inner life

111:4.1Rec­og­ni­tion is the in­tel­lec­tual pro­cess of fit­ting the sen­sory im­pres­sions re­ceived from the ex­ter­nal world into the mem­ory pat­terns of the in­di­vid­ual. Un­der­stand­ing con­notes that these rec­og­nized sen­sory im­pres­sions and their as­so­ci­ated mem­ory pat­terns have be­come in­te­grated or or­ga­nized into a dy­namic net­work of prin­ci­ples.

111:4.2Mean­ings are de­rived from a com­bi­na­tion of rec­og­ni­tion and un­der­stand­ing. Mean­ings are nonex­is­tent in a wholly sen­sory or ma­te­rial world. Mean­ings and val­ues are only per­ceived in the in­ner or super­ma­te­rial spheres of hu­man ex­pe­ri­ence.

• alone is truly creative

111:4.3The ad­vances of true civ­i­liza­tion are all born in this in­ner world of man­kind. It is only the in­ner life that is truly cre­ative. Civ­i­liza­tion can hardly pro­gress when the ma­jor­ity of the youth of any gen­er­a­tion de­vote their in­ter­ests and en­er­gies to the ma­te­ri­al­is­tic pur­suits of the sen­sory or outer world.

111:4.4The in­ner and the outer worlds have a dif­fer­ent set of val­ues. Any civ­i­liza­tion is in jeop­ardy when three quar­ters of its youth en­ter ma­te­ri­al­is­tic pro­fes­sions and de­vote them­selves to the pur­suit of the sen­sory ac­tiv­i­ties of the outer world. Civ­i­liza­tion is in dan­ger when youth ne­glect to in­ter­est them­selves in ethics, so­ci­ol­ogy, eu­gen­ics, phi­los­o­phy, the fine arts, re­li­gion, and cos­mol­ogy.

111:4.5Only in the higher lev­els of the super­con­scious mind as it im­pinges upon the spirit realm of hu­man ex­pe­ri­ence can you find those higher con­cepts in as­so­ci­a­tion with ef­fec­tive mas­ter pat­terns which will con­tribute to the build­ing of a bet­ter and more en­dur­ing civ­i­liza­tion. Per­son­al­ity is in­her­ently cre­ative, but it thus func­tions only in the in­ner life of the in­di­vid­ual.

111:4.6Snow crys­tals are al­ways hexag­o­nal in form, but no two are ever alike. Chil­dren con­form to types, but no two are ex­actly alike, even in the case of twins. Per­son­al­ity fol­lows types but is al­ways unique.

111:4.7Hap­pi­ness and joy take ori­gin in the in­ner life. You can­not ex­pe­ri­ence real joy all by your­self. A soli­tary life is fa­tal to hap­pi­ness. Even fam­i­lies and na­tions will en­joy life more if they share it with oth­ers.

111:4.8You can­not com­pletely con­trol the ex­ter­nal world—en­vi­ron­ment. It is the cre­ativ­ity of the in­ner world that is most sub­ject to your di­rec­tion be­cause there your per­son­al­ity is so largely lib­er­ated from the fet­ters of the laws of an­te­ced­ent cau­sa­tion. There is as­so­ci­ated with per­son­al­ity a lim­ited sov­er­eignty of will.

111:4.9Since this in­ner life of man is truly cre­ative, there rests upon each per­son the re­spon­si­bil­ity of choos­ing as to whether this cre­ativ­ity shall be spon­ta­neous and wholly hap­haz­ard or con­trolled, di­rected, and con­struc­tive. How can a cre­ative imag­i­na­tion pro­duce wor­thy chil­dren when the stage whereon it func­tions is al­ready pre­oc­cu­pied by prej­u­dice, hate, fears, re­sent­ments, re­venge, and big­otries?

111:4.10Ideas may take ori­gin in the stim­uli of the outer world, but ide­als are born only in the cre­ative realms of the in­ner world. To­day the na­tions of the world are di­rected by men who have a super­abun­dance of ideas, but they are pov­erty-stricken in ide­als. That is the ex­pla­na­tion of pov­erty, di­vorce, war, and racial ha­treds.

111:4.11This is the prob­lem: If free­will man is en­dowed with the pow­ers of cre­ativ­ity in the in­ner man, then must we rec­og­nize that free­will cre­ativ­ity em­braces the po­ten­tial of free­will de­struc­tiv­ity. And when cre­ativ­ity is turned to de­struc­tiv­ity, you are face to face with the dev­as­ta­tion of evil and sin—op­pres­sion, war, and de­struc­tion. Evil is a par­tial­ity of cre­ativ­ity which tends to­ward dis­in­te­gra­tion and even­tual de­struc­tion. All con­flict is evil in that it in­hibits the cre­ative func­tion of the in­ner life—it is a species of civil war in the per­son­al­ity.

111:4.12In­ner cre­ativ­ity con­tributes to en­no­ble­ment of char­ac­ter through per­son­al­ity in­te­gra­tion and self­hood uni­fi­ca­tion. It is for­ever true: The past is un­change­able; only the fu­ture can be changed by the min­istry of the pres­ent cre­ativ­ity of the in­ner self.