The Sea Of Life

By The Pathwork Guide

Greetings, my dear ones, I bring you God's blessings. From the point of view of the spirit, there is an extended perception apparent, both in form and in substance, that describes the spiritual life of man. Life is a sea, an ocean, and each life is a boat. Man often experiences this analogy in his dreams. This sea of life presents various aspects. It can be stormy, the sky is grey, and then the sun shines again and the sea is calm, until the next storm comes along. And so it alternates, until the journey reaches its destination. This destination is the firm land, the world of spirit, the true home of man. Thus it all depends on how well man is able to direct his life. One is a trained, experienced, skillful captain. As a result, he is not afraid of danger. He directs his boat well through the elements. Then in the calm and good periods he gathers strength for the next storm. Another gets nervous. Therefore, he loses his inner control when a storm is brewing. Yet another is so afraid that in his fear he doesn't steer his boat at all, but he lets it drift through the storms of life. Thus he doesn't achieve anything. You are aware, of course, that these atmospheric disturbances, these clouds that gather together, these thunderstorms, these hurricanes are the tests that life brings. A human being who has already been through some spiritual schooling, and therefore who is a little more sensitive, can detect at what point his little boat is at this particular time.

I would like to talk about these tests. There is hardly a group of people, be it a family or any other community, where there isn't at least one human soul who is still so low in his development that he becomes the pawn of the forces of darkness.

This does not mean that he has to be a thoroughly evil person. It is enough if he does not accept the validity of certain spiritual laws in his life and that he does not apply them to himself. In spite of having certain good qualities, he does not cultivate self-honesty. The dark world takes its material from these vibrations. In other words, from his lack of self-discipline and from his lack of self-awareness. Moreover, from all the formations that manifest when man does not follow divine law. Spiritual material resembles threads, fine, ray-like threads. In this case they are of more somber color and texture. These are spun, knotted, and entangled until there is such a tight ball of confusion that one can disentangle it only with the greatest difficulty. But it is not only this one person who furnishes the material for such a confused situation; all the other people involved in the group contribute their own share. This arises from their own mistakes and from the weaknesses with which they violate spiritual law. Thus more of the same kind of yarn is spun, until the truth is no longer easily discernible even for those whose sight is sharper. So it takes a great deal of effort to find the truth at all.

For a person who strives towards a higher spiritual awareness it is often difficult to know how to behave when such tests come along. For the dark forces know how to make untruth appear as truth, how to make truth appear as untruth, how to make good appear as evil, and how to make evil appear as good. And so man becomes confused -- he who actually wants so much to be in truth. He no longer knows how to act in the right way. Often his own inner sick vibrations -- of which he is unaware -- contribute not only to further confusing the situation, but they also prevent him from perceiving it with clarity, and thus from knowing how to deal with it. That is why it is so important for man to school himself in spiritual awareness and to undertake to develop himself to his utmost capacity. For, otherwise, he will unconsciously become a pawn of the forces of darkness. Therefore, his boat will be blown hither and thither. Thus, he will no longer be able to steer it well. He will not be able to dissipate such heavy clouds alone in order to see the truth. He will not be able to perceive the core of the problem. He will not know what to do and what not to do so as to contribute his energy to the service of the good. He can do all of this only when he goes on a path such as this, only when he learns the discipline to go into his inner stillness at any time -- especially when the wild storms are raging -- and make contact with God and with His divine spirits. Then, he has to open himself to the inspiration of truth by observing himself with all his faults and by conquering all his various resistances.

The spiritual laws should be made a living reality on three different levels. The higher the development, the deeper the level of penetration. These levels are: (1) the level of doing; (2) the level of thinking; and (3) the level of feeling. The most difficult is to put this into practice on the emotional level. This is the highest level. Many feelings at first are unconscious. To make them conscious -- in other words, to bring them into one's consciousness -- takes work, good will, and patience. One cannot control one's feelings as immediately and as directly as one can control either one's thoughts or one's actions. It requires laborious work on the spiritual level, self-analysis, and the thorough absorption of the spiritual laws before the emotions can begin to change.

The less developed a person is, the more superficial his understanding of and his adherence to the spiritual laws must be. This is why God gave mankind the Ten Commandments first. These deal with man's actions: "Thou shalt not steal," "Thou shalt not lie," etc. This was already a lot to take in for the average person of that time, and it still is for certain people who are incarnated from the lower spheres. The next stage is to deal with one's thoughts. Often man acts rightly, while his thoughts run another course. He acts rightly because he comprehends that otherwise he would get into trouble with the outside world. But it is still difficult for him to control his thoughts. Man often desires things which are not in accord with the spiritual laws. He hasn't yet understood that the impure thoughts and the impure feelings must lead him into conflicts within himself, since all thoughts and all feelings create a form and a substance in spirit and thus bring about effects and chain reactions, even though he is unable to perceive them as such right away. Such an overview requires a spiritual awareness that can come only through higher development. Thus Christ brought you an expanded understanding of the divine laws and commandments, namely the teaching that you can also sin in thought. At His time mankind was becoming ready for this expanded awareness and this depth of perception. Today mankind begins to be receptive to an ever greater and deeper understanding of his spiritual consciousness.

A person who is in the second stage -- so that for him it is doing his utmost to work on the level of his thoughts and to purify them -- is ahead of him who has only reached the stage of keeping the laws to the extent of acting rightly. But you, my dear friends, must learn to reach deeper than that and to come to your real feelings. In other words, to those which often remain in the unconscious, and which are easily covered by pretexts about which it is easy to deceive yourselves, so as not to have to look at what is there. But this self-deception must inevitably bring you into conflict with yourself, and often also with the world. This is so even if you refuse to see, to recognize the true origin of these conflicts. It is difficult enough to purify one's thoughts -- incidentally, each of these stages can be reached only through the greatest efforts and only through self-discipline -- so that it is painful for someone who has laboriously worked himself up to this stage to have to recognize the fact that many of his feelings still deviate either from his thoughts or from his conscious intentions.

But it is precisely this extra effort that God wants everybody to make. This last stage and this deepening of consciousness is the most difficult to reach. This is the goal to which you all aspire. It is the true purification. He who can bring his innermost feelings into his consciousness and is willing to recognize that these feelings do not always run parallel with what he has accepted as right in his thoughts has already accomplished a great deal. He who does this continuously -- until he slowly acquires mastery of it -- can penetrate not only into his own truth, but during the times of trial -- in other words, during difficult situations -- he can find the core of the truth. Then he can scatter the clouds, then he can untangle the ball of threads knot by knot. For only he who courageously faces himself again and again -- and here vanity is an almost unsurmountable obstacle -- can gain the true perception either of another human being or of an outer situation. He who is blind to his own truth must be blind to the truth of others.

These knots and tangles create spiritual forms which are a reality, my dear ones. We can always observe them around groups of people. Everywhere there is such a tangle of threads, woven by the dark forces. Everybody adds his own share. Often there is one person who contributes especially much to create tangles and to achieve greater and greater confusion. But if there is one person in such a group who walks this high spiritual path, who truly confronts himself day by day, then he is the one who will eventually -- I repeat, not from one day to the next -- succeed in loosening one knot after the other, until there are none left and everything becomes clear. Then that weak person won't be able to deceive himself any longer either, which was only detrimental to himself anyway and which had only burdened his own progress. At first he will put up a resistance because confusion feeds his lower self -- the road of least resistance and that of vanity -- which prefers self-deception and which thrives on discord. But in the long run even such a weak person will feel liberated as the clouds disappear from his life, even though he used to cling to them. And only when the truth illuminates with its clarity a previously obscure situation will there be no more questions left as to what is the right attitude, what is just, and what is the right action.

Everybody has enough self-knowledge -- or should strive to reach this point -- to ask himself: "What am I able to do to contribute my share to God's Plan of Salvation?" Many do not have as their task anything that would create attention. But everybody can and therefore should start to fulfill his part quietly and for his own sake. For everyone has his task within the Plan, even the weakest. For him it may suffice -- and it may mean the maximum of achievement -- to cast off a particular fault, to set something right with a fellow human being with whom he was incarnated for that purpose, to adapt his actions to God's laws, or to refrain from giving in to his lowest instincts. More is required of others. It is always that which is most difficult and that which needs the greatest perseverance. Each one purifies himself and develops within the capacity of his own level and of his own strength.

For those who are more advanced in their development this process of purification automatically leads to the ability to disentangle the knots in their surroundings, to clear up confused situations. Thus they accomplish something they were meant to do. Hence they contribute to God's Plan of Salvation, in which each action counts so much. Then further tasks will be found. All of you human beings want to be happy, and we understand this. If this yearning for happiness and for perfection did not exist in the human soul, then there would be no spiritual development. But there are very few who ask: "What can I give? What can I contribute to God's Plan of Salvation?" You are always demanding something, not necessarily in a direct prayer for the fulfillment of this or that wish, but with your selfwill, with your feelings, and often even in your thinking. You want the best for yourself and you are unhappy over the difficulties of life.

But have you ever asked God: "Father, what can I do for You?" For he who claims his own happiness as the ultimate goal -- which is usually the case, even if you are not conscious of it -- breaks the cycle of the living flow of energy which is the basis of everything that is spiritual. And the moment the cycle is interrupted, then it is dead. Let us suppose that a particular wish of yours has been granted. If you consider your personal satisfaction as having reached the ultimate goal, then nothing is left that can remain alive in you. Therefore, your happiness will be of short duration. Only he who keeps the cycle actively flowing by consciously and deliberately affirming the desire to put to spiritual use and into the service of the Plan of Salvation all that he has received in help, in grace, in happiness, in fulfillment, in divine intervention , in guidance -- and who then acts accordingly -- will be able to sustain and keep alive his own happiness.

You should allow God to guide you so that you can achieve this goal. A person who does this is truly a participant in the divine order. Therefore, his happiness will never become shallow, or dry out, or die, but will be always alive and pulsating. It will forever regenerate itself. Only a person with this kind of intentionality is worthy of special guidance and of divine help.

Yes, my dear ones, few people think this way. They go to God and make wishes and demands. But they are not willing to give anything to God's world, to this great battle which is so important. Think about this, all of you. He who approaches God in this way can be given more light and more help so as to disentangle the knots and thus have the strength to steer his little boat well, even through a storm, so that he comes through strengthened and enlightened, as is the will of God.

March 11, 1957