Pathwork Lecture #032: Decision Making
March 25, 2007
Summary of Pathwork Lecture #32: Decision Making
For a deeper, more rewarding experience of these teachings, refer to the Lecture itself, obtainable free of charge at: http://www.pathwork.org/lectures/P032.PDF
“All things work together for good for those who love God” What does this mean? First, to love God is to develop spiritually and to come to know spiritual law. For one who is on such a path, all mishaps MUST be for the good, even if it doesn’t initially seem that way. THINK of all past tragedies in your life and meditate upon how they served you spiritually. Where you are unable to make a connection, this is a sign of lack of self-knowledge.
“Love one’s fellow creatures” is one of the important Universal laws. But as long as we are impure, we are not capable of pure love. Love is not healthy when it involves putting another on a pedestal. This reflects pride and intolerance for the imperfections of others, and puts pressure on the recipient to uphold an idealized mask, which in turn gives rise to resentment. We help others with their masks partly by destroying our own, and partly by loving them for who they really are. So we should THINK about how we love.
Decisions: Everything in life is a decision, even the emotional attitudes we bring to our choices about our actions. Most people don’t actually weigh the benefits and costs and make a deliberate decision about things in their lives, and this leads to spiritual sickness and suffering. As a matter of spiritual law, which we need to ACCEPT and FOLLOW willingly, (1) we must face the disadvantage (or price) of every alternative from which we choose, not just the advantage; and (2) we must accept the uncertainty and risk in the choices we make. CONSIDER your difficulties and problems — they come from not having made conscious, deliberate decisions. Underneath, there was a greedy desire to cheat — to get something without having to pay the price.
Questions and Answers:
Lack of ambition is a distortion of the positive trait of humility, or not needing to stand out. Like any other fault, it may exist in one respect and not in others in the same person, and the person who has it may be aware of only its positive aspects. Ambition should be selectively DIRECTED towards worthwhile goals (such as spiritual development). Overcoming lack of ambition requires constant striving. This is the price one must pay to emerge from darkness, loneliness and unhappiness. One should MAKE a conscious, honest decision about whether one is ready yet to accept such a price.
We have to come to terms with the reality that everything has a price, and DECIDE maturely to pay it, as opposed to grudgingly acquiescing to a perceived authoritarian demand. To fight this reality is to struggle foolishly against God’s wisdom and justice.
Over-ambition is a distortion of strong will power, which manifests also as selfishness and ruthlessness. One must MAKE decisions about where to apply ambition and where to be without desire.
When being personally rejected leads to resentment, it is because of a vanity-based demand for universal acceptance. One should sense the self-will, the pride and the fear tied up with this demand. This power drive must be relinquished through gradual growth. It helps to realize that rejection is given only because of the rejecter’s soul sickness.
People who are deviating from spiritual law consequently suffer, and then often hurt others as a supposed means of protection. When we understand this about them, we will not be hurt by their actions. It is often better to say too little than too much to a person not mature enough to understand or who lacks the willingness to do so. One way to initiate conversation about what’s really going on is to speak first in general terms and see if the person becomes thoughtful. If there is receptivity, progressively stronger doses of truth may be given, always after asking for inspiration and guidance along the way.
© 2005, 2007 — All rights reserved (see first post in General Orientation category)
Pathwork Lecture #031: Shame
March 24, 2007
Summary of Pathwork Lecture #31: Shame
For a deeper, more rewarding experience of these teachings, refer to the Lecture itself, obtainable free of charge at: http://www.pathwork.org/lectures/P031.PDF
Our innermost selves and divine sparks are crying out for the nourishment of spiritual development. When we are sad or depressed, it is because our spirits are starved from blaming fate or God for our misfortunes rather than confronting and developing our selves.
Pride, self-will and fear are the three God-eclipsing factors responsible for all our faults.
There is appropriate and inappropriate shame. The right shame is true repentance, which is the incentive to purify. The wrong shame expresses hopelessness and despair about our badness and makes us passive. Also, since we don’t respect and love ourselves (because of our inappropriate shame and resulting passivity, not because of our faults, weaknesses, shortcomings themselves), we unrealistically demand respect and love from others.
If we SUBSTITUTE right shame for wrong shame and ADOPT a realistic and constructive attitude towards our faults, we will acquire a self-respect that will make it vastly easier for our surroundings to give us the love and respect we craved in the first place. Self respect derives from honesty and a constructive attitude about one’s self, not from the absence of faults.
Wrong shame is actually a prideful refusal to come to terms with ourselves as we really are. It creates guilt for not facing reality, and it leads to the creation of a mask, to hide the part which is being denied and which is regarded as awful. This lack of authenticity creates more despondency and self-loathing. The vicious cycle continues until one finds the courage and the humility to break it, by accepting one’s self at one’s true present state of development. FIND where in your emotions you want to be cherished for your faults, as compensation for your imagined inability to change.
Wrong shame obstructs progress on the Path. It is the wall we put up between ourselves and others, to hide what we are ashamed of, and it creates loneliness. We think whatever affection we get is directed at our mask, not at us. But we have nothing to lose by stepping into realness — the spiritually developed will love us more, and those who need to withdraw from us were never capable of loving us in the first place. However (as discussed in the Questions and Answers), we need to be discriminating about whom we open up to.
To adjust our shame from the wrong to the right kind, we simply need to GET IN TOUCH with our real feelings; EXPRESS them to ourselves as clear, concise thoughts; and OBSERVE the unreasonableness of our attitudes. True repentance is regarding one’s self honestly, and accepting that one will have to stumble over the same faults repeatedly in order to grow out of them. This repeated stumbling brings about a healthy humility. MEDITATE upon these words, and nourish yourself spiritually by finding where you deviate from the attitude of humble acceptance.
It is vital to reveal one’s true self to an appropriate person, in accordance with the law of brotherhood. God’s helpers inspire people around us to create difficult situations which provide us an opportunity to open up for our own benefit. But it is always up to us whether we want to come out of hiding. One begins the process of work with another by speaking openly and freely about one’s self, revealing what one knows one usually hides. Then the work moves into getting in touch with unconscious energies. If we pursue the process honestly, we will receive divine help. But we don’t get help by waiting for it in defiance as though it were our due. We can’t judge whether we have earned it or not. When we are stuck, we should ASK, “How humble is my attitude?”
We need to FIND the faults with which we are in love, and ASK for God’s help in understanding why, and in developing the right kind of shame. We should also ASK ourselves how we feel when we see the same faults exhibited by others. As an exercise, CONNECT each fault to pride, selfwill and fear; EXAMINE how it hinders loving; and FIND the good quality underlying it.
© 2005, 2007 — All rights reserved (see first post in General Orientation category)
Pathwork Lecture #030: Self-Will, Pride, and Fear
March 11, 2007
Summary of Pathwork Lecture #30:
Self-Will, Pride, and Fear
For a deeper, more rewarding experience of these teachings, refer to the Lecture itself, obtainable free of charge at: http://www.pathwork.org/lectures/P030.PDF
Communication with the spirit world has always been possible. If these teachings had simply been coming from the medium’s unconscious, there would not have been such a discrepancy between her normal state and her trance state.
In the highest light realms, there are distinct lightforces, personified by corresponding spirits, which represent every divine aspect in creation. In slightly lower spheres, these lightforces are represented as orders. Each soul in creation, including each one of us, belongs to a specific order, and is perfect in one characteristic (e.g., love, courage, kindness). In the case of a fallen soul, this perfection is beneath the layer of the lower self, and needs to be uncovered through self-purification. The perfect characteristic does not exclude our other positive aspects; rather, in the ultimate plan of development (which has been interrupted in order to fulfill the Plan of Salvation), perfection is meant to spread to those other aspects. It may be possible in meditation to identify the perfect characteristic; however, before getting to know the special individuality of one’s higher self, we must discover our faults and their significance and effect on ourselves and our lives.
The three basic hindrances to perfection are pride, selfwill and fear, which all human beings have at least to an extent. We need to sense and comprehend their existence on the subtle emotional level, and their relationship to each other.
Free will is a great gift, which we must enlist in the service of our spiritual development. Selfwill, the will of the little ego, blindly strives to get whatever it wants, without understanding that what is against spiritual law cannot be of benefit to the self.
Unconscious knowledge that selfwill cannot or should not be gratified, or is at cross-purposes with other aspects of the self, leads to fear of non-gratification.
Pride is considering our desires and our vanity to be more important than that of the other. If we feel the humiliation of another less than our own, then we still have too much pride. We would do well to stop taking ourselves so seriously, or we break the laws of justice and of brotherhood, while subjecting ourselves to fear that pride will not be gratified.
We would do well to MEDITATE on the connection between selfwill and pride.
All disharmony comes back to pride, selfwill and fear. Whenever we feel disharmony, instead of avoiding it or rationalizing it, we should bring it back to these three faults.
Questions and Answers:
We would do well to PRAY, when asking for strength, enlightenment and support on the Path, that we might receive it in order to channel it to others as well — that we might become sources to give and serve. And if we’re not really feeling that level of unselfishness yet, we would do well to CONFRONT the discrepancy honestly.
We learn in sleep; however, the veil is maintained for the same reason as we experience incarnational amnesia: we need to go through the process of overcoming the lower self, and it may be a hindrance to know certain things when we’re not ready for the knowledge. Some more developed souls may accomplish tasks and serve the Plan of Salvation during sleep.
When spirits manifest to lower beings, they do so in ordinary appearance. Spirits have to learn to discern what is true without the obvious authority which a higher being’s light would convey. Angels of God do not show themselves in lower spheres in order to teach.
© 2005, 2007 — All rights reserved (see first post in General Orientation category)
What If We Could Really End All Wars?
March 8, 2007
This is just me, but if I came across a post with a title like this one, my first reaction would be to scoff. “Another silly do-gooder who refuses to ‘get’ that whatever is happening in their little corner of the Universe has no effect whatsoever on the larger forces that are invested in violence and destruction. What a hippie!”
But here I am writing such a post.
Well, here’s the deal. There an entity — you have to decide whether it’s a human being pretending to channel or a higher voice speaking through a human being — who says this:
If only 10 percent of the world’s population were to be rigorously honest with themselves about their suppressed feelings, thoughts and motivations, they would exert an influence on the overall “spiritual reservoir” which we human beings share which WOULD MAKE WAR IMPOSSIBLE.
In other words, we don’t have to change George Bush or Osama Bin Laden or McDonnell-Douglas or Jerry Springer or any of those people and institutions. We just need to start a snowball which eventually encompasses let’s say 700 million people.
Does that seem like a lot? I don’t know. Maybe it depends on how credible and attractive the voice of this particular messenger is to the people on the planet who actually care about things like integrity and peace and so on, and who maybe understand themselves at least a little bit — or would like to.
That’s what I wonder about. What would such people think if they read the words I’m talking about? So I invite you to check them out. First try the beginning of http://www.pathwork.org/lectures/P012.PDF
Then check out http://www.pathwork.org/lectures/P014.PDF
I’d be curious to know what you think,
A friend of the Guide, and a brother of yours
Summary of Pathwork Lecture #29:
Forces of Activity and Passivity; Finding God’s Will
For a deeper, more rewarding experience of these teachings, refer to the Lecture itself, obtainable free of charge at: http://www.pathwork.org/lectures/P029.PDF
Twelve active and twelve passive forces permeate the Universe. We need to look at how we direct the active and passive forces within us.
Although following God’s will requires letting go of the little ego’s selfwill, it is a misconception that fulfilling God’s will requires passivity. Fulfilling God’s will requires willpower and activity. Will must be used to adhere to those of God’s laws which are known to us.
Channeling active energy into passive channels creates congestion and frustration; channeling passive force into active channels creates stagnation.
We are inclined to revolt when other people treat us wrongly; this is a channeling of active energy where we ought to access the passive, since we cannot change other people. We need to accept the imperfections we encounter on the Earth plane, in humble awareness of our own imperfection. As long as we revolt against our own imperfections instead of accepting them so as to allow gradual growth, we are misdirecting active energy and creating disorder in our souls. When we manage our energies properly, we will be able to fulfill our lives more effectively.
Behind all of our disharmonious feelings, there is a negative desire, and therefore an active force is being used instead of a passive one. Since wrong desire can’t really be fulfilled, frustration ensues.
In daily review, or in a process of looking back over the past few hours, we should focus on disharmonious moments and ASK, “what do I really want?” Look for unrealistic desires, as well as conflicting desires and desires for which we are unwilling to pay the price. This knowledge brings relief in and of itself. Also, this is how we become independent and strong, which is what God wants for us.
We must use active and clean willpower to discover and confront our real desires. The mere act of holding them in consciousness and comparing them to the spiritual laws we know is usually enough to bring us to an understanding of what God’s will is in the particular circumstances. The answer will come if we enlist God’s help by sincerely endeavoring to know ourselves, with a mature understanding that what we discover isn’t going to change us overnight. But we have to take the first step and wholeheartedly pursue this process.
Dissatisfaction, or doubt about God’s will, reflects something wrong within us, whether it be a sinful action or thought, or an unrecognized emotion which surges in the wrong channel or violates spiritual law. When a right and good instinct guides us, we know this by the relief and happiness it brings.
Questions and Answers:
Simply recognizing the contamination of our higher energies by lower energies is a purification. Lying to ourselves erects a wall between us and God. Choosing to do the will of the little ego binds and chains us; choosing to do God’s will sets us free.
The question to ask ourselves is not “is this right or wrong?” but rather “what are my motives?” and to pray for God’s help in finding the answer.
There is an inner will coming from the solar plexus. This will must be actively directed towards spiritual purification, without pressure or haste. The outer or conscious will must be serene and flexible, accepting life’s obstacles voluntarily as catalysts to growth, and appropriately shifting between activity and passivity.
© 2005, 2007 — All rights reserved (see first post in General Orientation category)
If you self-identify as a Christian but you’re confused by what look like contradictions in Christian doctrine, or conflicts between what your intuition tells you about the nature of God and the image of God traditional Christianity presents — AND if all of that bothers you at least a little bit, I’d like to introduce you to the teachings of the Pathwork Guide.
I extend that invitation as well to anyone else who is seeking the Truth.
If you research Pathwork at all, you’ll run into a lot of stuff that stresses the personal growth aspect of the teachings. And they are enormously important. But I believe Pathwork also has a great gift to offer anyone who is in any way hurting because of their inability to make sense of the Universe. As far as I’m concerned, the Pathwork Lectures are the only coherent explanation of what is actually going on that I have ever read. And while not everyone in the world needs a coherent explanation, I can see from the many blogs devoted to trying to make sense of things that there’s a lot of confusion out there, and that some people are hurting from it the same way I was before someone put the word of the Pathwork Guide in my hand. Maybe, if you’re reading this right now, Pathwork can offer you some peace of mind.
Ultimately, you’re not going to know if you’re a Pathworker until you read the Lectures themselves and feel the effect they have on you. So, after you’re finished with this post, you would do well to go to the list of lecture titles on the website of the International Pathwork Foundation:
http://www.pathwork.org/lecturesObtaining.html
and just scroll the list until you see a title that seems to call to you. Read that Lecture, and most likely you’ll know.
In the meantime, there are two other things you can do to get a sense:
First, read this unofficial description of the teachings from Wikipedia:
“The teachings of the Pathwork Lectures can be divided into two basic categories: self-development and cosmology. The self-development material explains why human beings are unhappy and what to do about it, and the cosmological material explains the nature of the Universe.
The core of the self-development material is the division of the human psyche into three parts: the higher (or divine) self, the lower (misguided, immature and destructive) self, and the mask (which hides the lower self). While the Guide occasionally referred to the lower self in dark terms, such as “demonic,” a core aim of the Pathwork is to contemplate one’s lower self with complete honesty and without inappropriate guilt. The essence of the process of transcending the lower self is to hold it honestly and yet gently in the light of awareness, to compare it with the desirable attributes of the higher self, and to take account of the destructive consequences its energies call forth in our lives. Said the Guide: “Only when the lower and mask selves are entirely conscious and their exact manifestations understood can misconceptions be corrected, because lack of awareness creates misconceptions. Misconceptions, in turn, create negative energy and feelings. Negative energy and feelings create suffering.” (Lecture 193, Resumé of the Basic Principles of the Pathwork: Its Aim and Process.)
In keeping with many spiritual movements, there is also a component of the self-development work which has to do with making connection to the divine. What makes Pathwork unique is the enormous amount of attention paid by the teachings to the process of uncovering and uprooting the many tendrils of the lower self, the influence of which, according to the Guide, can not possibly be avoided by compensation, denial or lack of attention.
Finally, there is an emotional component of surrendering to painful or seemingly overwhelming feelings in order shed pain-inducing resistance, open the blocked gates of the life force and experience every aspect of life more fully.
A summary of the Pathwork process may be found in Susan Thesenga’s book Special:Booksources/0961477776 The Undefended Self.
The cosmology of the Pathwork rests first and foremost on the assertions that all religions have a window to the truth, and that all religions are also necessarily distorted because they are understood by human beings. It could arguably be said, however, that Pathwork comes closest to a fusion of Christianity and Hinduism, informed by a powerful component of psychotherapeutic understanding. In the Pathwork framework, we are the angels who fell from Heaven, and we are working our way back to union with God (and each other) through successive incarnations on Earth which are designed to re-teach us the true nature of God, of ourselves, and of the Universe. Jesus of Nazareth was the Christ, our eldest sibling, the first-born of God, whose life and suffering on Earth led Lucifer (also our sibling) to open the gates of Hell to those who had been trapped there, so that they might work their way back to the House of God. (Note that the Guide explicitly rejects the traditional Christian explanation of Christ’s suffering as an “atonement,” i.e., an acceptance of punishment on humanity’s behalf. In fact, the entire notion of divine “punishment” is completely foreign to Pathwork teachings.)
Other aspects of Pathwork cosmology include the following: Every one of us, including Lucifer, is eagerly awaited in the House of God by the spirits who never fell or who have found their way back. Everything we feel, think and do comes back to us though the law of cause and effect (karma), making the Universe a vast automatic feedback mechanism which gradually brings us into line with Truth and Love by causing us to suffer when we are in error, and bringing us joy when we get it right. God loves every one of us deeply and equally, and is allowing us to go through difficulty and suffering only because there is no other possible way to bring us home without interfering with our divine attribute of free will. Our destiny is to be able to merge with God and separate at will, and to participate in the ongoing miracle of creation eternally.”
Second, check out my blog: http://friendsoftheguide.wordpress.com
What you’ll find there is a gradually expanding collection of unofficial summaries of the Lectures. Of particular interest to you as a Christian may be the summaries of Lectures 19 to 22. You can get full text by clicking on the link near the top of each summary. If those topics grab you, go to the Pathwork Foundation’s list of Lectures again:
http://www.pathwork.org/lecturesObtaining.html
and read Lecture 52, The God-Image and Lecture 258, Personal Contact With Jesus Christ.
I’m really hoping that there are souls ou there who will benefit from making a connection to this material. To the extent that time permits (I have about 30 minutes to blog every day), I’m willing to engage people’s comments about the material, so long as the intention is to resolve confusion. If the material makes you angry or inspires in you a desire to debate me or prove me wrong, I would say that it’s just for you right now, and I need for us to agree to disagree about its value and leave it at that with no hard feelings.
Having set that boundary, I repeat my invitation. If you’re drawn to investigate, please trust that feeling, and perhaps we’ll connect about this in the future.
All the best,
A friend of the Guide, and a brother of yours
Summary of Pathwork Lecture #28:
Communication With God — Daily Review
For a deeper, more rewarding experience of these teachings, refer to the Lecture itself, obtainable free of charge at: http://www.pathwork.org/lectures/P028.PDF
Consciously or not, all beings seek God. To seek happiness, love and security is to seek God. If we seek worldly substitutes instead, or misdirect our yearning for God towards a human being, we will not find satisfaction. When we find God, we also find acceptance of and appreciation for our hardships — for the justice behind them and for their strengthening effect upon us. Finding God requires confronting the lower self — getting one’s hands dirty to dig up the buried treasure of the higher self. Finding God requires getting in touch with one’s hidden emotions, confronting them honestly and evaluating them in the light of divine law. The yearning for God must be understood, and the sluggishness of the lower self must be recognized and overcome. In building a bridge to the divine, we must alternate between doing our inner excavation work and seeking God’s help.
We need to face our disbelief in God, rather than covering it up. To connect with the reality of God’s presence, SACRIFICE for Him/Her, without martyrdom, in a way only you and perhaps your helper know about. Take a problem, decision or excessive attachment and ASK: “what do I really want?” Then ASK, “is what I want perhaps not God’s will?” Then connect to doubts this may bring up about God’s existence. ASK: God whether He/She exists.
Only through complete readiness and willingness in every thought and intention to relinquish one’s selfwill and desires to God if and when His/Her will manifests clearly, can one receive an answer. Give up selfwill; trust that God knows better. This will bring unparalleled harmony and security.
ASK yourself what your God image is. Do you imagine God to be disapproving or aloof? In reality, one need never hesitate to bring one’s problems to God, trusting in His/Her wisdom. Surrendering one’s selfwill to the divine completely changes one’s life. ASK: “where is something in my life that God may wish to change?” Then, without undue haste, engage in the process of honest dialogue with God about it. The process will take time, and you may need to postpone it for a time if you are unready.
DO: a daily review of disharmonious moments. Look for patterns. ASK: “What are my feelings, my desire currents? How are they connected to my faults? Where do I deviate from some divine law?” Compare the patterns from the daily review with one’s list of personal faults [see Lecture 26]. The Guide begs us to do this for our own sakes.
© 2005 — All rights reserved (see first post in General Orientation category)
