Religion in Human Experience

100:1.1While re­li­gion pro­duces growth of mean­ings and en­hance­ment of val­ues, evil al­ways re­sults when purely per­sonal eval­u­a­tions are el­e­vated to the lev­els of ab­so­lutes. A child eval­u­ates ex­pe­ri­ence in ac­cor­dance with the con­tent of plea­sure; ma­tu­rity is pro­por­tional to the sub­sti­tu­tion of higher mean­ings for per­sonal plea­sure, even loy­al­ties to the high­est con­cepts of di­ver­si­fied life sit­u­a­tions and cos­mic re­la­tions.

100:1.2Some per­sons are too busy to grow and are there­fore in grave dan­ger of spir­i­tual fix­a­tion. Pro­vi­sion must be made for growth of mean­ings at dif­fer­ing ages, in suc­ces­sive cul­tures, and in the pass­ing stages of ad­vanc­ing civ­i­liza­tion. The chief in­hibitors of growth are prej­u­dice and ig­no­rance.

100:1.3Give ev­ery de­vel­op­ing child a chance to grow his own re­li­gious ex­pe­ri­ence; do not force a ready-made adult ex­pe­ri­ence upon him. Re­mem­ber, year-by-year prog­ress through an es­tab­lished ed­u­ca­tional regime does not nec­es­sar­ily mean in­tel­lec­tual prog­ress, much less spir­i­tual growth. En­large­ment of vo­cab­u­lary does not sig­nify de­vel­op­ment of char­ac­ter. Growth is not truly in­di­cated by mere prod­ucts but rather by prog­ress. Real ed­u­ca­tional growth is in­di­cated by en­hance­ment of ide­als, in­creased ap­pre­ci­a­tion of val­ues, new mean­ings of val­ues, and aug­mented loy­alty to su­preme val­ues.

100:1.4Chil­dren are per­ma­nently im­pressed only by the loy­al­ties of their adult as­so­ciates; pre­cept or even ex­am­ple is not last­ingly in­flu­en­tial. Loyal per­sons are grow­ing per­sons, and growth is an im­pres­sive and in­spir­ing re­al­ity. Live loy­ally to­day—grow—and to­mor­row will at­tend to it­self. The quick­est way for a tad­pole to be­come a frog is to live loy­ally each mo­ment as a tad­pole.

100:1.5The soil es­sen­tial for re­li­gious growth pre­sup­poses a pro­gres­sive life of self-re­al­iza­tion, the co-or­di­na­tion of nat­u­ral propen­si­ties, the ex­er­cise of cu­rios­ity and the en­joy­ment of rea­son­able ad­ven­ture, the ex­pe­ri­enc­ing of feel­ings of sat­is­fac­tion, the func­tion­ing of the fear stim­u­lus of at­ten­tion and aware­ness, the won­der-lure, and a nor­mal con­scious­ness of small­ness, hu­mil­ity. Growth is also pred­i­cated on the dis­cov­ery of self­hood ac­com­pa­nied by self-crit­i­cism—con­science, for con­science is re­ally the crit­i­cism of one­self by one’s own value-habits, per­sonal ide­als.

100:1.6Re­li­gious ex­pe­ri­ence is markedly in­flu­enced by phys­i­cal health, in­her­ited tem­per­a­ment, and so­cial en­vi­ron­ment. But these tem­po­ral con­di­tions do not in­hibit in­ner spir­i­tual prog­ress by a soul ded­i­cated to the do­ing of the will of the Fa­ther in heaven. There are pres­ent in all nor­mal mor­tals cer­tain in­nate drives to­ward growth and self-re­al­iza­tion which func­tion if they are not specif­i­cally in­hib­ited. The cer­tain tech­nique of fos­ter­ing this con­sti­tu­tive en­dow­ment of the po­ten­tial of spir­i­tual growth is to main­tain an at­ti­tude of whole­hearted de­vo­tion to su­preme val­ues.

100:1.7Re­li­gion can­not be be­stowed, re­ceived, loaned, learned, or lost. It is a per­sonal ex­pe­ri­ence which grows pro­por­tion­ally to the grow­ing quest for fi­nal val­ues. Cos­mic growth thus at­tends on the ac­cu­mu­la­tion of mean­ings and the ever-ex­pand­ing el­e­va­tion of val­ues. But no­bil­ity it­self is al­ways an un­con­scious growth.

100:1.8Re­li­gious habits of think­ing and act­ing are con­trib­u­tory to the econ­omy of spir­i­tual growth. One can de­velop re­li­gious pre­dis­po­si­tions to­ward fa­vor­able re­ac­tion to spir­i­tual stim­uli, a sort of con­di­tioned spir­i­tual re­flex. Habits which fa­vor re­li­gious growth em­brace cul­ti­vated sen­si­tiv­ity to di­vine val­ues, rec­og­ni­tion of re­li­gious liv­ing in oth­ers, re­flec­tive med­i­ta­tion on cos­mic mean­ings, wor­ship­ful prob­lem solv­ing, shar­ing one’s spir­i­tual life with one’s fel­lows, avoid­ance of self­ish­ness, re­fusal to pre­sume on di­vine mercy, liv­ing as in the pres­ence of God. The fac­tors of re­li­gious growth may be in­ten­tional, but the growth it­self is un­vary­ingly un­con­scious.

100:1.9The un­con­scious na­ture of re­li­gious growth does not, how­ever, sig­nify that it is an ac­tiv­ity func­tion­ing in the sup­posed sub­con­scious realms of hu­man in­tel­lect; rather does it sig­nify cre­ative ac­tiv­i­ties in the super­con­scious lev­els of mor­tal mind. The ex­pe­ri­ence of the re­al­iza­tion of the re­al­ity of un­con­scious re­li­gious growth is the one pos­i­tive proof of the func­tional ex­is­tence of the super­con­scious­ness.