The curse of the world has been a false sense of responsibility. The human mind has burdened itself with the belief of being a cause, and with that has of course followed the necessity of producing effects. With this necessity has come fear of failure, worry over results, and a general loss of all of the joys of life through the pressure of attempting to create.
The human mind has attempted to classify its victims into two classes, those who are responsible or reliable and those who are irresponsible. In fact, one who is called not responsible is assumed to be not in control of his mental faculties and so without a mind, or insane. Therefore the effort of training has been to give a man a human sense of responsibility, for without that he was considered incapable of being of use in the world. The period of transition between childhood and manhood is the period of training and therefore of assuming human responsibility. Also this period is the time at which the joy and spontaneity of life usually disappears. One who does maintain his joy beyond this time is said to have kept his youth, or not to have grown up. And yet the Master said, "Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven." No statement has ever superseded Jesus' definition of the condition of thought which knows God. None is more complete, yet none is more overlooked by the aspiring human mind which is seeking to take itself into the heavenly kingdom.
The reason for this worship of responsibility is the egotistical belief of the human mind that nothing is done unless it originates in that mind. Knowing no other cause than itself, it is blissfully unconscious of any opposition to its false claims of causation and is sure that no result can be obtained except from human activity. From this belief comes the desire for a strong human will, as it is felt to be the motive power of the human mind. As a result of this education of the human will we are coming into contact with all forms of human thinking which guarantee to produce the results desired by the human mind. We see schools of salesmanship and books on the power of the educated human will, and many people have been deluded into thinking that such schemes can "profit a man."
