1 10 14 https://thurman.pitts.emory.edu/files/original/0ccded947c145a56eb5ec09bf92bc471.pdf 4d7d1acac6dceab23ec4d82d8b16b5e9 PDF Text Text Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu 394-572_A.mp3 Pitts Theology Library Emory University There is so much that engages the mind and ensnares the emotions that again and again we are wondrous, lost in the midst of our own private and collective wildernesses with no sense of being at home anywhere in anything at any time. Our enthusiasms wax hot and cold. One day life is full and the wave is high and the sun is bright. And the hours pass quickly. And we seem no longer afraid. And then the next day the day is long, it's dreary. And we wonder how it felt to ride with freedom and abandoned on the crest of the wave. It is wonderful, therefore, to sit together, to be enveloped by a single moment and feel the presence and sense the lights and the shadows and the lives of those who sit next to us. It is good to be caught up in the creative silence, surrounded by the brooding presence of God. And perchance as we wait together in the quietness, some new light may be thrown upon old problems, some fresh hope may give wings to spirit to which despair is the familiar. Perhaps a sense of forgiveness for sins committed, for errors done, for blundering stupidities that have wrought havoc in other people's lives. All this may be the miracle for us as we wait together at the quietness. Oh, love of God, without which life has no meaning and no harbor. Leave us not alone with our little lives, our broken dreams, our insistent problems. But invade our spirits with thy vitality that we may be renewed in all the ways of our lives and that we may turn from this place this day. With all that is within us washed purified, and refreshed. We seek this with simplicity of heart and with quiet faith and confidence. Thou will not deny thy love to thy children. Oh, God our Father. Amen. I shall begin this morning a series which bears the same title and will include before I'm finished some of the same minds and spirits about whom we talked some two years ago under the same title, a title which is not original. It's the title of a book by Cheney. And the title was not original with Cheney, because it comes out of the Old Testament. I'd like to lay the groundwork, if I can, for our thinking together. It is just a little risky to discuss anything which has to do with mysticism in California. In some other parts of the United States. It is not as risky. Now that I have said it, then it isn't necessary for you to think it. So we can go on now. [LAUGHTER] 1 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu There are two or three basic insights upon which the mystic rests his total position. If indeed we may think of it in such formal terms. The first insight is that there is an all pervasive spirit. Time transcendent, space transcendent, that gathers up into itself the total gamut of human experience. Pitts Theology Library Emory University And that's very important. And it's very important because any persons who thought much about mystical religion, which from my point of view is genuine religion. People who've thought about it tend to divide themselves into two groups-- those who say that mysticism is negative, that it is life-denying, that it pulls man away from the involvements of his life, that its watchword is detachment. And because therefore, mysticism in this interpretation is life-denying, because it insists upon detachment, upon withdrawal, it is negative. And because it is negative, it is against life. And because it is against life, there can be no morality in it. No morality. And if there is to be an ethic, if we are to be consigned with values or value judgments, then we must be moving out towards life. We must be in the stream of life. Now the basis for this observation is two-fold. In the first place, a part of it is true. When you study the lives of these men and women who have explored the aspect of experience on the side of experience that opens up into the infinite-- see, there are two aspects of experience. This side of experience that is measurable, that we can put into words, and we can add up, that we can define. But there's another aspect to the same experience that opens in another direction. And when we look in that direction, we can't quite define it. We can't quite get meaning out of it all together. It's almost like looking at your watch. You look at your watch, and you know what time it is. And as soon as you finish looking at your watch and close it, someone says what time is it? And then you must look at your watch again. Now why? Because the first time you looked at your watch, you looked at it for yourself. You were looking at it in a manner that did not have to be unscrambled. But as soon as someone made a demand upon you with reference to time, then you had to relocate this knowledge of which you are already sure. But you had to relocate it in another context, moving out this way. Now all experience is like that. The simplest relationship that means anything to you, you discover that there are aspects of it that are quite measurable that you can define it. You love your child. Yes. You get up early in the morning, you get breakfast for the child. And you stand a lot of noise. Oh, you do all sorts of things, which in one sense are manifestations of this feeling tone that you have. But curiously enough, if someone said, do you now pick out the one thing that you do for your child that proves that you love your child, you back away from that, because no one thing is quite able to do what? To contain all that the experience says, because the other end of the experience opens out into the infinite, you see. So as long as you're looking this way, you can measure off as you do toothpaste out of one of these tubes. But looking, looking from within another context, looking back from the source out 2 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu of which it comes, you are unable to reduce it to a manageable unit, except to experience it. You know it. But you can't prove it. For the moment you began trying to prove it, you say to yourself, that means I'm not sure of it. For the things of which I'm sure, I don't try to prove. They are. Pitts Theology Library Emory University But I can't escape the necessity for trying to prove it all the time. Now that is what the mystic is saying, that one aspect of his interpretation of his experience moves out into time space involvements, moves out into activities. But as he is observed, it seems as if what he is really doing is withdrawing from all activities and finding his meaning and his significance in a dimension that has nothing to do with this world and with time space involvement. Now let's take this overall background and break it down a little and see what we have. I began by saying that the great and first basic principle of the mystic's interpretation of life is that we are surrounded, we are enveloped by an all-pervading spirit. And that spirit is the reality. And there are some who say that spirit is the only reality. And that everything else is shadow as seeming. We may not think that. Now the mystic takes another step, that he is the creation, as all other life is, and all other things are. The creation of this all-enveloping spirit. But the human personality has deep within it that which is part and parcel of this all-inclusive, all-pervasive divine spirit. That to use the words of one about whom we should be talking in some weeks, that the beyond that I seek is within. That's what he's talking about. That I am not only created by this spirit that's all-pervasive spirit of God, but that within me is not a manifestation of the spirit of God, but the spirit of God. And when, therefore, I see within myself to commune with the spirit of God, there is available to me without any go-betweener primary immediate direct living contact with this living spirit. Now that is-- those are the two pillars upon which the whole mystical insight rests. That we are surrounded by an all-pervasive spirit of God, which spirit is the creator of life and the world, and which spirit is in me. And that spirit which is in me is the real thing. And I can make direct contact with that spirit without going outside of myself. Now that is why the mystic seems always to be in love with the institution. For if the institution, you see, says that there's a formula that must be operative before you can experience this, certain ceremonials through which you must pass. The knee must bow in a certain way. You must be in a certain kind of place built a certain way with what is called an altar in front of it. Or you must have some individual who himself has been set aside as the unique Handler of the inner life or lives of man, that he has to present you before this spirit that you must attach in your prayers a certain formula. 3 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu Well, the mystic says, all right for anybody who feels that that's what he has to do. But it doesn't mean anything to me, because that's going all the way around Robin Hood's barn, as it were, to get into the door when the door is in me, and no man can shut it. No man. That's why he's always a dangerous man. Pitts Theology Library Emory University Suppose he's mistaken. Suppose he's mistaken. You remember the story in McCombs' How I Made Woodrow Wilson President? And after McCombs had spent-- according to the story, which he wrote-- he'd spent a fortune and lost his health practically, and gone all over the country, and finally precipitated the landslide and Woodrow Wilson was the next president. And they went to this summer home outside of Princeton to talk about who would be what and you know, make these great decisions. And when McCombs walked into Woodrow Wilson's study, Woodrow Wilson invited him to a chair. And then he closed the door and stood with his back against the door and addressed McCombs as follows. McCombs, I owe you nothing. God made me president. Well, now-[LAUGHTER] Now, now, now, now when he's talking-- when he's talking like that, you see, there isn't anybody who can say he's wrong. No. No. You can't say he's wrong. Who are you to say? But suppose he misread the signals. And there is release in him as a result of the conviction that arises in his spirit inspired by that affirmation, a strength, and a power, and an endurance that nothing else in the world can give a man! Suppose he is mistaken. There is nothing more destructive in life than a man who is sure that he walked through the door that no man can shut, and there the secret was given him. And on the basis of that secret he becomes as if he were 10,000 men. Nothing more deadly if the man didn't tarry long enough to get it straight. And who knows what carrying long enough to get it straight is? Sometimes it takes 30 years to know whether or not a simple thing you did was an error. Sometimes it takes 40 years. And indeed, our man may live his entire life profoundly convinced that his movements are in accordance with what seems to him to be the right way of life to discover that he was mistaken. He was mistaken. Therefore, that is why the mystic always goes back again and again and again and again and again! Testing, testing. He is unwilling to risk a single moment of transcendent ecstasy. Again and again. That is a part of the meaning of the disciplines about which we will be talking during these, we shall be talking during these Sunday mornings, the disciplines that these various men found 4 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu necessary. And very interestingly enough, no one of them who has spent hundreds of hours in the spiritual disciplines, as they're called, ever says that if the disciplines are followed, that that which moves directly as a result of the disciplines will be an active dynamic awareness of the presence of God. Pitts Theology Library Emory University Nor the responsibility of the discipline is to keep the spirit pliable, to keep it from getting set, so that when the spirit of God moves, it won't do this, but it remove insight. And that is why however holy the mystic is, when you talk with him, one thing he's always sure of. And that is that he is so far away from the living fruition of God in his life that the distance that he is away is as the East is from the West. Now one other thing. And I'll stop. The all-pervading spirit that creates all of life, including the human beings, deep within the individual, says the mystic, there is God and that God is available to the human spirit-- speak to him thou for he hear us, spirit. The spirit may meet closer is he then breathing, nearer than hands and feet. There is that insistence. And that the disciplines are important because they keep the spirit active. They keep the perspective, the relatedness, supple. And then there is this final thing. The necessity for relating the spiritual energy generated by this communion about which we shall be talking these days, to relate that to the world of function. Even a mystic sect like the Essenes who were very active during the time of Jesus, who withdrew from all participation in the struggle of the Jewish community for freedom from Rome, who went under the hills, wouldn't cut their hair, and did a lot of other things, pray. They were not withdrawing from the struggle. But they were sure that the only way by which-that would destroy the Empire. That was their way of working. That was their way of working. They withdrew from cutting a Roman's neck off or doing a lot of other things out here. But they were not withdrawing from the struggle. But they felt that the way to do it is is to move underneath the foundation that stabilizes the evil order. And if you move at that level, when you start, everything that's above you will begin to crumble and fall. Because there is no power less than the power of God that is capable of withstanding the power of God. Therefore, if I can release as a living channel the living energy of God into the situation, anything that is less than that that is in the situation will be destroyed. That is what the mystic does with social action. He is no coward, sticking his head in the sand, praying to God because he is scared or because he doesn't have the nerve to do anything else. But he is sure that he is in touch with terrible energy, terrible energy. And if his life can be a point of focus through which that energy hits its mark in the world, then the redemptive process can work. And that is why the way of the mystic is so difficult, and yet in some ways so simple. And we shall see during the next eight, nine, 10 weeks what happens in the life of a man when this is his orientation, whether his religion is Buddhist, or Greek, Protestant, Catholic, or Jewish, or no religion. 5 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Men Who've Walked with God (1953) Description An account of the resource In this series, Thurman explores the dynamics of mysticism through the lives of notable figures throughout history. The mystic's insight is that God is the creator of all of life, and indeed dwells in the human spirit as the deepest thing within a human being, which is always reaching out to touch the deepest in others. Throughout this sermon series, Thurman illustrates the ethical implications of this insight, as well as the discipline necessary to live out mystical religion. Ultimately, "Men Who've Walked With God," examines the ways in which a mystic relates to themselves and the world. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Descriptions by Rodell Jefferson III. AudioWithTranscription Audio that is shown through the 3Play Media embedded interactive transcript Audio with Transcription <iframe width="100%" height="820" frameborder="0" src="/files/players/394-572_A.html" ></iframe> Location The location of the interview, speech, lecture, or sermon Fellowship Church, San Francisco, California Marsh Chapel, Boston University, Boston, Massachussetts Time Period The decade in which the recording was produced. 1950s Original Title Title as transcribed from tape cassette Men Who've Walked: God, part 1 and 2 (Fellowship Church or Marsh Chapel), 1953 Apr 12, 19 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 394-572_A Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Thurman, Howard Title A name given to the resource Men Who've Walked With God, Part 1, 1953 April 12 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="http://pid.emory.edu/ark:/25593/rp8k9">MSS 394</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available <a href="http://pitts.emory.edu/">Pitts Theology Library, Emory University</a> Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1953-04-12 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/"><img style="border-width:0;" src="https://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-nc/4.0/80x15.png" alt="80x15.png" /></a><br />This work is licensed under a <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License</a>. 2019. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant GEOMETRYCOLLECTION(POINT(-13627798.925371 4550756.1096806)) Description An account of the resource In this first sermon on "The Men Who've Walked with God," Thurman explores the dynamics of mysticism. Mystical experience is deeply personal, and yet always urging one out towards life. The mystic cannot be lost in transcendence, because the mystic must test their insights in the outer world. Mysticism is better experienced than it is explained. In this experience, there is direct contact with the Spirit of God. For this reason, as Thurman says, the mystic goes against the grain of institutions that claim their formulas are the doorway to God. Thurman ends hinting that the following series will deal with the disciplines of mysticism that keep the spirit active within and in the world. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Description by Rodell Jefferson III. https://thurman.pitts.emory.edu/files/original/d1c318c53e4038af3c3b3629d3581bb2.pdf 8612cf1d08be7ef208c823fd89fbc870 PDF Text Text Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu 394-572_B.mp3 Pitts Theology Library Emory University To remind you that one of the simple guides that I've had all my life, particularly since I have been preaching, is this-- I assume always that in any audience of any kind before which I'm speaking, that there is at least one person in the audience who knows more about what I'm talking about than I do. And it has been a wonderful thing-- that is, it has saved me much-- and that keeps me, in the presence of authentic authorities, from being self-conscious. The fundamental proposition on which we are working during these days is this-- that the mystic affirms that God is the creator of life totally and that every living thing is a manifestation of that creativity. And deep within the structure of every living thing is a core of reality, which is, in essence, one with that out of which all of life comes. And as far as human life is concerned, the mystic says, in the language that is religious, that deep within the human spirit there is God-- not a manifestation of God, but that which is God. And therefore, he who seeks God may find Him within-- that there is a door that no man can shut, and that door is deep within the human spirit. And therefore, in the last analysis, all intermediaries, all things which lead men to God are not ultimately required in order that man may find God. And that is why the mystic is always logically opposed to institutions. He's even opposed to the book itself. He needs no intermediary. He needs no symbol because the thing itself is in his heart, and it is closer than breathing. It is nearer than hands and feet. And yet, it's rather interesting, isn't it, that in the Christian religion, the greatest movement of mysticism has come out of the Roman Catholic Church. It is a paradox. But we shall deal with that when we come to it. And we are not to it this morning. In the period between 1000 BC and 100 or 200 AD, every single creative, spiritual, ethical, and philosophic movement in human history emerged and became articulate. It's an amazing thing. In the period between 1000 BC and 1 or 2 AD, right there in that, all the prophets of Israel, the great upward surge of the creative spirit of God in Hinduism and in Buddhism, the movement of mysticism and ethics in China, all of this searching, wrestling of the Greek philosophers, Jesus of Nazareth and Paul of Tarsus fall in that period. The implications of that are very far reaching, but you work them out. It is a small wonder, then, that we find Laozi appearing in the 7th century BC. He's in that period. The great insight which this man had may be summarized in simple words. He affirmed Dao as the creator of life and the ground, of all being as one who existed before existence, who is without name because he is without category. But inasmuch as all of the thinking of the mind has to be done in terms that are special in order to talk about it, we must reduce it to some form that is symbolic, even the word itself. Now the insight is rather interesting because it dares to go behind all expressions of life in any form. It is behind the act of creation. It is before any contrasts like good and evil, like male and female, right, wrong, light, dark, before any differentiation took place. 1 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu It is a movement like the movement of absolute motion. It is dynamic without action. It is that out of which everything that is emerges. Pitts Theology Library Emory University Now there's nothing new about that. There's nothing new. There's nothing particularly original except originality in its truest sense. And what is that? That any time an insight becomes my own, then something happens that has never happened in human history before. The insight becomes mine. And if it's never been mine before, then that's new. That's creative. That's original. Now I'm not surprised that this notion-- it's more than it now-- this feeling after, the mood of the before beginnings is a part of a heritage of the whole human family because in all of the religions, whatever kind, there is this feeling, this grouping after the reproduction of wholeness, of totality, of completeness. The Garden of Eden-- complete whole. No contrasts, no contradictions, not even the intimations of paradox. All of the harassment of the mind that keeps gripping us towards dreams of utopias, of golden ages, of heavens, it seems to be-- all of that stirring seems to be the echo of a previous movement somewhere in the background of human history-- even my private need for wholeness. I'm always trying to become integrated. I'm always trying to find myself and then become myself-- to be what I am, to do what I see so that the profound conflicts that tear my spirit asunder can be resolved. And I will be a whole person. Why do I want that? Why is it a necessity for me? And why do I seek it always? Is it because my spirit is haunted by a movement in which I participated before I became a house divided against itself? I wonder. At any rate, the first insight of Dao is that here is this ground, this wholeness out of which all separateness came. Now how does this spirit manifest itself? It manifests itself in a certain quality. And there's a name for that quality. The Dao in action is the way this quality is defined, this Te. And wherever there is life manifesting itself, there the Dao is in action. And if I seek to find the Dao, I may find the Dao not only in my sense, but I may find it in all manifestations by which my life is surrounded. Therefore, there must be some method by which I may do this, some technique. And what is the technique? They have a technical name for it. The name escapes my mind at the moment. But it is the way. And what is that way? How do you walk in that way? What is the technique by which the individual in whom Dao is, who is surrounded by manifestations of life in which Dao is-- how does the individual become conscious of the Dao-ness that is within him and the Dao-ness that is in these manifestations? What's the method? Renunciation-- how familiar-- renunciation, detachment-- you'll hear these for the next 10 weeks. You'll just hear over and over again, these two words-- detachment, withdraw, the reduction of 2 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu fever. Some interpreters say that it is non-action, but that is not the way it is said. For when we use the term "non-action," we think of a certain kind of quietism, a certain kind of passivity. But what he's getting at is that there begins to dawn upon the individual, the seeker, the awareness that what he is seeking, really, by all of his feverish activity, is not to be found in the activities themselves. It is the discovery that you can't make a quantitative impression on infinity. Pitts Theology Library Emory University You can't-- well, it's-- no, you don't understand. But that values are not to be found by the multiplication of function-- you can't give yourself over to busyness, busyness, and find this because you're so concentrated with tensions, lest you miss the thing that you seek-- that it is before your very eyes, and you can't see it. Doing, action, functioning, management, participation-- here, there, everywhere-- being constantly overwhelmed by the mass attack of the tyranny of detail-- that in the midst of all of this, the individual has a sense of being lost and confused because he doesn't have a chance to distill out of some fragment of his experience the Dao that is there because he can't wait long enough. He grabs it here. And then he squeezes it hard. And if it doesn't come right out, he has to run over here to get it and over here and over here, over here. But all the time what he is looking for he has. And doesn't know it. Now when I become aware that I have it, I stop looking and start being. And that's what he's saying. And now one more little word about it. It doesn't mean that there is a withdrawal from participation in life, but it means finding where your center is and sticking with it. And that is discipline because we are so pulled apart in directions that are themselves so inviting-- that for many of us, to apply this to our own period and our own moment in human history-- for many of us, we have never taken the time to find out where our center is and what it is. Have you? How many of us have ever stopped to find out where our center is, what our point of focus is? What are you really trying to do? What is the meaning of all of the activities in which you are engaged? What are you after? If you are able, this moment by magic, to have the deepest longings of your spirit fulfilled, what would they be? Do you know? Do you know? When that time comes, as it must come to us all, when one by one, our duties end, one by one, our lights go out, when we withdraw from all of the variety of our participations and the functioning and in the activities of our living, what will we have left that will be for us the distilled essence of the totality of our endeavoring as human beings? What about it? Or are you so busy, so involved, so frantic, so full of fear, so panicky that you can't hear the pulse of the Dao in you? When I was in Divinity School-- I'm through now-- when I was in Divinity School, I had a group of adults that met across town at half past 10:00 on Tuesday nights. We would meet from half past 10:00 until 12:00, 12:30, sometimes 1 o'clock. 3 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu And then I would walk the length of Main Street in Rochester, New York, all the way out to the seminary. And one night as I walked along, I kept hearing a noise like flowing water. And I had been wrestling with a little cold, and I'd taken out a quinine by the doctor's orders in that far off time. And I thought it was a rumbling in my ears. Pitts Theology Library Emory University So I said to one of my profs the next day that I had a strange experience at 2 o'clock in the morning walking down Main Street. And he said, oh, it wasn't the rumbling in your ear at all. He said Main Street is built over a canal that connects the Genesee River, some river with something else. And all during the day, there's so much traffic on it-- streetcars, automobiles, blowing of the horns-- that you can't hear this canal flowing. But at night, late at night, when there's no traffic, then there comes rumbling up out of the bowels of Main Street. This movement, the sound-- it's there all the time. That's the Dao. So much noise in us, so much movement that we can't hear the movement of the Dao. And we cannot let it spill over into us at various levels of our awareness and our division-- that it might bring to all of that which is divided a wholeness; to that which is tempest-tossed, a calmness; to that which is despairing, hope. Whether it be Dao or whether it be the demiurge, whether it be the eternal fire, whether it be the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; or whether it be the father of Jesus Christ, all the mystics are saying the same thing-- Thou hast made us for Thyself. And our souls are restless till they find their rest and be. That's the message. 4 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Men Who've Walked with God (1953) Description An account of the resource In this series, Thurman explores the dynamics of mysticism through the lives of notable figures throughout history. The mystic's insight is that God is the creator of all of life, and indeed dwells in the human spirit as the deepest thing within a human being, which is always reaching out to touch the deepest in others. Throughout this sermon series, Thurman illustrates the ethical implications of this insight, as well as the discipline necessary to live out mystical religion. Ultimately, "Men Who've Walked With God," examines the ways in which a mystic relates to themselves and the world. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Descriptions by Rodell Jefferson III. AudioWithTranscription Audio that is shown through the 3Play Media embedded interactive transcript Audio with Transcription <iframe width="100%" height="820" frameborder="0" src="/files/players/394-572_B.html" ></iframe> Location The location of the interview, speech, lecture, or sermon Fellowship Church, San Francisco, California Marsh Chapel, Boston University, Boston, Massachussetts Time Period The decade in which the recording was produced. 1950s Original Title Title as transcribed from tape cassette Men Who've Walked: God, part 1 and 2 (Fellowship Church or Marsh Chapel), 1953 Apr 12, 19, Side B Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 394-572_B Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Thurman, Howard Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="http://pid.emory.edu/ark:/25593/rp8k9">MSS 394</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available <a href="http://pitts.emory.edu/">Pitts Theology Library, Emory University</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/"><img style="border-width:0;" src="https://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-nc/4.0/80x15.png" alt="80x15.png" /></a><br />This work is licensed under a <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License</a>. 2019. Title A name given to the resource Men Who've Walked With God, Part 2, 1953 April 19 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant GEOMETRYCOLLECTION(POINT(-13627798.925371 4550756.1096806)) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1953-04-19 Description An account of the resource In this second lecture on "The Men Who've Walked with God," Thurman summarizes his teachings on mysticism and supplements it with a conversation on Laozi and the Dao. Laozi affirmed the Dao to be the creator of life that has no name or category. The Dao manifests itself in all of life. Thurman explains that experiencing the Dao requires detachment – not withdrawal from life, but rather finding the center of your being, a discipline we rarely make time for. Thurman says that we must parse through the noise of our lives to hear the God who lives at our center. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Description by Rodell Jefferson III. https://thurman.pitts.emory.edu/files/original/b210a92426a88f40996d25ee615f5bf6.pdf a773e37f3709a6b10d904e5e2144a517 PDF Text Text Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu 394-573_A.mp3 Pitts Theology Library Emory University We're continuing our series on men who walked with God by thinking this morning about certain of the important insights, mystical insights, that are to be found in Brahmanic-- Brahmanic-mysticism in an aspect of Hindu faith. It is very important, it seems to me, that in our interest and effort to be in our thinking and in our awareness, world citizens, that we include in the concept itself things that are not merely political and sociological, but things which have to do with the profound level at which the genius of a people finds itself moving. I may say almost in passing that, at least from my point of view, it is hardly a reasonable hope that there should ever come a time in human history when there shall be one world, politically and socially, until men find out how they can be sustained by one faith. And by "one faith," I do not mean-- taking time away from the idea of it-- by "one faith" I do not mean one creed, one doctrine, one dogma, one church-- I don't mean that-- but one faith, one pulse beat that is so fontal, that is so basic to all of the movement of life that it is capable of feeding all the little heartbeats and recognized as such. It takes more than a political dream and more than a hunger of body to ground and sustain a neighborhood the size of a planet. Now you will pardon the digression, but I feel better. In our thinking together, then, about the Brahmanic mystic, let us bear in mind the fundamental point on which we are working, that the mystic assumes-- more than that, he affirms-- that all living existences are manifestations of the creator, the creative spirit. And therefore, there is within every living thing-- and particularly in the human spirit-- that which is identical with this creator. And he who seeks to find it may find it within himself, not exclusively there, but he may find it within himself. And the beyond is the within, as we shall discover when we are thinking together about Plotinus in a few weeks from now. Now the Brahmanic mystics were not unlike these about whom we have been thinking. They felt that all living things had within them a soul, which soul was identical with the world soul. The language is slightly different, but the principle is the same-- and that one can make contact with this. One can become consciously aware of this indwelling soul, which is identical with the world soul-- not by the processes of reflective thinking, not by analysis, not by bringing the mind to bear upon some point of concentration, but by giving up, renouncing, and moving directly. How-- they aren't quite sure they're are able to tell you, but moving directly on the altar stairs what is called ecstasy. It is an ecstatic lifting of the spirit into a dimension in which all awareness of individuality, in some rather profound sense, is sloughed off. And the soul bathes itself in that which is itself and more. But that was for the priest, you see, the Brahmanic priests. And they found that they had responsibilities, that it was all right for them as a small group with this-- what shall I say-- with this particular insight, with this knowledge, really, through experience that there is this great world soul that is available to them, is in them, and they can have an encounter, an explosive encounter with it as soon as they detach themselves from their involvement. 1 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu That's all right if you have no responsibility, they discovered. But if you have responsibility, then what do you do? These men, these Brahmanic priests had two responsibilities. Pitts Theology Library Emory University One responsibility was to keep alive the institution. And they functioned in that regard on behalf of their social duties. They represented the religious leadership, and they did things on behalf of the perpetuation of the caste to which they were committed, which had nothing to do with this private thing. So they made concessions, in a sense, to the private privilege of moving ecstatically into the presence of God, delaying it in order that they might fulfill their duties to their fellows who themselves were not aware of the possibilities of life in the way that they, the Brahmins, were aware of it. Now the first duty, then, was to keep up the ceremonials. And the second duty was to perpetuate their class. If they didn't marry and have children, then they would disintegrate. So they made the second concession. So they worked it out in a rather interesting way. And you will see the bearing of all this on the point in a minute. They-- the first part of their lives is naturally spent as children. And then they married, and they became fathers and so forth. That was fulfilling that aspect of it. And then they supported their families and did all the things to go along with that kind of social responsibility. And then they retired. Having fulfilled their social responsibilities, they withdrew. And when they withdrew, they just gave up their affairs and lived in retirement as a kind of preparation for this fourth and final stage, which was to renounce everything and become wanderers and beggars until they had combed out of their spirits all of the urgences towards attachment and involvement. And then, the great moment, and they lifted themselves to this height and spent the last half of their lives in the fulfillment of their spiritual destiny. They did it quite mathematically. They divided the first half of their lives in their making the concessions to the social order. Then after having made these concessions and guaranteeing the perpetuation of the race and the perpetuation of the caste-- then having fulfilled those responsibilities, they renounced life and picked up the second half. Now there are two problems raised by this. What about the masses of people who can't do that, who can't solve the problem in that way? What happens to them? What about them? And that's always the problem of the religious priest. That's always the problem of the religious founder. That's always a problem of all of the individuals who become the embodiment of the religious concept. They win a certain insight and a certain depth as a result of the cycling series of struggles and triumphs and failures through which they pass until at last there is distilled in them an insight which becomes for them the answer of man to the call of God. And then all these people who watch that and want to participate but who don't have their wisdom, don't have their patience, don't have their courage, don't have their this or that or the 2 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu other-- what about them? Well, when these Brahmanic mystics faced that, they saw several things. Number one, that if their idea that the soul was identical with the world soul-- to use the phrase that is familiar to us-- then man, in his living in the world, was not really involved in any of the activities of the world. Pitts Theology Library Emory University The reality was behind the manifestation. Now follow this, please. Now if the reality is behind the manifestation, then that means that the manifestation itself has no meaning. If the real is the invisible, the real is behind, then what you see is a seeming, a shadow. And if what you see is a shadow, is seeming, a manifestation, then whatever is done by that shadow, that seeming, that manifestation has to be interpreted in terms of its unreality. So the truth is that the Brahmin felt that he was above good and above evil because he was involved in union with the world soul, with which union was the only reality. And anything else was an unreality. And the people said, that's all right, but we can't deal with that. We don't know what you're talking about. And that's what some of you are saying right now. Why would you take our time on Sunday morning to talk about something like this? So they began dealing with it. And how do they deal with it? They began emerging a doctrine and the doctrine of incarnation, reincarnation. And what does the doctrine of reincarnation say? It says that the world of experience, the world of thisness and thatness, is real. It is not the only reality, but it is a reality. And what happened in the manifestation, in the experience of living, has its effect on the soul that is in the individual who is living. And if behavior, if time-space involvements can affect the quality of the soul, then time-space involvements, in some sense, must be as real as the soul. Interesting, isn't it? Now if that be the case, the problem of getting rid of the effects of time-space involvements must, of necessity, be a problem that not only affects behavior, the body, but it must be something that affects the spirit, the soul, which is one in identity with the world soul. Now, you see, if you died-- says the thinking in this regard-- if you died and you went directly to become either one with the world soul or one in communion with the world soul and if that happened automatically, then that would say that nothing that you did in the world made any difference, you see? No, you don't. Let me say it again because this is so, so crucial and because it has bearing on what we as individuals think about the meaning of our own lives and about the ultimate destiny of our own lives, the kind of peace that we have made about living and dying, reaping and sowing, and whether or not there is such a thing, either in time or out of time, as judgment in which the human spirit has to stand on its feet and be counted. So it's crucial. That's why-- even though these people were wrestling with it in their way. Now let's go back. If you die and-- or when you die, if you go directly to become either one with the world soul or in perpetual communion with the world soul if that happens automatically, then that means that 3 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu what you do while you are living has made no difference. Do you see that it has made no impact because, automatically, when you die, this happens? Pitts Theology Library Emory University Now if that is the concept, then the religious experience cannot sustain any kind of moral or ethical enterprise. It delivers human behavior to amorality, to a kind of nihilism, a meaninglessness. There can be no purposes, no goals, no ends on behalf of which men are willing to live and suffer and die, if need be, in order that that to which they are committed will triumph. All of that is snatched out of life if it makes no difference. So then the myth-making tendency of the human spirit that is always so creative and redemptive came into fore. We have a myth, a very interesting one about the moon and how the moon is full. When the moon is full, it means that it's full of people who-- the people who've died are there. Then those who have the password can go on through to the area beyond. If you don't have the password, you come back in the form of rain. This is a nice way of dealing with the problem. What is the problem? Let's not lose sight of the issue. What is the problem? If it be true that living day by day makes no difference, then when I die, I go where I would have gone whether I have been a good man or bad man. It makes no difference. If there be a difference, then how does the universe deal with the difference? If in every human spirit, there is the eternal god-- that's the problem-- a problem we've have never solved, either, incidentally. But that's the problem. So, they said, reincarnation-- if you have the password, you can get through the moon, you see? If you don't have the password, you come back. That's the simple way of dealing with it. Now it is because of the necessity that every human spirit feels for the need of redemption from the cocking ache of living frustrations from moment to moment that knocks always at the door of religion, insisting that it open up and give relief so that life, if it cannot change, will at least be endurable. So that's what they tried to do with this doctrine. You keep coming back and coming back until-- what happens?-- until all of the stain and adulteration that has seeped into the spirit, growing out of the behavior and the experiences in time and space, which says, you see-- and it's tremendous-- which says, you see, that even at this period in the long journey of man's quest, there was emerging the insistence that the ultimate destiny of man is a good and whole and creative destiny. That is, that because there is in man that which is identical with the world soul, then man can not die. It's what he saying. So he comes. He must come back again and again and again and again and again and again until at last he learns the password and can say it and pass on beyond. But that is dealing with the problem, you see, in times that, in a sense, are other worldly. But what happens when you aren't dying, you see, you aren't dead? The solves it, you see. I know that when I die, I will, if I haven't learned this, then I'll have to learn it some time. Well, what happens in that interval? And there arose, in the movement of the 4 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu spirit of God in Hinduism, a group of people, two movements that undertook the answer to deal with this problem. Pitts Theology Library Emory University One was the Jainists and, the other, the Buddhists. I'd like to say just a word about the Jainists, and then I'm through. And they said, since this is the story of man-- now what is the story of man? Man has within himself a soul, which soul is identical with the world soul. If man dies, he may go directly to fulfill all of the demands of communion or absolvtion in the world soul-- or if- and that is true-- if living means nothing. But if living means something, if my deed is a deed, really, then what I do affects this world, the soul that is in me. And it loads it down with adulteration that has to be worked out. And it is worked out in a series of goings, goings away, and comings back. Now how do I behave before I take off? If living, now-- living-- has reality in it-- and see that's always a problem-- if living has reality in it, I must live on the basis of the doctrine that the Western world-- with which the Western world became familiar, in the words of Mahatma-- in the experience of Mahatma Gandhi, the doctrine of "ahimsa." Now just a word about the ethics there-- the doctrine of-- as it first appeared, the doctrine of no killing. And at first, you see, it seems as if you shouldn't kill because you-- because there is, in the thing you kill, the world soul. You see, that is what the Christian finally comes around to in his Christian ethic. I have respect for personality because there is in personality the living God. All the great religious belief that bottoms much of Western thought and culture is that, in the presence of God, the human spirit is of infinite worth. And therefore, when I look into the eyes of another man, I'm looking into the eyes of God. The statement know thyself is taken more mystically from the statement thou has seen thy brother, thy has seen thy God. That's way over there, but that is not these people have done. They aren't saying that I should not kill because there is in the living thing the world soul. They aren't saying that. They are saying I must not kill because I must not defile myself-- very different. If I kill, I will defile myself. And if I defile myself, then this quality that is unworthy begins to invade the aspect of me that is wasteful, and I become stained and contaminated and sordid and unclean. And if I become stained and contaminated and sordid and unclean, then I cannot go before His face and live. So I will not kill you, even though you take my life, because I cannot defile myself. Once that is embraced, once that is embraced, the door opens now for all levels of consideration which you have to do with compassion, lest all life be defiled. And out of that comes, finally, the great ethic of Buddhism. And out of that kind of thinking emerges-- and don't misunderstand what I said-- out of that kind of thinking, not of that moment in history, not out of that culture, but out of that kind of thinking, which doesn't know any culture or any background, has emerged the great ethical insight that has harassed the mind and tortured the spirit of man as he looked at himself where he was and at the heights where he was destined to go. And I am glad to recognize 5 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu Pitts Theology Library Emory University these struggling, nameless Hindu followers of the light for the beams which their light casts across my pathway at my point in the darkness. 6 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Men Who've Walked with God (1953) Description An account of the resource In this series, Thurman explores the dynamics of mysticism through the lives of notable figures throughout history. The mystic's insight is that God is the creator of all of life, and indeed dwells in the human spirit as the deepest thing within a human being, which is always reaching out to touch the deepest in others. Throughout this sermon series, Thurman illustrates the ethical implications of this insight, as well as the discipline necessary to live out mystical religion. Ultimately, "Men Who've Walked With God," examines the ways in which a mystic relates to themselves and the world. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Descriptions by Rodell Jefferson III. AudioWithTranscription Audio that is shown through the 3Play Media embedded interactive transcript Audio with Transcription <iframe width="100%" height="820" frameborder="0" src="/files/players/394-573_A.html" ></iframe> Location The location of the interview, speech, lecture, or sermon Fellowship Church, San Francisco, California Marsh Chapel, Boston University, Boston, Massachussetts Time Period The decade in which the recording was produced. 1950s Original Title Title as transcribed from tape cassette Men Who've Walked: Brahman Mystics; Buddha (Fellowship Church or Marsh Chapel), 1953 Apr 26, May 3 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 394-573_A Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Thurman, Howard Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="http://pid.emory.edu/ark:/25593/rp8k9">MSS 394</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available <a href="http://pitts.emory.edu/">Pitts Theology Library, Emory University</a> Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1953-04-26 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/"><img style="border-width:0;" src="https://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-nc/4.0/80x15.png" alt="80x15.png" /></a><br />This work is licensed under a <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License</a>. 2019. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant GEOMETRYCOLLECTION(POINT(-13627798.925371 4550756.1096806)) Description An account of the resource In this third lecture on "The Men Who've Walked with God," Thurman examines mysticism through the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brahman">Brahmanic mystics</a> and the development of Hinduism. The insight of the mystics was that one's soul was identical with the world-soul. However, this presented an issue. If dying means that one will merge back into the world-soul, does life have any meaning? Thurman explains how the Doctrine of Reincarnation was made to answer this. What we do in this world has an effect on our souls; living makes a difference. Out of this insight, the mystics crafted a respect for personality out of respect for the living God. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Description by Rodell Jefferson III. Title A name given to the resource Men Who've Walked With God: Brahman Mystics, 1953 April 26 https://thurman.pitts.emory.edu/files/original/6c004d8f3f98f7b2c0ce48f22d926a43.pdf db79059f9cc856c161b9d46d12471103 PDF Text Text Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu 394-573_B.mp3 Pitts Theology Library Emory University There was a seeker. He wanted to find the solution to the problem of human existence. And I suppose that in that sense we all seek it, don't we? Of course, we do not define our quest in such lofty terms. But, ultimately, what we are after is the final solution to the riddle of our private existence. There are many stories about Buddha, and you may know more of them than I do. But let us cut through all that the devotion and the imagination and the inspired response of millions of human beings have given to this creative and moving spirit who seemed in himself to be so completely one with what he claims to have found, that when his worshipers contemplate his life, they think of him as the only God worthy of worship. He wanted to know the answer for the human suffering. Everywhere he looked around him in the world, he saw men were suffering-- young people were getting older, old people were getting older. No man escaped old age if he continued to live-- and old age brought with it the disintegration of power, of body and mind. And it seemed, as contrasted with the glory and the wonder and the beauty of youth, to be tragedy. He saw around him men who were hungry and who could find no food to eat. And the living of their lives on the basis of the provisions that were available to them seemed to him and, perhaps, to them, to be an increasing nightmare without reason and without tenderness. He saw people die. One by one, the duties end, one by one the lights go out. The tallest mountain must crumble, the strongest beam must break, the wisest man withers like a plant-- death everywhere riding on all the winds. What is there about the nature of human existence that makes all of life a breeding ground for end wishes-- that was his trouble. He set out to find it-- if I can get rid of my flesh, if I can get rid of the persistent demands of my body-- if somehow I can detach myself from my space-time involvement, then I can be free of the thing-- because that which is responsible for all of the suffering of life and, therefore, that which is responsible for life itself-- for in his thinking it seemed that life and suffering were synonymous. And here, he broke with the romantic mystics for the romantic mystics recognized that that life was made up of that which was good and that which is evil-- that life is a combination of the negative and the positive-- of joy and sorrow, of hope and despair. And, therefore, the devout Brahma felt that if he could by ecstasy lift himself above the conflict, then he would be beyond good and evil-- and only those who were not able to do that would be caught in the agonizing grapple of the tension between good and evil. But for Gautama, life is evil because life has desire. Life means desire, and it is of the nature of desire that it can never be fulfilled. It's very interesting, isn't it? When I got there, I said, well, the thing that I want I'll find. But when I got there, it wasn't there, it was somewhere else. And then when I got to that other place that I had located, then it wasn't there. He had all experiences and he ran through dreams and traveled the world-- whose margin fades forever and forever when I move. 1 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu I said when I got there that the fight would be over, but when I got there, I found that the fight was not over-- that the fight would never be over-- no, not even in death. Isn't that human experience? That's what he says anyway. Pitts Theology Library Emory University In as much as it is true in his thinking that you cannot fulfill desire, then desire must be attacked in a more fundamental manner. Desire must be rooted out, but you cannot root out desire unless somehow you are able to destroy it in a human spirit the will to live. And the will to live is intimately a part of the love of life. One of his disciples said to him-- he was talking about nirvana and how nirvana is bliss. And he said, but if nirvana is bliss, then that means that you are feeling something, you are enjoying something. And he said, no, nirvana is bliss, because it is bliss to be rid completely of all desire. Now let's look at this. The root of human suffering is desire. Desire is rooted, grounded in the life process itself. The end of all of life in terms of its most significance is to arrive at a point where significance is irrelevant-- to arrive at a point that is beyond significance, beyond feeling, beyond desire. In Washington DC, in the old part of the Rock Creek Cemetery, there is a statue built by Saint Gordon-- a statue built as a memorial to the wife of Henry Adams. You may remember that in one of the Galsworthy novels published after his death, there is a long description of this member of the Forsyth saga of the Forsyth family who lands in Washington. He sits in front of this statute and makes a very important discovery about the meaning of human existence. Very often during the years that I lived in Washington, I would go out to Rock Creek Cemetery. And every visitor who came to preach in the university chapel, I arranged to take him out there sometimes before the service, because it was very helpful in many ways. There is a woman seated in a chair. Her body is draped with a huge bit of greenish bronze coming over her face and covering everything except a hand. The cheek is resting on the hand, elbows leaning on the arm of the seat, and she is looking straight ahead. And as you look at her, you see that every tear that was in her has been cried out-that there is nothing left that can register awareness. That she is beyond all tension, beyond all struggle, beyond all the contradictions of life. And she has landed out there somewhere. And they call that statue Nirvana. The meaning of what Buddha found after going through all-- the meaning of what Buddha found after going through all of the varied experiences of life-- after starving himself to death-- almost to death-- after doing all of running the whole gamut of flagellation and the reduction of the self, he found that he couldn't do it that way-- that he couldn't even by thinking it through do it. He couldn't by meditating do it. The only thing that he could do was, well, he didn't know. It's very interesting. He didn't know. He didn't know what he could do. He could wait-- this is very interesting now. He could wait. He had done everything. He could wait and see if he could get still enough inside-- but not the stillness of no activity altogether, and yet it seems that is what he was trying to say. 2 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu But it is more like the stillness of absolute motion-- a stillness that is so utterly dynamic that it isn't activity at all. It's very interesting. I can't put it into words. But when this happened to him, then he had the illumination. And a lot of the illumination-- and I'm trying to talk about it from the outside with my mind and I can't do it. Pitts Theology Library Emory University The illumination-- whatever the illumination was-- it freed him of all of the necessities of existence. He preached about it afterwards, for suddenly it seemed to him that he had arrived at a place at which it was up to him to go forward, to come back, and pick up life or go on beyond-but not go on beyond as Buddha, but go on beyond the self and the limitations of the self. Now naturally, when he had that experience, he had to give a blueprint. His disciples wanted to know, how do you do it? And he wanted to share it. So he gave a lot of instructions-- techniques- full path, right speech, right thinking, right living, right meditations, and so on. But it is quite possible to follow all of the steps of the full path and not get it. Now what is the bearing of all of this in his life in terms of this epic and the crucial problem of the masses of people-- for it is at that point that we are concerned. You remember-- and I'll have to take an extra minute this morning-- you remember when we were discussing the whole doctrine of reincarnation and the insistence that the soul became involved in the deeds that we do. And the deeds affected the quality of the soul. And, therefore, the soul had to get its purification. And if it meant coming back again and again and again and again-- because the theory of time upon which we are operating is a circular theory of time, and you cannot be free until you are free of the necessity even of being yourself. And it's so difficult for us in our culture and civilization to grapple with that, because all of our emphasis is upon self realization-- of coming to one's self. What we are all striving to do some time is to say with reference to something, I did it-- I did it. And a whole school of psychologists developed our around the idea of the necessity for taking personal responsibility for your individual actions. The self coming to one's self and defined in all these various ways. But here is the reverse of that. Buddha insists that the self has no enduring value or significance. Now the only thing that endures is the event, the act, and its result. Long before John Watson worked on behaviorism at John Hopkins University, here's behaviorism. Hundreds of years before-- what is it that counts? The deeds-- and each deed carries its own value, its own merit, its own judgment, its own logic. The self is not important in terms of the effect of the deed on the self. So that when one dies, if I in my imagination when I read this, this it the way it seems to me-that when one dies, one goes through a sort of opening-- a little place like that-- just big enough for the self to get through, but not big enough for all these events to get through. So they are left outside, as you leave your clothes outside. But when you go in-- whatever "in" is-- you find that you didn't do your work well. And you must come back-- there's only one way that you can come back-- that's right back through that same place and pick up what you left at the door. 3 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu And the only way that you can get rid of that is finally to arrive at a place that there's nothing left at the door and then you're free. The event-- now you see you see what that means in terms of human history. It's an amazing thing-- that all human life is involved in the operation of law-- the operation of logic, the operation of antecedent, consequence, reaping, sowing. Pitts Theology Library Emory University And there is no provision made for any creative appearation upon the logic of events. If I want to alter the history of the world, there is only one way by which it can be altered in this pattern of thought. And that is to alter the events which, in turn, will influence the consequences. It's interesting, because an aspect of this appears in the thought of Jesus-- you remember? He pictures the end of human history when all the people of the world will come before the great judgment. And what is interesting about the judgment is not the judge and what he has to say. Sheep on the right, goats on the left-- but what determines whether you are a sheep or a goat? The judge? No, the event-- the event. I was sick and you didn't come to see me. I was in prison, you didn't visit me-- and so forth and so on. The event-- the history of the individual's life became his judgment. Now long before Jesus of Nazareth appears, here is a man wrestling with that same problem. It is not a complete answer. It is not a complete answer and I don't have time now to deal with it, because it makes up all of life-- a mechanical, materialistic operation. And it confines the activities of the human spirit within the starkest kind of determinism. And I don't think that life is like that altogether. I think there's always a margin in which it is possible for the creative human spirit to elect an alternative that violates even the logic of events. One man with one mind can stand over against the logic even of human history and hold his creative power at dead center over this logical stuff until a new law moves out of him and invades the stuff of human history. That's why I think life is good rather than evil, because it has that possibility. Now I know I should stop, but if you'll just bear with me for two more minutes and a half-- or three. I'm concerned at one more step here about the ethic that's involved in this. You remember-- no you don't-- but when we talked about the Jianists, I said that they did not project this doctrine of Ahimsa, about which Mahatma Gandhi talks so much-- because they wanted to do something positive. They said, thou shalt not kill not because of the respect that they had for the life that would be destroyed, but thou shalt not kill because if I kill, then I defile myself. And it is because I do not wish to become contaminated that I will not kill you-- not because I love you, I don't love you, but I don't want to get dirty, so I will not kill you. It was very nice of them. Now the ethic that is a derivative from the discovery of Buddha is this-- it is the ethic of self purification, which is the next creative step from this position that the Jianists disclosed-- self purification. I get rid of desire and then get reading and ridding myself of desire through these processes that are familiar to the Buddha, I purify myself. But now this is the wonderfully glorious thing about his insight. 4 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu He discovered that if an individual becomes sufficiently pure in his life, that the purity of his life radiates automatically without the movement of his will even. The purity of his life radiates a quality that is moral in character that affects the lives of other people. Pitts Theology Library Emory University And by so doing, you see, he introduces a life-affirming concept into a position which basically is life-denying. For, you see, if I get rid of the self and so forth and self-purification, that's withdrawal, that's life-denying, that is not life-affirming. And the logic of that position, you see, is to withdraw. Come and touch with that radiation-- find themselves affected by the quality of my purity. Therefore, he said, the responsibility of the individual becomes a double responsibility. I will purify myself that I may get from under the necessities of existence. But in the purification of myself, I recognize to radiate a quality of living that will influence the minds, the thinking, and the processes of the people around me. And his great contribution to ethics is at that point-- that he defines direct action in times that have to do with the inner purity of the life. And, after all these centuries, we still do not dare try the way that he suggested-- to make and attack on moral disorder in the world by the purification of one's own life on the theory and in the faith that something can be radiated from that that is redemptive in character. And until we test that, how dare we set up our faith, whatever it may be, with arrogance and pride and look with judgment upon the faith of the Buddha. 5 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Men Who've Walked with God (1953) Description An account of the resource In this series, Thurman explores the dynamics of mysticism through the lives of notable figures throughout history. The mystic's insight is that God is the creator of all of life, and indeed dwells in the human spirit as the deepest thing within a human being, which is always reaching out to touch the deepest in others. Throughout this sermon series, Thurman illustrates the ethical implications of this insight, as well as the discipline necessary to live out mystical religion. Ultimately, "Men Who've Walked With God," examines the ways in which a mystic relates to themselves and the world. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Descriptions by Rodell Jefferson III. AudioWithTranscription Audio that is shown through the 3Play Media embedded interactive transcript Audio with Transcription <iframe width="100%" height="820" frameborder="0" src="/files/players/394-573_B.html" ></iframe> Location The location of the interview, speech, lecture, or sermon Fellowship Church, San Francisco, California Marsh Chapel, Boston University, Boston, Massachussetts Time Period The decade in which the recording was produced. 1950s Original Title Title as transcribed from tape cassette Men Who've Walked: Brahman Mystics; Buddha (Fellowship Church or Marsh Chapel), 1953 Apr 26, May 3, Side B Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 394-573_B Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Thurman, Howard Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="http://pid.emory.edu/ark:/25593/rp8k9">MSS 394</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available <a href="http://pitts.emory.edu/">Pitts Theology Library, Emory University</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/"><img style="border-width:0;" src="https://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-nc/4.0/80x15.png" alt="80x15.png" /></a><br />This work is licensed under a <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License</a>. 2019. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant GEOMETRYCOLLECTION(POINT(-13627798.925371 4550756.1096806)) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1953-05-03 Description An account of the resource In this fourth lecture on "The Men Who've Walked with God," Thurman talks about <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gautama_Buddha">the Buddha</a> and his wrestling with human existence. Thurman says that the Buddha saw the aging and hunger in the world and equated life with suffering. The Buddha's response to this was to root out desire, to renounce attachment to the self. Thurman says that the insight here is that the self is not so much important as much as the act and the deed of the self. The ethical insight of the Buddha is in the purification of desire, which radiates into the moral life as a powerful life-affirming posture. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Description by Rodell Jefferson III. Title A name given to the resource Men Who've Walked With God: Buddha, 1953 May 3 https://thurman.pitts.emory.edu/files/original/23012b99f8f239be751fee41c96b1260.pdf c85caeeed5d2468b9c27ab94e6d748fa PDF Text Text Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu 394-576_B.mp3 Pitts Theology Library Emory University He says, I want to think for a little while with you about Fra Angelico. In working together on these sermons about men who walked with God, it is always a great temptation to confine one's thinking and expression to the important historical facts of their lives and make of it more-- make of them more academic, in terms of paying hostages to the technical mind and the disciplined mind, but not to make of them sermons. And I feel that a sermon has to be a sermon. It is not a lecture. And it is not quite an address. And it isn't all together a talk. It's a sermon. And a sermon has at least two elements in it that I are important. It gives a lift to the spirit because somewhere in it there must be a vision of God in terms of the possibilities of human life. It must have also in it certain elements that convict so that, as you listen quietly in your own heart you wish that you were a little better person than you are. Now, over and above those two things, it may delight the mind. I've chosen Fra Angelico because he was an artist. And this is the closing of the Arts Festival. I've chosen also because he represents in himself certain qualities that belong to life when life is lived as a great sacrament. The period just prior to the movement of this creative spirit into Italy, by his birth, was one that was loaded with conflicts and tempests. The Catholic Church, at that time, had fallen upon evil days. And the pope had been a prisoner in France for 70 years. The great house was divided because it's soul was sick. The Italian cities were armed camps. And blood and violence were the order of the day. And as if that were not enough, moving out over all of Europe was the pestilence. And men were dying like flies. It's an interesting thing, isn't it, how what we call acts of God-- this is an aside. But how what we call acts of God often seem to affect human life at the time that human life seems to be in the least favorable position for helping and protecting itself. When the whole flank is exposed, it seems as if the universe knows it and organizes itself to take full advantage of the weakness. And it happens in individual lives. When I was in college, whenever I was broke, all the fellows on my floor were broke. There just wasn't any money anywhere. And no one needed anybody to do any work. I couldn't get a job. But let me get a little money. And then it happens that my roommate would have some money. And some other fellows would have money. And then there'd be a notice on the dean's board for somebody to go somewhere to do a job. Life's very funny. When the-- during the First World War when the munitions vessel was blown up outside of St. John's in the Bay, and thousands of people were rendered suddenly destitute, and many hundreds 1 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu were killed with an explosion that was so violent that the anchor, the big iron anchor of the vessel, was blown five miles in the air across the city and stuck into the side of a hill. [CHURCH BELLS RINGING] Life's very interesting. So goodness. It's 12 o'clock. And I haven't even started. [LAUGHTER] Pitts Theology Library Emory University And at that moment, America sent carloads of nurses, and food, and medicine. And as the train, the extra trains, moved into to St. John's, what happened? There rumbled up out of the Atlantic the worst blizzard that St. John's had experienced in its entire history. And for more than 40 hours, the medicine, the nurses, the food were stranded on the sideline while the people were dying. Well, I'm not going-- I'm sorry. I don't know where the time went this morning. So they're really not surprised to say, when we say, or discover, that the pestilence, that the wars among the citystates in Italy, that the demoralizing of the Roman Catholic Church, all came at one time. And the orders, the religious orders, reflected the corruption. And the holy habit of the monk was no longer a symbol of redemption and salvation. And at such a moment, Fra Angelico was born. And he lived until 1455, or thereabouts, born near the close of the 13th century. A simple man trained as an artist, belonged to the Dominican Order, lived all of his life, practically, in the region around Tuscany, a good, gifted, simple man who had no interest in trying to salvage the social order, who had no interest in bringing a kind of redemption to the social order by which he was surrounded, but a man who had one great and central commitment. As a result of his prayer, and his meditation, and the illumination of his mind, he was able to make of his life a tool in the hands of God. Now, that's very simple to say. To make of his life a tool in the hands of God, so that in all the things that he did, there was reflected the quality of his dedication and the mood of the spirit that had given to him his serenity. He painted walls. He decorated the cells of his order-- these dingy, small cubicles. He brought into them light, and sensitiveness, and beauty. A kind of aura is present in his paintings. Even the $0.10 cheap color copies that you buy at the Metropolitan Museum have that glow in them. Now, there are two or three things about his life and his way of life that are instructive for us. First, he brought, as a part of his dedication to God, the best skill and equipment that was available to him. It is very interesting to me that there is something about the attitude that the human spirit tends to take towards goodness, towards things that are spiritual, that ignores the necessity of technical training, skill, and ability. We see it, for instance, in terms of the attitude that the average person takes towards goodness, in general. 2 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu We feel, for instance, that there's something about goodness that will simply good its way through the world. That all you need to do is to be good. You don't have to be intelligent. You don't have to have a mind. You don't have any discipline. Pitts Theology Library Emory University But those who work on behalf of that which is not good, those who work on behalf of what we may call, for a moment, that which is evil and diabolical in society, know that they must bring to bear upon that which they do the total fruits of their abilities and minds. If you were a gangster, for instance, you would know that when you signed up to be a part of-- this is simply a reflection of some of the things that I've been reading-- but when you sign up, there is no turning back. All of your skills, whatever you are that brought you initially into the combine, over and above merely your interest in profit and money, but whatever made you important to the organization as a driver, or whatever you are, that is a part of the totality of your offering and your commitment. For the men who undertake to work on behalf of the kingdom of evil in this world know that all of the discipline of which the human spirit is capable must be placed upon the altar. And once the commitment is made, there is no turning back. And if you want to turn back, you are offered the only other alternative, and that's death. But the good people feel that they can leave it all to God. That God will do it. That this is God's world. And God will do it. Now, there's a profound insight there. But also something that calls for very special caution. The instrumentality through which God works on behalf of goodness is the instrumentality which represents, again and again, the total equipment of the personality that is dedicated to goodness. I can't let my heart, for instance, be for goodness. And then spend years training my mind. And then lease my mind out to those forces in society that are working against the thing to which my heart is dedicated. That's what I'm talking about. And Fra Angelico saw that. He was a painter. And when he decided to paint, for instance, scenes from the life of Jesus Christ. He literally [? absolved ?] himself, not only with the record, with whatever the technical, whatever technical knowledge was available to him, through scholarships and what have you. But he sought to [? absolve ?] what to him was the spirit, so that the use to which he put the skills of his hands and the disciplines of his mind would be dedicated to the furthering of the thing to which he had given the major allegiance of his heart. And in his meditation in preparation for his particular painting, he became so illumined, so filled with what to him was the active-[AUDIO OUT] For in the painting, the voice of the living God had spoken, and in a judgment that he would have, after the fact, would be to profane the gift. Now, therefore, he could work in these little half-lighted cells not bothered by whether or not the leading art critics of Italy would ever see it, whether or not he would be called upon to have some great exhibition somewhere. 3 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu But here in the cell, he, literally, became a tool through which, as he felt with great conviction and inspiration, the living God projected an aspect of his spirit in color, in shape, on the wall. And the painting for him, then, became sacramental for it became but a [? for ?] [? instance ?] of the spirit which moved in his own heart and life. Pitts Theology Library Emory University He had no interest in money. But he was a great source of wealth for the order because if he did a painting somewhere-- always religious paintings, mark you-- if he did a painting somewhere, all arrangements were made by the person who wanted to have the painting done, or the order that wanted to have the painting done-- all arrangements were made with the abbot of the monastery. So he wasn't bothered with collecting. He wasn't bothered with setting a price. But he did what he did to the glory of God, feeling always that his total life was the tool of God. And he arrived at that not by an objective acceptance of a vocation, mark you. He arrived at that not by the objective acceptance of a vocation. But he arrived at that by making, at the central and controlling place in his life, making his dedication to God and to the spiritual life central. And once, at the core of him, he was thus dedicated, then it followed automatically that whatever skills he had were a part of that dedication, even his skill in living with others. The testimony is that there was a gentility about him, that he didn't ever find it necessary to lose his temper, to use harsh words. But he lived every commonplace moment out of this central dedication. Now, that seems to me to be the heart of what he has to say to us. And it is very difficult, perhaps, [? for ?] our lives are divided into great [? segments. ?] And we may dedicate a part of our lives to doing this sort of thing with it and another part to doing something else. But we reserve the right to withhold ourselves and not participate with ourselves in the things that we do. We do it in our giving. This [? life ?] is so important that even someone like Mr. Shakespeare had to introduce it as a bit of caution, reminding us that when you give yourself with your gift-- which points out the fact that, again and again, we give the gift. But we don't give ourselves with the gift. Instead of giving, we tip, you know? Can you think now, as we sit here, can you think of any ways in which your life-- listen now-any ways in which your life is an expression of what to you is your supreme dedication? Or is your life merely made up of fragmentary manifestations? If you had to select the channel through which all of the meaning of your life is being released in terms of what to you is most valuable, most significant, most sacramental, what would it be? Or are you waiting for something worthy of your dedication? Are you waiting for your big moment when you will be swept off your feet in one tremendously [? whirling ?] dedication? And while you wait, you withhold. What about it? If you dared to make as your central concern the giving of your life core, that means your mind, the seedbed of your desires, if you made it your purpose to give that, to surrender that to the God 4 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu at whose altar you worship, however you label that God, to release your life there, do you know what would happen? Pitts Theology Library Emory University Nothing ever again would be commonplace. Life would become sacramental. And wherever you are and whatever you may be doing, however simple, however ordinary, however obscure, wherever you are, whatever you may be doing, there, at that moment, at that place, will the living God become flesh. What an opportunity for every one of us. 5 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Men Who've Walked with God (1953) Description An account of the resource In this series, Thurman explores the dynamics of mysticism through the lives of notable figures throughout history. The mystic's insight is that God is the creator of all of life, and indeed dwells in the human spirit as the deepest thing within a human being, which is always reaching out to touch the deepest in others. Throughout this sermon series, Thurman illustrates the ethical implications of this insight, as well as the discipline necessary to live out mystical religion. Ultimately, "Men Who've Walked With God," examines the ways in which a mystic relates to themselves and the world. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Descriptions by Rodell Jefferson III. AudioWithTranscription Audio that is shown through the 3Play Media embedded interactive transcript Audio with Transcription <iframe width="100%" height="820" frameborder="0" src="/files/players/394-576_B.html" ></iframe> Location The location of the interview, speech, lecture, or sermon Fellowship Church, San Francisco, California Marsh Chapel, Boston University, Boston, Massachussetts Time Period The decade in which the recording was produced. 1950s Original Title Title as transcribed from tape cassette Men Who've Walked: Janis Tegar; Fra Angelico (Fellowship Church or Marsh Chapel), 1953 Jun 21, 28, Side B Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 394-576_B Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Thurman, Howard Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="http://pid.emory.edu/ark:/25593/rp8k9">MSS 394</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available <a href="http://pitts.emory.edu/">Pitts Theology Library, Emory University</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/"><img style="border-width:0;" src="https://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-nc/4.0/80x15.png" alt="80x15.png" /></a><br />This work is licensed under a <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License</a>. 2019. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant GEOMETRYCOLLECTION(POINT(-13627798.925371 4550756.1096806)) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1953-06-28 Description An account of the resource In this tenth sermon on "The Men Who've Walked with God," Thurman explores painter, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fra_Angelico">Fra Angelico</a>. Angelico's life shows us what is possible when we dedicate our skills and disciplines totally to God. Angelico, painting out of the ultimate loyalty of his heart, did not worry about judgments or critics or making money; for him, painting was the way in which the living God was projected. Thurman says that Angelico made his life into a tool for God to reveal God's glory. When our lives are dedicated to God, our whole lives taken on new meaning, and the commonplace becomes sacramental. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Description by Rodell Jefferson III. Title A name given to the resource Men Who've Walked With God: Fra Angelico, 1953 June 28 https://thurman.pitts.emory.edu/files/original/d0b277d8584c6d99e54c44630b959577.pdf 23409f6944bab86ee95be8c6ab11d679 PDF Text Text Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu 394-575_A.mp3 Pitts Theology Library Emory University According to the Christian, mystics began primarily with St. Augustine. But I want to reach back today and pick up one who is outside of the immediate Christian tradition. But it was a part of my plan to do him, but two weeks ago, it just didn't seem right. I want to deal with certain aspects of the mystical insight of Mahatma Gandhi. I have here, something that is very precious to me. And this nothing to do with Mr. Gandhi's mysticism, but I just want to see it. This is a piece of cloth that Mr. Gandhi-- that's made out of thread that Mr. Gandhi wore. And he gave it to me when we were in India in 1935. And I just thought you'd like to see it. You may recall that when we were talking about the Brahmanic mystics and Gautama Buddha-that considerable emphasis was placed upon the significance of the doctrine of ahimsa as it bore upon the relation between the inner life and the outer life. It was quite an art at the time that ahimsa deals, basically, with the attitude of the individual towards himself. It has to do with the purification of the individual's life. In its outgoing manifestation, it is non-resistant. It is passive. It is non-active, really. But not because of how the individual conceives of himself as being related to the other person, but rather, because the attitude that is ahimsa, the quality of life that is ahimsa, is one which purifies the individual. I will-- the true doctrine, the true genius of ahimsa, I would say-- I will not kill you because you are sacred or because you love your life. But it says that I will not kill you because if I kill you, I defame myself. Now, that's the essence of it, laid bare. The very anatomy of the doctrine of not killing, which is related, therefore-- you see-- to the whole mystical experience of purgation, of self-purification as a part of the discipline through which the individual passes from his attachments in life and in experience. Through detachment from the life and experience. To illumination and then union-that's the process. Now, we discovered how the Buddha gave a positive quality, a life-affirming quality to this life denying doctrine of ahimsa by injecting into the relationships, a quality of compassion and under certain quality of reverence, he lifted the metaphysical doctrine of our reverence for life to a category that was ethical in character so that I revere life. And because I revere life, I will be compassionate to all living things. Now, that is the background of Mr Gandhi. The story of his life is very well-known to most of-well, to all of us, I suppose. I need not take time to go into details concerning it. There are two or three things, however, that I want to point out. I ask him, and he will pardon me-- that part of it. Now, there is only one way to say that. And that's the way I'm saying it. 1 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu I ask him, when at last we had a chance to see him-- a chance that I thought we were going to miss, because each time a date was set for us to get together, he was sick. [LAUGHTER] Pitts Theology Library Emory University So two weeks before leaving India, in Bombay we were, early one morning I decided that I would have to do something about it. You wait for life to move, and then if life doesn't decide that it understands what you're talking about, then you try to give it some instructions. [LAUGHS] So I decided I would send him a telegram to find out whether we could go down to his place in [INAUDIBLE] to see him or do something, because two weeks and we would be coming back to America. And you'd come back to America without having a chance to see him. So when I walked out of the house at which we were living, I met a man at the gate who had on a Gandhi cap and so forth. And he looked at me. And we passed each other, sort of spoke. Well, I decided to speak, and he decided to speak. And then we both decided that we didn't know whether we should speak. It was that sort of moment, you know. But we finally got by each other. And then he turned around. And he said, are you, you? And I said, yes. [LAUGHTER] And then he said, I have a letter from Gandhi ji. And I said, that's interesting because I'm going to the post office now to send him a telegram. So I read the letter. And the letter said that he was down at a native state in Badoli and on his way back up to his ashram. He was not very well, traveling with his doctor. And he wondered whether we can interrupt our schedule at the university and come down to this place in Badoli to see him. And then his letter said an amazing thing. I'll never get over it if I live forever. He said, if your schedule is so busy and so crowded that you cannot take time to come down here to see me and if, at the end of your schedule, you must get your boat so there is no time there to come to see me, I will get on the train with my doctor and come to Bombay to see you. Think of it, the great Mahatma Gandhi. [LAUGHTER] I tell you, I'll never get over it. Well, of course, you can imagine what happened. We just cancelled the rest of everything and got down there. 2 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu Three hours we sat, talking by the watch. And he had the watch-- a big, silver watch that he put out in front. He said we have only three hours. And there are many things that I want to know and we want to talk about. And we must do it by the clock, by the watch. Pitts Theology Library Emory University At the end, I wanted to know one or two things. And his [INAUDIBLE] wanted to know one or two things. And he agreed to answer us because all the time we had spent answering his questions about America and about American Negroes and about Africans and so forth. I wanted to know from him, why did his doctrine of ahimsa, with the things that he added to it-noncooperation and so forth-- why did that fail of its objective? Namely, to bring to the Indian people freedom. And he said to me that the doctrine failed because number one, it was a creative, ethical doctrine with a spiritual foundation. Now, follow his thinking, now. With a spiritual foundation-- and it would be effective only in the life that was so disciplined-- so disciplined-- that it, the life, could handle this ethical doctrine with its spiritual foundation. And he said the masses of Indians can't do that because, said he, they are lacking in vitality. And they are lacking in vitality for two reasons. The first reason is they're hungry. And then he talked statistics about the number of Indians who live and die and so forth without getting enough food to eat and on and on and on. And he said, so I had to withdraw from politics. I mean-- yes, from active politics-- and go into something else. I had to do something about this poverty. And during the long months-- six months-- during which the season is dry and farming is impossible, the villagers are idle and they starve. Now, if we could recapture the lost cottage industry by reintroducing the village and the cottage spinning wheel, then we could make a fundamental attack on this question of poverty. So the spinning wheel became the symbol, the vehicle, by which this man sought to attack the problem-- not of poverty as such, but to make it possible for the average Indian to deal creatively with the doctrine of ahimsa. That's the thing to remember. Don't forget that. Incidentally, of course, it meant an attack on poverty and so forth. Then, the second reason for their lack of self-respect was the presence of untouchability in Hinduism-- untouchability in Hinduism. And I expected him to say that they had lost their selfrespect because of the presence of the conqueror in their midst-- that this man is there and had done that for 200 or 300 years, and done this and this and this and this, this. No, he said none of that. But we have lost our self-respect because as Hindus, we practice untouchability. Tremendous. 3 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu So he began working at it. And the first thing he did as a caste Hindu was to adopt into his family, as a member of his family, a girl who was an Untouchable. And at the time he did that, the plight of the Untouchable was so terrible in South India that an Untouchable was not even permitted to cross a street on which was located a Hindu temple, because his shadow would contaminate. Pitts Theology Library Emory University At that moment, this man adopted, as a member of his family, one of these people. And he said to all the caste Hindus, this is what I mean by what I'm saying. And then the second thing he did was to change the name from Untouchables or Shudras [INAUDIBLE] depending on the part of the country to Harijans. And the word "Harijans" means "child of God." And with a wonderful, cherubic chuckle, he said, I felt that if I could make every caste Hindu call an outcast, every time he referred to him, a child of God, I would, in that act, create for the caste Hindu the kind of moral problem that could never be solved until he changed his attitude towards the Untouchables. Tremendous, isn't it? Let that soak in. It's tremendous. So he changed the name of his publication to Harijan. Now, what's back of all this? Here is a man. And this is how it relates to our series. Here is a man who is rooted in the basic mysticism of the Brahma, who inherits, as one of the ethical overtones of his Hindu past, the application of the doctrine of ahimsa to individuals and to relationships with individuals that extend beyond that of merely self-purification, which says, you see, that it is possible to achieve effective, worldly ends. Mark all the words, please. That it is possible to achieve effective, worldly ends by the use of methods, techniques that are, themselves, unworldly. Now, think about it. Don't hurry over that, even though the time is getting away. Let's think about it, that it is possible to achieve worldly ends-- worldly ends. The thisness and thatness ends. Pro-ing and con-ing ends. Conflicts, the contradictions of experience, all of the tensions by which the individual's life is twisted because the good that he sees, he is unable to achieve. And the good that he sees again and again, he does not want to achieve. That it is possible-- it is possible to deal with the materials that are inherent in the traffic of life-to deal with them effectively and creatively by the use of means and methods that are, themselves, derived from another kind of orientation. Now, that's what he's saying. So ahimsa, then, becomes a doctrine of ethics, which is life-affirming, even though ingenious the doctrine is life-denying. For it says, you see, as Gandhi very adequately expressed in manifest, that whatever may be the nature of the time-space involvements of the human spirit, they are 4 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu always rooted in a dimension of life that transcends time and space, that there is no such thing as an activity that is not rooted and grounded in a realm that transcends that activity. Pitts Theology Library Emory University That's what he's saying. And if it be true, then, that there is a quality that is spiritual, that undergirds the total operation of life's adventure, then he who is able to deal with the things on the surface of life from within the knowledge that he has of the doubts of life will be able to gather in the total sweep of his living a creative synthesis in which there is, at last, no conflict and no frustration. Now, that's what he's saying. You believe that? You believe that? I wonder. We believe it in little ways, don't we? We believe it in little ways. You have a problem in your own life and it merely has to do with your digestion. There's just some reason it isn't operating properly. And you think about various things. You say, well, something disagreed with me or I should have known better than to have eaten the cucumbers at 12 o'clock at night or something like that. But if it keeps happening, you keep fooling with it. You begin to dig back behind that, don't you? Maybe I'm worrying too much. Maybe I'm getting too tired. Maybe I'm-- and you go on. And little by little by little by little, you push, push, push, push back until, at last, that which is movement on the surface of your life is but manifestation of stirrings at the depth of your life. That's what he's talking about. Now, let's see the kind of thing that it made him do. And I'll be through it in two or three minutes, I hope. When one of his ascetic friends chided him because he was becoming involved more and more in thisness and thatness, more involved in conflict and life, instead of withdrawing into the foothills or some other place in the Himalayas, and there practicing his purgation. And there's just something to be said for that. We've talked about it once before, this deep insistence that keeps turning up in the human spirit, that somehow I must, at long last, withdraw. And in my withdrawing, I am able to bring to bear upon the total problems of existence, a total self that isn't scattered in this, and that, and the other. And perhaps if I can do that-- and men always rise up in our society and feel this way, and who are under great conviction, and who have a tremendous contribution to make to our disorder-- if they can sufficiently purgate themselves, and at last get the illumination and be bathed in the light of His presence so that there is no longer any awareness of darkness, and I do not know which is I and which is He. There are men who feel that if that can happen, then the world can be redeemed, and only that way. 5 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu So when such a man wrote to Mahatma Gandhi, chiding him because he was trying to clean up the world-- clean up India and doing a lot of other things-- why don't you withdraw to your cell? And Gandhi said, I carry my cell with me, working in human relations and politics, trying to clean up life around me. That is my purgation. That is my [INAUDIBLE]. Pitts Theology Library Emory University That was my discipline. I do not offer it for you, he said, but for me. Working in the traffic is the discipline. And if I, in the midst of the traffic of life, can walk with the independence of solitude, as Emerson says, then every struggling man caught by the agonizing pressures of his life from which there seems to be no relief can take hold. Because where he is in his trap, surrounded by the intimacy of his own agonies, there he can see God's face and be transformed. And that's why the masses of the Indian people found, in this strange, little man, the door to all their hopes. And it's easier to believe both in the love and the wisdom of God, because He left so great a witness and so humble a man. 6 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Men Who've Walked with God (1953) Description An account of the resource In this series, Thurman explores the dynamics of mysticism through the lives of notable figures throughout history. The mystic's insight is that God is the creator of all of life, and indeed dwells in the human spirit as the deepest thing within a human being, which is always reaching out to touch the deepest in others. Throughout this sermon series, Thurman illustrates the ethical implications of this insight, as well as the discipline necessary to live out mystical religion. Ultimately, "Men Who've Walked With God," examines the ways in which a mystic relates to themselves and the world. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Descriptions by Rodell Jefferson III. AudioWithTranscription Audio that is shown through the 3Play Media embedded interactive transcript Audio with Transcription <iframe width="100%" height="820" frameborder="0" src="/files/players/394-575_A.html" ></iframe> Location The location of the interview, speech, lecture, or sermon Fellowship Church, San Francisco, California Marsh Chapel, Boston University, Boston, Massachussetts Time Period The decade in which the recording was produced. 1950s Original Title Title as transcribed from tape cassette Men Who've Walked: Gandhi; St. Francis (Fellowship Church or Marsh Chapel), 1953 Jun 7, 14 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 394-575_A Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Thurman, Howard Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="http://pid.emory.edu/ark:/25593/rp8k9">MSS 394</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available <a href="http://pitts.emory.edu/">Pitts Theology Library, Emory University</a> Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1953-06-07 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/"><img style="border-width:0;" src="https://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-nc/4.0/80x15.png" alt="80x15.png" /></a><br />This work is licensed under a <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License</a>. 2019. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant GEOMETRYCOLLECTION(POINT(-13627798.925371 4550756.1096806)) Description An account of the resource In this seventh lecture on "The Men Who've Walked with God," Thurman examines <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahatma_Gandhi">Gandhi</a>. For Thurman, Gandhi illustrates what it looks like to bring mystical insight into politics and the traffic of life. In the work of Gandhi, one sees that "it is possible to achieve effective, worldly ends by the use of... techniques that are, themselves, unworldly." By shining the light of spiritual truth onto the conflicts and frustrations of life, new creative synthesis is made possible. For Thurman, Gandhi is a mystic who did not withdraw from the world, but rather brought his religious integrity into human relations. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Description by Rodell Jefferson III. Title A name given to the resource Men Who've Walked With God: Gandhi, 1953 June 7 https://thurman.pitts.emory.edu/files/original/42a014498c3e04e18f47e7cc302de70c.pdf 2fd2d25b4d6f032539a2df677b8d4ba9 PDF Text Text Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu 394-577_B.mp3 Pitts Theology Library Emory University God. About that sentence. About Jakob Bohme. If you are interested in reading about him, and you do not wish to wade through the complicated writings which he left behind, then I would suggest two references. And I apologize. I haven't been doing this before, but it just occurred to me this morning that it might be a good idea. The first reference is The Mystic Will. The Mystic Will by Brinton. B-R-I-N-T-O-N. And Dr. Brinton is one of the moving spirits, directors-- that's the word-- of Pendle Hill, which is the Quaker School of Graduate Study where Dr. Phelps is lecturing during the summer. The Mystic Will by Brinton. It's a Macmillan book and it's out of print. But you can find it in almost any good secondhand bookstore if you go there often enough over a long-enough time interval. [CHUCKLING] The second reference is the Rufus Jones' Spiritual Reformers of the 14th Century, I think is the title of it. Spiritual Reformers is the title. That book also is out of print, and you will not be fortunate enough to pick it up in a casual bookstore. You may pick it up in a highly-specialized bookstore. I myself have been trying to find it for six years, but you still may be able to get it. And in that study by Rufus Jones, there are three very crucial chapters on Jakob Bohme. Now, it is rather difficult to interpret his mystical insight without becoming far more involved in aspects of the discussion which, from the point of view of our quest and our concern, are irrelevant. I would like to therefore begin by pointing up the essential problem of mystical religion as that problem has expressed itself in our thought. And then to see how the mind of a man like Bohme moves in upon this problem and resolves it in a manner that seems to him to be very significant, and resolves it in a manner that is so significant that he-- perhaps more than any other person-- may be regarded as the womb out of which Quakerism comes. There is a tendency in the human spirit-- more than a tendency. An activity of the human spirit that moves always outward towards the world of things, the world of matter. It seeks always to understand the individual thing, the particular thing. It is characteristic of our civilization, our Western culture. We want to understand the world of nature, and every aspect of the world of nature, in order that we may be able, from within the context of our understanding of nature, control nature and make nature our servant. So ardent is this quest on our part, and so successful have we been in the pursuit of the quest, that pursuit in the quest, that the significance of the individual-- the man who is questing-- has been lost sight of. 1 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu It's very interesting. I saw a little skit on television that arrested my mind. And I can't tell you how it ends because I've forgotten, but-- and I blacked out on it. But it was a skit having to do with what has happened to man and the machine. Perhaps some of you saw it. Pitts Theology Library Emory University All of the machines in the world suddenly decided that they would get rid of human beings. They were tired of being pushed around by men. So the typewriters that had been obeying these stenographers all day just decided that they would move on the offensive. And they ran all of the stenographers out of the offices. The wires and the telephones got tired of responding and being a tool of these human manipulators. And these wires ran amok and began twisting, and turning, and getting out of hand, and choking, and destroying. They were tired of man's petty domination. And the climax came when a man ran up three, four, five flights of stairs, and staggered through a door on the roof, and slammed the door and bolted because he was trying to escape the adding machine. [LAUGHTER] But the concept is very interesting. It points out the thing that has happened in the outgoing will. And that brings us to one of the insights of Bohme, but we will postpone it for a second. The way this outgoing will has sought always to understand the particular. And if I can understand enough particulars, then out of that understanding of this collection of particulars, I will therefore get a total understanding of the whole. And yet, the thing that blocks that is that there is a sense in which every particular, though it may not be different from some other particular, yet it is unique in itself. And every time I hit one of these, I know that, in order to be sure that my understanding, that my knowledge are complete, I must deal with every particular forever and ever. And I can't do that. With the result that the particulars begin to take me over. Now, that's one push. Now, the other push in the human spirit is to move back in the other direction. This is as old, of course, as the problems of philosophy having to do with the universe, within the particular, the general, and the specific, and so forth. Now, we move away from the world, burrowing always more deeply within. Withdrawing until perhaps we come to some central core, some pulse out of which everything else emanates. But the problem always is that I cannot be aware that I'm there-- that is, that I'm to this call-- unless some part of me, some part of this outer is along with me to inform me of the fact that it is different from the thing I'm experiencing. Do you see what I mean? No, you don't. Now, let's try it again now. You see, when we say, for instance, that I will withdraw from the world-- which is a part of the mystic's insight-- I will withdraw from the world and will become detached. Detached more and more so that there will be no thread of involvement at any point, in order that I might plunge 2 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu myself more deeply and utterly into the undifferentiated ground, or-- mm, can't think of the word I want, but-- well, let me try it again. I hope you'll be patient. Pitts Theology Library Emory University When I move from the outer to the inner, as long as there is some recollection of the outer in my experience, I can then be aware of the fact that I am aware of the inner. But if there is no outer with me, then I cannot be aware of the inner. Just state it in terms of religion. I know that I must go before God. That I must be washed of all of the things that delimit my life so that I can be utterly and completely acceptable in His sight. But if some part of me is not-- some part of thisness is not with me in His presence, I cannot be identified. And I must be identified. Now, Jakob Bohme wrestles with this problem. And he begins with a very interesting concept. I should say that his dates are 16th century. Sometime after 1500. And he was a Lutheran. He was a great Protestant. And he was a visionary. He saw double all the time. Saw double. It's wonderful. And they thought he was a little strange, and yet there were many people in his period who felt that way because the times were uneasy times. And when the times are uneasy times, then the stability of the human spirit has to be-- in the preciseness of its vision, something has to hold and let the ebb and flow of the eventful vicissitudes do all the things they wish, but the vision holds. Now, he had these visions and wrote down things, not because they were things that came out of his mind as such, but it is as if he were spoken through. In a most amazing manner, he had a sense that he was exposed to the very background of all existence. That he was in touch with the life out of which all things were evolved, all things were emanated, all things came, so that always, whatever he saw, whatever he was doing, he saw it both as the object at which he was looking, or the object that he was experiencing, and he saw it as that behind all objects, behind all existences. And he wrote some of these things down and got into trouble. [CHUCKLING] There was a certain Lutheran minister who read this. And he said, this man is dangerous. And he went before the town council and presented the case. And Bohme was not even permitted to go home to tell his family goodbye. They just told him to just keep on going outside the city. And he stayed out all night, no where to sleep. And then one of the men happened to read one of the things. And then when he read it, he saw, well, that's pretty good. You see, he'd been put out on the basis of the big lie. That's all. On the basis of the big lie. And he finally lost, however, because he was told not to write anymore. But he hadn't written in the first place. It had written in him. 3 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu It's like the little boy who whistled in class. And the teacher said, Johnny, did you whistle? No, I didn't whistle. It whistled itself. Well, that's the way that he wrote. Pitts Theology Library Emory University So when these mere men said to him, under some band of being exiled, you must not write anymore, then-- he wanted to be a good citizen. He wanted to stay with his family, and all the other things. And he said, well, all right. I'll do the best I can. And then he tried. But this tidal wave caught him and swept him out again. And he could not help himself, whatever may be the consequences. And so long after he was exiled, this man kept on saying these very terrible things about him. And then finally, to pull the story together and go on with this concept, when he died, and as a result of the prestige-bearing members of the state, some princes, they felt that they would have to give him a good-- because you have to be buried from the church. And first, they said, no, you can't bury him from the church. You can't do that. It defames the house of God to have this child of light buried from it. And the minister who had been opposing him all these years also died. Died, I think, before Bohme. And his successor, being true to his predecessor, wouldn't take the funeral. As a matter of fact, he got sick so that he could not make it. Now, he was persecuted, not because he was a bad man, and not because he was a good man, but because he was a man who had an insight that was out of step with his time. That's all. Not good, not bad. And the people who persecuted him are not bad people. No, they're good people. They were people who were doing the most natural thing in the world, and that is, hold what you have, because if you turn them loose, you may not get anything else. [CHUCKLING] And anybody who comes along to try to take it away from you, you better hold it. [TAPPING] Now, that's the story in a nutshell. Now, how did he deal with the problem that I set up in the early part of our thinking together? There were two wheels, said Bohme. Two wheels. One wheel that goes out this way, goes out to man, to the world, to all aspects of life. And then there's a wheel that moves back towards the core. No man can understand-- no man can understand anything in the world of phenomena, anything in the world of experience, if all that he sees is what he is looking at. Now, if his knowledge is limited to that which is formal discursive logic, then he deals always with half-truths. Reason-says he-- is very important, but reason is very limited, for it can only deal with the externals or the multiplication of externals. It cannot deal with the inner relatedness of these manifestations. 4 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu So the clue, then, is that the individual, as he experiences and deals with particular things in the world about him, must deal with them not as if they were ends in themselves, but he must deal with them doubly. He must see them as they are seen by him as being at the moment of observation. Pitts Theology Library Emory University But at the same time, he must see in them that of which the particular expression is but one tiny aspect of the expression. [AUDIO OUT] self enter into contemplation and experience, and ultimately, hope that I will be blessed in my life for a moment when I shall see God face to face with nothing between. Not even my ego. Well, there's that tendency, you see. Now, when you apply this to ethics and human relations, then you get something very different. For he says, when I see a man-- to put it in our language-when I see a man, I must apply to him what Bohme calls creative imagination. And he means by that the insight that comes from the way the wheel moves back towards the core, and then, from the core, back out into the world, looking at the world from within the experience of the center. That's what he's talking about. Now, when I apply that to human beings, a very interesting thing happens. He says, when I see this man, I realize that he is a twig on a tree. A tree on which all of us are located. So that I see him both as John Jones-- mean or not mean, beautiful or ugly, sick or well. That is, the contextual point at which I relate to him. But all the time, with this other dimension of my vision-- which he calls the creative imagination and the exercise of this other will-- I see him as the fullest, most complete manifestation of his life. So that when I see a sick person, I see him sick. I read his temperature. I understand all of that with one lens. With the other lens, I see him well. Whole. Healed. Hearty. And my ethical responsibility is to deal with him sick, limited. From the vantage point out here, whole, healed, complete. Do you see what he's saying? It's a tremendous thing. That I need him here, and see him there, quite realistically and accurately, calling everything I see by the name that is most accurate. But at the same time, the point at which I really relate to him is at this point out here. Now, Bohme says that if I do that, then I bring the sense of the whole to bear upon my relation to the man in the particular. So that I deal with you-- to state it in ordinary language now-- I deal with you where you are, as you are, from within a meaning of you that is more than you are at that particular time. And by dealing with you in that way, I touch the core in you of which this thing out here that I see with my second vision is but a reflection. And I stimulate it, and it begins to grow, and expand, and take over, so that before my very eyes, again and again, the miracle takes place. That when, with this creative imagination that Bohme talks about, I bring to bear upon this individual the fullest reach of my sense of the whole with 5 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu reference to him-- my love, as he calls it-- then before my very eyes, I see a miracle take place in him. Pitts Theology Library Emory University It's very interesting, isn't it? How all of the finest minds that are working in the field of psychotherapy are saying exactly that thing. That when they get through analyzing and understanding what is wrong in this personality that is disturbed, they say, if this sick mind could ever become aware that it is exposed to an enveloping whole love, and in its response to that love, the core begins to expand. Blossom. And he's put his hands on the thing that we all feel in our own way. There's nobody in this room, upstairs or downstairs, who does not have, somewhere lurking around in his spirit, a hunger. A hunger to be completely and inclusively saluted. Cared for. Loved. And in the magic of that vitalism, my spirit begins to stir. And as it stirs, it sets up processes that wash me clean of my fears, of my insecurities, of all the things that shook my life. And Bohme says that it's possible for one human being to deal with another human being through this clumsy device that he uses, that Bohme uses-- from one point of view, clumsy-double vision. Double view. Seeing in time, in circumstance, in vicissitude, but dealing with time, circumstance, vicissitude from a dimension outside of time, circumstance, and vicissitude. An awkward and simple way to say it-- to walk on the earth by the light in the sky. And what a difference it makes whenever it happens to us, and how tremendous it must be to someone else when, through us, it happens to them. 6 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Men Who've Walked with God (1953) Description An account of the resource In this series, Thurman explores the dynamics of mysticism through the lives of notable figures throughout history. The mystic's insight is that God is the creator of all of life, and indeed dwells in the human spirit as the deepest thing within a human being, which is always reaching out to touch the deepest in others. Throughout this sermon series, Thurman illustrates the ethical implications of this insight, as well as the discipline necessary to live out mystical religion. Ultimately, "Men Who've Walked With God," examines the ways in which a mystic relates to themselves and the world. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Descriptions by Rodell Jefferson III. AudioWithTranscription Audio that is shown through the 3Play Media embedded interactive transcript Audio with Transcription <iframe width="100%" height="820" frameborder="0" src="/files/players/394-577_B.html" ></iframe> Location The location of the interview, speech, lecture, or sermon Fellowship Church, San Francisco, California Marsh Chapel, Boston University, Boston, Massachussetts Time Period The decade in which the recording was produced. 1950s Original Title Title as transcribed from tape cassette Men Who've Walked: Meester Eckhart; Jacob Boehmen (Fellowship Church or Marsh Chapel), 1953 Jul 5, 12, Side B Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 394-577_B Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Thurman, Howard Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="http://pid.emory.edu/ark:/25593/rp8k9">MSS 394</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available <a href="http://pitts.emory.edu/">Pitts Theology Library, Emory University</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/"><img style="border-width:0;" src="https://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-nc/4.0/80x15.png" alt="80x15.png" /></a><br />This work is licensed under a <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License</a>. 2019. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant GEOMETRYCOLLECTION(POINT(-13627798.925371 4550756.1096806)) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1953-07-12 Description An account of the resource In this 12th sermon on "The Men Who've Walked With God," Thurman talks about our outer and inner lives through <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jakob_B%C3%B6hme">Jacob Böhme</a>, a Lutheran of the 16th century. Böhme felt that understanding the world entails more than simply experiencing it, but also relating to it from a center point. In dealing with the world, we need to bring a "double view" to all things. We must see one another in the reality of our circumstances, but also in our completeness as manifestations of life. For Böhme, this double view is what it means to practice love, and this is the love that each person hungers for. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Description by Rodell Jefferson III. Title A name given to the resource Men Who've Walked With God: Jacob Böhme, 1953 July 12 https://thurman.pitts.emory.edu/files/original/a8a40ba20ee349e3af003a9faa27e2b9.pdf b05830ed66621a451518bc9b3f3d7c6a PDF Text Text Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu 394-576_A.mp3 Pitts Theology Library Emory University By jumping way ahead of ourselves in a sense, and dealing with a person of this contemporary, practically. And an American, and a woman, who has left her record in a single little book. Which in many ways is one of the most suggestive, and thoroughly, and simply illuminating volumes that I have ever read. The book is 27 years old, and the title of it is the Leaves from a Secret Journal by Jane Steger. One thing I forgot. Something I wanted to tell you about St. Francis last Sunday, and I didn't think of it until Wednesday. [LAUGHTER] May I just said it in passing. One of the most wonderful stories about him is that when he died and went to heaven he was so holy that as he moved through the gates, he took the gates off their hinges so that anybody who wishes now can walk in. I think that's a nice story. I'd like to begin our thinking together, about this very remarkable and very, very simple mystical spirit, by reading a few lines from one of the things. I sit in the center of myself and weave busy thoughts, like a black spider making her web. I am so intent on my own spinning, I can see nothing but the whirling of my own mind. If I could stop a moment and be still, I might take note of the gleaming dew drops God hangs all over the Gossamer of thought, his tremendous periods. I might see also the tapestry of other spiders lying in gauzy freshness everywhere on the grass of imagination. If I could get straight away from the center of my own leaving and kneel down, I might indeed perceive God himself. But the little shuttles of thought fly so fast so fast I am deafened by them were entangled in my own web, and choked by the limitations of self. Beautiful. That is, I think so. I do not know any details of this remark concerning this remarkable person, except as revealed by the references which she makes to her own situation in the pages of her journal. It is clear first, that she is an American woman. The second, that from early years, maybe 18, 17, 18, she became increasingly ill. So that little by little, all of the normal activities of her life were cut off. And after many experiences, she discovered that what she had lost in her excursions and her lack of excursions into the outer world, freedom of movement and so forth, she began to find balance by the kinds of excursions which she more and more, was able to take by exploring the landscape within herself. She kept a journal. About eight years after her illness, she became acquainted with the mystics, and began studying them very carefully. And perhaps, she was more deeply influenced by Evelyn Underhill than by any other person or book, [? say of ?] her excursions into the New Testament, and the impact of the life of Jesus upon her. 1 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu Now that is as much as the book reveals, about who she was, and about the statistics of her life. Now I'd like to have you explore her mind and spirit for a little. You will bear in mind the basic thesis upon which we are working during this series, that there is a spirit that is creator and creative, of which the external world is a manifestation. Pitts Theology Library Emory University That the manifestation of the creative spirit of the creator seems best exemplified in the things that we recognize as conscious things. Things that are from within. A rather narrow compass, things that are living things, like trees, and cats, and dogs, and people. That there is in man, and some even say, in all living things, that which is not an expression of the creator. But that which is the creator himself. That there is, to borrow a phrase, from one about whom we should be thinking in two weeks, there is in every living thing, an uncreated element. A core that is-- that is not becoming. That is not on the make. That is not potential. But what is. And this isness is God, say these mystics. And if I want to find him, then I need not of necessity, go yonder. But all I need do is turn within that he is in me already. And that the discipline is of the spirit have as their fundamental purpose, the widening of the area of the domination of the God that is within us. Caught in that concept, these mystics deal with various aspects of human experience-- life, death, suffering, faith-- all of the various things in which we are involved. Now with that broad and rather sketchy, but basic outline of the position of these mystics with whom we have been dealing over the past weeks, let us look at Jane Steger. She begins with a very simple feeling really that all of creation is alive. That just behind the tree is what she calls the spirit of the tree. She's all right. There's nothing wrong with her. And she's not a pantheist, either. But really not concern ourselves with these learned phrases about it. And she feels that the living thing in her, the something in her, is not unlike the living thing that's in the trees, and the flowers, and so forth. And if she, and the times, when she tries to relate, to let these two things, which are the same thing, get together. That she goes out, for instance, she looks at a tree, and does whatever her sort of mind and spirit does with reference to the tree. And she has moments when she's sure that she can hear the tree growing. Not in the sense that they do in Iowa about the corn. [LAUGHTER] When I was in Iowa, at midnight, a friend of mine took me way outside of Iowa City and, we parked by a big corn field. And he said, now you listen very carefully, and if you do, it's so hot, you can hear the corn growing. But we didn't. We simply heard crickets. But she what she's saying is that if she can feel the light in another living thing, it deepens the life-- spelled with a capital L-- in her. Now I've seen people do it in various ways. I've seen 2 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu people who have flowers, and I remember visiting a home once. And this lady was taking care of the flowers, and she said, you know, I water my flowers. Pitts Theology Library Emory University And I give them some of these synthetic things. But that is the thing that makes my flowers grow, I love my flowers. I brood over my flowers, and I give them something that responds. Something in the flower responds to something in me. And when that happens, then they have to grow. Doesn't that sound stupid? No, I don't think so. But anyway, that's the way she goes at it. Now she applies the same thing to human beings, you see. She talks about the winks of beauty that she sees in various kinds of human beings. That there's something in them is trying to break through to announce itself to the whole world. But the human being is so burdened by fears, so burdened by hate sometimes, so burdened by pain, by miseries, by frustrations, by internal disorders, and churnings, that this thing is blocked. This something, this God is blocked. It can't get food to express itself. And she says, sometimes, when it does get through, illumination takes place. She has a great chapter on light, and how when something in the individual permits him to relax his anxieties and his fears, and he seeks to attune himself with the God that is in him. That his countenance becomes the lumen. And it's a light, she says, that one feels rather than a light that one sees. It's a very interesting thing. Now a second aspect of her insight is that for a long time, she said, every day was a monotonous sort of routine thing. And there's no highlights. And then as she began her meditations and her prayers, one of the things that occurred how was it that she just was not expecting anything. So she said that life is surrounded by so many little expression of wholeness, of winged messengers. But we don't see them. And as I was sitting here reflecting on all of this a few minutes ago, my eyes fell on something right here. Now it is to Mr. And Mrs. W. [? Warneky, ?] September 25, 1932. Now I have been sitting here nearly five years, and this is the first time I've seen it. Looking straight, because I can't see anything but this. But I see it every Sunday, and I haven't seen it. And when I saw it, then my mind began moving over all the things that must've been at work. Who are these people. What kind of contribution they must have made to the Evangelical and Reformed Church, which was here, that would cause people in the congregation to wish to identify their spirit with the place from which the book would be read Sunday after Sunday. And a good feeling that I was a part of the human race, that could feel such things and do such things simply swept all over me. Now that's what she's talking about. I didn't know I'd have so perfect an experience of it, my own life sitting right before you. But she's saying that once I am on the look, once I am open, once I become increasingly aware of these overtones, then every day is full of them in the most unexpected places. About five months ago, at the close of the morning service, a man who was seated down front came up, and he said, I want to tell you a miracle that I saw just now. He said, when the 3 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu congregation stood, and we began singing the causing hymn, I found myself looking at the flowers. And before my eyes, I saw a bud burst out into flower. Pitts Theology Library Emory University He was just sitting there looking. That was all. When we were surrounded by it. As Alfred Noyes suggests about Tycho Brahe, there is magic all around us. In the rocks, in the trees, in the minds of men. Deep hidden springs of magic. And he who strikes the rock [INAUDIBLE] may find them where he will. We are surrounded by it. Now a third thing out of her life. It is very important that she began praying, and exploring the inner depths of her own spirit, and getting these glimpses of God, and these deep insights with reference to him, she was frightened. And she was frightened because she said, I can't follow up on that. I dare not surrender my life to God. I dare not give myself over to the moving spirit, that more and more is being disclosed within me. Because, said she, if I do, God will require of me something that is so unusual, and so dramatic, that I don't think I can do it. I'm afraid to do it. Suppose he asked me-- she's very shy-- suppose he asked me to stand on the street corner and preach. Suppose he asked me to-- she gives one illustration there of the Salvation Army ladies, who at Christmas time, ring the bell over the pots. She said, I would just be horrified that it is my kind of shyness and embarrassment to stand there and do that. Suppose God asked me to do something like that, and then and then I would have to go back on my word. But indeed, I could not go back on my word. And how terrible it would be to know that I had lied to God. But finally, she said, I overcame it. And to my amazement, God did not ask me to do anything like that. He just asked me to clean out my bureau drawers. [LAUGHTER] And to get a lot of little things in order. And to do certain simple things with reverence to my mother, with whom I was living. All these little ways, God. And then she said, I remembered how for so long a time, I had held back from him, because I was afraid that if I did not, he would make me do something that would stretch me become completely out of shape. Then there's third, a fourth thing. She has some interesting insight about human suffering. It's a rather fanciful thing. Rather almost winsome. She writes in her journal some of her feelings on the doctor told her that the possibilities are that she would get increasingly worse rather than better, and she dealt with that in her own mind and 4 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu spirit. And she found that the thing that paralyzed her most of all was not suffering itself, it was the fear of suffering. And that she had to overcome that. Pitts Theology Library Emory University And she spent many hours in prayer, meditation, seeking to get a perspective on her condition. And interesting-- nowhere in any of the pages is anything about getting her condition changed. Yet getting the facts shifted. But getting a perspective on it, which is very interesting. And she says, in my imagination, I think that the human beings are to God as the fingers are to the hand. And she said, some of the fingers are the fingers through which God creates, God suffers. And the people who come to Earth, perhaps she says, they may ask before they're born that they may volunteer to be God's fingers of suffering. It sounds far fetched perhaps, doesn't it? But that's a great concept. And Deutero-Isaiah, you remember? The concept of the suffering servant, that all of the vast amount of human beings across all of the pages of history, only Israel, says Deutero-Isaiah, was chosen by Yahweh to reveal to life and to all the ages of man, the insights that can only come from the broken heart, and the crushed spirit. Finger. The finger of God's suffering. For she feels that a very simple way that if God could not suffer, then there could be no consciousness, either of God. There would be no consciousness of God in us. It's a rather interesting thing, but the basic insight is [INAUDIBLE]. That it takes suffering-- this is this is the insight. It takes suffering out of the category of the negative. It takes suffering out of the category of mere retribution. It takes suffering out of the category of mere divine vengeance or divine retaliation. But it places suffering at any point in the experience that gives to the experiencer of the suffering. The possibility of distilling out of it, something that he could get in no other way. It's an interesting thing. And then she is not by herself in what she does with the suffering. Now one other thing. She borrows a phrase from William Blake. A phrase which is this. The death of the divine image. And this is what she says about it, bear in mind about the whole idea of the consciousness of God expressed in all of these manifold ways. Every time I do a good, wholesome, spontaneous act of response to human need in self giving-every time I do that-- a part of the divine image is sacrificed in the act. That when I share my life, outgoing to meet the needs of someone else, I participate at that point in the death of the divine image. That is, the sacrifice of the divine image, and the act by which the need and another person is redeemed. Now she said a phrase of her own. She matches. With this, she borrows from Blake. She says, I participate in the birth of the divine image when I am able to make to God in a whole offering of my life. Whether it is my opinion, my joy. Whether it is my dreams, my hopes, my anxieties, my fears. Whatever it is that I am able to offer completely to God, in that offering, I participate in the birth of the divine image in me. Now to pull it together. She feels that the line that separates the two worlds is a very thin line. 5 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu That there is just a door between. That the door is in the heart of man. That we find ourselves going through that door and then coming back on this side sounds-- I won't that. It sounds a certain way. But there's something very profound. Pitts Theology Library Emory University That we are like the blind puppy-- [INAUDIBLE], I wish I had time to read it to you. The puppy is blind when he's born. And then he needs to sniff all the time. Just sniffs everything. And he has no idea at all, but what that is all. That for the rest of his life, he will have to be guided by his nose exclusively. And then one day, his eyes open, and he sees all the world that he didn't dream of as existing when he was in the blind sniffing age. Now she says that that's where we are. Then we are the blind puppy. We are using our minds, that it's equivalent to the way the puppy used his nose. And we feel that everything that is anything can be grasped by our minds. That if it doesn't make sense of the mind, then it has no sense at all. We are in the blind puppy stage-- [SNIFFING]-doing that all of players with our little intellects. But she says there will come a time when our eyes will open. As indeed, she said, in everybody's experience there are moments when the eye does open. And many things that I cannot grasp with my mind disclose themselves to me in a quality of assurance, and conviction that is far more important than all the logic that I can muster. It is like the experience of Tolstoy standing in the public square. And he sees the man beheaded. And as the man's head falls in the empty wicker basket on the other side, Tolstoy says, at a level in me deeper than thought, deeper than logic, deeper than my culture, deeper than my religious conviction, I knew that this thing was wrong. And it happens to us. And when that happens to you-Even though all the world is on the other side. 6 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Men Who've Walked with God (1953) Description An account of the resource In this series, Thurman explores the dynamics of mysticism through the lives of notable figures throughout history. The mystic's insight is that God is the creator of all of life, and indeed dwells in the human spirit as the deepest thing within a human being, which is always reaching out to touch the deepest in others. Throughout this sermon series, Thurman illustrates the ethical implications of this insight, as well as the discipline necessary to live out mystical religion. Ultimately, "Men Who've Walked With God," examines the ways in which a mystic relates to themselves and the world. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Descriptions by Rodell Jefferson III. AudioWithTranscription Audio that is shown through the 3Play Media embedded interactive transcript Audio with Transcription <iframe width="100%" height="820" frameborder="0" src="/files/players/394-576_A.html" ></iframe> Location The location of the interview, speech, lecture, or sermon Fellowship Church, San Francisco, California Marsh Chapel, Boston University, Boston, Massachussetts Internal Notes Notes for project team Edited - GL 6/10 I think title is "Jane Steger" not "Janis Tegar" - RJ 1/9/22 Time Period The decade in which the recording was produced. 1950s Original Title Title as transcribed from tape cassette Men Who've Walked: Janis Tegar; Fra Angelico (Fellowship Church or Marsh Chapel), 1953 Jun 21, 28 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 394-576_A Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Thurman, Howard Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="http://pid.emory.edu/ark:/25593/rp8k9">MSS 394</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available <a href="http://pitts.emory.edu/">Pitts Theology Library, Emory University</a> Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1953-06-21 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/"><img style="border-width:0;" src="https://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-nc/4.0/80x15.png" alt="80x15.png" /></a><br />This work is licensed under a <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License</a>. 2019. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant GEOMETRYCOLLECTION(POINT(-13627798.925371 4550756.1096806)) Description An account of the resource In this ninth lecture on "The Men Who've Walked with God," Thurman explores insights from Jane Steger's <a href="https://archive.org/details/leavesfromsecret0000steg"><em>Leaves From a Secret Journal</em></a>. Jane Steger suffered from illness at a young age and, in her illness, became familiar with the mystics. In Steger's journal, we find that she felt creation itself was alive with the Spirit of God, and that our very lives participate in the divine image. Drawing from Steger's writing, Thurman concludes that the door separating us from the divine is very thin, and that this door is in the human heart. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Description by Rodell Jefferson III. Title A name given to the resource Men Who've Walked With God: Jane Steger, 1953 June 21 https://thurman.pitts.emory.edu/files/original/a25a9ad1b46c30b3f19889adb690f48b.pdf 1f731169536b7da0dc0bc09cb7dedbe5 PDF Text Text Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu 394-577_A.mp3 Pitts Theology Library Emory University A little boy hemmed in by petty thoughts and petty things intent on toys and trifles all my years. Pleased by life's gods, pained by its pricks and stings, swayed by ignoble hopes, ignoble fears. Threading life's tangled maze without life's clue. Busy with means, yet heedless of their ends. Lost to all sense of what is real and. True blind to the gold which all nature attends. Such is my safest self. But deep beneath, a mighty actor on a worldwide stage, crowned with all knowledge, lord of life and death, sure of my aim, sure of my heritage, I, the true self, live on in self, despite that life profound, whose darkness is God's light. This is a continuation of our series, men who walked with God. [INAUDIBLE]. Concerning whom it was said from him, God hid nothing. Eckhart dramatizes in my own thinking at any rate, one of the interesting and significant paradoxes that we find in studying the history of mystical thought, certainly as far as Western culture and Western civilization are concerned. For some of the most profoundly influential mystics, those who seemingly have plumbed depths which leave the rest of us high on the shore, were nurtured in the bosom of Roman Catholicism. In the bosom of a church that is carefully structured. A choice that is in some rather significant ways, authoritarian. A church which has its categories, fairly well and fairly accurately defined. And yet within the bosom of I do not speak reverently or whatever the other word is now. But about a church that is fundamentally authoritarian. As any institution would be that had a monopoly for 1,000 years. I mean, that is not a criticism of Roman Catholicism. It's simply a fact, and so should the evolution of which it has taken good advantage. But there it is in some ways, a rigid system a church that is officially the dispenser of the medicine of salvation. And the medicine of salvation expressing itself was spelled out in terms of the seven sacraments. And yet within that framework, there has grown up through the year, natured in its very bosom, to mix the metaphor, these daring spirits, the logic of whose insight is to transcend. And ultimately, negate any institution that undertakes to introduce the human soul to its God. It's an amazing thing. But they almost called Eckhart. How you got by, I don't quite know, but they didn't put some of his things on the index until after he was dead. But he had narrow skirmishes. And I think he had these narrow skirmishes because he was a man with a highly developed mind and a disciplined spirit, who spoke in a language 1 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu that communicated itself to the masses of the people. I think that is really the reason why he had so much trouble. He was thoroughly trained, thoroughly disciplined. But he brings not out of his mind, but out of his heart. And heart responded to heart in a way that was independent of sacrament, independent of institution. Pitts Theology Library Emory University And when you read Eckhart's sermons today, you wonder what kind of people what does lay people back in the 13th century. Because when you read his sermons, it's very difficult to understand what on earth he's talking about, unless you get inside, and look out. And we don't read that way. We read outside, and look outside. But at any rate, wherever Eckhart opened his mouth to preach, the little people crowded the place. What was he talking about. Let's examine the basis of his mysticism for a few minutes and see what instructions may there be for us. Eckhart stated that the ground of all existence was what he called the God head. Don't trouble yourself too much about the term. Just feel along. The Godhead. The Godhead in Eckhart's language is that which is the ground of all manifestations of life. It is without classification, without differentiation, without division. It sustains supports, all manifestations. But it itself is a continuum in which there is no movement. It cannot be named, for if you name it, you limit it. It's the nameless nothing, he says. It's a nice way. The unnatured nature. Another phrase he uses. Or desperately trying to say that you can't say it. You see, he does it creatively. That's a Godhead. When the Godhead manifests itself, when the Godhead becomes any dimension, self-conscious, then God is born. If you had a spring-- the best way I can describe this to you-- here is a spring. We will call the spring the godhead. Now if when any of the love the spring spills over, that spilling, in Eckhart's thought, is God. You can see the spill. You can get through, you can deal with the spill. It separates itself somewhat from the spring itself. Now the son is the act. It's very complicated, perhaps, but not so much. The son is the act by which God becomes aware of himself. God looking back upon himself is the son. And the relationship between God as the spilling over the differentiation of the Godhead. And be the process by which this spilling over takes on the form of consciousness. And wherever there is consciousness, there is subject and object. And this whole creative relationship between subject and object into which the Godhead breaks and differentiation is the Holy Spirit. But we need not bother too much with the theology of it. But that's the way his mind folds. The bottoming all thought, all movement, all nature, all activity, all existence, and all existences is this undifferentiated ground of being. Only he wouldn't say of being. That's a mistake, because the minute I see of being, I'm limited. And he wouldn't limit it, this ground, period. 2 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu Now the creator of the world, the creator of man, the creator of all things, all existences, is not the Godhead . It is God the that which becomes differentiated. And in God's mind, you see the influence of Plotinus, and the influence of Plato, and the influence of some other people. And the thinking of Eckhart in the mind of God, the creator, who is the personal God, which is the spilling over of the Godhead in time and space. Pitts Theology Library Emory University That all creation, every object that we experience is but a manifestation of certain archetypes. To illustrate it as we did when we were talking about Plotinus weeks ago, that here is the your cat, Josephine, may die, and your neighbor's cat, Henry, may die, but cats don't die. Cats keep coming on. Individual men may die, but man doesn't die. Now what he's saying is that man as an archetype, as an idea exists in the mind of God, and keeps spilling out eternally. Therefore, the reality-- pushed, you see-- the reality is not in the particular . Manifestation but the reality is behind that. It is the eternal thing of which the particular that we experience as a manifestation. Well, so much for that part of it. Now The most significant part of his insight-- and you are you doing very well, you haven't just deserted me yet. The second part of it, which is perhaps a third, but from my point of view, the most important part of what he have to say about the soul. And I read a contemporary poem from the Book of Mystical Verse. In this, there is a division between the lower ourselves and the higher self. It's the division which I thought makes, and it makes it in a very striking matter-- the lower self is the self of the senses. It is the means by which we communicate in the world of senses and sense experience. It is the dimension of attachment. It is the area, the middle area from which we draw all of our collections of fears, and hopes, and dreams, aspirations, yearning. All of the wanting ambitions of the human spirit. Of the thing upon which we lay hold with abiding enthusiasm and cuts them saying, this is mine, and mine forever, and mine alone. All of the ways by which we give to ourselves the assurances that nullify the deep sense of isolation of the human spirit. That is the surface self, says Eckhart. Now there is another self. There is another division. Eckhart, of course, calls the second division- he even uses the word, the unconscious, but I dare not use that word. It's loaded. I won't do that, but Eckhart calls it the unconscious. It is also the ground which is identical with this ground that he calls the Godhead, you see. That there is in me-- and this is his great contribution-- there is in me the same ground that is the Godhead. That there is another self that he calls sometimes, the active reason. Which active reason, which other dimension of the self has a core. And that core is the created element. It is God. 3 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu It is the Godhead. It is the expression. Not the expression. It is-- how do I say this-- it's the isness of the Godhead itself. It is not broken down in any form. But it is the center of the core of my being. Which core is central to the active reason? Pitts Theology Library Emory University Now Eckhart says, when I want to find my true self, I do not chase up and down the highways of my senses, for they lead me consistently astray. But when I want to find my true self, I disentangle myself from-- the sentence says-- from this other region. And move straight to the core of me, which, says Eckhart, is where the Godhead is located. Therefore, he says, that in the soul of man, there is that which is uncreated, which has never been created, which is the Godhead itself. And the individual-- and he was almost a pantheiest here-- and the individual can retreat from the senses. Retreat until finally, he becomes one with this core, but not quite. Eckhart is not quite an oriental, you see, for he says that the souled man does not quite merge, become one, with the Godhead. Now, says Eckhart, the way by which this core, you see, this Godhead, which is the uncreated element at the very core-- the way by which the individual grows in spiritual awareness, the way by which the individual grows in spiritual stature, and in richness, is to do the things that will widen the area of the spread of this uncreated element, which is at the core of one's being, one's soul. And how do you do that? You do that, first of all, by working on detachment. And he comes back you see, to his wrestle with the senses. No man who is involved in attachments can free himself so as to give, to keep from blocking the spread of all of the Godhead, which is at the core of his soul and his life. So the only way by which you can precipitate this spread is by disentangling yourself from all of the things that commit the mind, and commit the spirit, and involve the heart. Now he sounds as if he is altogether negative, but he isn't. What he said-- he is full of surprises. He says that if a man is having the most profound kind of mystical experience as Saint Paul had when he was carried into the third heaven-- and there in the midst of that highly accentuated moment of divine awareness, he remembers that there some man around the corner who is hungry. He'd better leave his mystical experience and go and feed him. And then come back, because that's all right, isn't it? Another time-- one of the interesting adages about him, the stories about him-- he was walking through the streets with a lantern in the daytime, and then he finally found a man, who asked him, if he had a lantern in one hand, and a bucket of water in the other hand. And the man says, what are going to do with these things, [INAUDIBLE]. He said, well, with the water, I'm going to put hell out. And with the lantern, I'm going to burn heaven up, so that man will serve God because they love him, rather than because-- well, for the obvious reasons. 4 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu There was a very interesting and searching ethic that is derived from Eckhart. For you see, if it be true-- if it be true, as Eckhart presupposes, assumes, believes, and affirms, that there is central in every living person, a core, which has at its core, the eternally undifferentiated Godhead, then that means two things that are very important. Pitts Theology Library Emory University One, that I am never permitted to say of another human being, that he is anything that is a denial of the infinite [? voice ?] of his personality. Because his personality is the best gift in which he's carried this priceless ingredient. And I can never deal with another human being as if he's just another human being. He is carrying around with him this uncreated element [INAUDIBLE]. And therefore, in all of my primary intimate face to face or secondary contact with human beings, my greatest and most insistent responsibility is to seek to develop with him, the kind of relationships that will make it possible for core to salute core. For the core in me to salute the core in you with any attitude that I have that [? flops. ?] In a mood that I have that makes it difficult. Any involvements of my life, however holy they may be that block it-- these must be destroyed that the core in me may be able to salute the core in you. That is the business of man. And when he does it-- when he does it, he becomes in that moment a manifestation of the Godhead. He spills over. And Eckhart even goes so far at one time to say that such a human being becomes God-- but he took it back when they put too much pressure on him. But you see the logic of it. That if the Godhead becomes God when it spills over in time and space-- therefore, when the Godhead which is at the core of me spills over in my time space relationships, at least I can say that where ever such a person is there, the kingdom of God is at hand. At least we can say that much. Now sin for Eckhart is not so much how people behave. He doesn't ignore it, don't misunderstand it. But sin in Eckhart is self will. It is when the will deliberately blocks the light, the manifestation of this uncreated core in a personality. Now this means that there is within the power of the individual with his mind, to cover over this uncreated element. But it is not within the power of any individual to destroy this. This is very important. And you can see the revolutionary character of the doctrine about which he insists, because if we say that it is not within the power of the individual, whatever may be the nature of his behavior-- to destroy, to nullify, to wipe out this uncreated element, then the logic of that is that no man under any circumstance, can ultimately be cut off from God. And you can see what the doctrine like that would do. Not to Catholicism merely of the 13th, the 14th centuries, but what it would do to contemporary Protestantism and Catholicism. That there is nothing that the individual can do that can [AUDIO OUT] of God. 5 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Men Who've Walked with God (1953) Description An account of the resource In this series, Thurman explores the dynamics of mysticism through the lives of notable figures throughout history. The mystic's insight is that God is the creator of all of life, and indeed dwells in the human spirit as the deepest thing within a human being, which is always reaching out to touch the deepest in others. Throughout this sermon series, Thurman illustrates the ethical implications of this insight, as well as the discipline necessary to live out mystical religion. Ultimately, "Men Who've Walked With God," examines the ways in which a mystic relates to themselves and the world. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Descriptions by Rodell Jefferson III. AudioWithTranscription Audio that is shown through the 3Play Media embedded interactive transcript Audio with Transcription <iframe width="100%" height="820" frameborder="0" src="/files/players/394-577_A.html" ></iframe> Location The location of the interview, speech, lecture, or sermon Fellowship Church, San Francisco, California Marsh Chapel, Boston University, Boston, Massachussetts Internal Notes Notes for project team Edited - GL 6/10 Time Period The decade in which the recording was produced. 1950s Original Title Title as transcribed from tape cassette Men Who've Walked: Meester Eckhart; Jacob Boehmen (Fellowship Church or Marsh Chapel), 1953 Jul 5, 12 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 394-577_A Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Thurman, Howard Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="http://pid.emory.edu/ark:/25593/rp8k9">MSS 394</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available <a href="http://pitts.emory.edu/">Pitts Theology Library, Emory University</a> Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1953-07-05 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/"><img style="border-width:0;" src="https://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-nc/4.0/80x15.png" alt="80x15.png" /></a><br />This work is licensed under a <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License</a>. 2019. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant GEOMETRYCOLLECTION(POINT(-13627798.925371 4550756.1096806)) Description An account of the resource In the 11th sermon from the series "The Men Who've Walked With God," Thurman explains the complex theology of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meister_Eckhart">Meister Eckhart</a>. Eckhart believes that there is the Godhead, the ground of all things. This Godhead element is a part of a person's soul, and is always yearning to spill over. For Thurman, spiritual discipline is about giving more of one's life to this core. With Eckhart's Godhead insight, we can no longer deny the infinite worth of any human being; furthermore, our responsibility is to honor the Godhead in others above all else so that we may connect with one another core to core. Thurman says that when this takes place, the kingdom of God is manifested. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Description by Rodell Jefferson III. Title A name given to the resource Men Who've Walked With God: Meister Eckhart, 1953 July 5 https://thurman.pitts.emory.edu/files/original/3cfb0be076653e582e0ddfb03e13d9d5.pdf 8f7255de5f6521699676f624664a0aaf PDF Text Text Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu 394-574_A.mp3 Pitts Theology Library Emory University Short a way as I can. To continue our series by making a great leap ahead and thinking together with you about Plotinus. Some of you have very gently and deftly raised the question with me as to, why are we spending so much time talking about these people that nobody's ever heard about? And they don't have anything to do with what we are about. And I confess to you that I can understand out of what sort of frustration that expression arises, but as I have said to some of you personally, we are, all of us, concerned about trying to find somehow the clue to living so that as the years unfold for us living for us will be increasingly a meaningful and deeply satisfying experience. And it is the insight of men through the ages, which insight is effectively dramatized in certain of these individuals with whom we have to do, that, apart from man's active awareness of the presence of the living God in his life, he cannot expect to find either meaningful living or significant living. And it isn't as if human life or the individual's life took place in isolation and every man would have to go through all of the experiences through which men before him went. But there is something in human experience that seems to me-- for lack of a better term, that seems to me to be cumulative. There is a wisdom in the human spirit that is greater than the particular wisdom of the particular man, however wise, and intelligent, and profound he may be. There is a vitality that is greater than my vitality or your vitality. There is a strength greater than my strength or your strength, and that's-- that element, that dimension of life has been at work in the life of man through all these years. And it has built up a kind of a momentum, a kind of backlog. That's the word-backlog of experience, of knowledge, yes, and of wisdom, upon which any individual may draw, whether or not he understands the language, whether or not he is a part of the culture. It has nothing to do with anything that is literate, but it has everything to do with the-- I don't know how to put this. It has everything to do with the push of life in which all living things have shared, and wherever I touch life, I draw on that. And I may not be able to recognize it. I remember the first time I studied a little of Greek philosophy and ran into Socrates and Plato. And now and then certain things became clear in their words, and with a great sense of freedom and with no sense of modesty whatsoever I felt that, well, I've been thinking that way a long time. [LAUGHTER] I know what he's talking about, and I've never heard of Socrates, or Plato, or the Greeks, except the man who ran the restaurant downtown. That all that the human spirit has accumulated, all that has been breathed through it by the living breath of the living God is available to any man, anywhere, at any moment in any age-- whether he's rich or poor, ugly or beautiful, educated or illiterate, sophisticated or simple, it makes no difference. That's what these men are talking about. 1 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu That is why there are moments when you relate to what they are saying and feeling in ways that have nothing to do with the formal discursive parts of your mind while under stress. Well, all this is in Plotinus. Let's hit the Plotinus. Plotinus is just running. Pitts Theology Library Emory University Plotinus came into the world about the third century AD. He was the flowering of this wonderfully creative process that had been going on in human history that we think of now in terms of Greek philosophy. He was the mystic, the mystic of the spirit. He was a different kind of mystic than Plato. Plato was an intellectual mystic, but Plotinus was-- I wish I could have known him. All the little children liked him. They enjoyed talking to him. He related himself to them at the points of their understanding, and he became the custodian of a garden variety of nondescript children and brooded over them. And people sought him out to tell him their troubles. They felt, if they could talk to Plotinus, somehow, whatever the difficulty was, it just doesn't seem quite as difficult after talking with Plotinus as it did before. Apparently he loved people, and people loved him. And they responded to him, and he responded to them. That was Plotinus the man, walking through Greek life, spreading radiation, and beauty, and kindness. What a wonderful thing. But he had a secret, and it is about his secret that we want to talk for the remaining minutes. Plotinus felt, taught, thought that all of life, all creation was in God. Now, mark you, these other men up to this time-- and we'll see how they move subsequently-- were sure that God was in the world, you see? And that wherever you touched any form of matter somewhere wrapped up in it was spirit, but Plotinus says that all the world, all created things, all time space expressions-- all of these are in God-- that God surrounds, envelops, encloses matter, things, vicissitudes, change, shift, process. Now, the soul-- and it is important, I think, in getting the clue of his insight to his secret to deal primarily with his interpretation of the soul of man. The soul of man is bliss. Well, that's not the best way to put it. Let's see. Well, let me talk about it, and then I'll get the phrase. The soul of man-- when a man is born, a part of his soul is left in the divine sphere. Bear in mind, now, some of the other minds who dealt with this same problem. That when man is created, a part of his soul is left up here, and a part comes down and participates in creation, you see? Is for instance. But all of the soul of the individual is not in the individual's body. A part of it is left. Now, the part that is in the body, because it is in the body and is involved in all of the appetites, and so forth, and so on of the body, its awareness as a soul becomes dimmer and dimmer. It's like a new pair of shoes. First time you put them on, they are scuff free. They show no marks of everything from walking, but the longer you wear them, the less new they seem to be. He says that's it. The soul gets dim, and grows more dim, and more dim as it is removed in its awareness. And this may not have anything to do with time, bear in mind-- as it is removed from its awareness of its origin and the other part of it. 2 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu Now, he says that, in order for the soul to become aware of itself, come to itself-- that's the phrase that Jesus uses-- when the soul, says Plotinus, comes to itself, then immediately it becomes aware of the part of itself that it left in what Plotinus calls the divine sphere. And a movement begins-- the two parts of the soul gravitating towards each other. Pitts Theology Library Emory University So it is in Plotinus that we get the double movement of the spirit, moving down this way and moving up this way. It finds its classical expression, finally, in Christianity, for Plotinus belonged to the school that influenced the church fathers. And Augustine bore heavily upon him, drew heavily upon him. By the time this concept, this moving down and moving up gets into the Christian movement, we get the seeking God-- the seeking God and the responding individual. We get the figure, for instance, of the shepherd, who seeks the last sheep and the bleating lost sheep crying for the shepherd, the double movement. We get it in Francis Thompson's "Hound of Heaven," seeking the relentless divine nemesis, tracking the human soul, stalking it. And yet at the same time, the movement of the humans soul, the pull towards something that is more than it now experiences, more than it now knows, more than it now understands-- and we've all felt that, haven't we? There is something in me that reaches for more than anything that I know. There is a hunger in me for some thing or for some what that all that I know, and have, and taste, and feel, and experience cannot quite satisfy. That's what Plotinus is talking about. It's not so far fetched after all, is it? Now, when the heart and the soul comes to itself and makes its contact-- you see, this movement-- and the soul gets together with itself, homecoming-- in that moment, the soul becomes aware of what Plotinus calls the universal soul, what Emerson called the over soul. He becomes aware of it, and in that awareness, a very interesting thing happens. In that awareness, the individual who experiences that begins to see that his soul, or that which is deepest in him, is the same as that which is deepest in the not him in somebody else. And a sense of unity begins to emerge, which unity is disclosed to the individual out of his discovery that what is deepest in him is a clue to what is deepest in his neighbor. But the soul isn't back yet, according to Plotinus. It's on its journey. Now, mark you, the soul is starting from where you and I are now, and we're moving up this way for the moment. Figuratively, I mean. When the soul becomes aware of the over soul, the world soul, which is the lung-- the divine lung of the stuff of life-- doing that. Now, when it becomes aware of that through contemplation, through detachment, through withdrawal from sense involvements, and slavery to appetite, and so forth-- it's the same lists all the time. Wherever you touch it, it's the same list. Same list. Whatever may be the character of the religion, it's the same list. Then the soul arrives through contemplation now of the divine. It arrives to a point that it identifies itself with the divine thought, no differentiation between what it is and what it is thinking. But as long as there is awareness of thought, there is self-consciousness. There is subject and predicate. And as long as there is self-consciousness, then there is mind, which is. 3 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu And mind, says Plotinus, the mind that we touch at the peak, the focal point of contemplation and meditation, where the mind seems to envelop its object and become one with it-- when that happens, says Plotinus, we move into the knowledge that the ground of the soul, the ground of all of the expressions of life is mind, is intelligence. Pitts Theology Library Emory University And as the soul looks back over the way over which it has come, it knows without knowing and senses without being aware that every expression of life is an utterance of an intelligence, and an aura, and a rationality. And then, says Plotinus, when I arrive at a place-- to use Kepler's phrase, jumping way ahead-- oh God, I thank Thee that I think thy thoughts after Thee. When I arrive at a place that I think God's thoughts after him-- I still am not quite there, because where God is ultimately must be beyond thought and beyond intelligence, because all thought, all intelligence has to do with differentiations, has to do with separateness, has to do with this as over against that. But when there is no this-ness and that-ness, no pro, no con, no tension, then all that we mean by thought disintegrates. So Plotinus has his chute-- his C-H-U-T-E. And it is the point at which they all come in one way or another. It is the final moment of complete ecstasy which seemed so meaningless to those who live in this century and in this period of human history. And it seems meaningless to us because we are a generation that has been schooled in the dishonoring of our feelings. The only points at which we are permitted to honor our feelings are moments that are private-- exclusively private and significantly intimate, or moments that are completely outlawed, like the alumni reunion, like the football game, like the race track. We do not honor our feelings. We are afraid of our feelings, and to be an intellectual, to be selfcontained, to be an integrated human being is, according to the way we feel in modern life-- is to be lopsided, because nobody thinks his way through the world. You don't think your way through the world, whatever you may think about what you think. No, you feel your way through the world. No man ever dies for an idea. He'll die for an ideal because that has dynamics in it, energistics. It has a fringe of surging vitality in it. You don't find that in the reality today of any syllogism, however sound it is. And that's what these men knew, so they recognized the fact that there was a time when I move beyond all of the reflective processes of my mind, when all of the intellectual aspects of my personality break down under the overwhelming impact of that which is beyond the mind, but envelops the mind. And everybody, at some moment in his life, in some tiny or dramatic aspect, has been visited, always temporarily, by a surging something that sweeps him beyond the furthest realm of human thought. And then it turns him loose, and he says, ah. Drops back into himself or herself. Now, what Plotinus is saying-- that the soul starts moving to make contact with the part of itself that it left behind. And that movement is symbolic of the movement of the spirit of God in the life of man. And then, on its way it becomes aware of itself, and becoming aware of itself, it becomes aware of a world soul, an over soul, which is in every one of us. And then on its journey, by further contemplation, by further meditation, by further prayer, it finally arrives at a point that it contemplates the divine thought, the divine idea, the divine 4 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu reflection, the divine utterance-- all these words they use. And then, meditating upon that, one arrives at a point that the thinker and the thought, the meditator and the meditation become one. One-- but an awareness of this oneness is present. And then God-- one comes into His presence finally, without benefit of ascent up any ladders of logic, but by what he calls the moment of the movement of the divine that creates the ecstasy in the heart. Pitts Theology Library Emory University And therefore, to him, there is a trinity-- God, the unutterable, who spills over into God, the mind, that becomes the ground of the soul and all other manifestations-- and then God the soul, whose unique revelation is in the human spirit. And this was a man who loved little children and was so simple in his relationships. 5 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Men Who've Walked with God (1953) Description An account of the resource In this series, Thurman explores the dynamics of mysticism through the lives of notable figures throughout history. The mystic's insight is that God is the creator of all of life, and indeed dwells in the human spirit as the deepest thing within a human being, which is always reaching out to touch the deepest in others. Throughout this sermon series, Thurman illustrates the ethical implications of this insight, as well as the discipline necessary to live out mystical religion. Ultimately, "Men Who've Walked With God," examines the ways in which a mystic relates to themselves and the world. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Descriptions by Rodell Jefferson III. AudioWithTranscription Audio that is shown through the 3Play Media embedded interactive transcript Audio with Transcription <iframe width="100%" height="820" frameborder="0" src="/files/players/394-574_A.html" ></iframe> Location The location of the interview, speech, lecture, or sermon Fellowship Church, San Francisco, California Marsh Chapel, Boston University, Boston, Massachussetts Time Period The decade in which the recording was produced. 1950s Original Title Title as transcribed from tape cassette Men Who've Walked: Plotinus; St. Augustine (Fellowship Church or Marsh Chapel), 1953 May 10, 24 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 394-574_A Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Thurman, Howard Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="http://pid.emory.edu/ark:/25593/rp8k9">MSS 394</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available <a href="http://pitts.emory.edu/">Pitts Theology Library, Emory University</a> Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1953-05-10 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/"><img style="border-width:0;" src="https://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-nc/4.0/80x15.png" alt="80x15.png" /></a><br />This work is licensed under a <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License</a>. 2019. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant GEOMETRYCOLLECTION(POINT(-13627798.925371 4550756.1096806)) Description An account of the resource In this fifth lecture on "The Men Who've Walked with God," Thurman speaks on the Greek philosopher <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plotinus">Plotinus</a>. For Thurman, Plotinus's insight is the "double search" of mystical experience – the idea that as we seek out God, God also searches for us. Through this journey, one comes to share in the divine mind, or as Thurman says, "thinking God's thoughts after Him." However, Thurman is describing a thinking process, but rather an experience of ecstasy that expands beyond our sense of personality. This is the result of God spilling over into the mind and finally communing with the soul God has sought out. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Description by Rodell Jefferson III. Title A name given to the resource Men Who've Walked With God: Plotinus, 1953 May 10