? Do we need to understand all mysteries? We are used to hearing about the great revelations of science—the discovery of atoms, particles, and DNA—and so quite naturally we think that mysteries are there to be solved. #RandolphHarris 2 of 6
People have at all times set the greatest value on ethics, as though they expected that it in particular would produce especially important results. And it does in fact deal with a subject which can easily be recognized as the sorest spot in every civilization. Ethics is thus to be regarded as a therapeutic attempt—as an endeavor to achieve, by means of a command of God to get rid of the greatest hindrance to civilization, namely, the constitutional inclination of human beings to be aggressive towards one another; and for that very reason we are especially interested in what is probably the most recent of the cultural commands of God, the commandment to love one’s neighbor ur as oneself. From the point of view of soul, it is just as important, maybe more important, to check the urgency of curiosity and suspicion, to allow certain things to remain distant and buried, to trust one’s soul mate or mate soul with things that should not be brought to the light of day. Because we know that science cannot get along without dealing with cause and effect any more than a farmer can get along without planting crops if one expects to reap a harvest. If we want an unbroken bond with an individual, we have to respect their privacy so our relationships will be tightened by reverence. #RandolphHarris 3 of 6
The special lesson in the power of soul is learned in the moments of thought when it is decided by someone that their chest would remain closed. The soul, too, does not trouble itself enough about the fact of the mental constitutions of human beings. It issues a command and does not ask whether it is possible for people to obey it. On the contrary, it assumes that a human’s soul is psychologically capable of anything that is required of it, and our soul has unlimited mastery over on beings. One can easily overpower another person and discover his or her secrets, but by preserving their privacy, one maintains one’s power. In general, we keep our power when we protect the power of others. The commandment, “Love thy neighbor as thyself,” is the strongest defense against human aggressiveness and an excellent example of the respect God expects of us. You ever heard that Summer bodies are made in the Winter? That means if we want to tone up our bodies, we start before the Summer arrives to achieve our goals. Likewise, we should start preparing for Heaven, while we are on Earth. There is time. We still have the farmer, planting time, and harvest season, but we also have an alternative. There is also a choice and volition introducing a personal factor. Humans have free will. #RandolphHarris 4 of 6
The fateful question for the human species seems to be whether and to what extent their cultural development will succeed in mastering the disturbance of their communal life by the human instinct of aggression and self-destruction. New causes bring new effects, and every sequence of cause and effect takes place in something which is greater than cause or effect. Freedom is where it is perceived and in such a degree as it is recognized. Such an attitude is scientific and mathematical. The soul practices a different kind of math and logic. It presents images that are not immediately intelligible to the reasoning mind. It insinuates, offers fleeting impressions, persuades more with desire than with reasonableness. In order to reach the soul’s power, one has to be conversant with its style, and watchful. The soul also gives us a vision that nothing is solid, everything is moving, shifting, changing. Even though we view the Universe as a mass of solid facts, God is the supreme cause and has liquid laws, for matter is spirit reduced to its greatest thinness. We focus on the purpose of life because the ultimate objective of our mortal journey has been revealed by our Creator, who said, “If you keep my commandments and endure to the end you shall have eternal life, which is the greatest of all the gifts of God.” #RandolphHarris 5 of 6
The reward is worth the effort. God’s gift of eternal life is subject to conditions established by him. “Behold, are not the things that God has wrought marvelous in our eyes? And who can comprehend the marvelous works of God? Who shall say that is was not a miracle that by God’s word the Heaven and the Earth should be; and by the power of this word humans were created of the dust of the Earth; and by the power of God’s word have miracles been wrought (Mormon 9.17)?” God allowed us to come to Earth with freedom to choose our own course. In his great love, he did not leave us alone. He provided a guide—a spiritual Global Positioning System (GPS)—to help us achieve successful navigation and tracking in our journey. Spiritual nature is love and truth and beauty. The Bible refers to the spirit moving upon the face of the deep, which means absolute intelligence thinking within itself. This is but another way of saying that the starting point of every creation is the word of God or the word of Universal intelligence. Our excruciating experiences will develop in us an unshakable faith in God. We have a great heritage of love—love of God and love of humankind. It is an inheritance of sobriety, independence, hard work, high moral values, and fellowship. #RandolphHarris 6 of 6
To these Truths I Share My Witness
The past is gone and the Sun is shining on the other side of the clouds. The power of the soul is like a great reservoir, like the force of water in a fast-rushing river. It is natural, not manipulated, and stems from an unknown source. Our role with this kind of power is to be an attentive observer noticing how the soul wants to thrust itself into life. It is also our task to find artful means of articulating and structuring that power, taking full responsibility for it, but trusting too that the soul has intentions and necessities that we may understand only partially. The soul work requires both much reflection and also great dedication. Believing that a spiritual revolution must precede the political and economic revolutions, the social revival has to be supported by literature and art. Think of all the ancient cultures that poured masses of money, materials, and energy into pyramids, castles, temples, and cathedrals on behalf of sacred play or holy imagination. The idea is to find the soulful perspective that feeds action with both passion and imaginal contemplation. This is how we embrace the mysterious depths of the soul as well as conscious understanding and intention. General life, needs, and interests of the people should have an effect upon the general social revival. We must accept as true certain deliverances of consciousness which appear to give us direct information about the external World, the self, and morality. #RandolphHarris 1 of 6
Science, which deals only with phenomena, cannot upset our belief in God, but the increasing unity of the laws and theories which science discovers acts as a confirmation of our intuitive belief in the unity of the cause of nature. If the natural attributes of God, such as omnipotence and intelligence, are revealed through our experience of the external World, the moral attributes are revealed to us primarily in our moral experience. In our own willing we learn something of the nature of God’s activity; the realization that there is an authoritative demand on us to act on the relatively higher motive is the chief revelation of God within our moral experience. The authoritativeness of the demand can be explained only in theistic terms, and the content of the demand reveals to us God’s moral nature. “And no unclean thing can enter into God’s kingdom; therefore nothing enters into his rest save it be those who have been purified, because of their faith, and the repentance of all their sins, and their faithfulness unto the end (3 Nephi 27.19).” The power of the soul comes from living close to the heart, and not at odds with it. Therefore, paradoxically, soul power may emerge from failure, depression, and loss. The general rule is that the soul appears in the gaps and holes of experience. We have all experienced moments when we have lost an opportunity or endured an illness only to find an unexpected inner strength. #RandolphHarris 2 of 6
We cannot always control all that happens to us, but we have absolute control over how we respond to the changes in our lives. That inner strength and perseverance comes from knowing that God is the only presence and the only power in the Universe, and knowing that God is love. We have the power to press on because we deliberately turn from everything that is ungodly and unlike this love. We desire to feel and express this love and compassion and well-wishing for others as the theme of our lives. There will be times in our lives when we find ourselves on an unexpected path, facing circumstances much more severe than a disrupted vacation. How do we respond when events often out of our control, altered the life we have planned or hoped for? We must never doubt our divine nature and eternal potential. It is important, even when the unexpected happens, to progress toward perfection and ultimately realize our divine destiny as heirs of eternal life. No amount of change, trial, or opposition can alter that eternal course—only our choices, as we exercise our agency. It does not seem possible that so simple a method as this can produce such a dynamic result, but experience has definitely proved that it can. #RandolphHarris 3 of 6
Rather than blame God for anything, we must turn to hum and pour out our hearts (feelings, dreams, emotions, desires, goal, fears, and love). In response to our faith and silent prayers, the Lord will respond. God wants of to be comfortable, and he will ease the burdens which are put on our shoulders, that we cannot even feel them upon our backs. God will strengthen us that we may bear up our burdens with ease. Anyone who tries this method will experience definite results. The most wonderful thing about it is that we do not have to change anything but ourselves. For every person is the cause of one’s own experience, whether we know it or not. We are all carrying the negative experiences of out past into the future merely because we have not disconnected them from our minds. If we are creating a negative future, it is because we have not changed our thought about it. We have seen the same thing happen to people who have failed in the past, as though nothing could ever work out right for them. We have seen them deliberately change their thought, disconnect their memory from failure, push it aside mentally as though it no longer belonged, as through it were no longer a part of them, and affirm that God alone accompanies them, that life is made to live successfully and happily. Accepting this and daily affirming it, we have seen failure and defeat turn into success and triumph. #RandolphHarris 4 of 6
We are who we are because of the special combinations that make up our souls. Power begins in knowing this special soul, which may be entirely different from our fantasies about who we are or who we want to be. Power pours in our soul when we fill the emptiness with God and withstand temptations to fill it prematurely. When we are feeling weak, it is a prerequisite for the discovery of power. The soul has room to present itself when we feed it things that are good. We are swinging into line with the great harmony of the Universe. However, before we can entirely disconnect ourselves from the negations of the past, we have to learn to fill the mind with beneficial acceptances which are so much greater and deeper than the negations we have been entertaining that they consume them by their very presence, just as light dissipates darkness. We have to know that God loves us and wants the best for us, and totally reverse our whole psychological outlook on life. If we disconnect ourselves from the past and find ourselves firmly rooted in God today, in lobe, hope, joyful experiences, and become grateful and acknowledge the blessings we have, this will teach us to harmonize with everything that transpires today, in the future, and it will cultivate our souls. #RandolphHarris 5 of 6
Healing blessings come in many ways, each suited to our own individual needs, as known to God who loves us best. Sometimes a healing cures our aliments, or lifts our burden. However, in other causes we are healed by being given strength or understanding or patience to bear the burdens places on us. When we awaken to the divine within us, it will reach out and embrace everything around us, and it will discover the same presence in people and in events and in all nature. For God is not separate from what he is doing. The divine life is in everyone and everything. This is the secrets that Jesus discovered. The simple fact is that God is right where you are. Whatever change in life’s circumstance may come our way, and whatever unexpected path we may have to travel, how we respond is a choice. Turning to the Savior and grasping his outstretched arms is always our best option. True enduring happiness with accompanying strength, courage and capacity to overcome the most challenging difficulties comes from a life centered in God. There is no guarantee of overnight results, but there is absolute assurance that, in the Lord’s time, solutions will come, peace will prevail, and emptiness will be filled. #RandolphHarris 6 of 6
God Never Made a Promise that was too Good to be True!
My Love is something valuable to much which I ought not to throw away without reflection. It imposes duties on me for whose fulfillment I must be ready to make sacrifices. If I love someone, he or she must deserve it in some way. Love is one of the most powerful of human impulses. My love is valued by all my own people as a sign of my preferring them, and it is an injustice to them if I put a stranger on part with them. In order to appreciate the mystery of love, we have to give up the idea that love is a psychological problem and that with enough understanding and guidance we can finally do it right, without illusion and folly. Granted that loyalty is whole hearted devotion to an object of some kind, what kind of thing is this object? Is it an abstract entity, such as an idea or collective being? Or is it a person or group of persons? The idealist contends that loyalty is the willing and practical and thoroughgoing devotion to a person to a cause. Its object is a cause beyond your private self, greater than you are, it is impersonal and superpersonal. As a cause it is something that transcends the individual, an eternal reality. Apart from familiar metaphysical and logical objections to this concept of a superpersonal reality, this view has the ethical defect of postulating duties over and above our duties to individual people and groups of people. #RandolphHarris 1 of 6
The individual is submerged and lost in this superperson not only ontologically but also morally, for it tends to dissolve our specific duties and obligations to others into a superhuman good. Loyalty is a component of love and there are a range of emotions, giving us strong images of the saturation of the soul. God, being rational, will ordain what is good, but what God ordains is good in its own nature, not because God ordains it. Innate knowledge (notitia innata) is cognition through self-presence and belongs to the very essence of the soul; acquired knowledge (notitia illata) is the soul’s cognition of external things. Innate knowledge is superior to, and more certain than, acquired knowledge; for the soul cannot be mistaken about what belongs to its nature. Knowledge of the external World can be obtained either by intuition or by abstraction. By intuition one grasps a thing immediately in its concrete reality, so that nothing immediately in its concrete reality, so that nothing of the object escapes the penetrating and all-embracing act of the intellect. God knows all our thoughts, and they are made known by his spirit. The manifestation of love, charity personified, comes through the grace of Christ himself. May the joy of our fidelity to the highest and best within us be ours as we keep our love and our marriages, our society and our souls, as pure as they were meant to be. #RandolphHarris 2 of 6
Each individual is a unique institution in the Universe. Care of the soul is to recognize the necessity of love and loyalty. We can find some hints of how to care for the soul in times of love. Loyalty is a virtue that hold less of reason, than of bigotry and superstition. Loyalty is taken to refer to a relationship between persons—for instance, between a lord and his vassal, between a parent and his or her children, or between friends. Thus, the object of loyalty is ordinarily taken to be a person or group of persons. Loyalty is conceived as interpersonal, and it is also always specific; a person is loyal to their lord, their parents, or his or her comrades. When love is in control, the elements form compounds out of which arise more complex units, and eventually, animate beings. It is a door that opens out from the human reason into divine mystery. When we reflect on the tragedies of our own loves, when we slowly find our way through their miseries, we are being initiated into the mysterious ways of the soul. Love is the means of entry and our guide. There is a doorway or an entrance through which the mind must pass on its way to spiritual realization, and that door can be opened by none but the one who is to enter. Every person must discover God in one’s own way, but always within oneself. #RandolphHarris 3 of 6
Now there are many approaches to the door, and no doubt many entrances to the door way to God. Every great spiritual leader has found a door through which God has entered. As we study the spiritual systems of the ages we discover that, though the approach has been varied, the temple of the spirit is one. God is all there is, and there is none beside him. This statement includes everything. In all the kingdoms that exist, in all the planes that exist, and deep within the self, hidden and yet felt, there is a High Priest ready to conduct us to the sacred and secret chamber of the self, where God and humans are one. The search for union passes into the realization, not that we are just with or in, but that we are of God. Love keeps us on the labyrinthine path. If we can honor love as it presents itself, taking shapes and directions we never have predicted or desired, then we are on the way toward discovering the lower levels of soul, where meaning and value reveal themselves slowly and paradoxically. There we are sailing trustingly toward fate, while plucking the strings of our own resources. Many have found entrance to this door through deep spiritual prayers, some through high inspirational enlightenment. True love and loyalty endure. #RandolphHarris 4 of 6
Righteous love and truth are never shaken. True love must include the idea of permanence. Love makes us instinctively reach out to Go and other people. Love comes with open hands and open heart. Since life cannot be lost, the whole purpose of our study is not for the salvation of the individual life, but the discovery of the self which the scripture tells us is hid with Christ in God. We have studied our techniques and we have come to understand something about how the science of mind works and how to use it, what to do and why. The opening of the door to the temple often calls for patience and waiting, painstaking and watchful prayer, for continual communion with God will allow us to discover knowledge of the divine. We have a need for perfection—this is, the fulfillment of both our intellectual and our emotional powers, which indeed are not existentially separate. The more adequate an idea, the more it is pleasing, liberating, and intrinsically human. The culmination of the ethical life—that is, the life devoted to freedom of the intellect—is found in the intellectual love of God. One must lose oneself in order to find oneself, but in so doing, one finds that what one had really discovered is God. #RandolphHarris 5 of 6
Are we dreaming of success or failure? Of happiness or misery? Of aliments or Health? Our dreams are mental patterns that can lead us into a fuller and richer life, or can create phantom monsters that makes out lives a nightmare, whether we are asleep or awake. Dreams have meaning and psychic value, we must nevertheless allow for the possibility that this meaning may not be the same in every dream. One dream may have consideration of the fulfillment of a wish; another may turn out to be the realization of an apprehension; another may have a reflection as its content; other dreams may simply reproduce a reminiscence. Every person is the dreamer of one’s own dreams, and within each is the spiritual power to choose the patterns that one wishes to experience in life. You may be in pain today. Maybe you have suffered a loss, been through a disappointment. That is not the end. God still has a plan. Do not sit around nursing your wounds. Do not let bitterness and discouragement set the tone for your life. When you become weary and feel like quitting, there is a way to have your strength renewed—wait on the Lord. God wants us to arise. Wipe away the tears and take control of your life. God promises to make the rest of your life the best of your life. #RandolphHarris 6 of 6
My Master, the Spy
Sometimes stereotypes are creations of an entire society or nation, and they perform the function of building up the national feeling through putting down another nation or group. Such behavior is not really intentional cruelty, ignorance, or hostility to the other groups or nations, though it certainly may be unenlightened or narrow-minded. What is your test now will become your testimony. Let go of the discouragement, self-pity and get ready for God to do something new. Those advisories, annoying and harassing you are about to meet their ends. However, in the process, they have thrusted you forward into the fullness of your destiny. Experiments have taught us if practical experience has not already done so, that the improbable does occur, and that our picture of the World only tallies with reality when the improbably has a place in it. What guarantee is there that the five senses, taken together, do cover the whole of possible experience? They cover simply our actual experience, our human knowledge of facts or events. There are gaps between the fingers; there are gaps between the sense. In these gaps is the darkness which hides the connection between things. This darkness is the source of our vague fears and anxieties, but also the home of the Gods. #RandolphHarris 1 of 6
The Gods alone see the connections, the total relevance of everything that happens; that which now comes to us in bits and pieces, the accidents which exist only in our heads, in our limited perceptions. In the political realm, a number of investigators, seeking to understand how personality factors might bear upon such behavior as political power-seeking among aspiring leaders, have turned their attention to the self-concept as an explanatory variable. Some of the more prominent explanations of the striving for political power can be traced to ideas on compensation for feelings of inferiority. An individual afflicted with organ inferiority may seek to compensate for his or her deficiencies in order to overcome one’s low feelings of self-worth. Demosthenes was a Greek statesman and orator of ancient Athens. As a boy, Demosthenes stuttered: in order to overcome this stuttering, he placed pebbles in his mouth and sought to shout down the waves. In another example, Napoleon’s drive for power was reported to stem from inferiority feelings about his diminutive stature. Power seekers pursue power as a means of compensation against low estimates of the self. However, low self-esteem may also be at the root of political apathy, since overwhelmingly low self-esteem might cause the individual to withdraw from the political arena entirely. #RandolphHarris 2 of 6
Similarly, political apathy might stem from the fact that the individual is so exhausted by one’s inner conflict that one has no interest or energy left for public affairs. Research findings are consistent in showing that people with low self-esteem are in general more likely to be politically apathetic. One large scale study of high school juniors and seniors showed that youngsters with low self-esteem were less likely to express interest in national or international affairs, to pay attention to political matters in the media, to have much political knowledge, and to be political opinion leaders. Furthermore, even those low self-esteem students who were politically interested were less likely to discuss politics, more likely to feel personally threatened by political discussion, less confident that other people would pay much attention to their political views, and more self-conscious about presenting their political ideas to other people. These low self-esteem youngsters were also more likely to report that they were distracted from public affairs by concern with their personal problems. However, keep in mind that there are no constraints on the human mind, no walls around the human spirit, no barriers to our progress except those we ourselves erect. Whether you believe you can do a thing or not, you are right. Courage is a door that can only be opened from the inside. #RandolphHarris 3 of 6
Personality will affect political attitudes of youngsters only if they are politically involved, the relationship of self-esteem to political attitudes controlling on political interest. In virtually every case, the relationship of self-esteem to political attitudes is stronger if political involvement is higher than if it is low. Furthermore, among those adolescents who were highly interested in political issues, those with high self-esteem are more likely to be knowledgeable about political figures, to have a better understanding of these essentials of democracy, to be less cynical about politics, and to feel more politically efficacious. These findings persisted when grade, gender, socioeconomic status, and intelligence were controlled. Those with low self-esteem, on the other hand, were more likely to support political protest activities. Qualitative research among adults has added to our understanding of how self-concepts—especially self-esteem—may influence political apathy or participation. One study showed that some adults were afraid to express political opinions for fear of making fools of themselves. Lacking confidence in their own knowledge and ability, these people retreated from political. However, low political participation also appeared to be fostered by a more fundamental and deep-rooted feeling of inefficacy and insignificance. #RandolphHarris 4 of 6
Some people feel that they do not matter, that they make little difference in the broader scheme of things. These people expressed the idea that they were politically unimportant—an ordinary person, an average individual, a little person. Nothing they can do will make much political difference because the forces that control the World, including the political forces, were outside their control; political impotence formed the basis of political apathy. Apathy, of course, is not the only possible outcome of such an attitude. One reason many Germans were attracted to Hitler was that (like the American subjects described above) they felt ineffectual, impotent, and insignificant in the broader scheme of things. For this reason they attached themselves to a powerful political leader, who not only promised them national glory and, thereby, personal self-esteem, but also preached a doctrine asserting their inherent superiority to all others peoples. There are many other ways in which the self-concept has been show to be related to political orientations. People with low self-esteem are more likely to be chauvinistic, ethnocentric, and politically cynical, and to be low on democratic commitment. #RandolphHarris 5 of 6
There is also evidence that (among isolationists), those with low self-esteem are more likely to oppose social change, to believe in tradition and social order, to support a position of elitism, and to hold extreme political beliefs. In general, people with low self-esteem tend to hold political solutions of any political persuasion that makes their confused environments intelligible, orderly, and purposive. Other studies have also examined self-esteem among elected officials. However, self-esteem is not the only self-concept motive implicated in political behavior; self-consistency also plays a role. The study of adults found that some people avoided political activity on grounds of role self-concept incongruence. The individual’s view of oneself did not match the individual’s view of the qualities of a political activist. The political activist was seen as energetic, forceful, and dynamic, whereas the individual saw oneself or herself as passive and receptive. This lack of role-person fit was a deterrent to political participation. It is plain that the way one thinks about the self influences the way one thinks about the World, including the World pf politics. The political institution, like any other, is a realm of action, and whenever people act, their self-concepts are implicated. #RandolphHarris 6 of 6
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The No-Harm Charm
Having an optimistic mental attitude and high self-esteem can literally double the chances of career success. We have been primarily concerned with the self-concept as a social product. The fundamental questions addressed has been: how do social conditions or experiences—social interaction, social structure, social contexts—shape the individual’s self-concept? However, the self-concept may also be examined as a social force. The question is: how does the self-concept influence behavior in major institutional areas? Before addressing this question, it is relevant to say a word about the personal consequences of the self-concept. Even if the self-concept had no bearing on society, it would still be important if it influenced people’s ability to lead full, rich, satisfying lives. The importance of a healthy self-concept for mental health can scarcely be exaggerated. It is clear that self-esteem is characteristically deeply implicated in the neurotic (though not necessarily the psychotic) process. Whether the research has been essentially clinical or quantitative, the results demonstrate clear and consistent relationships of low self-esteem to psychological depression, anxiety, somatic symptoms, impulse to aggression, vulnerability, negative affective states, and other neurotic symptoms. #RandolphHarris 1 of 7
The social roots of self-esteem are thus an important topic in the sociology of mental health. However, the sociologist is also properly interested in the influence of personality on society. On theoretical grounds, there is reason to think that the self-concept, at least as a proximal influence is implicated in almost all social behavior. Much of what people do voluntarily depends upon what they conceive themselves to be. Each takes one’s personal identity so much for granted that the individual does not realize the extent to which his or her life is structured by the working conception one forms of oneself. The things that a person does voluntarily, and even involuntarily, depend upon the assumption one makes about the kind of person one is and the way in which one fits into the scheme of things in one’s World. Believing in oneself can strongly influence long-term career advancement and overall health. People who score high on self-evaluations enjoy success earlier in their careers, engage in continued higher education, and advance more quickly than those who score lower on self-evaluations. The advantaged gained by having an optimistic self-image is also strongly correlated with overall career satisfaction, higher pay, and better health. #RandolphHarris 2 of 7
The self-concept plays a major role in occupational decisions. The selection of an occupation depends on a view of the self. How you feel about yourself will either spawn motivation and energy or will several hurt your changes for a great career. The individual making an occupational choice must achieve stereoscopic vision as one is making an occupational incumbent. Although the answer to the question: what should I become? has some important consequences for the occupational system, it always emerges from the ulterior question: what am I like and what do I like to think of myself as? As an obvious example if girls are socialized to believe that they are competent in mathematical ability or assign this talent to a high position in their system of self-values, then they will be more likely to seek occupations such as engineering, physics, and related fields demanding such skills; and, indeed, the facts show them to be strikingly underrepresented in such fields. That is more than likely because people’s self-concepts tend to match the stereotypical characteristics associated with their chosen occupations. For example, students planning to enter the field of sales tend to describe themselves as sociable, talkative, aggressive, and having initiative, whereas those selecting accounting are likely to describe themselves as precise, self-controlled, organized, and thorough. #RandolphHarris 3 of 7
When individuals increase their confidence level, they are able to interview more effectively, negotiate higher salaries and, subsequently they will receiver a wider range of occupational choices. Furthermore, the self-concept is not only consonant with prime occupational choice, but with second occupational choice as well. In selecting an occupation, people seek to achieve self-role congruence. If people have high global self-esteem, then their occupational choices tend to be consonant with their self-concepts, but if their self-esteem is low, the self-concept and the occupational choice are unrelated, and they are going to be paid less, given fewer responsibilities and will end up accepting a position that they are overqualified for. In making an occupational choice, people with high self-esteem sought to be true to their pictures of what they were like; people with low self-esteem, on the other hand, tended to make their occupational choices on the basis of other considerations, for example, certain extrinsic rewards of work, such as money, status, or security. The question of why those with high self-esteem tend to implement their self-concepts whereas those with low self-esteem do not is currently under active debate. Perhaps people with higher self-esteem feel they are a gift and people with lower self-esteem feel lucky to get a job and believe they can prove themselves worthy of that and more. #RandolphHarris 4 of 7
The results can be interpreted within the framework of cognitive consistency theory. Humans are motivated by inconsistences and a desire to change them. Cognitive inconsistences cause imbalance in individuals and the tension from this inequality in individuals and the strain from this disparity motivates people to alter these irregularities. The pressure arises when thoughts conflict with each other and this stress creates a motivation to change and correct the inconsistency. When this hardship is reduced, balance is achieved in the individual. The right mindset significantly boosts one’s overall state of being and performance. People anticipate consistency, inconsistencies create imbalance and dissonance in individuals, and that tension motivated the individuals to create consistency in order to achieve balance. This is meaningfully understood as consequences of the self-esteem motive. Global self-esteem has also been shown to bear a relationship to occupational aspirations, expectations, values. A study of high school juniors and seniors showed that youngsters with low self-esteem were more likely to avoid occupations that required the exercise of leadership, to want jobs in which they were free of supervision, and to avoid jobs involving competition. #RandolphHarris 5 of 7
Other economic attitudes, orientations, or behavior may also be influenced by the self-concept. Psychiatric attendants reconceptualize the nature of their work for the purpose of enhancing self-respect. In studying the self-concepts of executives and supervisors, it can be seen how historical developments have produced change in self-concepts among Greek army officers. Sociological research has also been conducted on the process by which a trainee—say, a medical student or a music student—comes to see himself or herself as a doctor or musician. Individuals navigating along their career path build on feelings of self-confidence, self-worth, and inner strength to transform the journey into career success. Through experience, you are building wisdom that can be applied in different situations and across different industries. Keeping track of the skills, knowledge, and abilities, you possess builds your self-confidence and facilitates a feeling of self-worth. It may be no exaggeration to suggest that the self-concept, in its full rich complexity, pervades virtually every aspect of occupational life. #RandolphHarris 6 of 7
Showing gratitude also helps people keep an optimistic attitude. We all like working with people who are happy, genuine, and have good attitudes. Even on a bad day, look for something to be thankful for and have gratitude for all the blessings that have been bestowed. Your goals are sacred to you. They are the gold that will help you create the life and career success that you want and deserve. Once you have proved to yourself you can be successful, your confidence will soar. It is also important to do the same in your career by showing others how competent you are. You have exactly what you need. If you use what God has given you, he will get you where you are supposed to be. It is not necessarily the amount of talent, education, or money, but what makes the difference is God’s anointing on our life. You can have average talent, but when God breathes in your direction, you will go further than someone with exceptional talent. Be confident that you have exactly what you need. It may not be as much as others have, and that is okay. You are not running their race. Do not envy their talent. Do not covet what they have. Do not wish you had their looks, their personality, or their opportunities. God equipped you with everything you need to fulfill your destiny. You have the talent, confidence, strength, and the creativity to fulfill your purpose. With a view like that, the World changes completely. It brings transcendence and takes people further. #RandolphHarris 7 of 7
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Randolph Harris II International Institute 