problem solving

159:3.7Fore­warn all be­liev­ers re­gard­ing the fringe of con­flict which must be tra­versed by all who pass from the life as it is lived in the flesh to the higher life as it is lived in the spirit. To those who live quite wholly within ei­ther realm, there is lit­tle con­flict or con­fu­sion, but all are doomed to ex­pe­ri­ence more or less un­cer­tainty dur­ing the times of tran­si­tion be­tween the two lev­els of liv­ing. In en­ter­ing the king­dom, you can­not es­cape its re­spon­si­bil­i­ties or avoid its obli­ga­tions, but re­mem­ber: The gospel yoke is easy and the bur­den of truth is light.

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.

196:3.1Per­sonal, spir­i­tual re­li­gious ex­pe­ri­ence is an ef­fi­cient sol­vent for most mor­tal dif­fi­cul­ties; it is an ef­fec­tive sorter, eval­u­a­tor, and ad­juster of all hu­man prob­lems. Re­li­gion does not re­move or de­stroy hu­man trou­bles, but it does dis­solve, ab­sorb, il­lu­mi­nate, and tran­scend them. True re­li­gion uni­fies the per­son­al­ity for ef­fec­tive ad­just­ment to all mor­tal re­quire­ments. Re­li­gious faith—the pos­i­tive lead­ing of the in­dwelling di­vine pres­ence—un­fail­ingly en­ables the God-know­ing man to bridge that gulf ex­ist­ing be­tween the in­tel­lec­tual logic which rec­og­nizes the Uni­ver­sal First Cause as It and those pos­i­tive af­fir­ma­tions of the soul which aver this First Cause is He, the heav­enly Fa­ther of Je­sus’ gospel, the per­sonal God of hu­man sal­va­tion.

• Jesus attacked problems just as he found them

126:5.10This was the year that Je­sus rented a con­sid­er­able piece of land just to the north of their home, which was di­vided up as a fam­ily gar­den plot. Each of the older chil­dren had an in­di­vid­ual gar­den, and they en­tered into keen com­pe­ti­tion in their ag­ri­cul­tural ef­forts. Their el­dest brother spent some time with them in the gar­den each day dur­ing the sea­son of veg­etable cul­ti­va­tion. As Je­sus worked with his younger broth­ers and sis­ters in the gar­den, he many times en­ter­tained the wish that they were all lo­cated on a farm out in the coun­try where they could en­joy the lib­erty and free­dom of an un­ham­pered life. But they did not find them­selves grow­ing up in the coun­try; and Je­sus, be­ing a thor­oughly prac­ti­cal youth as well as an ide­al­ist, in­tel­li­gently and vig­or­ously at­tacked his prob­lem just as he found it, and did ev­ery­thing within his power to ad­just him­self and his fam­ily to the re­al­i­ties of their sit­u­a­tion and to adapt their con­di­tion to the high­est pos­si­ble sat­is­fac­tion of their in­di­vid­ual and col­lec­tive long­ings.

• Jesus mobilized all powers to solve problems, with patience

127:3.14For four years their stan­dard of liv­ing had steadily de­clined; year by year they felt the pinch of in­creas­ing pov­erty. By the close of this year they faced one of the most dif­fi­cult ex­pe­ri­ences of all their up­hill strug­gles. James had not yet be­gun to earn much, and the ex­penses of a fu­neral on top of ev­ery­thing else stag­gered them. But Je­sus would only say to his anx­ious and griev­ing mother: “Mother-Mary, sor­row will not help us; we are all do­ing our best, and mother’s smile, per­chance, might even in­spire us to do bet­ter. Day by day we are strength­ened for these tasks by our hope of bet­ter days ahead.” His sturdy and prac­ti­cal op­ti­mism was truly con­ta­gious; all the chil­dren lived in an at­mo­sphere of an­tic­i­pa­tion of bet­ter times and bet­ter things. And this hope­ful cour­age con­tributed might­ily to the de­vel­op­ment of strong and no­ble char­ac­ters, in spite of the de­pres­sive­ness of their pov­erty.

127:3.15Je­sus pos­sessed the abil­ity ef­fec­tively to mo­bi­lize all his pow­ers of mind, soul, and body on the task im­me­di­ately in hand. He could con­cen­trate his deep-think­ing mind on the one prob­lem which he wished to solve, and this, in con­nec­tion with his un­tir­ing pa­tience, en­abled him serenely to en­dure the tri­als of a dif­fi­cult mor­tal ex­is­tence—to live as if he were “see­ing Him who is in­vis­i­ble.”

• best method of solving some problems is to forsake them for a time

143:3.3This was a mar­velous oc­ca­sion in the ex­pe­ri­ence of each of them; they never for­got the day go­ing up the moun­tain. Through­out the en­tire trip hardly a word was said about their trou­bles. Upon reach­ing the top of the moun­tain, Je­sus seated them about him while he said: “My breth­ren, you must all learn the value of rest and the ef­fi­cacy of re­lax­ation. You must re­al­ize that the best method of solv­ing some en­tan­gled prob­lems is to for­sake them for a time. Then when you go back fresh from your rest or wor­ship, you are able to at­tack your trou­bles with a clearer head and a stead­ier hand, not to men­tion a more res­o­lute heart. Again, many times your prob­lem is found to have shrunk in size and pro­por­tions while you have been rest­ing your mind and body.”

• use moral power and spiritual energy

156:5.10Re­li­gion is the ex­clu­sively spir­i­tual ex­pe­ri­ence of the evolv­ing im­mor­tal soul of the God-know­ing man, but moral power and spir­i­tual en­ergy are mighty forces which may be uti­lized in deal­ing with dif­fi­cult so­cial sit­u­a­tions and in solv­ing in­tri­cate eco­nomic prob­lems. These moral and spir­i­tual en­dow­ments make all lev­els of hu­man liv­ing richer and more mean­ing­ful.

• first locate difficulty, recognize nature and gravity

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.

• mind must be free from personal prejudices

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.

• value of worshipful meditation in solving problems

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.

• prayer is technique for adjustment of problems

196:0.10Je­sus brought to God, as a man of the realm, the great­est of all of­fer­ings: the con­se­cra­tion and ded­i­ca­tion of his own will to the ma­jes­tic ser­vice of do­ing the di­vine will. Je­sus al­ways and con­sis­tently in­ter­preted re­li­gion wholly in terms of the Fa­ther’s will. When you study the ca­reer of the Mas­ter, as con­cerns prayer or any other fea­ture of the re­li­gious life, look not so much for what he taught as for what he did. Je­sus never prayed as a re­li­gious duty. To him prayer was a sin­cere ex­pres­sion of spir­i­tual at­ti­tude, a dec­la­ra­tion of soul loy­alty, a recital of per­sonal de­vo­tion, an ex­pres­sion of thanks­giv­ing, an avoid­ance of emo­tional ten­sion, a pre­ven­tion of con­flict, an ex­al­ta­tion of in­tel­lec­tion, an en­no­ble­ment of de­sire, a vin­di­ca­tion of moral de­ci­sion, an en­rich­ment of thought, an in­vig­o­ra­tion of higher in­cli­na­tions, a con­se­cra­tion of im­pulse, a clar­i­fi­ca­tion of view­point, a dec­la­ra­tion of faith, a tran­scen­den­tal sur­ren­der of will, a sub­lime as­ser­tion of con­fi­dence, a rev­e­la­tion of cour­age, the procla­ma­tion of dis­cov­ery, a con­fes­sion of su­preme de­vo­tion, the val­i­da­tion of con­se­cra­tion, a tech­nique for the ad­just­ment of dif­fi­cul­ties, and the mighty mo­bi­liza­tion of the com­bined soul pow­ers to with­stand all hu­man ten­den­cies to­ward self­ish­ness, evil, and sin. He lived just such a life of prayer­ful con­se­cra­tion to the do­ing of his Fa­ther’s will and ended his life tri­umphantly with just such a prayer. The se­cret of his un­par­al­leled re­li­gious life was this con­scious­ness of the pres­ence of God; and he at­tained it by in­tel­li­gent prayer and sin­cere wor­ship—un­bro­ken com­mu­nion with God—and not by lead­ings, voices, vi­sions, or ex­traor­di­nary re­li­gious prac­tices.

• validate prayers by facing one’s problems

91:9.21. You must qual­ify as a po­tent prayer by sin­cerely and coura­geously fac­ing the prob­lems of uni­verse re­al­ity. You must pos­sess cos­mic stam­ina.

91:9.32. You must have hon­estly ex­hausted the hu­man ca­pac­ity for hu­man ad­just­ment. You must have been in­dus­tri­ous.

• validate prayers by facing one’s problems

91:9.76. Your prayer will be di­rected ex­clu­sively for di­vine wis­dom to solve the spe­cific hu­man prob­lems en­coun­tered in the Par­a­dise as­cen­sion—the at­tain­ment of di­vine per­fec­tion.

• worshipful problem solving fosters spiritual 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.

• augments self-realization

112:2.171. The pre­fi­naliter or God-seek­ing ex­pe­ri­ence of aug­ment­ing the self-re­al­iza­tion through a tech­nique of iden­tity ex­pan­sion and ac­tu­al­iza­tion to­gether with cos­mic prob­lem solv­ing and con­se­quent uni­verse mas­tery.

• more difficult problems allow larger opportunity to acquire experience in solution

116:6.7On Par­a­dise, monota and spirit are as one—in­dis­tin­guish­able ex­cept by name. In Ha­vona, mat­ter and spirit, while dis­tin­guish­ably dif­fer­ent, are at the same time in­nately har­mo­nious. In the seven super­uni­verses, how­ever, there is great di­ver­gence; there is a wide gulf be­tween cos­mic en­ergy and di­vine spirit; there­fore is there a greater ex­pe­ri­en­tial po­ten­tial for mind ac­tion in har­mo­niz­ing and even­tu­ally uni­fy­ing phys­i­cal pat­tern with spir­i­tual pur­poses. In the time-evolv­ing uni­verses of space there is greater di­vin­ity at­ten­u­a­tion, more dif­fi­cult prob­lems to be solved, and larger op­por­tu­nity to ac­quire ex­pe­ri­ence in their so­lu­tion. And this en­tire super­uni­verse sit­u­a­tion brings into be­ing a larger arena of evo­lu­tion­ary ex­is­tence in which the pos­si­bil­ity of cos­mic ex­pe­ri­ence is made avail­able alike to crea­ture and Cre­ator—even to Su­preme De­ity.

• Creators and creatures united by experience of

117:1.6The evolv­ing di­vine na­ture of the Su­preme is be­com­ing a faith­ful por­trayal of the match­less ex­pe­ri­ence of all crea­tures and of all Cre­ators in the grand uni­verse. In the Su­preme, cre­ator­ship and crea­ture­hood are at one; they are for­ever united by that ex­pe­ri­ence which was born of the vi­cis­si­tudes at­ten­dant upon the so­lu­tion of the man­i­fold prob­lems which be­set all fi­nite cre­ation as it pur­sues the eter­nal path in quest of per­fec­tion and lib­er­a­tion from the fet­ters of in­com­plete­ness.

• difficulties must be encountered for growth of soul

154:2.5Uni­verse dif­fi­cul­ties must be met and plan­e­tary ob­sta­cles must be en­coun­tered as a part of the ex­pe­ri­ence train­ing pro­vided for the growth and de­vel­op­ment, the pro­gres­sive per­fec­tion, of the evolv­ing souls of mor­tal crea­tures. The spir­i­tu­al­iza­tion of the hu­man soul re­quires in­ti­mate ex­pe­ri­ence with the ed­u­ca­tional solv­ing of a wide range of real uni­verse prob­lems. The an­i­mal na­ture and the lower forms of will crea­tures do not pro­gress fa­vor­ably in en­vi­ron­men­tal ease. Prob­lem­atic sit­u­a­tions, cou­pled with ex­er­tion stim­uli, con­spire to pro­duce those ac­tiv­i­ties of mind, soul, and spirit which con­tribute might­ily to the achieve­ment of wor­thy goals of mor­tal pro­gres­sion and to the at­tain­ment of higher lev­els of spirit des­tiny.