Pathwork Lecture #091: Questions and Answers

Summary of Pathwork Lecture #091:
Questions and Answers

For a deeper, more rewarding experience of these teachings, consult the Lecture itself, available free of charge at: http://www.pathwork.org/lectures/P091.PDF

When one is aware that there are repressed emotions one cannot access, this awareness is a step in the right direction, and one may relax and appreciate it as such.  In time, the resistance to feeling will dissolve with understanding.  The resistance may be grounded in a fear of losing control (although emotions actually have less power when one is aware of them), or in a difficulty accepting feelings which strongly contradict one’s idealized self image (ISI).

Moralizing is part of the false conscience derived from our investment in our ISI, as opposed to the real conscience which comes from our higher self.  The false conscience gives rise to feelings of compulsive anxiety, guilt and despair, whereas the real conscience gives rise to a calm desire to do what is right, without any of those negative feelings.  When we act on the basis of our false conscience, we tend to experience resentment rather than pleasure.  However, when we discover that both consciences are aligned, it is best to act accordingly, with awareness of the involvement of our false conscience, rather than to rebel against doing the right thing.

Generalized exhaustion is often the result of carrying a lot of repressed emotions — not only feared negative emotions but also distrusted positive emotions.  The loss of energy gives rise to a sense of futility and hopelessness, which in turn gives rise to exhaustion.  Only a process of self-confrontation and understanding will solve this problem.

There can be no blind, rigid rule against killing anything.  Some life forms, such as germs and vermin, are destructive, and it is appropriate to kill them.  Truth is never rigid, and always requires responsible and courageous thinking and evaluating.  The next step in humanity’s development in this area is to adhere to strictly to a rule against unnecessary cruelty.  As individuals, we would do well to ASK ourselves where we tend to be irresponsible and where we tend towards rigid fanaticism.

In distinguishing between real and false elation, the crucial question is the motivation for seeking to experience that state.  If the goal is to escape the difficulties of life, and the necessarily gradual process of personal growth though self-confrontation, then the elation is false.  When there is a preoccupation with reaching euphoric states, supposedly to “communicate with God,” this is a clue that a short cut is being sought after.  True spiritual states of euphoria come undesired and unexpected, after all aspects of life have been confronted.

The inner peace which one experiences in meditation is real if it gives rise to a strength which can be used after the experience is over to further the process of self-confrontation and growth.  But if there is no such effect, the peace is a false one.  In such a case, it may be that the sense of peace is based on an excessive inner passivity.

We would do well to apply discipline to the process of self-confrontation and growth (with an emphasis on the little ordinary things which reveal so much about us but which we tend to ignore) as opposed to trying to overcome negative patterns by making promises to ourselves to change.  Stopping a negative pattern of defense without understanding how and why it came to be and how the defense creates exactly what it was designed to avoid leads to other negative manifestations, while not living up to the promises we make to ourselves is also destructive.

We often try to hurry our development because we feel a need to be perfect now in order to live up to our ISI, and because we believe that we cannot be happy until we become perfect.  When we learn to accept life as it is, and ourselves as ordinary, then we have achieved a significant level of maturity, and this makes us more perfect and happier than we were before.  Prayer is a good way to keep us working in the right direction.

One cannot have a real and trusting experience of God without first being able to have a real and trusting experience of self.  Trying to trust in God because one does not trust one’s self is misguided, and destructively weakens the self.

Confessing our limitations to others is helpful because it relieves our sense of isolation and unique “badness.”

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