Pathwork Lecture #088: Religion: True and False

Summary of Pathwork Lecture #088:
Religion: True and False

For a deeper, more rewarding experience of these teachings, consult the Lecture itself, available free of charge at: http://www.pathwork.org/lectures/P088.PDF

There has been a divine effort through the ages to communicate the truth to humanity. The reaction of the dark forces to this effort has been the distortion of false religion, which attempts to make falsehood appear true.

A major telltale aspect of false religion is the emphasis on obedience to authority, whereas true religion encourages people to act from conviction rather than fear. The religious emphasis on obedience has been justified as necessary to contain humanity’s evil impulses, but to the extent that such containment is necessary, it ought to be accomplished by secular civil authority.

False religion encourages dependency and helplessness, with obedience being offered in return for the prospect of divine stewardship of one’s life. However, God does not reward such unhealthy attitudes, and so one inevitably feels cheated. In addition, one feels shame about one’s submissiveness, and this feeling becomes destructively directed at others. All of this necessarily leads to rebellion.

A person who is overtly submissive and timid must have a rebellious, bitter and aggressive aspect, although it may be well-hidden from consciousness. At the same time, a person who is overtly hostile also has a cringing, dependent and appeasing aspect, which is hidden from awareness because it provokes shame. Such a person overcompensates for his or her weakness, while feeling alone and rejected by God and humanity alike. Of course, these opposite tendencies may exist to different degrees and at different levels within each person. We would do well, whenever we detect one of the surface attitudes in ourselves, to LOOK for the hidden opposite attitudes, which have far more influence upon us than our conscious beliefs. In doing such self-discovery work, we contribute to the advancement of real rather than false religion on the planet.

We can find the dependency and submissiveness in ourselves by searching for it from the starting point of any negative emotion; however, self-pity is the best place to start. As we get in touch with our desire to have God or some other external power take responsibility for our lives, and we see how this weakens us, we gradually assume responsibility ourselves, and this gives us strength and self-respect.

The transition between one’s false image of God as a Being who demands obedience and submissiveness to a truer understanding of God can be difficult, as there may be a period of not having any sense of connection to God and even of doubting God’s existence. It is important to persevere through this phase — to tolerate the sense of aloneness — in order to develop the independence and self-responsibility which is essential to one’s spiritual evolution.

As we do this work, we will come to a better understanding of the need to face death and the unknown squarely and to accept it (as discussed in Lecture 81, conflicts in the World of Duality), and we will become more able to look productively at how some of our attitudes contradict the spirituality we are searching for.

Questions and Answers:

An attitude towards God which is grounded in truth seeks to understand how we have created our own suffering and to mobilize the divine within ourselves in order to overcome it, rather than pleading for God’s intervention, then stepping aside and waiting, and then feeling either anger or self-pity when God’s help fails to materialize.

We cannot change our erroneous attitudes by an act of will. Rather, we must EXPLORE them until we deeply understand how illogical and futile they are. While these emotional currents are subtle, they are not completely unconscious. We are, however, so used to them that we tend not to pay attention to them.

It cannot be said which religion is “farther away from the truth.”

“Thy will be done” does not suggest that we should be helpless, but rather that we would do well to open ourselves as much as possible so that we may receive a wisdom which is greater than the dictates of the little ego.

The trend of history is towards greater self-responsibility, which means less reliance on organized religious authority.

The truth cannot be stated as a rigid law. What we feel and what our underlying motives always determine what is best for us.

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