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--see how important it becomes then for the mystic to see if there are any avenues open to him y
which in the normal pursuit of his life, his activities, he can aid and abet the aware of the
presence within him. Now, when he raises this kind of question, naturally, the thing that he
seizes upon is something which to him has the quality, the moral quality of his inner experience.
So he naturally would think in terms of good deeds, of activity on his part which, because of its
means and its ends, would seem to be in line with his sense of God that is within him.
Anything, then, that seems to him to be contrary behavior, he's sure that that will not lead him to
enlarge the area of the awareness of God in him. So that when we study these individuals, men
and women, we find that wherever the mystic gives an ethical context to the presence of God in
him, then any ethical behavior on his part would tend to make more acute his awareness of the
presence. So that out of that comes a whole [INAUDIBLE] series of categories having to do with
good works, with good deeds.
If I can multiply good works, then the degree to which I do that, I enlarge the area within me.
And yet, we're back at the old central problem. And yet, there cannot be-- or can there be-- any
necessitous relationship between the good works, the good deed, and this presence. I think there's
this sort of problem that with which Jesus deals. When a man came to him and he said, good
master, what may I do? And very quickly, and almost spontaneously, Jesus said, why call me
good? There is none good, save God. That being-- the moral activity, the moral behavior, may
not be regarded as an indication of the presence, the active presence.
And yet it is at the same time, paradoxically, the most apparent and the most logical test. If good
works do not have any bearing on the enlarging of the sense of the presence, what on earth does?
If I-- or am I-- am I trapped by the fact that because I cannot know the mind of God, then
therefore my only creative task is to wait, to be quiet? Which is the logic of the whole
[INAUDIBLE] movement.
So the dilemma is, how may I act so that in my action there will be a corresponding
manifestation of an increase within me of a sense of the presence of God? Now, if the action in
itself is valid, then its validity will guarantee a certain result in my own character and in my own
life. But we are never-- we are never quite sure. Because the temptation is that if I'm dependent
upon good deeds, good action, as the vehicle by which the living presence of God moves through
all the corridors of my awareness-- if I'm dependent upon that-- then this dependence becomes
the test that I'm right, that I'm right.
And always, you see, the experience of the mystic as the experience of religion is a private,
personal, intimate experience. It is in a sense as if you and you alone existed in all the universe at
this moment. The only thing that I can think of that's comparable to it is-- have you ever tried to
answer the question of a little child? You answer the question, and you see the bewilderment in
the child's face, and you know that you're off-target. Then you try again, and you're still offtarget. And then you try to put the answer in the context that will make the answer available to
the child.
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And then, if you're lucky, there comes a moment in this exchange when the child says, I see.
Now, when the child says that, you do not exist any longer. It is as if the child and the answer do
this, independent of you, independent of everything. It is so private, so primary, so absolutely
solitary and individual that it carries its own witness. It carries its own witness.
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Now, that is all right if you are never challenged. But the thing that the mystic-- how to say this.
The hound of hell that's always on the mystics, whatever it is, heels or something, is the same
that's true with all [INAUDIBLE], I guess. And that is that the inability to prove that your
experience is valid, of what does proof consist?
How do you go about to prove that any position that you take is right? How do you go about it?
Any nibble from anybody? What do you say? Yes.
[INAUDIBLE] unless they want to. Unless they experience [INAUDIBLE]
If the experience is valid, shouldn't one be able to communicate it in terms of proof?
If it's demonstrated somewhat. But you can't prove it [INAUDIBLE] words necessarily
[INAUDIBLE].
That's the question. That's the question. To give a ridiculous illustration of it, how do you prove
that you're sane? Everything you say in proof, except it makes the case for the [INAUDIBLE].
Why then are we never relieved of the necessity for trying to prove it? Why? Yes.
[INAUDIBLE] we're not quite sure in ourselves. We have to explain it to ourselves.
Yes, [INAUDIBLE]. I look at my watch, and I see by my watch it's quarter of three. I register
that, quarter of whatever it is. Quarter of five, my goodness. Now if I look at my watch for
myself, I will know, but as soon as I do this, you ask what time is it, and what must I do? Look
again. Because now the knowledge is with reference to and other than self.
Why is it that we cannot ever escape the necessity for trying to prove the validity of our
experience? You suggest that because we-- because of a lack of certainty in ourselves. Any other
reaction? Yes.
Perhaps we need the exercise of trying to approve, and in the process, we clarify [INAUDIBLE]
we put upon ourselves. There's a resistance to the proof [INAUDIBLE].
Are you saying then that any challenge simply makes you re-examine the grounds of your
position?
I believe it does.
Any other nibble on this?
Yeah. I don't know if a true mystic would care much about communicating it.
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Maybe. But it would seem to me that he recognizes a necessity for being understood, not by
everybody, not by everybody. But there are those to whom it is very important that the validity
of his experience be accepted not only by him, but by them. Maybe, just maybe. Yes, you.
Might it be that a person wants to share the experience with others?
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Yes. That's a very important comment. But even there, he wants to share it in a climate of
acceptance, I think. But of course, he may decide that the person has to be ready for accepting it.
Thus, the inquisition, for instance. It's sort of pulverized, and you get everything loose so that
there's a kind of [INAUDIBLE] mass for receiving it. Yes.
I just had a question. Does a true mystic ever really find [INAUDIBLE]. I mean, if you find it,
isn't it [INAUDIBLE]? He's found the ultimate thing to his existence.
No. He is always finding it. Because what he is sure that he is experiencing is the encounter that
is of ultimate significance, which he himself does not presume fully to comprehend. His
movement always is in terms of enlarging the awareness of this in his own life, never feeling that
he has quite made it, quite achieved it. And this, of course, accounts for his vulnerability, and
also for his humility.
Because you see, it doesn't matter how well he comes off when his life is compared with another
person's life, because that is not the basis of his comparison. His comparison is in terms of what
he is experiencing. It's like a man who is congratulated because of something he has done, he has
achieved. And if he's honest, he knows that what he achieved was a poor manifestation of the
thing that he saw. And therefore, when he contemplates what was either his vision or his goal
and then looks at what he's been able to translate, the only response is one of great humility. But
if he compares what he has created with what you have created, then he may get off all right,
because he will select the kind of comparisons that would show him up to advantage yours.
Now, let's just push back to this for a minute, because I'd like to tie it down before we stop. Why
is proof so important? Why? Why do you think it's so important. To the mystic I mean. Yes?
[INAUDIBLE]
No? I suppose the fundamental issue here is, can the mystic's experience ever be empirically
validated? That's really the issue that we're talking about. Can it-- yes?
It might be to himself, though.
Even to himself, can it be? Yes?
If it becomes validated, it's possible that he then [INAUDIBLE].
Yes, that would be one of the results, I should think. He wants-- how to say this. It seems to me,
at any rate, that he wants to find some means external to himself that can be a corrective to him,
where he is a finite creature. How can I find some other than self-reference? Each word's
important. How may I find some other than self-reference that can vanity for me, my inner
experience?
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I think this is the reason why there are disciples. I think this is one of the reasons why small units
of human beings gather around. It seems to me that there must be-- no, no, that's wrong.
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There is a pressing need to look objectively into the face of the truth that I am experiencing. And
because I do not ever seem able to do it does not relieve me of the necessity for always trying to
do it. So you knock at every door, and end up in your own little room. For at last you arrive at a
place in which you able to be assured that the validity of your experience is found in the integrity
of the experience, that the validity of it is in its integrity.
And I think this is why the mystic keeps trying to get the static out. If I may phrase it this way, I
think that there is an every man-- and by man, I mean everybody-- there is an every person that
which waits and listens for the sound of the genuine in every other person. It is also true that
there is that in every person that waits and listens for the sound of the genuine in himself. And
the mystic is never quite sure that he's listening right, but he's absolutely sure that he is. And who
is there to deny it?
So the [INAUDIBLE] that the movement-- the trends move in two basic directions, one towards
more and more quietistic contemplation, more and more passivity, more and more withdrawal,
on the one hand. And on the other hand, more and more effort to take every aspect of one's
experience and shake it, open it up, to see if inherent in that is not a yes to what you experience
here. And these are the two paths, and if you were to break down the mystic's experience,
whether in our tradition or some other tradition, into two great categories, these are the two
categories.
One does not get beyond contemplation, pulling in so that all of the levels of his being might be
invaded by this increment, which is the signature of the creator in his life. Any movement out in
the direction of the world becomes a movement that threatens this on the one hand. On the other
hand, the feeling and the urgency to follow all the rules, knowing that whatever he encounters on
the road has something to say to him about what he's experienced, and in most of the mystics, we
get a combination of these.
And in classical language, it becomes a conflict between-- that's inherent in two ways, two
express. One, by their fruits you shall know them, the other, by their roots you should know
them. The contemplating mystic feels it by his roots, and the more activist by the fruit. And
somewhere on the mystic [INAUDIBLE] between these two, the pendulum swings, because the
two basic classifications then are the familiar ones, the introverted and the extroverted mystic,
and we begin at this point tomorrow.
I want to pull certain things together. You remember I made a comment to you that there is a
very horrendous struggle on the part of individuals or persons to have a sense of their own ego.
And then this happens. The individual also feels that he now stands over against all the rest of
the objects, the other things in his world. He becomes a distinct individual without regard to his
own ground. And if he is thoughtful, perhaps there may come a time when it will seem to him
that instead of his being a separate entity, a private personal ego, that he will seem to be in this,
for instancing of himself, the expression of the ground. Now, this is very different.
He will seem to himself that the ground of life has become self conscious in him. Now, if this is
his awareness, then he knows that despite the reality of his ego awareness, that it is merely
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contextual, it is merely that which in a sense has illusion in it. For his true reality is not to be
found in his ego consciousness, but his true reality is to be found in the ground out of which he
comes up, which his ego consciousness is a manifestation of.
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Now, when there is not this awareness, then the ego seems to itself to be absolute, to be co-equal,
as it were, with the ground out of which it comes, out of which it springs. Now, it is very
interesting to me that in times in society when the ego is under attack, all kinds of profound
eruptions begin to emerge in individual lives. To illustrate precisely what I mean, during the
period of the Black Death, for instance, when the individual as the individual was almost
completely nullified, neutralized, destroyed, attacked, by the impersonal movement of the
disease. And the individual ego of the people who are the denizens of that period in European
history felt that they were being completely nullified.
And it happened also that the same things were going on in Catholicism that tended to rob the
individual of any point of reference outside of himself that would call attention to the ground out
of which he had come, so that he was destitute, devastated. And out of the very soil of the time,
there was a mystical movement, the Brethren of the Common Life moved in, and what were they
saying? They would say to these people who were dying like flies that you do not need any go
between that will establish your significance in a universal ground, in a timeless ground. You
don't need the priest who has the key that will open up this secret, that will cause a flood of
spirituality and vitality to flow into your life again, to give you your own sense of person a
meaning and a significance.
So these men and women who were part of this spiritual movement went among the people
doing what? Putting the individuals in touch with the spiritual ground of their lives. Now, we are
in such a period in our country. I do not know about the whole Western world. From the tidings
that I pick up, from reading and travel, the same is true. But we are at a time now in our history
when the-- first, the isolation of the particular private ego is being more and more actualized
when it is increasingly impossible for the individual to feel that he is of such worth that the
ground of his life, the spiritual ground of his life, has honored him by coming to self
consciousness in him.
As individuals, we do not count very much, in several ways. I went to the bank to make a
deposit, and in my head, I neglected to put my name on my deposit sheet, but I had my number.
And when I handed it to the young lady and I reached for it, I saw my name wasn't there. She
said, that's all right, your name isn't important. We have your number. That's the consequential
thing.
Now, at such a time, there is a desperate effort to find ways by which we're connected, by which
the consciousness of the individual can be expanded, which is another way of saying, a means by
which the individual ego may once again be made aware of the ground out of which it sprang,
out of which it comes. And all of the mad-- this is not the total explanation, but certainly one of
the very important elements in the explanation is the phenomenon that we now, the so called
drug culture, for instance. This is rooted here.
Some radical effort is being put forth, some radical passage that will lead the individual ego into
this wider area out of which his consciousness arises. And it is a way by which I think the
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collective psyche of modern man is trying to reestablish the ground of unity, out of which the
individual life springs.
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Now, there are all kinds of things that are going on in this regard. About six years ago, or 10-the time, the number of years, isn't important-- but a young friend of mine who's doing his
doctorate in Philosophy of Religion at the Harvard Divinity School, who had observed during the
early days of the experimentation with LSD [INAUDIBLE] that Dr. Leary was involved in
before he became the patron saint of the culture, when they working with prisoners out of the
Concord Reformatory.
What my friend observed was that among many of the men with whom they worked in this
particular, men whose egos had been cut off from the ground, either because of the reaction of
society because of their own behavior, violences, et cetera, but they were stranded, isolated, and
by-- under carefully--
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University of Redlands, Redlands, California
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1970s
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Thurman, Howard
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On Mysticism, Part 6 (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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1973-02
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This recording is the fifth 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. He revolves the content of this lecture around the question: "How may I act so that in my action there will be a corresponding manifestation of an increase within me of a sense of the presence of God?" To which, Thurman responds with dialogue with students in the class pertaining to notions of self-actualization, the task of the mystic, and the exploration of the content of religious identity.
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Description by Dustin Mailman
actualization
awareness
Brethren of the Common Life
center of being
comprehension
Concord Reformatory
consciousness
contemplation
contextuality
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dualism
ego
externality
good works
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identity
Incarnation
integrity
interconnectivity
intimate experience
Jesus
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modernity
moral quality
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proof
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I'd like to begin today by reading something that summarizes and in the form of an allegory the
essence of what we've been talking about touching upon the ground of unity that sustains and
supports all external manifestations of life. Sometimes, I think it is given to the poet and to a
certain kind of literary dreamer to give expression to insights that defy the more rational analysis,
either the philosopher or the theologian. And this is written by a South African woman of
English background, and her name is Olive Schreiner. Her period is 1855 to 1921.
A man cried up to God, and God sent down an angel to help him. And the angel came back and
said to God, I cannot help that man, and God said, how is it with him? And the angel said, he
cries out continually that someone has injured him, and he would forgive him, and he cannot do
it. God said, what have you done for him?
The angel said, I've done everything. I took him by the hand, and I said, look, when other men
speak ill of that man, do you speak well of him? Secretly in ways he shall not know, serve him.
If you have anything you value, share it with him. So serving him, you'd at last come to feel
possession in him, and you will forgive him, and the man said, I'll do it.
Afterwards, as I passed by in the dark of night, I heard one crying out, I have done all. It helps
nothing. My speaking well of him helps me not at all. If I share my heart's blood with him, is the
burning within me less? I cannot forgive. I cannot forgive. Oh, God, I cannot forgive.
I said to him, look back on all your past. See from your childhood all smallness, all indirectness
that has been yours. Look well at it, and in it's light, do you not see every man your brother? He
looked, and he said, yes, you're right. I too have failed. I forgive my fellow.
Go, I am satisfied. I have forgiven, and he laid him down peacefully and folded his hands on his
breast, and I thought it was well with him. But scarcely had my wings rustled, and I turned to
come up here, when I heard one crying out on Earth again. I cannot forgive. I cannot forgive. Oh
God, God, I cannot forgive.
It is better to die than to hate. I cannot forgive. I can not do it. And I went and stood outside his
door in the dark, and I heard him cry, I have not sinned so, not so. If I've torn my fellow's flesh
ever so little, and I've kneeled down and kissed the wound with my mouth till it was healed. I
have not willed that any soul should be lost through hate of me.
If they have but fancied that I wrong them, I have lain down on the ground before them. That
they might tread on me and so seeing my humiliation forgive and not be lost to hating me. They
have not cared that my soul should be lost. They have not willed to save me. They have not tried
that I should forgive them.
I said to him, be thou content then. Do not forgive. Forget this soul and its injury. Go on your
way. In the next world, perhaps, he cried, go from me.
You understand nothing. What is the next world to me? I am lost now, today. I cannot see the
sunlight shine. The dust is in my throat. The sand is in my eyes. Go from me. You know nothing.
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Oh, once again, before I die to see that the world is beautiful. Oh, God, God, I cannot live and
not love. I cannot live and hate. Oh, God, God, God. So I left him crying, and I came back up
here.
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And God said, this man's soul must be saved, and the angel said, how? And God said, you go
down and save it, and the angel said, what more shall I do? Then, God bent down and whispered
in the angel's ear, and the angel spread out its wings and went down to earth. The angel went
down and found the man with a bitter heart and took him by the hand and led him to a certain
spot-- and now follow this. Now, the man wist not where it was the angel would take him, nor
what he would show him there.
And when they came, the angel shaded the man's eyes with his wing, and when he moved it, the
man saw somewhat on the earth before them. For God had given it to that angel to unclothe a
human soul, to take from it all those outward attributes of form and color and age and sex.
Whereby one man is known from among his fellows and is marked off from the rest, and the soul
laid bare before them, bare as a man turning his eye inwards beholds himself.
They saw its past, its childhood, the tiny life with the dew upon it. They saw its youth when the
dew with melting, and the creature raised its mouth to drink from a cup too large for it, and they
saw how the water spilt. They saw its hopes that were never realized. They saw its hours of
intellectual blindness men call sin. They saw its hours of all-radiating insight, which men call
righteousness.
They saw its hour of strength, when it leaped to its feet crying, I am omnipotent. Its hour of
weakness, when it fell to the earth and grasped dust only. They saw what it might have been but
never would be. And the man bent forward, and the angel said, what is it? And he answered, it is
I. It is myself, and he went forward as if he would have lain as heart against it, but the angel held
him back and covered his eyes.
Now, God had given power to the angel further to unclothe that soul, to take from it all those
outward attributes of time and place and circumstance. Whereby the individual life is marked off
from the life of the whole. Again, the angel uncovered the man's eyes, and he looked.
He saw before him that which in its tiny drop reflects the whole universe. He saw that which
mocks within itself the step of the furthest star and tells how the crystal grows underground
where no eye has seen it. That which is where the germ in the egg stirs which moves the
outstretched fingers of the little newborn babe and keeps the leaves of the trees pointing upward.
Which moves where the jellyfish sail alone on the sunny seas and is where the lichens form on
the mountain drop. And the man looked, and the angel touched him, but the man bowed his head
and shuddered.
He whispered, it is God, and the angel re-covered the man's eyes. And when he uncovered them,
there was someone walking from them a little way off, for the angel had re-clothed the soul in its
outward form and vesture. And the man knew who it was, and the angel said, do you know him?
And the man said, oh yes, I know him, and he looked after the figure.
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And the angel said, have you forgiven him? But the man said, how beautiful my brother is, and
the angel looked into the man's eyes, and he shaded is own face with his wing from the light. He
laughed softly and went up to God. But the men were together on the earth.
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Now, before we start our discussion, the point at which we stopped yesterday, Do you have any
questions to raise about the creative encounter? Have you found it, or is it still lost in the
bookstore? All right. There's a saying that comes from some part of the Old Testament,
allegedly, but it is this. That if Israel is not saved, Jacob will not lose his reward. So there it is.
Now, I'd like to begin by giving you one reference, a book which, if you are interested in
pursuing our search, which obviously can hardly be done in three weeks. There is a book written
by a Catholic priest which represents, from my point of view, the best composite of the generic
interpretation of mysticism with authentic source quotations. It is called Varieties of Mystic
Religion by Father Elmer O'Brien, Varieties of Mystic Religion by Father Elmer O'Brien. It's a
Holt Rinehart publication published in 1964, and it sells for $7.50.
Now, at the close of our discussion, we were dealing with the fact that it is the mystic's insight
that what he experiences which gives to him a sense of encounter with that which is ultimate.
And if he be a certain kind of religious man, he will label that ultimate by calling it God. And I
was suggesting to you that this element of which is the mystic speaks is regarded by him and by
many other people who think deeply on the subject as that which is essentially the givenness of
God.
It is-- to use a figure-- it is an increment which is basic structural to his very life, his very
essence. It isn't something that he achieves initially, but it is something that is given. It is a
manifest of the creator in the creature. And all that he, the mystic, feels under necessity to do is
to establish primary contact with this given increment which is inherent in him.
In one sense then, he shares this as a part of creation. It is the signature of the creator that is
inherent in his conscious. He may realize it by becoming aware of it, or its awareness may be
forced upon him in some sudden moment of illumination. Or a man may live his entire life
without becoming other than vaguely aware of the fact that there are moments when he seems to
be so much more than what he is at any given time, the various names by which this is given.
Sometimes, there are those who feel that a man becomes aware of this at a moment of
inspiration, for instance which gives to whatever the problem of his mind may be an
illumination.
What the orthodox-- what originally the Quakers referred to following the leadership or the
guidance of George Fox. The inner light, the inner light which lighteth every man that cometh
into the world, picking up a phrase or an intimation from the fourth gospel, the Gospel of John.
That this light, this inner light, is a part of the givenness of God. And that it is not only present in
human life, but it is a part of the totality of the experience of all living things. And indeed, there
are some people who say, who not only include among living things things that have specific
consciousness, like cats, dog, snakes, mice, flies, but that every living thing, trees, flowers.
You may have read a year or two ago it was rather popularized in many magazines about the
man in New York whose name I don't remember, but he's the man who developed the polygraph
machine. And in his experiments, he discovered that if he attached the wires of the polygraph
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machine to the plants in his office, that the machine would register emotions in the plant that
were identical or their reaction to emotions that were in the man himself. And he received a great
deal of publicity about it, and an enterprising newspaper reporter came to check it out. So he
gave him a dry run.
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He said, my associate in the office can't stand these plants. Every time I go away for any length
of time, he refuses to water them. He forgets to water them, and there's a wall of hostility that is
generated in this office between him and the plants. He said, now, I'll test it out for you. So he
attached the wires to the plants, and then he buzzed and his associate came in the office. And as
soon as he appeared in the door, the indicator, ffft, went up like that.
I've experimented a little with this myself. When I lived in San Francisco before, I had about 20
roses in our backyard, and they were having a hard time to live. Because in the area of San
Francisco, where our home was located, there were only about two hours of sunshine on a day of
sunshine. And night did not ever quite come off, because the lights of the city, the fog would
reflect the lights. And we would stand in the backyard just as if it were a brightly-lighted,
moonlit evening.
So I developed the habit of going out before I retired in the evening. If I did not come in until
1:00 o'clock, 2:00 o'clock, whatever time it was before I went to bed, I went out to have a little
conversation with my roses. And I would say to them, now, I understand what a hard time you're
having, because you don't get enough sunlight. It's never dark, and living things must have
darkness as contrasted with light so that certain things that can happen to them. And growth can
only happen in the darkness and you don't that.
And there are rumors going around in the garden about your cousins in Portland, where the roses
are as large as saucers, and I don't want you to get an inferiority complex about this. So please
know that I believe in you, and I know you're doing the best you can. Just squeeze as much
energy out of the available sources as possible and do the best you can. And whenever I had a
blossom, I would very carefully give to them a little paean of praise for the fact that they'd finally
made it. It didn't look like much, but it represented the best that they could do.
And I know that of all the yards in our general neighborhood, I had the kind of rose blooming in
our garden that were not to be found in the rest of the neighborhood. Now, this may be, you see,
just a fiction in my mind. I don't know. I don't know where the reality is, but I do know that
before I started doing this, they were very-- I was full of compassion for them. But after I started
doing this, they stood on their own feet, and a rose is a rose, and it helped.
In other words, what I'm saying is that there are some who go even beyond the notion that this
givenness is a part of the basic residue, the ground, in all living things. Whether or not this is
true-- no, that's wrong. Whether or not it is a fact, it can be challenged, but perhaps the truth of it
remains untouched. Because the mystic affirms this sort of experience, that the ultimate is within
reach of every living thing. It is not merely in the reach of every living thing, but it is inherent in
every living thing.
This has exposed the mystic who affirms this to the accusation, or the judgment, that can best be
expressed by a term with which you're familiar named the Pantheism. Which seems to suggest as
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an inference from this that everything is God, and God is everything. This is the rather severe
judgment that is cast upon this point of view.
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Now, I do not think, in technical terms, that the accusation is valid, because it is the attitude, this
attitude towards all living thing, that suggests that everything that is living is in some very real
sense sacramental. That the presence of the givenness of the creator in his creation makes of the
object of creation the a sacrament. A sacrament, because it carries within itself the signature of
the ultimate, the signature of the creator, but the mystic doesn't stop there.
There's a second thing that follows, and that is that there is always the assumption, and more than
the assumption, they insistence, that it is possible to cultivate this givenness. That it can be the
sphere of its influence in the common life can be enlarged, that it can grow, not in quality but in
the area that it covers in the life. Back of this second assumption is the whole exercise that is
characteristic of the mystic endeavor that we call spiritual exercise, and what is the aim of the
spiritual exercise?
As you see, if we have time before we're through, the aim of the spiritual exercise is to widen the
sphere of influence-- how to say this-- to widen the area of awareness in the individual of this
presence. That even though it is a part of the givenness, the influence of it, the spread of it-- if I
may use that term-- the spread of it is related to the way in which the individual puts himself at
the disposal of it. That there is a way by which this consciousness can grow and become more
and more central and [INAUDIBLE] in the life of the individual.
The result of this feeling, notion, idea, experience is that almost always the mystic has for
himself a pattern of behavior that is constantly being refined, tested. The fulfillment of which, or
the exercise of which, gives to him a sense that this presence-- this mark, this sign, this
imprimatur, whatever word you want to use-- this givenness of the creator is in him. So that
when he begins to work at it, each man discovers what for him are the most effective disciplines.
And they call them, in the Roman Catholic tradition, for instance, they're called spiritual
exercises.
But a curious thing to bear in mind is that with the possible exception-- that the possible
exception of Meister Eckhart about whom we will spend our last times together-- no mystic
insists that there is a necessitous relationship between the spiritual exercise and the result. Now,
this is very important. This is crucial.
Let me say it again. That given the function of the significance of the exercises, the means by
which the individual seeks to widen, to enlarge, his awareness of the presence of God in him, the
exercises are very important, very critical, very crucial, and I think necessitous. But there is no
guarantee, inherent or implicit, in the exercises themselves which says that if I do this and this
and this, God will come or my awareness of God will increase.
For there is assumed that the movement of the creator, the movement of God in his creation, has
an element in it that is arbitrary and this bristles with difficulties. If I can follow the prescription
that has been tested by those who have gone this way, who've make this journey, than I ought to
therefore be able to receive what they receive. But if, by any activity on my part, I can bend the
will of the creator, then it puts the creator at the disposal not only of my needs but of my whims.
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And there's something very heady about that, if I know that I can follow a certain path, following
of which will guarantee that at a point along the way that which I seek will be available to me.
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There is no guarantee. This is important emphasis. But if I don't do it, then I may miss it. So the
problem always is am I following the right path, and by right, in this sense, am I following the
path that will lead me to the goal? Or is it possible for me to find out from within myself, from
the limited awareness that I have, can find out from that experience what I need to do in order to
enlarge the area of the sphere of his influence on my life?
Now, such questions as these are never quite resolved. One of the great formal steps along the
path is a word that you will encounter in your reading, if you do any, and that word is
detachment, detachment. And this is the point at which the whole concept of detachment
becomes relevant to the mystic's quest. For as paradoxical a contradictory as it sounds, as it
seems, if we start out saying, you see, that the whole world is resonant with God, with the
creator, then this includes all of my sense data, all of the reflective processes the mind. That I
may knock at any door of my senses and find, when the door opens, that I have this blessing, this
enlarged awareness, of the creator that's in me.
So the great systems have grown up around this. For instance, one of the great words in a man
like Eckhart is detachment, and he is a radical in this regard. He's he says that if I am able ever to
rid myself of creatureliness, then automatically, God fills me up. So that'd be his insistence is
that all the time I must disengage myself from all of the delusions of my senses. I must not
become so engrossed in the sense data which is mine that I lose the scent of the eternal.
This is inherent, for instance, in all of the notions which have to do with aestheticism, with the
laceration of the body, with the effort to rid one's self of stain of any sort. In Christianity, the
man perhaps who's had the greatest influence in this insistence is Saint Augustine. You may
recognize this at once. For coming as he did out of another system of thought, having the
experience that that's a thing that had tormented him all of his days, that had been responsible for
so much of his private and personal agony, was the battle which he had with his own body. That
the flesh, all of that sense experience, which for him not only a sense experiences but a sensual
experiences, that these were things which stood between him and actualizing the presence that
was in him.
And he felt that in so doing he was following the experience of Saint Paul, who in the seventh
chapter or Romans talks about the flesh and how wretched he was. And how the dichotomy
between the flesh and the spirit was so great that the flesh represented that which, in essence,
was a betrayal of the spirit. So this dualism, this conflict, turns up in particularly in Christianity
in the most extraordinary way.
But back of it, and the thing that I am insisting upon at this preliminary stage, is that detachment
becomes an important vehicle for ridding one's self of the things that divide, that separate, that
keep the individual from being constantly and fundamentally aware of the presence of God, or if
you want to say ground, in himself. And to betray that means that one turns his back on that
which is in him, the presence of the creator.
Now, how sound this is, is another question. I don't know what your reaction would be with it.
That the sense data, that the body, blocks the free-flowing.
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University of Redlands, Redlands, California
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1970s
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Thurman, Howard
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On Mysticism, Part 4 (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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<a href="http://pitts.emory.edu/">Pitts Theology Library, Emory University</a>
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GEOMETRYCOLLECTION(POINT(-13042600.321303 4037296.9410534))
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1973-02
Description
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This recording is the fourth 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. Drawing from Olive Schreiner, Elmer O'Brian, and his own encounters, Thurman reflects upon God's (or The Ultimate's) sovereign providence. Thurman communicates this idea via the designation of "God's giveness." He notes that it is in personal "spiritual exercises" that one has the potential to be opened to this innate nature of God.
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Description by Dustin Mailman
aestheticism
angel
creative encounter
ecology
Elmer O'Brian
failure
George Fox
giveness
Gospel of John
Holt Rinehart
inner light
interelatedness
Israel
Jacob
life
manifestations of life
Meister Eckhart
natural religion
Old Testament
Olive Schreiner
panentheism
pantheism
potential
presence
reading
roses
sacrament
Saint Paul
spiritual exercise
totality of experience
ultimate
unity
Varieties of Mystic Religion
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The purpose of the course is to acquaint you with the study of mysticism as an important aspect
of the philosophy and the psychology of religion, and with a decided emphasis on the meaning of
religious experience. It is to give you a general, and in some ways, perhaps even a specific
orientation to see the meaning and the significance of mystical experience, as found in religion.
I begin, then, with certain fundamental assumptions that are basic to our discussion. And the first
is that there is an essential continuity in life that one of the basic and uniform characteristics of
life, wherever you find it, is that it's alive. And the idea is so simple, that life is alive, that the
impact of it is rather confusing to the mind. For instance, you know that you are alive and the
person next to you may be alive. You know that your dog, your cat, all these things are alive.
But the essential fact that life itself is alive is more comprehensive than our minds are trained to
apprehend. Life is alive. And it is this basic aliveness of life that establishes the ground for all of
the particular manifestations of life so that any thought about the continuity of life has to take
into account the basic assumption that life itself is alive.
Now, the corollary that follows from that is that every form of life is separated from every other
form of life, primarily, and I think, exclusively, by the context in which that form is manifest.
And if I can get behind the particular context, then I come up on the same reality. The thing,
then, that separates one form of life from the other is not indigenous. It is more apparent than
real. It is the form that that life takes, the context by which that life is defined.
Many years ago, a man living in this part of the state wrote a book which he called Kinship with
All Life. And in that book, he discusses the bearing of this whole idea on man's experience of
other forms of life. The setting for the book was rather interesting. You may remember hearing
your parents, perhaps, talk about a famous movie dog whose name was Strongheart. He's the
predecessor of all of the other long chain of moneymakers-- Rin Tin Tin, and Lassie, and that
whole group of fabulous creatures.
The owner and the trainer of Strongheart had to go to New York on business. And they asked
this man if he would keep the dog for two weeks while they were away. They gave him three or
four pages of typewritten material for how to care for this fabulous creature. Among them were
certain instructions about reading poetry to the dog a half hour each day to give him a sense of
belonging.
When they arrived at the home, [? Greatheart ?] jumped out of the car, ran ahead of Mr. Boone,
took his teeth, opened the front door, went all through the house opening the doors and sniffing
in the closets. And then he came back and rubbed his nose on Mr. Boone's hand to let him know
that everything was safe.
Then the first evening, the time came to go to bed. There was only one bed in this home, a big
Hollywood studio bed. And when Mr. Boone was ready for bed, he said to [? Greatheart, ?] there
aren't any instructions given about your sleeping habits. But this is where I'm going to sleep, I've
never slept with a dog, but if this is the order of the day, so be it. I'm going to bed.
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So he went to bed. And [? Greatheart ?] jumped up on the bed, turned around two or three times,
and stretched, and was off to the races. And then occasionally, his tail would do this, because his
tail was located in the direction of Mr. Boone's head and his head was down near his feet. And
every time he did this, it was a source of irritation. And Mr. Boone finally couldn't stand it.
[INAUDIBLE] he got up and said, now, let's get organized. If you're going to sleep with me, put
your head where my head is and your tail where my feet are.
Thereupon, [? Greatheart ?] went to the French door opened out into the yard, took his teeth,
opened it, and jumped out into the yard, jumped back into the room, closed the doors, and
jumped back up on the bed with his head pointing in the one corner of the spot of the room.
Little by little, he and [? Greatheart ?] began to work out some basic understanding and kinship,
really.
And it came to a climax one day when Mr. Boone was typing, and he decided that the day was so
beautiful that he would go down to the beach and take a run and a swim. He reached down to
pick up the top of the cover for his typewriter. And as he did so, [? Greatheart ?] came rushing in
from out in the yard, he went to the closet and got his old sweatshirt, and went to another place
and that his old shoes, and put them at his feet, and they were off.
Every afternoon around 4:00 o'clock, he discovered that the dog disappeared to a lower part of
the property. And he followed him one day to discover that he was seated on a knoll facing the
sun as it is going down. And apparently, it was lost in thought. Mr. Boone joined him, and little
by little, a sense of communion began to emerge between him and the dog. And as a result of
that experience, he came upon the awareness that the thing ultimately that separated him from [?
Greatheart ?] was not the essential life that was in both of them, but the context by which the life
was defined.
So that one of the basic assumptions fundamental to any understanding of the philosophy of
mysticism is that there is an essential and basic continuity in life. And the corollary that follows
from that sense of continuity is an awareness of the oneness of life. Some years ago, I spent a
weekend with about 75 or 80 Sioux Indians and Saskatchewan.
One of the reasons why I was there, the Canadian government had changed its philosophy or its
attitudes toward the Indians, and permitted them to leave their reserves, and to live as citizens in
the communities. They found, of course, that it was rather difficult to get a place to live for
obvious reasons. When they applied for jobs, they found that even though the job had been
advertised, when they got there, the job was taken. And they could not talk about this with each
other because there were no words in the Sioux language for such things as discrimination or
prejudice.
So that I was invited to come up and be their guests, just to live, and talk, and share. Even though
they were not English-speaking, I guess the average vocabulary was maybe 25 or 30 words. Two
basic English words were OK and one other I've forgotten. My first night there, since I had never
seen the Sioux Indian, and they hadn't ever seen me or anybody like me. So I wanted to see if I
could find this continuity, this oneness.
So I invited three of them to come down to my room to talk. And I said, if you'll answer one
question for me, then this may unlock the door that separates us. Are you Indians and then
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Canadians, or you Canadians and then Indians? And the interpreter was the first to speak. He
said, I am an Indian and then a Canadian.
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I believe that it's very important for me to ground myself in the idioms, and the traditions, and all
of the things that have kept alive the integrity of the Sioux nation through all the years. And I
teach my children this so that through ceremonials and so forth, they have a sense of
participating in the collective life of the group.
When I go to a Canadian's home, I have only one question to ask him. Do you function in your
life out of a sense of your own center? If he says yes, then out of my center, I can relate to his
center, and we become one. If he says no, then there is no way by which I can transcend the
context that separates.
And then he asked the second man the same question. And there was a dialogue going on
between them in Sioux. And it lasted for 10 minutes, and I became more, and more, and more
unnerved by it, because I didn't know what on earth was going on. And finally, in desperation, I
said to the interpreter, tell me what's going on. And he said, calling this fellow by name, he's a
fool because he says he doesn't understand what you mean by the question.
He lives up on the rim of the Arctic Circle. And he says that he's a part of the wind, and the
snow, and the ice, and water, and the part of the sun, and the streams, and the blossom, and
summer. They flow into him, he flows into them. He doesn't understand what you mean by either
Indian or Canadian.
The idea being that there is a ground of life in which there is rooted the oneness and the
continuity, and that the thing that separates one form of life from the other is not the form, but
that life, because life is one, then the ground of all of life is not merely identical, not merely the
same, but is one thing. In Ardrey's African Genesis, there's a very interesting statement of this
from another angle. Let me read it to you.
Never to be forgotten, to be neglected, to be derided is the inconspicuous figure in the quiet back
room of civilization. He sits with head bent, silent, waiting, listening to the commotion in the
streets. He is the keeper of the kinds. Who is he, we do not know, nor shall we ever know. He is
a presence, and that is all.
But his presence is evident in the last reaches of infinite space beyond man's probing eye. His
presence is guessable in the last reaches of infinite smallness, beyond the magnification of
electron or microscope. He is present in all living beings and in all the inanimate matter. His
presence is asserted in all things that ever were and in all things that will ever be.
And as his command is unanswerable, his identity is unknowable, but his most ancient concern is
with order. You may sense his presence in a star-scattered sky, as silenced, you stand on a lonely
hill. There above you floats in tightly-packed grandeur the Milky Way, your galaxy, your
celestial home. And there beyond, Andromeda's faint indication floats your nearest brother in
space. 26 quintillion miles away revolves your galaxy's twin in all manner of description and
behavior.
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You may sense his presence in the kind of matter called helium that has always and will forever
behave according to the rules and regulations of helium. You may sense his word and the second
law of thermodynamics or the pattern of behavior of brook trout in a clear New Zealand pool.
You may find his word in the forms of cities, and symphonies, of Rembrandts and fir trees, and
cumulus clouds.
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You may read his command in the regularity of turning things, and stars, and seasons, in tides,
and in striking clocks. Where bursts the green of the apple orchard, all of a springtime day, there
passes his presence. And here, too, he passes. In the windy, fluttering of scarlet leaves and the
call of the harvesters. Where a child is born or a man lies dead. Where life must go on, though
tragedy deny it. Where a farmer replants fields, again despoiled by flood or drought.
Where man rebuild the cities that other men destroy. Where tides must ebb as tides have flowed.
There, you see his footprints, there, and there. He does not care about you, or about me, or about
man, for that matter. He cares only for order. But whatever he says, we shall do. He is rising now
in civilization's quiet back room. And he is looking out of the window. And then another way
that this is put-- Let me find it. I had it somewhere. Ah, here it is.
In one of Robinson Jeffer's poems, an old man with a double [INAUDIBLE] axe is caretaker at
the [INAUDIBLE] place. The cattle, except a few wild horns, died in that fire. The horses graze
high up the dark hill. Nobody ever comes to the infamous house. The pain, the heat, and the love
have left no ghost. Old men and gray hawks need solitude. Here it is deep and wide.
Winter and summer, the old man says, rain and the drought. Peace creeps out of war, war out of
peace. The stars rise and they set. The clouds go north, and again they go south. Why does God
hunt in circles? Has he lost something? Is it possible Himself? In the darkness between the stars,
did he lose Himself, and become Godless, and now seeks Himself? Does God exist? No doubt of
that, the old man says. The cells of my old camel of a body, because they feed each other and are
fitted together through nerves and blood, feel each other. All the little animals are the one man.
There is not an atom in all the universes but feels every other atom.
Gravitation, electromagnetism, light heat, and the other flamings, the nerves in the night's black
flesh, flow them together. The stars, the winds, and the people. One energy, one existence, one
music, one organism, one life, one God. Star fire and rock strength, the sea's cold flow, and
man's dark soul. Not a tribal nor an [INAUDIBLE]. Not a ridiculous projection of human fears,
and needs, dreams, justice, and love [? lust. ?]
A conscious God? The question has no importance. But I am conscious. Where else did this
consciousness come from? Nobody that I know of ever poured grain from an empty sack. And
who, I would say, but God, and a conscious one. And did the chief war makers with their war so
humorously, such accurate timing, and such appropriate ends.
Now, because life in this sense is one, then self consciousness creates a very threatening paradox
for personality. Because when I become conscious of myself, when I become self-aware, it
means that now I stand over against all the continuity, as if I were a separate and distinct entity.
So that self consciousness and the presence thereby of mind opens up a whole whisper of
excitement for the imagination. For it is quite conceivable to me that once upon a time, the mind
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as mind-- and each word is crucial-- that the mind as mind had no separate awareness. In a sense,
it was body-bound.
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And perhaps in the evolution of our species, we may find a clue, because alone among all of the
many forms of life at the dawn of our awareness, we had, our forebears had the least protection,
the minimal protection against the other creatures in the environment, so that all of the energy
had to be spent and to be exhausted in staying alive, and in survival.
And if you let your imagination play with it a little, suppose that all the creatures, all of our
forebears were comfortably located in their various trees in which they had established squatters'
rights, one day, one father decided that for his boy's birthday, he would give him a certain kind
of dinosaur egg that could only be found at the end of a long, rather wide [INAUDIBLE].
So early in the morning, he goes hunting for this precious egg and he finds it. And the journey is
rather long. He's a little tired. So he stops to rest, to take a mid afternoon siesta under the shadow
of a rock. And he was comfortably settled. To his amazement, the rock began to move because it
is a species with which he was not acquainted. And there followed a rather chase across the
prairie.
And he noticed something that he hadn't ever seen before as we was running, an opening on the
side of a hill. And he'd been by there 1,000 times, but he hadn't seen it before because necessity
had not [INAUDIBLE]. So he darted in there to save his life, and the creature waited outside, but
he couldn't get in. The hole was too small. He looked around. He said, this is fine.
[INAUDIBLE] a room here.
So when night came and the creature had gone about his business, he brought his family down to
live in this thing. And then the word went from tree top to tree top. You don't have to live in trees
anymore. You can find a hole in the hill. Now, once he was there and the cave with the ceiling
closed-- how many thousand years it took to develop the skill of [INAUDIBLE] something, we
do not know. But when he was able to seal the opening to the cave, then all of the energy that he
had used in order to survive now became surplus.
And I think that it is not merely an apocryphal account, but I think in essence, it points to the fact
that mind could not emerge in man as mind, as separate from the organism until there was
enough energy available for imagination to be possible, projection, all these things.
But the habitat of the mind remained in the body. And we are just at the beginning of some
understanding of the far-reaching significance of this notion in terms of physical health, bodily
health. The relationship between what goes on in the mind viewed as self consciousness, and
therefore viewed as something separate from the body, something detached from the body,
really.
And yet, it is so essentially a part of the body that what happens in this new awareness,
[INAUDIBLE] the dawn of the mind, is registered in the organism, which is its home. And so
that when we become profoundly moved, for instance, one of the first things that happens is we
become inarticulate. The mind drops back into a continuum of the organism.
5
�Pitts Theology Library
The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
Now, the story of the emergence of self consciousness, it makes the individual feel himself to be
over against all other expressions of life, is a very perilous sort of development. We see it in
children, for instance. One of the most revolutionary moments in the life of a little baby, I think,
is when he's given a-- What is it we give babies? A bottle. When a baby is given a bottle and he
begins to sense that his mother is no longer part of him, the peculiar sense of isolation, that the
awareness of a separate entity creates, I think, we are just now beginning to understand.
And then a little later on, when the baby has begun to crawl around, and one day when he's
crawling, as a result of forces that, of course he does not understand, and perhaps no one really
understands, something deep within him that is coordinated with his whole bodily organism, or
his whole organism and bodily function, urges him to reverse his posture, and he tries to stand up
to affirm his sense of independence, of self awareness. [INAUDIBLE] everything else.
And he finds that the universe has been very kind to him, because just in front of him as he is
trying to stand up right, he sees something hanging down that was put there by a kinder universe
to support him in his crisis. And he seizes it and draws himself up with it, and then the whole
thing moves. Then there's a crash. And then he can understand what is the parental attitude
because of something that has happened outside his whole intent and purpose.
But he has sniffed self awareness now. And one day, he staggers up on his two feet, suspended
between the ceiling and the floor with his little feet touching, and his whole organism cries out, I
did it. I'm independent. And then the floor rises up to meet him. [INAUDIBLE]
This sense of self that is rooted in self conscious puts the individual over against all the
continuities that we are talking about. And of course, I suppose there are some people who spend
a lifetime without ever quite making the step. There's a psychiatrist at Columbia who's written a
book on the development of the self. Can't think of his name.
But at any rate, he talks about a mother, and a daughter, and a little boy who went into a
restaurant to get lunch. And the waitress came, and she gave the-- she took the mother's order,
and the daughter's order, and then she said to the boy, young man, what will you have? And the
mother said, well, I'll order for him.
But the waitress was very perceptive and insisted. And she had asked him again, what will you
have? And the daughter said, well, if mother were not here and we were together, I would order
for him. So I'll tell you what we wants. But the waitress insisted. And finally, in a sort of muted
whisper, he said, a hamburger. And she said, with mustard, and relish, and pickles, onions, the
works? And then he whispered after her, mustard, onions, pickles, the works.
So she went back. She gave the mother's order, and then she gave the daughter's order, and with
full voice, she said, one hamburger, the works. And now the little boy, in utter amazement,
turned to his mother and said, mother, she thinks I'm real.
The journey is a long one to establish a sense of one's own awareness as over against not only the
external environment, people, objects, but also as over against the ground, the unity, the
continuity, the oneness of life. And I think that one of the other forms that this takes is that there
is something in the human spirit that cannot abide isolation.
6
�Pitts Theology Library
The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
Getting at this from another angle. We cannot contain ourselves quietly when we have a sense of
being cut off, of being isolated, because it tends to undermine the deep awareness, perhaps
unconscious awareness, I'm not sure about this, of the ground out of which we come and of
which we are a part.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
So when we are threatened with isolation, we do all sorts of things. Even with people who are
mentally disturbed, for instance, when they retreat more and more from the external world, from
a certain kind of reality, and they have a sense of being in utter isolation. Very often, the psyche
does an extraordinary thing, a kind of spasm towards therapy.
The psyche peoples the mind of the disturbed person with voices so that the isolation is not utter,
the isolation is not complete. There is a deep necessity for a sense of being a part of the whole.
And self consciousness breaks this, tends to threaten it, so that then the mind has to re-establish a
way by which a sense of [AUDIO OUT]
7
�
AudioWithTranscription
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<iframe width="100%" height="820" frameborder="0" src="/files/players/394-094_A.html" ></iframe>
Location
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University of Redlands, Redlands, California
Internal Notes
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Greatheart (Thurman might've meant Strongheart); double-bit axe; Gore Place; anthropoid God; love lust; wide prairie; necessity had not prodded him; which I'm calling subconscious, it's - GL 5/20/19
Time Period
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1970s
Dublin Core
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394-094_A
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Thurman, Howard
Title
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On Mysticism, Part 1 (University of Redlands Course), 1973
Source
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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 first 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. Thurman's emphasis in this recording is the centrality of one's identity, and conception of self in relation to the world and creation. He does this by drawing upon stories of and experience he has with a Sioux tribe in Canada, and his interpretation of a Robinson Jeffers poem. The recording concludes with a stream of consciousness waxing from Thurman, illustrating his understanding of becoming "self-conscious," and the potential dangers that come when one relies primarily on the self rather than the communal body.
Contributor
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Description by Dustin Mailman
African Genesis
Andromeda
Arctic Circle
Canada
center
community
consciousness
context
continuity
creativity
ecology
embodiment
essential fact
evolution
Gore Place
identity
imagination
interconnectivity
Isolation
J Allen Boone
Kinship With All Life
mental illness
mysticism
New York
oneness
order
organism
panentheism
presence
reality
religious experience
Robert Ardrey
Robinson Jeffers
Saskatchewan
scientific theory
Sioux Indians
Strongheart