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By what Magic Could this be Done and One’s Peace Remain, One’s Sanity Kept?
The basic fact of today is the tremendous pace of change in human life. If an artist, though one’s disclosed experience, induces a viewer to imagine new possibilities of action; if one broadens and deepens a human’s understanding of some aspect of the World; if one alters a human’s experience and concept of oneself—one is thereby mediating growth of the other. This change in the other will mediate changed behavior—as, voting behaviour, interpersonal behaviour. This all produces consequences in the social order. If an artist can be invalidated, by being regarded as a mad-person, then one’s message may be kept from the World. It likely takes courage to be an artist. One’s beneficent spiritual influence may profoundly affect others to the point of revolutionizing their attitude of life, yet one may be unaware of both the influence and its effect! The part of one’s mind which knows what is happening is not the true source of the grace; this flows through one and is not created by one. Let us not ascribe to the ordinary human of self what belongs to God. The mystical phenomena, the “inner” experiences engendered by an adept, are done though one, not by one. #RandolphHarris 1 of 21
Help comes, inspiration is derived, peace is felt, and the support of moral fortitude is obtained without personal intervention by the self-actualized or without even one’s personal knowledge of the matter. It is automatic, a response from grace to faith. The catalyst which by its presence enables chemical elements to change their forms does not itself change. In the same way the illuminate may be used by higher forces to affect, influence, or even change others without any active personal move on one’s part to being about this result. One may not even feel, see, or know what is happening, yet one has started it! One is an agent for the work of Providence, a carrier of its messages and forces. At times one is used with one’s conscious knowledge and acceptance but at other times without them. In a way, artists, at least in America as Henry Miller experienced and described it, need a certain measure of protection, if they are to flourish. It is not too farfetched to say that artists experience the World vicariously for the philistine. Just as people with strangled imaginations let the comics, movies, social media, and TV do their imagination for them, so an artist whose work is allocated to the museum and art gallery is doing imagining for other people. People go for a titivating peek now and then, only to return to sameness. #RandolphHarris 2 of 21
If producing and surviving artists are protected, or learn to protect themselves so they can survive and get on with their work, it is also true that the public is somehow shielded from the possible impact of an artist’s work on its consciousness. Public education is such as to insure that poetry, painting, drama, and innovations in the novel and dancing will not be sampled. They are the fare of oddballs, snobs, the avant-garde, who are not to be taken seriously by practical humans, and good fellows who stay busy, as they ought. If an artist’s work does see the light of day, it most assuredly reaches the consciousness of only the few. The layperson, trained and brainwashed to be suspicious of any innovations in one’s experience, feels comfortable only with the cliché. One’s patronage of the arts is limited to TV, Sports Illustrated pinups, Instagram, movies, popular tunes, and the poetry page of the Saturday Evening Post, which is not a magazine calculated to awaken people to enlightenment about their socioeconomic system. Take any art form, and ask is I designed to enlarge and stretch human consciousness, or does it function so as to keep people with their experiencing modes and habits confirmed. #RandolphHarris 3 of 21
Look at architecture, automobiles, matchbook covers, the sounds on radio and music streaming—the media for expression. The artists’ consciousness is separated from all these possible sources of encounter with one’s fellow human, the philistine who is asleep. Much occult phenomena of the adept is performed without one’s conscious participation and above one’s personal knowledge, as when various people claim to be aware of receiving help from one which one as no recollection of having given. It is God which is really giving the help, their contact with one being merely like the switch which turns on a light. However, a switch is not the same as the electric current which, in this simile, represents God. Yet a switch is not less necessary in its own place. If one does not use it, a person may grope in vain around a dark room and not find what one is seeking there. The contact with an adept turns some of the power that the adept is oneself in touch with into the disciple’s direction. The flick of a switch is done in a moment, whereas the current of light may flow into the light bulb for many hours. The contact with an adept takes a moment, but the spiritual current may emanate from one for many years, even for a lifetime. #RandolphHarris 4 of 21
Just as in the ordinary person’s deep sleep no ego is working, so this is the perfect and highest state because no ego is working here either. It reproduces deep sleep by eliminating egotism but transcends deep sleep by retaining consciousness. Thus it brings the benefit without the spiritual blankness of deep sleep into the waking state. If it be said, in criticism of one’s unawareness of so much occult phenomena manifesting in one’s name, that this lessens one’s mental stature, one must answer that it also preserves one’s mental sanity. How, with a thousand devotees, could one be attending to all of them at one and the same time? By what magic could this be done and one’s peace remain, one’s sanity be kept? God alone knows all things in a mysterious everywhereness and everywhereness. How could one be as God and yet remain as human, much more deal with other humans? For all occult phenomena belong to the World of finite form, time and space, not to the World of infinite spirit, to illusion and not to reality And, if, in further criticism, it be said that one’s unawareness makes one seem weaker than an adept should be, one can only answer humbly that because one has surrendered one’s personal rights one is weaker and more helpless than the most ordinary human, that one’s situation was tersely described in Jesus’ confession, “I have no power in myself, but only from the Father.” #RandolphHarris 5 of 21
The strain of these hundreds of questioning, eager, demanding, struggling, and perhaps suffering minds constantly directed toward one’s own would be so tremendous if one had to bear it in the ordinary way that one’s own mind would creak under it. One is given n rest from one’s task. However, one’s extraordinary attainment provides one’s protection. They reach one mostly through the subconscious self, which automatically takes care of them and leaves one free of the burden. The message or the manifestation may, on the surface, appear to come directly from the master. This may be quite true n some bases but it could not possibly be true in all cases. If it were, then one would have to look in a dozen different direction every minute of every day. However, the fact is that one helps most people with being consciously and directly aware of them. There is magical power in the thoughts of such a human. The mind, the being, the eh in one being mastered, many other things become mastered as a consequence. Do God’s will as if it were thy will, that He may do thy will as if it were His will. #RandolphHarris 6 of 21
Annul thy will before God’s will, that He may annul the will of others before thy will. Jesus put in somewhat differently: “Seek ye first the kingdom of Heaven and all these things shall be added you. Ask whatsoever ye will and it shall be done unto you” Those religionists who take the latter cannot properly be said of persons who have not attained sufficient mastery of self, who give nothing from within themselves except wishes and the words which clothe them. One may well be unaware how subtly the force is working within one until one begins to notice its effects on others, as they themselves draw attention to it. Such is the wonderful infinite of the soul that the human who succeeds in identifying one’s everyday consciousness with it, succeeds also in making one’s influence and inspiration felt in any part of the World where there is someone who puts faith in one and gives devotion to one. One’s bodily presence of visitation is not essential. The soul is one’s real self and operates on subconscious levels. Whoever recognizes this truth and humbly, harmoniously, places oneself in a passive receptive attitude towards the spiritual adept, find a source of blessed help outside one’s own limited powers. #RandolphHarris 7 of 21
One takes no credit to oneself for these things. One feels one is only an instrument. All that one can do is to invoke the higher power, and it is this which makes these things possible. It is not really any power of one’s own that does it. However, quite often one does not even have to invoke the power—and yet these things will happen all the same. Nevertheless, one’s followers are not attributing power to one which one does not possess. For these happenings, after all, occur only as the result of the contact with one. One knows that in some mysterious way one is the link between the power and the event. Although the master may not directly transmit the message or prompt the manifestation, one does exercise an influence which indirectly cases this to happen and indicated the direction in which it is to happen. The power to inspire or comfort others can operate without one’s personal awareness and even without one’s own consent. Sometimes it will manifest itself merely as if one were present and close, to be felt but not seen mentally. Sometimes, a like form of one’s body or face will appear to the mind’s eye along with this same feeling. Those whom one never meets but who direct their thought and faith towards one, receive inspiration automatically. #RandolphHarris 8 of 21
The impact of one’s personality helps those whom one does meet, if they are sympathetic, but often without one’s even being aware of it. It is not necessary for one to preach and sermonize others. Sometimes in a purely secret and unnoticed way, sometimes in a half-conscious way, those who cross one’s path temporarily and those who associate with one permanently fell that the good id being strengthened in them. This is one’s silent service. Just by being oneself, without preaching, without trying, the self-actualized may awaken in others whose lives touch one’s a longing for the higher life. One has a peculiar power which acts upon the subconscious minds of those who have any contact or association with one. I am reminded here of an ingenious plan outlined by Alexander Trocchi, a British novelist and poet. He has described “Project Sigma, a revolutionary proposal for an invisible insurrection of a million minds.” He speaks, not of a political revolution, but f a cultural coup de monde. “The cultural revolt must seize the grids of expression and the power houses of the mind,” as Trotsky seized the railway station and powerhouses while the police guarded the Kremlin. #RandolphHarris 9 of 21
Trocchi continues: “Intelligence must become self-conscious, realize its own power and dare to exercise it. What is to be seized is not an arsenal nor a capital city, but ourselves (the million or so creative, artistic consciousness which presently are in contact with Every human only through the mediation and monitoring of middle-business people, politicians, establishment people who insure that only those products of consciousness reach Every human after they have first been assessed for money-earning power, and political asepsis). We reject the ideal of a frontal attack. Mind cannot withstand brute force in open battle. It is rather a question of perceiving what are the forces that are at work in the World and out of whose interaction must come to be; and by a kind of mental ju-jitsu that is ours by virtue of intelligence, modifying, correcting, polluting, deflecting, corrupting, eroding, outflanking, inspiring, what we might call the invisible insurrection. It will come on the mass of humans, if it comes at all, not as something they voted for or fought for, but like the changing season. Contemporary humans expect to be entertained; art is something of which the majority seldom things, expect derisively. This sorry state of affairs is unconsciously sanctioned (even fostered, I add) by the stubborn philistinism of cultural institutions. #RandolphHarris 10 of 21
“Museums have approximately the same hours of business as churches, the same sanctimonious orders and silences, and a snobbish presumption in direct spiritual opposition to the vital people whose works are closeted there. What have those silent corridors to do with Rembrant, and the no smoking signs to do with Van Gogh? Art can have no existential significance for civilization that draws a line between life and art and collects artifacts like ancestral bones for reverence. Art must inform the living; we envisage a situation in which life is continually renewed (I would say consciousness is continually renewed and expanded) by art, a situation imaginatively and passionately constructed to inspire each individual to respond creatively. We envisage it, but it is we, now, who must create it. For it does not exist.” Trocchi points out that the political-economic structure of Western society is such that the gears of creative intelligence mesh with those of power such that creative intelligence is prohibited from initiating anything, and it acts only at the behest of vested interests that are antipathetic toward it. Trocchi suggest that the creative intelligences must have control of their means of expression, by eliminating the brokers. #RandolphHarris 11 of 21
How to being?—asks Torcchi. At a chosen moment in a vacant country house not far from London, he proposes to foment a kind of cultural “jam session.” Out of this will evolve the prototype of a spontaneous university. The building will be large enough for a pilot group of astronauts of inner space to situation itself, the entire site to allow for spontaneous architecture and eventual town planning. The adventure, in a capitalist society, must pay. Trocchi envisions an agency to handle all the work of individuals associated with the university. Art is fantastically profitable, but it is not the creators who reap the benefits. An agency founded by the creators and operated by highly paid professional could harvest new talent long before professional agencies were aware it existed. He envisions an international organization with branch universities all over the World, near every capital city, autonomous, unpolitical, economically independent. Resident professors will be creators; staff and students international. Membership in one branch entitles one to membership in others, travel being encouraged. #RandolphHarris 12 of 21
The object of each branch is to supercharge the cultural life of each capital city as it promotes cultural exchange internationally, and function as a nonspecialized experimental school and creative workshop. Each branch serves as the nucleus of an experimental town to which people will be attracted; and after a stay, they will derive a renewed and infectious sense of life. The economic structure would come from commissions on sales of original work; money from patents and applications; retail income from a museum restaurant, music performances, et cetera; and fees and gifts and subsidies. Trocchi concludes: “The cultural possibilities of this movement are immense, and time is ripe for it. The World is awfully near to the brink of disaster. Scientist, artist, teachers, creative people of good will everywhere are in suspense. Waiting. Remembering that it is our kind of expression, we should have no difficulty in recognizing the spontaneous university as the possible detonator of the invisible insurrection.” Alexander Trocchi’s vision and the beginnings at an action-blueprint seem to me to be prophetic, and even practical. Certainly, if my analysis of the phenomenology of being-an-artist is sound, there must be implications for growth of persons exposed to art, and repercussions on the structure of society. #RandolphHarris 13 of 21
I think we need to produce and live in a spiritual and professional World, where other people and the material surroundings have a consciousness-expanding effect upon us, awakening the artist in all of us, unifying our heard with our hearts and bodies and our imaginations with our feelings and intellect, and bringing an artistic dimension into everything we do and are. The alternative is to be a turned-off, useful tool, or an impotent, ignored or martyred creator whose creations collect dust. The heart (will, spirit) is precisely what God observes and addresses in human beings. He cares little or nothing for outward show. He responds to the heart because it is, above all, who we are: who we choose and have chosen to be. What God wants of us can only come from there. He respects the centrality of our will and will not override it. God seeks Godly character in us and for us, to fulfill the eternal destiny He has in mind for us. However, on the other hand, God is sensitive to the slightest move of the heart toward Him. This is the witness of both the Bible and of life. It does not matter whether you are “religious” or not (“Jew” or “Greek”), for “The same one is Lord of all, abounding in riches for all who call upon Him; for ‘Whoever will call upon the nae of the LORD will be saved,’” reports Romans 10.12-13. #RandolphHarris 14 of 21
Multitudes of people have come to a full knowledge of God because in a moment of complete hopelessness they prayed “The Atheist’s Prayer” or something like it: “O God, if there is a God, save my soul if I have a soul.” When that is the true cry of the heart, of the inmost spirit of the individual, who has no longer any hope other than God, God hears and responds without fail. It is as if he has a “heart monitor” installed in every person. And when the heart truly reaches out to God as God, no longer looking to itself or others, he responds with the gift f “life from above.” In fact, God is constantly looking for people who will worship him “in spirit and in truth.” What does it mean? It means people who have freehearted and wholehearted admiration, respect, and commitment to God as the highest being of all. They never try to conceal anything from Him and always reply completely on Him. God is actively seeking such people, whoever they may turn out to be. God is spirit, we recall, and nothing is hidden from him. #RandolphHarris 15 of 21
So those who worship God must worship Him and spirit and therefor in truth. “Yet time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshippers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and His worshippers must worship in spirit and in truth,” reports John 4.23-24. At the level of the human spirit, nothing can be hidden. Lying always depends upon the use of our body. “And verily I say unto you, I give unto you a sign, that ye may know the time when these things shall be about to take place—that I shall gather in, from their long dispersion, my people, O house of Israel, and shall establish again among them my Zion: and behold, that is the thing which I will give unto you for a sign—for verily I say unto you that when these things which I declare unto you, and which I shall declare unto you hereafter of myself, and by the power of the Holy Ghost which shall be given unto you of the Father, shall be made known unto the Gentiles that they may know concerning this people who are a remnant of the hose of Jacob, and concerning this my people who shall be scattered by them; verily, verily, I say unto you, when these things shall be made known unto them of the Father, and shall come forth of the Father, from them unto you; #RandolphHarris 16 of 21
“For it is wisdom in the Father that they should be established in this land, and be set up as a free people by the power of the Father, that these things might come forth from them unto a remnant of your seed, that the covenant of the Father may be fulfilled which he hath covenanted with his people, O house of Israel; therefore, when these words and the works which shall be wrought among you hereafter shall come forth from the Gentiles, unto your seed which shall dwindle in unbelief because of the iniquity; for thus it behooveth the Father that it should come forth from the Gentiles, that he may show forth his power unto the Gentiles, for this cause that the Gentiles, if they will not harden their hearts, that they may repent and come unto me and be baptized in my name and know of the true points of my doctrine, that they may be numbered among my people, O house of Israel; and when these things come to pass that they seed shall be a sign unto them, that they may know that the work of the Father hath already commenced unto the fulfilling of the covenant which he hath made unto the people who are of the house of Israel. And when that day shall come, it shall come to pass that kings shall shut their mouths; for that which had not been told them shall they see; and that which they had not heard shall they consider. #RandolphHarris 17 of 21
“For in that day, for my sake shall the Father work a work, which shall be a great and a marvelous work among them those who will not believe it, although a human shall declare it unto them. However, behold, the life of my servant shall be in my hand; therefore they shall not hurt one, although one shall be marred because of them. Yet will heal one, for I will show unto them that my wisdom is greater than the cunning of the devil. Therefore it shall come to pass that whosoever will not believe in my words, who am Jesus Christ, which the Father shall cause one to bring forth unto the Gentiles, and shall give unto him power that he shall bring them forth unto the Gentiles, (it shall be done even as Moses said) they shall be cut off from among my people who are of the covenant. And my people who are a remnant of Jacob shall be among the Gentiles, yea, in the midst of them as a lion among the beasts of the forest, as a young lion among the flocks of sheep, who, if he go through both treadeth down and teareth in pieces, and none can deliver. Their hand shall be lifted up upon their adversaries, and all their enemies shall be cut off. #RandolphHarris 18 of 21
“And I will cut off the cities of thy land, and throw down all thy strongholds; and I will cut off witchcrafts out of thy land, and thou shalt have no more soothsayers; thy graven images I will also cut off, and thy standing images out of the midst of thee, and thou shalt no more worship the works of thy hands; and I will pluck up thy groves out of the midst of thee; so will I destroy thy cities. And it shall come to pass that all lyings, and deceivings, and envyings, and strifes, prestcrafts, and whoredomes, shall be done away. For it shall come to pass, saith the Father, that at that say whosoever will not repent and come unto my Beloved Son, them will I cut off from among my people, O house of Israel; and I will execute vengeance and fury upon them, even as upon the heathen, such as they have not heard. However, if they will repent and hearken unto my words, and harden not their hearts, I will establish my church among them, and they shall come in unto the covenant and be numbered among this the remnant of Jacob, unto whom I have given this land and for their inheritance; and they shall assist my people, the remnant of Jacob, and also as many of the house of Israel as shall come, that they may build a city, which shall be called the New Jerusalem. #RandolphHarris 19 of 21
“And then shall they assist my people that they may be gathered in, who are scattered upon all the face of the land, in unto the New Jerusalem. And then shall the power of Heaven come down among them; and I also will be in the midst. And then shall the work of the Father commence at that day, even when this gospel shall be preached among the remnant of this people. Verily I say unto you, at that day shall the work of the Father commence among all the dispersed of my people, yea, even the tribes which have been lost, which the Father hath led away out of Jerusalem. Yea, the work shall commence among all the dispersed of my people, with the Father to prepare the way whereby they may come unto me, that they may call on the Father in my name. Yea, and then shall the work commence, with the Father among all the nations in preparing the way whereby his people may be gathered home to the land of their inheritance. And they shall go out from all nations; and they shall not go out in haste, nor go by flight, for I will go before them, saith the Father, and I will be their rearward,” reports 3 Nephi 21.1-29. You who guide travelers, please slide me through traffic. You who grant patience, please help me calmly wait. #RandolphHarris 20 of 21
The ship reaches its haven. The wagon reaches its home. Today’s journey is over and all can rest. Those who have guided the Sun in its journey: Thank you. May you guide me as well. Great blackness, promiser of mysteries, bringer of dreams: greeting to you, Father Night, as you cast your blanket over the World. “I am about to fulfill the precept of the counting of the Omer, as it is written in the Law: Ye shall count unto you from the morrow after the day of rest, from the day that ye brought an omer of grain as a wave-offering, seven complete weeks they shall be; until the morrow of the seventh week shall ye number fifty days,” reports Leviticus 23.15. Blessed art Thou, O Lord our God Ruler of the Universe, who hast sanctified us by Thy precepts and hast enjoined upon us the counting of the Omer. This is the first day of the mer. This is the sixth day of the Omer. This is the seventh day, making one week of the Omer. May the All-merciful restore worship in the Temple on its ancient site. May it be Thy will, O Lord our God and God of our fathers, to grant our portion in Thy Torah and may the Temple be rebuilt in our day. There will serve Thee with awe as in the days of old. #RandolphHarris 21 of 21
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I Roam in Pleasant Darkness, More Unseen than Saturn in His Exile!
There is beauty in everybody. You are born with it. It is just a matter of what you do with it, and if you lose it, it is like losing your soul. The experience of surprise is a sign of one’s readiness to grow. Amazement and wonder signify that one’s concepts of self and of the World and of other people are “loose,” ready to be re-formed. The “know-it-all,” the “cool” one, has pledged oneself never to be surprised. Everything that the World discloses is no more than an unfolding of what one has expected and predicted, or so one tries to convey to others. However, when a human can be dumbfounded and surprised at what comes out of one or at what one’s friend or spouse is capable of doing and disclosing, one is a growing person. In fact, if I intentionally adopt the “set” that all of my concepts are tentative and provisional, I invite others, myself, and the World to reveal surprisingly new facets of their being to me, so that even my daily life can be an unfolding of newness, where simply perceiving the World or the self is a source of endless variety and surprise. If I am with you, and I have willfully adopted the set that I do not know and cannot ever fully know all your possibilities, my very presence embodies an invitation to you to surprise, to show off, to transcend your (and my) previous concepts of your being. #RandolpHarris 1 of 23
I can tell when I am in the presence of a person with a closed mind. I feel constrained to shut off most of my possibilities. However, in the present of a wonder-er, I feel an absence of prejudgment, a permissive acceptance; and my terror and self-consciousness about revealing surprises is diminished. In short, if you and I retain our capacity for surprise, we assist and confirm one another’s growth. It seems to me that artists in society embody and disclose possibilities of experiencing that are available to everyone, but are generally stifled. If every mad-person is an ineffective revolutionary, and every sick person is an anarchist who failed, then each artist who produces art successfully points the way toward new modes of experience and action. The true revolutionary, who changes people’s minds and spirits, is not the political fanatic or the religious zealot, but the person who wields the painter’s brush or the poet’s pencil or one who composes and produces sounds no human has heard before. The World—Being—discloses itself without surcease. The World discloses itself in forms and patterns and as change. The being of the World is revealed in splendiferous variety, depending upon the nature of the “surface” from which it is refracted. #RandolphHarris 2 of 23
The human race is a myriad of refractive surfaces staining the white radiance of eternity. Each surface refracts the refraction of refractions of refractions. Each self refracts the refractions of others’ refractions of self’s refraction of other refractions. Here is the glory and wonder and mystery, yet too often we simply wish to ignore or destroy those points of view that refract the light differently from ourselves. The World-for-human is a World refracted in human intentional consciousness. This magnificent and mysterious entity, consciousness, is but little understood. Indeed, it can only be understood by a being such as itself of by another consciousness; for understanding is given only to human consciousness. Being can be refracted by animals, and by human-made instruments; but understanding of the being revealed to an animal or machine is possibly only if the animal or machine somehow transmits its refraction of the being of the World to a human consciousness. And a consciousness can attain some measure of self-understanding by transmuting itself into a reflective consciousness. #RandolphHarris 3 of 23
All people are born with the capacity to distinguish between right and wrong. The ability, called conscience, is a manifestation of the Light of Christ. The light of Christ is the divine energy, power, or influence that proceeds from God through Christ and gives life and light to all things. The Light of Christ influences people for good and prepares them to receive the Holy Ghost. One manifestation of the Light of Christ is what we call conscience. The Light of Christ “proceedeth forth from the presence of God to fill the immensity of space.” It is “the light which is in all things, which giveth life to all things, which is the law by which all things are governed,” reports Doctrine and Covenants. This power is an influence for good in the lives of all people. “And that I am the true light that lighteth every human that cometh into the World,” reports Doctrine and Covenants 93.2. Conscience is a manifestation of the Light of Christ, enabling us to judge good from evil. The prophet Mormon taught: “The Spirit of Christ is given to every human, that one may know good from evil; wherefore, I show unto you the way to judge; for every thing which inviteth to do good, and to persuade to believe in Christ, is sent forth by the power and gift of Christ; wherefore ye may know with a perfect knowledge it is of God. #RandolphHarris 4 of 23
“And now, my brethren, seeing that ye know the light by which ye may judge, which light is the light of Christ, see that ye d not judge wrongfully; for with that same judgment which ye judge ye shall also be judged,” reports Moroni 7.16,18. The study of consciousness, at least from a disciplined, scientific standpoint, is still in its infancy. We are still in the descriptive and taxonomic stages, with a crude beginning at experimental analysis of experiential change. I shall draw on the little we now know and suspect about that marvelous being—my consciousness and yours—to discuss art, and its relation to human possibility. Reflections shows that any conscious of the World is subject to transmutations, which are miraculous as the alchemical transubstantiation base metal to gold. The differing modes for anything to appear to someone’s consciousness include: the perceptual mode—seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling, and touching something. The recollective mode refers to a person’s capacity to re-experience past consciousness; we call it remembering. The conceptual mode is the name for a “thinking” and abstracting consciousness, the awareness of the acts of thinking about something as one of a kind, and reasoning about it. #RandolphHarris 5 of 23
The imaginative mode is the name which refers to an experience of possibility. The fantasy mode is a paradoxical form of consciousness, because it is not conscious at the time of its occurrence, expect under rare and special circumstances. Yet it is always present as a kind of shadowy background to any and all conscious-modes. We know of our fantasy consciousness after it has just gone through a detectable change, as when we experience ourselves as empty, sucked dry, following an encounter with a very dependent bore. Another mode of being-conscious-of-something is the anticipatory consciousness: the experience or expectation that something is going to appear in perception, or memory. Probably this is a subclass of imagination. Construing, or giving-meaning can perhaps be regarded as a mode of experiencing the World, though it seems to be dependent upon the act of reflecting upon one’s perception, or other modes for experiencing. And it is perhaps meaningful to regard the experience of willing (trying to make something appear) as a mode of consciousness. #RandolphHarris 6 of 23
Feeling and emotion may be designed as qualities of intentional experience. In a person with a unified consciousness, feelings are fused with every perception, memory, or imaginative act. The person feels alive because one feels. However, feelings and emotions arise only when an individual is committed to goals and projects in the World, when events and actions help or hinder one’s success. And feelings will be felt only if a person has not excluded them from one’s consciousness by acts of repression. Every mode of consciousness is dependent upon the basic, perceptual consciousness. Without inputs of intentional perception, the other modes of experiencing become static and irrelevant as guides to effective mastery of the World and successful adaptation of the self in the World. All modes of experiencing are fed by inputs of the World’s disclosure, refracted and detected by several sensory channels—the eyes, ear, nose, mouth, and skin. The power to abstract belongs to the understanding. It is of its own nature, prone to abstractions. Characteristically, it is most active when it is not restrained by sensory data. It loves to fly upwards to the highest generalities. It is unfettered movement is often evident in language behaviour when the notions behind words become confused and are over-hastily abstracted from the facts. #RandolphHarris 7 of 23
Indeed, the understanding, enjoying the serene tranquility of abstract wisdom, often leaves the real World so far away that the intellect seems so insubstantial as to be deemed immortal: we must see some of the philosophers which are least divine and most immersed in the senses and denied generally the immortality of the soul, yet come to this point, that whatsoever motions the spirit of humans can act and perform without the organs of the body they thought might remain after death; which are only those of the understanding and not of the affections. The power of abstracting enables and accompanies another characteristic activity of the understanding, namely, that of apprehending. This process seems to be to the understanding what sensing is to the sensorium. Abstracting and apprehending, mutually sport each other, enabling the human being to handle the forms and the formal aspects of things and to deal with the relationships among natural objects and events and among humanmade things, including speech and language. The senses produce organized bits of experience that in an older vocabulary are called “sensible species.” Every sense package goes into the memory whole, as individuals, to be used as the materials of imagining and thinking. #RandolphHarris 8 of 23
The understanding produces what an older terminology labels “intelligible species.” The understanding produces forms and natures. The understanding, a faculty of the rational soul, refers to both the power and the act of apprehending. The sensible soul also is assigned an apprehensive power by which we perceive the species of sensible things, present or absent, and retain them as wax doth the prints of a seal. Consciousness of the World’s disclosure is always patterned and structured. The pattern and structure of your experienced World is a function of your projects, goals, needs, and values. This means that you and I, chronically pursuing security, wealth, fame, love, or whatnot, are cognizant only of those aspects of the World relevant to the attainment of these ends. To all else, we are effectively blind. It is not strictly true to say we are blind to aspects of the Word not relevant to our projects. Rather, the unattended aspects of experience blur into the background of our consciousness. #RandolphHarris 9 of 23
We have a subsidiary consciousness of them rather than a focal awareness. They are ground rather than figure, in the language of Gestalt psychology. Thus, the structure of a given mode of consciousness, say, the perceptual r imaginative mode, can be analyzed into its components of the focal awareness—that which is explicitly attended to—and the subsidiary awareness of the background experience. The possibility of our consciousness functioning in a unified, fully turned-on way is limited by our projects. If attainment of goals is impeded by attention to inputs from some sensory channels, we blot that face of the World out of being. Thus, most of us functionally amputate our noses, our tastes bunds, and our capacity to feel something when we touch it, because these experiences may divert us from attaining our goals in the World. If our imagination diverts from restless or anxious scanning of the World, as we seek the main chance or the chief danger, then we blot this possibility out of being. And if feelings, or a body-consciousness, diverts from our serious business, then we bolt that out. The upshot is that a typical human’s consciousness is a distorted, fragmented, disunified being, only half-functional. #RandolphHarris 10 of 23
The fragmentation, compartmentalization, and mutilation of experience is undertaken by a human oneself. One effects various praxes upon one’s experience, such as I have alluded to. For example, one blots some of one’s consciousness from existence. One separates one’s experience of one’s mind from one’s experience of one’s body, and produces the pernicious and perennial dualism that impedes our attainment of harmony with our World. And by conceptualizing the World, humans freeze it. One must attend to constancies, and give the names, else one could not navigate or transact effectly. And many of us repress our feelings, such that perception, recall, or imagination are cold and lifeless. Every concept is an abstraction from a more global experiencing of the World; and this means that so soon as something is named, the person stops perceiving it: one closes off one’s reception of the being’s transmission of its essence. Thus, must of us live in a conceptual World, unrefreshed by new perceptual experiences of the beings we have named. This can get to be a stagnant World, one that sensitive humans feel to be suffocating and boring. And because the social World in which we live resists change—we are shaped and socialized, such that our imaginative consciousness becomes crippled. #RandolphHarris 11 of 23
Our feeling-consciousness becomes reduced in intensity and variety. Our willing-consciousness virtually vanishes; and we experience ourselves, not as creatures who live and decide, but as beings lived by social pressures, or glandular explosions. We construct barriers that separate our various modes one from the other, and allow ourselves to experience them serially, never in a unified, simultaneously active way. One minute we perceive; the next minute we imagine; the next we remember; the next we think. There is no reason for us to believe that serialized consciousness is natural, more God-given then unified experience, such as happens to average people in rare moments of ecstasy, in “peak experiences” and in so-called mystical or transcendental experiences. Indeed, there is some reason for suspecting that in young children, before they are socialized, a unified consciousness, fully turned-on, is the mode. And in certain mad-persons and outsiders—those who have “checked out” of the usual social games, or who have somehow escaped complete engulfment by their culture—we can suspect that their consciousness has eluded the fate that the average person is subject to, or has willingly submitted to. #Randolphharris 12 of 23
The capacity for a specialized consciousness, one usually atrophied in the average human—as in seeing, or imagining, or thinking and reasoning, or feeling—enter int the evolution of that human we call an artist. The dazzling images of the Church assault us again and again in the New Testament in an effort to raise our thinking to the proper height. As the Church, actually we are Christ’s body (Ephesians 1.22,23). He is the Head, and as members of His Body we have at the same time a profound unity, diversity, and mutuality. We are a temple (Ephesians 2.19-22). Jesus is the cornerstone, and we are living stones (1 Peter 2.5)—forming a living place of worship. We are the bride (Ephesians 5.25-33). And Christ, or groom, loves us with a holy love which will beings us to the Marriage Feast of the Lamb. We are his sheep, and He is the nurturing shepherd (John 10.14-16, 25-30). Jesus is the vine, as we are the branches. We are organically in Him, drawing all our sustenance for life from Him (John 15.5). What should the truth that we are the Church means to us? It should fill us with wonder and thanksgiving. We ought to sing, “I am His body, His temple, His bride, His sheep, His branch. I have come to His city—to Angels—to brothers and sisters—to God Himself—to the Church glorified—to Jesus—to forgiveness through Christ’s blood.” #RandolphHarris 13 of 23
The World is like a great express train hurtling towards disaster—perhaps towards total destruction. And in this truly desperate situation certain passengers are running up and down the corridors announcing to each other that the Church is in great danger! The irony of it would be laughable if it were not so searing. Why, most of the Church’s members have already got out at stations en route. And we ourselves shall be getting out soon anyway. And if the crash comes and the World is burn to askes, then the only thing that will survive the disaster will of course the Church. Personally, the doctrine of the Church ought to tell us that we are part of the grandest institution the Universe has ever know, and that we are tragically diminished by non-participation in Christ’s Body. Correspondingly, the Church is diminished by our nonparticipation as well. You and I need the Church! The Scriptures are most explicit regarding this: “Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching,” reports Hebrews 10.25. This straightforward exhortation ought to be enough in itself. #RandolphHarris 14 of 23
However, there are several other powerful reasons for faithful participation in the Church, not the least of which is that, as Cyprian argued, we all need a mother. The Church has certainly been that to me. It was the womb which warmed my soul till it was ready for birth which I was led to Christ. I was lovingly nurtured as a youth attending Church. The Church gave me the milk of the Word through strong teaching of my College Department teacher. The Church teaches us to dedicated our lives to God. I owe so much to Christ’s Church: my life, my character, my Worldview, my calling, my vision, my peace, my hope—everything. I believe in the Church! Understanding, then, is what we need the mothering of the Church, we may also understand that we will never benefit as we should from it apart from commitment to hear Head. The entire Christian life is about commitment—first and above all to Christ, but also to the Church, to family, to marriage, to friendship, to ministry. None of these will ever flourish apart from the commitment. #RandolphHarris 15 of 23
For example, marriage can never produce the security, satisfaction, and growth that it promises unless there is commitment. This is why today’s provisional live-in arrangements are coming up short. Commitment through hood and bad times is what makes a marriage grown and brings the greatest fulfillment. Humans, on the most elementary level, you do not have to go to church to be a Christian. You do not have to go home to be married either. However, in both cases if you do not, you will have a very poor relationship. Among the growth-inducing benefits of commitment to the Church are: Worship—having your soul swept up to God in the unique elevating power of corporate worship. Hearing the Word—so that your soul can feed on its proper food, brining health to your whole being. Attendance at the Lord’s table—so that you are refreshed as you thank God for the atoning work of Christ. Discipleship—as one is committed to the Church through its ups and downs, an appropriate deepening takes place which the uncommitted heart can never know. Vision and mission—as one remains committed, a supernatural vision for life takes hold which results in mission. #RandolphHarris 16 of 23
Humans, you need the Church because the Scriptures say you do, because you need a mother and because without commitment to her you will not grow. “And now it came to pass that when Jesus had ascended into Heaven, the multitude did disperse, and every man did take his wife and his children home. And it was noised abroad among the people immediately, before it was yet dark, that the multitude had seen Jesus, and that he had ministered unto them, and that he would also show himself on the morrow unto the multitude. Yea, and even all the night it was noised abroad concerning Jesus; and insomuch did they send forth unto the people that there were many, yea, an exceedingly great number, did labour exceedingly all that night, that they might be on the morrow in the place where Jesus should show himself unto the multitude. And it came to pass that on the morrow, when the multitude was gathered together, behold, Nephi and his brother whom he had raised from the dead, whose name was Timothy, and also his son, whose name was Jonas, and also Mathoni and Mathonihah, his brother, and Kumen, and Kumenonhi and Jeremiah, and Shemnon, and Jonas, and Zedekiah, and Isaiah—now these were the names of the disciples whom Jesus had chosen—and it came to pass that they went forth and stood in the midst of the multitude. #RandolphHarris 17 of 23
“And behold, the multitude was so great that they did cause that they should be separated into twelve bodies. And the twelve did teach the multitude; and behold, they did cause that the multitude should kneel down upon the face of the Earth, and should pray unto the Father in the name of Jesus. And the disciples did pray unto the Father also in the name of Jesus. And it came to pass that they arose and ministered unto the people. And when they had ministered those same words which Jesus had spoken—nothing varying from the words which Jesus had spoken—behold they knelt again and prayed to the Father in the name of Jesus. And they did pray for that which they most desired; and the desired that the Holy Ghost should be given unto them. And when they had thus prayed, they went down unto the water’s edge, and the multitude followed them. And it came to pass that Nephi went down into the water and was baptized. And he came up out of the water and began to baptize. And he baptized all those whom Jesus had chosen. #RandolphHarris 18 of 23
“And it came to pass when they were all baptized and had come up out of the water, the Holy Ghost did fall upon them, and they were filled with the Holy Ghost and with fire. And behold, they were encircled about as if it were by fire; and it came down from Heaven, and the multitude did witness it, and did bear record; and Angels did come down out of Heaven and did minister unto them. And it came to pass that while the Angels were ministering unto the disciples, behold, Jesus came and stood in the midst and ministered unto them. And it came to pass that he spake unto the multitude, and commanded them that they should kneel down again upon the Earth and also that his disciples should kneel down upon the Earth. And it came to pass that when they had all knelt down upon the Earth, he commanded his disciples that they should pray. And behold, they began to pray; and they did pray unto Jesus, calling him their Lord and their God. And it came to pass that Jesus departed out of the midst of them and went a little way off from them and bowed himself to the Earth, and he said: Father, I thank thee that thou hast given the Holy Ghost unto these whom I have chosen; and it is because of their belief in me that I have chosen them out of the Word. #RandolphHarris 19 of 23
“Father, I pray thee that thou wilt give the Holy Ghost unto all them that shall believe in their words. Father, thou hast given them the Holy Ghost because they believe in me; and thou seest that they believe in me because thou hearest them, and they pray unto me; and I pray unto me because I am with them. And now Father, I pray unto thee for them, and also for all those who shall believe on their words, that they may believe in me, that I ay be in them as thou, Father, art in me, that we may be one. And it came to pass that when Jesus had thus prayed unto the Father, he came unto his disciples, and behold, they did still continue, without ceasing, to pray unto him; and they did not multiply many words, for it was given unto them what they should pray, and they were filled with desire. And it came to pass that Jesus blessed them as they did pray unto him; and his countenance did smile upon them, and his countenance did smile upon them, and the light of his countenance did shine upon them, and behold they were as white as the countenance and also the garments of Jesus; and behold the whiteness thereof did exceed all the whiteness, yea, even there could be nothing upon the Earth so white as the whiteness thereof. And Jesus said unto them: Pray on; nevertheless they did not cease to pray. #RandolphHarris 20 of 23
“And he turned from them again, and went a little way off and bowed himself to the Earth; and he prayed again unto the Father saying: Father, I thank thee that thou hast purified those whom I have chosen, because of their faith, and I pray for them, and also for them who shall believe on their words, that they may be purified in me, through faith on their words, even as they are purified in me. Father, I pray not for the World, but for those whom thou hast given me out of the World, because of their faith, that they may be purified in me, that I may be in them as thou, Father, art in me, that we may be one, that I may be glorified in them. And when Jesus had spoken these words he came again unto his disciples; and behold they did pray steadfastly, without ceasing, unto him; and he did smile upon them again; and behold they were white, even as Jesus. And it came to pass that he went again a little way off and prayed unto the Father; and tongue cannot speak the words which he prayed, neither can be written by humans the words which he prayed. #RandolphHarris 21 of 23
“And the multitude did hear and do bear record; and their hearts were open and they did understand in their hearts the words which he prayed. Nevertheless, so great and marvelous were the words which he prayed that they cannot be written, neither can they be uttered by humans. And it came to pass that when Jesus had made an end of praying he came again to the disciples, and said unto them: So great faith have I never seen among all the Jews; wherefore I could not show unto them so great miracles, because of their unbelief. Verily I say unto you, there are none of them that have seen so great things as ye have seen; neither have they heard so great things as ye have heard,” reports 3 Nephi 19-1-36. Following your course, laid down in ancient times, you have come unerringly to the heights of the sky, there where you can survey the wide Earth with no obstruction. May all on which you gaze be to you liking! May all below follow its course as well as you! Blessed art Thou, O Lord our God, Ruler of the Universe, who createst the fruit of the vine. Blessed art Thou, O Lord, our God, King of the Universe, who didst choose us for Thy service from among all peoples. Thou didst exalt us above all tongues by making us holy through Thy commandments. #RandolphHarris 22 of 23
In love hast Thou given us, O Lord our God [Sabbaths for rest] holidays for gladness, festivals and seasons for rejoicing. Thou hast granted us [this Sabbath day] this say of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the Season of our Freedom, the Feast of Weeks. The Season of the Giving of our Torah, the Feast of Tabernacles, the Season of our Gladness, the Eighth Day Feast of Assembly, the Season of our Gladness, as a holy convocation, commemorating our liberation from Egypt. Thou didst choose us from among all peoples and didst sanctify us by giving us Thy holy [Sabbath and] Festivals as a joyous heritage. Blessed art Thou, O Lord, who hallowest [the Sabbath] Israel and the Festivals. Blessed art Thou, O Lord our God, King of the Universe, who creates the light of fire. Hail to you, Father, high as the Sun in the southern sky. A king in full power are you, sitting high in the Heavens’ throne room. And I come to you, as faithful subject, to ask you to please stretch forth your many shining hands, and please lay then on my head in benediction. Your heart fully open, shining. Your glory in full beauty, shining. Your grace in full radiance, shining. Please see me on high, Bright King, please watch over me, shining. #RandolphHarris 23 of 23
Cresleigh Homes
When it comes to building homes, we do not cut corners — unless, of course, those corners will be turned into a window feature. Then it is totally acceptable. 😉 // #MillsStation Residence 1
The kitchen comes fully equipped with a large eat-in island, stainless steel appliances, and quartz counters. The great room is spacious and full of natural light with a covered patio! The Owner’s suite is nestled in the rear of the home separate from the secondary bedrooms, providing maximum privacy. Enjoy a spa like experience in the Owner’s bathroom with a large walk in shower, dual vanities, and makeup counter. https://cresleigh.com/mills-station/residence-1/
This home is designed with Universal Design concepts meaning that its well equipped for life’s transitions and aging in place. Learn more about this unique feature by speaking with a sales associate today!
Best of all, each Cresleigh home comes fully equipped with an All Ready connected home! This smart home package comes included with your home and features great tools including: video door bell and digital deadbolt for the front door, connect home hub so you can set scenes and routines to make life just a little easier. Two smart switches and USB outlets are also included, plus we will gift you a Google Home Hub and Google Mini to help connect everything together!
This masterfully designed home manages to include all the basics–then adds a little more. Note the transform and floor to ceiling windows, the slanted ceilings, the large great room, spacious kitchen. Special amenities makes this home stand-out from others in its class. Note all the natural light, the sliding glass door to the patio and the wealth of closet and storage space.
How Long Must I Remain in Jeopardy of Blank Amazements that Amaze No More?
The pain of leaving those you grow to love is only a prelude to an understanding of yourself and others. Finding out what your real desires and characteristics are, and being able to live in a way that expresses them is how one finds one’s identity. One learns to be authentic, to be honest in the sense of allowing one’s behaviour and one’s speech to be the true and spontaneous expression of one’s inner feelings. Survey of efforts at self-analysis, self-therapy and self-growth uncovered that dreams are psychological symbols; peak, spiritual and psychedelic experience; archaic and prerational cognition. Recovery of the preconscious. That is why it is important to become an expert on one’s self. Think of yourself as a collaborator in an enterprise in which one wants to learn as much as one can learn so that one can pass this on to other people. The goal of therapy and self-discovery is the recovery of experiences—in particular, the recovery of feelings, emotions, subtle impulses and inner voices. They are believed to be the essential part of human nature and yet are so easily forgotten, denied or suppressed in the course of socialization. To be experientially alive means to renew a contact with our essential nature, and the first step in that direction is to pay greater attention to the concrete, pre-abstract, preverbal and the unconscious. #RandolphHarris 1 of 23
There are two aspects of the unconscious. The unconscious is said to be the seat of drives and needs—especially irrational needs—whereas the preconscious has more to do with the ways of sensing (id est, primary process cognition). It has often been said that a map is not a territory and a label (words and concepts) must not be confused with the reality it stands for. However, if we can use the map in the exploration of an external environment, why cannot we use words and concepts for the discovery of inner space? We find that thoughts, feelings, and affects are alive in us which would never have believed possible. Naturally, possibilities of this sort seem utterly fantastic to anyone who had not experienced them oneself, for a normal person “knows what one thinks.” Such an immature attitude on the part of the “normal person” is simply the rule, so that no one without experience in this field can be expected to understand the real nature of their being. With these reflections one gets into an entirely new World of psychological experience, provided of course that one succeeds in realizing it in practice. Those who do succeed can hardly fail to be impressed by all that the ego does not know and never has known. #RandolphHarris 2 of 23
This increase in self-knowledge is still very rare nowadays and is usually paid for in advance with a neurosis, if not something worse. The tension that arises from lack of self-understanding is so profound that it can be harmless until it is confronted in the conscious mind in personified form and behaves rather like systems split off from the personality, or like part souls. The most important tasks of psychic hygiene is to pay continual attention to the symptomatology of unconscious contents and processes, for the good reason that the conscious mind is always in danger of becoming one-sided, of keeping to well-worn paths and getting stuck in blind alleys. The complementary and compensating function of the unconscious ensures that these dangers, which are especially great in neurosis, can in some measure be avoided. It is only under ideal conditions, when life is still simple and unconscious enough to follow the serpentine path of instinct without hesitation or misgiving, that the compensation works with entire success. The more civilized, the more unconscious and complicated living conditions and the influence of one’s environment are so strong that they drown the quiet voice of nature. #RandolphHarris 3 of 23
Opinions, belief, theories, and collective tendencies appear in its stead and back up all the aberration of the conscious mind. Deliberate attention should then be given to the unconscious so that the compensation can set work. Hence it is especially important to picture the archetypes of the unconscious not as a rushing phantasmagoria of fugitive images but as constant, autonomous factors, which they indeed are. The archetypes are universal symbols such as The Great Mother (a mother goddess who is a personification of the natural World), the Wise Old Man (a profound philosopher distinguished for wisdom and sound judgment), the Shadow (everything of which a person is not fully conscious of, the unknown side), the Tree of Life (representing sacred life, religion, spirituality, the divine), the Tower (an extension of consciousness achieved in maturity), and Water (valley of the spirit). This is why education is a lifelong process. There is evidence that the materials we learn and insight we gain are not likely to dissipate easily, since participation in gaining lifelong knowledge involves a change in attitude, beliefs, values, and even a radical change in the fundamental outlook on life. The goal of education is to refocus itself on the joy of personal discovery, the sense of awe and mystery in life. #RandolphHarris 4 of 23
When education regains an accurate objective, the process of learning can then become as meaningful and exhilarating as those moments wen we are having peak-experiences. Do you remember how exciting it was as a kid in elementary when at the beginning of the school year, the teacher handed out those big, colourful, glossy books. How they made you feel excited and curious to know what was inside. Well, that is how learning is supposed to be for adults also. Many of those authors are writing as communication to future generations. It is an expression of love for them, giving them the tools required to improve their lives and the World. In effect, the textbooks are affectionate notes, bits of counsel, lessons others have learned that might help us. Imaginative activity is joined with belief of that which is to come. Take the case of two images, one involving the idea that humans will cause their own destruction and the other the idea that Zeus hurled thunderbolts when he was displeased with human’s doings. Both images, one purely verbal, the other pictorial, are due to the power of imagination. However, does the pictorial image more readily secure or enhance belief than the verbal image? If it does, what property or feature of it is responsible? #RandolphHarris 5 of 23
The phenomenon is referred to as the power and act imagination intensive, and is also called by a more intriguing name, Fascination. Belief in the imagination intensive is rational because there is an observed phenomenon and these participate in the power of things in fact. According, those effects which are wrought by the percussion of the sense, and by things in fact, are produced likewise in some degree by the imagination. The image of a man eating a sour pickle may be just as effective in setting one’s teeth on edge as does the act of eating the pickle itself. The effect is due not only to the figure but to the force and intensity of it. This is very close to an ideo-motor theory of voluntary movement and to the role imagination plays in it. Indeed, the imagination is as it were the director and driver of this motion [voluntary motion], insomuch that when the image which is the object of the motion is withdrawn the motion itself is immediately interrupted and stopped (as in walking, if you begin to think eagerly and fixedly of something else, you immediately stand still). Again, stamping, and bending of the fist, are caused by an imagination of the act of revenge. If the image thus affects action, why should it not be a belief? And would not a striking feature of the experience be responsible for its impact? Indeed it would. #RandolphHarris 6 of 23
Force or intensity are recognized as a special property or dimension of the image and this is nowhere more evident than when we talk of strengthening or exalting or fortifying the imagination. To strengthen the imagination is not to help in the making of images but to increase the effectiveness of them. Authority, for example, will fortify an image, whether verbal or pictorial, but it will do nothing to produce the image. If a person believes that a ring or charm will bring one good luck, one may hold to that belief—and act upon it—because of one’s faith in the art of magic, or a practitioner thereof, not because of experience or of logic. Authority carries weight, as it were, and impart weight. Various kinds of objects enhance imagery in the same way, and one can form a list of them drawn from natural magic. Rituals and ceremonies are not only imageful but they carry the authority of their sources. Scriptural words have the authority of God. Words of similitude—that is, pictorial images produced through words—are stronger than verbalizations without pictures. There is another quality of the image, possibly associated with intensity and certainly contributing to the strength of imagery. It is called a binding or limiting effect. #RandolphHarris 7 of 23
When speculating about the ways of strengthening the memory, we find in the art of memory, that images visible work better than other conceits; as if you would remember the word philosophy, you shall more surely do it by imagining that such a human (for humans are best places) is reading upon Aristotle’s Physics; than if you could imagine one to say, I will go study philosophy. The reasons are two: the more lustrous the imagination is, it filleth and fixeth the better, and there is a binding of thoughts. One has to aim to prepare the way and clear the ground, and one would uncover directions and hints for systematic and experimental investigation into the phenomenon of the imagination. If serious study undertaken the chief problem would be that of disentangling a maze of cause and effect. It would be proper to focus on two matters: the effects of imagery on the imaginant oneself, and the effect of one human’s imagery on another. However, the whole enterprise has been confounded and confused by those who merely desire to exploit it for the end of magic, witchcraft, myth and mystery, dreams and visions. #RandolphHarris 8 of 23
If they would, three established studies could make contributions, for those sciences which have had been intelligence and confederacy with the imagination of humans than with their reason, are three in number: Astrology, Natural Magic, and Alchemy; of which sciences the ends or pretenses are noble. The imagination may become hyperactive in eloquence. It is no small dominion which imagination holds in persuasions that are wrought by eloquence; for when by arts of speech human’s minds are soothed, inflamed, and carried hither and hither, it is all done by stimulating the imagination till it becomes ungovernable, and not only sets reason at nought, but offers violence to it, partly by blinding, partly be incensing it. Such effects may be due in part to the agitation of the spirit or of the affections. There is no doubting that both imagination and vehement affection work greatly upon the body of the imaginant. Emissions of the spirits and their affects is connected to the operations of the spirits of the mind of humans upon other spirit. Imagination may be the instigator of both spirit activity and emotional behaviour. Such a monstrous imagination was attributed to the school of Pythagoras for it was cultivated by Platonists, and made the basis of Paracelsian magic that exalting the imagination with the power of miracle-working faith. #RandolphHarris 9 of 23
If there be communication between the spirit of the World and the spirit of humans, it is probably directly from spirit to spirit. An imaginant can be primarily influencing oneself: If a person carrying a planet’s seal, or a ring, or some part of a beast, believing strongly that it will help one to obtain more active and industrious, and again more confident and persisting than one would otherwise be. Imagination is the power of representing thought. It is the power of reproducing and creating images, verbal, and pictorial, from the products of sensory experience and the products of the understanding and reason. Its images have a kind of force or strength that can stir the human spirit and rouse the affections. By and large, the imagination serves rational life. It illuminates and illustrates abstract thought in much the same way it lights up divine spirit and grace in moments of revelation and inspiration. If understanding and reason may be said to form experience, imagination may be said to give it shape. “If this World were mine, I’d make you a king with wealth untold, you could have anything. If this World were mine, I’d give you each day so sunny and blue. If you wanted the moonlight, I’d give you that too. If this World were mine, I’d give you anything.” #RandolphHarris 10 of 23
The lyrics above are from a duet by Luther Vandross and Cheryl Lynn called If this World were Mine. They are singing a beautiful ballot and used imagery to express how in love they are with each other. The imagery is more powerful than say, “I love you,” because one had to put their thought and heart into those eloquent lyrics and they are more likely to have much more of an impact because it causes the imagination to ponder how much one is loved. Reason and imagination join in creative activity that bears the marks of both faculties, reason rendering the product plausible, imagination rendering it sensible. Together they give rise to the fitting and the appropriate. Yet in their creativity, neither reason nor imagination works independently. Imagination is not merely processing the work of reason; it is not translating. Rather, there is a sort of transmutation, perhaps transtantiation, going on between them. The colour of imagination and the colour of reason are present, but one sees neither distinctly; they are blended in any creative product that humans judge to be fitting and appropriate. In rhetorical and poetical creativity, as distinguished from scientific creativity, the imagination is responsible for, is the immediate cause of, that quality of argument, example, and style that we label “appropriateness.” #RandolphHarris 11 of 23
Imagination always has something to work with, whether the sayable simply made the work of understanding and reason accessible to sense or was the product of reason and imagination’s creating something appropriate. What should be distrusted and feared are the imaginations of bad people, practitioners of artificial magic and alchemy. The content aspect of a sign or statement is due to the imagination and the formal aspect of the understanding. The denial of equal liberty, for example, can be defended only if it is necessary to raise the level of civilization so that in due course these freedoms can be enjoyed. The maximin rule uses the imagination, for a solution to the problem of social justice, tells us to rank alternatives by their worst possible outcomes: we are to adopt the alterative the worst outcome of which is the superior to the worst outcomes of the others. The original position is designed to be a fair and impartial point of view that is to be adopted in our reasoning about fundamental principles of justice. The persons in the original position do not, of course, assume that their initial place in society is decided by a malevolent opponent. However, if parties were forced to protect themselves against such a contingency, the maximum rule explains the sense in which this conception is the maximin solution. #RandolphHarris 12 of 23
In business and life, decisions have to be made and they must be rational. The maximin rule is not, in general, a suitable guide for choices under uncertainty. However, it is attractive in situations marked by certain special features. The aim, then, is to show that a good case can be made for the two principles based on the fact that the original position manifests these features to the fullest possible degree, carrying them to the limit, so to speak. A gain-and-loss table represents the gains and losses for a situation which is not a game of strategy. There us no one playing against the person making the decision; instead one is faced with several possible circumstances which may or may not obtain. Which circumstances happen to exist does not depend upon what the person choosing decides or whether one announces one’s moves in advance. The numbers in the gain-and-loss table below are monetary values (in millions of dollars) in comparison with some initial situation. The gain (g) depends upon the individual’s decision (d) and the circumstances (c). Thus g = f (d, c). Assuming that there are three possible decisions and three possible circumstances, we might have this gain-and-loss table. #RandolphHarris 13 of 23
#RandolphHarris 14 of 23
The maximin rule requires that we make the third decision. For in the case the worst that can happen is that one gains $5,000,000.00, which is better than the worse for the other actions. If we adopt one of these, we may lose either $8,000,000.00 or $7,000,000.00. Thus, the choice of d3 maximizes f (d, c) for that value of c, which for a given d, minimizes f. The terms “maximin” means maximum minimorum; and the rule directs our attention to the worst that can happen under any proposed course of action, and to decide in the light of that. Now there appear to be three chief features of situations that give plausibility to this unusual rule. First, since the rule takes no account of the likelihoods of the possible circumstances, there must be some reason for sharply discounting estimates of these probabilities. Offhand, the most natural rule of choice would seem to be to compute the expectation of monetary gain for each decision and then to adopt the course of action with the highest prospect. However, it must be, for example, that the situation is one in which a knowledge of likelihoods is impossible, or at best extremely insecure. In this case it is unreasonable not to be skeptical or probabilistic calculations unless there is no other way out, particularly if the decision is a fundamental one that needs to be justified to others. #RandolphHarris 15 of 23
The second feature that suggest the maximin rule is the following: the person choosing has a conception of the good such that one cares very little, if anything, for what one might gain above the minimum stipend that one can, in fact, be sure of by following the maximin rule. It is not worthwhile for one to take a chance for the sake of a further advantage, especially when it may turn out that one loses much that is important to one. This last provision brings in the third feature, namely, that the rejected alternatives have outcomes that one can hardly accept. The situation involves grave risks. Of course these feature work most effectively in combination. A maxim, a rule of thumb comes into its own in special circumstances. Its application depends upon the qualitative structure of the possible gain and losses in relation to one’s conception of the good, al this against a background in which it is reasonable to discount conjectural estimates of likelihoods. The parties have no basis for determining the probable nature of their society, or their place in it. Thus they have strong reasons for being wary of probability calculations is any other course is open to them. They must also take into account that fact that their choice of principles should seem reasonable to others, in particular their descendants, whose rights will be deeply affected by it. #RandolphHarris 16 of 23
Therefore, the objective is to limit loss and maximize gain, not gamble because the parties are unable to conjecture, they cannot say much about what the possible circumstances are, much less enumerate them and foresee the outcome of each alternative available. Finally, the third feature holds if we can assume that other conceptions of justice may lead to institutions that the parties would find intolerable. For example, it has sometimes been held that under some condition the utility principle justifies, if not slavery or serfdom, at any rate serious infraction of liberty for the sake of greater social benefit. We need not consider here the truth of this claim, or the likelihood that the requisite conditions obtain. For the moment, this contention is only to illustrate the way in which conceptions of justice may allow for outcomes which the parties may not be able to accept. And having the ready alterative of the two principles of justice which secure a satisfactory minimum, it seems unwise, if not irrational, for them to take a chance that these outcomes are not realized. We must make a distinction between a doctrinal principle and the human personality who serves as the vehicle for such principles. #RandolphHarris 17 of 23
The principles will live when the personality is dead. Our absolute rationality and loyalty, therefore, must be bestowed on what is immortal, not on what is mortal, but we still have to make the most reasonable decisions while we are alive. The human disseminator of the principle should receive only a conditional allegiance. The pure Idea may incarnate itself in the human but only may sully, betray, or pollute it with one’s human error, prejudice, or selfishness. The embodies master, being human, will have some or other of the human imperfections. Sooner or later the disciple will note and become critical of them or disturbed by them. However, the inner Light is perfect and will rouse only admiration, devotion, and satisfaction. “And now it came to pass that when Jesus has spoken these words he turned again to the multitude, and did open his mouth unto them again, saying: Verily, verily, I say unto you, Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged; and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again. And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? #RandolphHarris 18 of 23
“Or how wilt thou say to thy brother: Let me pull the mote out of thine eye—and behold, a beam is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, first cast the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast the mote of out thy brother’s eye. Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you. Ask, and it shall be given unto you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. For every one that asketh, receiveth; and one that seeketh, findeth; and to one that knocketh, it shall be opened. Or what human is there of you, who, if your child ask bread, will give one a stone? Or what if your child ask a fish, will one give one a serpent? If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father who is in Heaven give good things to them that ask him? Therefore, all things whatsoever ye would that humans should do to you, do ye even so to them, for this is the law and the prophets. Enter ye in at the strait gate; for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, which leadeth to destruction, and many there by who go in threat; because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it. #RandolphHarris 19 of 23
“Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do humans gather grapes of thorns, of figs of thistles? Even so every good tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire. Wherefore, by their fruits ye shall know them. Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of Heaven; but one that doeth the will of my Father who is in Heaven. Many will say to me in that day: Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name, and in thy name have cast out devils, and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them; I never knew you; depart from me, ye that work iniquity. Therefore, whoso heareth these sayings of mine and doeth them, I will liken one unto a wise human, who built one’s house upon a rock—and the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not, for it was founded upon a rock. #RandolphHarris 20 of 23
And every one that heareth these sayings of mine and doeth them shall be likened unto a foolish human, who built one’s house upon the sand—and the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell, and great was the fall of it,” reports 3 Nephi 14.1-27. Now we ask, What does a will or heart look like that has been transformed into Christlikeness? How is it to be characterized? Jesus said himself—and of course he is always the pattern—“One who sent Me is with Me; He has not left Me alone, for I always do the things that are pleasing to Him,” reports John 8.29. And Paul has this to say: “I haven been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the fait of the Son of God, who loved me, and delivered Himself up for me,” reports Galatians 2.20. The only haven of safety is to have no other will, no other wisdom, than to follow the Lord wherever he leads. Let this, then, be the first step, to abandon ourselves, and devote the whole energy of our minds to the service of God. So we have the answers to our question: Single-minded and joyous devotion to God and his will, to what God wants for us—and to service to him and to others because of him—is what the will transformed into Christlikeness looks like. #RandolphHarris 21 of 23
That is the outcome of Christian spiritual formation with reference to the will, heart, or spirit. And when it has become the governing response of every dimension of our being, this outcome becomes our character. Then we can truly said to have “put on Christ.” However, how far this is from the usual human will and character we hardly need say! Instead of being simple and transparent through a constant and coherent devotion to God, the usual human will is a place of chaotic duplicity and confusion if not darkness, because it is the playing field of pride and fear and lack of confidence in God, shrouded in layer upon layer of destructive habits. Your blood is my blood, flowing out of past, through me, to the future. Through my actions, you live. Please guide me, then, in the decisions I face today, making clear to me the safe path between obstacles and keeping me from false steps along the way. Please grant lasting peace unto Israel Thy people, for Thou art the Sovereign Lord of peace; and may it be good in Thy sight to bless Thy people Israel at all times with Thy peace. Blessed art Thou, O Lord, who blesses Thy people Israel with peace. O Lord, please guard my tongue from evil and my lips from speaking guile, and to those who slander me, let me give no heed. #RandolphHarris 22 of 23
May my soul be humble and forgiving unto all. Please open Thou my heart, O Lord, unto Thy sacred Law, that Thy statutes I may know and all Thy truths pursue. Please bring to naught designs of those who seek to do me ill; speedily defect their aims and thwart their purposes for Thine own sake, for Thine own power, for Thy holiness and Law. That Thy loved ones be delivered, please answer us, O Lord, and save with Thy redeeming power. May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable unto Thee, O Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer. Thou who establishest peace in the Heavens, please grant peace unto us and unto all Israel. Amen. May it be Thy will, O Lord our God and God of our Fathers, to grant our portion in Thy Torah, and may the Temple be rebuilt in our day. There we will serve Thee with awe as in the days of old. After the Sun has risen, I am here to pray long hours. While the day began, I was still asleep, still walking in the land of dreams. Know this, bright Sun, that though I slept, you were still in my heart. Now, when I am finally awake, I take up my daily responsibilities. First, though I will stand here and praise God and drink in your warmth and drink in all the light you give so freely to arm myself for the say’s struggles. #RandolphHarris 23 of 23
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Mysteries Whispered in their Presence–A Person Clamoured for Love and Attention but I Did Not Hear!
No one knows what to say in the loser’s room. Divulging any client’s financial secrets is a criminal act and bank officers or employees can be punished by up to five years imprisonment and a fine of up to $5000.00. This secrecy requirement does not end with bank employment but goes with the employee to one’s grave. One study shows that only 30 percent of U.S. employers believe school graduates are literate and numerate; but 70 percent of students and 60 percent of parents think their schools are fine. This points to the core problem with U.S. education: low intensity, in all but sport, and low expectations, for all but the brightest students in honours classes. Also, the cost of private health insurance, mostly borne by industry, is doubling every seven years. What is more significant is that health is now a common-middle class headache for the first time. Employers are forcing their employees to contribute more and take less generous benefits; the high cost of insurance squeezes wages; people who have a poor health history, even if fully cured, find themselves locked into their jobs, because prospective new employers refuse to take them on. Many believe this added government control of an industry which comprises one fifth of the American economy has only meant higher taxes and reduced quality of medical care for everyone. #RandolphHarris 1 of 22
Now, a hypothesis. I believe that independent learning, the embodiment of the state of being fascinated, involves six stages. The first is the experience of the impasse. The next stage we will provisionally call the stage of detachment, a kind of dying. The third is immersion in oneself—an entry into one’s center, one’s source of experiencing. Next is an emergence, or rebirth. Fifth is the experience of new possibilities. Sixth is the selection and pursuit of one of these. I shall attempt to illustrate this hypothesis with examples from several realms: religious conversion, brainwashing, research in psychedelic drugs, psychotherapy, and dialogue. I base my hypothesis upon personal experience, buttressed by reading that has seemed related, and the reported experience of others. It appears to me that fascination-with-something, the process of being turned on, has a certain “natural” history in adults. It is the natural state with healthy children who have not yet been “turned off.” The “turning off” begins with the experience of despair, boredom, or meaninglessness as one continues one’s habitual way of life—acting in one’s roles, doing one’s work, being one’s public self. Friendships grow stale. Work becomes meaningless and pointless. One feels dead, or deadened. #RandolphHarris 2 of 22
The World looks stale, and music loses its savour. Nothing changes. Plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose. I am doing something for everybody, and nothing for me. One feels trapped. No way out seems apparent. Each step out of the circle encounters dread or a sense of hopelessness, and futility. One tries new hobbies, new friends, new within which one feels like a robot. The depression deepens. One becomes afraid one is losing one’s mind. It is at this point that one’s friends, family, conventional psychiatry, and religion may enter. They try, and in this state gradually “loses interest,” “stops caring about thing.” One is regarded as sick, in need of “treatment” to stop one from going out of one’s mind. Actually, the “not-caring” is a self-initiated process of detachment from previous concerns, a phase in the death-rebirth process we are concerned with. If nothing stops the process, the person gradually enters one’s own experience more and more. One’s self-structure dissolves. One detaches oneself from one’s image of oneself, from previous friendships—which, after all, have been stabilizing one, keeping one in sameness, which is not the same as sanity. #RandolphHarris 3 of 22
This person may become panicky, as the process of detachment continues; and one finds oneself experiencing emotions, fantasies and memories, that ordinarily have been repressed. One surely needs reassurance here, to let the process unfold rather than shut it off. One is encountering one’s possibilities. If one lets go enough, one will fully enter the realm of experiencing that mystics have described as “transcendental,” like a homecoming, a visit to the course, rather than a hell to be avoided. It is, in fact, the way of experiencing that we all shared as children, before we were wholly engulfed by the culture. One cannot, and does not long stay in this realm. One re-enters one’s ego, but with a new perspective. The self-structure is redefined. I choose a new identity for myself and present it to others who may confirm it or not. The World does not look the same now. It is not the same because I am not the same, and it is my World. I look at the old things and the old people; and new features, new possibilities disclose themselves to me. I commit myself to some of these, and I am renewed, until some later time; when the new fascinations, values, and projects go stale, I must begin the process again. #RandolphHarris 4 of 22
When I am reborn and awakened, I experience the World and the people in it as a constant and varied calling, a constant source of invitations to become involved. The calls and invitations that were always there, but I never heard them before. The sky called to be looked at. A person clamoured for love and attention but I did not hear. Mysteries whispered their presence, but I did not notice; I thought what was mysterious was actually known and understood. In short, I begin once again to encounter the World, and the people in it. In the encounter, I let myself experience the varied reality of the World, a reality that I did not experience the varied reality of the World, a reality that I did not experience so richly, or in so many dimensions, as I do. Renewed by the plunge into the depths of my own experiencing, I survey the World that I am encountering. Some invitation, some call, some challenge, fascinates me more than the others. Nobody can predict what will now fascinate or repel me, not even me. I commit myself to this one, and off I go until I become deadened once again by a new set of habits. It has just occurred to me, after completing a year of sabbatical leave in England, that the process I just described is a sabbatical leave of one’s mind, of one’s personality structure. #RandolphHarris 5 of 22
The academic sabbatical is a removal from one’s usually surroundings, but I discovered it is easier to get out of one’s surroundings than to get them out of oneself so that new surroundings can invite one into encounter. Many of my American colleagues in England successfully shielded themselves from fascination with and involvement in the English experience, because of the panic they felt when invited to let go their usual preoccupations. They carried America with them. Indeed, the phenomenon of “culture shock,” long noted by anthropologists, is another dimension of the experience of leaving, not just one’s country, but one’s mind. One has to let the American in one die in order to become a participant in a new experience, to be reborn. Indeed, initiation ceremonies of all kinds recognize the, like fraternity initiation rites or Marine boot-camp training. The hazing, in whatever form, is a symbolic killing-off of a previous incarnation, to abet the reincarnation in the way of being. However, we are as afraid of dying as we are of leaving our minds. We equate habitual ways of valuing, construing, and acting with life itself. #RandolphHarris 6 of 22
Therefore, to stop these, even when they cease to yield satisfaction and meaning, is experienced as the end of life. It is equated with death. We are afraid to explore the possible experience beyond the tether. In the act of love, the climax is frequently experience as a “dying.” And after the successful act of love, a person feels oneself reborn, ready to respond anew to new dimensions of the World that suddenly, magically, have disclosed themselves to the person. However, many acts of love are climaxed not by ego-shattering orgasm; but only by localized, pleasurable twitching. Evidently one has to be ready to go out of one’s mind to make love the love that renews and revivifies. In the psychedelic-drug experience a person ingests a substance; and then, if one lets go, one commences a voyage into depth of experiencing of which one never would have dreamed oneself capable. However, taking one dose or consistent and frequent doses of any drug, especially one as potent as LSD or PCP, is by no means safe for all individuals and may put certain people at high risk of a psychotic episode they may never recover from or cause one to develop a drug addiction. People may believe the marijuana is a safe drug, but it is not. It is bad your lungs and could cause schizophrenia, or lead to the use of more dangerous and addictive drugs. #RandolphHarris 7 of 22
It may cause one to feel as if one is looking through a fogged-up window with only a tiny spot wiped clean. With religion, however, a rebirth is caused and the whole window is wiped clean; and the World stands forth. The World will disclose itself to one in different dimensions than it had disclosed itself hitherto, and one will select some aspects of it with which to involve oneself. Brainwashing is a corruption of the death and rebirth theme. There, the commissars, who know what they want a person to do and be, convince one that one (one’s old self) is dead. Under the regime of torture, a person may indeed enter the transcendental realm, but one re-enters a new “robot,” into new roles that have been ready-made for one. Doubtless, they seem as real and meaningful to the brainwashee as did one’s previous incarnation which had been made untenable and unlivable for one by one’s captors. In religious conversion, the common denominator seems to be the despair at continuing in the old way. The person enters one’s experience after leaving the World. If one’s background and present associates are appropriate, then, like the brainwashee, one enters a new way of being that is more or less ready-made for one. In good psychotherapy, the therapist lets one’s patient enter one’s experience deeply. #RandolphHarris 8 of 22
One remains present to help the patient cope with the terrors that arise as one lets go and experiences feelings, memories, and the like that have been long suppressed. With one’s interpretations, the therapist may assist the process of symbolic dying and facilitate the onset of the therapeutic despair, or the therapeutic psychosis which is part of every effective psychotherapy sequence. Then the person is reborn, and one faces the World with the capacity to respond to its invitations in new ways. In good teaching, after the fashion of Sokrates, the skilled and compassionate dialectician will challenge every assertion and belief of one’s pupil until the pupil feels one is going to go out of one’s mind. One may balk at this point. However, one may also flip into a realization of infinite possibility, and be thus turned on. This is my hypothesis restated: independent learning entails the experience of fascination. Fascination is a response to an invitation or challenge disclosed by the World. The invitation and challenge were always there, but the person could not experience them so long as one remained “hung up” or fixated in one’s usual roles, self-structure, and preoccupations. It is necessary that the usual attachments be suspended, and raw experiencing be turned on. #RandolphHarris 9 of 22
This disengagement from usual concerns is fostered by entrapment and despair (it can be fostered in dialogue); and it maybe experienced with dread, as a going out of one’s mind, or a dying, followed by rebirth or re-entry into an enlarged self-structure. In the reborn state, the person is now more open to one’s experience of the World. While one is in this “open” condition, a challenge appears, and the person responds. One may or may not be confirmed by others in one’s new being. I would propose that something like this happens repeatedly in those healthier personalities for whom independent learning is no problem. I would propose further that a variety of factors militate against this complete process of death and rebirth. And so, practically speaking, the renovation of the heart in the dimension of feeling is a matter of opening ourselves to and carefully cultivating love, joy, and peace: first by receiving them from God and from those already living in Him, and then as we grow, extending love, joy, and peace to others and everything around us in attitude, prayer, and action. Following our VIM (Vision, Integrity, and Mission) pattern, we must intend this and decide that it shall be in all we are and do. Of course our thought life, as already described, will be focused upon God. #RandolphHarris 10 of 22
Then through grace we can translate this intention to dwell in love, joy, and peace into the fine texture of daily existence. Our walk with Jesus and the Father will teach us and show us the details of the means required to bring it to pass. The conscious personal mind of the teacher may know nothing of the help that is radiating from one to one who silently calls on one from a long distance, yet the reality of that help remains. If the requisite condition exist, only then can this internal quickening and intense telepathy between the master and the disciple can occur. Even at the beginning of probation (spiritual probation) the seeker will often be given a hint of what awaits one later through the spiritual experience resulting out of the contact with the teacher. However, whether one gets it or not, from the moment of acceptance there will come to every student a sense of peace, and above all, an inner stability and certitude which will become one of the greatest assets in one’s life. Again and again the novice falls into mistakes about the telepathic communications which one feels one is receiving from the master. One regains them as such when they are nothing of the sort, or one interprets them in too material or too egoistic a manner. #RandolphHarris 11 of 22
The master sends a thought-current to one which is intended to lift one up to a diviner, hence more impersonal level. One, however, drags it down to a lower, more egocentric level. The telepathic impulses which one sends out to others during these times of prayer or meditation are most often received quite subconsciously. Only later is their effect felt or their origin suspected. One’s disciples may not be aware of any new reception of truth or beatitude at the time. However, increasing clarification or growing liberation may slowly change their course. It is also possible to take any revered person as a master and, in one’s own mind, make one the teacher. Even though no meeting on the physical level may occur, one’s attitude of attention and devotion in meditation will draw from one a reaction which will telepathically give whatever guidance is needed at the time. Just as the glance, the touch, or the spoken word may carry the ardour of mutual desire from to woman so may it also carry the initiatory blessing or the spiritual gift from master to disciple. Like the message of God to a praying spiritual person, the help which comes from such a teacher is above thinking but it translates itself into terms of thinking. In this process of translation, it is seized n by the ego and interfered with. #RandolphHarris 12 of 22
The guide may send one’s blessing telepathically only once but if it is powerful enough it may work itself out through a hundred different experiences extending over several years. Because one identifies oneself with the timeless spaceless soul, one’s blessing may express itself out through a hundred different experience extending over several years. Because one identifies oneself with the timeless spaceless soul, one’s blessing may express itself anywhere in space and anywhen in time. Moreover one may formulate it in a general way but it may take precise shapes unconsciously fashioned by and suited to the recipient’s own mentality and degree of development. Here is some of the work to be done. For many of us, just coming to honest terms with what our feelings really are will be a huge task. Paul says in Romans 12.9, “Let love be without hypocrisy.” That is, let it be genuine or sincere. To do only this will require serious effort, deep learning, and quantities of grace. Our ordinary life and our religious associations are so permeated with insincere expressions of love, often alongside of contempt and anger, that it is hard not to feel forced into hypocrisy in some situations. However, we can learn to avoid it, and we shall immediately begin to see what a huge difference that alone makes. #RandolphHarris 13 of 22
However, there is much more to do. Very few people are without deep negative feelings towards others who are or have been closely related to them. Wounds carried steadily through the years have weighed us down and prevented spiritual growth in love, joy, and peace. They may have seeped over into our identity. We would not know who we are without them. However, they can be healed or dismissed, if we are ready to give them up to God and receive the healing ministry of His Word and Spirit. This applies similarly to hopelessness over not achieving things long sought or long lost. In general, the task, once we have given ourselves to Christ, is to recognize the reality of our feelings and agree with the Lord to abandon those that are destructive and that lead us into doing or being what we know to be wrong. This one will then help us with. We may need to write out what those feelings are in a “letter to the Lord,” or perhaps confer about them with wise Christian friend who knows how to listen to us and to God at the same time. Perhaps individuals or our fellowship group can have a prayer ministry to us. Journaling about progress with feelings can also help. It can bring to light the ideas and images or past events on which destructive feelings are based. Those, too, will need to be replaced or revised. #RandolphHarris 14 of 22
Many such details may play a role as we progress toward predominance of love, joy, and peace in that dimension of our mind and our self that is our feelings. We can be very sure that this is our feelings. We can be very sure that this is God’s intent for us. Thus Paul prayed for his friends in Ephesus that they would be “rooted and grounded in love” and “know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God,” reports Ephesians 3.17-19. And we have seen the intent of Jesus: “That My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full,” reports John 15.11. Also his, “Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you; not as the World gives, do I give you. Let not your heart be troubled nor let it be fearful,” reports John 14.27. And here is Paul’s benediction to the Romans: “Now may the God of hope fill you with al joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit,” Romans 15.13. There are the same dispositions of things in being and truth. As good has the nature of what is desirable, so truth is related to knowledge. Now everything, in as far as it has being, so far is it knowable. The soul is in some manner all things through the senses and the intellect. And therefore, as good is convertible with being, so is the true. #RandolphHarris 15 of 22
However, as good adds to being the notion of desirable, so the truth adds relation to the intellect. “And it came to pass that there was a voice heard among all the inhabitants of the Earth, upon all the face of this land, crying: Wo, wo, wo unto this people; wo unto the inhabitants of the whole Earth except they shall repent; for the devil laugheth, and his Angels rejoice, because of the slain of the fair sons and daughters of my people; and it is because of their iniquity and abominations that they are fallen! Behold, that great city Zarahemla have I burned with fire, and the inhabitants thereof. And behold, that great city Moroni have I caused to be sunk in the depths of the sea, and the inhabitants thereof to be drowned. And behold, that great city Moronihah have I covered with Earth, and the inhabitants thereof, to hide their iniquities and their abominations from before my face, that the blood of the prophets and the saints shall not come any more unto me against them. And behold, the city of Gilgal have I caused to be sunk, and the inhabitants thereof to be buried up in the depths of the Earth; yea, and the city of Onihah and the inhabitants thereof, and the city of Mocum and the inhabitants thereof, and the city of Jerusalem and the inhabitants thereof. #RandolphHarris 16 of 22
“And water have I caused to come up in the stead thereof, to hide their wickedness and abomination from before my face, that the blood of the prophets and the saints shall not come up any more unto me against them. And behold, the city of Ganiandi, and the city of Gadiomnah, and the city of Gimgimno, all these have I caused to be sunk, and made hills and valleys in the places thereof; and the inhabitants thereof have I buried up in the depths of the Earth, to hide their wickedness and abominations from before my face, that the blood of the prophets and the saints should not come up any more unto me against them. And behold, that great city Jacobugath, which was inhabited by the people of the king Jacob, have I caused to be burned with fire because of their sins and their wickedness, which was above all the wickedness of the whole Earth, because of their secret murders and combinations; for it was they that did destroy the peace of my people and the government of the land; therefore I did cause them to be burned, to destroy them from before my face, that the blood of the prophets and the saints should not come up uno me any more against them. #RandolphHarris 17 of 22
“And behold, the city of Laman, and the city of Josh, and the city of Gad, and the city of Kishkumen, have I caused to be burned with fire, and the inhabitants thereof, because of their wickedness in casting out the prophets, and stoning those whom I did send to declare unto them concerning their wickedness and their abominations. And because they did cast them all out, that there were none righteous among them, I did send down fire and destroy them, that their wickedness and abomination might be hid from before my face, that the blood of the prophets and the saints whom I sent among them might not cry unto me from the ground against them. And many great destructions have I caused to come upon this land, and upon this people, because of their wickedness and their abominations. O all ye that are spared because ye were more righteous than they, will ye not now return unto me, and repent of your sins, and be converted, that I may heal you? Yea, verily I say unto you, if ye will come unto me ye shall have enteral life. Behold, mine arm of mercy is extended towards you, and whosoever will come, one will I receive; and blessed are those who come unto me. #RandolphHarris 18 of 22
“Behold, I am Jesus Christ the Son of God. I created the Heavens and the Earth, and all things that in the are. I was with the Father from the beginning. I am in the Father, and the Father in me; and in me hath the Father glorified His name. I came unto my own, and my own received me not. And the scriptures concerning my coming are fulfilled. And as many as have received me, to them have I given to become the sons of God; and even so will I to as many as shall believe on my name, for behold, by me redemption cometh, and in me is the law of Moses fulfilled. I am the light and the life of the World. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. And ye shall offer up unto me no more the shedding of blood; yea, your sacrifices and your burnt offerings shall be done away, for I will accept none of your sacrifices and your burnt offerings. And ye shall offer for a sacrifice unto me a broken heart and a contrite spirit. And whoso cometh unto me with a broken heart and a contrite spirit, one will I baptize with fire and with the Holy Ghost, even as the Lamanites, because of their faith in me at the time of their conversion, were baptized with fire and with the Holy Ghost, and they knew it not. Behold, I have come unto the World to bring redemption unto the World, to save the World from sin. #RandolphHarris 19 of 22
“Therefore, whoso repenteth and cometh unto me as a little child, one will I receive, for of such is the kingdom of God. Behold, for such I have laid down my life, and have taken it up again; therefore repent, and come unto me ye ends of the Earth, and be saved,” reports 3 Nephi 9.1-22. Some critics reject the idea of Grace and declare its impossibility in a World governed by strict cause and effect. The meaning of the word suggests something or anything of an immaterial moral or material nature. That is given to humans. Why should not the Master who has attained a higher strength wisdom and moral character than that which is common to the human race, give assistance freely out of one’s beneficent compassion for others struggling to climb the peak one has surmounted? One certainly cannot transmit one’s own inner life to another person in its fullness. However, one can receptive, sensitive, and in inward affinity with one. If this too is denied then let the objector explain why both the feeling of and the sense of the Master’s presence pervade the disciple’s existence for many years after one’s initiation, if not the rest of one’s life. The master, by process of telepathic transfer, enables the disciple to get a glimpse of what the realization of one’s own spiritual possibilities can lead to. #RandolphHarris 20 of 22
The pupil who has been allowed to sit in deep conversational prayer with God should be able to carry on with this impetus, even though it happened only once. It is really an initiation. During this intercession, the disciple may actually feel a stream of power flowing out to one from the master, but it is not essential that one do so. What the master reflects and radiates into the disciple’s deeper mind at this sitting, will necessarily incubate for a period of time which may be measurable in minutes, days, months, or even years. No one can predict how long it will be, for not only are the disciple’s readiness, capacity, and affinity determining factors but also one’s destiny. Nor can anyone predict whether the result will appear slowly, gently, little by little, or suddenly, with violent jolting force. The master is forever after present in the disciple’s heart, whether the disciple see one again or not. From the hour of this initiation the master will be much in one’s thoughts and the sense of affinity will be often in one’s heart. The experience which the candidate has at the initiatory intercession with the master is often (but not always) a herald and token of one’s possibilities of later attainment under this particular master. One must work harder than ever on one’s character and, by crushing one’s ego, sensitize one’s mind for the reception of the spiritual Grace that is to come during initiation. #RandolphHarris 21 of 22
It seems as if the Master has come into one’s consciousness and thereby changed its quality and area. If the change is necessarily for a brief while only, it is still a memorable one. Father of All, Father of All: as I go through the day, keep my eyes open wide. May I not miss beauty. May I not miss joy. May I not miss wonder. Please keep me away and aware of the World. Thou hast made known unto us, O Lord our God, Thy righteous judgments, and hast taught us to perform Thy statutes. Thou hast given us, O Lord our God, ordinances that are just and true, statutes and commandments that are good. Thou hast enriched our lives with joyous seasons and holy days and festivals to bring free will offerings, giving us as a sacred possession the Sabbath Day and Holy Days, and the joyous delight of the Three Festivals. Thou hast made distinction, O Lord our God, between the sacred and the secular, between light and darkness, between Israel and the heathens, between the seventh day of rest and the six days of work. Thou hast set a distinction between the higher sanctity of the Sabbath and the lesser sanctity of the Festival, and hast hallowed the seventh day above the six days of work. Thus hast Thou distinguished and sanctified Thy people Israel through Thy holiness. #RandolphHarris 22 of 22
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No Special Privileges are to be Given to those Exactly Six Feet Tall or Born on a Sunny Day!
Mind is like an ocean. The surface layers of the mind function actively while the deeper levels remain silent. We assume that persons in the original position, which is designed to be a fair and impartial point of view that is to be adopted in our reasoning about fundamental principles of justice, are rational. In choosing between principles each tries as best one can to advance one’s interests. However, we also have assumed that the parties do not know their conception of good. This means that while they know that they have some rational plan of life, they do not know the details of this plan, the particular ends and interests which it is calculated to promote. How, then, can they decide which conceptions of justice are most to their advantage? Or must we suppose that they are reduced to mere guessing? People assume that they would prefer more primary social goods rather than less. Primary social goods generally include rights, liberties, opportunities, income, and wealth. Of course, it may turn out, once the veil of ignorance is removed, that some of them for religious or other reasons may not, in fact, want more of these goods. The veil of ignorance is a method of determining the morality of issues. #RandolphHarris 1 of 25
The veil of ignorance asks a decision-maker to make a choice about social or moral issues and assumes that they have enough information to know the consequences of their possible decisions for everyone but would not know, or would not take into account, which person they are. The theory contents that not knowing one’s ultimate position in society would lead to the creation of a just system, as the decision-maker would not want to make decisions which benefit a certain group as the expense of another, because the decision-maker could theoretically end up in either group. However, from the standpoint of the original position, it is rational for the parties to suppose that they do want a larger share, since in any case they are not compelled to accept more if they do not wish to, nor does a person suffer from a greater liberty. Thus even though the parties are deprived of information about their particular ends, they have enough knowledge to rank the alternatives. They know that in general they must try to protect their liberties, widen their opportunities, and enlarge their means for promoting their aims whatever these are. Guided by the theory of the good and the general facts of moral psychology, their deliberations are no longer guesswork. #RandolphHarris 2 of 25
The primary goods are the all-purpose social means that are necessary to the exercise and development of the moral powers and to pursue a wide variety of conceptions of the good. Justice is a good-for the just person in a just society and life in a just society is good. Therefore, the theory of good states that any rational person should want, whatever one’s rational plan of life is. Rational people can make a rational decision in the ordinary sense. The concept of rationality invoked here, with the exception of one essential feature, is the stand one familiar in social theory. Thus in the usual way, a rational person is thought to have a coherent set of preferences between the options open to one. One ranks these options according to how well they further one’s purposes; one follows the plan which will satisfy more of one’s desires rather than less, and which has the greater chance of being successfully executed. The special assumption made here is that a rational individual does not suffer from envy. If only others have less as well, one is not ready to accept a loss for oneself. #RandolphHarris 3 of 25
One is not downcast by the knowledge or perception that others have a larger index of primary social goods. Or at least this is true as long as he differences between oneself and others do not exceed certain limits, and one does not believe that the existing inequalities are founded on injustice or are the result of letting chance work itself out for no compensating social purpose. The assumption that the parties are not moved by envy raises certain questions. Perhaps we should also assume that they are not liable to various other feelings such as shame and humiliation. Now a satisfactory account of justice will eventually have to deal with these matters, too, but for the present I shall leave these complications aside. Another objection to our procedure is that it is too unrealistic. Certainly humans are afflicted with these feelings. How can a conception of justice ignore this fact? I shall meet this problem by diving the argument for the principles of justice into two parts. In the first part, the principles are derived on the supposition that envy does not exist; while in the second, we consider whether the conception arrived at is feasible in view of the circumstances of human life. One reason for this procedure is that envy tends to make everyone worse off. #RandolphHarris 4 of 25
In this sense envy is collectively disadvantageous because of the tendency it has to make condition acrimonious. Presuming its absence amounts to supposing that in the choice of principles humans should think of themselves as having their own plan of life which is sufficient for itself. They have a secure sense of their own worthy so that they have no desire to abandon any of their aims provided others have less means to further theirs. I shall work out a conception of justice on this stipulation to see what happens. Later I shall try to show that when the principles adopted are put into practice, they lead to social arrangements in which envy and other destructive feelings are not likely to be strong. The conception of justice eliminated the conditions that give rise to disruptive attitudes. It is, therefore, inherently stable. The assumption of mutually disinterested rationality, then, comes to this: the persons in the original position try to acknowledge principles which advance their system of ends as far as possible. They do this by attempting to win for themselves the highest index of primary social goods, since this enables them to promote their conception of the good most effectively whatever it turns out to be. #RandolphHarris 5 of 25
The parties do not seek to confer benefits or to impose injuries on one another; they are not moved by affection or rancor. Nor do they try to gain relative to each other; they are not envious or vain. Put in terms of a game, we might say: they strive for as high an absolute score as possible. They do not wish a high or a low score for their opponents, nor do they seek to maximize or minimize the difference between their success and those of others. The idea of a game does not really apply, since the parties are not concerned to win but to get as many points as possible judged by their own system of ends. There is one further assumption to guarantee strict compliance. The parties are presumed to be capable of a sense of justice and this fact is public knowledge among them. This condition is to insure the integrity of the agreement made in the original position. It odes mean that in their deliberations the parties apply some particular conception of justice, for this would defeat the point of the motivation assumption. Rather, it means that the parties can rely on each other to understand and to act in accordance with whatever principles are finally agreed to. #RandolphHarris 6 of 25
Once principles are acknowledged the parties can depend on one another to conform to them. In reaching an agreement, then, they know that their undertaking is not in vain: their capacity for a sense of justice insures that the principles chosen will be respected. It is essential to observe, however, that this assumption still permits the consideration of human’s capacity to act on the various conception of justice. The general facts of human psychology and the principles of moral learning are relevant matters for the parties to examine. If a conception of justice is unlikely to generate it own support, or lacks stability, this fact must not be overlooked. For then a different conception of justice might be preferred. The assumption only says that the parties have a capacity for justice in a purely formal sense: taking everything relevant into account, including the general facts of moral psychology, the parties will adhere to the principles eventually chosen. They are rational in that they will not enter into agreements they know they cannot keep, or can do so only with great difficulty. Along with other considerations, they count the strains of commitment. #RandolphHarris 7 of 25
Thus in assessing conceptions of justice the persons in the original position are to assume that the one they adopt will be strictly complied with. The consequences of the agreement are to be worked out on this basis. With the preceding remarks about rationality and motivation of the parties the description of the original position is for the most part complete. We can summarize this description with the following list of elements of the initial situation and their variation. (The asterisks mark the interpretations that constitute the original position.) 1. The Nature of the Parities: *a. continuing persons (family heads, or genetic lines), b. single individuals, c. associations (states, churches, or other corporate bodies). 2. Subject of Justice: *a. basic structure of society, b. rules of corporate associations, c. law of nations. 3. Presentation of Alternatives: *a. shorter (or longer) list, b. general characterization of the possibilities. 4. Time of Entry: *a. any time (during age of reason) for living persons, b. all actual persons (those alive at some time) simultaneously, c. all possible persons simultaneously. 5. Circumstances of Justice: *a Hume’s conditions of moderate scarcity, b. the above plus further extremes. 6. Formal conditions on Principles: *a. generality, universality, publicity, ordering, and finality, b. the above less publicity, say. #RandolphHarris 8 of 25
7. Knowledge and Beliefs: *a. veil of ignorance, b. full information, c. partial knowledge. 8. Motivation of the Parties: *a. mutual disinterestedness (limited altruism), b. elements of social solidarity and good will, c. perfect altruism. 9. Rationality: *a. taking effective means to ends wit unified expectations and objective interpretation of probability, b. as above but without unified expectation and using the principle of insufficient reason. 10. Agreement Condition: *a. unanimity in perpetuity, b. majority acceptance, or whatever, for limited period. 11. Compliance Condition: *a. strict compliance, b. partial compliance in various degree. 12. No Agreement Point: *a. general egoism, b. the state of nature. We can turn now to the choice of principles. However, first I shall mention a few misunderstandings to be avoided. First of all, we must keep in mind that the parties in the original position are theoretically defined individuals. The grounds for their consent are set out by the description of the contractual situation and the preference for primacy goods. Thus to say that the principles of justice would be adopted is to say how these persons would decide being moved in ways our account describes. #RandolphHarris 9 of 25
Of course, when we try to conduct ourselves in moral argument as its constraints require, we will presumably find that our deliberations and judgments are influenced by our special inclinations and attitudes. Surely it will prove difficult to correct for our various preopensites and aversions in striving to adhere to the conditions of this idealized situation. However, none of the affects the contention that in the original position rational persons so characterized would make a certain decision. This proposition belongs to the theory of justice. It is another question how well human beings can assume this role in regulating their practical reasoning. Since the persons in the original position are assumed to take no interest in one another’s interests (although they may have a concern for third parties), it may be thought that justice as fairness is itself an egotistic theory. It is not, of course, one of the three forms of egoism mentioned earlier, but some may think, as Schopenhauer thought of Kant’s doctrine, that it is the egoistic nevertheless. Now this is a misconception. For the fact that in the original position the parties are characterized as not interested in one another’s concerns does not entail that persons in ordinary life who hold the principles that would be agreed to are similarly disinterested in one another. #RandolphHarris 10 of 25
Clearly the two principles of justice and the principles of obligation and natural duty require us to consider the rights and claims of others. And the sense of justice is a normally effective desire to comply with these restrictions. The motivation of the persons in the original position must not be confused wit the motivation of persons in everyday life who accept the principles that would be chosen and who have the corresponding sense of justice. In practical affairs an individual does have a knowledge of one’s situation and one can, if one wises, exploit contingencies to one’s advantage. Should one’s sense of justice move one to act on the principles of right that would be adopted in the original position, one’s desires and aims are surely not egoistic. One voluntarily takes on the limitations expressed by this interpretation of the moral point of view. This conclusion is supported by a further reflection. Once we consider the idea of a contract theory it is tempting to think that it will not yield the principles we want unless the parties are to some degree at least moved by benevolence, or an interest in one another’s interests. Perry, as I mentioned before, thinks of the right standards and decisions as those promoting the ends reached by reflective agreement under circumstances making for impartiality and good will. #RandolphHarris 11 of 25
Now the combination of mutual disinterest and the veil of ignorance achieves the same purpose as benevolence. For this combination of conditions forces each person in the original position to take the good of others into account. In justice as fairness, then, the effects of good will are brought about by several conditions working jointly. The feeling that this conception of justice is egoistic is an illusion fostered by looking at but one of the elements of the original position. Furthermore, this pair of assumptions has enormous advantages over that of benevolence plus knowledge. As I have noted, the latter is so complex that no definite theory at all can be worked out. Not only are the complications caused by so much information insurmountable, but the motivational assumption requires clarification. For example, what is the relative strength of benevolent desires? The combination of mutual disinterestedness plus the veil of ignorance has the merits of simplicity and clarity while at the same time insuring the effects of what are at first sight morally more attractive assumptions. #RandolphHarris 12 of 25
And if it is asked why one should not postulate benevolence with the veil of ignorance, the answer is that there is no need for so strong a condition. Moreover, I would defeat the purpose of grounding the theory of justice on weak stipulation, as well as being incongruous with the circumstances of justice. Finally, if the parties are conceived as themselves making proposals, they have n incentive to suggest pointless or arbitrary principles. For example, none would urge that special privileges be given to those exactly six feet talk or born on a sunny day. Nor would any one put forward the principle that basic rights should depend on the colour of one’s skin or the texture of one’s hair. No one can tell whether such principles would be to one’s advantage. Furthermore, each such principle is a limitation of one’s liberty of action, and such restrictions are not to be accepted without a reason. Certainly we might imagine peculiar circumstances in which these characteristics are relevant. Those born on a sunny day might be blessed with a happy temperament, and for some position of authority this might be a qualifying attribute. However, such distinctions would never be proposed in first principles, for these must have some rational connection with the advancement of human interests broadly defined. #RandolphHarris 13 of 25
The rationality of the parities and their situation in the original position guarantees that ethical principles and conceptions of justice have this general content. Inevitably, then, racial and gender discrimination presupposes that some hold a favoured place in the social system which they are willing to exploit to their advantage. From the standpoint of persons similarly situated in an initial situation which is fair, the principles of explicit racist doctrines are not only unjust. They are irrational. For this reason we could say that they are not moral conceptions at all, but simply means of suppression. They have no place on a reasonable list of traditional conceptions of justice. Of course, this contention is not all a matter of definition. It is rather a consequence of the conditions characterizing the original position, especially the condition of the rationality of the parities and the veil of ignorance. That conceptions of right have a certain content and exclude arbitrary and pointless principles is, therefore, an inference from the theory. The way of discipleship means that there is to be constant endeavour to live in the master’s mental atmosphere. Of course this can be done very feebly and only occasionally at first. Success depends not only on the pressure of perseverance but also on the sensitivity to thought-transference. #RandolphHarris 14 of 25
The aspirant who comes into the presence of someone who functions on a high moral and spiritual or philosophical level—and feels the attraction, charm, spell, influence, or force of one’s personality—can, after a sufficient time or association, be stimulated in development quite markedly. It is the case not only of benefiting by the other human’s words and copying one’s example, but also of directly experiencing the telepathic working of mind upon mind. If they believe in the genuineness and reality of telepathy—as they must if they believe philosophy at all—then they must accept our declaration that inner communion renders unnecessary the outer communion, that the sense of inner presence of the guide renders unnecessary one’s letters, visits, and other external signs. We know hat the mind can both project and receive thoughts. Telepathy becomes more and more a scientifically recognized fact. Where affinity harmony and preparation exist, the spiritual guide can project calming, uplifting, and spiritualizing mental waves to the spiritual aspirant. The silent wordless and unprepared hypnosis of a subject is factual pointer to the understanding of the silent wordless and telepathic influence of a disciple by one’s guide. #RandolphHarris 15 of 25
As the power of suggestion becomes dynamic in the hypnotist, so its higher octave, the power of grace, becomes dynamic in the spiritual guide. The mental waves can be transmitted from master to disciple, that spiritual peace can be reflected from the mind of one to the mind of the other, is not merely a new theory but really an old practice. It has been known and done in the Old World for thousands of years. The master’s work is carried on by word-of-mouth, by written statement, and by personal example. However, it cannot end with these methods, for they are all external ones. So it is continued by telepathic impulses, by inspirational impact, and by mental osmosis. These are internal ones. Such communication between the teacher and student might be called “Telementation.” Now I no longer believe that there are dimensions of personality that exist “in-themselves.” Id, ego, super-ego; self-concept, self-ideal, public selves; traits; derives and needs—these are the terms in which we have long thought of and described “personality”: “This individual is highly authoritarian or egalitarian; one has a strong ego or a weak one; one’s Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI is the most widely used and researched clinical assessment tool used by mental health professionals to help diagnose mental health disorders) scores are thus and such, et cetera.” #RandolphHaris 16 of 25
This way of conceptualizing a person, whether as a whole or just some part of one, is no longer relevant or valid for me. After having tried out psychoanalytic, trait-theory, self-theory, and other kinds of theoretical models of humans, I have opted for a model that is no model or is a meta-model. It is one implicit in the philosophical tradition of existential phenomenology. According to this perspective, humans are the being that in one’s being, one being is in question. One’s being is inextricably linked with the World one experiences as real. Other people are part of this World. The being one discloses, shows to me, when I am in one mode of my being—impersonality, formality, and distant, reserved, playing the role of hard-nosed scientist—is different from the being one will show me when I am with one in the mode of invitational dialogue. One’s experience of one’s being and the being that one disclosed will differ with the context. One’s being-for-me will differ from one’s-being-for-oneself, one’s being-for-one’s bird, one’s teacher, one’s mother, the experimenter who studies one, and the guru whose help one may seek to transcend one’s personality traits or structure. There is a problem here: to dimensionalize and discover hierarchy here, a hierarchy of being. I suspect it is measurable objectively and subjectively in terms of “degrees of freedom.” #RandolphHarr is 17 of 25
That is, a person may experience one’s being-for-one’s-bird as a freer, more authentic and expressive being than one’s being-for-one’s boss, or one’s spouse. A person chooses all modes and manifestations of one’s being. One cannot choose the initial impact on one’s experiential field of a shout, a blow, a promise, a sunset, a caress—all these things just affect one. However, one can effect various actions upon one’s experience once it has happened. One can blot it out, reconstrue it, project it, distort it, try to preserve it, or let it flow. One’s personality-for-others and one’s personality-for-oneself can embody a resolve to confine one’s experience and action to the limits of a procrustean mold. One can regard one’s experience as being without value and importance or as rich in value. If so, one is impersonating a robot; and one may experience oneself as such. A person can choose what of one’s experience one will disclose in words our behaviour (behaviour is meaningful disclosure too) to whoever is nearby. Indeed, we have begun to explore what one chooses to disclose to others, in words, behavior, or even in physiological messages; under what conditions; and to which others. #RandolphHarris 18 of 25
In light of this research, I now suspect and challenge the validity (or at least generalizability) of all published psychology, including the psychology of human learning and of human personality. I suspect their validity, because the original data (which after all are disclosures) may have been gathered under conditions in which the person being studied neither knew nor trusted the experimenter to whom one showed one’s learning or traits. The experimenter does not know what experience of the subjects is embodied in the subjects’ behaviour. What the psychological scientist calls “data” is actually one mode in which the subjects disclose part of their being. There is a growing body of empirical data now to confirm the assertion that a person’s being for psychologist A may differ from one’s being for psychologist B. Perhaps we should subtitle each report of research: “S’s disclosure of learning, of traits, et cetera, for Dr. So-and-So.” In what follows, we shall actually be talking more about interpersonal conditions of independent learning, then about personality factors. The capacity to “go out of one’s mind” (to transcend one’s personality) seems to be one of the necessary conditions for independent learning, for learning-for-oneself. #RandolphHarris 19 of 25
And so we are interested in who is able to invite a person out of one’s mind: who are the “psychedelic people,” and who is willing to accept the invitation? There may be a stable trait that could be isolated, that we might call “transcendence-readiness,” or “readiness to leave one’s personality.” Perhaps it persists in people, beyond childhood, through failures on the part of the commissars to get the child fully socialized. This is referred to as resistance to enculturation as one of the general traits of self-actualizing subjects, in whom peak experiences are not a rare occurrence. The peak experience, of course, entails a leaving of one’s mind, one’s usual personality. “Now behold, I will show unto you that they did not establish a king over the land; but in this same year, yea, the thirtieth year, they did destroy upon the judgment-seat, yea, did murder the chief judge of the land. And the people were divided one against another; and they did separate one from another into tribes, every human according to one’s family and one’s kindred and friends; and thus they did destroy the government of the land. And every tribe did appoint a chief or a leader over them; and thus they became tribes and leaders of tribes. Now behold, there was no man among them save he had much family and many kindreds and friends; therefore their tribes became exceedingly great. #RandolphHarris 20 of 25
“Now all this was done, and there were no wars as yet among them; and all this iniquity had come upon the people because they did yield themselves unto the power of Satan. And the regulations of the government were destroyed, because of the secret combination of friends and kindreds of those who murdered the prophets. Ans they did cause a great contention in the land, insomuch that the more righteous part of the people had nearly become wicked; yea, there were but a few righteous humans among them. And thus six years had not passed away since the more part of the people had turned from their righteousness, like the dog to his vomit, or like the sow to her wallowing in the mire. Now this secret combination, which had brought so great iniquity upon the people, did gather themselves together, and did place at their head a man whom they did call Jacob; and they did call him their king; therefore he became a king over this wicked band; and he was one of the chiefest who has given his voice against the prophets who testified of Jesus. And it came to pass that they were not so strong in number as the tribes of the people, who were untied together save it were their leaders did establish their laws, every one according to one’s tribe. #RandolphHarris 21 of 25
“Nevertheless they were enemies; notwithstanding they were not a righteous people, yet they were united in the hated of those who had entered into a covenant to destroy the government. Therefore, Jacob seeing that their enemies were re numerous than they, he being the kind of the band, therefore he commanded his people that they should take their light into the northernmost part of the land, and there build up unto themselves a kingdom, until they were joined by dissenters, (for he flattered them that there would be many dissenters) and they become sufficiently strong to content with the tribes of the people’ and they did so. And so speedy was their march that it could not be impeded until they have gone forth out of the reach of the people. And thus ended the thirtieth year; and thus were the affairs of the people Nephi. And it came to pass in the thirty and first year that there were divided into tribes, every human according to one’s family, kindred and friends; nevertheless they had come to an agreement that they would not go to war one with another; but they were not untied as to their laws, and their manner of government, for they were established according to the minds of those who were their chiefs and their leaders. #RandolphHarris 22 of 25
“However, they did establish very strict laws that one tribe should not trespass against another, insomuch that in some degree they had peace in the land; nevertheless, their hearts were turned from the Lord their God, and they did stone the prophets and did cast them out from among them. And it came to pass that Nephi—having been visited by Angels and also the voice of the Lord, therefore having seen Angels, and being eye-witness, and having had power given unto him that he might know concerning the ministry of Christ, and also being eye-witness to their quick return from righteousness unto their wickedness and abominations; therefore, being grieved from the hardness of their hearts and the blindness of their minds—went forth among them in that same year, and began to testify, boldly, repentance, and remission of sins through faith on the Lord Jesus Christ. And he did minister many things unto them; and all of them cannot be written, and a part of them would not suffice, therefore they are not written in this book. And Nephi did minister with power and with great authority. And it came to pass that they were angry with him, even because he had great power than they, for it were not possible that they could disbelieve his words, for so great was his faith on the Lord Jesus Christ that Angels did minister unto him daily. #RandolphHarris 23 of 25
“And in the name of Jesus did he cast out devils and unclean spirits; and even his brother did he raise from the dead, after he had been stoned and suffered death by the people. And the people saw it, and did witness of it, and were angry with him because of his power; and he did also do many more miracles, in the sight of the people, in the name of Jesus. And it came to pass that the thirty and first year did pass away, and there were but a few who were converted unto the Lord; but as many as were converted did truly signify unto the people that they had been visited by the power and Spirit of God, which was in Jesus Christ, in whom they believed. And as many as had devils cast out from them, and were healed of their sickness and their infirmities, did truly manifest unto the people that they had been wrought upon by the Spirit of God, and had been healed; and they did show forth signs also and did do some miracles among the people. Thus passed away the thirty and second year also. And Nephi did cry unto the people in the commencement of the thirty and third year; and he did preach unto them repentance and remission of sins. Now I would have you to remember also, that there were none who were brought unto repentance were not baptized with water. #RandolphHarris 24 of 25
“Therefore, there were ordained of Nephi, men unto this ministry that all such as should come unto them should be baptized with water, and this as a witness and a testimony before God, and unto the people, that they had repented and received a remission of their sins. And there were many in the commencement of this year that were baptized unto repentance; and thus the more part of the year did pass away,” reports 3 Nephi 7.1-26. Hail to You, God, as you rise the Sun in the East, scattering before You the terrors of the night as a shark among fish. No mere shark you are, though: a young Divine Being, roaring through the sky, blazing eagerly int the tasks of the day. Enshrine me, young Lord; suit me for the task ahead. O Lord, open Thou my lips and my mouth shall declare Thy praise. Praised art Thou, O Lord our God and Gd of our fathers, God of Abraham, God of Isaac, and God of Jacob, mighty, revered and exalted God. Thou bestowest lovingkindness and possesses all things. Mindful of the patriarchs’ love for Thee, Thou wilt in Thy love bring a redeemer to their children’s children for the sake of Thy name. O King, Thou Helper, Redeemer and Shield, be Thou praised, O Lord, Shield of Abraham. Thou, O Lord, art mighty forever. Thou callest the dead to immortal life for Thou art mighty in deliverance. #RandolphHarris 25 of 25
Cresleigh Homes
You do not need to glance at that yin-yang painting to know that this #BrightonStation Residence 2 features harmonious, feel-good designs. 😍
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Charming style and well-designed, contemporary touches, with some traditional appeal, all beautifully illuminated by large window displays. The gourmet, well-equipped kitchen features a center island with breakfast bar for casual dining, ample counter and cabinet space, and a convenient butler’s pantry, and spacious walk-in pantry.
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Uneasy Lies the Head that Wears a Crown for He Hath Eaten Me Out of House and Home!
The rules seem to be these: if you have written a successful novel, everyone invites you to write short stories. If you have written some good short stories, everyone wants you to write a novel. However, nobody wants anything until you have already proved yourself by being published somewhere else. Western civilization is for the first time in its history in danger of dying. The reason is spiritual. It is losing its life, its soul; that soul is the Christian faith. If the means used to achieve it ultimately contribute to the marginalization of the church and her message, the Devil will allow short-term success in evangelism and church growth. By eschewing the role of reason in evangelism, and substituting in its place an overemphasis on a simple gospel appeal directed at felt needs, short-term gains are to be expected in a culture of empty selves. However, who can deny that while our numbers have grown, our impact has not been proportionate to our numbers? There is too much at stake for this situation to continue. What is needed is a rethinking of the very nature of evangelism, more specifically, of the role of reasoning and argument in the way we do evangelism. First Peter 3.15 commands us to be ready to give a reasoned defense to someone who asks us for a credible reason why we believe what we do. #RandolphHarris 1 of 23
Jude 1.3 admonished us to “contend earnestly” for the faith. “Contend earnestly” carries with it the idea of engaging in a contest, a struggle, a conflict, or a debate by the pious in the heroic struggle for religious truth, justice, and virtue. The term clearly includes the idea of an intellectual struggle, an idea also expressed by Paul when he said spiritual warfare involves “destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ,” reports 2 Corinthians 10.5. Spiritual warfare is a struggle with persons, demonic and human, and the primary way persons influence other persons is through the ideas they get other to accept. Thus, intellectual tools and reasoning are an important part, though not the whole of spiritual warfare. The other primary components are spiritual preparedness, discernment, courage, and wisdom. We see examples of apologetics everywhere in the Scriptures. In Acts, Paul argued, reasoned, presented evidence, and tried rationally to persuade others to become Christians. “People, why are you doing this? We too are only human, human like you. We are brining you good news, telling you to turn from these worthless things to the living God, who made Heaven and Earth and sea and everything in them. In the past, he let all nations go their own way. #RandolphHarris 2 of 23
“Yet, he has not left himself without testimony: He has shown kindness by giving you rain from Heaven and crops in their seasons; he provides you with plenty of food and fills your hearts with joy,” reports Acts 14.15-17. “As his custom was, Paul went into the synagogue, and on three Sabbath days he reasoned with them from the Scriptures, explaining and proving that the Christ had to suffer and rise from the dead. ‘This Jesus I am proclaiming to you is the Christ,’ he said. Some of the Jews were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas, as did a large number of God-fearing Greeks and not a few prominent women,” reports Acts 17.2-4. “They replied, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved—you and your household,” reports Acts 16.31. “Every Sabbath he reasoned in the synagogue, trying to persuade the Jews and Greeks,” reports Acts 18.4. “Paul entered the synagogue and spoke boldly there for three months, arguing persuasively about the kingdom of God. However, some of them became obstinate; they refused to believe and publicly maligned the Way. So Paul left them. He took the disciples with him and has discussions daily in the lecture hall of Tyrannus. This went on for two years, so that all the Jews and Greeks who lived in the province of Asia heard the word of the Lord. God did extraordinary miracles through Paul,” reports Acts 19.8-11. #RandolphHarris 3 of 23
Paul brought to center stage the truth and reasonableness of the gospel, not the fact that it addresses felt needs. Though both are important, there is a clear Pauline emphasis placed on the former. Jesus Christ Himself regularly engaged in logical debate and rational augment with false, destructive ideologies in His culture, and on several occasions He told people to believe in Him, not simply on the basis of His words, but because of the evidence of His miracles. In this way, Jesus and Paul were continuing a style of persuasion peppered throughout the Old Testament prophets. Regularly, the prophets appealed to evidence to justify belief in the Biblical God or in the divine authority of their inspired message: fulfilled prophecy, the historical fact of miracle, the inadequacy of finite pagan deities to be a cause of such a large, well-ordered Universe compared to God of the Bible, and so forth. They did not say, “God said it, that settles it, you should believe it!” They provided a rational defense for their claims. It is sometimes said that Genesis does not try to “prove” the existence of God, it merely assumes it. However, this is inaccurate. True, Genesis does not argue against atheism because atheism was not a major ideology among the pagan nations surrounding Moses and Israel. #RandolphHarris 4 of 23
However, those nations did believe in fickle, finite, immoral deities. In fact, a widespread pagan belief was the idea that each spring the gods copulated, their seed fell to the ground, and that was why crops sprouted and grew each year. Based on that belief, yearly pagan rituals included frenzied orgies to induce the gods to copulate and insure a new season of crops. Genesis takes this view to task and presents a testable claim: The God of Israel delegated to living things the intrinsic power to reproduce after their own kinds, an odd and foreign idea to the nations of the ancient Mideast. However, this claim carried with it a test. If the pagans ceased their orgies, then no crops would grow if their view were correct and the gods needed inducement to copulate. However, if the biblical view were correct, crops would continue to arise. The secret to the peace of God, as great apprentices of Jesus have long known, being abandoned to God, the person who is heartily abandoned to God knows that all shall be well because God is in charge of one’s life. My peace is the greatness of God. Because He, who not only loves me but is Love, is so great, I live beyond harm in His hands; and there is nothing that can happen to me that will not turn out to my good. Nothing. That is what Romans 8.28 really means. #RandolphHarris 5 of 23
Because of this, “Thu wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee,” the ancient texts read in Isaiah 26.3. It makes supreme sense, therefore, that I should accept Paul’s instruction to “be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God which surpasses all comprehension, shall guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus,” reports Philippians 4.6-7. The greatness and love of Gd forms my peace, and at the same time, my love and joy. Job had many worrisome questions in the midst of his troubled life. However, when he beheld God, they simply did not matter and no longer seemed to need answering. He did not raise a single one of the questions he earlier had wanted to press upon God. “I know that you can do all things; no plans of your can be thwarted. You asked, ‘Who is this that obscures my counsel without knowledge?’ Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know. You said, ‘Listen now, and I will speak; I will question you, and you shall answer me.’ My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you. Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes,” reports Job 42.2-6. Job was not bullied into silence by God coming to him, but really saw the all-sufficiency of God to his life and his soul. And this brought love, joy, and peace to him at one stoke. #RandolphHarris 6 of 23
The original position is a central feature of John Rawl’s social contract account of justice. The original position is designed to be a fair and impartial point of view that is to be adopted in our reasoning about fundamental principles of justice. In taking up this point of view, we are to imagine ourselves in the position of free and equal persons who jointly agree upon and commit themselves to principles of social and political justice. The main distinguishing feature of the original position is “the veil of ignorance”: to insure impartiality of judgment, the parties are deprived of all knowledge of their personal characteristics and social and historical circumstances. They do know of certain fundamental interests they all have, plus general fact about psychology, economics, biology, and others social and natural sciences. The parties in the original position are presented with a list of the main conceptions of justice drawn from the tradition of social and political philosophy, and are assigned the task of choosing from among these alternatives the best conception of justice that best advances their interests in establishing conditions that enable them to effectively pursue their final ends and fundamental interests. #RandolphHarris 7 of 23
The only particular facts which the parities know is that their society is subject to the circumstances of justice and whatever this implies. It is taken for granted, however, that they know the general facts about human society. They understand political affairs and the principles of economic theory; they know the basis of social organization and the laws of human psychology. Indeed, the parties are presumed to know whatever general facts affect the choice of the principles of justice. There are no limitations on general information, that is, on general laws and theories, since conception of justice must be adjusted to the characteristics of the system of social cooperation which they are to regulate, and there is no reason to rule out these facts. Given the principles of moral learning, humans develop a desire to act in accordance with its principles. In this case a conception of justice is stable. The veil of ignorance insures not only that the information available is relevant, but that it is at all times the same. We can, to make the circumstances more vivid, imagine that the parties are required to communicate with each other through a referee as intermediary, and that one is to announce which alternatives have been suggested and the reasons offered in their support. #RandolphHarris 8 of 23
One forbids the attempt to form coalitions, and one informs the parties when they have come to an understanding. However, such a referee is actually superfluous, assuming that the deliberations of the parties must be similar. Justice between generations is resolved by altering the motivation assumptions. However, with this adjustment no one is able to formulate principles especially designed to advance one’s own cause. Whatever one’s temporal position, each is forced to choose for everyone. The right course of action is characterized as that which best advanced social aims as these would be formulated by reflective agreement given that the parties have full knowledge of the circumstances and are moved by a benevolent concern for one another’s interest. No effort s made, however, to specify in any precise way the possible outcomes of this sort of agreement. I do not wish here to criticize others; rather, I want to explain the necessity for what may seem at times like so many irrelevant details. If the original position is to yield agreements that are just, the parties must be fairly situated and treated equally as moral persons. The arbitrariness of the World must be corrected by adjusting the circumstances of the initial contractual situation. #RandolphHarris 9 of 23
A conception of justice based on unanimity in these circumstances would indeed be weak and trivial. However, once knowledge is excluded, the requirement of unanimity is not out of place and the fact that it can be satisfied is of great importance. It enables us to say of the preferred conception of justice that it represents a genuine reconciliation of interests. We created the problem of independent learning by the way we taught and trained people to the social roles awaiting them in social structure that resists change. Pedagogues, parents, people in general, invalidated the experience of learners and shut down their capacity to experience wonder and fascination. We created the problem, and it haunts us because, not because “behavioral scientists have expanded our conceptions of human potential by recasting the image of human beings; no, the problem haunts us because we find ourselves at the end of our tether. We are running in circles at its limit. The tether is firmly fixed to a peculiar debasement of once magnificent image—the American Way of Life. Originally revolutionary and dynamic in conception, the American Way of Life is now a design for living that more and more Americans cannot live, without the assistance of tranquilizers and the threats of the ubiquitous commissars. #RandolphHarris 10 of 23
Yet, all the time, we advertise this way of life abroad, and try to sell it as we sell bathroom hygiene paper and Buicks, with hidden persuaders. What is independent learning? No authoritative definitions are available. However, what an observer might call independent learning—learning for oneself—the learning experiences as fascinations with some aspect of the Word, envisioned in the mode of possibility, that is in imagination. Independent learning is the embodiment and implementation of imaginative fascination. Some aspect of the World discloses itself to a person. One flips from the experiential mode of perception to an imaginative consciousness; and one experiences oneself as beckoned, challenged, invited, fascinated, by the possibility. The transmutation of this possibility into an actuality then becomes the dominant project of one’s life. One lives it, and one lives for it. The person in who fascination has been turned on, or awakened, suffers a divine discontent, a magnificent obsession. If others live the individual alone, one will wallow in one’s obsession. One will forget to eat, sleep, play, socialize, or do anything else until one has brough one’s image of possibility into actuality, or lies nurturing the wounds from one’s fumbling, awaiting recovery to renew the onslaught. Then, one may again show an interest in other kinds doing. #RandolphHarris 11 of 23
However, in the midst of one’s learning rampage, one is far from being well-rounded, socially adjusted; in fact one departs hugely from current images of how people should be. Indeed, the turned-on learner needs to be protected from other people, from self-consciousness, from the need to conform to images, from distractions, and from serious self-destructions as one contemplates and absorbs oneself in the encounter with one’s fetish—they mystery or the missing skill. When one is thus turned on, no badly-written text, no stuttering teacher can be an obstacle or a deterrent, so long as they embody some of the knowledge that has become the life quest just then. “This book or that teacher has something I want just now. I will get it out of them somehow!” Independent learning arises when our present existence has reached an impasse, when our experience has gone stale. The project of “staying the same” has lost its meaning, and so the person seeks “a new interest in life.” If one finds one, and one lets oneself be addressed by it, one become possessed of the divine madness. The burden and dilemma that were one’s existence have now been thrown off. One’s existence is now the quest. One is turned on. One will not be diverted. One may appear ruthless as one pursues one’s quest. One cannot be bored by it though one may bore others by one’s talk of it. #RandolphHarris 12 of 23
This state of being, of being involved, of experiencing new possibilities of meaning of one’s life, of being engaged in their fulfillment—this is what I am construing as independent learning. It entails transcending the past—past involvements and interests, social pressure; in short, it is a matter of detachment and liberation from the momentum and inertia of previous ways of being, behaving, and experiencing. The fascinated questing of which I speak can be evoked in a number of ways. It may occur of itself in someone who is desperate enough, whose life has been enlightened. It seems to occur spontaneously in young children before they have been socialized. More commonly, when it does occur, it happens through a relationship between and entrapped person and some other who functions as one’s guru and exemplar—someone who offers a pseudo psychedelic encounter. Indeed, the guru may assist the process of liberation from previous attachments by helping the person experience more keenly the degree to which one feels trapped. The capacity to become fascinated may be impossible until some level of disengagement from usual concerns, ways, and commitments has been reached. Or, the one who is to be the guru may function as a tempter—one’s way of life may excite envy and admiration. #RandolphHarris 13 of 23
One’s serenity or one’s enthusiasm may evoke curiosity. One may appear to be having more fun, living more fully, experiencing more. Or one may disclose images of possibility that attract the attention of the bored, unfulfilled seeker, who them becomes fascinated and subsequently experiences one’s previous involvements as obstacles to one’s pursuit of new meaning and experience. Whatever the occasion for being thus turned on, it is this fascinated engagement with an image of possibility that I define as independent learning. We might call it awakening or inspiration, but it is always intentional—that is, it is always related to something in the World; it is always awakening to something, being inspirited by and for something, fascinated with something. And it is embodied; that is, the person lives and acts one’s experience of awakening. In principle, the turned-on state, which is experienced by the person as different from one’s usual, repetitive experience, should appear different to the other person. We thus have the possibility of a psychology, a physiology, even an epidemiology and sociology, of being turned on. #RandolphHarris 14 of 23
It is to part of this possibility, an exploration or relationships between personality factors and being turned on. Too many disciples commit the fault of being too demanding and too possessive in their attitude towards the teacher. In the end they become a burden, a liability, or even a nuisance to one. They ought to give one devotion, yes; they ought to think often of one for inspiration and guidance; but they ought not to turn themselves into emotional parasites who are unable to live on their own vitality at all. The eagerness to surrender every responsibility, every decision, every care to a spiritual guide—which is so prominent in the Old World—is only praiseworthy in some cases. In others, it is neurotic and infantile, an attempt to secure indulgent pity, protection, and gregarious support despite the fact that childhood has been physically outgrown. To take it as a sign of advancement, and to use it as an excuse to evade pressing work of self-reform and self-discipline, is deplorable. A calm trust in the human’s leadership is one thing, but a hysterical clinging devotion to one’s personality is another. So it is good for people to be independent learners. For one who turns oneself into a burden to one’s teacher by shrinking one’s own responsibilities and throwing them on one’s teacher, is being selfish as well as weak. #RandolphHarris 15 of 23
Whoever does not understand that the guide must lead one to where one will seek one’s own way, will go on endlessly looking for teachers, one after the other, or else become a spiritual hypochondriac, a semi-invalid needing the guru-doctor to dance constantly in attendance on one’s ego-centered symptoms. It may be that the effort to imitate one’s master will enable the disciple to excel oneself. If one is willing to accept the gift of Grace, which a true teacher is forever bearing, through your prior willingness to give one your faith and devotion, and to give it not because one want it or anything else for oneself but because one is a purified channel for God’s power, then you may expect to see the past wiped out as sins are forgiven and the future made brighter as new energies are born in you. “And now it came to pass that the people of the Nephites did all return to their own lands in the twenty and sixth year, every human, with one’s family, one’s flocks, and one’s herds, one’s horses, and one’s cattle, and all things whatsoever did belong unto them. And it came to pass that they had not eaten up all their provisions; therefore they did take with them all that they had not devoured, of all their grain of every kind, and their gold, and their sliver, and all their precious things, and they did return to their own lands and their possessions, both on the north and on the south, both on the land northward and on the land southward. #RandolphHarris 16 of 23
“And they granted unto those robbers who had entered into a covenant to keep the peace of the land, who were desirous to remain Lamanites, lands, according to their numbers, that they might have, with their labours, wherewith to subsist upon; and thus they did establish peace in all the land. And they began again to prosper and to wax great; and the twenty and sixth and seventh years passed away, and there was great order in the land; and they had formed their laws according to equity and justice. And now there was nothing in all the land to hinder the people from prospering continually, except they should fall into transgression. And now it was Gidigiddoni, and the judge, Lachoneus, and those who had been appointed leaders, who has established this great peace in the land. And it came to pass that there were many cities built anew, and there were many old cities repaired. And there were many highways cast up, and many roads made which led from city to city, and from land to land, and from place to place. And thus passes away the twenty and eight year, and the people had continual peace. #RandolphHarris 17 of 23
“However, it came to pass in the twenty and nineth year there began to be some disputings among the people’ and some were lifted up unto pride and boastings because of their exceedingly great riches, yea, even unto great persecutions; for there were many merchants in the land, and also many lawyers, and many officers. And the people began to be distinguished by ranks, according to their riches and their chances for learning; yea, some were ignorant because of their poverty, and others did receive great learning because of their riches. Some were lifted up in pride, and others were exceedingly humble; some did return railings for railing, while others would receive railing and persecution and all manner of afflictions, and would not turn and revile again, but were humble and penitent before God. And thus there became a great inequality in all the land, insomuch that the church began to be broken up; yea, insomuch that in the thirtieth year the church was broken up in all the land save it were among a few of the Lamanites who were converted unto the true faith; and they would not depart from it, for immovable, willing with all diligence to keep the commandments of the Lord. #RandolphHarris 18 of 23
“Now the cause of this iniquity of the people was this—Satan had great power, unto the stirring up of the people to do all manner of iniquity, and to the puffing them up with pride, tempting them to seek for power, and authority, and riches, and the vain things of the World. And thus Satan did lead away the hearts of the people to do all manner of iniquity; therefore they had enjoyed peace but a few years. And thus, in the commencement of the thirtieth year—the people having been delivered up for the space of a long time to be carried about by the temptations of the devil whithersoever he desired to carry them and to do whatsoever iniquity he desired they should—and thus in the commencement of this, the thirtieth year, they were in a state of awful wickedness. Now they did not sin ignorantly, for they knew the will of God concerning them, for it had been taught unto them; therefore they did willfully rebel against God. And now it was in the days of Lachoneus, the son of Lachoneus, for Lachoneus did fill the seat of his father and did govern the people that year. And there began to be humans inspired from Heaven and sent forth standing among the people in all the land, preaching and testifying boldly of the sins and iniquities of the people. #RandolphHarris 19 of 23
“And they were testifying unto them concerning the redemption which the Lord would make for his people, or in other words, the resurrection of Christ; and they did testify boldly of his death and sufferings. Now there were many of the people who were exceedingly angry because of those who testified of these things; and those wo were angry were chiefly the chief judges, and they who had been high priests and lawyers; yea, all those who were lawyers were angry with those who testified of these things. Now there was no lawyer nor judge nor high priest that could have power to condemn any one to death save their condemnation was signed by the governor of the land. Now there were many of those who testified of the things pertaining to Christ who testified boldly, who were taken and put to death secretly by the judges, that the knowledge of their death came not unto the governor of the land until after death. Now behold, this was contrast to the laws of the land, that any human should be put to death except they had a power from the governor of the land. #RandolphHarris 20 of 23
“Therefore a complaint came up unto the land of Zarahemla, to the governor of the land, against these judges who had condemned the prophets of the Lord unto death, not according to the law. Now it came to pass that those judges had many friends and kindreds; and the remainder, yea, even almost all the lawyers and the high priests, did gather themselves together, and unite with the kindreds of those judges who were to be tried according to the law. And they did enter into a covenant one with another, yea, even into that covenant which was given by them of old, which covenant was given and administered by the devil, to combine against all righteousness. Therefore they did combine against the people of the Lord, and enter int a covenant to destroy them, and to deliver those who were guilty of murder from the grasp of justice, which was about to be administered according to the law. And they did set at defiance the law and the rights of their country; and they did covenant one with another to destroy the governor, and to establish a king over the land, that the land should no more be at liberty but should be subject unto the kings,” reports 3 Nephi 6.1-30. Dear Lord in Heaven, you have retuned the Sun, as I knew you would, for this is your part in the ways of things. #RandolphHarris 21 of 23
God, you have your role, and you play it well. I ask that you please inspire me to do the same: to know the right thing to do and to do it with passion and joy and honour. Bless, we beseech Thee, O Lord, Thy whole Clergy, that they may handle Thy holy things with holiness, and be pleasing to Thee Whoa art our Priest for ever. O Lord, without Whom our labour is but lost, and with Whom Thy little ones go forth as the mighty; please be present to all works in Thy Church which are undertaken according to Thy will, (especially in Sacramento, California USA), and please grant to Thy labourers a pure intention, patient faith, sufficient success upon Earth, and the bliss of serving Thee in Heaven; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Lord Jesus Christ, our sympathizing Saviour, Who for humans didst bear that Agony and the Cross; please draw Thou near to Thy suffering servant, in their pain of body or trouble of mind (especially in Sacramento, California USA) please hallow all their crosses in this life, and crown them hereafter where all tears are wiped away; where with the Father we can sing praises. Merciful and faithful Most Priest, Who didst deign for us to be tempted of Satan; please make speed to assist Thy servants who are assaulted by manifold temptations; and as Thou knowest their several infirmities, let each one to find Thee mighty to save, Who livest, as a young God, a young warrior. #RandolphHarris 22 of 23
God, please rise into the sky as into a battle, dispelling the darkness that has covered the World, putting to flight the fears of the night. Have mercy, O compassionate Father, on all who are hardened through the deceitfulness of sin; vouchsafe them grace to come to themselves, the will and power to return to Thee, and the loving welcome of Thy forgiveness; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Almighty and everliving God, Who hast given us the Christian Faith of Christ for a light to our feet amid the darkness of this World; please have pity upon all who, by doubting or denying it, are gone astray from the path of safety; please bring home the Truth to their hearts, and grant them to receive it as little children; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord. God has given birth to you again; again you climb the sky, again you reach for your glory, again I stand here to praise you. The sacred path is fulfilled, things are as they should be. Jesus Christ, herald of the right way, I praise you! Amazing! Wonderful! Every morning, again and again You make life amazing! Wonderful! #RandolphHarris 23 of 23
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The Learner Has the Need and the Capacity to Assume Responsibility for One’s Own Continuing Learning!
The system has not failed—but some of us have failed the system. Do not become the problems instead of the solution to the problem. Recent insights from the behavioral sciences have expanded our conceptions of human potential through a re-casting of the image of the human—from passive, reactive recipient to an active, seeking, autonomous, and reflective being. What are the implications of this impelling new image for our concern with human the learner? Educators are giving increased attention to implementing in practice the recognition that the learner has both the capacity and the need to assume responsibility for one’s continuing learning. However, the real question is here is what do humans learn and for whom? Learning is not a task; it is a way to be in the World. Humans learn as they purse their goals and projects that have meaning for them. Humans are always learning something. Perhaps the key to the problem of independent learning lies in the phrase, “The learner has the need and the capacity to assume responsibility for one’s own continuing learning.” That is one phrase that will help wide unclasp the table of their thoughts. These same thoughts—people, the little World. #RandolphHarris 1 of 22
It may well be that those who train young people in the ways of their group (a most necessary task) have overshot the mark; they have trained youngster to believe that they cannot, dare not, learn anything without a trainer close at hand. The only safe and good learning is learning-for-the trainer. And the youngsters, being human, independently learned something meaningful to them; namely, that it is dangerous or futile to become interested in something, to learn for oneself. It is only safe to learn for the teacher’s or for society’s approval. One set of image-molders, the teachers, have been commissioned by social leaders to shape youngsters to the acquiescent mode. They implement this commission by invalidating a child’s experience of spontaneous curiosity and fascination with aspects of the World. They insist one learn only when and what one is taught. One must learn for others. The teachers and parents have robbed children of their autonomy—their capacity to experience amazement, wonder, and fascination—by invalidating it whenever it appears. Then, they look at their product and find it wanting; they produced a Golem, a humanoid, a “dependent learning.” Now we are asked to breathe life into it. #RandolphHarris 2 of 22
We are caught on the horns of a dilemma. Children must be shown the ways of their group; they must be taught and trained. However, if they are to experience their lives as meaningful, and if the society in which they live is to grow and change, they must also be able to transcend this training and learn for themselves. The question is, how is it possible to reconcile the contradiction between teaching children for society and letting them learn for themselves, such that children can serve their society without a loss of freedom and capacity to go beyond what they have been taught? This is the same problem, write large, that every serious teacher—of piano, of art, of math, or English, of Science, of History, of woodshop, of psychotherapy, or even of teaching—faces: how can one teach a pupil in the fundamental techniques of this art without producing a mere technician? In any of these arts, we wish the learner to commit oneself, to be willing to struggle for objectives beyond mastery of exercises and technique (learning experienced as “for-the-teacher”) and even beyond current goals. We hope one will week to make actual one’s own image (not one’s teacher’s image) of beautiful music, pictures, woodworks, healthy personalities, or independent learners. #RandolphHarris 3 of 22
If the teacher has been effective, one will have shown one’s pupil that techniques are no more than a beginner’s set of tools, to be used up to the point that an impasse is reached. Then, the trust scholar, the involved therapist, the committed teacher (committed to one’s own image of ultimate goals, not means), gropes and leaps into the unknown, exercising that courage that is not devoid of fear and trembling, to invent or discover new means to further one’s project of actualizing the image. If the old versions of the ultimate goals have lost meaning, the pupil will envision new embodiments of them. Your must play the teacher to yourself. One cannot tread the path for you: you must walk and work by your own effort. The mother cannot grow up on behalf of the child, no matter how greatly she loves it. The adept cannot do your growing-up for you. Nature’s laws must prevail. One has shown you the way; use your will to follow it. However, devote a little time each day to keeping open the channel of communication with your teacher and thus receive one’s impetus, one’s inspiration to help you. So although you must strive by your own use of free will, do not imagine that you need to strive unassisted. #RandolphHarris 4 of 22
Working along the line that the teacher found suitable for oneself, slavishly and artificially trying to produce a copy of one, will in the end not even produce that but a caricature instead. For only the teacher’s bodily acts will be imitated; one’s Spirit is invisible and therefore cannot be imitated. Why should anyone copy another’s artwork? Why should Whistler paint pictures in the same way that Gainsborough did? Whistler remained loyal to one’s own conceptions. Why then, going further, copy another’s lifestyle? We may honour a master’s inspirations but yet express our own in our individual way. It is true that followers have no right to burden the teacher with their personal problems, that they should learn bravely to shoulder their difficulties and not pass them on to one. Yet human nature is weak, the teacher kindly. What they may do without taxing one’s strength is to place the problem before one in prayer, thought, or meditation silently, and nor in letter or interview. If they will keep their distresses, troubles, or indecisions to themselves in this way, such reticence will not be to their loss. When an aspirant plagues a teacher too frequently or on too trivial matters, it is indeed a sign of neuroticism. Such conduct is quite suited to children but not to adults. #RandolphHarris 5 of 22
Every person must come to terms with who they are now. It reveals too egocentric a person, one who is unwilling to bring the stage of novice to an end because the dependence on another person is more comforting and much easier than endeavouring to settle one’s own little problems. One must learn to speak, move, and even experience the World in the given ways, those deemed right and sane where one lives. It is not easy. It takes a long time. The temptation to stary is strong. Commissars stand close, to insure each person conforms to one’s prescribed position and role. Once a human masters the rules of the social “games,” what then? One plays the games so long as they yield meaningful rewards and the rewards of meaning. Ultimately, the games become confining, boring, even strangling. The person may then wish to opt out, but one cannot—there re no other games to play. So one may become sick. Then, one is patched up by doctors who pronounce one healed, and they send one back into the game. If one seeks to transcend the given, for new realms of experience, one threatens the sleep of the unawakened. They condemn and invalidate one. So one gives up and becomes “normal,” or else seeks a richer experience in private, the while impersonating a typical person. #RandolphHarris 6 of 22
It should be made clear that dramatic and directive dominance are dramaturgical terms and that performers wo have positions of visible leadership are often merely figureheads, selected as a compromise, or as a way of neutralizing a potentially threatening position, or as a way of strategically concealing the power behind the front and hence the power behind the power behind the front. So also, whenever inexperienced or temporary incumbents are given formal authority over experienced subordinates, we often find that the formally empowered person is bribed with a part that has dramatic dominance while the subordinates tend to direct the show. Since we all participate on teams we must all carry within ourselves something of the sweet guilt of conspirators. And since each team is engaged in maintaining the stability of some definitions of the situation, concealing or playing down certain facts in order to do this, we can expect the performer to live out one’s conspiratorial career in some furtiveness. A basic problem for many performances, then, is that of information control; the audience must not acquire destructive information about the situation that is being defined for them. In other words, a term must be able to keep its secrets and have its secrets kept. #RandolphHarris 7 of 22
There are what are sometimes called “dark” secrets. These consist of facts about a team which it knows and conceals and which are incompatible with the image of self that the team attempts to maintain before its audience. Dark secrets are, of course, double secrets: one is the crucial fact that is hidden and another is the fact that crucial facts have not been openly admitted. There are also what might be called “strategic” secrets. These pertain to intentions and capacities of a team which it conceals from its audience in order to prevent them from adapting effectively to the state of affairs the team is planning to being about. Strategic secrets are the ones that businesses and armies employ in designing future actions against the opposition. So long as a team makes no pretense of being the sort of team that does not have strategic secrets, its strategic secrets need not be dark ones. Yet it is to be noted that even when the strategic secrets of a team are not dark ones, still the disclosure or discovery of such secrets disrupts the team’s performance, for suddenly and unexpectedly the team finds it useless and foolish to maintain the care, reticence, and studied ambiguity of action that was required prior to loss of its secrets. #RandolphHarris 8 of 22
It may be added that secrets that are merely strategic tend to be ones which the team eventually discloses, performance, when action based upon secret preparations is consummated, whereas an effort may be made to keep dark secrets secret forever. It may also be added that information is often held back not because of its known strategic importance but because it is felt that it may someday acquire such importance. Thirdly, there are what might be called “inside” secrets. These are ones whose possession marks an individual as being a member of a group and help the group feel separate and different from those individuals who are not in the know. Inside secrets give objective intellectual content to subjectively felt social distance. Almost all information in a social establishment has something of the exclusion function and may be seen as none of somebody’s business. Inside secrets may have little strategic importance and may not be very dark. When this is the case, such secrets may be discovered or accidentally disclosed without radically disrupting the team performance; the performance need only shift their secret delight to another matter. Of course, secret that are strategic and/or dark serve extremely well as inside secrets and we find, in fact, that the strategic and dark character of secrets is often exaggerated for this reason. #RandolphHarris 9 of 22
Interestingly enough, the leaders of a social group are sometimes faced with a dilemma regarding important strategic secrets. Those in the group who are not brought in on the secret will feel excluded and affronted when the secret finally comes to light; on the other hand, the greater the number of persons who are brought in on the secret, the greater the likelihood of intentional or unintentional disclosure. The knowledge that one team can have of another’s secrets provides us with two other types of secrets. First, there re what might be called “entrusted” secrets This is the kind which the possessor is obliged to keep because of one’s relation to the team to which the secret refers. If an individual who is entrusted with a secret is to be the person one claims one is, one must keep the secret, even thought it is not a secret about oneself. Thus, for example, when a lawyer discloses the improprieties of one’s clients, two quite different performances are threatened: the client’s show of innocence to the court, and the lawyer’s show of trustworthiness to one’s client. It may also be noted that a team’s strategic secrets, whether dark or not, are likely to be the entrusted secrets of the individual members of the team, for each member of the team is likely to present oneself to one’s teammates as someone who is loyal to them. #RandolphHarris 10 of 22
Since time immemorial, each society had secretly harbored “gurus.” These wise humans have been sought by sufferers, who may have been rich in goods but poor in spirit. The gurus have taught the seekers to let go their attachments in this World, the better to concentrate on spiritual purification. The intimated rewards have not been wealth, fame, or power; but rather enlightenment and liberation, an enriched, more meaningful experience of oneself and one’s World. The gurus have helped seekers attain liberation from entrapment in the culture. They have invited the experience and disclosure of individuality that had hitherto been concealed under the trappings of conformity to roles. The society that would not fall must locate and treasure its gurus, protect them, and not deny seekers access to them. The gurus and their ways are not for everyone. Gurus cannot be hired or bought; they can only be deserved! A society without gurus is stagnant, and will perish as did the dinosaurs, unable to change ways to cope with changing conditions. In the New World, I think we are experiencing an absence in our midst, an absence of gurus. We have myriad commissars, but no one to lead beyond their ways. #RandolphHarris 11 of 22
The commissars insure that everyone conforms to existing ways, to the image of humans that is current, that is synonymous with goodness and sanity. Commissars use bribery, guile, and threats of force to get people to follow their prescribed ways, the ways that keep the society and its existing power-structure intact. Who are the commissar? Most of our teacher are commissars. So are our parents. And law enforcement, judges, lawyers, congress, our psychiatrist and psychologist, and even our neighbours. Radio, TV, and the press function as commissars. All commissars collude with oner another to keep us wanting what we are supposed to want and doing what we are supposed to do. Conform, and be reward. However, we are discovering, we who have graduated from such institutes, that something is missing. The something was ourselves. Somewhere along the line, we have lost ourselves, our capacity to experience in new modes and qualities. If we are at all sensitive, we notice the absence and become concerned. We state to seek ourselves and our lost capacity for experiencing. I hope we find it. Our nation will sit stunned, the people having forgotten how to live for themselves, otherwise. #RandolphHarris 12 of 22
If we do not get in touch with reality, people will know only how to live for the system of things. An era will have ended. Then, it will be the turn of the Asiatics and Africans to follow the American Way, until they too reach the end of their tether. Finally, people of Marts will land on Earth and have their turn. When you lose yourself your own experiences and their meanings are being denied, and you are developing a self that is different from your real experience self, which may be becoming increasingly unknow to you. Because so many people accept other’s meanings as their own experience, they will come to distrust their own organismic experience. As one beings to distrust more and more of one’s own experience, one’s sense of self-worth will steadily decline until one has very little use for one’s own experience or one’s self. Of course things will be well for those you are trying to please. This pseudoself is just what they want. It is only within oneself, at some deep and unknown level, that there is a vague uneasiness. When a person denies awareness to all of one’s own experiencing—one will get to a pint where one no longer really has a self and is trying to be a self wanted by someone else. Next, rebellion happens. #RandolphHarris 13 of 22
One can only attribute this rebellion to the actualizing tendency that has been suppressed for so long but that finally asserts itself. However, often times, because one has distrusted one’s own experience for such a long period and because the self by which one is living is so sharply different from the experiences of one’s organism, one cannot reconstruct one’s true self without help. When there is such a great discrepancy, the need for help often exists. In contrast, however, when people have spent years and even decades trying to socially engineer you, and you do not adhere to their values, even though they do not know you, they will think you are acting weird because their sick and twisted and sadistic methods are not working on you. When people reclaim the value of their experience, they are the ones who decides what matters to them and how they want to live. The center of the valuing process, and the evidence is provided by one’s own sense. What is right for someone who is trying to indoctrinate and corrupt you, may not be what is right for you. One may have started off at a young age knowing the love of God and who one wants to be. Society may call a given experience bad, but when one trusts one’s own valuing of it, one will find that following the path to truth and the love of God is significant and worthwhile. #RandolphHarris 14 of 22
When denied experience comes close to awareness, anxiety always results because these previously unadmitted experiences will have meanings that will change the structure of the self by which one as been living. Any drastic change in the self-concept is always a threatening and frightening experience. One may be dimly aware of this threat even though one does not yet know what would emerge. When the denied experienced break through the dam, they turn out to be hurts and angers that one has been completely unaware of. It is impossible for people to realize how completely an experience can be shut out of awareness until it does break through into awareness. Every individual is able to shut out and deny those experiences that will endanger one’s self concept. When the self-concept is so sharply changed that parts of it are completely shattered, it is a very frightening experience, and it is accurate to feel like an alien has take over you. That is why the law allows for mental competence to be called into question when some people are accused of crimes, for they may have been manipulated since they were too young to think for themselves and unaware of what they are doing is wrong. #RandolphHarris 15 of 22
So, the system wants to give people who are victims of crimes, who have gone on to commit crimes, an opportunity for repentance and the chance to live a life as themselves, instead of being condemned for having been brainwashed. Some will realize that they are the alien because the submissive, malleable self by which they have been living, the self that has been guided by the statements, attitudes, and expectations of others, is no longer theirs. The new self that had seemed so alien is more than likely one that had experienced hurt and anger and feelings that society regards as bad, as well as wild hallucinatory thoughts—and love. As one goes further into self-discovery, it is likely that one will find out that some of one’s anger is directed against one’s parents. The hurts will have come from various sources; some of the feelings and experiences that society regards as bad but that one finds good and satisfying are experiences and feelings that probably have to do with pleasures of the flesh. Sometimes one has to let their experiences tell them what they mean instead of trying to impose a meaning on them. The more the individual’s self-concept is rooted in the spontaneously felt meanings of one’s experiencing, the more one is an integrated person. People who are learning to self-actualize will enjoy meet and making friend with their thoughts and feelings. #RandolphHarris 16 of 22
Here is the dawning of the self-respect and self-acceptance of which one has been deprived for so long. One will even feel an affection for oneself. One of the curious but common side effects of this change is that now one will be able to give oneself more freely to others, to enjoy others more, to be more genuinely interested in them. As one becomes more expressive of one’s love one can also be more expressive of one’s anger and hurt, one’s likes and dislikes, and one’s “wild” thoughts and feelings (which will turn out to be creative impulses). One is in the process of changing from psychological maladjustment to a much healthier relationship to others and to reality. There is a peaceful harmony in being a whole person, but one will be mistaken if one thinks this reaction is permanent. Instead, if one is really open to one’s experience, one will find other hidden aspects of oneself that one has denied to awareness, and each such discovery will give one uneasy and anxious moments or days until it is assimilated into a revised and changing picture of oneself. One will discover that growing toward a congruence between one’s experiencing organism and one’s concept of oneself is an exciting, sometime disturbing, but neverending adventure. #RandolphHarris 17 of 22
“And now behold, there was not a living soul among all the people of the Nephites who did doubt in the least the words of all the holy prophets who had spoken; for they knew that it must needs be that they must be fulfilled. And they knew that it must be expedient that Christ had come, because of the many signs which had been given, according to the words of the prophets; and because of the things which had come to pass already they knew that it must needs be that all things should come to pass according to that which had been spoken. Therefore they did forsake all their sins, and their abominations, and their whoredoms, and did sever God with all diligence day and night. And now it came to pass that when they had taken all the robbers prisoners, insomuch that none did escape wo were not slain, they did cast their prisoners into prison, and did cause the word of God to be preached unto them; ad as many as would repent of their sins and enter into a covenant that they would murder no more were set at liberty. However, as many as there were who did not enter into a covenant, and who did still continue to have those secret murders in their hearts, yea, as many as were found breathing out threatenings against their brethren were condemned and punished according to the law. #RandolphHarris 18 of 22
“And thus they did put an end to all those wicked, and secret, and abominable combinations, in the which there was so much wickedness, and so many murders committed. And thus had the twenty and second year passed away, and the twenty and third year also, and they twenty and forth, and the twenty and fifth; and thus had twenty and five years passed away. And these had many things transpired which, in the eyes of some, would be great and marvelous; nevertheless, they cannot all be written in this book; yea, this book cannot contain even a hundredth part of what was done among so many people in the space of twenty and five years; but behold there are records which do contain all the proceedings of this people; and a shorter but true account was given by Nephi. Therefore I have made my record of these things according to the record of Nephi, which was engraven on the plates which were called the plates of Nephi. And behold, I do make the record on plates which I have made with mine own hands. And behold, I am called Mormon, being called after the land of Mormon, the land in which Alma did establish the church among the people, yea, the first church which was established among them after their transgression. #RandolphHarris 19 of 22
“Behold, I am a disciple of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. I have been called of him to declare his work among his people, that they might have everlasting life. And it hath become expedient that I, according to the will of God, that the prayers of those who have gone hence, who were the holy ones, should be filled according to their faith, should make a record of these things which have been done—yea, a small record of that which hath taken place from the time that Lehi left Jerusalem, even down until the present time. Therefore I do make my record from the accounts which have been given by those who were before me, until the commencement of my day; and then I do make record of the things which I have seen with mine own eyes. And I know the record which I make to be a just and a true record; nevertheless here are many things which, according to our language, we are not able to write. And now I make an end of my saying, which is of myself, an proceed to give my account of the things which have been before me. I am Mormon, and a pure descendant of Lehi. I have reason to bless my God and my Saviour Jesus Christ, that he brought our fathers out of the land of Jerusalem, (and no one knew it save it were himself and those whom he brought out of that land) and that he hath given me and my people so much knowledge unto the salvation of our souls. #RandolphHarris 20 of 22
“Surely he hath blessed the house of Jacob, and hat been merciful unto the seed of Joseph. And insomuch as the children of Lehi have kept his commandments he hath blessed them and prospered them according to his word. Yea, and surely shall be again bring a remnant of the seed of Joseph to the knowledge of the Lord their God. And as surely as the Lord liveth, will he gather in from the four quarters of the Earth all the remnants of the seed of Jacob, who are scattered abroad upon all the face of the Earth. And as he hath covenanted with all the house of Jacob, even so shall the covenant wherewith he hath covenanted with the house of Jacob be fulfilled in one’s own due time, unto the restoring all the house of Jacob unto the knowledge of the covenant that he hath covenanted with them. And then shall they know their Redeemer, who is Jesus Christ, the Son of God; and then shall they be gathered in from the four quarters of the Earth unto their own lands, from whence they have been dispersed; yea, as the Lord liveth so shall it be. Amen,” reports 3 Nephi 5.1-26. We adore Thee, Blessed Jesus very God and very Man, the Same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever, our strong Salvation and our only Hope. #RandolphHarris 21 of 22
Please take us, we pray Thee, into Thy keeping, both now and at the hour of our death; please make us faithful to Thee upon Earth, and blessed with Thee in Heaven, where the Father, Who raises in glory the World, piercer of darkness, illuminates our path as we go through our days. God, pleased continue to illuminate or paths as we go through life. O God, Who hast brought us near to an innumerable company Angels, and to the spirits of just human made perfect; please grant us during our pilgrimage to abide in their fellowship, and in our Country to become partakers of their joy; through Jesus Christ our Lord. I pray Thee, good Lord Jesus, by the love which Thou hadst for him that lay on Thy heart, to make me thankful for all that Thou hast given men in this World and to bless this planet exceedingly abundantly, above all that I can ask or think. Please help us to love each other in Thee and for Thee, to be one in heart through all separations, and to talk as friends in the path of Thy service; and finally unite us for ever at Thy feet, where peace and love are perfect and immortal, and Thou with the Father Who is turning the World towards Him, as He has turned it since its very beginning, in infinite longing, in infinite love. And I, a child of Earth, take the Lord as my exemplar, and hold my heart out to Hum in the dawn. #RandolphHarris 22 of 22
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The Greatest Miracles of Genius Breed Doubt as Well as Faith About the Labyrinth in His Soul of Love!
On some bright essence could I lean, and lull myself to immortality. We are not really pacifists, we are just nonviolent soldiers. As long as you feel insecure, you have no real capacity to face other men and women in that skill of communication which more than any other skill requires freedom from tension. By communication I did not of course mean only intellectual conversation but the whole aesthetic of emotional relations; when one first begins to examine one’s experience, one will find most of their delights in natural things, and this will facilitate the ability to chiefly reckon each day’s catch of happiness in terms of one’s relationships with others. While we go about our day being able to work or study, we should think continually of others who are denied that happiness by their material circumstances or their health. One brilliant Summer morning at Gunsbach, during the Whitsuntide holidays—it was in 1896—there came to me, as I awoke, the thought that I must not accept this happiness as a matter of course, but must give me something in return for it. Proceeding to think the matter out at once with calm deliberation, while the birds were singing outside, I settled with myself before I got up, that I would consider myself justified in living till I was thirty for the science and art, in order to devote myself from that time forward to the direct service of humanity. #RandolphHarris 1 of 24
Many a time already I had tried to settle what meaning lay hidden for me in the saying of Jesus! “Whosoever would save his life shall lose it, and whosoever shall lose his life for My sake and the Gospel shall save it.” Now the answer was found. In addition to the outward, I now had inward happiness. What would be the character of the activities thus planned for the future was not yet clear to me. I left it to circumstances to guide me. One thing only was certain, that is must be directly human service, however inconspicuous the sphere of it. Those who are so favoured as to be able to embark on a course of free personal activity must accept this good fortune in a spirit of humility. They must often think of those who, though willing and capable, were never in a position to do the same thing. And as a rule they must temper their own strong determination with humility. They are almost always destined to have to seek and wait till they find a road open for the activity they long for. Happy are those to whom the years of work are allotted in richer measure than those of seeking and waiting. Happy those who in the end are able to give themselves really and completely! #RandolphHarris 2 of 24
I have often recognized that the need to do something special was born of a restless spirit. Such persons want to dedicate themselves to larger tasks because those that lay nearest do not satisfy them. Often, too, it was evident that they had been brought to their decisions by quite secondary considerations. Only a person who can find a value in every sort of activity and devote oneself to each one with full consciousness of duty, has the inward right to take as one’s object some extraordinary activity instead of that which falls to one’s lot naturally. Only a person who feels one’s preference to be as a matter of course, not something out of the ordinary, and who has not thought of heroism, but just recognizes a duty undertaken with sober enthusiasm, is capable of becoming a spiritual adventurer such as the World needs. There are no heroes of action: only heroes of renunciation and suffering. Of such there are plenty. However, few of them are known, and even these not to the crowd, but to the few. My thirtieth birthday, I spent like the man in the parable who desiring to build a tower, first count the cost whether he have wherewith to complete it. #RandolphHarris 3 of 24
Several times, indeed, it was my experience that my appeal to the act of obedience which Jesus’ command of love may under special circumstances call for, brought upon me an accusation of conceit, although I had, in fact, been obliged to do violence to my feelings to employ this belief at all. In general, how much I suffered through so many people assuming a right to tear open all the doors and shutters of my inner self! As a rule, too, it was of no use allowing them, in spite of my repugnance, to have a glimpse of the thoughts which had given birth to my resolution. They thought there must be something behind it all, and guessed at disappointment as the slow growth of y reputation. For this there was no ground at all, seeing that I have received, even as a young man, such recognition as others usually get only after a whole life of toil and struggle. Unfortunate love experiences were also alleged as the reason for my decision. I felt as a real kindness the action of persons who made no attempt to dig their fists into my heart, but regarded me as a precocious young man, not quite right in one’s head, and treated me correspondingly with affectionate mockery. #RandolphHarris 4 of 24
However, only one, who thanks to his own ability or the devotion of friends is in Worldly matters a free man, can venture nowadays o take the path of independent activity. This consciousness cannot be got from another human by transfer (although its presence in one may be felt by sensitivity) but only by one’s own hard toil. The right action done in the wrong way becomes wrong in itself. Although it is right to look towards a teacher for guidance and inspiration throughout the course of one’s quest, it is wrong to become over-dependent on that teacher. People approach the saint-type primarily to get what is called in India a darshan. This may be variously translated as a glimpse, a spoken blessing, a sight, a view, an initiation, or a silent benediction. One is a phenomenon and they stand at a distance to gaze at one, to admire one, or to be overwhelmed with awe by one. The few minutes or days or weeks or months or years taken up—the duration is immaterial for extension in time does not change the nature of the happening—leave the devotee with the same character, the same consciousness that one had before the meeting. Its service is to portray the goal, not to being one nearer to perfection in any way. The delusion that the longer they stay with one the farther they travel on the road to perfection remains a delusion still. #RandolphHarris 5 of 24
The darshan leaves them with their weakness and faults, their egoism and animality untouched. The work of getting rid of these things is theirs to undertake and no darshan-magic can be substitute for it. The belief that a self-actualized person will do for one once and for all what in the end one has to do for oneself belongs to the untutored masses and the sectarian mystic circles. Only the self-deceived or the charlatanic will offer to save you. All others will offer only to guide you. You must labour for yourselves. It is the common way to demand entry into enlightenment through someone else. This renders it needful to make clear that nobody, not even the best of the self-actualized, can possibly pass on and there are not many with that capacity. Even in such cases, one’s disciples must work diligently and win it themselves. The service of a spiritual director in correcting errors, providing instruction, stimulating aspiration, and fostering intuition are immense; but they are only a prelude to the services a student must render to oneself. Those who leave their spiritual future totally in the hands of their guide, lose the years which could be spent in developing themselves. #RandolphHarris 6 of 24
It is not enough to receive a teaching from someone else. The truth of the teaching must be tested by personal experience, the worth of it should be measured by personal knowledge. Of all the will for the ideal which exists in humankind only a small part can be manifested in action. All the rest is destined to realize itself in unseen effects, which represent, however, a value exceeding a thousandfold and more that of the activity which attracts the notice of the World. Its relation to the latter is like that of the deep sea to the waves which stir its surface. The hidden forces of goodness are embodied in those persons who carry on as a secondary pursuit the immediate personal service which they cannot make their lifework. The lot of the many is to have as a profession, for the earning of their living and the satisfaction of society’s claim on them, a more or less soulless labour in which they can give out little of nothing of their human qualities, because in that labour they have to be little better than human machines. Yet no one finds oneself in the position of having no possible opportunity of giving oneself to others as a human being. The problem produced by the fact of labour being today so thoroughly organized, specialized, and mechanized depends only in part for its solution on society’s not merely removing the conditions thus produced, but doing its very best to guard the rights of human personality. #RandolphHarris 7 of 24
What is even more important is that sufferers shall not simply bow to their fate, but shall try with all their energy to asset their human personality amid their unfavourable conditions by spiritual activity. Anyone can recuse one’s human life, in spite of one’s professional life, who seizes every opportunity of being a human by means of personal action, however unpretending, for the good of fellow humans who need the help of a fellow human. Such a person enlists in the service of the spiritual and good. No fate can prevent a human from giving to others this direct human service side by side with one’s lifework. If so much of such service remains unrealized, it is because the opportunities are missed. It is the guide’s duty to hold up a gasolier on a dark path but the disciple must decide for oneself the speed and distance of the journey along that path. No command is laid upon one, for it is one who must estimate the strength within one and the opportunity without. One is given full freedom in making one’s decision. It is unfortunately the case that many emotionally unstable persons are attracted to mysticism, with the result that they spend years with their dreams of magical achievement but do nothing to convert those dreams into realities, or else flit from one dream to another. #RandolphHarris 8 of 24
That everyone shall exert oneself in that state of life in which one is placed, to practice true humanity toward one’s fellow humans, on that depends the future of humankind. Enormous values come to nothing every moment through the missing of opportunities, but the values which do get turned into will and deed mean wealth which must not be undervalued. Our humanity is by no means so materialistic as foolish talk is continually asserting it to be. Judging by what I have learned about men and women, I am convinced that there is far more in them of idealist will power than ever comes to the surface of the World. Just as the water of the streams we see is small in amount compared to that which flows underground, so the idealism which becomes visible is small in amount compared with what men and women bear locked in their hearts, underground waters to the surface: humankind is waiting and longing for such as can do that. If the student responds sufficiently to the hints given one or the counsel bestowed on one, the teacher will be encouraged to go father. The uneasiness which many feel in the teacher’s presence is partly caused by the fact that there are negative qualities in themselves which are not present in the teacher. However, partly it is also caused by their miscomprehension of one’s character. #RandolphHarris 9 of 24
The righteous teacher does not attempt to criticize, judge, or condemn them, nor to approve or disapprove of them. One accepts that this is not one’s business for one accepts that evolution has made them what they are, both the good and bad in them. To this extent their uneasiness is unnecessary. The freedom to be who one deeply is strikes an especially resonant chord in underrepresented and marginalized communities. A primary concern of existential psychotherapy is the relationship among freedom, limitation, and choice. The daily question for many people, even the rich and famous is: “With whom can I be myself?” The dangers are real. Physical safety, economic security, and acceptance by others are threatened. And hiding one aspect of the self affects other dimensions of the self, such as self-esteem, creativity, and the ability to love. Even for those who appear to be comfortable with who they are, the issue goes deeper. It saddens and angers people that they cannot talk to people about their lives or express who they really are because they are around people who expect them to always be kind and understanding, so people have to create these carefully mastered personalities, but it may not reflect their full character. #RandolphHarris 10 of 24
Repressed individuals even go as far as to make statement which have been carefully crafted to make people feel better. Many individuals cannot just change the subject; this is their life. As a result, people who are repressed turn to long term celibacy so they are able to fully embody who they are since they cannot express their full humanness. Therapeutic work concerning the freedom to express oneself and therapeutic work touching on identity issues are mutually reinforcing. As people gain a greater sense of self and possibilities, they also learn to accept themselves; as they learn to accept themselves, they become increasingly more able to express all of who they are and to experience a widening sense of possibilities. One lady, Katrina, who had developed an inflammatory condition had to totally change her life. Doctor’s noticed that when she was under stress, the condition would flare up and recommended a lifestyle change because something was wrong in her environment. The young woman had to go to cognitive therapy, go on medication for the inflammation, end her romantic relationship and become celibate for years, she even quit her job, and moved. #RandolphHarris 11 of 24
While undergoing this life style change, the lady also made the decision not to receive any financial support from her parents. The general physician overseeing her general healthy needs, noticed as the woman became more responsible for herself, this enforced her sense of freedom to express who she truly was and her health had started improving after three years of celibacy. She learned to “check in” with herself—not merely to think about particular issues but to resonate to them, to experience them kinesthetically. She learned did not simply run from her problems, she learned to counter her constriction and productively regenerate her life. This inspired her to become response-able—personally, socially, and spiritually. Spiritual discipline is an activity undertaken to bring us into more effective cooperation with Christ and His Kingdom. In any human endeavour, repetitive exercise and practice bring skill and excellence. Sometimes a particular activity is good because it accomplishes a specific result. If it produces a base hit, swinging a baseball bat is good. However, that same activity can also be done, not for the result alone, but for the training it offers. #RandolphHarris 12 of 24
A person can repeatedly swing a bat in a batting cage for the purpose of training, and not to increase one’s output of base hits. And other good results can follow from such training besides the one usually or normally intended; for example, regular trips to a batting cage can get a person in good overall condition besides helping one get base hits. The same thing is true of study. We often correctly approach study specifically for some direct end—preparing a lesson or learning a topic covered in a book. However, study should also be approached as a set of training activities, as spiritual and intellectual exercises. Study is a discipline that strengthens the mind and enriches the soul. Sometimes I study a book for the sheer value of engaging my intellect in a stretching, strenuous activity. As other times, I read to help myself cultivate the intellectual virtues that will bring one closer to God. Seen as discipline, study becomes a means of building my character, ingraining habits of thought and reflection, and reinforcing my own soul the value of the life of the mind. We study, then, not simply to gain knowledge about the topic of study, but as a broader spiritual discipline. #RandolphHarris 13 of 24
By way of application, it is important to read books from time to time as a form of spiritual discipline and intellectual exercise, even if the topic of the book does not address one of your immediate, felt needs. If all you do is read simple books or those that overemphasize stories or practical application, you will never learn to think of yourself as a mature Christian, nor will you develop a trained mind. Peace if the rest of will that results from assurance about how things will turn out. It is always a form of active engagement with good, plus assurance that things will turn out well. “I am at peace about it,” we say, and this means I am no longer striving, inwardly or outwardly, to save some outcome dear to me or to avoid one that I reject. I have released whatever is at issues and am no longer even putting “body English” or “spin” on it or inwardly gritting my teeth. Of course everyone is at peace about some things, one hopes, but few have peace in general, and fewer still have peace that reaches their body and its automatic responses to such a depth that it does not live in a covert state of alarm. Ultimately it will be by one’s own efforts alone that one uncovers the wisdom and beauty one is seeking—and which are even now within one. Such efforts, in order to be successful, must be courageous and continuous. #RandolphHarris 14 of 24
Repeated failures should serve only to stimulate deeper determination. In the end each seeker has to become one’s own teacher by putting all one’s experience, one’s beliefs, one’s ideas, to the test. Most people carry heavy burdens of care, and usually about the things that are most important in life: what will happen to their loved ones, their finances, health, death, their physical appearance or what others think of them, the future of society, their standing before God and their eternal destiny. To be at peace with God and others (family, neighbours, and coworkers) is a great attainment and depends on graces far beyond ourselves as well as on our own efforts. That is also true of being at peace with oneself. Peace with God comes only from acceptance of one’s gift of life in His Son. “Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God,” reports Romans 5.1-2. We are then assured of the outcome of our life and are no longer trying to justify ourselves before God or others. We have accepted that we are not righteous or even totally competent and that we cannot be so on our own. #RandolphHarris 15 of 24
We have laid down the burden of justifying ourselves before God and are learning not to justify ourselves before humans. This is the pace that grows from within us. It is possible to being this truth within the mind’s sight and within the will’s reach as long as we do our own work. Whoever offers one a free redemption plays God. Form those around me I must simply assume grace and mercy, not that I will get what I deserve. I am a beggar on my way through the World. Justice is not enough for my needs, and I could not stand it if I got it. When others do not extend the grace and mercy I need, I have to draw on the grace and mercy I need, I have to draw on the abundance of it in God. “Who is this that is condemning me?” I remind myself, “Jesus even died for me, was raised from the dead, and is now standing up for me before God,” reports Romans 8.34. Assurance of this allows me to “seek peace and pursue it,” reports 1 Peter 3.11, no matter who is involved, and to “pursue peace with all humans,” reports Hebrews 12.14. That includes all our family members and coworkers! Even in case where, though no fault of my own, there must be a struggle between me and others, there does not have to be a struggle within me. Look not for refuge to anyone besides yourself. Try to become like the master. #RandolphHarris 16 of 24
I may have to resist others, for some good reason, but even so I do not have to make things come out right. I am not the one in control of outcomes. I do not have to hate those whose course of action I resist, or even get mad at them, and so I can always be at peace within myself as well as toward them. Although the truth of our intellect is caused by the thing, yet it is not necessary that truth should be there primarily, any more than that health should be primarily in medicine, rather than in the animal: for the virtue of medicine, and not its health, is the cause of health, for here the agent is not univocal. In the same way, the being of the thing, not its truth, is the cause of the truth in the intellect. Hence, a fact or a word is true from the fact that a thing is, not because a thing is true. “And now it came to pass that in the sixteenth year from the coming of Christ, Lachoneus, the governor of the land, received an epistle from the leader and the governor of this band of robbers; and these were the words which were written saying: Lachoneus, most noble and chief governor of the land, behold, I write tis epistle unto you, and do give unto you exceedingly great praise because of your firmness, and also the firmness of your people, in maintaining that which ye suppose to be your right and liberty. #RandolphHarris 17 of 24
“Yea, ye do stand well, as if ye were supported by the hand of a god, in the defence of your liberty, and your property, and your country, or that which ye do call so. And it seemeth a pity unto me, most noble Lachoneus, that ye should be so foolish and vain as to suppose that ye can stand against so many brave men who are at my command, who do now at this time stand in their arms, and do await with great anxiety for the word—God own upon the Nephites and destroy them. And I, knowing of their unconquerable spirit, having proved them in the field of battle, and knowing you because of the many wrongs which ye have done unto them, therefore if they should come down against you they would visit you with utter destruction. Therefore I have written this epistle, sealing it with mine own hand, feeling for your welfare, because of your firmness in that which ye believe to be right, and your noble spirit in the field of battle. Therefore I write unto you, desiring that ye would yield up unto this my people, your cities, your lands, and your possessions, rather than that they should visit you with the sword and that destruction should come upon you. #RandolphHarris 18 of 24
“Or in other words, yield yourselves up unto us, and unite with us and become acquainted with our secret works, and become our brethren that ye may be like unto us—not our slaves, but our brethren and partners of all our substance. And behold, I swear unto you, if ye will do this, with an oath, ye shall not be destroyed; but if ye will not do this, I swear unto you with an oath, that on the morrow month I will command that my armies shall come down against you, and they shall not stay their hand and shall spare not, but shall slay you, and shall let fall the sword upon you even until ye shall become extinct. And behold, I am Giddianhi; and I am the governor of this secret society of Gadianton; which society and the works thereof I know to be good; and they are of ancient date and they have been handed down unto us. And I write this epistle unto you, Lachoeus, and I hope that ye will deliver up your lands and your possessions, without the shedding of blood, that this my people may recover their rights and government, who have dissented away from you because of your wickedness in retaining from them their rights of government, and except ye do this, I will avenge their wrongs. I am Giddianhi. #RandolphHarris 19 of 24
“And now it came to pass when Lachoneus received this epistle he was exceedingly astonished, because of the boldness of Giddianhi demanding the possession of the land of the Nephites, and also of the threatening the people and avenging the wrongs of those that had received no wrong, save it were they had wronged themselves by dissenting away unto those wicked and abominable robbers. Now behold, this Lachoneus, the governor, was a just man, and could not be frightened by the demands and the threatenings of a robber; therefore he did not hearken to the epistle of Giddianhi, the governor of the robbers, but he did cause that his people should cry unto the Lord for strength against the time that the robbers should come down against them. Yea, he sent a proclamation among all the people, that they should gather together their women, and their children, their flocks and their herds, and all their substance, save it were their land, unto one place. And he caused that fortifications should be built round about them, and the strength thereof should be exceedingly great. And he caused that armies, both of the Nephites and of the Lamanites, or of all them who were numbered among the Nephites, should be placed as guards round about to watch them, and to guard them from the robbers day and night. #RandolphHarris 20 of 24
“Yea, he said unto them: As the Lord liveth, except ye repent of all your iniquities, and cry unto the Lord, ye will in nowise be delivered out of the hands of those Gadianton robbers. And so great and marvelous were the words and prophecies of Lachoneus that they did cause fear to come upon all the people; and they did exert themselves in their might to do according to the words of Lachoneus. And it came to pass that Lachoneus did appoint chief captains over all the armies of the Nephites, to command them at the time that the robbers should come down out of the wilderness against them. Now the chiefest among all the chief captains and the great commander of all the armies of the Nephites was appointed, and his name was Gididdoni. Now it was the custom among all the Nephites to appoint for their chief captains, (save it were in their times of wickedness) some one that the bad spirit of revelation and also prophecy; therefore, this Gididdoni was a great prophet among them, as also was the chief judge. Now the people said unto Gidgiddoni: Pray unto the Lord, and let us go up upon the mountains and into the wilderness, that we may fall upon the mountains and into the wilderness, that we may fall upon the robbers and destroy them in their own lands. However, Gidgiddoni saith unto them: The Lord forbid; for if we should go up against them the Lord would deliver us into their hands; therefore we will prepare ourselves in the center of our lands, and we will gather all our armies together, and we will not go against them, but we will wait till they shall come against us. #RandolphHarris 21 of 24
“Therefore, as the Lord liveth, if we do this he will deliver them into our hands. And it came to pass in the seventeenth year, in the latter end of the year, the proclamation of Lachoneus had gone forth throughout all the face of the land, and they had taken their horses, and their chariots, and their cattle, and all their flocks, and their herds, and their grain, and all their substance, and did march forth by thousands and by tens of thousands, until they had all gone forth to the place which had been appointed that they should gather themselves together, to defend themselves against their enemies. And the land which was appointed was the land of Zarahemla, and the land which was between the land Zarahemla and the land Bountiful, yea, to the line which was between the land Bountiful and the land Desolation. And there were a great many thousand people who were called Nephites, who did gather themselves together in this land. Now Lachoneus did cause that they should gather themselves together in this land. Now Lachoneus did cause that they should gather themselves together in the and southward, because of the great curse which was upon the land northward. #RandolphHarris 22 of 24
“And they did fortify themselves against their enemies; and they did dwell in one land, and in one body, and they did fear the words which had been spoken by Lachoneus, insomuch that they did put up their prayers unto the Lord their God, that he would deliver them in the time that their enemies should come down against them to battle. And they were exceedingly sorrowful because of their enemies. And Giddiddoni did cause that they should make weapons of war of every kind, and they should be strong with armour, and with shields, and with bucklers, after the manner of his instruction,” reports 3 Nephi 3.1-26. On the ring of the World, God is dancing. In His bright robe, He is dancing. Young and handsome and strong, God is dancing. Bringer of vision, God is dancing. Dance, Sun King, into the Sky, please being the day to those who wait for you. As the Sun rises, I face His glory, grateful that the darkness has come to an end. Though darkness is sacred, its soothing a gift, I am a human, a creature of light. So I face you in thankfulness and greet your return with praises and prayer and the honour that is due you. O Lord and Saviour Christ, Who camest not to strive nor cry, but to let Thy words fall as the drops that water the Earth; please grant all who contend for the Faith once delivered, never to injure it by clamour and impatience. #RandolphHarris 23 of 24
However, teach them to speak Thy precious Truth in love, so to present it that it may be loved, and that humans may see in it Thy goodness and Thy beauty; Who livest as the Way, the Truth and the Life. Truth is found in the intellect according as it apprehends a thing as it is; and things according as they have being conformable to an intellect. This to be the greatest degree found in God. For His being is not only conformed to His intellect, but it is the very act of His intellect; and His act of understanding is the measure and cause of every other being and of every other intellect, and He Himself is His own existence and act of understanding. Whence it follows not only that truth is in Him, but that He is truth itself, and the sovereign and first truth. Although the divine intellect there is neither composition nor division, yet in His simple act of intelligence He judges of all things and knows all things complex; and thus there is truth in His intellect. O God, the Sovereign Good of the soul, Who requirest the hearts of all Thy children; please deliver us from all sloth in Thy work, all coldness in Thy cause; and please grant us by looking unto Thee to rekindle our Love, and by waiting upon Thee to renew our strength; through Jesus Christ our Lord. #RandolphHarris 24 of 24
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For the First Time in Human History the Opportunity to Evolve Beyond their Enslaved Past Has Been Accepted!
If your thing is paradise, it may be hard to obtain, but worth keeping. I believe that the whole future of human culture depends upon our solving the problem of how to introduce into education processes the essence of the preventive and curative methods to avoid poverty and crime. Education will be preventive in the sense that it will limit and guide the fateful dichotomy which occurs early in life between conscious and preconscious processes on the one hand, and the inaccessible unconscious on the other. It will have to be curative as well, because we cannot expect prevention ever to work perfectly. Consequently we shall always have to build into the concepts and techniques of education certain types of therapeutic experiences, both for groups and for individuals, which will be designed to reintegrate unconscious with conscious and precious processes. Even to attempt this will require that we overcome not only the individual resistances and prejudices to which are floating about in society, but also the entrenched opposition of many existing social, cultural, religious, and educational institutions. This is no small order: and I would hesitate to offer the challenge, if I did not have so deep a conviction that all of our vaunted culture and education, as we have known them in the past, have failed humankind completely. #RandolphHarris 1 of 19
Some may feel these views to be unduly pessimistic. Yet I believe that these criticisms of our educational processes are rooted in optimism, and pursue an optimistic ideal. If our purpose in studying our failures is to learn how not to fail in the future, it is not pessimism to face the fact of past failure. It was neither pessimism nor a morbid fascination with death which led medicine to the autopsy table, but rather courage, optimism, spiritual humility, and a determination to avoid the endless repetition of past error. Humankind’s reward is scientific medicine; and we must now face the failure of education with the same combination of humility and determination. Because education has failed humankind in the past, it does not follow that it must necessarily continue to fail, unless we cling obstinately and defensively to methods which have already been tried without success. Yet the tendency to prescribe more of the old medicines is deep in us. For instance, when I read that a new college president declares that what we need in education is a greater emphasis on religion, I confess that my heart feels joy. Much like when someone says we need more humanities. Or when professors call for more of the great books by greater thinkers out of the past, or when a classicist calls for more of the classics, or a mathematician for more mathematics or a chemist for more chemistry. #RandolphHarris 2 of 19
When in the face of our general culture failure each cultural specialist cries out for larger doses of one’s own specific remedy, it is not a pretty spectacle, nor a reassuring measure of the maturity of the educators. However, at least they can recognize that the human mind needs more cultivation and are speaking up because we cannot have an education system that is producing people with little wisdom or maturity. It is important to understand that scientists, including psychiatrists, are not immune to these frailties; and that they are equally true for all of those who carry the banners of culture. It is an old story of youthful idealism, of young confidence that the way to the good life is in their hands, then of a gradual disillusionment which usually is masked by a paradoxical defensiveness and a refusal to face the limitations of existing methods, turning instead in their anger against anyone who is honest and sceptical enough to challenge one’s particular road to salvation. All of us want to go on educating as we have in the past, making at most only trivial curricular changes. However, what humankind actually needs is a cultural stride of far grander dimensions. A little more or less general knowledge and more in-depth information. General information does not give power to train and grow. #RandolphHarris 3 of 19
General information without knowing how to think, apply it, nor build will create novice who are not able to process information correctly because they have not studied long enough to see how trends and supply shocks may impact the future, and they may not know how to accurately forecast and avert disasters. After having devoted a lifetime to having honestly mastering some erudite discipline, and having thereby become a pew-holder in a towering cathedral with a limited seating capacity, it is indeed understandable to see why one would believe that their technique which they have mastered at such great costs is just enough. We can see why a doctor might say, “Give the patient more of my medicine. More of the same is what he needs. Pour it down his throat. It is just a maintenance dose we are slowly introducing and will increase overtime before we move to something stronger because it will surely get him in remission in the future.” We have to teach people more and give them more art, writing, history, science, theology so they can become more cultured and expand their minds and increase their attention spans and learn to see the truths. Those who represent the World of the mind and of the spirit must acquire the humility which leads doctors and law enforcement to prevent people from lying on the autopsy table. #RandolphHarris 4 of 19
What then must education achieve? It must make it possible for human beings to change. That is the necessary goal of education. America is a city on a hill, a holy experiment, whose success would prove that God’s plan for His churches could be successfully realized in the American wilderness. This is why militant Protestants work diligently to promote the prosperity of the church. Uniformity of religion must exist in any given society. This conviction rests on the belief tat there is one true religion and that it is the duty of the civil authorities to impose it, forcibly if necessary, in the interest of saving the souls of its citizens. Religion will liberate the savages from their inhumane ways. It is a way to control the sinful, Worldly people. It also allows for authority figures to worship closely with the people and monitor and help them keep their Godly ways through counseling and education. This is a unique moment in human culture. And as we do this, let us stop to remind ourselves that when a patient dies, the doctor does not blame the patient, unless he or she was not following medical orders, otherwise the doctor feels it was his or her fault. However, when humanity fails, people do not blame themselves. They do not turn their pitiless scrutiny on themselves, their beliefs, and their techniques. #RandolphHarris 5 of 19
Our culture is supposed to be revered as though it were a creative and moving force in the Divine Kingdom. An education not only gives humans sophistication, tastes, historical perspective, manners, erudite parlor conversation, and knowledge of how to use and control the forces of nature on the human spirit, it teaches you to appreciate life. We see it is the uneducated and students, who have failed humankind, not humankind which has failed us. Science and art and philosophy and religion and learning have succeeded; just as it is medicine which as succeeded when it keeps a patient alive, and prevents them from becoming a corpse. The next goal of education is a progressive freeing of humans—not merely from external tyrannies of nature and of others humans, but from internal enslavement by their own unconscious automatic mechanisms. Therefore, all of education and all of art and culture must contribute to this. It has been long recognized that in spite of technological process, and in spite of art, literature, religion, and scholarly learning, the heart of humans has not changed. This is basically a challenge and a rebuke to the TV News Media culture and its devastating commentary on culture. It is possible to break through the sonic barrier between conscious and unconscious processes, and thereby to bring to humans for the first time in human history the opportunity to evolve beyond their enslaved pass. That is why this thesis can claim for itself a realistic spiritual optimism. #RandolphHarris 6 of 19
Just as the battle for political freedom must be won over and over again, so too in every life the battle for internal psychological freedom must be fought and won again and again, if humans are to achieve and retain freedom from the tyranny of their own unconscious processes, the freedom to understand the forces which determine their thoughts, feelings, purposes, goals, and behaviour. This freedom is the fifth and ultimate human freedom; and like every other freedom, it demands eternal vigilance. Without this dedicated to truth and honour, education will sell humanity own the river—back into slavery. And this will continue to be true until we rescue humans from their present oblivion this forgotten human of education. Self-knowledge in depth is not all there is to wisdom, but that is what makes maturity and understanding possible; and what is even more important, it frees us from the tyranny of those rigid compulsive mechanisms which have made impossible our psychological evolution. Without self-knowledge in depth, we can have dreams but not art, we can have the neurotic raw material of literature, but not mature literature. Without it we have no adults, but only aging deviants armed with words, paints, clay, and atomic weapons, none of which they understand. #RandolphHarris 7 of 19
It is aging, uneducated deviants which makes a mockery of the illustrious claims of education, or religion, of the arts, and science. Self-knowledge is the Forgotten Human of our entire educational system and indeed of human culture in general. Without self-knowledge it is possible to be erudite, but never wise. My challenge to all of us is to have the humility to face this failure, and the determination to do something effective about it before it is too late. We have to relate to each other as people, trusting each other, and sharing the energy of our lives in meaningful, honest ways. In the milieu of trust and openness we create, I think we all discover more capacities in ourselves and in each other than we had thought possible. This will allow spontaneity, courage, and integrity of the people to emerge. The spirit of self-determination, freedom, and growth (like life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness) lives on in people like the Sun on a Summer in California with a light of trust, understanding, compassion, and awareness shining on the land of the free and the home of the brave. It is an attitude embodying a respect for the integrity and worth of persons; it is a way of seeing and relating to the World and others. This is the experience of responsible freedom. #RandolphHarris 8 of 19
The way to utilize power is when dealing with people, trust the, have no desire to control or manipulate them, and have it be a shared responsibility. We want to foster an environment of mutual trust, openness, sharing, excitement, creative and self-responsible actions. Cooperation will replace competition. Self-discipline takes the place of external discipline. Each person will be able to experience and freely utilize one’s own power. We have all experienced the smarting hurt, the feeling of being blow away, exterminated, by the injustice of the action of oppression. It gives us a tiny view of the destruction of self that has been felt by millions of persons who have been the object of the crushing force of impersonal, arbitrary, blind power. However, the politics of power and control can be devastating, even when exercised by those who are only trying to protect and care for the young. Leadership, creativity, imagination spring up everywhere as individuals resist the encroachment of their rights as persons. There are also tremendous advantages for growth, support, and community in our present relationships. If anyone gets depressed, there are others to give one support. Though so many of us have been through so many changes in the past year—from ecstasy to terror—we have to accept each day as it comes. #RandolphHarris 9 of 19
Feel good about your present life-style. Many of us could not imagine ourselves living a closed, possessive, and jealous existence. It is a blessing to have the freedom to be who one is; to explore the many facets of one’s personality with many people without fear of being caught or criticized. It is nice to meet people who are gentle, loving—caring. People want others in their lives who balance them. Others who share their past as well as present life; both the sad and happy times. Thanksgiving Day has always been a warm, beautiful day, a day of happiness among all Americans. It makes people glad to be alive to know that people can be happy, relating freely without jealousy and possessiveness. People can communicate with their loved ones freely, and express loving and joyful feelings. The growth that families are encouraged to experience is continuously infused back into their loved ones, keeping them strong and alive—a process rather than a fixed entity. However, we must also learn to recognize interpersonal abuse and crippling coming from the avoidance of jealousy or the experience of it. In addition to the Angels of faith, hope, charity, wisdom, and loving, are also the Angels of doubt, despair, need, passion, and hate. #RandolphHarris 10 of 19
The morbid Angels are part of us all, I believe. However, many of the people in our community come across as pre-Raphaelite saints, there are no characteristics of evil in them. In our environment, jealousy, greed, competitiveness, and anger are equated with being imperfect. To not allow oneself or others the right to both feel and express emotions is to hold the person in an emotional strait jacket. When emotions are allowed to be legitimate and valued part of interaction, difficulties can be dealt with more flexibly and more humanely than when they are suppressed. From my understanding, for many people, along with the intense pain of jealousy, comes a shame at having the feeling at all. People, instead of experiencing and owning their jealousy, often try to find other rationalizations for their pain as a way of making sense of their feelings. I guess they can make sense of their jealousy; it comes from a place deeper in them than “sense” goes. Indeed it has its own sense, and their minds have little understanding of it. Perhaps one learns to be jealous, and in many cultures that seems to be an approved lesson. One can also learn not to be jealous. People just have to understand to what extent do they feel fraudulent in their personal life? #RandolphHarris 11 of 19
One has to know those feelings of jealousy are wrong, so unbelievable, so shameful. What exactly is love? It is will to good or “Bene-volence.” We love something or someone when we promote its good for its own sake. Love’s contrary is malice, and its simple absence is indifference. Its normal accompaniment is delight, but a twisted soul may delight in evil and take no pleasure in good. Love is not the same thing as desire, for I may desire something without even wishing it well, much less willing its good. I might desire a vanilla ice cream cone, for example. However, I do not wish it well; I wish to eat it. This is the difference between lust (mere desire) and love, as between two intimate partners. Desire and love are of course, compatible when desire is ruled by love; but most people today would, unfortunately, not even know the difference between them. Hence, in our World, love constantly falls prey to lust. That is a major part of the deep sickness of contemporary life. By contrast, what characterizes the deepest essence of God is love—that is, will to good. His very creation of the World is an expression of will to good, and it is then to be expected that His World would be found by Him to “very good,” reports Genesis 1.31. #RandolphHarris 12 of 19
God’s love and goodwill towards humans is, therefore, not an add on to a nature that is fundamentally careless or even hostile. It is another expression—one of the more important ones, of course—of what He always and in every respect is. It is not hard for God to love, but it is impossible, given His nature, for Him not to love. Our human World as we find it is not like God, though it was intended to be. We have already expanded on this in the past, but must take note of it again here. Love is not natural in our World, though desire or lust certainly is. “The lust of the flesh, the lust f the eyes and the pride of life,” the apostle said, is “all that is in the World,” 1 John 2.16. Pride is defined by desire, not by love. It is, above all, the presumption that my desires should be fulfilled and that it is an injustice, a crying shame, and an injury if they are not. Lust and pride all around us inevitably result in a World of fear. For they bring us into a World of little dictators; and the most likely thing is that each person will be used and abused by others, possibly destroyed, and at least not helped and cared for. Our families, which should be a refuge from such a World, often turn out to be places where victimization is at its worst. “The dark places of the land are full of the habitations of violence,” reports Psalm74.20. #RandolphHarris 13 of 19
The tender young are initiated into an adult World hardened in evil. Some babies are not even safe from people in their mother’s womb. “And one who turns aside from evil makes oneself a prey,” reports Isaiah 59.15. Injury brings pain and loss, then fear and anger, which mingle with resentment and contempt and settle into postures of coldness and malice, with brutal feelings that drain the body of health and strength and shatter social well-being. “And now it came to pass that Samuel, the Lamanite, did prophesy a great many more things which cannot be written. And behold, he said unto them; Behold, I give unto you’re a sign; for five years more cometh, and behold, then cometh the Son of God to redeem all those who shall believe on his name. And behold, this will I give unto you for a sign at the time of his coming; for behold, there shall be great light in Heaven, insomuch that in the night before he cometh there shall be no darkness, insomuch that it shall appear unto humans as if it was day. Therefore, there shall be one day and a night and a day, as if it were one day and there were no night; and this shall be unto you for a sign; for ye shall know of the rising of the Sun and also of its setting; therefore they shall know of a surety that there shall be two days and a night; nevertheless that night shall not be darkened; and it shall be night before he is born. #RandolphHarris 14 of 19
“And behold, there shall a new star arise, such and one as ye never have beheld; and this also shall be a sign unto you. And be this is not all, there shall be many signs and wonders in Heaven. And it shall come to pass that ye shall all be amazed, and wonder, insomuch that ye shall fall to the Earth. And it shall come to pass that whosoever shall believe on the Son of God, the same shall have everlasting life. And behold, thus hath the Lord commanded me, by his angel, that I should come and tell this thing unto you; yea; he hath commanded that I should prophesy these things unto you; yea, he hath said unto me: Cry unto this people, repent and prepare the ways of the Lord. And now, because I am a Lamanite, and have spoken unto you the words which the Lord hath commanded me, and because it was hard against you, ye are angry with me and do seek to destroy me, and have cast me out from among you. And ye shall hear my words, for this intent have I come up upon the walls of this city, that ye might hear and know of the judgment of God which do await you because of your iniquities, and also that ye might know the conditions of repentance; and also that ye might know of the coming of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Father of Heaven and of Earth, the Creator of all things from the beginning; and that ye might know of the signs of his coming of the intent that ye might believe on his name. #RandolphHarris 15 of 19
“And if ye believe on his name ye will repent of all your sins, that thereby ye may have a remission of them though his merits. And behold, again, another sign I give unto you, yea, a sign of his death. For behold, he surely must die that salvation may come; yea, it benooveth him and becometh expedient that he dieth, to bring to pass the resurrection of the dead, that thereby humans may be brought int the presence of the Lord. Yea, behold, this death bringeth to pass the resurrection, and redeemth all humankind from the first death—that spiritual death; for all humankind, by the Fall of Adam being cut off from the presence of the Lord, are considered as dead, both as to things temporal and to things spiritual. However, behold, the resurrection of Christ redeemth humankind, yea, even all humankind, and bringeth to pass the condition of repentance, that whosoever repentance the same is not hewn down and cast into the fire; and there cometh upon them again a spiritual death, yea, a second death, for they are cut off again as to things pertaining to righteousness. Therefore repent ye, repent ye, lest by knowing these things and not doing them ye shall suffer yourselves to come under condemnation, and ye are brought down unto this second death. #RandolphHarris 16 of 19
“However, behold, as I said unto you concerning another sign, a sign of his death, behold, in that day that he shall suffer death the Sun shall be darkened and refuse to give his light upon the face of this land, even from the time that one shall suffer death, for he space of three days, to the time that he shall rise again from the dead. Yea, at the same time that he shall yield up the ghost there shall be thunderings and lightnings for the space of many hours, and the Earth shall shake and tremble; and the rocks which are upon the face of this Earth, which are both above the Earth and beneath, which ye know at this time are solid, or the more par of it is one solid mass, shall be broken up; yea, they shall be rent in twain, and shall ever after be found in seams and in cracks, and in broken fragments upon the face of the whole Earth, yea, both above the Earth and beneath. And behold, there shall be great tempests, and there shall be many mountains laid low, like unto a valley, and there shall be many places which are now called valleys which shall become mountains, whose height is great. And many highways shall be broken up, and many cities shall become desolate. And many graves shall be opened, and shall yield up many of their dead; and many saints shall appear unto many. #RandolphHarris 17 of 19
“And behold, thus hath the angel spoken unto me; for he said unto me that there should be thunderings and lightnings for the space of many hours. And he said unto me that while the thunder and the lightning lasted, and the tempest, that these things should be, and that darkness should cover the face of the whole Earth for three days. And the angel said unto me that many shall see greater things than these, to the intent that they might believe that these signs and these wonders should come to pass upon all the face of this land, to the intent that there should be no cause for unbelief among the children of humans—and this to the intent that whosoever will believe might be saved, and that whosoever will not believe, a righteous judgment might come upon them; and also if they are condemned thy bring upon themselves their own condemnation. And now remember, remember, my brethren, that whosoever perisheth, perisheth unto oneself; and whosoever doeth iniquity, doeth it unto oneself; for behold, ye are free; ye are permitted to act for yourselves; for behold, God hath given unto you a knowledge and he hath made your freed. He hath given unto you that ye might know good from evil, and hath given unto you that ye might choose life or death. #RandolphHarris 18 of 19
“And ye can do good and be restored unto that which is good, or have that which is good restored unto you; or ye can do evil, and have that which is evil restored to you,” reports Helman 14.1-31. Come, Holy God, and please bless this Thanksgiving food that will feed my body, though the actions of which you are daily made manifest in the World. O Lord, open Thou my lips and my mouth shall declare Thy praise. Praised art Thou, O Lord our God and God of our fathers, God of Abraham, God of Isaac, and God of Jacob, mighty, revered and exalted God. Thou bestowest lovingkindness and possessest all things. Mindful of the patriarchs’ love for Thee, Thou wilt in Thy love bring a redeemer to their children’s children for the sake of Thy name. O King, Thou Helper, Redeemer and Shield, by Thou praised, O Lord, Shield of Abraham. Thou, O Lord, art mighty forever. Thou callest the dead to immortal life for Thou art mighty in deliverance. This Thanksgiving dinner is the work of many made palpable. Before eating, it is right to acknowledge their labour. We thank all these people and all their protective spirits. I send my prayers to God. Holy Ones, please accept my invitation. Please be honoured by it, by life’s true sacrifice. The food we eat is a gift from you and how grateful we are to have family and a beautiful home and safe Ultimate Driving Machines and a wonderful education. #RandolphHarris 19 of 19
Residence One at Mills Station holds 1,932 square feet of single story living. The open concept design includes three bedrooms, two bathrooms and a two car garage. Each home includes a Home Hub located at the front of the home which can be used as a study, playroom or sitting room.
The kitchen comes fully equipped with a large eat-in island, stainless steel appliances, and quartz counters. The great room is spacious and full of natural light with a covered patio! The Owner’s suite is nestled in the rear of the home separate from the secondary bedrooms, providing maximum privacy. Enjoy a spa like experience in the Owner’s bathroom with a large walk in shower, dual vanities, and makeup counter.
This home is designed with Universal Design concepts meaning that its well equipped for life’s transitions and aging in place. Learn more about this unique feature by speaking with a sales associate today!
Best of all, each Cresleigh home comes fully equipped with an All Ready connected home! This smart home package comes included with your home and features great tools including: video door bell and digital deadbolt for the front door, connect home hub so you can set scenes and routines to make life just a little easier. Two smart switches and USB outlets are also included, plus we’ll gift you a Google Home Hub and Google Mini to help connect everything together! https://cresleigh.com/mills-station/move-in-ready-home-site-77/
Thank you, Holy Ooe: please share my good fortune. I praise you, Holy One: please share my friendship. How wonderful! How marvelous! This home is the gift from the Earth which it grew. #CresleighHomes
You Cannot Run Away from Your Weakness–Promises and Pie Crust are Made to be Broken!
To expect truth to come from thinking signifies that we mistake the need to think with the urge to know. Undeserved inequalities call for redress; and since inequalities of birth and natural endowment are undeserved, these inequalities are to be somehow compensated for. Thus the principle holds that in order to treat all persons equally, to provide genuine equality of opportunity, society must give more attention to those with fewer native assets and to those born into less favourable social positions. The idea is to redress the bias of contingencies in the direction of equality. In pursuit of this principle greater resources might be spent on the education of the less rather than more intelligent, at least over a certain time of life, say the earlier years of school. Now the principle of redress has not to my knowledge been proposed as the sole criterion of justice, as the single aim of the social order. It is plausible as most such principles are only as a prima facie principle, one that is to be weighed in the balance with others. For example, we are to weigh it against the principle to improve the average standard of life, or to advance the common good. However, whatever other principles we hold, the claims of redress are to be taken into account. It is thought to represent one of the elements in our conception of justice. #RandolphHarris 1 of 22
Now the difference principle is not of course the principle of redress. It does not require society to try to even out inherent limitations as if all were expected to compete on a fair basis in the same race. However, the difference principle would allocate resources in education, say, so as to improve the long-term expectation of the least favoured. If this end is attained by giving more attention to the better endowed, it is permissible; otherwise not. And in making this decision, the value of education should not be assessed solely in terms of economic efficiency and social welfare. Equally if not more important is the role of education in enabling a person to enjoy the culture of one’s society and to take part in its affairs, and in this way to provide for each individual a secure sense of one’s own worth. Thus although the difference principle is not the same as that of redress, it does achieve some of the intent of the latter principle. It transforms the aims of the basic structure so that the total scheme of institutions no longer emphasizes social efficiency and technocratic values. We see then that the difference principle represents, in effect, an agreement to regard the distribution of natural talents as a common asset and to share in the benefits of this distribution whatever it turns out to be. #RandolphHarris 2 of 22
Those who have been favoured by nature, whoever they are, may gain from their good fortune only on terms that improve the situation of those who have lost out. The naturally advantaged are not to gain merely because they are more gifted, but only to cover the costs of training and education and for using their endowments in way that help the less fortunate as well. No one deserves one’s greater natural capacity nor merits a more favourable starting place in society. However, it does not follow that one should eliminate these distinctions. There is another way to deal with them. The basic structure can be arranged so that these contingencies work for the good of the least fortunate. Thus we are led to the difference principle if we wish to set up the social system so that no one gains or loses from one’s arbitrary place in the distribution of natural assets or one’s initial position in society without giving or receiving compensating advantages in return. In view of these remarks we may reject the contention that ordering of institutions is always defective because the distribution of natural talents and the contingencies of social circumstance are unjust, and this injustice must inevitably carry over to human arrangements. #RandolphHarris 3 of 22
Occasionally this reflection is offered as an excuse for ignoring injustice, as if the refusal to acquiesce in injustice is on a par with being unable to accept death. The natural distribution is neither just nor unjust; nor is it unjust that persons are born into society at some particular position. These are simply natural facts. What is just and unjust is the way that institutions deal with these facts. Aristocratic and caste societies are unjust because they make these contingencies the ascriptive basis for belonging to more or less enclosed and privileged social classes. The basic structure of these societies incorporates the arbitrariness found in nature. However, there is no necessity for humans to resign themselves to these contingencies. The social system is not an unchangeable order beyond human control but a pattern of human action. In justice as fairness humans agree to share one another’s fate. In designing institutions, only when doing so is for the common benefit, they undertake to avail themselves of the accidents of nature and social circumstance. The two principles are a fair way of meeting the arbitrariness of fortune; and while no doubt imperfect in other ways, the institutions which satisfy these principles are unjust. #RandolphHarris 4 of 22
A further point is that the difference principle expresses a conception or reciprocity. It is a principle of mutual benefit. We have seen that, at least when chain connection holds, each representative human can accept the basic structure as designed to advance one’s interests. The social order can be justified to everyone and in particular to those who are least favoured; and in this sense it is egalitarian. However, it seems necessary to consider in an intuitive way how the condition of mutual benefit is satisfied. Consider any two representative humans A and B, and let B be the one who is less favoured. Actually, since we are most interested in the comparison with the least favoured human, let us assume that B is this individual. Now B can accept A’s being better off since A’s advantages have been gained in ways that improve B’s prospects. If A were not allowed one’s better position, B would be even worse off than one is. The difficulty is to show that A has no grounds for complaint. Perhaps one is required to have less than one might since one’s having more would result in some loss to B. Now what can be said to the more favoured human? To being with, it is clear that the well-being of each depends on a scheme of social cooperation without which no one could have a satisfactory life. #RandolphHarris 5 of 22
Secondly, we can ask for the willing cooperation of everyone only if the terms of the scheme are reasonable. The difference principle, then, seems to be a fair basis on which those better endowed, or more fortunate in their social circumstances, could expect others to collaborate with them when some workable arrangement is a necessary condition of the good of all. There is a natural inclination to object that those better situated deserve their greater advantages whether or not they are to the benefit of others. At this point it is necessary to be clear about the notion of desert. It is perfectly true that given a just system of cooperation as a scheme of public rules and the expectations set up by it, those who, with the prospect of improving their condition, have done what the system announces that it will reward are entitled to their advantages. In this sense the more fortunate have a claim to their better situation; their claims are legitimate expectations established by social institutions, and the community is obligated to meet them. However, this sense of desert presupposes the existence of the cooperative scheme; it is irrelevant to the question whether in the first place the scheme is to be designed in accordance with the difference principle. #RandolphHarris 6 of 22
Perhaps some will think that the person with greater natural endowments deserves those assets and the superior character that made their development possible. Because one is more worthy in this sense, one deserves the greater advantages that one could achieve with them. This view, however, is surely incorrect. It seems to be one of fixed point of our considered judgments that no one deserves one’s place in the distribution of native endowments, any more than one deserves one’s initial starting place in society. The assertion that a human deserves one’s initial starting place in society. The assertion that a human deserves the superior character that enables one to make the effort to cultivate one’s abilities is equally problematic; for one’s character depends in large part upon fortunate family and social circumstances for which one can claim no credit. The notion of desert seems not to apply to these cases. Thus the more advantaged representative human cannot day that one deserves and therefore has a right to a scheme of cooperation in which one is permitted to acquire benefits in ways that do not contribute to the welfare of others. There is no basis for one’s making this claim. From the standpoint of common sense, then, the difference principle appears to be acceptable both to the more advantaged and to the less advantaged individual. #RandolphHarris 7 of 22
Of course, none of this is strictly speaking an argument for the principle, since in a contract theory argument are made from the point of view of the original position. However, these intuitive considerations help to clarify the nature of the principle and the sense in which it is egalitarian. Nonetheless, relatively marginalized groups need jobs or equal pay or civil rights or educational opportunities. Still, when we let people face these problem situations in their own way, that is how true self-initiated learning takes place. Gradually they become fully aware of their World and its problems. Then they begin to seek answers. The issues which have come from the people return to them—not as content to be deposited, but as problems to be solved. Some people regard themselves as lazy, unfit, worthless, les free than an animal. Because of this they feel attracted to the oppressors and their way of life, and their highest dream is to be like the tyrant, and oppress others. However, gradually the self-concept and the goal change. Less affluent (and sometimes the rich are victims of oppression) makes such statements as these: “I now realize I am human, an educated person.” “We were blind, now our eyes have been opened.” “Now we will no longer be a dead weight on the cooperative farm.” “I work, and working I transform the World.” #RandolphHarris 8 of 22
People who have been oppressed change their goals and they eventually no longer want to be like the oppressor, but they envision a new type of social system, more human. Then they begin to take considered steps to change the terrible conditions under which they live. The important thing is for people to come to feel like masters of their thinking and views of the World explicitly or implicitly manifest in their own suggestions and those of their comrades. However, sometimes their anger at professionals, at the ack of health services, at the lack of any voice in their own health care becomes so strong that some of the professionals are frightened, while others are self-righteously angry in response. Still some people get upset when communication starts because they think, “See, what you are accomplishing is better, less angry communication! You are destroying the possibility of revolutionary change! You are defusing the hatred and bitterness which alone can spark any real change for the oppressed!” Are we fiddling while Rome burns? What possible difference can a new approach to family or to psychotherapy make when our very planet is threatened with dissolution? We have to subordinate these ancient quarrels and launch a global partnership. #RandolphHarris 9 of 22
The discrepancy in wealth and income between the “haves” and “have-nots” of the World is laying a basis for present as well as future hatreds. Groups roam the World, wreaking violence on totally innocent people. There seems no end to the list of undying feuds between races, cultures, and nations. Does a person-centered approach in psychotherapy have anything useful to offer in solving these immense and dangerous global issues? We must attempt to establish a sense of common cause among the vastly disparate and competing nations of the World. It requires that a nation moves beyond self-interest defined in terms of power and concentration on the common interests defined in terms of realizing a human’s fullest potentialities. There is also a desire for citizens to develop their potentialities and that goal is one of the few items on which most of the nations of the World might agree. And it is precisely at this point that experience with a person-centered approach may have something to offer. Ina time of major social change, people become acutely aware of the problem and frustrated by the superficial attempts at correction. Then, sometime suddenly, the public as a whole sees the problem clearly, looks more deeply for solutions, and discovers that the answers on a small scale, are already at hand. #RandolphHarris 10 of 22
There develops a clear public will to deal with the problem, and enormous forces are set in motion. This does not mean that a miraculous solution is quickly reached, because most social problems—and technological problems too—are highly complex, and many unforeseen difficulties arise. However, once the corner has been turned, once that amorphous creature “the public” has made a decision to attack the problem, there is a great deal of forward movement. The telephone, the Internet, the radio, the automobile all went through a slow gestation period before the public realized the value of each, and demanded their rapid development. For generations different groups in American were denied the right to vote and could not hope to receive equal justice before the law. However, changes are beginning to occur, sometimes they happen with surprising speed, sometimes with tragic slowness. Yet, they are being made. Just when it seems too late, the great social collective mind grasps the seriousness of a problem and begins to move dramatically ahead. Because the collective decision is so late, the outcome is always in doubt—the World may still be drowned by overpopulation, we may still die of pollution, we may still see violent racial and gender strife—but at least we are making massive efforts to deal with those issues. #RandolphHarris 11 of 22
It is this knowledge of the past that gives me courage to propose methods for dealing with intercultural, interracial, interpersonal, and international tensions. I believe that if the public becomes truly aware that present-day policies are targeted directly toward the destruction of all of us, then they may decide to look for alternatives. And the person-centered approach offers just such an alternative. Conflict within the individual is the most basic of all feuds and tensions. Some people seen outwardly like reasonably acceptable people, but they are lying to themselves. Inwardly they feel they are frauds, worthless, incompetent, full of bad impulses and evil intentions. There is an irreconcilable discrepancy between what they seem to be and what they really are. If people knew them as they are, they would reject them. Here is a power struggle within the person. In order to get by, people must keep up their façade, yet this fraudulent front is continually undermined by who they really are. No matter whichever might win out, life will be dissatisfying or frightening, or both. Individuals must realize that they can work openly for approval of others and can strive for recognition, but they can also resist control by others. Some of the conflicts that create rifts between people are marital conflict, sibling rivalry, athletic or academic cutthroat competition, and racial, gender, and educational differences. #RandolphHarris 12 of 22
However, the only thing in a person’s life that makes one different is the thoughts in one’s mind that you know and no one else does. No matter how rich or poor, the person’s skin colour or gender, when someone opens up to you it is like a formula that grants access to their soul. You may learn you are closer to this person than you ever thought possible. Why? Because it is in our humanness—the shared conflicts, and feelings, learnings, perplexities, “experiences”—that we can come together, in spite of lives that in their externals probably have nothing in common, except that we were both born and have lived. One of our greatest difficulties in any dispute is to recognize or, even more difficult, to accept that the certitude we feel about our own rightness and goodness is equaled by the certitude of the opposing individual or group abut their rightness and goodness. If tension is to be reduced, it is this pattern that must somehow be dissolved. Here is where a person-centered approach is at its most powerful. When people can listen to their own feelings of hurt and distrust, the conflict over “principles” becomes completely redefined. It is now a question of the feelings, the needs, the fears of each person. New channels of communication are opened up. #RandolphHarris 13 of 22
The politics of a head-on confrontation over decision-making changes completely when each person is empowered to be all of oneself—feelings, fears, ideas, hopes, distrusts. A decision is then reached on a human basis, not as a result of a political clash. Listening is important. It provides a germinal took for radical self-experience, interaction, and group process. When we listen to others, coming from a rich, as yet untapped, understanding of and access to the locus of power in the individuals, we can also relearn what it means to be ourselves. Furthermore, gratitude is a handmaiden of contentment. An ever-growing attitude of gratitude will certainly make us more content since we will be focusing more on what we do have, both spiritually and materially, than on what we do not have. However, contentment is more than focusing on what we have. It is focusing on the fact that all we do have, we have by the grace of God. We do not deserve anything we have, materially or spiritually. It is all by God’s grace. Discontent usually arises when we think we are not getting what we deserve, or when we think we are not getting as much as someone else. We have already seen the corrosive effect of discontent in the attitude of those who worked all day in the vineyard. #RandolphHarris 14 of 22
They were discontent and consequently unhappy, because they felt they had earned more than the workers who were hired at the eleventh hour. How different from their attitude was Paul’s who regarded himself not only as “the least of the apostles” but even as “less than the least of all God’s people” (1 Corinthians 15.9, Ephesians 3.8). Paul truly regarded himself as an “eleventh hour” worker in God’s vineyard, as one who was receiving a full say’s wages, and more, for one hour’s work. Discontent is a sign that we are living by works, that we think we deserve more than we are getting, that in some way God is not being fair to us. One of the more helpful passages of Scripture on this subject is Luke 17.7-10: “Supposed one of you had a servant plowing or looking after sheep. Would one say to the servant when one comes in from the field, ‘Come along now and sit down to eat’? Would one not rather say, ‘Prepare my supper, get yourself ready and wait on me while I eat and drink; after that you may eat and drink’? Would one thank the servant because one did what one was told to do? So you also, when you have done everything you were told to do, should say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty.’” #RandolphHarris 15 of 22
I am sure this passage of Scripture offends many people’s sense of fairness just as much as does the parable of the workers in the vineyard. The master of the servant seems completely selfish and callous to needs of his servant. However, Jesus was not commending the master, He was simply describing conditions as they existed. The issue was, given the culture of the day, who had a right to have expectations of whom? Clearly, the servant, when he had fulfilled his duties, had no right to expect either gratitude or consideration. He had simply done what he was supposed to do. God is no selfish and callous like the master in Jesus’s story. He is the generous and gracious landowner we saw described in the parable of the workers in the vineyard. However, we are the servants of Luke 17.7-10. When we have done everything we were told to do—and who of us has come anywhere close to that standard?—we should still say, “We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty. If we want to live by what we deserve, God could say, “All right, let us first add up your debits, and ten we will think about your credits.” Our problem is, we do not recognize our debits. We do not recognize how far, far short we come every day in doing what we are supposed to do. And because of that, we tend to live by works instead of by grace in our daily relationship with God. #RandolphHarris 16 of 22
Paul said, “Godliness with contentment is great gain,” reports 1 Timothy 6.6. All the wealth and prestige in the World with discontentment results in poverty of spirit. However, contentment arising in our souls from living by grace—that is, from realizing we have not received what we actually deserved, but daily receive what we do not deserve—bring great wealth of spirit, even if we are living in poverty and obscurity. I commend to you for meditation in respect to contentment Luke 17.10, which sums up Jesus’ teaching in that story. “Behold, now it came to pass in the sixty and ninth year of the reign of the judges over the people of the Nephites, that Nephi, the son of Helaman, returned to the land of Zarahemla from the land northward. For he had been forth among the people who were in the land northward, and did preach the word of God unto them, and did prophesy many things unto them. And they did reject all his words, insomuch that he could not stay among them, but returned again unto the land of his nativity. And seeing the people in a state of such awful wickedness, and those Gadianton robbers filling the judgment-seats—having usurped the power and authority of the land; laying aside the commandments of God, and not in the least aright before him; doing no justice unto the children of humans. #RandolphHarris 17 of 22
Condemning the righteous because of their righteousness; letting the guilty and the wicked go unpunished because of their money; and moreover to be held in office at the head of government, to rule and do according to their wills, that they might get gain and glory of the World, and, moreover, that they might the more easily commit adultery, and steal, and skill, and do according to their own wills—now this great iniquity had come upon the Nephites, in the space of not many years; and when Nephi saw it, his heart was swollen with sorrow within his breast; and he did exclaim in the agony of his soul: Oh, that I could have had my days in the days when my father Nephi first came out of the land of Jerusalem, that I could have joyed with him in the promised land; then were his people easy to ne entreated, firm to keep the commandments of God, and slow to be led to do iniquity; and they were quick to hearken unto the words of the Lord—yea, if my days could have been in those days, then would my soul have had joy in the righteousness of my brethren. However, behold, I am cosigned that these are my days, and that my soul shall be filled with sorrow because of this wickedness of my brethren. And behold, now it came to pass that it was upon a tower, which was in the garden of Nephi, which was by the highway which led to the chief market, which was in the city of Zarahemla. #RandolphHarris 18 of 22
“Therefore, Nephi had bowed himself upon the tower which was in his garden, which tower was also near unto the garden gate by which led the highway. And it came to pass that there were certain people passing by and saw Nephi as he was pouring out his soul unto God upon the tower; and they ran and told the people what they had seen, and the people came together in multitudes that they might know the cause of so great mourning for the wickedness of the people. And now, when Nephi arose he beheld the multitudes of people who had gathered together. And it cam to pass that he opened his mouth and said unto them: Behold, why have ye gathered yourselves together? That I may tell you of your iniquities? Yea, because I have got upon my tower that I might pour out my soul unto my God, because of the exceeding sorrow of my heart, which is because of your iniquities! And because of my mourning and lamentation ye have gathered yourselves together, and do marvel; yea, and ye have great need because ye are given away that the devil had got so great hold upon your hearts. Yea, how could you have given way to the enticing of him who is seeking to hurl away your souls down to everlasting misery and endless wo? O repent ye, repent ye! Why will ye die? Turn ye, turn ye unto the Lord your God. Why has he forsaken you? #RandolphHarris 19 of 22
“It is because you have hardened your hearts; yea, ye will not hearken unto the voice of the good shepherd; yea, ye have provoked him to anger against you. And behold, instead of gathering you, except ye will repent, behold, he shall scatter you forth that ye shall become meat for dogs and wild beasts. O, how could you have forgotten your God in the very day that he has delivered you? However, behold, it is to get gain, to be praised of humans, yes, and that ye might get gold and silver. And ye have set your hearts upon the riches and the vain things of this World, for the which ye do murder, and plunder, and steal, and bear false witness against your neighbour, and do all manner of iniquity. And for this cause wo shall come unto you except ye shall repent. For if ye will not repent, behold, this great city, and also all those great cities which are round about, which are in the land of our possession, shall be taken away that ye shall have no place in them; for behold, the Lord will not grant unto you strength, as he has hitherto done, to withstand against your enemies. For behold, thus saith the Lord: I will not you unto the wicked of my strength, to one more then the other, save it be unto those who repent of their sins, and hearken unto my words. #RandolphHarris 20 of 22
“Now therefore, I would that ye should behold, my brethren, that is shall be better for the Lamanites than for you except ye shall repent. For behold, they are more righteous than you, for they have not sinned against that great knowledge which ye have received; therefore the Lord will be merciful unto them; yea, he will lengthen out their days and increase their seed, even when thou shalt be utterly destroyed except thou shalt repent. Yea, wo be unto you because of that great abomination which has come among you; and ye have united yourselves unto it, yea, to that secret band which was established by Gadianton! Yea, wo shall come unto you because of that pride which ye have suffered to enter your hearts, which has lifted you up beyond that which is good because of your exceedingly great riches! Yea, wo be unto you because of your wickedness and abominations! And except ye repent ye shall perish; yea, even your lands shall be taken from you, and ye shall be destroyed from off the face of the Earth. Behold now, I do not say that these things shall be, of myself because it is not of myself that I know these things; but behold, I know that these things are true because the Lord God has made them known unto me, therefore I testify that they shall be,” reports Helaman 7.1-29. #RandolphHarris 21 of 22
Awaken me, God, waler on the edge, Lord of beautiful music, God of wild longings. My shield and my protector, God, be. God, rescue me please. Great King, please guide and protect me. My guide is God as I ride through life. Life’s soft fluid, gently welling, source and gift to all who live, please be my protector. Defeat my foes with flashing flame, with thunder and lightning, Almighty God. Please empower me, Most High, I ask to write the truth on the tablet of life. God of beauty, please grant my desire. God, you give us so much. The entire World is a gift from You. You keep it running, and this should be acknowledged. O inscribe all the children of Thy covenant for a happy life. May all the living do homage unto Thee forever and praise Thy name in truth, O God, who art our salvation and our help. Blessed by Thou, O Lord, Beneficent One, unto whom our thanks is due. Please grant lasting peace unto Israel Thy people, for Thou art the Sovereign Lord of peace; and may it be good in Thy sight to bless Thy people Israel at all times with Thy peace. Blessed art Thou, O Lord, who blesset Thy people Israel with peace. In the book of life, blessing, peace and ample sustenance, may we, together with all Thy people, the house of Israel, be remembered and inscribed before Thee for a happy life and for peace. Blessed art Thou, o Lord, who establishes peace. #RandolphHarris 22 of 22
Cresleigh Homes
What is a butler’s pantry? Everything you need to know about the luxury home feature. There are some old-house features we sorely miss in today’s construction—transom windows, stained glass, vestibules, and turrets to name a few.
One Victorian England feature we are lucky enough to see making a comeback is the butler’s pantry. A butler’s pantry is a kitchen within your kitchen and it is ideal for homes that love to host parties and entertain. It is often a buffer zone between the kitchen and dining room.
It gives additional storage space to a kitchen, allows privacy in meal preparation while hosting guest, has a beverage refrigerator, and a sink. You can even add a counter top oven to make the space more functional. This luxurious features is also a better way to organize items like delicate china, crystal, and silver. The house gourmet will relish the large kitchen with its coveted butler’s pantry captured in this handsome design at #BrightonStation Residence 2. https://cresleigh.com/brighton-station/residence-2/
Best of all, each Cresleigh home comes fully equipped with an All Ready connected home! This smart home package comes included with your home and features great tools including: video door bell and digital deadbolt for the front door, connect home hub so you can set scenes and routines to make life just a little easier. Two smart switches and USB outlets are also included, plus we’ll gift you a Google Home Hub and Google Mini to help connect everything together!
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Randolph Harris II International 