Home » Toddlers (Page 27)
Category Archives: Toddlers
Our Memories of the Family are a Significant Part of the Mythology
We have lost a certain depth in the way we understand our experiences, using language that is often doubletalk and shallow in order to describe complex and profound aspects of life. Resentment is a reliable gauge of when assistants are doing more than they should. The problem with heeding this measure is that there are ongoing pressures to deny its validity. Dedicated assistants insist that they are doing fine. At all costs, they want to avoid evoking in the person that they are assisting fear of abandonment and to keep from revealing that the care has become taxing. They conceal their feelings and strive to maintain a contented exterior. Eventually, their pretense isolates them from the person who needs their assistance, and any previous intimacy become veiled by this effort to hide the truth. A myth is a sacred story set in a time and place outside history, describing in fictional form the fundamental truths of nature and human life. Mythology gives to the invisible and eternal factors that are always part of life but do not appear in a literal, factual story. Most of the time, when we tell a story about our lives, we couch it in purely human terms. When was the last time you talked about monsters, angels, or demons when you were describing some strongly felt experience? Myth reaches beyond the personal to express an imagery reflective of archetypal issues that shape every human life. #RandolphHarris 1 of 5
When we are trying to understand our problems and our suffering, we look for a story that will be revealing. Our surface explanations usually show their shortcomings; they do not satisfy. And so we turn to family themes. Unacknowledged weariness puts a barrier between the ill people and those who assist them. However, the feelings leak through in subtle ways. My son says he likes fixing me dinner every night, but he looks so tense when he is here. He comes right over from work, and his wife holds dinner at their house until he gets home. He smiles, makes chitchat, but I know he is racing against times. Sometimes he looks like he is going to explode, his face is so tight, but he keeps on smiling. I wish he could just say it is too much for him. I would be disappointed, do not get me wrong, but TV dinners would not kill me. People can see beneath cheerful demeanor that their child is suffering, but do not want to initiate their release from the obligation. Many are afraid, not of TV dinners, but of the loneliness that would await them on a nightly basis if they spoke up and urged their child to only visit them on weekends. The worst consequence of silence, however, is the gap it leaves between them. When you notice your child can no longer speak to you beyond chitchat, it is clear that one has become an unmentionable problem in their life. #RandolphHarris 2 of 5
Our memories of the family are a significant part of the mythology by which we live. We can learn things like the notion of exchange. For example, trading frequency for quality, guilty silence for relieving honesty. Dependent people and their helpers can release each other from guilt, but gestures must be mutual if they are to be effective. The reward for recognizing resentment as a limit is enjoying the elderly or disabled person’s company again. To feel that one can give pleasure and to receive small acts of sweetness is a fair exchange for new hours’ wait. A spiral of good feeling is set in motion between parent and child, which will replace the negative snowball that has been evolving between family members as the child becomes more and more weary of the care. If given the chance, few people would choose being waited on over being enjoyed. When we analyze what the prayer of faith means we discover that it is a statement of belief in some power which is able, ready, and willing to do the healing. At first, this may seem like a rather cold-blooded analysis, for to pick a prayer of faith apart seems to rob it of its sentimentality. Nevertheless, if we would arrive at a state of consciousness that heals we must be willing to analyze some of those things which seem so intimate and so holy that we that we dislike even to mention them. #RandolphHarris 3 of 5
Some of those who are calling out for help are the honest in heart who are earnestly seeking the truth, but they do not know where to find it. The prayer of faith may be thought of as a petition, as a beseeching, or as an agonizing cry of the soul for deliverance, but whatever we term it and from whatever viewpoint we look at it, we discover that it still is an attitude of thought, a way of thinking, a movement in consciousness. If the prayer is one of faith, then this mental movement is one of acceptance, for faith is an acceptance unqualified by denial. Complete faith is absolute and beneficial. Faith is the attitude of one who makes a complete mental surrender. It can arise only through a consciousness of complete abandonment. To the consciousness of faith there are no longer any arguments against its conviction. Faith has no opposites; it is an uncompromising mental attitude, and this is exactly what the prayer of faith is. It is a prayer, a petition, or a beseeching stated in come form of mental acceptance, unqualified belief, unquestioned trust. While the burden of petition and the necessity of faith rests on the one making the petition or having the faith, the response to this petition and this faith is made by some creative agency which has the power and the willingness to perform the act. It is God who raises us up. #RandolphHarris 4 of 5
We make some strong claims in faith. We do not apologize for that. We have that responsibility. We have the truth. We are proclaiming the truth. When we consider how we help others, give it careful, prayerful thought. Some of those who are calling out for help are confused and disturbed by this complex, somewhat contradictory World in which we live, a World that has many crosswinds and crosscurrents, and even some whirlpools that can entrap and destroy. Let us remember that. Many of these people are yearning for the inner peace and joy that really can come only through love of God and love of family and from keeping God’s commandments. If from thence thou shalt seek the Lord thy God, thou shalt find him, if thou seek hum with all they heart and with all thy soul, we shall know the truth, and the truth shall make us free. That implies that there is a truth which, known, automatically becomes demonstrated. Civilizations may come and go, empires may flourish and decay, time may pass, and change may deface all previous experience, but law is eternal. Thus, the scientist learns to depend on law. As we are able to perfect our lives, the blessings we have become more meaningful, and we experience that inner joy and peace for which there is no substitute. #RandolphHarris 5 of 5
If a Photograph or a Diamond Ring is All You Have, it Means the World to You!
Not everyone can find the middle of a circle, but only a person who has the proper knowledge. Similarly, anyone can get angry—that is easy—or can give away money or spend it; but to do all this to the right person, to the right extent, at the right time, for the right reason, and in the right way is no longer something easy that anyone can do. It is for this reason that good conduct is rare, praiseworthy, and noble. This kind of spirituality, so ordinary and close to home, is especially nourishing to the soul. Without this caring incorporated of the sacred into life, the World can become so far removed from the human situation as to be irrelevant. An appreciation for vernacular spirituality is important because without it our idealization of the holy, making it precious and too far removed from life, can actually obstruct a genuine sensitivity to what is sacred. The word mercy has fallen out of common usage in our language. It derives from the antiquated French merci, which means compassion and forbearance toward someone in one’s power. In Latin, merces signifies pay or reward, and the root merc refers to aspects of commerce. The words merchant and mercenary at first seem antithetical to mercy, and one wonders at their common root, but when we have to give help or depend on others for help, we understand why the concept of exchange underlies both usages. Mercy is based entirely on exchange. #RandolphHarris 1 of 6
Giving help eventually embitters us, unless we are compensated at least by appreciation; accepting help degrades us, unless we are convinced that our helpers are getting something in return. As much as we might prefer to reject this stark accounting, we discover in living through situations of dependence that good will is not enough. There is a delicate balance at the heart of mercy, showing how reciprocation replenishes both the spirit if the helper and the person who is helped. Maturing in age is one of the ways the soul nudges itself into attention to the spiritual aspect of life. The body’s changes teach us about fate, time, nature, mortality, and character. Aging forces us to decide what is important in life. However, those who depend on others for daily survival often feel their very existence is an imposition. Some people engage in a relentless pressure to please—to prove themselves worth of the burdens they impose. Many people who suffer from ailments suppress complaints and avoid asserting themselves, believing that they owe every possible accommodation to those who help them survive. Taking care of a person does not have to entail having power over major aspects of his or her life, but frailty seems to invite invasion. My father used to tell me stories about how care givers would steal my great grandmother’s jewelry, money, wedding and engagement rings, pictures of her family and even her wedding pictures. “You cannot imagine how helpless I feel,” she would tell him.” #RandolphHarris 2 of 6
So long as we still possess it, the power to carry out simple intentions is one of the many unnoticed pleasures of life. When we lose it, we see what it means to do the most ordinary things our own way. People cut off from inner thoughts and feelings, caught up in pain and suffering and loss cannot get very far when they try to understand themselves consciously. Some people make rebellious bids for control that they then keep secret from their helpers. One woman had a fall down the basement stairs and her daughter was so upset. She hired a woman to come in and do her laundry once a week, so she would never have to go down there. However, the senior citizen still when down there. He daughter did not know, and she is very careful about it. She feels like it is her house, her basement, her washing machine and her life. Submission does not come easily to people who have spent decades running their own lives. Going down those steps made that woman’s basement her own again, just as choosing to violate her daughter’s restrictions made her life her own again. Seizing freedom can be as unreasonable as it is gratifying. #RandolphHarris 3 of 6
People who have had restriction places on their lives by ailments, injuries, or from aging often feel the need to do something to regain their independence as a means of reminding themselves that they are still able to exert influence over their own domain or their own body. Many people with physical limitations feel their social environment is gradually diminished until all that remains of their power resources is the humble capacity to comply. They feel that they may be required to give up their legal rights and are required to comply or approve in exchange for the room and board they can afford or for the retirement and medical benefits. The managers of their buildings often disrespect them and the analysis often harass them and no one seems to care. The seniors and disabled feel if they complain about the abusive treatment, they will lose their housing, be physically attacked, or their medical and financial benefits will be discontinued, which would mean they would not be able to afford their medication or living expenses and be left on the streets to die. Psychological symptoms, too, often manifest themselves in weight gain or loss, in allergies to various foods, or in idiosyncratic eating habits. And they become more and more isolated emotionally. When people who have disempowered relatives and they become depressed, they mistake this despondency for an accusation that they are not doing a good job. Hoping for appreciation, they instead get quietly hostile acquiescence. #RandolphHarris 4 of 6
Once families acknowledge the presence and important of power in situations of power in situations of dependency, they tend to have little difficulty taking stock of its distribution and beginning to remedy imbalances on either side. The belief that we do not have the ability to heal arises out of the mistaken idea that our power does the healing, or that the intellect does the healing. All that the will and the intellect could do is to behold or watch the process. The mind fixes its gaze steadfastly upon the principle and then declares that this principle is operative in human affairs, and particularly in the affairs of the one being treated. There is but one healer. This is the spirit of truth. There is but one life principle. This is God in us. There is but one final law. This is the law of good. There is but one ultimate impulsion. This impulsion is love. That which really does the healing can never fluctuate, can never change in its nature. It is not more one day and less the next. It is at this moment absolutely all thee is and it is ever available. We must forever rid ourselves of the idea that it is the personal person who does the healing. We must know that it is not us, but the Father that dwells in us, he does the works. Principle operated irrespective of personal opinion, and when through acquiescence we agree that it is operating, then it must operate. #RandolphHarris 5 of 6
Sure, an elderly person might not like how you just put water in the sink, swish it around with some suds and call it clean; he or she used to scrub it first with cleanser and then rinse it with disinfectant. Someone might not like how you haphazardly ruin their checkbook by just dashing off the bills, not bothering to mark down the dates, check numbers, who it was to, all that stuff. Especially sometimes when someone does not even mark down the amount of the check. Therefore, it is important to find small, but specific concessions to help meet the preferences of the elderly and disabled, which will yield large satisfactions. There is no formula for this process, but it helps to build an edifice of faith that the Lord will help make crooked paths straight. One must not only know that God is all there is, but one must know that God exists right where the need is—not in the form of the need but in the form of an answer to the need. And I can tell when, when all you have is pictures of your family, who you have never met, they mean the World to you, as well as gold and diamond trinkets. People like connections to their heritage. Grandparents get great joy of seeing pictures of their grandbabies. And child love to have pictures of their ancestors. #RandolphHarris 6 of 6
What You Believe is Greater than What is in Your Bank Account
If you believe, you can fulfill your God-given destiny. There is incredible power in what we believe. There can be misperceptions about personal pain and people can have problems conveying their feelings, as they try to find a balance point in the center of chaotic emotions and unpredictable circumstances. To a greater or lesser degree, we are always dependent on others but these contacts are usually voluntary. According to our inclinations, we can approach or avoid other people. However, we can no longer get our own groceries, prepare our own meals, or take care of other necessities on our own, we enter into a period of life that is distinct from all the others. The chief consequence of dependency is that we are forced to count on the kindness of others. The vulnerability aroused by this situation awakens the basic questions of our lives: Am I worthy of love and loyalty? Are people capable of true generosity, or do they live mostly for themselves? Accident or illness can, at any moment, remove anyone’s capacity to function independently. Illness and disability can be a wasteland of degradation. We see only the loss of the freedoms and satisfactions that make life bearable, and we expect disappointing answers to these questions, which is not only a threat to spirituality as such, but also deprives the soul of valuable symbolic and reflective experience. #RandolphHarris 1 of 6
Sometimes people feel angry and helpless in response to dependency, making the transition from an active life to confinement, handling thoughts and reflections about the past, noticing shifts in key relationships, realizing that time it sunning out and options are shrinking, and finding ways to live well in spite of all these changes. Often times, individuals may feel so degraded by the idea of being beholden to helpers that they conceal their disabilities and risk injuring themselves in order to avoid asking for help or appearing to be in need. Through surrender or concealment, they sacrifice much of what formerly made their lives worthwhile. Illness and disability alter our lives in basic ways. As soon as our mobility becomes impaired, changes occur in our we spend our times and conduct our relationships. Self-esteem often erodes along with one’s physical capacities, and we may be further hurt with degrading reactions that others have to our frailty. Regret for wasted time and unfulfilled dreams may nag at us, causing us to question the priorities around which we had previously organized our lives. To be starved for motion and exercise is yet another depletion. Some people’s bodies hurt, and they will just not go and even going to a doctor’s appointment on somedays might be extremely difficult. #RandolphHarris 2 of 6
When physical problems enclose us in daily life in which everything has been mastered and repeated, the pull to keep returning to bed becomes more and more compelling. Life starts to echo the stasis of the body. When we feel we have nothing to say, we tend to shun the company of others. With little going on in our lives beyond eating and sleeping, we fear that other people’s contrasting vitality would shame us even as it momentarily revived us. When company leaves, we expect to be left emptier for having been so briefly filled. The more dependent we are on the mercy of others, the more waiting we have to endure. Dependence and waiting eventually become synonymous. We cannot cancel arrangements to secure the necessities of life. Waiting emphasizes the inferior status of the person who is being helped. Each minute of waiting that accumulates speaks this inferiority more loudly. These disparate conditions can evoke bitterness in the most loving relationships. Anyone who has ever endured an incapacitating illness knows that the feelings evoked by days of waiting can be harder to bear than the aliment itself. We wish to be self-sustained. We somehow hate the meat which we eat, because there seems something of degrading dependence in living by it. #RandolphHarris 3 of 6
The freedom to come and go as we please, the wish to be self-sustained, is as fundamental to most of us as breathing. When this part of our human endowment is frustrated, a subterranean anger is stirred. The longer an illness or incapacity lasts, the harder it becomes for us to maintain faith in our others. We begin to imagine the possibility of abandonment. Days of waiting can crack the confidence of the most secure people, given enough time and the wearing effects of doubt. In situations of dependence, we are asked to believe that we have accumulated vast stores of good will from our own acts of generosity in the past. In truth, most of us carry reservoirs of guilt from the many occasions when we failed to be as generous as we could have been. To then depend upon those whom we once disappointed opens up fears of retribution. We begin to wonder, “Is my life really worth all of this stress?” The answer lies in realms that are invisible to those who still retain control over their own progress in life. You go because you have to, because you want to be in charge of your own life. Walking can be viewed as a major metaphor, representing a continued ability to live independently, to control events, and to be active. “Otherwise, I would be sitting in the lobby straight ahead like all those other people in my building. They look like they died ten years ago. If I stayed in there, I would start looking like them.” #RandolphHarris 4 of 6
Health requires this relaxation, this aimless life. This life in the present. We live too fast and coarsely, just as we eat too fast and do not know the true savor of our food. People who are able to live well in spite of illness are those who allow divine leisure to crowd their physical hardships out of center stage. Turning the nothing of empty time into the essence of good days is the alchemy of successful frailty. At first, having too much time on our hands can feel like a daily humiliation in our making so little of it. Waiting for help emphasizes all the dignities and freedoms that have been ripped away from us. Gradually, if we do not become hardened in out disappointment, we can turn the insults of illness into privileges of being. Care of the soul might include a recovery of formal religion in a way that is both intellectually and emotionally satisfying. One obvious potential source of spiritual renewal is the religious traditions in which we were brought up. Some people are fortunate in that their childhood tradition is still relevant and likely to them, but others have to search. We must be careful to avoid thinking that we are unimportant in the scheme of things. We are the most important persons living, as far as we are concerned. This is not a statement of conceit; it is a simple statement of the conviction that each one of us is rooted in the living spirit, that we have access to the mind of God and the love and the power and the peace of the spirit. #RandolphHarris 5 of 6
It is a simple conviction that no matter how humble our walk in life may appear to be, it must of necessity influence its own environment. We may not be important to people, but we certainly are necessary to God. Placing our entire trust, our complete faith, our whole conviction in this simple thought, we should walk in confidence and speak our spiritual convictions with complete assurance, knowing that there is a presence and power with us and for us and operating through us—a presence and power that knows no defeat. Sometimes people prey on the sick, elderly, and vulnerable, and that can make them feel devalued. However, at the center of every person’s being there is an absolutely perfect life, a complete wholeness, and an eternal and immortal principle. Our work is to mentally uncover this ever-present reality, this changeless and eternal perfection. We must remove every obstruction of thought which denies God’s presence. Spiritual mind healing is a revelation even though we go through a process to arrive at it. Each person must work at our own method and pursue our own logic. If this method and logic lead us to the right conclusion, we will be rewarded by an affirmative answer. #RandolphHarris 6 of 6
Take Steps of Faith and God Will Create New Opportunities
We are a healthy people and have a faith that God can see. Put actions behind what you believe. The care of the soul concentrates on the everyday conditions of life. The home is a sacred space, a place for our soul work where we can paint the walls, write our dreams, think our thoughts, enjoy our members, record our visions and look forward to the bright future. If an emotional problem presents itself, the real issues may not be some single trauma or troubled relationship. Maybe the issue is a life set up in such a way that soul is habitually neglected. Problems are part of every human life, and they do not necessarily wither the soul. The soul suffers more from the everyday conditions of life when they do not nourish it with the solid experiences it craves. Care of the soul asks us to observe its needs continually, give them our wholehearted attention. Spirituality demands attention, mindfulness, regularity, and devotion. Dwelling on the thought that God is love, we permit this love to envelop everything and everyone, bringing with it a sense of peace and joy and certainty. When we realize that God is life, we open our whole thoughts to such a complete inflowing of this divine life. The divine substance exceeds by its immensity every form which our intellect attains. #RandolphHarris 1 of 6
God’s presence in the human mind enables it to recognize eternal truth. God is in all things, not, indeed, as part of their essence, or as a quality, but in the manner that an efficient cause is present to that on which it acts. Hence, God is in all things, and intimately. God is present (even when unrecognized) at the ground or apex of the soul. Knowing that all things are possible to faith, be not afraid. Faith makes the way certain and goes before us and prepares the way. When we know that God is peace, we open our minds to the quiet influence and the calm certainty of this peace. And knowing that God is joy, allows us to meet every situation in happiness. It is important that we commit our lives unto that power which can do all things with complete assurance. The Lord has demonstrated throughout the generations that when the inhabitants of the Earth remember him and are obedient to his direction, he will bless then not only with spiritual blessings, but with material abundance. It has always been so. When the lives of the people are in harmony with the Lord’s will, all of the essential factors that produce the blessings God deigns to give his children seem to come into line. Love and harmony prevail. Even the weather, the climate, and the elements seem to respond. Peace and tranquility endure. #RandolphHarris 2 of 6
No one lives entirely by oneself. We are all individual part of humanity, and whether or not we realize it, each is influencing those around them, and each in one’s turn is being influenced by others. No doubt the thoughts and opinions and actions of the whole World finally are based on what everyone things and believes. According Sir Isaac Newton’s III law, every action creates a separate, but equal reaction. Science tells us that this same power, if properly used, can become an instrument for the most rapid advance in civilization the World has every known. The limitless energy that scientists now know how to use can clean up and irrigate most wastelands in the World. Nature has placed before us the possibility of the greatest blessings in the World. If the majority of people came to believe in spiritual power and the benefits that can be obtained from it, they would all have a great desire to try a new kind of experiment, one that would bless instead of curse humanity. Have you ever notices the contagion of a happy person; one who has an enthusiastic joy in living? That person’s spirit permeates those around them, and the radiance from their personality influences the environment to such an extent that it finally changes it. #RandolphHarris 3 of 6
Most people notice the effect a calm and poised person has on others and how they feel safe in that individual’s presence. However, we have all also had the experience of finding ourselves more or less frustrated and confused and beginning to wonder what it is all about. Perhaps the greatest tragedies of all time have occurred when people have received the promised blessings of the Lord and then have forgotten the sources of their good life. We have to make sure to acknowledge the Lord and thank him for his blessings. As we succeed, we have the sure promise of the Lord that he will prosper us in every way necessary for our well-being. When we have the privilege of sitting down quietly with someone whose atmosphere is permeated with peace and confidence, and gradually we have felt the rough edges of our agitation disappear until finally our own atmosphere changes, and we are filled with hope and confidence. God is present everywhere and in all people. For just as there is an energy caught from the Universe and locked in the physical atom that can be released, so there is a spiritual energy caught in every person’s mind and locked up in the individual life waiting to be released. Faith and conviction are the instruments through which this energy is used. #RandolphHarris 4 of 6
Spiritual power is within us to heal, bless and prosper those whom we think of. It has brought us the abundant life. It has made us happy, healthy, and serene. We who enjoy the abundant life want to share this happiness. It is wonderful to realize that we can sit in the quiet of our own being and consciously direct a power greater than we are for the definite purpose of helping ourselves and someone else. This power should be used for both purposes. For we have to get back to this simple proposition—we must use the power to help ourselves first, in order that we may establish a realization of our ability to use it for others. If we would bring happiness to those around us, we must first become happy ourselves. However, before we can become happy something has to happen to us that causes us to know that God is right where we are, that God is the final power in the Universe, and that love is an all-conquering force. We are better physically because we keep the Word of Wisdom and avoid those things harmful to our bodies. We are better spiritually because our goals are clarified. We learn more about our relationship with our Heavenly Father. We are more motivated to be a more understanding person, a more faithful individual. We must have confidence and self-assurance. #RandolphHarris 5 of 6
And this kind of confidence and self-assurance comes only through having proved to ourselves completely that there is a power greater than we are, that it is a power for good, and that it is available, and that we actually know how to use it. And the only proof we will every have is what it does to us and to others. Anyone who uses the creative energy of faith will receive a direct answer or will see a sign following the use of this power. We must make our religion and spiritual conviction come alive and move through us into action. If we decide to, we can pray effectively. If we have the will, we can learn to live with a sense of confidence and security by getting over our fears. Love is the greatest healing power in the World. Everyone needs to be loved. Everyone needs to be needed. Everyone has some kind of talent and wants to use it. Somehow in the magic of this marvelous World, we can find our place and make our contribution. When we think about peace we become peaceful. It is from this peace that we affirm the presence of love and truth and goodness. Because our prayer of affirmation works exactly like any other law in nature, signs will follow our belief. #RandolphHarris 6 of 6
There are Seven Billion People on this Planet and God Cares What I Had for Lunch
God is life, God is power, and this life and this power are available right now. Perspective is the way we see things when we look at them from a certain distance, and it allows us to appreciate their true valuable. Professional psychology has created a catalogue of disorders, known as the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders fifth edition (DSM-5), which is used by doctors and insurance companies to help diagnose and standardize problems of emotional life and behavior with precision. For example, there is a category called adjustment disorders. The problem is adjusting to life, while perhaps sane to all outward appearances, may sometimes be detrimental to the soul. It is extremely important that we do not make decisions of eternal value from the perspective of mortality. For decisions that affect eternity, we need to consider the perspective of our Father in Heaven, as his perspective is essential. God’s eternity signifies an everlasting, endless time. God is a Father, King, and Friend mediated with a knowledge that cannot be surpassed by abstract speculation. God’s plan gives us endurance even amid the wreckage of proximate hopes. Hope keeps us anxiously engaged in good causes even when these appear to be losing causes. Not having an eternal perspective, or losing it, can lead us to have an Earthly perspective as our personal standard and to make decision that are not in harmony with the will of God. #RandolphHarris 1 of 6
God is eternal and through the contingency of finite things and as through the holy through the demands of the moral law, are an immediate, purely spiritual experience called mystical. The union of love and will between the Creator and his creations is permanently retained. Perversion, however, may be regarded either as a condition or as a capability. Society is more eager to accept it as a condition than to respect it as a capability. On its path to progress, society gets just so far—and then again prefers birth to merit, social status to personal achievement. The DSM-5 should also include the diagnosis psychological modernism, an uncritical acceptance of the values of the modern World. It includes blind faith in technology, inordinate attachment to material gadgets and conveniences, uncritical acceptance of the march of scientific progress, devotion to electronic media, and a life-style dictated by advertising. This orientation toward life also tends toward a mechanistic and rationalistic understanding of matters of the heart. In this modernist syndrome, technology becomes the root metaphor for dealing with psychological problems. A modern person comes to therapy and days, “Look, I do not want any long-term analysis. If something is broken, let us fix it. Tell me what I have to do, and I will do it.” The boogey man has long been an indispensable figure in the family for frightening children. Grownups are now terrorized with the threat that the psychiatrist will come get them. #RandolphHarris 2 of 6
Doctors have no imagination in describing diseases. Perhaps that is why their accounts of real illnesses fit imaginary illnesses so well. Such a person is rejecting out of hand the possibility that the source of a problem in a relationship, for example, may be a weak sense of values or failure to come to grips with mortality. The modernist syndrome urges people to buy the latest electronic gear and to be plugged in to news, entertainment, and up-to-the-minute weather reports. It is vitally important not to miss out on anything. There are some people who spend most of their day in front of several television monitors keeping track of events from around the World. These people do not need all of this information professionally, but they feel their lives would be empty if they let any gaps appear in their grasp of the news. A woman who manages a computer firm knows the very latest chemical and mechanical medical treatments, and she can tell you the side effects of whatever pill you are taking; yet in private she feels overwhelmed by her failure to get her life on track and settled. Her sickness is not amenable to the literal medications she knows so well, because her World-weariness is a soul of malady. The difference between mad-doctors and other man-people is roughly the same as that between convex and concave folly. #RandolphHarris 3 of 6
The revenge of mollusk on man, of Shaw on Shakespeare, of the ghetto on God is rapid technological progress, opposition to which qualities one as a reactionary. There seems to be an inverse relationship between information and wisdom. We are overloaded with information about living healthfully, but we have largely lost our sense of the body’s wisdom. We can tune in to news reports and know what is happening in every corner of the World, but we do not seem to have much wisdom in dealing with these World problems. The World demands that we be responsible to it, not to ourselves. We have many demanding academic programs in professional psychology, and states often have rigid requirements for the practice of psychotherapy, and yet there is undoubtedly a severe dearth of wisdom about the mysteries of the soul. Only one is an artist who can see the mysterious in what is ordinary, and can thus transform a solution into a problem. The modernist syndrome also tends to literalize everything it touches. We have a spiritual longing for community and relatedness and for a cosmic vision, but we go after them with literal hardware instead of with sensitivity of the heart. We want to know about peoples from far away places, but we do not want to feel emotionally connected to them. The Lord has given us his standards of worthiness. He has not done it to keep us away from him, but to draw us to him. #RandolphHarris 4 of 6
Philosophy is at the center of every life problem, but it takes soul to reflect on one’s own life with genuine philosophical seriousness. If we looked at mortality as the whole of existence, then pain, sorrow, failure, and short life would be calamity. Our many studies of World cultures are soulless, replacing the common bonding of humanity and it shared wisdom with bites of information that have no way of getting into us deeply, nourishing and transforming our sense of ourselves. Soul, of course, has been extracted from the beginning because we conceive education to be about skills and information, not about depth of feeling and imagination We are not concerned with the weeping and wailing of the family. That is why we must look at life as an eternal thing stretching far into the premortal past and on into the eternal post-death future, then all happenings may be put in proper perspective. The Lord knows what he wants to accomplish with each one of us. He knows the kind of reform he wants to achieve in our lives, and we do not have the right to counsel him. His thoughts are higher than our thoughts. We have a loving, just, and merciful Heavenly Father, who has prepared a plan for our eternal happiness. How seldom do we realize that there are no obstructions to divine power. The Heavens, even the highest Heavens, cannot contain you. #RandolphHarris 5 of 6
As an individual gradually accumulates a storehouse of faith, when the emergency arises, one is able to stand calm and certain, uncaught by the fears of others. God always comes first and that is why our faith is sufficient. Our trust is complete. Our assurance is absolute. Our words are honored by a power great than us—that power which we all have access to, life itself. In life, joy and happiness are important also. For life intended us to be glad. Peace is also important because it rises above the storm of confusion and doubt and uncertainty that so often confronts us. If we listen to peace we will hear it, and it will infiltrate our whole being. We will discover that our words of peace, acting the law of good, will draw upon a power greater than we are and liquidate the confusion. This is the presence of God. Coming to know that divine power and understanding the complexity and the order and the harmony of the human body reinforces our faith in God. Here alone are peace and joy and certainty. Here alone is freedom from fear and doubt. We must learn to turn daily to the one and only supreme source, which is God. To be worthy of the celestial kingdom and the joy that is there, we must keep the commandments! For one who is not able to abide by the law of a celestial kingdom cannot abide a celestial glory. #RandolphHarris 6 of 6
Born of God–Gratitude is the Memory of the Heart
The World is God (the only substance) under his attributes of thought and extension. Spirituality does not arrive fully formed without effort. Occasionally, there is a time gap between the sacrifice and the blessing. The sacrifice may come according to our time schedule, but the blessing may not come by our calendar, but by the Lord’s date book. Religions around the World demonstrate that spiritual life requires constant attention and a subtle, often beautiful technology by which spiritual principles and understanding are kept alive. The Lord comforts us by acknowledging us. He tells us to be not weary in well-doing, for we are laying the foundation of a great-work. For good reason we prayer, go to church, temple, or the cathedral regularly and at appointed times, as it is easy for consciousness to become lodged in the material World and to forget the spiritual. Sacred technology is largely aimed at helping us remain conscious of spiritual ideas and values. This great gift of life is to be accepted. All that God has is our, there is nothing in us that can deny his presence, his power, his wisdom, his guidance, and his protecting love. Today and every day we shall live life to the full and we shall be glad. Always within us there is the power and the presence and the life of God, and unto this presence be glory and honor, dominion and power, both now and forever. #RandolphHarris 1 of 7
When we get in agreement with God and believe what he says about us, then what we believe can supersede any natural law! There is something called a spiritual bank account. There are great spiritual forces that we can draw on and deposit in our souls and minds, and which can be used in any emergency, in any stress or strain of life. Life has enough of everything to meet our needs. It contains love and faith and peace and joy. The blessings surely come to us. Please remember when we make sacrifices, it might be a blessing itself because we are show we have faith and making deposits into our spiritual bank accounts. Things could not have been produced by God in any other manner or order than that in which they were produced. All things must have followed of necessity from a given nature of God, and they were determined for existence or action. God or the Absolute, as in its essence a self-diversifying unity, gave us the ability to meet emergences—the times when we need more love and tolerance, more kindness and understanding, a deeper faith and a higher hope by allowing these blessings to be poured out on us. There are the real crises in our lives. And at such time, unless we have a vast amount of good stored up, we not only become impoverished, but we sometimes become destitute of hope. And then despair takes the place of hope, and fear takes the place of faith. This is what we want to avoid because it means our inner work is not being allowed to reach deep enough. #RandolphHarris 2 of 7
If we put God in remembrance of his promises and do not put him in remembrance of our problems, then we will be faithful to his word. How would it be if we all opened a spiritual account with the Bank of Life and, realizing that we were drawing on the infinite, each day deposited enough hope and happiness and faith to more than meet any emergency that might possibly arise? It is just like our surprise and joy when we receive an unexpected gift. As we give, we find that sacrifice being forth the blessings of Heaven. Love is the base of everything. We feel the need of a more genuine means of bringing outer experience deep inside us. Just as the mind digests it, creating wisdom and character out of the fodder of experience. The outer World serves as a means of deep spirituality and the transformation of ordinary experience into the stuff of soul is all important. If the link between life experience and deep imagination is inadequate, then we are left with a division between life and soul, and such a division will always manifest itself in symptoms. This can make us become skeptical and cynical and sometimes wonder if love, after all, is the greatest reality in life. And yet, we know that we could not live without love, for life is absolutely meaningless unless its whole motivation is built on love and giving. #RandolphHarris 3 of 7
What God promised, he will do. Often prayers are given for specific blessings which we, in our incomplete understanding, believe we need. While the Lord does answer prayers according to his will, he certainly must be pleased when we offer humble prayers of gratitude. God has already answered a huge prayer for everyone born into this World, because God has given himself to us. He has imparted his own life and, in a mysterious way which is beyond our comprehension, has endowed us with the capacity to love. If God is love—and no sane person can doubt this—and if each one of us has, as we must have, immediate access to the love of God, then we earn the ability to draw on the bank of life in such degree as we become loving. The spirit of gratitude is always pleasant and satisfying because it carries with it a sense of helpfulness to other; it begets love and friendship, and engenders divine influence. Gratitude is the memory of the heart. God is love and all the love there is is ours now. We shall endeavor to see something lovable in everyone we meet, in every situation in which we find ourselves, and as we do this we shall accumulate a great degree of love to be deposited in our bank. And then when some experience comes along which seems unkind or unlovable, we shall be able to write a check on our bank of life which will cover every liability of hate or unkindness. #RandolphHarris 4 of 7
Let us adopt an attitude of gratitude in all we do, we must keep our hearts full of thanks and appreciation for what we have and not dwell on what is not ours. The greatest secrets of nature—the person who has taken the time to harmonize oneself with love will find that, when some incident that seems hateful or discordant arises in one’s experience, one can draw on a reserve force which one now has. One can actually apply this to the situation when it arises. The most satisfying experience we have is to see what God does for people. He gives them a new outlook on life. He gives them a perspective that they have never felt before. God raises their sights to things noble and divine. Something happens to them that is miraculous to behold. They look to God and come alive. He brings love to bear on our situations—a love which comprehends and includes everything, a love which has no hurt in it, a love which is not afraid, a love which is clam and confident and sure of itself. Our lives and the lives of our posterity are changed forever. Right here is where the law of mind in action comes into play. When we apply our thought of love directly to discordant situations, and there is nothing in us which is afraid, our thought of love it applied to that situation will heal it, and any situation that confronts us will be healed. We must have a firm faith that God is love, and an equally firm faith when we apply this principle of love to any human problem. #RandolphHarris 5 of 7
The commandments of God give emphasis to improvement of the individual as the only real way to bring about the real improvement of society. The very words we speak in out meditation or treatment or prayer will operate as law in the condition that confronts us, and will neutralize or overcome everything that opposes it. The Lord works from the inside out. The World works from the outside in. This is not an act of will. It has nothing whatsoever to do with concentrating our mind or influencing people. It has to do with this one thought: God is love. God has deposited love at the center of every human’s soul, whether we know it or not, and this love which we now use is not only the greatest sentiment in the Word; it is the supreme power, it is the perfect law, it is reality. And because we have deposited a love which can see around everything that contradicts it, and because we have ample love left in our own thought, we will find that the love we use, acting as law, will definitely overcome the fear and the hate and the sense of insecurity that comes where there is a sense of lack of love. God changes us, and then we change our environment. The World would shape human behavior, but God can change human nature. Above all odds, believe that you can do what God put in your heart. #RandolphHarris 6 of 7
We will gain a new measure of vitality and strength as we learn that perfect love can cast out all fear. Love is always greater than fear. Fear is not really an enemy of love. All that fear can do is cast a shadow across our pathway. However, this shadow is dissipated when we look at it with love. This vitality and strength is a mighty force, an instrument in God’s hands to cause the only one force, which is absolute and conclusive. However, we must spend much time with ourselves straightening out all the little animosities and resolving them into one great love which is God. God never fails and love never fails and we will never fail if we use the love that is God. The most important thing next to love is faith—faith in God, faith in ourselves, faith in what we are doing, and faith in those around us. A person without faith is so insecure, so shaken by circumstances, that one becomes unstable in everything. Faith is natural; fear is unnatural. Faith is beneficial; fear is negative. Faith is affirmative; fear is a denial of life. If we are going to meet all the fears and uncertainties that we are sure to encounter, we need a great deal of faith. It is the nature of faith to believe God upon his bare word. It will not be, says sense; it cannot be, says reason; it both can and will be, says faith, for I have a promise for it. #RandolphHarris 7 of 7
The Great Gift of Life is to be Accepted—You Are Just Fine, Honey Bunch!
Pleasure, knowledge, aesthetic experience, beauty, truth, virtue, harmony, love, friendship, justice, freedom, self-expression are all valuable pictures drawn by our imagination and considered a valuable part of superior wisdom. Life must be lived constructively, in unity and love and sympathy. Everyone is born to be creative and to live to the fullest and to enjoy life, be happy and glad and whole. We do not believe that God is a failure. God never makes any mistakes. It is said that the average person draws on only about 10 percent of one’s real capacity; the other 90 percent is supposedly submerged and unused. If that is true, we can multiply our talents many times. Keep in mind that when one sees a true in full bloom, one has to remember that the roots through which the tree draws its life are entirely invisible from the unassisted eye, but the tree is, in fact, connected to a system that supplies it with nourishment that allows it to grow. And, unless the tree drew on this invisible source it would never flourish. Our roots are in the mind of God. Our individuality, everything that we are and do, is an effect of our invisible forces—forces which continually draw on the infinite. Indeed, people’s charms should not go to waste, may this never be a dire consequence for the mortal World. You are just fine, honey bunch. #RandolphHarris 1 of 6
However, in our lack of understanding, we limit the flow of the divine power into our lives. It is important to take the limits off God and have faith that God has the power to do anything in our lives. He is the God of miracles and blessings. Do not let someone make you think that your mind is limited. They have no idea what other processes that are going on in your brain because your mind is connected to God. If we are certain that our lives are constructive, and if our whole desire is to live in such a way as to harm no one but to bless all, then we should place no limit on the possibility of our future. Our ambition for success and perfection in work drives us on, while worries about failure keep us tied to the soul in the work. When ideas of perfection dive downward into the lower region of the soul, out of that gesture of incarnation comes human achievement. We may feel crushed by failure, but our lofty aims may need some adjustments if they are to play a creative role in human life. Life is embedded in the soul. Right here is where our faith in the power greater than we are must be brought into play. For we as individuals are rooted in this power. We must come to believe that God dwells within us, and that same creative spirit that is back of all things flows through us. In ordinary life, creativity means making something for the soul out of every experience. #RandolphHarris 2 of 6
Sometimes we can shape an experience into something of value, thought to be good or desired. At other times, simply holding experience in memory and in reflection allows it to incubate and reveal some of its imagination. Creativity may assume many different forms, it can generate its own style of awareness and its own brand of insight, which allow more important elements of culture and personality to emerge with some fundamental psychological insights and desires. Creativity finds it soul when we embrace that if we fail, this does not define is. We just have to use it as a moment of reflect and see how we can improve. God has a need of us or he would not have put us here. God has divine wishes to express through us or we would have no existence. An ethically sensitive person is more subject than others to doubt, crisis, and remorse: satisfied conscience is more readily found in those who have a narrow awareness and ready formulas. However, an ethically sensitivity person may exemplify the perfection of individual morality, in which are combined a feeling for each individual act and a care for all possible results. God will give us ideas, that the spirit within us will suddenly give to us in a competed form. Creative work can be exciting, inspiring, and Godlike. #RandolphHarris 3 of 6
As we do our daily work, make our homes and marries, raise our children, and fabricate a culture, we are all being creative. Entering our fate with generous attentiveness and care, we enjoy a soulful kind of creativity that may have the brilliance of the work of great artists. The ultimate work, then, is an engagement with the soul, responding to the demands of fate and tending the details of life as it presents itself. The satisfactions of our work can be deep and long lasting, undone neither by failures nor by flashes of success. The soul has need for vernacular life—its relationship to local places and cultures. It has a preference for details and particulars, intimacy and involvement, attachment and connections. The soul feeds on whatever life grows n its immediate environment. To the soul, the ordinary is sacred and the everyday is the primary source of religion. We are people and we can short-circuit the divine energy that ought to be flowing through us. We short-circuit it when we deny that it is there. And the reason we deny it is because we do not see this energy, and therefore we do not believe in it. The soul needs spirituality. Let us, every one, resolve within ourselves to arise to a new sense of responsibility, a new shouldering of obligation to assist our Father in Heaven in his glorious work of bringing to pass the immortality and eternal life of his sons and daughters throughout the Earth. #RandolphHarris 4 of 6
In the modern World, we tend to separate psychology from religion. We like to think that emotional problems have to do with the family, childhood, and trauma—with personal life not with spirituality. We do not diagnose a mental issue as a loss of religious sensibility or a lack of spiritual awareness. Yet it is obvious that the soul, seat of the deepest emotions, can benefit greatly from the gifts of a vivid spiritual life and can suffer when it is deprived of them. If we believe that the Heavenly Father is within us, and if we believe that all things are possible to God, then we should no longer deny that God knows what to do with his own creation, and we should include ourselves in that creation. The family is the ideal place for teaching. It is also a laboratory for learning. Family home evening can bring spiritual growth to each member. The soul needs an articulated Worldview, a carefully worked out scheme of values, and a sense of relatedness to the whole. The soul needs to believe in immortality and the spirit of the family, arising from traditions and values that have been part of the family for generations. We should learn to have a better opinion of ourselves because we live due to the fact that we are drawing on the invisible source of all life. #RandolphHarris 5 of 6
We wish to draw on these invisible forces of God, to let our roots run deep into that life which already is perfect and complete, and we want to live happily and without fear. For fear short-circuits this divine energy, while confusion and uncertainty cause it to produce bondage instead of freedom. If we want to change this, let us start by accepting ourselves for better. God always does and can and will provide for us. And having clearing all doubt from our consciousness we must learn to affirm that all the power and all the presence and all the life that there is, is for us and with us and in us. “May the Lord answers you when you are in distress. God answers one from his holy Heaven with the saving power of his right hand. Some trust in chariots and in horses, but we must trust in the name of the Lord our God (Psalm 20.1 and 6-7).” The higher forces of life always work constructively. When we use them constructively, there seems to be no limit to their possibility. However, the moment we begin to use them destructively, they appear to block themselves. We cannot expect to use the power of good for evil purposes, nor could we expect through hate to generate love. #RandolphHarris 6 of 6
A Gift Given in Secret Soothes Anger
An important distinction sometimes made is that between knowledge of nature and knowledge of culture. The facts of nature do not change from age to age and from country to country; the facts of culture do. While there is general agreement among scholars in the field that social relationships provide the key to understanding the genesis of ideas, there are also far-reaching disagreements among several distinct schools, within which there are again individual differences. Money and work are, of course, intimately related. By splitting concerns for financial profit from the inherent values of work, money can become the focus of a job’s narcissism. Basically, pleasure in money can take the place of pleasure in work. Nevertheless, we all require money, and money can be an integral part of the work without loss of soul. The crucial point is our attitude. In most work there can be a close relationship between caring for the World in which we live (ecology) and caring for the quality of our way of life (economy). Money is the medium of exchange of our relationship to the community and environment in which we live. We pay our taxes, and the government provides for the basic needs of the community. It is the recognition that community is necessary and that it requires rules of participation. Money is central in our attempts to live a communal life. #RandolphHarris 1 of 5
The lives of some people are shaped by the lure of money, while others sense the temptation and take an ascetic route, in order to avoid being tainted. Either way, money retains its powerful position in the soul. However, if a person’s attitude toward money is essentially a defense against poverty, then this person may never truly experience wealth. The experience of wealth is relative to our state of mine. For some, being wealthy is having a mortgage paid off, car paid off, good health, and food to eat. For others, being wealthy might mean being rich, famous, owning a mansion and being the president of a successful corporation. Nonetheless, wealth is what you imagine it to be. Some people feel wealthy by having a loving family and someone to share their joy with. The basis for correct spiritual treatment starts with the idea that being is already perfect. The idea of perfection is the spiritual power which heals. From the standpoint of pure spirit, an unknown or hidden false cause would be just as unreal as a known or revealed one. We know that mind, or spirit, is pure, perfect, and complete, manifesting itself in physical form in and throughout all nature. The government of good is enforced through the law of human’s own divinity. “When justice is done, it brings joy to the righteous, but terror to evildoers (Proverbs 21.12).” #RandolphHarris 2 of 5
Power exists, and the action of this power is upon your word, or your word acts upon the power, no one knows which. For all practical intents and purposes, the power acts upon your word. If we do not feel any general sense of proprietorship toward the Earth, then we can think that it is someone else’s responsibility to keep the oceans clean and the air free of poison. From the perspective of the soul, wealth and poverty come together in responsible use and enjoyment of this World, which is only leased to us for a time. God knows who we are and that our little affairs are important, the answer is that God knows everything, not as big and little, but only as action and reaction, only as contemplation which produces its own reaction. Remember, that the same ingenuity, the same creative power that flows into the largest form also creates the smallest form. Comparatives do not belong in the Universe. They are merely differentiations in our own mind. The problem lies not in having too much nor too little, but in taking money literally, as a fetish rather than as a medium. If wealth is found by rejecting the experience of poverty, then it will never be complete. The soul is nurtured by want as much as by plenty. #RandolphHarris 3 of 5
God, who created the World, watches over the affairs of humans, the believer is committing oneself to a certain general view of the ultimate basis of the World, giving voice to certain, perhaps very indefinitely specified, expectations as to how things will ultimately turn out, expressing a basic sense of security in life, committing oneself to approach God in prayer and ritual in one way rather than another. And these functions are intimately dependent on each other. What is needed is a description of the relationships among these functions, one sufficiently complex to match the complexity of the subject matter. We have to distinguish between shadow qualities of money that are part of its soulfulness and symptoms of money gone wild. Greed, avarice, cheating, and embezzlement are signs that the soul of money has been lost. It is the nature of money to be exchanged. In fact, we sometimes refer to it as change. When a society becomes corrupted by money’s shadow, that society falls apart much like ancient Rome. However, a society that owns up to its financial shadow can be nurtured. We do not always need a lot of money to feel like adults. Some people end up with millions of dollars and still wonder when they are going to grow up. No clear line is drawn between symbol and object, between wish and fulfillment, between perception and fantasy. #RandolphHarris 4 of 5
Again, no sharp distinction is made between the object itself and the emotional reaction it evokes; emotional response is taken to be an integral part of the environment. As a result, none of our familiar standards of truth or objectivity are applicable. What is most real is what arouses the greatest intensity of emotional response and, particularly, what is felt most sacred. A Great load will fall from our mind if we will stop thinking about rich and poor or hard an easy. There are many Heavenly bodies millions of times larger than the Earth; there are many that are smaller, but the same Cause created them, not as big or little but merely as expression of itself. We know what it is to believe, opine, and wonder, and we know when we know. We know, noninferentially, that there are other persons. Possibly through religious experience, and in particular the experience of solemn awe, we know that God exists. We do not want merely inferred friends. Could we possibly be satisfied with an inferred God? Because beauty in its highest form is spiritual, it must suggest a deeper ethical meaning. When God puts a promise in your heart, you have to come to the place where you believe in that promise so strongly no one and no circumstance can move you. “The Lord detests different weights, and dishonest scales do not please him (Proverbs 20.23).” That means that be fair and honest. #RandolphHarris 5 of 5
Get Ready Like Royalty—Feel Like Royalty!
Open up your mind and it will sing to you. The love that goes out into our work comes back as love of self. Work is an important component of the spiritual life, it can be a path to holiness, and profoundly affects the soul. When we think of work, we only consider function, and so the soul elements are left to chance. However, the rituals that are taking place when one performs a task is the soul’s work: something of the soul is being created in the work of ritual. Ordinary actions, too, accomplish something for the soul. Yet, where there is no artfulness about life, there is a weakening of soul. It seems that the problem with most modern manufacturing is not a lack of efficiency, it is a loss of soul. If people had a deep sense of the truly magical nature of their product, they would take care of the souls of their products with sacred imagination. The same principle holds for all professions and for all forms of labor. We could say, then, that all work is sacred, whether you are building a castle, creating a beautiful stain glass window, or taking out the rubbish. A special window might help ritualize a house, or a dinning room table of a special design or select wood could transform the house into an arena that has imaginal depth that feels one’s soul. It may conjure up certain memories and fantasies that have significance. Or work may be a means of sorting out issues that have little to do with the work itself. It may be a response to fate. #RandolphHarris 1 of 8
We may find ourselves doing work that has been in the family for generations or working at a job that appeared after a number of coincidences and chance events. In this sense, all work is a vocation, a calling from a place that is the source of meaning and identity, the foundation of which are beyond human intention and interpretation. However, we can never do this unless we believe that we can, for the belief that we cannot binds us back to the antiquated precedents and compels us to accept only as much good as has been experienced in the past. If we can get firmly fixed in our mind that the principle of the soul is never bound by precedent, that the doing of new things in science through new discoveries always existed as a possibility, and there was nothing in nature which prohibited the larger experiences, we shall no longer be hypnotized by limitations of the past. It is possible that most of us go through life more or less hypnotized by what everyone has believed. We say that the good we desire cannot come to us because we have never experienced much of it, or there is not enough good to go around, of that God does not hear our prayers. Too often we turn over the possibilities of the individual life to the acceptance of the collective group. Not understanding soul, companies look to the work of other cultures and try to mimic their methods. #RandolphHarris 2 of 8
It is not possible to care for the soul while violating or disregarding one’s own moral sensibility. What we should break down is the hypnotic suggestions that bind us, and create new avenues in the mind for a fresh approach and a new outlook to the spirit. This is something every individual must do for oneself, but there must be a method or a way to begin. We have to start with the firm faith that we are dealing with power which is not bound. It is not limited. It is not only some power; it is all-power. It is not difficult to convince the mind of this, since plain reasoning compels one to accept such a viewpoint. Alchemy was a process in which raw material was placed in a vessel where it was heated, observed closely, heated some more, passed through various operations and observed once again. In the end, the result was an arcane product imagined mysteriously to be gold, the stone of the philosophers, or a potent elixir. Alchemy was a spiritual practice carried out for the benefit of the soul. Just like many of you work to benefit your family, who are part of your soul. Face it, the only reason many of you get out of bed everyday and go to work is because you believe that the qualities you produce are scared rituals which benefit your soul and are a way to honor God and the people and things you love. #RandolphHarris 3 of 8
You find your poetic inspiration in your home, family, garden, and furniture to keep going even when you are tired. We must assure ourselves that we have access to the power of God. We could never do this if we felt that the power was external to us, if it were something apart from or different from our own being. We discover that God is immediate and personal, a possibility latent within the self, and ready to be called upon and used. We could imagine our own everyday work alchemically in the same way. We work on the stuff of the soul by means of the things of life. This is an ancient idea. Ordinary life is the means of entry into higher spiritual activity. At the very moment we are hard at work on some Worldly endeavor, we are also working on a different plane. Perhaps without knowing it, we are engaged in the labours of the soul. The more deeply our work stirs imagination and corresponds to images that are sacred at the core of identity and fate, the more it will have soul. Having identified ourselves with the power which is law, and the presence which is the spirit, we must consciously increase our expectation and deepen our realization. This is done by prayer, communing with the divine, until gradually we so extend our concepts of life and the possibilities of living that we are no longer bound by our thought patterns of lack and limitation. #RandolphHarris 4 of 8
There are two ways of getting out of a trial. One is simply to try to get rid of the trial, and be thankful when it is over. The other is to recognize the trial as a challenge from God to claim a larger blessing than we have ever had, and to hail it with delight as an opportunity of obtaining a larger measure of divine grace. There is one life, that life is God, that life is my life now. This power, this presence, and this life are perfect, complete, whole, and happy. We identify the mind with this wholeness, happiness, and perfection, affirming its presence and embodying a certain feeling about it, and inward awareness. This practice must continue until the idea becomes real to us, not as though we were something apart from or approaching the reality, but as through we were operating from the very center of it, which of course we are. It is an extension or reflection of ourselves. When one concludes a successful business transaction, one feels good about oneself. When one builds their dream house or gets a new care, one stands back and contemplates it, feeling a surge of pride. However, if we allow ourselves to do bad work, the whole society suffers a wound to soul. When it is not possible to feel good about our work, then soulful pride, so necessary for creativity, turns into narcissism. Pride and narcissism are not the same thing; in a sense, they are opposites. #RandolphHarris 5 of 8
The product of our work should reflect a means of loving ourselves. However, if those products are not lovable, we are forced into a narcissistic place where we lose sight of the work itself and focus on our own personal needs. Love of the World and our place in it, attained largely by our work, turns into solipsistic craving for love. We will never achieve the flowing of our own natures until we find that piece of ourselves, that lovable twin, which lives in the World and as the World. Therefore, finding the right work is like discovering your soul in the World. There will be new thoughts, new ideas coming. We will open our whole consciousness to the influx of that which is larger and better, as we identify with inward peace and joy. At times, however, we may be confronted with negative arguments of set mental patterns which circumscribe, limit, and depress the mind. Our sense may try to insist that we follow the old established precedents as our true guide, since they have been adhered to by humankind from time immemorial. Contradict those vibes, they are so deceiving as the clouded heart. A major part of faith is trusting God when we do not understand why things happen the way they do. #RandolphHarris 6 of 8
We all know that God gives us opportunities. We have seen God give us favour, good situations, blessings, and promotion. That is the hand of God opening the World up for us. Right here, a certain amount of adventure, of imagination must be brought into play to create a feeling of acceptance which will break down those old thought patterns. We must understand that they are not the Truth of God’s Being, but merely monotonous repetitions of all the negative thought of the ages. We must know that our new declarations of truth have the power within themselves to completely destroy the old thought patterns. We are no longer hypnotized by the old thought patterns; we are no longer bound by negative precedents; we are no longer limited to what everyone has believed, because we know it has no truth, no reality, and no law to support it. It is but a phantom. It is obvious that climbing the ladder of success can easily lead to a loss of soul. Are there any moral problems in the job or workplace—making things detrimental to people or to the Earth, taking excessive profits or contributing to racial and sexist oppression? It is not possible to care for the soul while violating or disregarding one’s own moral sensibility. They will misconstrue your answers due to a lack of love. An alternative may be to choose a profession or projects with soul in mind. #RandolphHarris 7 of 8
Signs of love and therefore of soul are feelings of attraction, desire, curiosity, involvement, passion, and loyalty in relation to our work. When the soul is involved, the work is not carried out by a need for prestige alone; it raises from a deeper place and therefore is not deprived of passion, spontaneity, and grace. We are and always have been part of God’s Universe. Do not ask someone else to justify your belief, for this is confusion. We must in our own minds increase our faith, reaffirming its own position, which will awaken the mind to the greater influx of blessings. Just as surely as we do this, the prison walls of the lesser self begin to crumble, the horizon experiences begins to push itself father away, and, because more spiritual territory is taken in, greater experiences are bound to follow. “Fools mock at making amends for sin, but goodwill is found among the upright. Each heart knows its own bitterness, and no one else can share its joy. The house of the wicked will be destroyed, but the house of the upright will flourish (Proverbs 14.9-11).” Real satisfaction comes not in understanding God’s motives, but in understanding his character, in trusting in his promises, and in leaning on him and resting in him as the Sovereign who knows what he is doing and does all things well. Look at others with patient eyes, as some leave reality early due to the lack of love. #RandolphHarris 8 of 8
God is Shaping Us for Higher Things
How we spend our time—what we look at, sit on and work with—makes a difference, not only in terms of efficiency but for its effect on our sense of ourselves and the direction our imagination takes. Care of the soul requires ongoing attention to every aspect of life. Essentially it is a cultivation of ordinary things in such a way that soul is nurtured and fostered. Therapy tends to focus on distress or chronic problems. No one every goes to therapy to talk about their dreams, aspirations, hopes and goals. Therapy does not teach us how to accomplish anything. People just rehearse problems and do not really learn how to move forward. All of the ordinary things in life have a great deal to do with the condition of the soul. If we do not tend the soul consciously and artfully, then its issues remain largely unconscious, uncultivated, and therefore often problematic. The Law of Mental Equivalents means that everything that is consciously and subjectively embodied in our thinking tends to radiate an atmosphere, a vibration, a current of thought, and inward acceptance which automatically attracts to itself that which is like itself. Some business cover over their soulless conception of work with a veneer of fake walls, plastic plants, and pseudoart. If that is what we give to the workplace in the name of beauty, then that is the measure of soulfulness we will have at our job. #RandolphHarris 1 of 6
Storms make oaks take deeper roots. Soul cannot be faked without serious consequences. A green thought, in a green shade, surrounded by plastic ferns, we will be filled with plastic thoughts. Believe in God; believe that he is; believe that he has all wisdom, and all power, born in Heaven and in Earth. Allow your heart to find the comfort you seek in God. There shall be within the body of our thinking not only an acceptance of the good we desire, but an inward experience of the meaning of that good, a real sense and a real feeling that we now possess it. Exercise great faith and be filled with optimism, wisdom, and love for others. Have an attitude of perseverance. Trust the Lord and rely on him for strength, and the Lord will bless you. If we look to God for help, we will not be overwhelmed with the burdens of life. We will not feel incapable of doing what we are called to do or need to do. We will be strengthened, and our lives will be filled with peace and joy. We will come to realize that most of what we worry about is not of eternal significance—and if it is, the Lord will help us. However, we must have the faith to look up and the courage to follow God’s direction. Not only can we change our objective thinking, but by a process of careful treatment we can change the whole subjective field of our thought, because most of our thinking is unconscious. #RandolphHarris 2 of 6
Because much of our thought is unconscious, the mental embodiment of an idea or the true mental equivalent of something is not so much the word we speak as it is something we feel in the heart. Unconscious wishes are always active and ready to express themselves whenever they find an opportunity of allying themselves with an impulse from consciousness, and transferring their own greater intensity to the less intensity of the latter. It must, therefore, seem that the conscious wish alone has been realized in the dream; but a slight peculiarity in the form of the dream will put upon the track of the powerful ally from the unconscious. Architecture, colours, furnishings, decorations, give people a place of dignity. Architecture can touch on philosophical revelations, it is the favoured setting for many dreams, an indication of its special appeal to the imagination. Some houses are unusually orderly and clean, and people put special efforts into keeping the rooms spotless. This allows us to take a special look at the house in order to glimpse signs of the soul that are hidden in the everyday and common place. The house can be a path of contemplation, which allows people to take their mind off of their grief, and reflect on the chamber of the heart, a special space in the soul. #RandolphHarris 3 of 6
We all have a definite content of unconscious thinking, of unconscious expectations, of unconscious frustration and desire. This is just as much a part of the process of our thinking as the words we use consciously, and it is just as certain to be operated upon by the Law of Life. Our daily work and lives affect the character and the overall quality of life, but we usually overlook the way soulfulness can adhere to our benefit and shows us how to become more like God. This is sometimes a long and arduous process, for a person does not change all of the patterns of one’s thought in a moment. Rather it takes place little by little, until gradually the antiquated patterns become transformed into new ones by come inner alchemy of the mind, the operation of which we do not see but the manifestation of which we do experience. Encouragement to look up is a metaphor for remembering God. As we remember him and trust in his power, we receive strength. Our whole inner feeling will entertain and experiences goodness. Our expectations will be one of joy and pleasurable anticipation. All the antiquated thoughts of fear and doubt and uncertainty have vanished. There is nothing that can limit one. One’s memory is one of happiness; anticipation is one of joy; and our experience is one of pleasure. It is the means whereby we can receive the faith and strength to endure all things. #RandolphHarris 4 of 6
We must act on the direction we receive. We must look up and step up. And as we do, I know we will cheer up, for God wants us to be happy. We are Heavenly Father’s children. He wants to be a part of our lives, to bless us, and to help us. He will heal our wounds, dry our tears, and help us along our path to return to his presence. We should think about it and feel it, envision it, and try to think of the meaning of sanctification. Accepting it consciously, we should let it seek deeply into the unconscious, until the subjectivity of our thought shall have accepted its meaning; then we shall have arrived at the mental equivalent of the idea. Psychologist contend that a neurotic thought pattern will repeat itself with monotonous regularity until the pattern is changed. Advances in science and civilization come through breaking down the belief that things have to be the way they are because they have always been that way. However, the laws of nature or the principles that govern life know nothing about precedents. At one time we used tallow candles; now we have electric lights. There was nothing in nature that prohibited the World from having had electric lights ten thousand years ago, but no one knew anything about them. #RandolphHarris 5 of 6
When the day arrived on which somebody discovered the new possibility, the laws of nature complied and delivered the secret which made the new possible. The same thing has happened throughout the history of spiritual evolution, or the unfoldment of human’s thought about one’s relationship with God. People have prayed to a power higher than themselves and occasionally their prayers have been answered affirmatively. Perhaps they have always been answered in accordance with the way they have prayed. However, it has always been accepted that some prayers are answered while others are not. Because of this belief, a precedent was established which made the answer to prayer an unpredictable thing. This is one of the precedents which need to be broke, for we must allow spiritual activity a larger scope. The power of God can make Mount Vesuvius look like an early autumn flurry. When we realize that all the spiritual power there is is at our disposal, and that no matter how limited a viewpoint we may have had yesterday (with the limitations that follow that viewpoint), today we can increase our field of inward awareness, then we make possible a greater influx of the divine through the human, that is, through our own thinking. God is shaping us for higher things. #RandolphHarris 6 of 6
Randolph Harris II International 