Understanding Pamphlet
Founded by
DANIEL W. FRY
UNDERSTANDING, INCORPORATED
* HISTORY
* PRESENT STATUS
* FUTURE OBJECTIVES
Contributions are U.S. Income Tax Deductible
WHAT CAN THE INDIVIDUAL DO
TO BRING ABOUT MORE UNDERSTANDING?
There are a number of specific projects that every member of Under-standing and anyone interested in working for better understanding in the world can undertake:
1. Get out into your community and participate in its civic life. Join your chamber of commerce, join a service club, attend your city council or school board meetings. Take an active interest in the area m which you live. Make yourself known and speak out for those principles in which you believe. Let’s be silent salesmen on a person-to-person level.
2. Engage in correspondence with citizens of other countries on earth. Write letters and send tape recordings abroad. Communicate back and forth with people in other nations, letting them know what you feel about understanding, life on other planets, outer space, etc. Give them your ideas and tell them about your way of life, your family and daily activities. Write Understanding, Inc., Box 22, Station C, Pasadena, Calif. for names of persons to correspond with.
3. Send good magazines to other countries. Vast numbers of the earth’s population do not have good reading material. You can send them copies of good magazines published in your country. Why not send back issues of Understanding? A number of free back issues can be sent to you for distribution abroad upon request. Write Understanding, Inc., Box 22, Station C, Pasadena, Calif. for magazines and for names of foreign libraries, newspaper editors, etc. to send the magazines to. World opinion is moulded by just a relatively few people. Let’s get our message to those people in each country.
4. Write letters to those who are doing the world a service. If a TV station is putting on a particularly constructive program, let them know that you appreciate it. If a world leader does something fine, let him know that you are behind him.
TO: UNDERSTANDING, Incorporated
Box 22, Station C, Pasadena, California, U.S.A.
__ Please notify me of the nearest unit to my area.
__ I would like information on organizing a unit.
__ Enclosed is $4.50 for membership, which includes a year’s subscription to the UNDERSTANDING magazine.
__ Enclosed is $2.00 for membership without the magazine.
__ Enclosed is $2.50 for a year’s subscription to UNDERSTANDING magazine.
NAME: ________________________________
ADDRESS: ____________________________
CITY: ____________ STATE: ______________
HISTORY OF UNDERSTANDING
From a start of nine members at El Monte, California, in 1955, Understanding, Inc. has grown into an international organization of more than sixty units and many members-at-large throughout the world.
These units and members have sponsored hundreds of lectures and meetings, circulated thousands of books and magazines to reach many people in the spirit of “bringing about a greater degree of understanding among all the peoples of earth and preparing them for their eventual inevitable meetings with other races in space.”
Interest has been stirred throughout the world by letters and tape recordings. An international headquarters has been established in Merlin, Oregon, where a radio station is to be erected to further spread understanding. Some of the units have initiated “workshop” investigations into a number of varied fields. In addition to such accomplishments, Understanding itself has been transformed from the original association into a non-profit corporation and has thus become a permanent and better known entity.
More important, however, are the advances to which Understanding has contributed, particularly by the influence of its editorials in the Understanding monthly magazine which reaches many world leaders. The world has gained a degree of understanding. The people of this planet still have much to accomplish to achieve this objective but we are alive! It is a fact that cold, scientific calculation, based on the trend of a decade ago, would have had this planet annihilated several years ago. Something has happened; something has begun to reverse the drift toward disaster. It has taken the efforts of many groups working for understanding, compassion and peaceful international relations. Understanding has played a small yet not completely insignificant part in the lessening of world tensions.
WHAT IS UNDERSTANDING?
Understanding, Inc. is a non-profit corporation dedicated to the propagation of a better understanding among all the peoples of the earth so that they may live in harmony and be better prepared psychologically and sociologically for the space age.
It is made up of many types of people who have come together to seek better understanding of each other and of the mysteries of the universe.
The purposes of Understanding, Inc. are as follows:
To search for true and practical solutions to those great basic problems which presently threaten the happiness, the welfare and the existence of humanity upon this earth;
To promote and encourage a complete and precise determination of the cause of said problems, which, when achieved, leads directly to a clear understanding thereof, opening the way to practical solution;
To engage in scientific and other research, study, analysis and investigation of any and all things and in any and all fields in an endeavor to obtain new, greater and more advanced knowledge;
To understand that the rapid advances in the physical or material science have been aided by worldwide agreement on basic postulates or tenets, thus indicating the desirability;
To chart, in like manner, the area of worldwide agreement in the spiritual science, leading to rapid growth in man’s understanding of the true goal of life and in the practice of right relationships;
To chart, in social science, those tenets accepted as valid by all races and creeds upon earth today, thus establishing a guide for the behavior of man toward his fellowman wherever he may exist, and;
To bring about the establishment of truth, all for the betterment, improvement, encouragement and advancement of mankind.
WHAT IS UNDERSTANDING ATTEMPTING TO DO?
We are attempting to build a dynamic international organization devoted to the advancement of mankind.
We have no particular course of study to promote or special teaching to distribute. Rather, we are constructing a group of far-seeing individuals, so that persons may affiliate with it to give themselves strength, a sense of purpose and direction in the days to come.
Our purpose is to assist the world’s people in their struggle to adapt to change. Every member of Understanding can act as a silent salesman in his neighborhood, his community, his nation, and in the world – quietly selling the “new way of life” by attempting to live it in full view of his friends and neighbors.
Every unit can be a silent salesman as a group by taking steps to make its community more in tune with the changing world. This can be done through the efforts of every member in becoming active in civic affairs, being of as much help to the community as possible and disseminating information through lectures and literature.
What is this “new way of life?” It is love, honesty, open-minded-ness, fair mindedness, and the ability to eliminate prejudice and bigotry, to investigate rather than to ridicule and to examine all things and subsequently cling to that which is good. This way of life is not new at all but has been advocated as far back as the dawn of human intelligence.
The idea is not “What can I get out of Understanding?” It is “What can I contribute to mankind on the planet earth at this time?” The purpose of having a large organization like Understanding, is to band ourselves together and make our cause known throughout the world.