Methods of private religious living

Front matter

Segre oe ware, by Sets oe, oe, 2 : eras : - Soa VAdig , z 5 z5 eee eapreketeee 4 ; : : ese ales a tasers , es oe A Seated

SS

ASSES

Preface

Turse methods undertake to show how religion can be made to produce definite observable results in improvement of human living. Under the title of Experiments in Personal Religion they were prepared during the year 1927-8 for the monthly bulletin of The Institute of Sacred Literature published at the University of Chicago. The bulletin was sent to people in all parts of the continent and many used it to guide them in personal experimental ventures of religious living to the end of discovering how to achieve an increased measure of human good. The writer and others have lived by means of the methods here described and have found them helpful, sometimes to a startling degree. Each of the ten chapters describes a distinct method, excepting the chapter on mysticism, where several methods are considered.

It must be emphasized that these methods are not the result merely of theoretical reasoning and logical inference. Of course reasoning has played pay

Preface its part as it must always do in any experimental * process which yields knowledge. But the methods have been forged in the fires of experimental liying. For the writer the experiments have extended over many years. ‘They have been tested by the experiences of life lived in the open amidst all the difficulties and complexities which confront us in the great struggle. Methods adapted to the conduct of human living can never be discovered and tested in the laboratory. They must be found in the midst of the serious business of living with all its tragedy and comedy and with all the tremendous issues at stake. It is out of such experience that these methods have come.

While the writer believes they are the most precious harvest of experience the years have brought him, and for that reason is eager to communicate them to others, yet he knows full well they are not perfect nor final. They will be improved and multiplied. Indeed their chief feature is that they provide for constant retesting and reconstruction. There is nothing rigid and fixed about them. They are not a set of rules. Therefore, if they are accepted and practiced, they will in the course of time be transformed beyond all recognition. It may be that some of

Preface them are adapted only to certain types of personality—other types requiring other methods. But the principle of them is the principle which any method of private religious living must incorporate, we believe. In this belief they are offered to all men for fair and honest trial. In at least one man’s experience they have never failed in ‘any time of need.

Private religious living does not exclude the social; it is just as social as public religion. Indeed it is more so. Society is simply the interaction of individuals upon one another. We can study this process of social interaction from the standpoint of the interaction taken in the abstract. Then we are dealing with society as distinct from individuals. But we can also study it from the standpoint of individuals interacting. Every individual is involved in interaction with his fellows which reaches down to the innermost recesses of his private life. Hence social and private religious living are identical. Therefore fellowship is one theme we consider in our present study.

Our central theme is worship; for worship is the way we ride the winds that lift the highest. The welfare of collective humanity, the solution of our “social problems,” and the historic march fiz

Preface of society toward whatever good the ages have in store, depend more upon the right conduct of private religious living than upon anything else. Hence the present study deals with that phase of religion which must be the means to social salvation if society is ever to be delivered from its great ills.

Contents

Il. Reticious RELEASE oF ENERGY . . . 36 Ill. ReEconstRUCTING SoclETY . . . . ~ 62

IV. Meruop oF DEALING WITH COMMON

Nie he

Chapter I Private Worship

WHEN we try to describe any vital process explicitly and in detail it sounds impossibly complicated. Try to tell another how you swim. Any man who jumped into deep water for the first time and tried to carry out your instructions would be like the centipede who began to think about his legs. Such a man will learn to swim more quickly if he simply flounders around as best he can, regarding, perhaps, only one or two of your simplest suggestions.

Is a detailed description of a vital process worthless, then, to one who wants to improve his methods? Not at all. One cannot adopt all at once the whole technique of swimming as the experts have developed it. But he can acquire bea first one point and then another until he may himself swim the English Channel. Only in recent years has any man (or woman) done that. Is this because modern men have spent more time in the water, or are more powerful, than men of other times? No, it is because men began to exchange suggestions about the method of swimming and by this accumulation of experience, sifting and selecting the suggestions, they perfected a technique which enabled them to achieve what no men of any other time could do. Suppose we begin to exchange suggestions on methods of worship, suggestions not based merely on theory but drawn from our own experimental efforts? Is it inconceivable that in the course of time we should discover a technique that would enable us to accomplish more through worship than men of any other time? Technique is not all in worship any more than it is all in swimming, but it is one of the necessary factors. There are no experts as yet in worship as there are in swimming. ‘There has not been enough interchange of suggestion for that. But some of us have been practicing worship from childhood and, what is equally important, some of us have not been content to do this according to an unchanging formula, but have been seeking in every quarter to learn how best to do it, and experimenting in it. None of us even begins to be an expert, but many of us can exchange suggestions and can learn from one another.

The following proposed method for private worship is such a suggestion. It may sound artificial and complicated, but that is the fault of our language and our mental machinery. <A description of swimming would also, even though it was a literal statement of what one actually does. The several stages here described flow into one another naturally and quite unconsciously. They do not always follow the same order. They are not all practiced in every case. One does not carry out every point in the complete technique of swimming every time he jumps into the water. Sometimes he merely kicks around and comes out. Many times one will jump into the waters of worship and fling about a little and come out. But there is a complete program which may be carried out in part or whole when one enters deeply into worship, just as the full technique of swimming comes into play when he goes into deep water. We are going to suggest such a technique. Some time we hope ns it will be greatly improved by the suggestions of others. Also we shall not forget that in worship as in swimming one cannot learn merely from the instruction of another. He must learn by personal practice.

I. Preconditions of Worship

There are three preconditions which must be met before effective worship is possible. The first is that one must go out into deep water. He must take life seriously. He must not shirk the heavy responsibilities. He must venture out to depths where wading is difficult. No one ever worshiped profoundly and with largest results who was not struggling. That does not mean that he must do something conspicuous before the world; much less does it mean that he must seek trouble. It merely means that he assume the tremendous responsibilities that inevitably _fall upon every one who lives earnestly and has sufficient insight to discern the tragedies in the lives of men. It means, for example, if one is a parent, that he treat his child not as a plaything only, but shall assume the enormous responsibility of that child’s highest development. If he has any direct access to the industrial process, it means that he be not indifferent to the lives that are thwarted and perverted by industry. It he has friends, it means that he be not unaware of that profounder community with them which he has missed because of his mistaken attitudes. If he lives in a world addicted to war, he will not wash his hands of the problem.

The second precondition is sincerity. That means that he will not take into his worship any beliefs which he doubts. If, for example, he doubts there is a God, then in worship he will earnestly seek the best adjustment to whatever in all the universe he believes to be that which can help him most, even though it be nothing more, in his belief, than his own subconscious self, or his fellow associates in the group to which he belongs.

We are very sure that a man who thinks will not limit himself in worship to such objects as we have mentioned. There is something we call God which is vastly more than these. But the point we want to make is that in worship one must be absolutely honest with himself. Worship is the time when a man deliberately undertakes to make the best possible adjustment to that which he believes in all sincerity to be the matter of greatest concern. God is the matter of greatest concern.

A man who thinks he doubts the existence of God still believes that something is most important. When he denies God he is merely asserting that what others hold to be most important and call God is not supreme or does not exist. But in his belief something else is supreme and does exist or has objective being of some sort. This something else is for all practical purposes what he believes God to be, although he may be mistaken in holding it to be so important. He probably is mistaken in at least some of his ideas about it. None of us has the whole truth; all of us are subject to error in our beliefs about God. But all of us can and should worship, whether we use the word God or not. Thereby we shall attain a more adequate idea of God.

A man in worship must not try to make himself believe that which he doubts, for if he does he will ruin his worship. Whenever any belief or word puts him under a sense of constraint, or gives him a sense of unreality, he must set it aside. Worship is preéminently probing down beneath all the sham and pose which inevitably accumulate in every man’s life with the daily routine. Worship is struggling to cast off all this unconscious and unintended but inevitable hypocrisy and getting down to reality about himself and his world, as he is able to experience ite Absolute sincerity, completest honesty, is indispensable to helpful worship, and ultimately it will lead to more adequate and well-established beliefs.

A man does not need to believe in God in order to worship. Let us state that in other words. A man must believe in God in order to worship; but he may be so constituted mentally that doubts arise in his mind whenever he uses the word God, and therefore in his worship he will not apply the word God to that upon which he feels he is dependent for the preservation and increase of values. But one thing is certain. Every man needs to worship, whether or not he uses the word God.

Private worship is doing two things: finding out what is wrong with oneself; and establishing that personal attitude through which one can receive from sources outside himself those influences which will correct the wrong which is in him. This is why every man needs to worship and why complete sincerity is indispensable, requiring the exclusion of every belief which is doubted. The hardest thing for a human being to do, and the thing most critically important for himself and all affected by him, is to discover what is wrong with him and so be able to expose himself to those influences which can work in him the needed transformations. Worship helps one accomplish this. Without worship one is likely to fall into ~that most hopeless and wretched state wherein he thinks he has no need of transformation; or, discovering that he needs it, cannot find that which will accomplish it. To discover one’s need but not know how to meet it, is not quite so hopeless a condition as to be completely ignorant of the need. Through worship we are delivered from both these wretched conditions; but without worship we cannot be. The third precondition has to do with time and place and surroundings. The time may be any hour of the twenty-four; but the best time, we are very sure, is just before retiring at night and soon after rising in the morning. The ideal place, we think, would be a mountain top at night. That is the place Jesus seemed to prefer for his private worship. But for the most of us most of the time that is impossible. Some room will serve, especially if it can be shut so that one need not fear others will hear even when he speaks aloud, and where his mind will not be distracted by any sights, sounds or apprehensions. The purpose of worship is to: turn the mind away from lesser things and give the whole attention to the supreme thing. But these lesser things from which we want to escape are almost invariably suggested to the mind by immediate physical stimuli; hence these latter should be shut out so far as possible.

In private worship we seclude ourselves from physical association with others. Does this imply that private worship is unsocial or anti-social? Not at all. Community of heart and mind is not identical with physical contact. As we have just indicated, immediate physical stimuli tend to distract the mind to lesser things. One will never discover the largest import of all the physical stimuli that come to him from the bodies of his fellow men if he does not occasionally isolate himself from their bodies and take time to meditate in solitude. He does not thereby isolate himself from their minds. On the contrary it is only in this way that he can reach the profounder levels of fellowship. When one goes

Methods af Private Religious Living into seclusion he does not suddenly cut himself off from all the experiences he has ever had with his fellows. On the contrary all those experiences, and all the problems they involve, are with him still. But in the seclusion of worship he is seeking to catch those deeper currents of life which open up the larger meaning of all our little words and deeds. Above all he is seeking to join most fully with that integrating process which works through all the world not only to bring human lives into organic fellowship with one another but also to maintain and develop organic interdependence and mutual support between all parts and aspects of the cosmos. This integrating process is God. We must have private solitary worship, as well as public worship, if we would join ourselves with this working of God.

Thus far we have been considering the preconditions of worship—earnestness of living, sincerity of belief, seclusion from distracting stimuli. Let us now turn to the act of worship itself.

2. The Act of Worship The first step in the act of worship is to relax and to become aware of that upon which we are dependent, that which sustains us in every breath we breathe, that which shapes the cells of our bodies and the impulses of our hearts according as we adjust to it in this way or that. One can think of this all-encompassing reality as atoms, if he wishes, or electric tension, or use some other such imagery. The imagery adapted to one mind will not be adapted to another. To talk about all our lives being sustained and shaped by atoms or electric tension, is, Of course, pure mythology. But some minds may be of such © a twist as to find such a myth helpful. The point ‘s that we are sustained; and in so far as we rise to higher levels of living we do so by adaptation to that which lifts us. In this first act of worship we fill and suffuse our minds with the sense of this encompassing presence that sustains and lifts and works toward the organic community of each with all.

Jesus expressed this first act of worship by the words: Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. It is not a state in which one 1s thinking about anything in particular. One is simply relaxed, waiting and endeavoring to be filled with the consciousness of that encompassing and sustaining and integrating reality which, if

= he is psychologically capable of using the word God, he calls God.

The second step in worship is to call to mind the vast and unimaginable possibilities for good which are inherent in this integrating process called God. These possibilities are actualized in us and in others and in all the world round about us in so far as we and others find and establish the required adjustment between ourselves and this cosmic process which is God. In the meantime, however, these possibilities are genuine constituents of our world by virtue of the pervasive working of that which we call God.

No matter how we may doubt the possibilities of personal improvement and social transformation and reconstruction of physical conditions, there is that noblest kind of personality, that highest degree of health, that clearness of mind and largeness of purpose, that measure of equality of opportunity, of codperation and mutual understanding and deep organic community of heart and mind between all men, which may be attained by the best possible adaptation of means to ends. It is this possibility which we now bring to mind. By bringing it to mind we do not mean that one pictures what it shall be or forms any definite idea of it at all. What this best state of affairs may be we do not know and cannot know. What these highest possibilities may be we do not need to know in order to hold them in mind in the sense here indicated. We only need to know that there are such possibilities, however undefined and unexplored. In this second act of worship we become acutely aware of the fact of such possibilities and of the fact that they can be actualized through the working of the encompassing Reality and our better adjustment to it.

Jesus expressed this second act of worship by the words: Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. The “kingdom” was Jesus’ word for the total maximum of possibility for good which can be accomplished in us and through us and round about us, in so far as we make right adaptation to God.

This second step is not separated from the first. None of the steps in worship are separated from one another. They all run together. When we analyze a vital activity we make it appear that its several aspects are exclusive of one another. But that, we repeat, is the fault of our verbal forms and our mental machinery.

The parts that we analyze out are, in the vital process, merged into one.

The third step is to face the chief problem with which we are struggling. If we are living ‘earnestly we are always struggling with a prob- ‘lem which taxes our powers. We shall frequently have the sense of being baffled because we do not see the way to its solution. But most of the time, unless we take opportunity for the kind of worship we are here describing, we shall not face the problem in its entirety and get it in its true perspective. We are too busy dealing with some pressing detail to face it in all its fullness. But in this third stage of worship, after we have become aware of God (called by another name if we must) and of the total maximum of possibility for good which inheres in God and our relations to him, we face our problem. We survey it as comprehensively and acutely as possible to find what most needs to be done.

The fourth step is self-analysis to find what change must be made in our own mental attitudes and personal habits. No problem was ever solved, no desired result ever attained, by worship or in any other way, which did not require ‘some personal readjustment on the part of the person through whom it was attained. Worship has practical value and is a way of doing things only because it enables us (1) to discover what | personal readjustment is required of us and (2) to establish that readjustment in ourselves.

There are some who hold to the ancient superstition that somehow in worship we can practice magic and get what we want in a magical manner. This widespread notion is one of the great obstacles in the way of the correct understanding and practice of worship. In revulsion from this error many have gone to the opposite extreme and hold that worship has no direct practical value; that its good is solely inspirational and “subjective.” Both these views are mistaken, we believe. To indicate very briefly and simply the practical value of worship let us state the matter in a metaphor.

Every problem solved is the closing of some circuit so that the constructive, uplifting, lifegiving, integrating process of the world can do its work. It is like pressing an electric button and thus connecting the wires through which the electric current is transmitted. Consider a few simple examples of practical problem solving. Take the farmer’s problem of how to get a good crop. There is only one way to-do it—by closing the circuit between sunshine, moisture, seed and soil in such a way that the life-producing process can do its work and bring forth the grain and fruit in abundance. How can we provide ample supply of food and shelter for all men? By closing the circuit between employer and employee and between producer and consumer in such fashion that the integrating process of the world can fulfill itself in the ways of men. How can we have more fruitful and joyful fellowship among men? By closing the circuit so that wider and deeper integration of thought and deed can be achieved. Every practical problem is solved by attaining some integration of parts through which the life-sustaining energies of the universe can flow. But the most important and vital thing which every individual must do if this end is to be attained in any particular case is to develop in himself the right mental attitude and consequent behavior. Worship is the only way in which this can be thoroughly and effectively done.

What, then, has worship to do with God? It has everything to do with God. God is the integrating process at work in the universe. Worship is the way we press the button, that is, establish the mental attitude and consequent behavior, and so make those connections through which this work of God can fulfill itself to the end of maximum good. ‘That is the rdle of worship in the practical work of the world and it is a role of exceeding great importance. To neglect worship is disastrous. We cannot make right connections with the integrating work of God without it.

We have compared the act of worship to that of pressing an electric button and so establishing certain connections through which constructive processes can work. Like every metaphor it is inadequate and dangerous because of false impressions it may give. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that in worship we are reshaping ourselves in such manner that we as personalities with all our behavior can serve as connecting links between disconnected parts and thus enable the integrating process of the world to fulfill itself. It is not so much that we press a button but rather we ourselves are pressed into place and so through us the circuit is closed and the wider and richer integration which God achieves is brought to pass. In worship we are thus finding the way to join ourselves with God in his work of integration. Worship has everything to do with God.

The fifth step in worship is to formulate in words as clearly and comprehensively as possible the readjustment of personality and behavior which I have discovered is required of me if | am to close the circuit between certain disconnected .factors in the world round about me. This verbal statement of the needed readjustment is very important. It should be accurate, comprehensive, concise. Above all it must be afhrmative ; not negative. For in worship we are not primarily trying to break a connection but to establish a connection. We are trying to do something constructive, not destructive. We must be positive, not negative. No good thing was ever done by merely a negative attitude. No problem was ever solved in that way. ‘Lhe overcoming of a fault is always a positive, constructive operation.

Suppose we discover, as a consequence of our worshipful self-analysis, that we have been too egoistic, too much concerned about our own prestige, too envious of others and too anxious about holding a place of recognized superiority over those we consider our inferiors. One might, then, put the needed readjustment of personality in some such words as these: “I enter into deep, organic community of heart and mind with . . .” and then mention the people who are concerned, if possible. Or he might say: “I am simple, lowly, sensitive and sympathetic toward...” and here again mention explicitly certain individuals, groups or classes. But of course these are mere examples. Every problem and the needs of every personality are different.

This statement of the required readjustment should be repeated many times in the spirit of worship which has been engendered by the preceding stages. The repetition is necessary in order to establish the readjustment and get it rooted deeply and firmly as a subconscious attitude of the personality which will give the needed character to all thoughts, feelings, words and overt behavior of the individual in any situation that may arise without the need of giving conscious thought to it. In fact anything which requires the guidance of conscious thought is never so skillful and effective as that which is so deep-rooted in the character of the individual that it is done spontaneously without conscious thought. One can deliberately establish . such deep-rooted traits of character by this method of repetition in affirmative language after the self-analysis of worship. ‘There is no other way in which it can be done so thoroughly, so intelligently and with such beneficial results for all mankind.

3. Worship and Auto-suggestion

The last step in the complete act of worship is a kind of auto-suggestion. There is so much misunderstanding and difference of opinion concerning this matter of auto-suggestion, especially in its application to worship, that we must examine it briefly in this context.

The words repeated for purpose of autosuggestion are not necessarily prayers to God, although one may so apply them if he chooses. But the communion with God has already been accomplished in the earlier stages of the worship as previously described. What one is now doing by this repetition is to reap the benefits of that worship and enter into realization of the possibilities which it has opened up. Through this repetition of words you are simply establishing as an enduring habitual attitude of the total personality that adjustment to God which you have attained through worship. You are sealing, conserving, ‘nailing down” the benefits of that worship. Anyone who will try this method of worship, ending with this practice of auto-suggestion, and continue it for several weeks, performing it each night just before retiring, will note some remarkable results of great benefit to himself and his associates.

But why, one may ask, should you tack any worship on to this auto-suggestion? Why not practice it by itself? Anyone who raises such a question will have missed the whole point of our discussion. Of course one can practice autosuggestion without the help of worship and can thereby establish in himself the attitude which he suggests. But will the attitude thus established help him? It will not if it is the wrong attitude. But how can he ever discover what right attitude to establish by means of autosuggestion? He can never discover it unless he does three things: (1) Attains some sense of what the sustaining process is through which he must work to attain the good he seeks; (2) clearly comprehends the specific problem which he faces at the time; (3) knows his own attitudes and needed reconstruction of attitude in relation to this sustaining process and specific problem. But the worship we have described is precisely the doing of these three things. Therefore, while one can practice auto-suggestion without worship, he is not likely to accomplish much good by it; and he may work fearful evil through auto-suggestion without worship by establishing the wrong attitudes.