immaturity

160:3.3An­other re­quire­ment for the at­tain­ment of ma­tu­rity is the co-op­er­a­tive ad­just­ment of so­cial groups to an ever-chang­ing en­vi­ron­ment. The im­ma­ture in­di­vid­ual arouses the an­tag­o­nisms of his fel­lows; the ma­ture man wins the hearty co-op­er­a­tion of his as­so­ciates, thereby many times mul­ti­ply­ing the fruits of his life ef­forts.

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.

118:1.8The time unit of im­ma­tu­rity con­cen­trates mean­ing-value into the pres­ent mo­ment in such a way as to di­vorce the pres­ent of its true re­la­tion­ship to the not-pres­ent—the past-fu­ture. The time unit of ma­tu­rity is pro­por­tioned so to re­veal the co-or­di­nate re­la­tion­ship of past-pres­ent-fu­ture that the self be­gins to gain in­sight into the whole­ness of events, be­gins to view the land­scape of time from the panoramic per­spec­tive of broad­ened hori­zons, be­gins per­haps to sus­pect the non­be­gin­ning, non­end­ing eter­nal con­tin­uum, the frag­ments of which are called time.

2:2.6God is eter­nally and in­finitely per­fect, he can­not per­son­ally know im­per­fec­tion as his own ex­pe­ri­ence, but he does share the con­scious­ness of all the ex­pe­ri­ence of im­per­fect­ness of all the strug­gling crea­tures of the evo­lu­tion­ary uni­verses of all the Par­a­dise Cre­ator Sons. The per­sonal and lib­er­at­ing touch of the God of per­fec­tion over­shad­ows the hearts and en­cir­cuits the na­tures of all those mor­tal crea­tures who have as­cended to the uni­verse level of moral dis­cern­ment. In this man­ner, as well as through the con­tacts of the di­vine pres­ence, the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther ac­tu­ally par­tic­i­pates in the ex­pe­ri­ence with im­ma­tu­rity and im­per­fec­tion in the evolv­ing ca­reer of ev­ery moral be­ing of the en­tire uni­verse.

3:5.15Through­out the uni­verse, ev­ery unit is re­garded as a part of the whole. Sur­vival of the part is de­pen­dent on co-op­er­a­tion with the plan and pur­pose of the whole, the whole­hearted de­sire and per­fect will­ing­ness to do the Fa­ther’s di­vine will. The only evo­lu­tion­ary world with­out er­ror (the pos­si­bil­ity of un­wise judg­ment) would be a world with­out free in­tel­li­gence. In the Ha­vona uni­verse there are a bil­lion per­fect worlds with their per­fect in­hab­i­tants, but evolv­ing man must be fal­li­ble if he is to be free. Free and in­ex­pe­ri­enced in­tel­li­gence can­not pos­si­bly at first be uni­formly wise. The pos­si­bil­ity of mis­taken judg­ment (evil) be­comes sin only when the hu­man will con­sciously en­dorses and know­ingly em­braces a de­lib­er­ate im­moral judg­ment.

156:5.18As you grow older in years and more ex­pe­ri­enced in the af­fairs of the king­dom, are you be­com­ing more tact­ful in deal­ing with trou­ble­some mor­tals and more tol­er­ant in liv­ing with stub­born as­so­ciates? Tact is the ful­crum of so­cial lever­age, and tol­er­ance is the ear­mark of a great soul. If you pos­sess these rare and charm­ing gifts, as the days pass you will be­come more alert and ex­pert in your wor­thy ef­forts to avoid all un­nec­es­sary so­cial mis­un­der­stand­ings. Such wise souls are able to avoid much of the trou­ble which is cer­tain to be the por­tion of all who suf­fer from lack of emo­tional ad­just­ment, those who refuse to grow up, and those who refuse to grow old grace­fully.

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.

166:3.4“But herein is the dan­ger to all who would post­pone their en­trance into the king­dom while they con­tinue to pur­sue the plea­sures of im­ma­tu­rity and in­dulge the sat­is­fac­tions of self­ish­ness: Hav­ing re­fused to en­ter the king­dom as a spir­i­tual ex­pe­ri­ence, they may sub­se­quently seek en­trance thereto when the glory of the bet­ter way be­comes re­vealed in the age to come. And when, there­fore, those who spurned the king­dom when I came in the like­ness of hu­man­ity seek to find an en­trance when it is re­vealed in the like­ness of di­vin­ity, then will I say to all such self­ish ones: I know not whence you are. You had your chance to pre­pare for this heav­enly cit­i­zen­ship, but you re­fused all such prof­fers of mercy; you re­jected all in­vi­ta­tions to come while the door was open. Now, to you who have re­fused sal­va­tion, the door is shut. This door is not open to those who would en­ter the king­dom for self­ish glory. Sal­va­tion is not for those who are un­will­ing to pay the price of whole­hearted ded­i­ca­tion to do­ing my Fa­ther’s will. When in spirit and soul you have turned your backs upon the Fa­ther’s king­dom, it is use­less in mind and body to stand be­fore this door and knock, say­ing, ‘Lord, open to us; we would also be great in the king­dom.’ Then will I de­clare that you are not of my fold. I will not re­ceive you to be among those who have fought the good fight of faith and won the re­ward of un­selfish ser­vice in the king­dom on earth. And when you say, ‘Did we not eat and drink with you, and did you not teach in our streets?’ then shall I again de­clare that you are spir­i­tual strangers; that we were not fel­low ser­vants in the Fa­ther’s min­istry of mercy on earth; that I do not know you; and then shall the Judge of all the earth say to you: ‘De­part from us, all you who have taken de­light in the works of in­iq­uity.’

174:1.5“Your in­abil­ity or un­will­ing­ness to for­give your fel­lows is the mea­sure of your im­ma­tu­rity, your fail­ure to at­tain adult sym­pa­thy, un­der­stand­ing, and love. You hold grudges and nurse venge­ful­ness in di­rect pro­por­tion to your ig­no­rance of the in­ner na­ture and true long­ings of your chil­dren and your fel­low be­ings. Love is the out­work­ing of the di­vine and in­ner urge of life. It is founded on un­der­stand­ing, nur­tured by un­selfish ser­vice, and per­fected in wis­dom.”