The Howard Thurman Podcast

On this first sermon on the Inner Life, Thurman speaks to the varying levels of the inner life. Thurman walks us through the thinking mind and our ability to nourish it. Next, he examines the "vast continuum" of the unconscious, and how we might relate to it. And finally, Thurman says that there is an even deeper level, "the group soul," that Thurman refers to as God. Thurman urges that we must tunnel all the way down to this "eternal residue," like the great Sahara trees that bathe their roots in deep waters to survive the pressures of the environment.

Part of the Collection, Inner Life (1951-52, Fellowship Church, San Francisco, CA)

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Description by Rodell Jefferson III.

Recorded in Fellowship Church, San Francisco, California

Citation: Thurman, Howard, “Inner Life, Part 1, 1951 January 18,” The Howard Thurman Digital Archive, accessed July 9, 2024, https://thurman.pitts.emory.edu/items/show/572.

Thurman reads the Gospel of Mark from Mark 14:35 to 16:19 (Moffatt, New Translation Version)

Part of the Collection, The Gospel According to Mark

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Description by NA

Recorded in NA

Citation: Thurman, Howard, “The Gospel According to Mark, Part 2, 1979 October 21,” The Howard Thurman Digital Archive, accessed July 9, 2024, https://thurman.pitts.emory.edu/items/show/510.

Thurman reads the Gospel of Mark from Mark 7:31 to 14:34 (Moffatt, New Translation Version)

Part of the Collection, The Gospel According to Mark

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Description by NA

Recorded in NA

Citation: Thurman, Howard, “The Gospel According to Mark, Part 1 (continued), 1979 October 21,” The Howard Thurman Digital Archive, accessed July 9, 2024, https://thurman.pitts.emory.edu/items/show/509.

Thurman reads the Gospel of Mark from Mark 1:1 to 7:30 (Moffatt, New Translation Version)

Part of the Collection, The Gospel According to Mark

Tags: baptism, children's crumbs, crowds, demon possession, dogs, Galilee, ghost, gospel reading, healing, hemorrhage, holy spirit, Jesus Christ, John the Baptist, Jordan River, legion, literal reading, native place, nazareth, parable, repent, repentance, sabbath, sheep without a shepherd, sower, swine, synagogue, unclean spirit

Description by Dustin Mailman

Recorded in NA

Citation: Thurman, Howard, “The Gospel According to Mark, Part 1, 1979 October 21,” The Howard Thurman Digital Archive, accessed July 9, 2024, https://thurman.pitts.emory.edu/items/show/508.

This recording is a part of a wider series of conversations from September to October of 1980 where Howard Thurman met with a variety of young men and women who were discerning their calling to ministry. Thurman poses the intent of this group as an opportunity to "open up for one's self the moving, vital, creative push of God, while God is still disguised in the movement of God's self." In this recording, Thurman explores what it means to participate on a spiritual journey in a pluralistic world, noting that "religious experience is a carbon copy of the way by which the individual must find a way to stand out in their own anonymity." Here, Thurman is framing spirituality and mission as a means of locating the depth and breadth of spirituality both within the individual, and in the context of the wider world.

Part of the Collection, NA

Tags: Atlanta, burden of obligation, church, debt, developmental psychology, dichotomy, doors, ego, experience, German reader, gratitude, ground of being, idiom of life, imagination, Incarnation, India, Jesus, Kropotkin, Lord's Prayer, Nancy Ambrose, Old Lady Wright, personality, pilgrimage, plurality of truth, prayer, Ralph Waldo Emerson, relationship, responsibility, seminary, singing, spiritual journey, tent of clues

Description by Dustin Mailman

Recorded in NA

Citation: Thurman, Howard, “Conversations with Howard Thurman, September 1980, Parts 9 and 10, Side B,” The Howard Thurman Digital Archive, accessed July 9, 2024, https://thurman.pitts.emory.edu/items/show/303.

This recording is a part of a wider series of conversations from September to October of 1980 where Howard Thurman met with a variety of young men and women who were discerning their calling to ministry. Thurman poses the intent of this group as an opportunity to "open up for one's self the moving, vital, creative push of God, while God is still disguised in the movement of God's self." In this recording, Thurman explores what it means to live one's life with a robust sense of responsibility and freedom. He notes that there is a crucial decision to be made when considering responsibility and freedom: saying yes or no to the life that rests within oneself. Following these sentiments, Thurman provides space for students to ask questions, to which they asked questions of was it means to "follow the scent of the spiritual life," "why the savior of all world religions must die," and predestination.

Part of the Collection, NA

Tags: autonomy, awareness, blame, center, consciousness, consent, creative encounter, decision, ecology, education, fate, freedom, grace, hope, Hunchback of Notre Dame, hunger, integrity, Jesus Christ, judgement, karma, kill your savior, older sister, original sin, predestination, quest, religious experience, responsibility, river, Robin, savior, scent, sentimentality, sing your own song, spring, time bound, veto, Victor Hugo, vitality, vulnerability, world religions

Description by Dustin Mailman

Recorded in NA

Citation: Thurman, Howard, “Conversations with Howard Thurman, September 1980, Parts 7 and 8, Side B,” The Howard Thurman Digital Archive, accessed July 9, 2024, https://thurman.pitts.emory.edu/items/show/302.

This recording is a part of a wider series of conversations from September to October of 1980 where Howard Thurman met with a variety of young men and women who were discerning their calling to ministry. Thurman poses the intent of this group as an opportunity to "open up for one's self the moving, vital, creative push of God, while God is still disguised in the movement of God's self." In this recording, Thurman warns those learning with him of the dangers of setting a distinction between the outer life and the inner life, the profane and the sacred. Drawing upon his experience in India, and tales of his daughter becoming literate, Thurman explains that the outer life influences the inner, and vice-a-versa, designating one's life as synchronous rather than disintegrated.

Part of the Collection, NA

Tags: arrogance, behavior patters, Calcutta, California, Carmel Valley, conditioning, conformity, Doug Steele, duality, dynamism, ethics, fluid area of consent, heart, hell, India, inner life, Jesus, Lincoln Milton, manifestations of life, mystery, outer life, Paradise Lost, psychology, sacred, San Francisco, secret, secular, soul, speech, spiritual intimacies, Toronto

Description by Dustin Mailman

Recorded in NA

Citation: Thurman, Howard, “Conversations with Howard Thurman, September 1980, Parts 5 and 6, Side B,” The Howard Thurman Digital Archive, accessed July 9, 2024, https://thurman.pitts.emory.edu/items/show/301.

This recording is a part of a wider series of conversations from September to October of 1980 where Howard Thurman met with a variety of young men and women who were discerning their calling to ministry. Thurman poses the intent of this group as an opportunity to "open up for one's self the moving, vital, creative push of God, while God is still disguised in the movement of God's self." This recording opens with one student's reflection on the inner life, which is followed by a discussion on dualism, in relation to the inner life, from Thurman. Thurman explores the tension between the outer life and the inner life, religion and superstition, and the practical and the theoretical. Speaking to these examples of dualism, Thurman notes that dualism as "a padding, a shield, to keep us from the naked exposure to the spirit of God."

Part of the Collection, NA

Tags: A Chorus Line, authority, cleric, coffee, confidence, darkness, dualism, evolution, fluid area of purpose, inner guidance, inner life, inward journey, Jesus, Kentucky, Martin Luther King Jr., Nature of God, nerve center of consent, New Haven, New Jersey, non-dual, Passaic, praxis, psalmist, reflection, Shekhinah, symbolism, teachers, temptation, test, textile strike, turning, ultimate truth, validation

Description by Dustin Mailman

Recorded in NA

Citation: Thurman, Howard, “Conversations with Howard Thurman, September 1980, Parts 5 and 6, Side A,” The Howard Thurman Digital Archive, accessed July 9, 2024, https://thurman.pitts.emory.edu/items/show/300.

This recording is a part of a wider series of conversations from September to October of 1980 where Howard Thurman met with a variety of young men and women who were discerning their calling to ministry. Thurman poses the intent of this group as an opportunity to "open up for one's self the moving, vital, creative push of God, while God is still disguised in the movement of God's self." In this recording, Thurman reflects upon the significance of a robust inner life, noting, "The deeper I go into me, the more I come in a primary, naked, raw exposure to the very ground of life and existence." This teaching moment is followed by what appears to be journal entries from those who are in conversation with Thurman in this class, reflecting upon a variety of his works and lectures.

Part of the Collection, NA

Tags: absolute purity, aliveness, aliveness of life, angel of agony, companion, contemplation, darkness, Disciplines of the Spirit, Dream of Gerontius, fishing, ground of existence, hound of heaven, hound of hell, inner life, inward journey, John Henry Newman, love, mysticism, Psalm 139, sea, silence, silent, soul, storm

Description by Dustin Mailman

Recorded in NA

Citation: Thurman, Howard, “Conversations with Howard Thurman, September 1980, Parts 3 and 4, Side B,” The Howard Thurman Digital Archive, accessed July 9, 2024, https://thurman.pitts.emory.edu/items/show/299.

This recording is a part of a wider series of conversations from September to October of 1980 where Howard Thurman met with a variety of young men and women who were discerning their calling to ministry. Thurman poses the intent of this group as an opportunity to "open up for one's self the moving, vital, creative push of God, while God is still disguised in the movement of God's self." In this recording, Howard Thurman reflects with the participants what it means to live into one's calling as an offering of Thanksgiving to God. At the center of navigating his sense of calling, Thurman indicates that life feeds off of itself, and that it is in one's recognition of life's innate interwovenness, that the only response one's mind can have is making sense of one's lived reality.

Part of the Collection, NA

Tags: Albert Schweitzer, Brooklyn, calling, conversation, Cornell University, creative encounter, doctrine, dynamism, historical Jesus, John R. Mott, journey, life feeding upon life, light, meaning making, meaning of life, meditation, Meister Eckhart, mind, mysticism, Oak Tree, oyster bed, Quakers, religious experience, Rufus Jones, San Francisco, swamp, tape recorder

Description by Dustin Mailman

Recorded in NA

Citation: Thurman, Howard, “Conversations with Howard Thurman, September 1980, Parts 1 and 2, Side B,” The Howard Thurman Digital Archive, accessed July 9, 2024, https://thurman.pitts.emory.edu/items/show/298.