An Unofficial Summary of Pathwork Lecture #095: Self-Alienation: The Way Back to the Real Self
For a deeper, more rewarding experience of these teachings, consult the Lecture itself, available free of charge at: http://www.pathwork.org/lectures/P095.PDF
Whether or not he or she realizes it, every human being has awakened from a previous plant or animal state and is struggling to find the state of being while in awareness, and from there to balance activity and passivity. We can overcome matter, which is the result of illusion, only by mastering our own personal untruth.
We can be happy only by finding our true selves, and becoming able to connect with the true selves of others. Even if we see our habitual superimposed false patterns and their destructiveness, we are unable to dispense with them because we lack connection to our authentic core.
Helplessness in any area of life is a symptom of self-alienation, that is, lack of access to one’s faculties. Getting beyond helplessness does not mean that we will always win — in fact, a person who needs to win all the time is alienated from the self and dependent on the compliance of others.
When we align with reality, we experience the real self’s qualities, such as love, insight, resourcefulness, and creativity, and are able to discriminate and make constructive, effective choices (which are always available in any situation). This is possible only when we stop experiencing non-fulfillment — which is the result of our paralyzed faculties — as annihilating proof of our inadequacy. It is helpful to BECOME AWARE of this inner experience, beneath the rationalizations we have for our unhappiness.
Estrangement from the self leads to projecting power and responsibility onto others or circumstances, rather than relying on ourselves. Also, we may invest too much in some of our own personal faculties while neglecting the development of others.
Our idealized self-image and our pseudo-solutions are selfish and loveless, and thus foreign to the true self.
When we are in touch with our true self, we can be calm, resourceful and confident, without having to be glorious or special. Simply being human means that we have tremendous as yet unrealized powers. We do not experience others as “better than” or “less than,” in the distorted and self-referential way we do when we are self-alienated. We cannot emerge from these distortions until we have first consciously experienced them.
It is useful CONSIDER a situation in which we feel helpless, and OBSERVE: (1) whether we are clear about our wants and open to new approaches, or whether we demand that the solution be handed to us in spite of our unwillingness to change; and (2) whether we relate to others as better or worse, or more or less powerful, than we are.
If we are dissatisfied with our lives, is this not because we have failed to reach our potential?
Pathwork consists of (1) becoming aware of our distortions and (2) changing. Change comes about organically, but when we are far enough along, to where we can truly see the benefit of change for ourselves and others, then we can apply our will to changing deliberately. Such discipline is eventually necessary to achieve change, but if we apply discipline prematurely, when we are still motivated by vanity or by submission to authority, then anxiety and new destructive patterns will result. Thus, awareness of our motivations is important. Anxiety is a sign that more self-searching is required. It is helpful to ASK: “Why do I feel this way?”
Change is the essence of life. When we block change in the less developed aspects of ourselves because we prefer to enjoy the developed aspects, then we are unhappy, not only because of the imbalance itself, but also because our potential is unfulfilled.
Our need to sift through our false needs before we can discover our real ones is evidence of our self-alienation. In that process, we may progress from awareness of needs to receive to awareness of needs to give. When we accept that these needs exist and are as yet unfulfilled, rather than avoiding this awareness because it “proves” our inferiority, we make progress. Eventually, while there may be ups and downs along the way, this inner evolution will generate more satisfying outer circumstances.
Questions & Answers:
When we are resistant to disciplining ourselves to change, it is important to FIND our remaining investment in the old pattern.
When a distorted current coexists with a healthy one, discipline should be applied to FINDING the hidden motive for the distorted current, such as pseudo-protection, or fulfillment of a false need. So long as the distorted current still exists, there is a need to go deeper in finding the motive.
Healthy grief in relation to a separation may also contain unhealthy currents of self-pity.
When human beings don’t understand something, it is not necessarily because they lack intelligence, but more likely because they rigidly hold on to a misconception to which they are attached and which forces them to misinterpret. All of us are afflicted by this to one degree or another.
All the divine human qualities, and the capacity for joy, exist in us already. If we live for the truth about ourselves, rather than living for appearances or to satisfy others, we can liberate and enjoy them.
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