Manly P. Hall: How to Turn Off the TV and Live Happily Ever After

Well this morning we have a little different approach to the problem perhaps than what you may expect the uh Olympic games that are on here are an example a magnificent example of dedication and discipline on the part of these young people who are competing many of them worked for years with the hope that they might achieve on this event perhaps the entire theory is Subject to certain criticism but very largely let us face it this way these young people about 6,000 of them are here competing for the gold as they call it in the audience

there about 120,000 people also competing for the gold but not in the same sense these hund more more thousand are working in an entirely different Approach and for the most of them self-discipline plays a very small part in their conviction of how to get what they want to them the end must be achieved in any way possible and of course only a very few achieve even in this possibility but I think in the problem of television we have a lesson that we might give a lot of thought to these days there's a great deal of

criticism Of Television programming but that is not going to be the burden of my discussion this morning I have something else that seems to me to be infinitely more important and that is that man is no longer simply a biped without feathers as diogenes likened him man is a thinking creature he should not be brought up by a trainer like a dog he should not be taught only to Obey he should not be fed because he obeys he should not have a life of luxury perhaps because he happens to obey a rich person the actual

problem is that the human being has a mind that was given to him to think with it was an active organ an organ to do something it was not simply a receptive faculty to listen to hear and to see most people in various fields of Activity never participate in those practices and policies which stretch the mental power and make it do things that we want it to do in modern world we train the mind by education to give us a profession or a trade or a craft or membership in a union or whatever it may

be we listen to the instruction we get the job we stay with the job and in all this procedure we have done very little thinking we have Followed policy we have obeyed rules we have done what the boss told us to and we may have taken a few special courses in computerization or something of that nature but the real creative faculties of the Mind have not been used at all so at the end of one of these harrowing days in which uh most of the Harrow has now been eliminated we go home sat down and

sit down in front of the television and perhaps spend anywhere From 2 to 6 hours watching what we're not watching anything that was going to make us really think a good deal if it's an educational program it will be turned off very quickly we watch sports we listen to the news which is usually highly influenced politically we go through a few horror dramas westerns a few very poor humor programs and then settle down to the great run of family Ethics in which we learn nothing but choose one or two characters to pull for because they

seem to create sympathy and one or two whom we love to hate because we don't like them and this constitutes a big intellectual experience and by the time we have finished with that we're so exhausted we fall into bed in the daytime we have all kinds of domestic programs programs which may or may not Bear upon any factual situ ation we may have a few instructive ones on non-commercial programming but we listen we watch and that just go out and get a cold beer or something of this nature nothing happens upstairs in ourselves nothing is

being developed as a factor in the growth of our own thinking we are not thinking actually and if we are thinking we noten doing anything anything about it because most Of the thoughts are non-factual so here we go all through an entire lifetime surrounded by all types of information which we accept only through the eyes and ears and when the time comes we do very little to solve our own problems if we get sick we go to a doctor and maybe we will do what he recommends and if we do not like what he recommends

we'll get further advice on the subject but actually we have inside Of ourselves a mind that does not become healthy unless it is exercised and exercise is use exercise is not sitting and watching exercise is not reading exercise is think thinking thinking with the faculties that we possess and which we are supposed to enrich every day of Our Lives everything that happens to us has some kind of meaning but we accept it through the ears or the eyes and it Fades away the mind is not involved in the process of personal growth in most cases

we use the mind only as a computer or as a machine never as a creative thinking equipment so somewhere in along this line we have to face what we might term a gradual deterioration of the mental Powers within ourselves and this deterioration deterioration is very obvious in society as we know it Today we are not doing as good a job of living thinking acting as our ancestors did they had to do better they had to think or they could not survive we have created a situation in which thoughts are liable to destroy us rather than

protect us and in the face of this we settle back uh to a daily routine in which the growth of our own inner life is very much weakened when we get a man's working for an Olympic goal we find him exercising Every day and the result of his exercise is that his body becomes more and more an instrument of his purposes he gains control of himself The Pianist does the same he uses the body for purposes within himself today we use not we do not use the bodies we have for the advancement of principles of

use to ourselves we think only of enjoyment or relaxation or go around and play cards or do something of this nature some of these things Could give us a little intellectual stimulus but in most cases we wouldn't recognize it if we had it this type of thing has gotten very much worse until today the creative thinker is a person seldom seen or met a person whose mind is being used every day to find new values accomplish new works do new things that have not been done improve the quality of living solve the personal problems of

his life these these are the things that help to exercise the mind But to drift along from work to television to bed and then up and again the next day is not doing anything to make people it is only continuing a humdrum which is only one step above animal existence this means that in some respect we need creative programs now A Creative program is something that we do because basically we want to express ourselves we do not wish merely to do What everyone else does we want to do something that will satisfy our own inner

impulses but for the most part these impulses just are not active enough to give us any positive directive so it seems that one thing we have to do to get away from this uh hypnosis of the tube is to realize that we have faculties within ourselves that do not need to be subjected to this continual negative Conditioning that we are certainly capable of thinking rather than merely of watching the antics of someone else it's so everywhere today in music we have the same problem uh we go and listen to a good concert and we applaud

the performers but for the most part we do not think of putting ourselves under the discipline of Music another individual is much interested in the dance but he can barely stay on his feet on the ballroom floor we see people that Are interested in all kinds of crafts they collect them but they don't create them now something has to happen to change our way of life from admiring the creations of others to the development of creative capacity in ourselves of course we had the old 24in rule that was not only used by the old Builders

and artifices but also appears in the Quran and that is the 24hour rule is the day the 24 hours it is divided into three sections of eight Hours each one of these sections is used to work and to earn a living one of these sections of a is used for rest sleep and Repose and the remaining third is dedicated to worthwhile activities and self-improvement on this uh basis some people are sort of missing the idea because their idea of improvement of rest relaxation and the ability to grow as people this does not seem to have

any Great amount of meaning in most cases we cannot grow particularly in sleep although it may help a little we can grow a little in work if that work has creativity in it otherwise it is just simply routine it is not done only for the sake of making a living so we have these other eight hours to do something with something ourselves 8 hours to be ourselves to dream our dream to build our thoughts and hopes for the Future to be with our friends and children to do all kinds of things that warm up and

intensify the natural inclinations for beauty affection and friendship that are within ourselves so what do we do we pull up the chair with a television dinner and remain there until we go to sleep in the chair this is a complete loss of one of the most valuable factors in human life the individual thinking for Himself of course we realize there's a tremendous penalty on it the individual who thinks for himself may have to think his way out of a number of difficult situations but he can to think for oneself is to break through the chain

that has gradually developed the chain of Education in which the individual thinks what he's told to think the job in which he is he does what he is told to do the family in which he does that which one one of the more Positive relatives tells him he should then little by little to become locked in responsibilities which mostly exist because he has never faced issues directly so something has to be done to change this if the individual really wishes uh to have a significant life now in the old theater it wasn't so difficult and

the old theater had many advantages which we have no longer with us today one of the advantages was for The actor himself he had a year two years 5 years to live the part he was playing he could gradually refine the characterizations until they were nearly perfect he was actually understanding Shakespeare or whoever it was was he was uh indebted to for his scenario he was doing things that meant self searching trying to understand and live the character of another person and he had plenty of time to do it the audience also would go to

the theater Maybe once a month or every couple of three months when a particular program came along there was never a a a type of program that people went to every night or every day they chose the things they wanted and uh a program lasted in the theater sometimes for 5 or 10 years before everyone who wanted to see it got to do so then came the motion picture silent films there was still a little margin of creativity in the silent film because the Watcher had the privilege of Trying to interpret in his own mind

the words of the actor this process was one in which a certain identification was achieved the person began the audience began to feel the ideas thoughts and emotions of the characters on the screen then came the talking film in which every bit of suspense of thought was taken out you knew exactly what everyone was going to say and what they meant therefore a little corner of the Mind was lost again And now television we have a further involvement namely programming continuously and this programming done primarily and basically as an advertising medium we do not have

any real participation the actor does not do what he could do because he must finish a major film in two weeks he will play his part and never play it again and it will be shown at one time to the larger part of the audience that will see it this is Entirely away from any depth of watching or depth of doing the entire program is gradually mechanized it is streamlined and is Con and is gradually uh formed into a mere interval between advertisements the all this is doing something to people young people get started with

it and as a result of this type of thing personal living is becoming less and less Significant we are gaining our morals from the motion pictures in television we are gaining our education from false statements and misrepresentations in films we get our inspiration from everything you can think of except that which has lofty or meaningful uh significance the gradually the television is taking over the moral habits of mankind it is telling what we're going to do it is contributing heavily to crime and the Average individual just sits and watches it maybe he will never be

a criminal as a result of watching it maybe he was have enough Morality In himself not to fall for this type of pressure but many do fall for it as our Law Courts know today the point is here we say and do nothing we have a limited lot of time maybe 70 80 90 years but one of these days it's going to be gone and it's an amazing thought perhaps to realize that out of our an 80-year life perhaps we Have spent 15 years of that of our waking time watching television there should be something

else in life that is more interesting than this there should be something that makes life significant we look over the various problems of living we do not know for sure for example that if we are going to have a future Incarnation sometime that we will use the actual knowledge we're accumulating in this life the only thing We can take with us is what we achieve within ourselves what we do to grow or intensify our principles and integrities to gradually achieve a victory of Integrity over the halfhazard indifference which most people are burdened so here we

have a wonderful opportunity to do something a time which is not one that we have to worry over the individual who watches television today is not really Doing it because he's exhausted the labors of the day haven't worn him down to the condition where he wants to doze all the evening it is simply that this is the cheap convenient easy way of wasting wasting time and most people do not realize that time is worth more than the wasting of it and because of that fact individuals drift into older years without the maturity without the Integrity

without The ideals and principles that are so necessary to a well-rounded life at the same time they are setting a bad example for the Next Generation growing up in this confusion how can we start to be a little more creative in our thinking and acting well there are various ways in which we can become involved largely personal experience is based upon involvement if we do not get into Situations we will never learn how to get out of them if we do not do something ourselves then we simply drift along a pattern which has never LED

anywhere and never will we have a world around us of people in trouble we have all kinds of problems individual and Collective which need thought need some kind of involvement now involvement doesn't necessarily mean that we simply read about something here again it is Vicarious the modern literature that we get is very largely nondirective as far as our own personal living is concerned and the psychological and metaphysical literature is so burdened with exaggerations and Mysteries and wonders that again it does very little to help us in our daily conquest of circumstances involvement May mean to

do something with your hands to do something to help to build involvement means an art not watched but practiced It means some kind of an activity for which we do not buy a ticket but go out there and do it ourselves therefore anything which causes the person to control discipline and direct his own attention to the Improvement or fulfillment of some inner conviction any such program as this is creative it is involved we become part of it we do something that otherwise would not be done in our Childhood Days and the days Of our parents

one form of involvement was the neighborhood people all did things together they were part of a pattern and did all kinds of simple but sometimes very kindly things another form of involvement was involvement in the church Affairs of the community the individual giving time days evenings weekends to trying to help some religious purpose this was involvement today the simplest way to meet all of these responsibilities is to write a Check this is not involvement it is simply buying immunity to involvement and we do it all the time and we feel realize or believe that we

can't do it any other way now involvement used to be all the family getting together while grandmother or great grandmother played the piano and everyone sang involvement was the home theater with the kids all playing the Roles involvement with all kinds of relationships in young people's groups it was also involvement in the activities of the older generation where people were doing things together for some purpose maybe it was all to get the bedspread shown at the county fair but it was involvement the individuals did something themselves to earn the respect and regard they wanted they

wanted their own Victory and in order to be victorious they had to do Something that they could win if they never did anything they could neither win or lose and everything was at a dead standstill now we all have problems today that perhaps we do not know exactly what to do with one way of solving this problem of is the involvement in self-improvement the individual deciding something he's always wanted to do and doing it if he has always wanted to advance some specialized art or science Or philosophy in himself he can take courses in it

he can participate in discussions he can join groups working with these situations if he wants to become involved in Charities or in helping underprivileged he can become part of a group that is doing this and not just sending the check as far as that's concerned if he wants to can send the check also but he must be down there doing it to become involved and in the process of helping Worlds to grow we all must become involved involvement of course immediately presents difficulty with us because of the way we've always lived very few people are

really ready for involvement when they uh what they call involvement is simply interference they try to get into a situation they don't understand and take get over this is not creative involvement now every person or nearly every person has some kind of an Aptitude an aptitude different from the one by which he makes a living I know one Minister who had all his life wanted to go to the Sea and ships he had in his little ministerial study models of all kinds of boats and he was building models he was doing all kinds of things

he was studying it in his spare time he was involved in something that he had to do some work with now the work might not change the course of history or might be of value only to himself but he Was doing it he was doing it every day because he enjoyed it and because he felt that increased his understanding of the Sea and the ships so we have there an involvement of a person very sedentary given largely to biblical discussions and and marriages and baptisms and funerals who found time to open the Horizon of a

secret longing and did it by the only involvement that he could find without leaving his job and that was to make the shifts in midl that He was reading about understanding them and participating in the adventures at least vicariously of the Mariners who had gone before there are all kinds of things that the individ ual can do but he must do something or otherwise he's just going to sit and try to be entertained by impossible amusements now this is too much of a problem to go over LLY this has to be something done about it

and every person has the reason to do it and many people Who live alone andow by Nature a little on the neurotic side retire into some small world and use the television as their only outlet they have no real contact with real life they consider themselves to be loners they have no recognition of a world of values and fact and factual things so they simply retire further and further into themselves until they can no longer bear the bruises of contact They have to remain alone until death takes them this is absolute futility it has nothing

to do with a good life well lived these person should get out of this solitariness that they have gotten into and if they have a religious Link in their hearts going into Charities going to helping other people who are worse off than themselves join activities groups taking care of the underprivileged but never go off by themselves sit alone mood and brw and Wants this impossible entertainment do something to get yourself into the world of which you are aart now if you do that you may also have some Temptations come along but Temptations are necessary the

individual who is so completely isolated that he is never tempted not only doesn't commit any evil but doesn't do any good therefore it is uh necessary to become involved now most people I talk to once Will say well I've always kind of wanted to have another language all right get it study it take courses in it go to night school spend part of the time that otherwise you would spend watching who do it and go to this school or get someone who knows the language and will help you find ways to master the language and

when you can go out and Converse with a native in that language You've Won your goals you've got your medal you do it you have it you have Achieved something yourself now there are many ways in which achievement can come most of the great achievements involve art music and things of this nature but literature is another interesting field of achievement to sit all the time reading a book it gets it gets rather dull because the book may not be too much better than the tough television in fact the television may have been based on the

Book and when you get watch them both you don't recognize any similarity but instead of sitting always and reading decide on incidents in your own life and start writing do something yourself if you've enjoyed certain episodes and incidents recorded in popular Publications you usually find in those Publications a little paragraph saying that they will accept further incident of personal happenings of an unusual nature put the personal Happenings in your own life down and if the personal happening the most important is that you suddenly decided to do something instead of listening to others you will may

you might even win a prize or just no way of telling but do it get something so that when you come home at work or from work that there is immediate involvement the one of the nicest involvements of course is the family involvement in those conditions but today the whole family has become so Tied in to the present pattern that the different members do not want involvement each one wants to live a solitary existence under the same roof doing exactly as he pleases and trying desperately to overinsurance his the fellow members of his family this

is therefore not easy but in family starting out certainly Mutual involvements can be the secret of an enduring marital relationship if both persons are working in exactly the same General direction if each one is willing to listen to the suggestions of the other if each one is grateful for companionship and insight in these various problems the marital situation is going to be far better off than it will be if the two person sit down in front of a television and compete with each other as to which station they're going to watch the height of the

problem is a family in which there is a television in every Room and no two members are watching the same program this is uh what happens when people do not actually think or do not make any effort to get hold of situations I think almost everyone if they will look inside themselves a little bit carefully has a submerged hope a submerged idea and a secret desire to achieve something worthwhile most persons have been under the pressures of circumstances and have Had great difficulty in being themselves everything seems to force them to follow patterns of other

persons if by some Circumstance the individual suddenly finds himself alone he should not regard himself as deprived he should take the attitude that he is now able to be himself perhaps for the first time in his life but there's a catch on this also when he tries to be himself he discovers he has no gift for it he has never done Anything to build the kind of life that can stand on its own feet he has always leaned on something always lived by some concept or by some relationship and when he is alone he is

not free he is just playing Lonesome he has never found the key to doing the things he's always wanted to do but was prevented by the burdens of his relationships with others so with the beginning of life the person should always recognize that the idea of the One-pointed career is essentially false the individual who becomes absolutely involved in his business or in some relationship or some political activity or something in which there is no variety no change of pace this person will naturally turn to some entertainment like the television simply for a change of pace

because he has no variety except what is imaginary and comes to him through the tube this person should and must find The way to express some purpose that is worth his consideration and his daily dedication well these all type of things we can start physically to get a job one of the physical things we have to do is to take sufficient interest in our physical existence to imply certain disciplines to our conduct the individual who simply lives the best he can until death takes him has no discipline all achievement is Based on discipline therefore at

the beginning of Life he can discipline his mind put certain controls over himself and try his best not necessarily to lengthen his life this is not the point but to prove that he is able to control the body in which he lives is if he can control his body he has made a certain physical achievement if he has been able to correct defects in himself he is doing something he is not simply reading a book he is putting What he learns to work and making it work for him and as long as he sincerely labors

with the problem he will improve himself Beyond this of course we have not only the physical body but the emotional body which is a very Troublesome one and which causes perhaps most of the complications of Life irrational emotions are probably the greatest source of tragedy that we know emotion must be placed under discipline the most powerful discipline For emotion is religion but you can study religion all your life and remain just as emotional as you were before and no better therefore for no amount of membership no amount of prayer or any of these devices will

have the effect you want unless you discipline your emotions your yourself if you have hate then the great creativity is to transmute it if you are revengeful this will continue no matter what church you belong to until you outgrow it within your own emotional Life everywhere emotions are tricky jealousies griefs bigotries fanaticisms they are all hard to work with they will never be cured by a book nor a membership they will be cured only by discipline by the individual taking hold of himself thinking things through and determining the course that is best for himself having

made this decision he must then fortify it by action he must perform according to the level of his new convictions if his new conviction is That he shall meet and overcome uh the dislike he has for another person then he must go and do this not leave it as an emotional asset until it is made real therefore every control every discipline must lead to a reality to a proof of achievement by the correction of a weakness otherwise it doesn't mean anything but there are all kinds of ways in which we can think through these things

and to try to work out some Programs by which we can accomplish this either through philosoph opical assistance through education through psychological conditioning through the broadening of our religious background not as theology but as a way of life so perhaps the height of the emotion life of the individual is the Regeneration of the impulses of affection and proving it by action never leave it something beautiful in the soul that you really believe but you still can't speak to Those people you don't like so this type of thing it puts a control and emotional control is

worth winning but it's never to be won simply by watching a television program in which emotions go wild horror terror destruction always in the atmosphere this does not help us to mature the emotions the mature emotions have also their own Expressions love of art love of music love of nature love of all kinds of service programs love of the animal Protection of Natural Resources all these require thoughtfulness and sometimes this thoughtfulness is going to interfere with a long established habit then there is the impact and you must either have a deep enough emotional Foundation to

rise above the old habit or you will fall back into the previous condition emotions must be disciplined and they are disciplined not by giving vent to them the old psychological attitude of The 20s and 30s that you had to be nasty in order to be healthy is no longer valid it is not necessary to get rid of pressures by being unkind the real answer is to Rich enrich the inner life so that the unkindness Falls away of itself because you have simply outgrown it so participate and creativity are expressed through outgrowing the smallness or the

limitations that have previously interfered with your Conduct then you get up an another step to the mental and the mind of course is very difficult to control because very few people realize that the mind is anything except the servant the mind is something that just justifies whatever we want it to justify our mind is something that proves that our mistakes are correct it also proves to us that our fanaticisms are Justified it proves to us that our mistakes are Gorgeous everything that we do the mind says amen I'm for you all the way well this

is one way of being in trouble all the time the mind has powers of its own the mind can can think but it's only on rare occasions in a great emergency that we use it to think with as life goes along on a comparatively monotonous level we do not wish to think we simply wish to be thoughtless we want to do whatever we feel like doing at the moment and anyone Interferes with this is a tyrant if we want to worry we going to worry and the mind tells is just what is important at that

moment to worry about whereas it should be telling us how to solve the problem instead of worrying at all but if the mind can never protect us from the worries of situations we get into then the mind isn't doing us much good and the reason it's not doing much good is because it is gradually diving dying of anemia the mind is having no Opportunity to be itself it is not being encouraged to think it is simply being encouraged to agree with us and that phase of the mind is too childish we cannot mature with this

type of thinking so the mind has to be disciplined into right and wrong if we believe in the Ten Commandments then the mind has got to show us how to keep them not how to break Them and if we do break them the mind is got got to criticize us for doing it the mind has got to tell us that we failed and not let us get away with the idea that we've made a gorgeous exception to the rules of life we haven't never can so if we have a code and it's really good one

the Mind should be a sentinel guarding our fulfillment of that code if it says in the mind that we must do a certain thing because it is the basis of our character that thing we Must do in the same time we may think of the Mind as being a an idealistic thing it is not all rationalization well the uh Sermon on the Mount is a very good uh discipline for the mind it tells us what we should do about situations so if the mind is to do us any good we have to appoint it as

Prim minister of Our Lives not as a ruler but as one of the cabinet of advisers and when we break the rules Which our mind has been instructed to give us then we must repent and do something about it instead of changing the subject if we can do some of these things then we will show that we are disciplined people this was the concept beneath the philosophy of confucious confucious declared that the human being is separated from the animal simply by the intellectual capacity to think and that the human being who Thinks wisely is the

superior person and in the course of time this Superior person increasing in wisdom and fulfilling the needs of the wise content in himself can go into the unknown future with a good hope if we assume that the Superior person is one who is above performing inferior actions then we must admit that confucious was very right that he did have the answer to the whole thing that the answer was not simply in abstract Wisdom and learning it was forever in the individuals living on the highest level of his own understanding and this level is much higher

than we suspect it may be that at first we have to work a little with the level of understanding of someone who is wiser than ourselves but we do it only in order that we may also attain wisdom now all over the world we go to people when we have problems these people may be Religious counselors they may be a psychologist psychiatrist or one type or another of inspiring guidance we therefore go to them and pay them to do our thing thinking for us because we find in when we study it carefully that we are

not capable of an a separate look at ourselves we are so tangled up in our own prejudices that we have to go to a third party to untangle us well this is really not necessary except perhaps in Very serious and immediate cases the individual who's all wound up in a situation has the power to unwind himself self if he does something about it but if he simply sits and watch his commercials on television he will never unwind himself he is wasting the time that he needs to work out solutions for his own dispositional problems it

is necessary for him therefore to give the time and attention to the matters directly involved in solving his problem Well he may want to read a book or two on it if he can get a good book if the book feers to him however he better throw it away he must get a book that demands more of him than he normally wants to give it must be a book that challenges him to recognize his own mistakes and not pass them off on other people but if he does have a gradual recognition that he can't live

with himself the way he is he will not come to the erroneous conclusion that the Answer is to forget himself and by forgetting himself very himself in non-essential nonproductive uh avocational activities such as watching television it is necessary for him to get at his own nature and creativity is partly the process of creating a better self within him a self which he can be proud of a self in which you will gain the recognition of other people who are worth recognizing him now it's an Interesting however that I've noticed namely that a person who has

made some of these adjustments is not only recognized by others who have made similar adjustments but is recognized also very generously by people who have made no adjustments but wish they could therefore a person who has disciplined himself is also admired by the undisciplined he becomes a stronger person he becomes a human being in a World of beasts he becomes capable of gaining the respect of those with whom he comes in contact his reward is to improve his his recognitions his reward is to be called upon to help other people and to have a life

full of useful activities so there are rewards for taking hold of these problems actually also as people get a little older and not quite so vital and so active active it becomes more important for them to recognize the Realization of this problem of self-discipline unless there is some real real reason why an individual cannot uh take an active part in society he should take such a part he should find ways to do it he can join senior citizen activities he can become part of group as thinking and in group action but most of the time

the older person has a tendency to live in his kind of nostalgia he is inclined to be neurotic He is kind to time to feel self-pity he is inclined to think he's neglected or ignored or that life has passed over him worst of all perhaps with these older people there is an adjustment to be made which they've never thought of and which could be tremendously important and that is that to be comfortable and happy in life each person has to be contemporary then we reach that point in life when everything we like and know has

faded away and we live in a world of Strangers and can no longer find the consolations that helped us in youth then we are in the presence of a great challenge we must not try uh to live in 1950 if we are in 19 1980 we have to find Contemporary activities now we may say these contemporary activities are a constant offense to us they can be and many of them are but whether they are offensive or defensive we have to accept them we have to recognize that there is no value No virtue no no fulfillment

in blocking ourselves against the changes that take place in Society this does not mean we have to do anything wrong it doesn't mean we have to practice anything we don't believe in but we have to live in a world in which we understand why other people have changed recognizing the precious circumstances and forces that have moved them into a different relationship with life in other words we must accept them And understand them even though we don't agree with them otherwise we gradually lock ourselves in a world much too small for us and we find one

by one the remaining persons whom we do know di slipping away until we are alone in a generation uh which has no basic roots in our thinking or our time moving as we do today at a terrific Pace it is necessary for every individual to be constantly contemporary the difficulty is usually That the person drifts along as he was until his last friend is gone and then he suddenly feels this terrific need for change but if he started in in the beginning by watching participating in and studying the values of the better peoples who are

rising around him they're always good people he will gradually learn how to evaluate the changes which he may not agree with but with which he can make a a satisfactory and constructive adjustment he can live Without retiring into a world that is not real this also occurs in cases of person's born in other countries or who who migrate to countries which were not their own and find gradually that they are alone the only way to get out of Al loness is to grow to outgrow it by enriching the life enriching the Consciousness and having new

dedications by means of which life continues to the end to be an interesting and dramatic Experience otherwise these things get to be too difficult now they're also in other other groups of people who are confronted with this problem and those are the ones who for one reason or another are beginning to experience physical deficiencies they are not physically able uh to get along as well as they did now there's a philosophy behind all this which most people don't really think of at all the first 2/3 of life should prep prepare the person for The last

third by the time we reach the p period where we can't do all the things we used to do we should have so enriched our inner lives that we have plenty of activity internal in ourselves we should be able to adjust easily to the limitations of energy and accept it as inevitable but not gradually develop hatreds jealousies and a variety of neurotic pressures simply because we're getting older actually in most instances uh if We realize it senility begins with lack of dynamic internal incentive the individual who has nothing to live for lives worse and worse

until finally they disappear so in all these things we are living vicariously in a world which we are either accepting or rejecting but making very little effort to truly understand we also have made very little effort to adjust our lives to the capacities that we have to find satisfaction in the Achievements that are possible to us and are also constantly alert to new things we must remain ever alert and this alertness has much to do with the creative Instinct in ourselves now we have an an indoctrination that we've got to get over some way and

this fatalistic indoctrination is that we place it at the in the front row of our emotional and mental activity fear this is a day an age in which we Are more or less constantly in a state of fear and this fear such as it is is drummed into us on every hand there is hardly a newspaper we pick up which does not contain something that frightens us the same is true as news reports on TV or the news or the plays that are put on nearly always there is a great conflict with evil popping up

everywhere with horror misery and crime as accepted as the normal state of the human being with this type of situation fear is Inevitable the individual grad gradually is afraid to be himself he is afraid to continue the activity that he formally had because he is constantly in the presence of danger well this is real and some conditions there is no doubt about it we can't completely ignore it but on the other hand we can also rise above fear we can rise to a degree of rational care we can do those things which are reasonable to

do that will protect us we Can stop being foolish or doing things which open us uh to trouble most people who are in trouble have in some way lowered the resistance in themselves which could have protected them from difficulties but with the fear constantly there the Mind goes into a kind of Whirlwind fear dominates every other consideration and the one thing we haven't learned as yet is to be afraid of the negative part of ourselves There's where most of our trouble originate our compromises with principles are the things that get us into physical difficulties we

should be afraid more for the for our own conduct than we are for the situations that may arise from it we have today millions of persons who are alcoholics not one of them really wants to kill anyone or be killed but nothing seems to make enough difference there is No dominant to desire to change why because life is empty because it's only way they have a forgetting themselves or getting over some disagreement or finding a use for a useless life these things must be corrected in their causes and the only way to correct them is

to discipline the inner life to put something in there that makes us want to live because we are useful to others and not merely because we want to forget our own Miseries the misery factor is being dramatized every day internationally we are in a state of constant agitation politically we're involved all the time in the ups and downs of policy and all these things cause us to come to the conclusion that life is insecure that the world is hardly worth living in and that practically the only happy person is the one who doesn't think at

all this type of thinking is Getting more or less prevalent or the assumption that no matter what happens to anyone else we'll be in trouble for the rest of our lives we have to get over this by leadership over self by leadership over our own Tendencies to get rid of certain fears by replacing them not by saying that trouble can't exist not by denying the conditions but by recognizing the value of self as a leader out of dilemma that in one way or another the inner life can Be the most protecting thing that we have

there is there are laws that govern human conduct there are laws that deal with the relationships of life and if the individual really keeps the rules in most cases the rules will keep him it is where we stagger around without reason or anything else in a world of other people stagger in around without reason that we are constantly in the face of crime and degeneracy now we can't change it all But we can make every possible effort to get hold of ourselves to find ways to make ourselves available to good I watch quite a deal

because of the things I'm interested in I I watch reports from all around the world about things that are happening to people and if you sit down and relax and think a minute you can't help but see some very wonderful things happening you can see that some of the hopes that we have are being realized that people are trying harder than they Ever have before that various causes that have been for forgotten and neglected for ages are coming into Focus one of the most important disc discoveries I think of modern time is the realization that

materialism is dying and the and the doubting and the scoffing and the failure to recognize the spiritual needs of man is not fashionable anymore this type of thinking is gone in the emergency we find in spite of everything our hopes Drift back and up to the spiritual sources of ourselves this we see all over the world people now struggling desperately to regain faith and at the same time to adjust just personal living to the confusion of the day another situation that seems to be very prominent today is the advancement that we have in education we

do not hear about them very much but all over the world major colleges and universities are studying Esoteric matters that 25 years ago would have been called lunacy we are also doing the same thing in many fields that we did a few years ago with acupuncture when it arrived it was a Superstition of the ancient Heathen Chinese today it isn't that anymore it's being used all over the world to help people to do things and get better little by little the esoteric and metaphys metaphysical ideals that have Been locked within many of us for years

are gaining recognition we are coming more and more to be recognized as the last B Frontier of defense against a metaphysical mystical or Scientific chaos the time has come gradually I watch the papers and I watch the foreign journals and every day almost somebody does something really great something really unselfish and something that really counts but of course it is drowned in a mass of Wreckage that we have inclined to believe but everywhere things are moving forward and about the poorest place to sit watch a move is in front of the tube because it's there

that it's going to stay as it is to The Bitter End apparently but The Bitter End isn't as far off as we think most of the great television circuits are in serious difficulties they have discovered for some unknown reason they can't Understand why we have should have subject to 20 commercials an hour they can't understand why we are no longer fascinated with the 15th or 20th remake of some second rate detective story they can't understand why we're getting tired of these W begone characters doing things that we wouldn't allow any relative ours to do and

we are forced to take into our homes the shadows of people we would never want to know This is the studio can't understand this they think that it remains necessary to get down as low as possible in order to control the audience they figure if there's anything constructive the people will turn it off and as a result of this attitude people are turning it off anyway they're getting awfully tired of it complaints are going into the studios every day and gradually the one thing that counts Is going to happen the set will be turned off

and then we will begin to find that the people have the deciding voice in the entertainment they're going to receive but if they're all asleep themselves why should they wake up at all why should we ask for something better if we don't care or if we tolerate the way it is or whether anything is better than to think with this type of attitude we were going to have the same problem always but the Programs are in trouble the stations are in trouble and little by little it is becoming obvious that the audience is not satisfied

and more and more it is supporting independent theatrical projects we are tired of a programming that is intended for people people who do not think and do not want to think there these people are getting fewer for one reason the death rate is very heavy among them the less we think The more vulnerable we are to everything we are finding more and more that this type of program approach is just wrong so out of this we can do a little thinking we can do more and more of the disciplining not only of our own minds

but of our acceptances of the Corruptions of society we not only can turn off these things we can turn off advertising that is false we can refrain from luxuries we Can't afford we can watch more carefully the sales appeals of other people and we can realize the fact that we were not brought here for the purpose of trying to be happy by wasting money it's coming World pressures circumstances are gradually emphasizing the need for intelligence and as time goes on this need is going to become increasingly great and it is up to the individual to

build his mind up so he can handle it When it comes we don't want to be caught today with Minds as they are now because most people are not thinking and they're not caring or they're disappointed or if they have any thoughts at all they're keeping them to themselves but this is changing and we must prepare for it there is a world coming that is more intelligent more forthright more honorable and more incentive burdened than we Realize we need incentives but the greatest incentive we have is to make make our own present condition endurable which

it is not for many people we our suicide rate is up simply because people have nothing to live for they are simply hurt all the time well once you've been hurt a few times you either give up or else you decide that it's time to use the faculties that nature and deity provided to help us get over Hurt we do not have to give in to the misfortunes that surround us it is perfectly possible to outgrow them so this is one of our key words today there are things we have to outgrow one is the

belief in wealth another is the belief in war and still another is the belief that other people can do our thinking for us we are going to gradually have to outgrow that part of ourselves which is incapable taking care of us we are Depending upon immature faculties to live a mature life so we must develop and mature those faculties we've got to build within ourselves a human being fully aware of its origin and Destiny fully capable of leading its uh body and its emotions in the way in which they should go this is in the

Yan psychology the teacher the teacher in ourselves the teacher that carries in it the whole burden perhaps of many hundreds of lives that we have lived Before the teacher that is submerged but is the grand old person the old master who has been in us and will be in us as long as we exist it is the call upon this inner superiority this inner maturity to help us fight against the immaturity of our conscious daily procedures the teacher image within ourselves can lead us to the Perfection of a way of life suitable for our own

needs its voice is rather weak that's true and it is often gathered down by The pressure of appetites and desires but the voice of the teacher is there and gradually we come to realize that the potential of this redemption in ourselves is always available to us we are not living to the fullness of ourselves so that there's nothing else we can do we are not all we can be we are very far down on the list of things that we can be we are capable of a growth beyond our wildest imagination we are capable of

being much More than we've ever dreamed that we could be but for some unknown reason do largely to envir mental pressure we have denied that this could be true we assume that we can't be anything except what we are but in reality we can be almost anything that we will earn by our own personal integrities so somewhere in our own present day is the being of Tomorrow the self in us as it will be in a better World and in a larger theater of action and it's there ready to be built up to be educated

to be released into expression and to take command of conduct and somewhere the sorrow of living the pressures despondency and frustrations of daily experiences are going to force us to grow we have nothing else we can do you can say we can go into dry rot and die but that isn't the end of anything we have to face a future which can can never be Taken away and which can end only in achievement we can resist achievement as long as we want to and we will resist it but in the end we have to grow

because there's no other way to go anything that looks like an escape is an illusion anything that promises that we can be happy In Spite of Ourselves is wrong we can only be happy because of ourselves and we can only be happy because our happiness is based upon an Integrity in which we keep the rules of life and Share the best that we know with all of those we come in contact with all of this is part of an experience that we have to face sometime probably sitting in front of a television screen we have

to decide what we're going to do we have to decide how we're going to use this thing we're going to have to say I know there is going to be a certain type of program it's going to be very horrible uh I can hardly wait for it to come then we're going to have To change that and say I think it's going to be horrible I'm not going to turn it on little by little we have to censor our own entertainment it may come out that in the end by censorship we will have two or

three programs a week that we really feel we want to see if that's the case that's the type of thing we want to use with the television set anything we don't want and we know we shouldn't see we have to turn off and as time goes on We will find that we can turn off with one Easy Motion it's very easy to just turn that dial and it goes off but behind this one Easy Motion there has to be the development and growth within ourselves by which this motion becomes a solution of something and not

a frustration we have to turn it off because we want something better not because we simply are tired of what we're seeing it has to Be something more positive and uh I understand from rumors that come along that there are plans for the development of uh television Outlets suitable for thinkers for people who really want to grow who are tired of the same old thing now this doesn't mean that all of these programs have to be dynamically religious or hopelessly and miserably educational they can be very happy programs but they can be happy because they

deal in realities they can be happy Because happiness is something that's contagious if it is true and reasonable it can however relieve us from all this misrepresentation and this conditioning of attitudes which is contrary to the common common good so we are really always on the verge of something better we are ready to demand something better there is never a time in life in which the voice of the people is not Heard because the voice of the people is the foundation of the economic structure of society what the people won't buy won't be made what

people do not want to pay that much for will come cheaper and that which the individual says I'm tired of this stupid type of thing will bring an end to this type of stupidity we can have what we want but in order to have it we must discipline Ourselves we must have the courage to turn it off rather than consider it's better than nothing we have to constantly watch our own level of sensorship and in place of these outside ways of forgetting ourselves we must discover inside ways of remembering ourselves correctly we have to gradually

become self- sustaining in the fact that we are constantly searching for values that will support our Integrities if we make life a great adventure we do not need foolish Adventures manufactured by people if we recognize life as the magnific experience we don't have to worry about second rate gra drama if we recognize that everything we need for happy internal is already available but in order to use it we are going to have to stand against the common practice of doing nothing it is perfectly possible for a Person to have a good entertainment pattern good reading

pattern and a good working pattern and it is also possible to gradually interpret the wisdom of the ages into the common things we do it is perfectly possible to recognize the family the office the friendship and the nation as levels of life within a system of discipline that perhaps it is in this common way that the disciplines of the ancient Mysteries have come down to us Those were given in old times including physical dangers in The Grotto and caverns under the great temples today these disciplines are being given to us on in the marketplace they

are being given to us in the office in the home in all the institutions that we sustain in the policies by which nations are dominated these things are disciplines of one kind or another and the great discipline is the individual who can remain true to His principles while these things are happening and will'll find ways of having a full and Rich life with without compromising principles to waste time it is therefore very easy for persons who have interests who who secretly or at least quietly believe in the larger and more important values of living to

gradually change their focus to turn on what they know is good turn off what they know is not good and also to stop complaining recognizing that Regard L of whether they're watching or something or not watching their own inner life is a full and magnificent experience for them there is the great romance there is the eternal love story the love of the human soul for God these things however can be temporalized they can be brought down to the common facts of living so that in every way life is not just simply a burden or a

routine it is a drama it is a romance it is a ser of wonderful happenings which are Wonderful if we understand them and miserable if we don't and also that out of every misery can come a greater strength and a greater courage to meet the future with a good hope if you get these thoughts more or less firmly fixed in mind we will not be destitute for entertainment if we are no longer inclined to watch murder rap and Mayhem we do not need to be constantly reminded of the weaknesses of human nature in order to

grow if we want to Understand weaknesses we've got our own we can create a situation just as dramatically negative is what we're watching we're full of fals making mistakes every 5 minutes but at the same time our mistake story has a happy ending whereas most of those which were presented to us end only in further misery so if we want to really have a a great history we can study our own in our lives if we want a great theater we can be the both the audience and the Cast if we want any of the

inner understandings which make for philosophy mysticism and so forth they're all available inside of ourselves the only thing we've got to do is bring it out and we bring it out by dedication G gaining strength in the inner life just as the athlete gains it by daily discipline by the proper mental emotional disciplines we can become healthy individuals in terms of our minds our emotions our hearts and our Jobs these are the things we got to work for and if it means that we must do it we can with one quick twist to the RIS

get rid of most of the Corruptions of society and face the fact that these are imaginary Corruptions we've got plenty of real ones we don't have to build them up that way what we've got to do is find out what Corruptions are still lurking in us and correct them and as soon as we correct the mistakes in ourselves we begin to see better values in other People because we see in others usually what we are ourselves focused upon so live don't let the great big bad tube get you uh be very careful about it and

when uncertain turn it off and you'll find that if you turn it off to do something something interesting beautiful or wonderful you will never miss it again you cannot turn it off successfully however until there is something you want to be or something you want to do Right then and there that is more important than the tube if you think it out that way I think it'll work out all right in the end [Music] [Applause]