Pathwork Lecture #094: The True Self Versus Superficial Personality Levels; Neurosis Versus Sin; Split Concepts Creating Confusion

Summary of Pathwork Lecture #094:
The True Self Versus Superficial Personality Levels; Neurosis Versus Sin; Split Concepts Creating Confusion

For a deeper, more rewarding experience of these teachings, consult the Lecture itself, available free of charge at: http://www.pathwork.org/lectures/unedited/P094.PDF

Our true self is the divine spark. It is covered up by layers of our artificial, habitual selves which falsely appear to us as fundamental. We are hindered in out growth by our false image of our true self as holy and therefore alien. In fact, there are dimensions of our lives in which we already act organically from our true self.

We harbor an image of the true self as rigidly perfectionistic, and we both rigidly and compulsively aspire to this perfection on the one hand, and rebel against this compulsiveness on the other. The truth is that our motivations and attitudes matter more that the nature of the actions we take. When we do the “right thing” out of fear and compulsion, this is self-betrayal. When we behave imperfectly out of faithfulness to who we are, and we are willing to accept the consequences, this is actually more perfect than doing the “right” thing for the wrong reasons.

Acting from the real self is not marked by confusion, anxiety or preoccupation with appearances or behavioral rules. Rather, it reflects a responsible weighing of consequences in the particular situation. Sometimes we go helplessly back and forth between an alternative favored by the inner grasping child and an alternative favored by the inner obedient conformist, and neither one is satisfying because neither one is grounded in the real self. Incidentally, this applies not only to overt actions, but also to thoughts, feelings, attitudes, and other inner behaviors. When we choose one alternative as the lesser evil, we are left feeling unhappy, and if we repress our negative feelings, they may come out later with destructive consequences. We can find our way out of such a predicament by BECOMING AWARE of our motivations and FINDING the point of relinquishing — the thing or attitude which is the object of a false need and which we must let go of in order to be able to act freely from our true self. Relinquishing what we need to let go of will free us to pursue our real needs and will leave us feeling better about ourselves.

We can understand our real self and our destructive attachments more fully by LOOKING BACK at our lives and observing where we felt confused and dependent, and where we felt free and at one with ourselves. If we observe the attachments we clung to in the first case, and let go of in the second, we will see what it is we need to relinquish, and observe that our true self is not something strange, but rather the familiar in us in the very best sense.

Essentially, neurosis and “sin” are one and the same; however, the Guide has avoided using the term “sin” because it plays to our destructive moralizing tendencies. However, a person on the Path must eventually CONFRONT the fact that neurosis is always some form of selfishness, pride, or cowardice, while continuing to accept himself or herself as he or she is at the moment. We are afraid to do this because we see the self-indulgence which might infect our self-acceptance, as well as the self-punishment which might corrupt our attempts to hold ourselves responsible. When we understand that self-indulgence and self-punishment are both grounded in pride, self-will and fear, while self-acceptance and honest self-confrontation are both grounded in humility, courage and self-responsibility, then we can let go of the former tendencies.

When we are still stuck in the state of confusion and unable to make contact with our true self, we resort to compulsion to do the right thing, which we then project as coming from the outside world and rebel against. This rebellion against rigid perfectionism and conformity has destructive aspects, but on another level it is also healthy. This illustrates the general principle that trends are not good or bad as such, but rather trends become negative to the extent they are misused by the afflicted part of our soul. The fact that there are good and bad aspects to each trend makes for internal confusion in our attitudes towards these trends, and for confusion in communication between people, who may have different aspects of these trends in mind. For instance, “love” can connote unhealthy submissiveness, while “compassion” can connote pity, which involves projecting one’s own weakness and inability to face life onto another, and which tends to paralyze rather than inspire the person who is feeling it.

Questions and Answers:

To let go of feelings for another, one would do well to FIND where one identifies with the other, and the FEAR of what the other is experiencing which underlies this identification.

When we feel an inner stiffening or hardening, this is a sign that our defenses have been triggered. When we become aware of this hardening, we can OBSERVE how it acts against our self-interest.

Doing this work is not about becoming “good” in a rigid, mechanistic “goody-goody” way. There is no “rule” that one is required to become spiritually mature — it’s just necessary in order to achieve our full potential. Doing this work does make us able to withstand that which we cannot change, but this is actually less machine-like than perpetually wasting energy railing against the things we cannot change. There is no need to fear that Christ wants us to submit and give up our free will. The more mature we are, the more alive and distinctly individual we are.

(c) 2007 — All rights reserved (see first post in general orientation category).

Pathwork Lecture #93: Main Image, Repressed Needs & Defenses Linked: Conflicts Before Clarification

Summary of Pathwork Lecture #93:
Main Image, Repressed Needs & Defenses Linked: Conflicts Before Clarification

For a deeper, more rewarding experience of these teachings, consult the Lecture itself, available free of charge at: http://www.pathwork.org/lectures/unedited/P093.PDF

 

As we work on the Path, we are bound to experience confusion and depression before we reach an overall understanding of our inner conflict. Our psyches are threatened and tend to resist when we grow towards letting go of our defense mechanisms. We also resist because of our discouragement about our relapses, which must necessarily continue to occur until we understand, on a personal, emotional level, the nucleus of the problem of our life.

In the work discussed in the previous Lectures, we encountered our images about life. There is always a single primary image relating to the main unfulfillment in our lives. We also have dealt with repressed needs, and with defense mechanisms such as aggression, submission and withdrawal. There is a basic defense within us which we have to come to FEEL, so that we may understand its destructive influence upon us. We also need to BECOME AWARE of the specific, personal connections between our images, needs and defenses.

An image is a rigidified over-generalization about life based on early painful experience. It incorporates an equally rigid pseudo-solution, which is ineffective because of its rigidity and actually tends to bring about that which it is meant to avoid. As the pseudo-solution brings more pain, we try harder to make the pseudo-solution work, and thus we create a vicious cycle. We also initially repressed the hurt we experienced in childhood, and because we want to avoid the memory of the humiliation and have concluded that our needs can not be met, we repress our needs as well.

As an example, a male child who experiences his mother as cruel will form the image that women are unloving and rejecting, and this image will cause him anxiety as an adult when it clashes with his desire for female affection. If this child’s mother also conspicuously approves of the child when he succeeds in school, he may relate to approval for his success as a second-best substitute for the love he isn’t getting. Thus, there may be an image that success brings approval and that approval is tantamount to love. As an adult, he may be successful, at the expense of balance in his life, but his need for love will not be met by his external strivings. Moreover, he will repress the need because he prefers to avoid his pain, and because he resists confronting the error of his underlying assumptions. Also, his unbalanced striving for success, and the underlying arrogance and fearfulness, will actually make it more difficult for him to receive the love he longs for. Such a man would do well to push through his fear of discovering that he is intrinsically unlovable and bring the whole unconscious mechanism to light, whereupon he would make the vitally important discovery discovery that it is his defense, rather than his essential nature, which operates to make him unlovable. It should be noted that even if a person’s preferred “solution” to the problem of life is submissiveness, there will be the same rigid arrogance at the core, with the same distancing influence on other people.

The process of bringing the underlying assumptions and the defense mechanisms to awareness is a gradual one, requiring us to OBSERVE ourselves persistently over time. As we do so, we will gradually let go of our superimposed defenses, and our true, undefended self will emerge. Letting our true self manifest will be a challenge, because it will run so counter to our lifelong habits of being. We will also have to grapple with the confusion between the healthy letting go of arrogance and an unhealthy drifting into submissiveness. Submission comes from our unconscious attachment to needs we are unwilling to relinquish — we give ourselves away in order to avoid the “defeat” of not having those needs be satisfied. This process of submission causes us to feel contempt for ourselves, and to compensate by moving towards arrogance and aggression. The uncomfortable conflict between our submissiveness and our aggressiveness may also lead us to withdraw from life, as a false solution to the conflict.

We would do well to CONTEMPLATE our main image, or if we have not yet found it, to consider our main problems in life and then to FIND it. From that starting point, it is productive to DETERMINE the part of the defense mechanism which did work for us, and the hidden claim which the defense failed to satisfy, as well as the needs involved with our image. We need to FEEL our real needs, our superimposed false needs, and the defensive wall in ourselves, and then NOTICE the difference in our behavior and reactions when we are feeling the defensive wall and when we aren’t. This will help us see the effect that our defense has on others, so we can understand how the defense only brings us more of the unfulfillment it was meant to avoid. When we understand that our defense doesn’t work, we will be willing to let it go.

Questions and Answers:

A person who is aware of his or her defense and stuck between not wanting to act on it and not wanting to suppress it knows that the defense is destructive but still has an unconscious belief that the defense is advantageous. When we get that the defense isn’t productive, then we can let it go, even though we may feel some anxiety around the feeling that we are defenseless and vulnerable. The process of letting the defense go is one of relaxing the energetic hardened mass within us, as opposed to straining to hold back the expression of the defense.

The fact that a defense mechanism may “work” for us on one level does not mean that it doesn’t also have all sorts of subtle destructive effects. If we FIND our unpronounced claim and desire, we will find our repressed and neglected need and see how the defense inhibits the full expression of who we are. Automatically, energy will shift away from the pursuit of the defense and towards fulfillment of our real needs.

© 2007 — All rights reserved (see first post in general orientation category).

Pathwork Lecture #92: Repressed Needs — Relinquishing Blind Needs — Primary and Secondary Reactions

Summary of Pathwork Lecture #92:
Repressed Needs — Relinquishing Blind Needs– Primary and Secondary Reactions

For a deeper, more rewarding experience of these teachings, consult the Lecture itself, available free of charge at: http://www.pathwork.org/lectures/unedited/P092.PDF

All the distortions in our life are connected to our repressed needs and to our unawareness of them.

Instinctual needs are derived from the instincts of procreation and self-preservation. They may be healthy and normal, but they become destructive when repressed. The needs of the idealized self-image (ISI) are based on vanity and pride. Often, normal instinctual needs and unhealthy ISI needs intertwine, causing us to feel guilty about normal needs — a guilt which is supported by distorted mass images. This guilt causes us to starve such needs, which in turn causes them to be displaced, and when we answer the urgency with which they are expressed in displaced form, we create experiences which further starve our needs. This fuels a vicious cycle of defense, psychic starvation, and ineffectual, pain-inducing action.

It is not only sexual needs which we inappropriately repress, but also other needs of which we are not even aware.

In order to satisfy a need, it is often necessary to relinquish something else and to tolerate temporary frustration for the sake of eventual gratification. We are unable to make this kind of choice intelligently when we are not even aware of the true nature of our displaced need, and when the urgency of the need and the illusion that immediate fulfillment is possible drive us to hang on to what we can get. The lack of satisfaction reinforces our false belief that our instinctual needs are wrong, and this induces us to push the whole vicious cycle further out of awareness. We would do well to GET IN TOUCH with our instinctual needs and their validity, and OBSERVE how we have sabotaged their satisfaction. This process will lead us to an perceive an inner energetic focal point where we are unwilling to let go in favor of actual gratification — an unwillingness which causes helplessness, dependency and the illusion of being caught between two unsatisfactory choices. In this condition, we are in fact caught between the part of us which denies the validity of our real needs and the part which rebels against the denial. We are caught as well between the part of us which gives in to the compulsive energy of our false needs, and the part which rebels against this submission. The way out is to BECOME AWARE of our real needs and to LEARN how to fulfill them responsibly and effectively. This will lead to the gradual disappearance of our false needs. It will also lead us to understand that our self-contempt, which we attribute to the existence of our real needs, is in fact based on our unwillingness to relinquish. Becoming able to relinquish is a tremendous source of self-respect, which enables us to let go of false needs and take the necessary steps to satisfy our real needs.

It is important not to jump to conclusions regarding the focal point where relinquishment is required. When we have done the work to find it, we will not experience the letting go as a sacrifice which makes us virtuous, but will rather understand how the letting go serves our interests.

Repressed needs cause us to have secondary, rather than primary, reactions to situations. We react to our images rather than being intuitively connected to what is actually happening. We see things in black and white terms, are preoccupied with and dependent upon the reactions of others towards us, misjudge situations, and react only with conditioned responses. This is because the repression of our needs causes us to cling to illusion rather than experience reality.

Questions and Answers:

Needs such as vanity and domination over others are not real needs. When we discover them, we would do well to OBSERVE them without moralizing, and DISCOVER the underlying healthy needs which have been repressed.

We can tell that a need is false by considering the nature of its fulfillment. If the satisfaction is shallow and fleeting, often to the detriment of another person or another legitimate personal need, then the need is false. The satisfaction of a real need, on the other hand, is constructive for ourselves and for others.

A need for harmony is valid, but is distorted if it leads one to forfeit other important needs.

Having a severe reaction to discovering inner distortions is a sign that we cling to a belief that the distortion is beneficial, and are seeking to escape the confrontation with our self. We would do well to UNCOVER this belief rather than trying to force the distortion away. To the extent that we are impatient because we falsely believe that we must be perfect, we impede this process of understanding.

As we progress on the spiral of development, the interval between our escape and resistance mechanisms and our awareness of them gets shorter and shorter, until they synchronize. Then, gradually, the distortion itself will begin to arise less frequently until it is eventually replaced with a spontaneous new reaction.

Prayer is helpful, but only if we are willing to do the work of self-purification. If we pray with an expectation that God will do the work for us, then we have a distorted attitude about life and our prayer will be unavailing. We would do well to DETECT this faulty approach to prayer in ourselves. Spirituality without a willingness to do the emotional work of self-confrontation is false religion.

© 2007 — All rights reserved (see first post in general orientation category).

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.”

© 2005, 2007 — All rights reserved (see first post in general orientation category).

Pathwork Lecture #090: Moralizing — Disproportionate Reactions — Needs

Summary of Pathwork Lecture #090:
Moralizing — Disproportionate Reactions — Needs

For a deeper, more rewarding experience of these teachings, consult the Lecture itself, available free of charge at: http://www.pathwork.org/lectures/P090.PDF

(Summarizer’s note: Some of the material from the questions and answers has been integrated into the main part of the summary to avoid repetition.)

Apart from negative emotions, we will also discover on the path a variety of universally-occurring conditions of the psyche.

(1) Moralizing: Whether or not it appears on the surface, we all have a tendency to moralize — with ourselves as well as with others. Moralizing, i.e., seeing things in “black and white” terms and generalizing about the whole based on partial aspects, is a natural result of holding ourselves to the high standards encompassed by the idealized self-image (ISI). We would do well to GET IN TOUCH with our moralizing tendency, as opposed to merely understanding it theoretically.

While it is well and good to have general rules of conduct, it is destructive to reject one’s self for having inevitable negative feelings and attitudes. When our “right” conduct is motivated by the fear of not being perfect, it is compulsive, unconvincing and ineffectual. Whenever we adhere to ready-made rules in order to avoid making the deeper connection to self which the evaluation of reality often requires (because we do not trust ourselves), we are moralizing. Unfortunately, the fact that such rules are inadequate makes us insecure, and this fuels a vicious cycle by giving us even less reason for self-confidence. The more we fear our negativity, the more we intensely we deny it and invest in the moral superstructure, leading to rejection of and alienation from the self, and to rigidity, fear and intolerance, which we often project onto others. Neither acting our without restraint nor living according to rigid rules is a workable substitute for doing the work which will help us grow out of our destructive impulses. It is important to OBSERVE our negative tendencies without allowing ourselves to form an exaggeratedly negative picture of ourselves based on our emotional reaction to what we observe. Trying to sweep our negative trends away, or make them disappear by ignoring them, is futile. The only solution is to learn to ACCEPT ourselves in spite of our negativities, and in spite of the fact that we don’t always really know what the right thing to do is in any particular situation.

(2) Disproportionate reactions: Whether or not it shows on the surface, we all have a tendency to react with disproportionate intensity to certain experiences, including the emotional states of ourselves and others. This is based on a polarized, black-and-white view of the world. For instance, we may react to a compliment with a sense that all is well with us (that we are living up to our ISI), while reacting to criticism with a sense that we are irretrievably bad, or at least that we are viewed that way. The challenge to doing this work is that we normally compensate for these reactions with the perspective of our informed common sense, suppressing or displacing the origin of our feelings, and thus the reactions are difficult to detect.

To the extent that we resist accepting criticism, we are caught up in our perfectionistic ideals regarding our selves. We would do well to relax these ideals, ALLOW our true feelings to surface, and OBSERVE them without trying to alter them. This will bring us to self-acceptance, which in turn will bring us to self-confidence, because we will no longer denying the reality of our human fallibility. We will be able to accept criticism flexibly, using it as an opportunity to learn about self and others. From this more open and relaxed center, we will be able to perceive reality more clearly, and this to will engender greater confidence in self.

(3) Mismanagement of needs: If we are unable to meet one of our genuine emotional needs, it is because some aspect of our capacity to do so is paralyzed. The unfulfillment of genuine emotional needs leads to the appearance of exaggerated or illusory needs, which are discernible by their excessive and compulsive force. For instance, if we disapprove of ourselves, this will lead to an exaggerated need for the approval of others. The first step in sorting this out is to BECOME AWARE of our genuine needs, which is an emotional rather than intellectual process. When we recognize an unfulfilled need, we would do well to ACCEPT that we may feel frustration for a time, with a mature understanding that non-fulfillment is not the abyss, rather than pressing on some level for an immediate resolution. From a childish point of view, unfulfillment is misunderstood as (1) being permanent and (2) proving our imperfection. However, change will come as we focus on understanding why and how we have caused our own unfulfillment.

Questions and Answers:

While contrived or forced “goodness” produces moralizing which others rebel against, real goodness never has this effect on others.

Acceptance of our negative aspects does not mean acting them out. As we develop, we will take on prevailing moral codes as truly our own, so that they are flexibly and intuitively alive within us, rather than rejecting them or following them rigidly and intellectually.

© 2005, 2007 — All rights reserved (see first post in general orientation category).

Pathwork Lecture #089: Emotional Growth and Its Functions

Summary of Pathwork Lecture #089:
Emotional Growth and Its Functions

For a deeper, more rewarding experience of these teachings, consult the Lecture itself, available free of charge at: http://www.pathwork.org/lectures/P089.PDF

To know ourselves deeply, we must allow all of our emotions to reach our surface awareness, so that we may understand them, and so that they will have the opportunity to mature. We unconsciously resist this process, tending to concentrate more on our mental and physical aspects. But we need development in all three areas.

The emotional nature includes the capacity to feel (synonymous with the ability to give and receive happiness), and the intuitive creative capacity. We defend against the unhappiness which negative emotions cause by burying these emotions, which arrests their maturation, dulls our capacity to experience feelings in general (including joy), and leaves us isolated, underdeveloped and unsatisfied. And yet we cling to the numbing defense, and hide those feelings we actually experience. We also blame circumstances for our unhappiness, not seeing how our defensive tactic not only fails to accomplish its protective purpose but actually creates additional misery. We would do well to CONFRONT the fact that if we want happiness, we must be willing to give it, and we are unable to do so when we wall ourselves off from our own feelings.

Fear of the awkward and painful (yet necessary) transitional phase of emotional development causes us to try to skip it, hoping we can find painless growth instead, and this maneuver leaves us emotionally immature. When we choose to allow this transition, immature emotions must be expressed for the purpose of understanding them and letting them evolve naturally. Unfortunately, rather than trusting this organic process, we tend to superimpose the emotions we think we ought to have. This is hypocrisy and self-deception. The true emotions surface in times of crisis, when we are unable to maintain the facade. Typically, we fail to realize at such times that our immaturity caused the crisis, rather than the crisis causing the immature reactions.

We resist becoming aware of our immature and distorted emotions because of the misconception that becoming aware of our feelings is the same as giving vent to them. It is important that we CHANNEL the expression of negative emotions into an appropriate container, not for relief of psychic pressure, but for understanding. In this way, we will be able to get in touch with what we truly feel (as opposed to what we try to make ourselves feel), and see how our energetic patterns bring about the opposite of what we originally wanted.

This is the only way emotions can mature. We must go through the period that was missed in childhood and adolescence. Then, from a mature emotional base, we will be able to trust our intuition, rather than relying on our less-effective intellect, and to express true positive feelings. We simply need to GIVE UP our false idealized self-image (ISI) and be willing to face whatever is within us. This process is not to be feared. As long as the expression of negativity is properly channeled into self-discovery, there is no danger. Moreover, true security comes from being in truth with one’s self.

As spiritual seekers, we know that love is the greatest power, but we cannot love if we adopt a false detachment and do not allow ourselves to feel. We would do well to CONFRONT our unrealistic desire to grow spiritually without allowing ourselves to feel everything within us.

Questions and Answers:

False faith and love are grounded in need; true love and faith are self-dependent and grounded in emotional maturity.

The strong impact of negative emotions on the feeler is the way they contradict the ISI. Letting go of the ISI makes it possible to experience negative emotions in a growth-producing way, without the risk of being overtaken by them and behaving irresponsibly.

When negative emotions are not channeled into an appropriate container for purposes of growth, destructive lashing out occurs. The message of such a tantrum is “You see, you have forced me to do this and now see where this leads to.” We would do well to FIND the anger at the image that the world prevents us from being all that we can be. This blaming is dangerous to the self.

Hate and love can coexist simultaneously. Hate needs to be understood as the result of hurt, and forgiven as such.

The rechanneling of destructive energies, without the process of understanding them and allowing them to mature, is better than outright repression, but still not growth-producing.

© 2005, 2007 — All rights reserved (see first post in general orientation category).

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.

© 2007 — All rights reserved (see first post in general orientation category).

Pathwork Lecture #087: The Next Phase on the Path; Questions and Answers

Summary of Pathwork Lecture #087:
The Next Phase on the Path; 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/P087.PDF

Spiritual growth is more dependent on awareness of one’s subconscious emotions than it is on general theoretical knowledge, at least in the sense that without self-awareness, theoretical knowledge will have little effect.

The Lectures focused on spiritual truths and spiritual law early on, and then became more concerned with the quest for self-knowledge. Leaving matters of spiritual law aside for a time was useful in the sense that it helped those who were listening and doing the work to look at themselves honestly without the inhibition of “good/bad” judgment. Eventually, however, it is necessary to return to spiritual matters after a period of self-search, and to re-examine things from a spiritual perspective with the benefit of greater self-awareness. When we are able to understand our feelings and reactions, and when we understand the prideful way we try to force ourselves to be good and to live up to our idealized self-image (ISI), we can safely consider those feelings and reactions in a spiritual light, including evaluation of how well they correspond with truth, goodness and love.

Questions and Answers:

The symbology of the Tower of Babel is that at one time, each of us was a unified, harmonious soul, but then we became internally conflicted and unable to understand ourselves, causing chaos and confusion to come into our lives. This condition makes it difficult for us to understand others. The movement from the East referred to in the Biblical account symbolizes the movement from perfection to the fallen state, which will culminate in a return, full circle, to the “West” of regained perfection with additional perspective (just as the Lectures will return us to spirituality with additional perspective, as described above).

The chaos in the world is the result of the chaos in our souls, not the other way around. Humanity is evolving, and we can each contribute to a better world by discovering and removing our misguided defense mechanisms.

The attempt to build the Tower of Babel all the way to heaven represents the prideful construction of the ISI — a pseudo-solution which must crumble and fall, just as the tower crumbled and fell.

If we feel restless and disharmonious, even on a subtle level, when we receive gratification and pleasure, it is because some false goal or value related to our ISI is being attained. We realize unconsciously that we are not satisfied by this, and the resulting implication that our ISI-related goals and values are false is what causes us the inner tension, since we no longer have a clear concept of how to go about attaining pleasure. If, on the other hand, we can still uphold the goal or value while believing that we are unlikely to attain it, we are more likely to experience depression.

Conditions on Earth and on other planets are such that they require repeated incarnations in order to master.

Subtle bodies enter the physical body in the womb, but there is not a complete, decisive entry into the physical body until the moment of birth. However, this is not an integration into oneness, and we must work on the path in order to unify ourselves.

Any conflict, distortion or illusion we carry must necessarily interfere with any constructive endeavor we undertake.

As helpless children struggling with the difficulty of life, we conclude either that we must comply with a set of rules in order to have safety, or that we must rebel against the rules. Either way, the first obstacle we encounter is our God-image — the basic conclusion we have come to about the nature of life itself — and depending on our personalities, we either try to comply with it or to become it. This choice determines the basic nature of our ISI. By living up to our ISI’s demands as best we can, we compensate for our feelings of helplessness and humiliation. This is true even of a persons whose ISI demands rebellion against conventional values and rules. Our perfectionistic investment in our ISI also relieves us from the humiliating feeling that we are required to obey the feared God-image whether we want to or not.

[To a person who asked about the meaning of such person's guilt feelings in regard to the assassination of a dictator, the Guide replied that the questioner had unrecognized desires to be dictatorial, and that the guilt was a facet of the non-accepting responses of the questioner's submissive and power-seeking facets to each other.]

There is no such thing as subjective truth. Truth is objective. Facts are merely facets of the truth, so that we may possess the facts without understanding the truth. The more we are willing to face the truth about ourselves, the more we will be able to discern truth in general.

While loving animals is a sign of openness to Creation on one level, it does not indicate any specific extent of overall maturity.

On a deep subconscious level, we know everything pertaining to our life conditions. Thus, we would deeply know if we were illegitimate, although the effect which that condition would have on any particular individual is entirely personal.

© 2007 — All rights reserved (see first post in general orientation category).

Pathwork Lecture #086: Self-Preservation and Procreation as Instincts in Mutual Conflict

Summary of Pathwork Lecture #086:
Self-Preservation and Procreation as Instincts in Mutual Conflict

For a deeper, more rewarding experience of these teachings, consult the Lecture itself, available free of charge at: http://www.pathwork.org/lectures/P086.PDF

Any distortion is the result of adopting and then rigidly adhering to an attitude. When we adopt a pseudo-solution to life’s difficulties and it (necessarily) doesn’t work, we respond by trying harder to force it to work, and this creates rigidity. Healing comes from replacing the pseudo-solution with truth, which is more flexible and which produces real security, in spite of the anxiety which letting go of the pseudo-solution initially engenders.

Of the three basic pseudo-solutions — striving for power, love and serenity — the distortion of the self-preservation instinct (which consists of enlisting it in a struggle to avoid the imagined danger of not being loved and admired), primarily leads to an aggressive striving for power. The distorted instinct of procreation leads to a submissive striving for love. A person will construct an idealized self image (ISI) in accordance with these tendencies. These are of course generalizations, and contradictory currents may exist on various levels of the personality. In any event, if these instincts are distorted, they will conflict with each other. To the extent that this conflict is unbearable, a person will develop the pseudo-solution of striving for serenity (withdrawal), which is designed to avoid the stress of this internal conflict. We would do well to FEEL the striving for power and the striving for love within us, rather than just appreciating these concepts theoretically.

To the extent that a person overemphasizes safety (self-preservation), the procreation instinct will be muted; however, playing it safe causes stagnation and a lack of fulfillment, which then leads to self-pity and beyond that to rebellion. To the extent that a person overemphasizes pleasure, there will be a tendency to seek love in submissive, masochistic ways which will actually endanger the soul through self-denial and self-estrangement.

Because of these conflicting currents, a person will seek compromise solutions, such as channeling the pleasure drive only in directions which seem “safe,” while holding back in other areas. Another attempted solution is using one instinct as a means of obtaining the goals of the other. But this is futile: one can not receive love by being domineering (which engenders fear and resentment), and one cannot find safety by ingratiating one’s self with others so that they will be protective (since this tactic engenders contempt and abuse, which engender resentment, which engenders rejection).

As an example, a submissive person may feel angry because the attempt to bargain for love by offering self-effacement does not work. This anger produces guilt because it is inconsistent with the person’s “loving” idealized self-image. There is also guilt because the demands for love, protection, etc. which underlie the attempt to bargain in this way are dishonestly kept out of consciousness. Whether one is aggressive or submissive on the surface, it is often the case that the opposite attitude predominates at the core and produces shame.

We would do well to FIND these pseudo-solutions within us, as they exist in the many layers of our personality, and to CONTEMPLATE how and why they are futile, how they affect ourselves and others, and what their original purpose was. The work, which progresses gradually, is about FEELING repressed childish attitudes and emotions, not just thinking about the concepts. By giving ourselves permission to feel whatever is really within us, we may encounter feelings which seem alien and contrary to who we are. Letting the energy of those feelings move will unblock our life force and free up our capacity to live life fully.

When we start doing this work, it is likely that we will encounter resentments. In many cases, we will find that they are unjustified because we are the ones who created the unfavorable conditions, albeit unconsciously. As for more justifiable resentments, we will learn to assert ourselves in a healthy way so as to avoid being taken advantage of. And we will learn to discriminate between real and unjustified resentments.

We would do well to cultivate the will to go through this process, and to face whatever is really within us, because this is the only way to stop suffering.

Questions and Answers:

When a person who predominantly relies on one pseudo-solution is thwarted, he or she may resort to another one as an alternative means of accomplishing the same goal.

The stronger a person’s inner conflicts, the stronger the difference between that person’s real self and his or her ISI. One source of clues to the nature of our ISI is our desire-life as expressed in daydreams. Expectations and rigid commands, as well as anxieties when they are not satisfied, are also a source of information about the ISI.

We incarnate with all of our baggage, so it is not the case that all children are born equally well-adjusted.

© 2007 — All rights reserved (see first post in general orientation category).

Pathwork Lecture #085: Distortions of the Instincts of Self-Preservation and Procreation

Summary of Pathwork Lecture #085:
Distortions of the Instincts of Self-Preservation and Procreation

For a deeper, more rewarding experience of these teachings, consult the Lecture itself, available free of charge at: http://www.pathwork.org/lectures/P085.PDF

The instincts of self-preservation and procreation perform important roles in their pure forms, but they become destructive when distorted.

Because of our misconception that any form of rejection or withholding of love or admiration is a psychic “death,” we enlist our self-preservation instinct in the struggle against rejection. One of our tactics in this struggle is the establishment of the Idealized Self Image.

We often feel an exaggerated sense of threat about certain life situations, because we are feeling a lack of emotional security. Instead of building our own inner sense of security, we struggle to get others to provide it for us by feeling towards us the way we would like them to.

Another tactic resorted to for emotional “safety” is holding back expression of the life force, or emotional constipation, which leads to faults such as avarice, prejudice, rigidity and so on, which may express on various subtle levels of the personality.

In its healthy form, the instinct of procreation includes all sorts of creativity and reaching out to communicate and to experience pleasure supreme. In distortion, it leads to greed, craving, grasping and addiction. These energies have more destructive power when they are unconscious, as when one has superimposed a false serene detachment.

The distorted form of these two instincts are both self-centered, and thus they create frustration, anxiety, tension, and guilt. There is always the need to have others behave a certain way, and the fear that they may not. In truth, safety lies in not being self-centered, and in not depending on unworkable expectations and rules, but instead remaining flexibly able to adapt to whatever comes our way. Also, safety comes from being able to see other people emotionally, which we cannot do when we are self-centered. We would do well to FIND where these emotions live in us. Disharmony, including shyness and timidity, is a clue.

The self-centeredness of these distortions make us unable to accept any sort of defeat, whether major and conspicuous or insignificant and subtle. Our tactics for avoiding humiliation, such as embellishing situations when we describe them to others or blaming outside forces for our defeats, are indicators of how we really feel. However, dignity comes from the acceptance of defeat when we have suffered it.

An aggressive person hides defeat, sometimes by blaming others. A submissive person aggrandizes it to force others to protect them. An artificially serene person denies the very existence of the defeat. All these trends may exist in a single person. We would do well to ASK ourselves, “how, on a feeling level, do I really take defeat?” Defeat should be understood as including even minor, inconsequential setbacks and embarrassments. When we become aware of our reactions in this regard, we are freed from the false need to struggle against our defeats, and this liberates our energies and gives us dignity and self-respect.

Questions and Answers:

Superimposing the mature reaction we “ought to have,” and may in fact have to a partial extent, over our immature reactions interferes with full awareness. We would do well to become fully aware of our childish feelings, allowing them to come to the surface without judgment or censorship, although this does not mean that we should act on them. Then we will see the excessive demand for perfection we impose on ourselves and the way we pretend that if others were the way we would like them to be, we could be our idealized self image. This externalization of responsibility is blaming, and it holds us back from being the way we would like to be.

It is very important to understand that recognition of the emotions does not require one to act on them. We may refuse to see this distinction because underneath we are struggling against seeing the falsity of our idealized self image. Also, a person may have concluded that it is right to be hostile and hard-hearted. And a person who relies on intellect out of distrust of instincts and feelings may inhibit the feelings which would guide him or her in a positive direction. We would do well to RECOGNIZE the compulsive quality of negative feelings.

As we get in touch with our real selves, we are better able to connect to the real self in others.

Resistance to change is a manifestation of the distorted instinct of self-preservation and the glorification of the idealized self, along with the belief that the idealized self may yet prove to be the solution to the problem of life.

While spiritual growth may lead to a toning down of negative feelings, one should beware of false serenity which may be masking those emotions. We would do well to ADOPT a goal of awareness of our real selves, rather than striving to be emotionally leveled out and “there.”

© 2007 — All rights reserved (see first post in general orientation category).