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Pitts Theology Library
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thurman.pitts.emory.edu
394-360_B.mp3
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One of the things that we forget is that ordinarily we tend to believe that if a thing is at the
known center of our consent, if it is something to which deep within us we subscribe, as being
true, valid, urgent, mandatory for us, that if we can hold that thing at dead center in all of our
functioning, it will finally arrive-- we will finally arrive at a place that this thing will be the
ground of our motivation, the very core of our motivation.
And when it becomes a core of our motivation, then more and more, the behavior patterns of our
lives are reorganized around that new center of integration. Now that's true, that's strong, that is
valid.
But there's another aspect here to which I would call your attention, and that is, that there is also
the same kind of persistent relationship between the repetition of the outer pattern of life and the
way in which that outer pattern of life finally redefines for us the nerve center of consent. Do you
see what I-I hope, Joyce. That is so absolutely overwhelming.
I want you to say that.
Because you see, things explode in you. We are accustomed to tracking behavior patterns, in
terms of what is held at dead center in our intent, in our purpose.
So that the behavior pattern is finally brought to heel, in terms of the central intent of my spirit
and the set of my soul. I hold it until all of these things conform. And what I do becomes an
expression of this inner thing. Now that's familiar.
But what the insight is insisting upon, that it works the other way also. That I can multiply over
and over again, a particular set of behavior patterns until they then move in and define the nerves
that are my consent. The first part of that is familiar to the way, but it's this second part-Now it's interesting, in conditioning children we operate on this second part. We repeat, repeat,
repeat a certain behavior patterns, as to manners, and so forth, and so on, until this behavior
pattern begins to inform the intent of the child. We call it conditioning.
But the familiar way we go at that is, that it moves from the center to the outside bringing the
behavior into conformity with the set of the soul, you see. What the other side of that is, these
things out here may also define, finally, the set of the soul. Do you see what I'm saying?
I mean, it's so-- somewhere, where is it? Oh, excuse me.
I'm thinking of an instance last week in which I did not know what to do and finally, decided not
to do anything. I think this illustrates it. A woman from Toronto, who had moved in next door to
me, a one-year lease.
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And she said, she had had a love affair with California for a long time, she was finally here. She
had lost her husband two years ago, she was feeling lonely. Our relationship was pretty good for
several days. We were also resolving what to do with the two poodles of my territory, my
territory I was theirs.
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Well just a few days ago, I sensed a difference. She was not reaching out and communicating.
And she hadn't with anyone else in the neighborhood. Things were going on which seemed to
indicate that she was moving. I couldn't understand it.
And there were a few opportunities where I could have said something, but I waited for her to
come to me. I discovered also that she is what I would call the carriage trade and I'm not. She
had joined the tennis club first thing so that she had friends there. And she did have friends in
Carmel Valley.
Well, over this last weekend, I found out she had moved. That is, she did move. She moved back
to Toronto. I felt anger from her head to her toes. I knew the owner. So I called them to see what
was wrong.
She had decided she wanted to work at taking a computer course in San Francisco-- and I was
taking care of her [INAUDIBLE] at that time-- to go with a travel agency, where she liked to
deal with a [INAUDIBLE].
Somehow or other the federal government caught up with her, for the fact she did not have an
alien green card. And she became furious. She became angry. She became bitter. And in a few
days, packed up and went back to Toronto. She had an opportunity right in front of my house to
turn around and say something. But she kept her back.
So I decided not to intervene. And I'm glad I didn't. I think it wouldn't have done any good, and I
would have come up here full of it. As it is, I feel that that changed me inside to know what I can
do in other behavior instances, that I can handle it, so that I can be helpful, and yet not have it
tear me apart.
The paradox is that there is a distinction between the outer and the inner and there is no
distinction between the outer and the inner. And we live our lives walking through that kind of
isthmus.
But the important thing, I feel, certainly in my journey, is to recognize that there is a relationship,
a two-way street. The outer influences the inner, and the inner influences the outer.
And the conditioning of the inner can be determined by the behavior of the outer, whereas in our
customary thinking, we feel that the conditioning of the outer is determined by the inner.
And I'm saying it works both ways. So that the distinction between the secular and the sacred is a
temporary distinction that the mind holds as it negotiates the journey that individual takes. But it
is not, it is not a fundamental distinction. But it is a valid one. Yes-Is there a connection between this and what Jesus said, where your treasure is, there will your
heart be?
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Yes. And I think he was smiling when he said it, because the treasure may not be anything
external to ourselves. [INAUDIBLE] please go on.
When you were talking, I thought of, again, all life is one. And that's what you were saying again
in the relation to the inner and the outer.
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Yeah.
[INAUDIBLE] a little bit, but let me-[INAUDIBLE] in trouble.
We understand the first principle, that if you want to change a person, all you need do is get this
central thing-- we may say the will, but whatever it is, we need not use these extra words-- but
this intent, this intent focus, and when that is thoroughly focused, then that intent begins to
provide a new center around which his behavior takes its accent and turn.
Now I'm saying that that is true, but the other thing is true also. That I can act in a certain way,
with such persistency, over a time interval of such duration, that finally the pattern of my
behavior, becomes a new nerve center of consent.
Yeah, that's it.
So those of us who are concerned about changing our lives or changing the society, about trying
to make a decent human being of ourselves or a decent social order, must see clearly the flowing
between the outer and the inner. It is not only true then that the inner constantly and persistently
informs the outer, so as to redefine the meaning of the outer.
But it is also true that the outer can persistently and consistently inform the inner. As Lincoln
Milton makes the devil say in Paradise Lost, I look before me, there's hell. I look behind me,
there's hell. I look to the right, there's hell. To the left, there's hell. Behold, I myself am hell-- the
outer, inner.
Now therefore, in an effort to develop the inner that it may become robust, we must not cut it off
from the outer by the delusion that we can cut it off from the outer. And they can't do it.
I remember the first year that Doug Steele started teaching philosophy at Haverford as Regent
Jones' successor. I attended all of his classes in philosophy. And two or three students, other
students, and I, had a little game that we played.
You know how you mark, make four lines, and then run a line through it, making five, and
you're tallying things. Well, Doug, had a phrase that he used. The phrase was-- so to speak.
I suppose those of you who have listened to me for eight or nine years know that I have a few
phrases that like that. But every other sentence, Doug would say, so to speak, so to speak, so to
speak.
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So when he was done, two of us showed him our tally marks. And all they were way up, a
fabulous number. And he was shocked. He had no idea that he said so to speak over, and over,
and over, and over again.
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And then, the next day, in class, he was working away on the critique of pure reason, just having
a wonderful time. [INAUDIBLE] he got as far as [INAUDIBLE] and then he froze. He backed
up again, and for an hour and 55 minutes of class lecture, it was the most torturous experience
I've ever seen a human being, trying to relate, you see, the inner and the outer.
He became aware of a whole pattern that had become a part of the nerve center of his consent,
but what was affected, that lived on periphery. But in his effort to become a whole human being,
he had to relate this inner and outer, and he limped for days, until finally, finally, when he said so
to speak, he meant to say it.
That's what I mean. We can develop attitudes that ignore this relationship. And when we do, we
find ourselves living as we think, constantly in two separate worlds. And I, in my heart, and in
my private spirit, and in my own personal spiritual intimacies, I am this way.
And then in the parallel of my living, in my functioning, I am this way. The tragedy is that one of
the iniquities of our society is that it presupposes that we are two function that way.
Over and over again, we find ourselves with our behavior patterns obeying laws, which deep
within us, at the center, the vital center of us, we denounce, we deny. Can you see what such a
problem is? When you applied it in various kinds of social situations?
Suppose you lived in a part of the world in which the normal thing people to do was going along
a certain like, acting the same way, going certain places. I remember when, one night at
[INAUDIBLE] Junction in central India, we were going up to Calcutta, two young Indian friends
were traveling with us.
And because the trains had no sleeping accommodations, the junction provided rooms upstairs
over the station lobby. And for 25 cents or some small amount, you could get a bed for two hours
or three hours. And then a guard would awaken you in time for you to get your train, dress, and
go downstairs, and get your train.
And we went upstairs, our party, with these two young Indian friends. And then we came up to
this great place. We saw on one side, a huge sign, which said Europeans only. And another sign
which said Indians only.
Well, we were regarded in India as European. So we could not go over on the side where the
Indians were, where our friends were going. And our friends couldn't go on the side where we
were. So we went downstairs and sat up for the rest of the right.
But now suppose you wanted a night's sleep and that was the law. What do you do? What do you
do? The outer, the inner, an attitude that says that there is a desert and a sea between these two, is
an attitude that is against life and for death, whether in the individual or society.
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Now there's one other attitude against the background of free and easy access. Remember, that's
the point, the free and easy access between the inner and the outer, to the words of my mouth, the
outer and the meditation of my heart, the inner, both as one acceptable in the sight of God. That
is the insistence, you see.
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Now, when I take an attitude of withdrawal, when I take an attitude of withdrawal from the
outer, or-- I didn't say and-- or an attitude of withdrawal from the inner, I defeat both.
Now let's look at that just a minute. The principle of alternation is what I am talking about. The
first American thinker to introduce the concept of alternation in this whole matter of the flowing
between the inner and outer-Listen very carefully, please.
--in his tremendous volume on-- I don't remember the title, but it's a good book. And then you
remember that in this big work of [INAUDIBLE]
But everybody knows about the principle of withdrawing and participation, the principle of
picking up and emptying and putting down. The principle of walking and resting.
Now if I decide that I should devote all of my attitudes to withdrawing, then withdrawing
becomes the source of my arrogance and my pride. And out of the emptiness of my own inner
self, I cry to God, God, I thank Thee that I'm not as other men. I don't get my hands dirty. I keep
my space from them. I do not expose myself.
While there's something in us to which that appeals tremendously, don't you feel sometimes if
you could just shake every thing off, just go to your little mountain, hide out, and just stay there,
with some private arrangement so you can get some food, and some water. But if you could just
get away and stay away.
Well, that becomes a source of arrogance. And then religious minded men through all the ages of
every culture and every kind of religion that's ethical in character, have pointed out this great
danger, that one of the major sources of pride in the human spirit is the delusion that it can
withdraw and enjoy God forever, and ever, and ever.
Yes.
But how can I be happy in heaven if my brother is in hell? How can I? Can't do it. Now the other
source, your see, of pride and arrogance, is just the reverse, that I can-- that I have no time for the
luxury of withdrawal, of a little retreat, of taking time out. Things must be done. Action, action,
action, action.
One of the reasons why, these people say one of the reasons why the world is the way it is, now
there's so many people whose heads are in the clouds. What we need is practical people. We're
suffering from that right now.
We say that one of the reasons why our whole government is disintegrated-- I'm not preaching a
sermon on politics, but rather it is, sorry to say, our government has disintegrated, so on and so
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on, they have no businessmen running things. Businessmen, I mean, they're the practical people,
they know how to do.
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And that becomes a source of pride and arrogance. Because I begin to develop contempt for the
retreater, for the president who withdraws, for the thinker is visionary. He doesn't know anything
about the facts of life. What I'm saying is, [INAUDIBLE] and that it is not one or the other of
these.
But if we want to be a whole human being, we've got to breathe in and out. In and out. In and
out. For when I withdraw, even for 15 minutes a day, I not only have a chance to restore the
waste places of my own spirit, to recapture the lost radiance of my commitment, see my own
goals clarified, bring my own life more into focus.
Whether I'm a religious man or not, even in terms of strength, humanistic considerations, it's
valid. I think it's more than that. But even on that level, it's valid.
But not only does that happen to me, but whenever I withdraw, and center down in my own
spirit, this is what I believe, my friends, I believe that in that act, I become involved in
[INAUDIBLE] ground of my talent, in which it is possible for me to make contact with other
human beings at a level that transcends all of the spoken, that I can never understand through the
formal discursive processes of mind.
I think it is at that level that a great awareness, not only of the meaning of life in general, but the
meaning and the dignity of human life. And then when I come out of that and go to work in my
functioning, I am building my house, my world, by a blueprint that is eternal.
And to know that that is possible, or even to dare to believe that that is possible, and not try it, is
to run the risk of missing out on perhaps the most tremendous thing in your life.
When we bend the words of our vows and the meditations of our heart become acceptable to
God because they are one and the same. And we are whole. And that's wonderful, wonderful.
I suppose that one of the things you discover as we move away from the simple unity that the
little organism of the child experiences is the parting of the road in which maturity means being
here and functioning over here.
When our younger daughter was first learning to read, I would come home from the campus for
lunch and I could always tell that she was busy reading, because she would be sitting in my big
chair and I could hear her struggling with these words when I opened the door. And I'd peek in
there and she was reading with her eyes, her body.
And then one day when I came home, she startled me because she was sitting in the chair reading
very quietly. Reading to herself, no movement. And I called Mrs. [INAUDIBLE], and I said,
look, the beginning of the disintegration of your daughter.
Because she is separating what she is from what she's doing. And she'll spend a lifetime trying to
get these two things back together. So that now and then you can say what you mean and
experience what you mean by what you say.
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And we spend a lifetime in a search for the kind of experience, the kind of encounter in which I
can mean what I say and say what I mean. And not to be involved in trying to prove that I mean
what I say.
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And for me, it is such an enormous relief to pray. Because at least I am willing to let down my
guard and sometimes, say to God the way it is and run the risk of not being misjudged.
And I think this is why the thing that we all search for, over and over again, is the experience of
being understood and not having to interpret. And it may be that in our human adventures, this
moves in and out on the horizon like a fleeting ghost. The secret of sharing this kind of
experience is a secret that belongs to God. And it may be that is the great distinction between
him and us, I don't know.
But to encounter with any manifestation of life, with the kind of confidence that permits me to let
down my guard and run the ultimate risk of trusting some other form of life with my secret.
And there is the whispering echo that moves all through me all the time that I'm not sure that
God can be trusted with my secret. Because he may decide out of his vast sensitivity with
reference to all the nuances of me as a creature to pull a fast one on me.
I say yes, and before the sound of the yes dies, I shout no. I want my life to be my own as it must
be. But always, I'm afraid that the responsibility of me for me is more than I can manage.
I'm having trouble with all this. Because on the one hand, what you say is a magnification, I
mean that's a pejorative word in this sense, of the obvious, or it's something that's really deeply
mysterious to me, that is so far beyond anything I understand that it has no connection.
Keep talking.
Well, like for instance, that business about going out in the swamp and you're still in the swamp.
I believe that happened. And then--
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Time Period
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1980s
Original Title
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Conversations with Howard Thurman (parts 5 and 6), 1980 Sep 19-21, Side B
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394-360_B
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Thurman, Howard
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<a href="http://pid.emory.edu/ark:/25593/rp8k9">MSS 394</a>
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<a href="http://pitts.emory.edu/">Pitts Theology Library, Emory University</a>
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Title
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Conversations with Howard Thurman, September 1980, Parts 5 and 6, Side B
Date
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1980-09-20
Description
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This recording is a part of a wider series of conversations from September to October of 1980 where Howard Thurman met with a variety of young men and women who were discerning their calling to ministry. Thurman poses the intent of this group as an opportunity to "open up for one's self the moving, vital, creative push of God, while God is still disguised in the movement of God's self." In this recording, Thurman warns those learning with him of the dangers of setting a distinction between the outer life and the inner life, the profane and the sacred. Drawing upon his experience in India, and tales of his daughter becoming literate, Thurman explains that the outer life influences the inner, and vice-a-versa, designating one's life as synchronous rather than disintegrated.
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Description by Dustin Mailman
arrogance
behavior patters
Calcutta
California
Carmel Valley
conditioning
conformity
Doug Steele
duality
dynamism
ethics
fluid area of consent
heart
hell
India
inner life
Jesus
Lincoln Milton
manifestations of life
mystery
outer life
Paradise Lost
psychology
sacred
San Francisco
secret
secular
soul
speech
spiritual intimacies
Toronto