Pathwork Lecture #052: The God Image

Summary of Pathwork Lecture #052:  The God Image

For a deeper, more rewarding experience of these teachings, go to the Lecture itself, available free of charge at:  http://www.pathwork.org/lectures/P052.PDF

The Biblical prohibition against creating an “image” of God refers to a mental as well as physical image.

Because we learn as children that God is the highest authority, we project our own attitudes about authority onto God.  As children, we experience parental and other authorities either as hostile and prohibitive, or as indulgent and benign.  Usually currents based on our reactions to both of these authority types exist in us, each activated by different childhood experiences, and each current affects our relation to God on a subtle level and creates a corresponding God-image.

Where there is a false image of God as unjust and cruel, we may inappropriately react with either rejection of or submission to this perceived God.  In the case of an image of God as indulgent, and a corresponding expectation that our lives will be pleasant, we are thrown into confusion and fear by the way we experience adverse consequences flowing from our inner negative currents without understanding the causal connection.

Both images exist in each of us to some extent.  Their existence, in spite of our conscious convictions,  and the particular childhood experiences which activated them, need to be discovered.  We may struggle to resolve which is correct, but the truth is that neither one is.

To dissolve a false image, one must CONFRONT it, and then, without artificially suppressing the image, COMPARE it to what is true.  Some aspects of the truth may be apparent; others require PRAYER, and it is important to BE AWARE of blocks to receiving knowledge.

The remedy for a perception of God as unjust, or as pampering and indulgent, is the same: DISCOVERING the unconscious currents responsible for our negative life circumstances, so we can see how it is we who create our own lives.  This requires us not to wallow in guilt and shame, but to face our shortcomings as the misconceptions they are.

It is helpful to think of God not in His/Her personal aspect, but as a pervasive, intelligent life current which is rendered good or bad by the way we choose to use it.  God’s love is expressed in God’s laws, which automatically steer us towards the Light by causing us to suffer when we stray, but which preserve our free will to choose.

So it is not God who is unjust, but rather we who create apparent injustice by misusing the Great Creative Power at our disposal.  Understanding this through doing the work of CONNECTING cause and effect in our own lives is tremendously reassuring and liberating.  A good way to connect to our false God-image is to DISCOVER and CONTEMPLATE the ways in which we find ourselves more alive in negative situations than in positive ones.

Questions and Answers:

We misuse the life force when we are motivated by a spirit of separateness — of putting up an energetic wall with the goal of creating safety.  But we are not different from others, and we can gain nothing from that which is bad for anyone else.

Appropriate “detachment” is objectivity towards the self, not emotional removal from painful life experience.  So long as we fear pain and resist going through it, we are not detached from it.  By going through it, we lose the fear of it, which is worse than the pain itself.  A middle way must be found between attraction to negative situations and withdrawal from life, and in all of our involvements, we should seek to be objective about situations and about ourselves.

Abuse of the life force IS the anti-life force.

There is no absolute rule about whether or not to tell a white lie.  What matters in regard to all action is to act with full and honest consciousness of all of one’s motives.

The will of the Higher Self is God’s will, which is patient and relaxed, rather than self-centered and insistent.

We are never at the mercy of choices that other people make, because it is we who create our lives, no matter how much others may be at fault.

© 2005, 2007  — All rights reserved (see first post in General Orientation category)

Pathwork Lecture #051: Importance of Forming Independent Opinions

Summary of Pathwork Lecture #051:
Importance of Forming Independent Opinions
(Summarizer’s note: This Lecture was originally published under the name, “Whose Blindness?  — Whose Opinion?”)

For a deeper, more rewarding experience of these teachings, go to the Lecture itself, available free of charge at:  http://www.pathwork.org/lectures/P051.PDF

The blindness of others hurts us, but our own blindness keeps us unaware of how we hurt others.  And when we suffer because of others, we always make the mistake of focusing on their blindness rather than our own.  We would do well to UNDERSTAND that another’s wrong can never really do us harm.  Regardless of the merits of the conflict, we suffer because we struggle against that which we cannot change in them instead of changing our own attitude.

A breakdown is a tantrum — saying that we can be happy only if circumstances change.  It is better to turn inwards and learn from the situation.  Insanity is really this attitude of trying to force reality, taken to the extreme.  When we don’t accept things as they are, life force is misdirected, becomes destructive, and leads to rebellious self-centered moods in which we do things that only make matters worse.  This feeds a vicious cycle which can lead to continuous tantrums and finally a breakdown unconsciously aimed at changing things.  Incarnating repeatedly without learning this leads to eventual insanity.  The healthy attitude is to adjust by ceasing the fight and finding the lesson.  Giving up the pleasure of being hurt and wronged will open the door to compassion and much greater happiness.

Opinions:  we adopt them often without deliberating, out of laziness or lack of self-confidence in our ability to form our own.  But holding unexamined opinions causes self-contempt, creating a vicious cycle which we can break only by examining what we believe.  We also desire to conform and belong, which itself can be compensation for rebellion in other areas of our lives.  In addition, we use opinions to cover up wishes that we feel guilty about and deny ourselves.  In all these instances we are selling ourselves out because we lack the courage to be ourselves, and this increases self-contempt.  Sometimes we may also take the opposite opinions of hated authorities, in a rebellious stance which is actually just another form of dependency.

It is vital to FIND the real bases of our opinions.  The reactions we have to an opinion are clues.  With respect to opinions about politics, religion, love, etc., we can start by asking what our opinions are, why we have them, and how our opinions might be different if we had grown up with different environmental influences.  Simply recognizing that one is emotionally involved and that one’s opinion is subjective rather than based on fact, so that one takes the opinion less seriously, is a positive step.

Questions and Answers:

The opinions most worth looking at are those one is most invested in defending or asserting.  Having a conviction about something entails a certain responsibility.  There is no need to have opinions about everything, but a pattern of not being able to form opinions about things one feels are important should be looked at.

Our higher self relates to our feelings as an adult does to a child’s, and observes what our outer personality is doing and tries to guide us; however, blindness and self-will stand in the way.

When we discover ourselves doing the right thing for the wrong motives (e.g., bargaining for a reward, pacifying a guilt feeling, or nurturing a desire for self-destruction), we sometimes swing to doing a selfish thing, on the grounds that it is at least honest.   It is better to continue doing the right thing, but with awareness of the wrong motives mixed in.

Expecting love in return for the love one gives is self-defeating bargaining.  One needs to understand what others are capable of giving, and the meaning of what they might give in the context of who they are.

We will inevitably be loved in spite of our faults to the same degree as we love others in spite of theirs.

© 2005, 2007  — All rights reserved (see first post in General Orientation category)

Pathwork Lecture #050: The Vicious Circle

Summary of Pathwork Lecture #050: The Vicious Circle

(Summarizer’s note:  Originally published as The Great Vicious Cycle of Immature Love)

For a deeper, more rewarding experience of these teachings, go to the Lecture itself, available free of charge at:  http://www.pathwork.org/lectures/P050.PDF

The vicious cycle described in this Lecture operates subconsciously according to a primitive, limited logic.  It needs to be brought to consciousness in its entirety in order that we may dissolve it.

Because the child is dependent on others, it is incapable of mature love.  Those of its immature reactions which remain unconscious persist in adulthood.

Because of the unavailability of divine love, the child craves the substitute of exclusive love.  It is jealous of its parents’ connection.  This, along with not getting what it wants all the time, leads to feelings of hostility and resentment.  Hostility towards the loved parents leads to shame and guilt, and a perception of deserving punishment.  So the child avoids pleasure to atone, and to protect from the shock of suddenly going from pleasure to externally-imposed punishment.  Thus, there is a conflict between the desire for, and the fear of, happiness.  Also, the child concludes that self-punishment is more bearable than the humiliation and helplessness of punishment by others.  Where there are negative images about particular areas of life, the desire for self-punishment fortifies them and helps them to create negative manifestations.  A consistent pattern of frustration in an area indicates such an interplay of imagery and negative desire.

A perfectionistic standard is established as a bargaining ploy: “if I am really perfect then I won’t be punished.”  But of course punishment is not what anyone needs or deserves.  What is needed is real airing out of faults and gradual change.  We need to differentiate between the compulsive bargaining conscience and the true conscience of the higher self, which is concerned with one’s development, task fulfillment and personal law.  Personal law is consistent with divine law, but adapted to a particular person’s qualities, shortcoming, development and needs.

Divine law is flexible, and not always in tune with rigid moral frameworks or rules.  Divine law is first and foremost about not hurting others.  When one prays and hears the voice of one’s divine conscience, one is calmed and liberated.  Connection to divine conscience comes from deeply feeling into one’s self and complete self-honesty.  Compulsive conscience is about the perfectionistic bargaining ploy, which is grounded in fear and weakness, and about prideful unwillingness to accept one’s self as one currently is.  The inevitable inability to live up to compulsive conscience just creates a vicious cycle of shame, expectation of and desire for punishment, inferiority, and increased need to be loved and admired.  All inferiority feelings are ultimately grounded in compulsive conscience, rather than the justifications to which they attach themselves.  To compensate for this inferiority, we seek from others the love we never received as children, hoping to satisfy the frustrated craving and simultaneously prove our personal worth.  Now we are back where the cycle started, with us craving love.  But when we seek love with a motive to receive more than we give, or to prove something, what we get back will never be satisfying.  So the cycle never ends.

We need to allow ourselves to experience all the perceptions, conclusions and emotions that make up the various points on the vicious cycle of immature love, without shame, and compare all of this to what we know to be true.  This will produce gradual change, and bring us into contact with our covered-up core of wisdom which will guide us according to divine conscience.

Questions and Answers:

When the child has a tantrum and learns that this is “bad,” this just leads to suppression of what the tantrums are about, and indirect expressions of this suppressed energy in adulthood.  A tantrum means, “I am unhappy; you have to love me and take care of me.”

We have many bodies, starting with the spirit body, which is surrounded by bodies of increasing density, the human form being the most dense (at this sphere of development, in any case).  At death, we shed the physical body and then one other body.  This leaves the soul-body or feeling-body, containing the true inner personality, and then the eternal spirit body within, containing all the wisdom, truth and love.  The feeling-body leaves temporarily during sleep.  The more relaxed one is, the greater the separation and the more rest one gets from sleep.

Prayer is good mental discipline, but it should not become so rigid that it loses its meaning.

© 2005, 2007  — All rights reserved (see first post in General Orientation category)

Pathwork Lecture #049: Obstacles on the Path: Old Stuff, Wrong Guilt, and Who, Me?

Summary of Pathwork Lecture #049:
Obstacles on the Path: Old Stuff, Wrong Guilt, and Who, Me?

For a deeper, more rewarding experience of these teachings, go to the Lecture itself, available free of charge at: http://www.pathwork.org/lectures/P049.PDF

Both evil and the divine have to be found in ourselves. Evil is ignorance and error — all deviation from truth. Truth is God. Evil begins with the erroneous belief, which finds a foothold in the places where our development is arrested and immature, that selfishness and egotism will save us from hurt or bring us reward. We need to FIND this energy within oursleves, identify the wrong conclusions drawn from this viewpoint, and compare those conclusions to the truth.

Images all contain some measure of inferiority, guilt, hostility, ignorance, selfishness, fear, etc. We hide these because the alternative of letting them manifest brings negative feedback from the world at large, but when they are hidden, they fall back upon the self. The only solution is to learn to rid ourselves of selfishness, by recognizing it within us and learning how harmful it is to ourselves and others. To push these things away with a “must” is futile, because the emotions do not respond to compulsion and because the motive is essentially corrupt — the pride of not wanting to look bad. The motive has to be a sincere desire to bring happiness and love into our surroundings.

Our reaction to our own recognitions is of the utmost importance. We would do well to beware of dismissing something because we “already know it.” There are different levels and degrees of knowing. It is productive to treat every encounter with a familiar aspect of the self as though it were a new discovery. We should also beware of dismissing something because it seems to be the opposite of who we are. It is important to realize that we can be split as to a particular trend.

We have unjustified guilt for being imperfect, and for having sexual impulses which are still intertwined with immature and selfish lower self energies because we don’t allow ourselves to love. These guilts can act as covers for the real guilt we ought to feel for hurting others — intentionally and unintentionally. We would do well to ASK God to show us the hurt we have inflicted on other people. As we perceive these hurts, three reactions are possible; (1) hopelessness about how “bad” we are; (2) self-justification, and blaming others for “forcing” us to react that way; and (3) denial and avoidance. Instead, we would do well to ACCEPT the knowledge of the hurt we have caused without overdramatizing it, and WISH to become different and to give up our fear of loving. After gaining a basic understanding of our images, it is productive to separate the justified from the unjustified guilts, and to have the courage to be sorry for hurts we have caused unintentionally.

Questions and Answers:

Emotional maturity is willingness to endure occasional hurt and disappointment. Withholding of our love from others is emotional immaturity, which thwarts our selves as well as others. Giving good emotions to others is more important than what might happen to us later. The mature person is unafraid of negative emotions, because they are kept in his or her consciousness. Emotional maturity means knowing what one wants, wanting what one can have, and being willing to pay the price.

We are angry because our mask self hasn’t worked — the forced goodness hasn’t paid off. But this layer of anger and rebellion is not the ultimate truth of who we are either. We need to admit this layer without remaining caught up in it.

Tiredness results from misusing the life force, and suppressing destructive tendencies rather than allowing them into consciousness.

Job suffered for pretending to be more developed than he really was.

True positive thinking is recognition that ultimately good must prevail. Striving to have “the right attitude” in different life situations through superimposed “positive thinking” which ignores inner negativities is an ineffective crutch, resorted to out of fear of failure and disappointment. The opposite distortion is masochistic resignation and hopelessness, rather than healthy acceptance of that which cannot be immediately changed. Knowledge of the unconscious allows one to just “be,” taking life’s ups and downs as they come. We would do well to ASK: “What do I defend? Why do I have to defend myself?”

© 2005, 2007 — All rights reserved (see first post in General Orientation category)

Pathwork Lecture #048: The Life Force in the Universe

Summary of Pathwork Lecture #048:  The Life Force in the Universe

For a deeper, more rewarding experience of these teachings, go to the Lecture itself, available free of charge at: http://www.pathwork.org/lectures/P048.PDF

Nothing can exist without the life force.  Inanimate objects are petrified life force, while a beautiful idea is flowing life force.  All life must exist eternally.  The life force simply “IS.”

Matter, or petrified life force, can exist only where the life force is disturbed.  Death is not necessary in principle, and eventually, people will not die, but will transform their bodies into spiritual substance.

We block the life force by violating spiritual law, all the time, at the very least in our unconscious emotions.  The life force is regenerative.  Our inner obstructions block it from entering and healing us.  Where the life force has not been violated, secure happiness is possible.

Spiritual “law” should not be understood as compulsion — which is a violation of spiritual law — but as divine truth, which liberates us from our own errors as we bring them into consciousness.

We cannot understand divine truth until we understand the obstructions we have put in its way.  The only way to remove obstructions is to get our hands dirty rooting them out.  This may expose us to their toxic nature for a time, but the alternative is to let the obstruction remain.

The process of purification requires us to endure pain.  There is degenerating pain, caused by spiritual sickness, and regenerating pain, caused by opening to the healing life force.  The truth has to be encountered, as painful as it might be.  Undergoing this painful “operation” is far better than enduring the pain which only the operation can cure.  Rather than looking for external fixes, we need to do this inner work, which will manifest on all levels of our lives.  Miracles happen on the path, but only when they are earned the hard way.  Prayer helps, but there is no substitute for the work.

It is never accurate to believe that what happens is unfair, because in the last analysis, we have caused our own suffering.  We have to find the cause and change direction.

We would do well to MAKE A LIST of important issue areas in our lives, e.g., sex, authority, relationship, money, work.  It is useful for one person to QUESTION the other about general ideas regarding any of these subjects which are problematic, then about the subject in that person’s life, covering childhood, adolescence and adulthood.  The process should include CONSIDERATION of parental attitudes about these things, EXAMINATION of how our intellectual concept may differ from our emotional attitude, and a CONTRASTING of the unconscious attitude with the attitude we know to be appropriate.

When there is friction between you an someone else, it is productive to BECOME AN ADVOCATE for their point of view.  Do this with an objective third party.  Then do it with the person you’re having conflict with.  Take it to the limit.  Let that person give you additional material to incorporate in your case.  Let others judge whether you better represent yourself or the person with whom you are in conflict.

Questions and Answers:

The life force is everything good that exists.  Everything negative is petrified life force.

There are no rigid qualifications for being a helper.  It is good to have insight, intuition, deductive power, observation, a warm interest in others, positive feelings, and a basic detachment.  There is no fixed level of necessary progress on the path, although at least some progress is required.

Spiritual rebirth can occur only when one finds everything behind the inner wall (see Lecture 47) and consistently applies the findings to one’s reactions.  Eventually, in one incarnation or another, we can become aware of all our negative trends.  The work we do carries over to future incarnations as a habit of self-search.

We would do well to REMEMBER that bitterness, anger and self-pity all block the life force.

© 2005, 2007  — All rights reserved (see first post in General Orientation category)

Pathwork Lecture #047: The Wall Within

Summary of Pathwork Lecture #047:  The Wall Within

For a deeper, more rewarding experience of these teachings, go to the Lecture itself, available free of charge at: http://www.pathwork.org/lectures/P047.PDF

The desire for development and perfection comes not only from the higher self, but from the lower self as well.  When we recognize that being completely selfish will cause us to be disliked and unhappy, we see goodness as a solution, and to this extent our desire for goodness is actually selfish.  This intertwining of higher and lower motives causes us confusion about our true motives, and can sap our will to develop ourselves.  We would do well to recognize where our desire for goodness comes from our divine spark and where it doesn’t.  This healthy self-confrontation will bring the soothing effect of truth.

One approach to dealing with unkind motives which lie beneath our superficially good behavior is hypocritical self-justification on the basis of others’ shortcomings.   Or, in order to avoid seeing ourselves as hypocrites, we may adopt a different solution of suppressing awareness of our lower self motives.  However, the healthy approach is honest self-confrontation, accepting where we are at our current stage of development, without surrendering to our baser currents.

Between the awareness and the suppressed, unconscious lower self energies there is an actual wall of soul-substance.  Specifically, the wall is composed partly of misdirected and ineffective goodwill, and partly of cowardice, pride, selfwill and impatience.  The process of Pathwork is the process of gradually bringing things out from behind the wall into consciousness, thereby making the wall shrink and recede.  While the wall can’t be destroyed precipitously, its destruction must be our eventual goal.  When we have done that, we will stand naked before ourselves and our maker, able to be permeated by divine substance.

We would do well to MEDITATE on this wall within ourselves, until we can really sense it.  This will facilitate its destruction.

The danger is that we will actually reinforce the wall by using the truths we learn in spiritual search to keep certain things hidden.  We may sense this readily in others without realizing that we are doing the same thing.  Even the Guide’s teachings can be unconsciously abused in this way, so that they become dead, rigid and meaningless.  Speaking truths automatically, without feeling their meaning is a sign of such abuse.  Putting some things we have learned about ourselves out in the open, and magnifying their significance, can be a means of proving that we are willing to look at ourselves, while we actually keep certain things out of reach.  While one who is on the Path will never leave it, one can get one’s self stuck in a loop where no more real progress is being made.  Out of misguided self-protection, the unconscious will work hard to try to make sure that this happens to us.

We would do well to ASK God first to help us to see the wall and then to give us the courage and the humility to break it down.

Questions and Answers:

Psychic currents are analogous to electricity.  They are produced by the unconscious as well as the conscious mind.

A duty is not a compulsion, but rather something that one voluntarily takes on.

A sphere is built up by one’s deeds, thoughts, attitudes and feelings, and can not be changed quickly.  One’s aura is one’s momentary energetic emanation, which comes from who one is, not what one does.

After recognizing that one is unconsciously a law-upholder but consciously a law-breaker (see Lecture 46), one would do well to OBSERVE one’s reactions, and ASK, “what do I feel; how do I react; what lies behind this reaction; why am I at times a law-upholder and at other times a law-breaker?”  One should strive for concise expression of one’s emotions, and observe as well one’s attitudes towards one’s reactions.  This will lead to one’s inner wrong conclusions, at which point one must consider what the right conclusions would be.  This will bring gradual change.  It is the only way.

We need to find the middle path between unwillingness to give ourselves up and indiscriminate willingness to do so.  ACKNOWLEDGE the imbalance, and PRAY for guidance and recognition.

If we try to buck our life plan, we bring about suffering for ourselves, which forces us back onto the appropriate path for our own good.  This is a natural healing force.  No matter how much we struggle against the flow, balance and harmony must inevitably be achieved in the end.

© 2005, 2007  — All rights reserved (see first post in General Orientation category)

Pathwork Lecture #046: Authority

Summary of Pathwork Lecture #o46: Authority

For a deeper, more rewarding experience of these teachings, go to the Lecture itself, available free of charge at: http://www.pathwork.org/lectures/P046.PDF

Life on Earth is a school, and incarnations are like classes. By learning to understand our compulsive and unconscious trends, we gradually learn how our outer problems are connected to our inner conflicts, and how our emotions magnetically attract certain events. This brings us to knowing the reason and purpose for our life, which is a major milestone in the soul’s journey home to God.

Authority is the child’s first conflict. Because authority denies the child the fulfillment of many wishes, the child relates to it as hostile. Unconscious childhood attitudes carry over into adulthood and manifest towards government, employers, etc.. Mature adjustment to authority is a milestone for the soul.

There are two basic “reaction to authority” currents: that of the law-breaker and that of the law-upholder (speaking not only in the superficial sense regarding social laws, but also in a deeper, psychological sense). In their extreme manifestations, they are equally distorted and wrong. These currents or trends exist in various proportions in people, and proportions and dominance may shift over time.

The law-breaker believes that what he or she wants is good, and may rebel against restriction overtly or subtly. The law-upholder sides with the authority figure in order to be safe. Threatened by his or her own suppressed rebellious tendencies, the law-upholder finds it necessary to oppose and be very strict with the rebel. But since the upholder is coming from weakness and fear, this energy inevitably has negative results. A person’s unconscious affects another’s unconscious much more than consciously recognized energies do. Thus, the unconsciously motivated upholder has a strong negative effect on the rebel, who reacts against the upholder’s “goody-goodyness,” and these opposite extremes set off a vicious cycle of mutual escalation.

We would all do well to TUNE INTO these authority-related currents as they exist within us.

A predominantly rebellious person would do well to MEDITATE upon the difference between divine authority, which is allied with us, and distorted self-righteous human versions of authority. An understanding of the two basic currents will create compassion for the upholder, appreciation of the necessity for authority, and tolerance of the imperfect way it manifests on Earth. This will free the rebel from having to act against authority.

The predominantly law-upholding person would do well to UNCOVER the moment in his or her childhood when he or she decided to side with authority, and tune into the weak motives which were part of that decision. This will lead to a lessening of self-righteous severity, and an appreciation of the obligation to connect with the rebel from a place of understanding. Christ was able to connect with sinners without judgment, and to laugh with them at the pompous and self-righteous — this is the type of authority one should cultivate.

Of course, dangerous law-breaking should not be tolerated. But the vicious cycle of distorted authority and rebellion which preceded and gave rise to it must be understood. Everyone is involved in the vicious cycle, and everyone can create a world without such cycles by examining his or her own contributions.

Questions and Answers:

God is the only real authority.

An individual often carries a mixture of the two trends regarding authority. It is important to LOOK at when and why one or the other trend predominates.

We can change our distortions about authority by TAPPING INTO our reactions and images and COMPARING them honestly to what we know to be the truth, without trying to control our emotions. We can form a right concept by THOUGHT and MEDITATION, and by ASKING for divine help in understanding.

© 2005, 2007 — All rights reserved (see first post in General Orientation category)

Pathwork Lecture #045: The Conflict Between Conscious and Unconscious Desires

Summary of Pathwork Lecture #045:
The Conflict Between Conscious and Unconscious Desires

For a deeper, more rewarding experience of these teachings, go to the Lecture itself, available free of charge at: http://www.pathwork.org/lectures/P045.PDF

The only purpose of life is self-purification, which depends on self-knowledge. One cannot force change by using one’s will. Will is to be used to discover the lower nature of one’s emotions. Purification comes from accepting with humility the truth about what one finds.

To know the hidden facets of one’s self, one must find the desires which underlie any emotional reaction, positive or negative. The foundation of this work is the daily review: we would do well to go beyond noting what caused disharmony and ASK, “what do I really want in that situation which causes fear or anger?” It is productive to FIND the frustrated desire, and to LOOK also at how whatever brings happiness either fulfills a desire or make it seem more likely that a desire will be fulfilled. Once an articulate awareness of desires is established, the work proceeds to FINDING their origins.

Lower self motives find hidden expression through actions seemingly motivated only by the higher self. This is why actions with apparently noble motives can yield disharmony. We would do well to OBSERVE all of our motives and openly ACKNOWLEDGE them to ourselves, without forcing our feelings, which only shoves them into unconsciousness where they can do more harm.

Emotions are really just more intense versions of thoughts. It takes a long time to break emotional habits, which are even harder to change than long-held opinions. To do so, we must OBSERVE our emotions without judgment or evaluation, and in mindfulness of the fact that good motives do not exclude the simultaneous truth of a bad motive. We would also do well to CONNECT our current desires to our childhood desires, and to RECOGNIZE and EXPLORE areas of confusion and knots of conflicting desires, since our outer conflicts, miseries and unfulfillments logically flow out of them. In finding what we really want, we also have to COME TO TERMS with the fact that there is a price to be paid.

Mass images (images held by humanity as a whole) strengthen personal images. For instance, we are all affected by the mass image about the duration of life.

As we become aware of our emotions, we would do well to TAKE RESPONSIBILITY for the effect they have on others, rather than unleashing them irresponsibly.

We each have an appropriate guardian angel, who observes us. Guardian angels may also meet our first steps towards God with helpful energy. They do not interfere with our judgments, but make sure that we are affected only by what we ourselves have spiritually set in motion according to the law of cause and effect. We also attract negative spirits who are in harmony with our negative aspects.

Questions and Answers:

All guardian spirits are “organized” spirits. (*Summarizer’s note: “organized” means engaged by Christ to help in the Plan of Salvation — see Lecture 22, Salvation.)

The age at which we die is influenced by the mass image, but is ultimately a function of our life plan. When we reach perfection, we no longer need to go through the process of life and death. Some guardian spirits are still in the incarnational cycle. When we fulfill a mission, we receive a higher, more powerful guardian.

All moods are based on underlying desires. Joy may come from the satisfaction of a healthy desire, and if it is not tinged with disharmony or fear of losing the joy, one need not delve into it.

When a lower self motive is present, one may still act, but one should recognize the bad motive. Recognition is the beginning of purification.

The law of affinity is that like attracts like. In essence, it is the law of cause and effect.

Some souls are more tightly bound up in mass images of race, creed or nationality than others. The conflicts this creates will eventually free them from these images.

© 2005, 2007 — All rights reserved (see first post in General Orientation category)

Pathwork Lecture #044: The Forces of Love, Eros and Sex

Summary of Pathwork Lecture #044:
The Forces of Love, Eros and Sex

For a deeper, more rewarding experience of these teachings, refer to the lecture itself, available free of charge at: http://www.pathwork.org/lectures/P044.PDF

Humanity has often confused the forces of love, eros and sex, and been unaware that they are different.  Ideally, eros is the bridge between sex and love, but when one doesn’t know how to love, then the erotic spark burns out.  Like love, eros brings forth unselfishness and affection, even in persons who don’t normally go there.  Eros gives the soul a foretaste of unity and teaches the fearful psyche the longing for it.  Eros can strike even the unwilling, without warning.  But unlike love, eros is temporary.

For a person afraid of feeling, eros can be a catalyst to breaking loose, which is good even if connection leads to sorrow and loss for other psychological reasons.  On the other hand, for a person unafraid of such feelings and yet unwilling to learn pure love, eros is a great temptation, although hunting for successive eros experiences is an abuse with karmic consequences.  Whether one is too tight or too loose in one’s willingness to experience eros, there will be a compensation in the next life until balance is achieved.  This principle applies to all personality aspects.

Sex is the creative force, creating what there is on that level of existence.  It is a selfish drive.  Eros and sex normally mingle.

A marriage needs eros to be maintained.  Eros is the adventure, the search for knowledge of the other soul.  Eros survives as long as the partners are revealing and open to being revealed.  Often we suffer under the illusion that we fully know another, and allow ourselves to resent the other for our lack of fulfillment, when there is actually no limit to the potential revealing of another soul.  Continued revealing is the spiritual purpose of marriage.  Each partner has to be alert and uncovering his or her own inner experience and sharing it.

When dissatisfaction with a marriage is stronger than temptation towards the comfort of inertia, the marriage will break up.  But when dissatisfaction is weaker, there may be an affair.  Greater infidelity among males reflects a more common tendency among males to be active and adventurous (restless), whereas women tend to be more willing to compromise.

We would do well to THINK deeply about whether we are afraid to emerge from separateness.  If there is a real unwillingness to risk self-revelation, then an integral part of the life-experience remains to be fulfilled, if not in this life then in a later one.  Those who are alone may find the cause and the solution by tuning into this fear.

Our own true self is the greatest gift we can give to another.  And one who gives it will inevitably receive the same from his or her partner.  Whom we choose as a partner reflects our own attitude towards taking the journey ourselves.

Questions and Answers:

Men do not always reveal by speaking.  A woman who wants to be met will find that if she touches a sufficiently mature man in his deeper place, he will respond, but not necessarily verbally.  Women often are more able to initiate the process of revealing, but both partners have to have the maturity and willingness.  In a healthy relationship, spiritual leadership — helping the other be liberated spiritually — flows back and forth.

Revealing one’s self to another human being is a foundation for revealing one’s self to God.

Polygamy is inconsistent with the complete revelation of the self to another.  Thus, it is inconsistent with spiritual law and inherently unsatisfying.

Celibacy is very rarely part of one’s life plan and is almost always an unhealthy escape.

Coming together in a real way brings one closer to God than “lukewarm good deeds.”

There is human error in every religion.  Erroneous dogmas are attempts to cover up negative currents of the soul.

There is no such thing as a force, a principle, or an idea which is in itself sinful, and this principle applies to sex.  The separation of sexuality from love is what makes sex “sinful.”  The hiding of sexuality keeps the sexual nature from maturing and creates the vicious cycle of distortion and separation of sex from love.

Men and women can be friends, so long as they maintain a healthy balance between reason, emotion and will in the event that eros sneaks into the picture.

Divorce is not against spiritual law per se, and it is better to break clean than to let one partner prevent the growth of the other; however, one should not leave a marriage lightly.

© 2005, 2007 — All rights reserved (see first post in General Orientation category)

Pathwork Lecture #043: Three Basic Personality Types: Reason, Will, Emotion

Summary of Pathwork Lecture #043: Three Basic Personality Types:

Reason, Will, Emotion

For a deeper, more rewarding experience of these teachings, refer to the lecture itself, available free of charge at: http://www.pathwork.org/lectures/P043.PDF

Often, conflicts and trials are answers to prayers for growth, as they bring us to awareness of our faults. When an inner deviation from spiritual law becomes manifest, it is necessarily unpleasant. Rather than dwelling in hurt and defiance, we need to turn inwards, no matter how wrong we think others might be, and ASK God to show us the grain of truth we don’t see, so that we might develop. When we see the core of our own inner error, the conflict will evaporate and we will be able to unite with others in understanding and love, which is something we can do here on Earth before eventually uniting with God.

Among other classifications, human personality can be divided into three basic types: reason, emotion and will. Each person is a unique mix. In a human being, not only are these trends out of balance, but they tend to be directed into inappropriate channels.

Reason types are out of touch with emotion and intuition, and use will with premeditation and excess caution. They are proud of their reliance on reason, look down on emotion types, and miss a lot of life-experience, mostly on account of pride and fear of losing control. But this does not necessarily mean that they are less developed than emotion types.

Emotion types get carried away by their feelings and use will unconsciously and without deliberation, creating unanticipated results. They are proud of the ability to feel, and look down on those who are emotionally cut off. They fear that they will miss something if they curb and train their natures. But giving in to their emotions can become addictive, and when such a person is caught in his or her own torrent, he or she becomes selfish and destructive. Such a person needs to see that feeling is no longer an asset when it goes to such extremes, and needs to cultivate deliberate thinking and planning.

People may be blends of reason and emotional tendencies, and the proportion may vary in different aspects of their personalities. There may also be masks involved, as where an emotional person adopts a calm intellectual mask out of fear of the inner emotional storm.

Ideally, will should flexibly serve both reason and emotion. But the will type makes will the master. Will types look down on both reason and emotion types as ineffectual, but are often too impatient to have the wisdom to achieve or sustain success, as well as too controlling to be able to give themselves over to emotional life-experience.

These are three crass types, and most of us are not obviously one type or another. Often, two types are predominant in a person while the third is crippled. And the tendencies function in improper channels, as do our active and passive energies (*Summarizer’s note: see Lecture 29).

Questions and Answers:

The three tendencies also outpicture physically in our bodies.

A person who resorts to different tendencies in dealing with different people should look at why this is so.

The idealized form is in balance, but this doesn’t have to mean an equal amount of each tendency. Balance and harmony can be achieved without equality.

Each spirit, as created by God, was perfect in one particular way. Perfected reason, emotion and will types are angels of Wisdom, Love and Courage. The Plan of Salvation is for development to pause, in a way, until all the souls have reachieved original perfection in one aspect, so we can all get back to perfecting every aspect of ourselves and so becoming Godlike.

In addition to its pure background, any quality may be motivated by negative trends and tendencies. And faults may be influenced by positive tendencies running in the wrong channel.

A person who is a particular type needs to tap the other two currents in order to bring one’s nature into harmony and balance. Then he or she will still remain that type, but in a better way.

Communication with the spirit world, risky though it may be, is a great tool for spiritual growth, which is its only legitimate purpose. Psychoanalysis is a good tool as well. The ultimate aim is connection with the Divine in the self.

Mary was a pure spirit. This does not mean that she reproduced asexually.

Resistance to the Path comes from a desire not to become responsible, and to stay at the stage of development in which one has become comfortable.

The Guide encourages us to love and understand one another, removing the mutual walls of fear that separate us. When we want to settle differences, God will be with us. If we see the difficulties and crises into which this Path brings us as the product of our own errors, we will emerge victorious.

© 2005, 2007 — All rights reserved (see first post in General Orientation category)