Rodan of Alexandria

160:1.1Early Mon­day morn­ing, Ro­dan be­gan a se­ries of ten ad­dresses to Na­than­iel, Thomas, and a group of some two dozen be­liev­ers who chanced to be at Ma­g­a­dan. These talks, con­densed, com­bined, and re­stated in mod­ern phrase­ol­ogy, pre­sent the fol­low­ing thoughts for con­sid­er­a­tion:

160:1.2Hu­man life con­sists in three great drives—urges, de­sires, and lures. Strong char­ac­ter, com­mand­ing per­son­al­ity, is only ac­quired by con­vert­ing the nat­u­ral urge of life into the so­cial art of liv­ing, by trans­form­ing pres­ent de­sires into those higher long­ings which are ca­pa­ble of last­ing at­tain­ment, while the com­mon­place lure of ex­is­tence must be trans­ferred from one’s con­ven­tional and es­tab­lished ideas to the higher realms of un­ex­plored ideas and undis­cov­ered ide­als.

160:1.3The more com­plex civ­i­liza­tion be­comes, the more dif­fi­cult will be­come the art of liv­ing. The more rapid the changes in so­cial us­age, the more com­pli­cated will be­come the task of char­ac­ter de­vel­op­ment. Ev­ery ten gen­er­a­tions man­kind must learn anew the art of liv­ing if prog­ress is to con­tinue. And if man be­comes so in­ge­nious that he more rapidly adds to the com­plex­i­ties of so­ci­ety, the art of liv­ing will need to be re­mas­tered in less time, per­haps ev­ery sin­gle gen­er­a­tion. If the evo­lu­tion of the art of liv­ing fails to keep pace with the tech­nique of ex­is­tence, hu­man­ity will quickly re­vert to the sim­ple urge of liv­ing—the at­tain­ment of the sat­is­fac­tion of pres­ent de­sires. Thus will hu­man­ity re­main im­ma­ture; so­ci­ety will fail in grow­ing up to full ma­tu­rity.

160:1.4So­cial ma­tu­rity is equiv­a­lent to the de­gree to which man is will­ing to sur­ren­der the grat­i­fi­ca­tion of mere tran­sient and pres­ent de­sires for the en­ter­tain­ment of those su­pe­rior long­ings the striv­ing for whose at­tain­ment af­fords the more abun­dant sat­is­fac­tions of pro­gres­sive ad­vance­ment to­ward per­ma­nent goals. But the true badge of so­cial ma­tu­rity is the will­ing­ness of a peo­ple to sur­ren­der the right to live peace­ably and con­tent­edly un­der the ease-pro­mot­ing stan­dards of the lure of es­tab­lished be­liefs and con­ven­tional ideas for the dis­qui­et­ing and en­ergy-re­quir­ing lure of the pur­suit of the un­ex­plored pos­si­bil­i­ties of the at­tain­ment of undis­cov­ered goals of ide­al­is­tic spir­i­tual re­al­i­ties.

160:1.5An­i­mals re­spond nobly to the urge of life, but only man can at­tain the art of liv­ing, al­beit the ma­jor­ity of man­kind only ex­pe­ri­ence the an­i­mal urge to live. An­i­mals know only this blind and in­stinc­tive urge; man is ca­pa­ble of tran­scend­ing this urge to nat­u­ral func­tion. Man may elect to live upon the high plane of in­tel­li­gent art, even that of ce­les­tial joy and spir­i­tual ec­stasy. An­i­mals make no in­quiry into the pur­poses of life; there­fore they never worry, nei­ther do they com­mit sui­cide. Sui­cide among men tes­ti­fies that such be­ings have emerged from the purely an­i­mal stage of ex­is­tence, and to the fur­ther fact that the ex­ploratory ef­forts of such hu­man be­ings have failed to at­tain the artis­tic lev­els of mor­tal ex­pe­ri­ence. An­i­mals know not the mean­ing of life; man not only pos­sesses ca­pac­ity for the rec­og­ni­tion of val­ues and the com­pre­hen­sion of mean­ings, but he also is con­scious of the mean­ing of mean­ings—he is self-con­scious of in­sight.

160:1.6When men dare to for­sake a life of nat­u­ral crav­ing for one of ad­ven­tur­ous art and un­cer­tain logic, they must ex­pect to suf­fer the con­se­quent haz­ards of emo­tional ca­su­al­ties—con­flicts, un­hap­pi­ness, and un­cer­tain­ties—at least un­til the time of their at­tain­ment of some de­gree of in­tel­lec­tual and emo­tional ma­tu­rity. Dis­cour­age­ment, worry, and in­do­lence are pos­i­tive ev­i­dence of moral im­ma­tu­rity. Hu­man so­ci­ety is con­fronted with two prob­lems: at­tain­ment of the ma­tu­rity of the in­di­vid­ual and at­tain­ment of the ma­tu­rity of the race. The ma­ture hu­man be­ing soon be­gins to look upon all other mor­tals with feel­ings of ten­der­ness and with emo­tions of tol­er­ance. Ma­ture men view im­ma­ture folks with the love and con­sid­er­a­tion that par­ents bear their chil­dren.

160:1.7Suc­cess­ful liv­ing is noth­ing more or less than the art of the mas­tery of de­pend­able tech­niques for solv­ing com­mon prob­lems. The first step in the so­lu­tion of any prob­lem is to lo­cate the dif­fi­culty, to iso­late the prob­lem, and frankly to rec­og­nize its na­ture and grav­ity. The great mis­take is that, when life prob­lems ex­cite our pro­found fears, we refuse to rec­og­nize them. Like­wise, when the ac­knowl­edg­ment of our dif­fi­cul­ties en­tails the re­duc­tion of our long-cher­ished con­ceit, the ad­mis­sion of envy, or the aban­don­ment of deep-seated prej­u­dices, the av­er­age per­son prefers to cling to the old il­lu­sions of safety and to the long-cher­ished false feel­ings of se­cu­rity. Only a brave per­son is will­ing hon­estly to ad­mit, and fear­lessly to face, what a sin­cere and log­i­cal mind dis­cov­ers.

160:1.8The wise and ef­fec­tive so­lu­tion of any prob­lem de­mands that the mind shall be free from bias, pas­sion, and all other purely per­sonal prej­u­dices which might in­ter­fere with the dis­in­ter­ested sur­vey of the ac­tual fac­tors that go to make up the prob­lem pre­sent­ing it­self for so­lu­tion. The so­lu­tion of life prob­lems re­quires cour­age and sin­cer­ity. Only hon­est and brave in­di­vid­u­als are able to fol­low valiantly through the per­plex­ing and con­fus­ing maze of liv­ing to where the logic of a fear­less mind may lead. And this eman­ci­pa­tion of the mind and soul can never be ef­fected with­out the driv­ing power of an in­tel­li­gent en­thu­si­asm which bor­ders on re­li­gious zeal. It re­quires the lure of a great ideal to drive man on in the pur­suit of a goal which is be­set with dif­fi­cult ma­te­rial prob­lems and man­i­fold in­tel­lec­tual haz­ards.

160:1.9Even though you are ef­fec­tively armed to meet the dif­fi­cult sit­u­a­tions of life, you can hardly ex­pect suc­cess un­less you are equipped with that wis­dom of mind and charm of per­son­al­ity which en­able you to win the hearty sup­port and co-op­er­a­tion of your fel­lows. You can­not hope for a large mea­sure of suc­cess in ei­ther sec­u­lar or re­li­gious work un­less you can learn how to per­suade your fel­lows, to pre­vail with men. You sim­ply must have tact and tol­er­ance.

160:1.10But the great­est of all meth­ods of prob­lem solv­ing I have learned from Je­sus, your Mas­ter. I re­fer to that which he so con­sis­tently prac­tices, and which he has so faith­fully taught you, the iso­la­tion of wor­ship­ful med­i­ta­tion. In this habit of Je­sus’ go­ing off so fre­quently by him­self to com­mune with the Fa­ther in heaven is to be found the tech­nique, not only of gath­er­ing strength and wis­dom for the or­di­nary con­flicts of liv­ing, but also of ap­pro­pri­at­ing the en­ergy for the so­lu­tion of the higher prob­lems of a moral and spir­i­tual na­ture. But even cor­rect meth­ods of solv­ing prob­lems will not com­pen­sate for in­her­ent de­fects of per­son­al­ity or atone for the ab­sence of the hunger and thirst for true righ­teous­ness.

160:1.11I am deeply im­pressed with the cus­tom of Je­sus in go­ing apart by him­self to en­gage in these sea­sons of soli­tary sur­vey of the prob­lems of liv­ing; to seek for new stores of wis­dom and en­ergy for meet­ing the man­i­fold de­mands of so­cial ser­vice; to quicken and deepen the su­preme pur­pose of liv­ing by ac­tu­ally sub­ject­ing the to­tal per­son­al­ity to the con­scious­ness of con­tact­ing with di­vin­ity; to grasp for pos­ses­sion of new and bet­ter meth­ods of ad­just­ing one­self to the ever-chang­ing sit­u­a­tions of liv­ing ex­is­tence; to ef­fect those vi­tal re­con­struc­tions and read­just­ments of one’s per­sonal at­ti­tudes which are so es­sen­tial to en­hanced in­sight into ev­ery­thing worth while and real; and to do all of this with an eye sin­gle to the glory of God—to breathe in sin­cer­ity your Mas­ter’s fa­vorite prayer, “Not my will, but yours, be done.”

160:1.12This wor­ship­ful prac­tice of your Mas­ter brings that re­lax­ation which re­news the mind; that il­lu­mi­na­tion which in­spires the soul; that cour­age which en­ables one bravely to face one’s prob­lems; that self-un­der­stand­ing which oblit­er­ates de­bil­i­tat­ing fear; and that con­scious­ness of union with di­vin­ity which equips man with the as­sur­ance that en­ables him to dare to be God­like. The re­lax­ation of wor­ship, or spir­i­tual com­mu­nion as prac­ticed by the Mas­ter, re­lieves ten­sion, re­moves con­flicts, and might­ily aug­ments the to­tal re­sources of the per­son­al­ity. And all this phi­los­o­phy, plus the gospel of the king­dom, con­sti­tutes the new re­li­gion as I un­der­stand it.

160:1.13Prej­u­dice blinds the soul to the rec­og­ni­tion of truth, and prej­u­dice can be re­moved only by the sin­cere de­vo­tion of the soul to the ado­ra­tion of a cause that is all-em­brac­ing and all-in­clu­sive of one’s fel­low men. Prej­u­dice is in­sep­a­ra­bly linked to self­ish­ness. Prej­u­dice can be elim­i­nated only by the aban­don­ment of self-seek­ing and by sub­sti­tut­ing there­for the quest of the sat­is­fac­tion of the ser­vice of a cause that is not only greater than self, but one that is even greater than all hu­man­ity—the search for God, the at­tain­ment of di­vin­ity. The ev­i­dence of ma­tu­rity of per­son­al­ity con­sists in the trans­for­ma­tion of hu­man de­sire so that it con­stantly seeks for the re­al­iza­tion of those val­ues which are high­est and most di­vinely real.

160:1.14In a con­tin­u­ally chang­ing world, in the midst of an evolv­ing so­cial or­der, it is im­pos­si­ble to main­tain set­tled and es­tab­lished goals of des­tiny. Sta­bil­ity of per­son­al­ity can be ex­pe­ri­enced only by those who have dis­cov­ered and em­braced the liv­ing God as the eter­nal goal of in­fi­nite at­tain­ment. And thus to trans­fer one’s goal from time to eter­nity, from earth to Par­a­dise, from the hu­man to the di­vine, re­quires that man shall be­come re­gen­er­ated, con­verted, be born again; that he shall be­come the re-cre­ated child of the di­vine spirit; that he shall gain en­trance into the broth­er­hood of the king­dom of heaven. All philoso­phies and re­li­gions which fall short of these ide­als are im­ma­ture. The phi­los­o­phy which I teach, linked with the gospel which you preach, rep­re­sents the new re­li­gion of ma­tu­rity, the ideal of all fu­ture gen­er­a­tions. And this is true be­cause our ideal is fi­nal, in­fal­li­ble, eter­nal, uni­ver­sal, ab­so­lute, and in­fi­nite.

160:1.15My phi­los­o­phy gave me the urge to search for the re­al­i­ties of true at­tain­ment, the goal of ma­tu­rity. But my urge was im­po­tent; my search lacked driv­ing power; my quest suf­fered from the ab­sence of cer­tainty of di­rec­tion­iza­tion. And these de­fi­cien­cies have been abun­dantly sup­plied by this new gospel of Je­sus, with its en­hance­ment of in­sights, el­e­va­tion of ide­als, and set­tled­ness of goals. With­out doubts and mis­giv­ings I can now whole­heart­edly en­ter upon the eter­nal ven­ture.