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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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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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<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
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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
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394-097_A.mp3
Won't this always by fragmentary information [INAUDIBLE].
[INAUDIBLE] other creatures?
Yes. [INAUDIBLE]
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He may get what the Quakers call an opening that will bring him at once psychically-- and I
think spiritually, I use the term psychically-- into the [? can ?] of what he recognizes as the
transcendent and creative possibility of his life, which he has experienced in prayer. Yes, you up
front.
No. I wouldn't use the word fragmentary. I think that it is-- unless you mean that he may sense
this in fragments of his experience.
That's what I mean.
Yeah. That's right.
In other words, it says we are not absolute. You could never hope to get this always.
No. No. But you see, back to something you said earlier, one of the advantages about
conditioning the nervous system-- remember, we talked about that before, of [INAUDIBLE]
something in the past-- that in meditation you set up fresh [? neurotic ?] paths. And when they're
stimulated, the thing moves. And you get the mood, the quality of being that becomes an inner
climate, even though you may be busily engaged in doing whatever you're doing.
The only time that I was sent home from Sunday school when I was a boy, in those days, the
Sunday school lesson, the little children had what the call charts. And the charts were pictures-reproductions in color-- of paintings depicting whatever the difficult thing was. This was on
Daniel in the lion's den. And there was a color print of Daniel praying in this pit. And there's a
shaft of light that came through that opening in the ceiling. And then around him were three or
four lions waiting for him to get through so they could eat.
And the question on the chart was, what was Daniel doing in the lion's den? And the answer, of
course, says [INAUDIBLE] he was praying. And I kept doing this, and finally my teacher said,
well, what is it now? So I said, Daniel wasn't praying. He was watching the lions because he had
done his praying before he got into the lion's den. And it's [INAUDIBLE] what I'm talking about
that I hope you can see this. I just hate for you to see that you are a living organism-- a living
organism.
All these [? neurotic ?] pathway up and down, everywhere. And you can condition it. You can
re-train you nervous system. That's not the word. Re-tool it. That's the word I'm looking for. You
can re-tool it. You can re-tool it by systematically, with care, with discipline, systematically
feeding it materials. The quality of goods will induce in you an inner climate that you carry
around with you, that becomes a part of the center out of which you relate to life.
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And there's no hocus-pocus in this. It's just simple, garden variety, ordinary psychology. And we
do it all time, with reference or subsidy. And I'm saying apply this. To that which means, from
my point of view, was transcendence [INAUDIBLE] life [INAUDIBLE]. And to digress further,
since I've digressed that far, you can do this by feeding the nervous system. The certain kind of
music you listen to.
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There are great insights, prose and poetic insights that, not only in the intake of them, see the
mind or the aesthetic ache. But I do this meticulous job of paving the way for the total
transformation of your life. And no one-- not even God-- can do this for the individual.
Now, to push on. There are times in which I think that the individual feels so with it and these
moments that everything else seems-- secular seems profane. But I think certain attitude is one
that is unwell. Now, in one of the great songs, one gets a complete sense of what I'm talking
about.
And from my point of view, it is the greatest single chapter of the Bible. From my point of view,
with all my [INAUDIBLE], this is what I think about it. Because it's the 139th Psalm.
And you remember how it goes. Lord, Thou hast searched me and known me. Listen to it. Thou
knowest my downsitting and my upright. Thou understandest my thought afar off. Thou
compassest my path and my lying down. Thou art acquainted with all my ways.
For there is not a thought, not a word in my tongue but, lo, O Lord, Thou knowest it altogether.
Thou has beset me behind and before, and laid Thy hand upon me. Such knowledge is too
wonderful for me. It is high, I cannot attain unto it.
Now, wither shall I go from Thy search? Or wither shall I flee from Thy presence? If I ascend up
into Heaven, Thou art there. If I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there. If I take the wings
of the morning and fly to the uttermost parts of the sea, even there shall Thy hand [INAUDIBLE]
and Thy right hand shall steady.
If I say surely the darkness shall cover me, even the night shall be light about me. The darkness
and the light are both alike to thee. For Thou hast possessed my reins, my [INAUDIBLE].
Thou hast covered me in my mother's womb. And in Thy book all my members were written,
which in continuance were fashioned when as yet there was none of them.
How precious also are Thy thoughts unto me O God. How great is the sum of them. If I should
count them, they are more in number than the sand.
When I awake, I am still with Thee. And I'll [INAUDIBLE] searching for God. And know my
heart. Try me, and know my thoughts [INAUDIBLE] And see if there be any wicked way in me.
And lead me in the way everlasting.
Now, this is the effort on the part of a poet to say that man lives, functions, does all of his doings
within the divine context. The awareness of this fact is the essence of prayer-- the awareness of
this. And that's why it can be precipitated in ways-- again and again in ways that may not
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remotely be connected with what the individual recognizes at the time as spiritual
[INAUDIBLE]
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Now, so much for that. Nibble at it for the rest of the [? nine ?] days, but I want to move. Unless
you have a question. If you have a question, please say it. Of course, I realize how stampedey
that is to suddenly ask you, do you have questions? But [INAUDIBLE] is I should I ask you. So
if you have one, please [INAUDIBLE].
Now, I want to begin our journey with the first of these characters, individuals. Because in
seeing how they go at what they do, you will see at work certain of the things we've been talking
about up till the present time.
I began with Jesus. And I began with Jesus-- well, there are obvious reasons. Back in the early
part of the 19th century, two German men, [? Wienel ?] and Widgery, wrote a book about Jesus,
as a prelude to a whole German movement.
And in this book they have a very striking phrase, that men may come to God through nature.
Men may come to God through other good men. But he who seeks God with all of his heart will
somewhere on his journey encounter Jesus, which from our point of view may not be as
Christological as we'd like to have, or some people would like to have, or as Schweitzer said at
the end of his Quest for the Historical Jesus. And he does such a completely devastating job
reporting [INAUDIBLE].
But he ends it with those very moving lines, that undergo-- He comes to us as one unknown,
without a name, as He came to the men by the lakeside who knew Him not. He speaks to us the
same language-- follow Me. And those who obey Him, whether they be wise or simple, He will
reveal himself in the toils, and the sufferings, and the sorrows-- joys, through which they shall
pass in His fellowship. And as an ineffable mystery, they shall learn in their own experience who
He is.
Now, what I would do is not to make sort of a Christological interpretation, or even very much
[INAUDIBLE] But I want to call attention to the way the experience-- the ineffable experience
of God in Jesus, a son of the House of Israel, a Jew. How that experience defined the movement
and character through has become central impetus and was the great religion namely Christians.
So I begin then with the encounter. And I assume that all of you are lifetime students of the
Bible. And if it is a gratuitous assumption, don't [INAUDIBLE]
But there was a man preaching down at the Jordan River. That's the setting. And this man's name
was John. Now, he was not very prepossessing, according to the descriptions that are given to
him in the book.
He was a wild-eyed. Long, unkempt locks-- most of you are familiar with that. He was eating,
living on locusts and wild honey. He was the beginning of the organic movement.
And he had only one fantastic thing to say. And that is, you better wake up, because you're living
in the end of the age. And the only way for you to save your age is to confess your sins. And as a
symbol of this, I will baptize you in the Jordan River.
3
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Now, up in the village there was a young man, according to the story, who lived with a family.
And he worked in Joseph's carpentry shop. And rumor reached way over there [INAUDIBLE]
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If you don't know what happened, then it's fine-- if you don't know. Because then it means that
the imagination has free creative range. Let's just say that you're a prisoner of facts all the time.
But he presented himself to John the Baptist, so that John-- John baptized Him. He did not waste
any time on the etiquette of the exchange that we heard, not [INAUDIBLE]
But he was baptized of John, and then something happened-- according to what He said. Now,
no one else saw this. No one else heard it. So, what did He say? I can tell you what He said-- the
heavens opened. Vision.
And what else happened, according to this story? That the spirit of God descended upon Him,
like a dove. Then, what else? Then he heard a voice. And what did the voice say? Thou art My
son, my beloved. In Thee, I'm well pleased, all this day I have begotten [INAUDIBLE]
Personal, primary, exclusive, intimate, transcendent vision. Defining the meaning and the
character of His life, for His ears and His eyes.
And the only way that we have any record of it is that He told him. This [INAUDIBLE] The role
of the voice in human language is very interesting. [INAUDIBLE] Remember in-- what is it? In
Bernard Shaw's Back to Methuselah-- I think it's in the introduction, or somewhere. It doesn't
matter where.
Eve is talking about Noah. And she says that Noah spends all of his time out in the hills,
listening to the sound of the voice. He has listened to the voice until he has become the voice.
There's a whole interesting theory of a exciting journey-- the role of the voice in the destiny of
man. And it is not all confined to the psychotic, and to the sick, to the emotionally overwrought.
We're dealing with a very significant kind of symbol. At any rate, He hears the voice.
Now, what follows is of tremendous significance. He went from this experience of illumination
into the solitary place-- the wilderness, to define, in terms of His life, the import of the voice. He
heard it. And each word is important, and [INAUDIBLE] talking about it.
Not to define the import of the voice for those people to whom He told the story about hearing
the voice. Another place in-- oh, how can I say this? Once again, you see, we are standing in the
presence of the mystery of crisis in human life. The mystery of crisis.
In Isaiah, remember in the year that King Uzziah died-- which was a traumatic and horrendous
moment in the life of this very elite Jewish man, Isaiah. And he says-- he's in the temple-- in the
year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord. And His glory filled the whole temple.
And there were cherubim and [INAUDIBLE] And one of these did what? One of these took a
live [? bull ?] from the altar, and put it on his tongue. And he heard a voice say, Who shall I
send? Who will go for us?
4
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Then Isaiah says, Then said I, here am I. [INAUDIBLE] Vision puts its imprimatur on the life,
and the life is altered in the light of the overwhelming intensity of the expericence, and this when
another character-- when Paul sees the light and hears a voice again, what did he do? He went
into the wilderness.
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Remember in Newman's Dream of Gerontius-- you remember the soul is visiting in Heaven?
Well, yeah, he's having a personally-conducted tour, by one of the angels.
And they were going along, enjoying the scenery, and having some private discussion. And they
looked over at a certain area-- and the rolling hills, and that sort of thing. And the soul said to the
angel, What's over there? And the angel said, That's where God is. All my life I wanted to see
God. As soon as the person is visited, the soul says that the angels' wings, no one who really
aches to see God can be denied. But he must be prepared for the presence.
So this angel turns the soul over to the Angel of the Agony, to prepare the stripping process-- to
prepare the soul for the presence of God. And when the soul has this radical exposure-- and if
you hear the music. Then the soul is faced with God.
There's a great breathless silence. And then the string choir, and all the rest is-- pandemonium
reigns. Because the soul now is crying, take me away, take me away. In some quiet, dark place,
where I can recover from the ravages of pure love, of pure righteousness, of purities.
Now, [INAUDIBLE]
Reading something, which is another way of summarizing what the basic point that the mystic is
making about the indwelling of God's spirit in human life, and the life of the individual.
Whether the awareness is conscious or not, the ground is there, waiting to assert itself at some
moment in consciousness, or some extraordinary encounter with an aspect of life that has a total
impact upon the life. That makes one raise the ultimate question about who he is, who she is,
what is the point of the individual existence? What does the private life mean, in terms of the
meaning of life, in general?
And these are the words. It is good to remember that God has not left himself without a witness
in our spirits. There is a spirit in us, that contains our spirit. That provides the secondary
consolations which flow to the big anxieties. That sustains the effort beyond the calculated
endurance. That makes the case for the good impulse, when the rational judgment sends the mind
spinning in the opposite way.
That brooks over all weariness and all despair, until the change comes and the heart is revived.
That holds the confidence and the integrity of the self, when the deed that one does contradict
and will not be stilled, and the act that destroys goes on its relentless way.
It is good to remember that God has not left himself without witness in our spirits. It is good to
remember that God has not left himself without a witness in our lives. There is at work in life
much that seems so circumstantial, that the release of explanation can come only by the great
word, coincidence.
5
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Pitts Theology Library
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Even the most cursory examination of what may be regarded as the most commonplace life
shows that at many points startling things have occurred, that altered the entire direction of the
life. Some chance word heard at a critical moment in your life, some single encounter along the
way-- even a paragraph tucked away in an ordinary book, a stray thought out of nowhere, finds a
cuddling place in the mind. And there it begins to live and breathe, and reproduce its kind, until
something emerges within us as a new outlook-- a different way of thinking.
It is good to remember that God has not left himself without a witness in our lives, despite all the
wanderings of our footsteps. Despite all the ways by which we may have sought to circumvent
the truth within us. Despite all the weaknesses of spirit and of mind. Despite all the blunders, by
which we may have isolated ourselves from our fellows, or proven unworthy of the love, the
trust, the confidence by which again and again our faltering lives are surrounded. Despite all
these things it is good to remember that God has not left himself without a witness in our spirits
and in our lives.
I'd like to pick up the threads of our discussion, by way of capitulation. You may remember that
we were talking about the central and dramatic experience of Jesus, at the time of His baptism.
And it was a time of a rather radical illumination. And He described it, in language that made
sense to His mind, and also that belonged to the general climate of language by which He was
surrounded.
For it doesn't matter how fundamentally significant, dramatic, catastrophic may be any particular
experience that you may have, the experience itself has to be accommodated to the facts of your
particular life. If you talk about it, for instance, you must describe it in language that is a part of
the common coin of your vocabulary, your culture.
That is a kind of canonical judgment, that becomes the embodiment of the residue of the thought,
and the phrases-- the vocabulary of the period in which we live. And if a man's insight or his
experience is premature, as far as the body of knowledge with which he is acquainted, thence
often there is a long time interval between the disclosure, the discovery, and when that discovery
finds its accommodation in the regular stream of the pattern of your life.
For instance, we see it in science. Perhaps there are maybe as long as 50 years separating the
time when a German scientist first discovered that DNA is a part of the nucleus of the cell-- a
very decisive part of the cell, that has the clue to all of the subsequent behavior, and life, and
development of the cell.
Nearly 50 years after did some other scientists pick this up. And they were able, because of the
development that had taken place in the whole movement of scientific process, so that now-- 50
years after-- this discovery could become a part of the canon of scientific knowledge.
And it was some time after that before we began talking about the genetic code, that is in the
cell. And if we understand this genetic code, then we can determine, and interpret, and predict
the behavior of the cell. What I'm saying is that it doesn't matter how privately significant, and
meaningful, and dramatic your particular
6
�
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<iframe width="100%" height="820" frameborder="0" src="/files/players/394-097_A.html" ></iframe>
Location
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University of Redlands, Redlands, California
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Audio could maybe be cleaned up (background noise)
Edits: fresh neurotic paths; neurotic paths going up and down; with all my prejudices; Weinel and Widgery - GL 5/20/19
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1970s
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394-097_A
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Thurman, Howard
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On Mysticism, Part 9 (University of Redlands Course), 1973
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<a href="http://pid.emory.edu/ark:/25593/rp8k9">MSS 394</a>
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audio
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<a href="http://pitts.emory.edu/">Pitts Theology Library, Emory University</a>
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<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.
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GEOMETRYCOLLECTION(POINT(-13042600.321303 4037296.9410534))
Date
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1973-02
Description
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This recording is the sixth lecture in our collection of ten that Howard Thurman gave at the University of Redlands in 1973 on the topic of mysticism. Thurman indicates that this lecture functions as a means to point the listener towards practical approaches to mysticism through lenses of psychology, philosophy, and religious experience. In this recording, Thurman reflects upon what it means to make sense of one's own transcendent "center." The center to which Thurman is referencing is held in relation to the placement of Jesus' baptism in the context of the arc of scripture; heralding this event as the epitomization of the transcendental self. It is here where the centrality of the transcendent reality is grounded upon everything existing in the "divine context," thus existence is inseparable from prayer.
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Description by Dustin Mailman
absolute
Albert Schweitzer
Back to Methuselah
Bernard Shaw
center
center of being
christology
clue
conditioning
Daniel
divinity
DNA
Dream of Gerontius
essence of prayer
experience
inner quiet
Isaiah
Jesus
John Henry Newman
John the Baptist
Jordan River
King Uzziah
language
lions den
meditation
nature
nervous center
Noah
nucleus
opening
organic
possibility
Psalm 139
psychology
Quakers
Quest for the Historical Jesus
scientific process
sunday school
transcendence
voice
Weinel
Widgery