The Seven Cardinal Sins

By The Pathwork Guide

Greetings. God bless you, my dearest friends. Blessed is this lecture. I promised to give you a psychological explanation of the meaning of the seven cardinal sins. Much of what I shall say will not be new. I shall try to keep repetition to a minimum, except when it is necessary to show a connection and the deeper meaning of spiritual truth in a psychological sense.

What is called a sin is the outer manifestation, either in deed or even in thought, of a psychological deviation and of immaturity. In other words, a so-called sin is the result of inner distortions. The psychological background of any sin will always show the many conditions that we have discussed in the past. It can always be brought back to the common denominator of the immaturity of the soul, and thus the incapability of relating, of communicating, of loving. In the broadest terms, sin is the lack of love. An immature soul is never able to love. It is selfish, it is egocentric, and it is blind. It cannot understand others. Immaturity means separateness. In a state of separateness one does not love, and is therefore in sin. In psychological terms, one has a neurosis. The only difference between the spiritual approach and the psychological approach is that the former puts emphasis on the result, while the latter shows the underlying causes, the different currents and components leading to separateness, to neurosis, to sin.

The first cardinal sin is pride. I have discussed this so much in the past that I do not have to repeat it now. You all know its origin, why it is there, its effects, and its side effects. Let me briefly state once again that pride is always a compensation for inferiority, for feelings of inadequacy. That the effect must lead to separateness is self-explanatory.

The second sin is covetousness. Again, from past lectures you know its deeper meaning. If you covet something you do not possess, then you do so in blindness. Blindness in the belief that having it would give you happiness, when happiness is an inner state, therefore never to be brought about by outer means. Blindness is ignoring your own contribution toward not having what you wish to have. In your search for self-understanding you have come to the point of realizing that whatever you lack in your life, provided your wish is a healthy one, is caused by conflict within yourself. Perhaps by being unconsciously afraid of the very thing that you want most, or by having conflicting desires, or by being unaware of the many factors that obstruct the fulfillment. Last, you may even be unaware of what you really wish. Under these circumstances, you may envy others, you may covet what they have, because you cannot resolve your own problems that keep you from fulfilling yourself. What you covet may be a substitute desire for your real needs, of which you may not be aware. Pride and covetousness separate you from the other person, as well as from your real self. Hence they lead to self-alienation and they come from self-alienation. They are the opposite of love, of communication, of relating to your fellow man. They do not help you to unite but rather set you apart and above. They put you in a special, isolated place. Or else, you are all wrapped up in the wish to have the special place that you think someone else holds. All this is the inner blindness that leads to outer selfishness, and therefore to separateness.

The third sin is lust. This is often misunderstood. It is believed to refer to sexuality. This is not so, or not necessarily so. What does lust mean? It means any kind of passionate desire, whether or not it has to do with sexuality, in a spirit of egocentricity, of isolation. It is the childish attitude of "I want to have, I want to receive," but without a true spirit of mutuality. The person may be willing to give, provided he receives what he wants, but the basic emphasis is on the self, rather than on mutuality. True mutuality is not possible without the capacity to relinquish. In other words, to withstand not always having one's will gratified on one's own terms. The maturity of withstanding the frustration of one's will, of relinquishing one's will, is a prerequisite for true mutuality. When the need to receive is a greedy force that is intrinsically one-sided, then one can speak of lust.

It is easy to be deceived because the stronger this one-sided need exists, the more the person may sacrifice, may submit, may become a martyr. All this is an unconscious expediency so as to get one's own will. Since this tendency is subtle and hidden, and it often has nothing to do with sexual passion, it may not be realized that it is lust. Yet all human beings have some of it. Where there is a forcing current, a driving need that cannot relinquish, then there is lust. You all have it, and it is stronger when it is not yet consciously experienced. Also you may be deceived about it because what you strenuously desire may in itself be something constructive. Yet in your craving you are the needful child who wants, who is somehow in the center of his universe. The raging need, which you may or may not be conscious of, is disconnected from recognizing the factors that brought about the original unfulfillment. In this ignorance, the need, or the "lust," swells to unbearable proportions and therefore becomes more frustrated because you do not see the remedy: a change of inner direction. In other words, an unfulfilled need that is unrecognized in its primary form produces lust. You automatically increase your maturity to the degree that you grow aware of your needs. An unconscious need indicates immaturity. A displacement takes place and then an urgency for substitute needs is established, no matter how legitimate, how constructive, or how rational they may be in themselves. The stronger the urgency, the more one can speak of lust. Lust indicates the urgency of the frustration of an unaware need. Whether this refers to sexuality, to the lust for power, to the lust for being liked, or the lust for a particular thing does not matter. When these emotions are investigated as to their origin -- the original need and what prevents its fulfillment in a healthy, organic manner -- then you can begin to dissolve the lust. You can come to terms with the original need, but never with the substitute need. If this original need is still childish, and is therefore destructive, then you can mature it only by bringing it out into the open. A need that you are aware of can mature into a mutuality -- into a state where two people first recognize and then express their own respective needs in such a way as to help the other find fulfillment. An unconscious need must always be one-sided.

To assume that the sexual urge per se is sinful lust is an utter distortion. For the sexual urge is a natural, healthy instinct. If it matures properly, then it combines with mutuality, and it leads to love and to union. But if it remains separate, then it is lust -- but no more so than the lust for power, the lust for money, the lust for fame, the lust for always being right, or the lust for anything else.

The fourth sin is anger. What is anger, my friends? In a sense, anger is always a lie. The original feeling is often one of hurt. If you would own up to the original feeling, then you would not need to be angry. In pride -- which is due to inferiority -- you feel humiliated when you are hurt in that you give someone else the power to hurt you. Therefore, you substitute anger for the original pain. This seems less shameful. It sets you above the other person rather than -- as it seems to you -- below. It lifts you above the true position which you find yourself in, that of being hurt. In pride you lie about your real feelings. Thus, anger and pride are connected. The lie is one of self-deception, therefore of self-alienation. It is a displacement. Thus it causes negative effects, while the admission of -- the living up to -- the genuine feeling does not. If it is free from anger, then hurt cannot affect others negatively, and therefore it will not come back to the person. If the primary emotion -- pain or hurt -- is no longer conscious, then it turns destructive. If it is intermingled with the secondary emotion of anger, then it also turns destructive. It makes no difference whether the anger manifests in deeds or in words, or whether it is merely an emotion. In owning up to the hurt, then you do not cut off the bridge to the other person. In anger, you do. Thus, the genuine, primary emotion is not contrary to love and to communication, whereas the substitute emotion is.

You know that I usually shy away from the expression "sin" because it encourages self-destructive and unproductive guilt. I concentrate on the underlying conditions. But in this context I have to use this word. Anger is a sin because it leads away from communication and because it widens the gap between human beings.

Of course, there is such a thing as healthy anger, but we are not talking about that. There really should be another word for it.

QUESTION: I would like to put in a question here. Why is it that in the Bhagavad Gita anger is considered the worst of all, producing complete confusion?

ANSWER: Because in anger you no longer know what you really feel because you are in a secondary reaction. You are in error about yourself, and therefore you cannot possibly perceive and understand the other person. In many of the other so-called sins you may be utterly aware of the original feeling. Due to certain missing links, you may be unable to feel differently about it, yet you know what you feel. But when you are in anger, then you are not in the primary reaction. And that is why it creates more and more confusion. It is even worse if your perfectionism makes you repress even the secondary emotion of anger, so that you are not even aware of it. Then you have to penetrate all these levels and first become aware of the anger, whereupon you can then penetrate deeper and become aware of the underlying hurt or pain.

I might also add that many of the other destructive emotions, whether they be jealousy, envy, lust, and so on, also contain anger. In fact, anger may be a permeating state of the soul that is too subtle, too insidious, and too hidden to be recognized. Thus when I admonish you on this path to become aware of what you really feel, you will now understand this all-important reason. Whether you call it resentment, hostility, anger, or hate makes no difference. These are all the same. The majority of human beings are not even aware of the fact that they feel angry. In other words, they do not know that they are in anger. When they are aware of it, then it is already much better. For then then it is easier to get to the underlying original emotion.

QUESTION: What is healthy anger?

ANSWER: It is the anger that is objective. For example, when justice is at stake in an objective way. It makes you assert yourself. It makes you fight for what is good and true, whether the issue is your own or another's, or if a principle is at stake. You may even feel objective anger about a very personal issue, while projecting a subjective emotion upon a general issue. It is impossible to determine whether or not it is healthy anger by judging the issue itself. You feel differently in healthy anger than you do in the unhealthy kind. The latter poisons your system; the latter calls for your defense mechanisms and is, at the same time, a product of it. Healthy anger will never make you tense, guilty, and ill at ease. It does not compel you to justify yourself. Healthy anger will never weaken you. Any healthy feeling will give you strength and freedom, even if the feeling outwardly appears to be negative, while an apparently positive feeling may weaken you if it is not honest -- that is, if displacement and subterfuge are at work. If you have the kind of anger that will leave you freer and stronger and that will leave you less confused, then that is a healthy anger. The unhealthy kind of anger is always the displacement of an original emotion. Healthy anger is a direct emotion.

QUESTION: Is that the wrath of God in the Old Testament?

ANSWER: Yes, that is right.

QUESTION: Does that have anything to do with righteous indignation?

ANSWER: Yes, that is also healthy anger. But be very careful in your self-examination. When you have an outer issue in which you may be utterly justified in feeling angry, then that still may not mean that what you feel is healthy anger. The only way to determine the difference is by the effect it has both on you and on others. No one but yourself can determine what is the truth. Only utter candor with yourself will enable you to distinguish.

The fifth sin is gluttony. The deeper meaning of it has to do with need. A need that is unfulfilled and frustrated for a long period of time and thwarted again and again, as it were, will seek outlets. Such an outlet, among many other possibilities, may be gluttony. Why would ancient wisdom refer to this as sinful? Not merely because it is destructive of your physical health. That would certainly not be a sufficient reason to call it a sin. There are many activities in a person's life that are undesirable and damaging to his health, yet they are not considered sinful. Something much more important and vital is at stake here. And that is, if you are unaware of your original needs -- and therefore you cannot go about fulfilling them through the removal of your inner obstructions -- then you cannot fulfill yourself. In other words, you cannot fulfill your potentials. You cannot become happy and therefore give happiness. You cannot unfold your creative abilities. You cannot contribute, be it in ever so small a way, to human society and to its development. Every human being, no matter how much you may look down on someone or think his existence insignificant and useless, does have the possibility to contribute in some way to the evolutionary plan. But only if he fulfills himself can he do so. He cannot fulfill himself when these needs remain unfulfilled. As he understands this, thereby bringing fulfillment closer by this understanding, he then contributes something to the vast reservoir of the cosmic forces, thus influencing both evolution and the general spiritual development. The fulfillment, the happiness of every single human being is a necessity for the evolution of the entire human race.

It would be one-sided to say that people are unfulfilled, and therefore unhappy, because of selfishness. It may be selfishness. It may also be a childish self-concern. Yet there is another part of the psyche that realizes the necessity for happiness, that knows the truth, namely that only in a state of happiness can one contribute. Therefore, by not contributing one misses something. This gnawing feeling of missing something makes one strive. He who strives in the right direction will eventually find a way to turn inward and to seek the reason for his unfulfillment. But there are many wrong ways of striving that lead outward, ways that bring a temporary relief from the inner pressure. One of them is gluttony. There are many forms of addiction, such as alcoholism, to name but one.

QUESTION: Some psychologists say that masturbation is a primary addiction. Is this connected with gluttony?

ANSWER: I should say that this depends on the degree and on the age. If this is a constant practice in an advanced age, then it certainly has a lot to do with it, although the displacement of the real need is not quite as remote as with gluttony. It is easier to see that the real need is a yearning for a rewarding mutuality on a mature basis. With gluttony the displacement is so far removed that it is more difficult to recognize the underlying real need. However, masturbation is also a substitute. It may be an easy way out in order to obtain relief and release without risking the involvement of a personal relationship: the responsibility and the exposure. To a degree masturbation is normal. But above a certain degree, depending on the frequency and the age of a person, as well as certain temporary circumstances in life, then it may indicate a similar escape from facing and living up to one's real needs. If it is a constant practice in adult life, then it is indicative of the same trends and aspects discussed in connection with gluttony.

The sixth sin is envy. Again, I do not have to go deeper into this because I have covered it before. What I said about covetousness very much applies to envy. I also discussed envy on many previous occasions.

QUESTION: Is there is something like healthy envy?

ANSWER: No, there is not. Under certain circumstances, it might lead to a healthy activity. Let us say that someone is without ambition -- and there is such a thing as healthy ambition. He is lethargic, withdrawn, apathetic, indifferent, and he comes into contact with someone whom he feels compelled to envy. This may pull him out of his lethargic state and perhaps even put him in the right direction. It is possible that a destructive feeling can have a constructive result, just as it it is possible that a feeling that is in itself constructive may have an unhealthy effect. This may or may not be the case. It depends on the many intricacies of the human personality in relation to his life circumstances. But the fact that a destructive feeling may produce positive results in certain cases does not make the feeling itself positive, healthy, or productive per se.

The seventh sin is sloth. It is the very indifference I just mentioned. It represents the pseudo solution of withdrawal from living and from loving. Where there is apathy, then there is a rejection of life. Where there is indifference, then there is the laziness of the heart that cannot feel and understand others -- and therefore cannot relate to them. Nothing produces more waste than sloth, apathy, withdrawal, or whatever other name you give it. A person would not be in sloth if he had a positive, constructive attitude toward life. Someone who is not overly preoccupied with his own safety will not withdraw and therefore will not become apathetic. Sloth always indicates selfishness. He who is too afraid for himself will not risk going forward and reaching out toward others. The one who reaches out takes the risk of being hurt. He considers it worthwhile. In sloth, you do not give life, yourself, and others a chance. You can never bestow happiness upon others in this self-preoccupation that seeks the pseudo solution of withdrawal, of apathy, of sloth. This is life-negating. Such negation of life can never be resolved unless the person comes to see his basic selfishness and his self-concern as being unhealthy. Sloth is one of the defense mechanisms I have discussed. In your fear of being hurt, you defend against it by becoming lazy of heart, indifferent toward everything that is life-producing. Therefore it is rightly called a sin.

QUESTION: What happens with a life, from the spiritual point of view, that has been wasted in sloth?

ANSWER: The same has to be repeated again and again, until the person finally pulls himself out of it. You see, the same law applies here that you can often observe around you. The more you are caught in a vicious circle, the more difficult it is to break out of it. The more deeply you are involved in your own conflicts and problems -- which, in the last analysis, arise only because you do not want to come out of them and change -- the more difficult it gets. The more you have run away from facing up to the need for change, and therefore continue to resist change, the more difficult it becomes. This continues until your outer life becomes so unbearable -- as a result of your getting deeper and deeper into the vicious circle -- that this very unhappiness finally makes you want to face your condition and change. If the willingness to change can be mustered before life becomes unbearable, then much unhappiness could be avoided. This is why you often see that people persist in remaining caught in their inner problems as long as they somehow get by. They seriously settle down to changing only when their life is no longer bearable for them. The same holds true on a larger scale. If a life is wasted in sloth time after time, then the circumstances of an incarnation may finally become so unpleasant that the individual pulls himself together and struggles out of it. Unfortunately, often sloth produces the attitude of the line of least resistance as long as the circumstances are not too bad. This creates for the following life psychological conditions that make it harder to live in sloth because when it becomes bad enough, then the instinct of self-preservation takes over. Just when that pulling out occurs depends on the person. QUESTION: I was wondering why some of these deadly sins are effects, instead of causes. And why, for instance, hatred and fear are not mentioned. They, too, are cause and effect at the same time.

ANSWER: Often with religious teachings the effect is spoken about and not the cause. At one time humanity was not ready to go deeply enough to see the cause. The best that could be hoped for was to prevent people from destructive actions, even if the underlying causes were not eliminated in the individual. At least, the contagiousness of the actions and the direct outer effect of destructive actions were decreased. Thoughts and emotions are also contagious, but not at the same level. In other words, outer behavior will influence outer behavior, while thoughts influence thoughts, and unconscious feelings influence unconscious feelings. At least the contagious actions in the crassest form were kept in check. That is why at one time in human history the effect was more concentrated on than the cause. Now that humanity is evolving, more attention must be given to the inner causes.

QUESTION: Any why is fear not mentioned?

ANSWER: Because it is not an act. It is an emotion that cannot be helped. It is a result of many other emotions. Therefore, it cannot be eliminated by a direct admonition not to have fear or not to be afraid. Fear can be tackled only by a process of psychological understanding and by dissolving the underlying roots. If you tell a person that he must not be afraid because it is a sin, then this will not prevent him from being frightened. He will become even more frightened. But if he slowly unrolls the processes of his emotional deviations, understanding them and correcting his false concepts, then he will first see that irrational fear is always selfishness and separateness. Therefore, he will no longer find cause for such irrational fear. It is more or less the same with hate. Besides, hate is the same as anger.

QUESTION: The conquest of fear in Matthew is by way of faith in God. How would you relate that to our teachings?

ANSWER: Faith in God -- in a genuine, secure, profound, and sincere way -- can exist only if you first have faith in yourself. To the degree that you lack faith in yourself, to that extent you cannot have faith in God. Of course, you can superimpose it, and therefore you can deceive yourself about it, out of the need to cling to a loving authority. But it cannot exist in a realistic, genuine way unless you first have gained the maturity of faith in yourself. And how can you have faith in yourself unless you understand yourself as much as it is possible? As long as you are puzzled and you grope in the dark about the effect that you have on others, about the effect that life has on you, and about the effect that others have on you, then you ignore some vital information about your psychic life. This ignorance is a result of your inner unwillingness -- and often of your unconscious resistance -- to find out the truth. Only in overcoming this hidden resistance and this hidden unwillingness will you get to understand yourself better. Then you will you have increasing faith in yourself, and thus in God. Only in this way can you conquer fear.

QUESTION: It seems to me that the seven cardinal sins are a subtler explanation of the Ten Commandments, which are definitely based on fear, or which create fear in their application.

ANSWER: Yes. Every teaching misunderstood, and therefore misapplied, will create fear. A rigid commandment that is pronounced without affording the person the possibility of finding out the underlying obstructions to following the ideal of such commandments will, rather than eliminate the causes, only produce fear and guilt, and therefore hate. Today it is no longer possible and constructive for man to merely obey a commandment in action. Since this is not good enough, your innermost self will be in fear, even if your actions are entirely proper and conform to the commandments. The final authority is not outside of yourself but is imbedded in your own psyche. There is a vast difference between the super demands of your idealized self and its perfectionism, and the reality of the productive life that your real self wants you to lead.

QUESTION: I have noticed that these sins that you listed are liquid. They sort of flow into one another. Sometimes they even seem like opposites, such as sloth contrasted with covetousness or with gluttony. They are not exact opposites, but they are opposites in some way. And yet they can exist at the same time. I wonder if there is any definite connection, say, between sloth and gluttony?

ANSWER: They are opposites because gluttony is a greedy reaching out due to a frustrated need, whereas sloth is an indifferent withdrawal, and therefore does not reach out. Yet they have the same common denominator of unawareness of the original need, the same cowardice to first find and then to change the conditions necessary to bring fulfillment, the same childish self-concern and selfishness. Since both come from confusion and from disorder -- from the displaced, unconscious real need -- they create further confusion and further disorder.

It is perfectly true that all these sins intermingle, they overlap. They may contradict each other, and yet they exist simultaneously. This is because they all have the same common denominator. Since the human personality is in conflict and is not one-sided but has many sides, then one aspect of the personality may adopt an attitude that is contradictory to another. All of you have found such contradictions both in yourselves and in others. This is why a mature person will never think that another person is either this or the other. Instead, he will perceive the contradictoriness of the human being as such, and he will be able to apply this knowledge to individual cases in his surroundings.

These sins, as well as the commandments, represent universal tendencies. Since the human psyche is not separated into clearly defined compartments, so it is with these sins. Different areas affect and influence one another.
QUESTION: Then from what you said there really is no difference in weight between these seven deadly sins? For sometimes it is said that sloth is worse than pride.
ANSWER: It is difficult to evaluate this. It may be misleading. It may be true, as you can easily see, that sloth is more difficult to get out of because it is inactive. It paralyzes the faculties and is thus of longer harm. But all of them are symptoms of the same underlying causes.
QUESTION: I wanted to ask about the fear of the Lord. In the Bible it is said that "the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom." Have we properly understood that fear? Have we evolved beyond this?
ANSWER: This question has been discussed before. It is a question of semantics, of wrong translation. The word "fear" is extremely misleading and damaging. The original sense is respect or awe before the greatness of the Creator. The infinite greatness is such that no human being can possibly, even remotely, understand it. As you grow in emotional maturity and in spiritual maturity, you realize your limitation in understanding the greatness both of the creation and of the Creator. That is the awe or the respect that comes out of wisdom. But not in the unhealthy sense of making yourself a small sinner, of flagellating yourself, of diminishing your own value. Because if you do, then you diminish the value of the Creator. It is only the very immature person -- the spiritual infant -- who does not know that it cannot possibly grasp God, the Universal Mind. The more mature do know it. And that is wisdom. As you grow, you sometimes sense, perhaps for a few short moments in a lifetime, your incapacity to grasp this. When you are aware of this incapacity, then you are much greater than when you ignore it.
QUESTION: Is not the fear of the Lord an element out of the ancient religions where religion had a punitive character?
ANSWER: Yes, it also comes from that time. But it is also a question of a wrong translation, perhaps just because of the remnants of that time.
QUESTION: How about sin from the spiritual point of view? If you do not commit the sin, if you just think about it but you do not actually commit it, out of fear or for any other reason, is this the same?
ANSWER: Jesus has said all there is to say about it. The difference between action and feeling or thought is not half as great as man wants to believe. Especially when not doing it is due to fear and not to love and understanding, or at least an attempt at it. You know that you have an emanation. What you feel and what you think emanates from you, and then is somehow always perceived by others. The more the consciousness of a person is developed, the more aware he will be of what he perceives from you. The less his consciousness is developed, the less he will be aware of it. But unconsciously he knows. Hence, your sin affects others, even if it is not committed. On the other hand, if you repress these feelings and these desires out of fear and guilt, then it is even worse. You will never get to their roots. In other words, you will not understand what makes you feel that way. You will not accept yourself as you are now, and you will inevitably deceive yourself into believing that you are a more evolved person than you happen to be. But if you freely admit it -- in other words, if you acknowledge it to yourself -- then you face it. Then from that place you can find the underlying reason for it. Thus you will do the only thing that will free you of it.
QUESTION: In today's Post Harry Golden wrote something to the effect that conformity is not living in a house similar to your neighbor's but rather living in that house in order to impress your neighbor or to make your neighbor like you. I think this is probably an adequate explanation of conformity. Now, I would like to know how far does the mature person go: how much, to what extent does he conform with the society in which he lives?
ANSWER: If we use the word conforming in the sense in which it is usually used, that of living up to the other people's expectations or to what one thinks these expectations are, either out of a need to impress others or out of a fear of rejection by others, then the mature person will not conform at all. But that does not mean that he rebels. Nor does it mean that he does everything differently from others. He may do certain things in the same way as his neighbor, but only because he freely chooses to do so. Just because he is free, he does not have to make a show of proving that he does not conform. The conforming person may often find it necessary to rebel, and therefore to do the very opposite of what he wants to do merely to show that he is being different. This manifestation is merely the other side of the coin and contains the same root as the person who cannot make an independent choice because he cannot risk being different. Once again, the outer manifestation does not show whether or not a person conforms. It is the inner spirit, the motive, that matters. If someone lives in a way similar to his environment, then it may be either out of the insecurity of needing to conform, or it may be out of the freedom of independently choosing this way of life because he likes it. If someone does everything differently out of rebellion, then it shows the underlying need to conform. In reality he rebels against this need and against the insecurity in himself rather than against society. This rebellion is unfree. It often makes the person do the very opposite of what he really wants to do. But it is also possible that the person who has the courage to be different does so out of a free spirit.
QUESTION: This question pertains to the "one and only love." The mature person, it seems, gives love very easily and certainly would want something in return. If a person is, let us say, 75 percent mature and he gets this wonderful feeling from giving love, then it seems that the object of the love is not of so much importance. How would such a mature person, with the need to give love, who wants to give it, who is able to give it, reconcile this with what the romantics say about the fact that two people come together and then, suddenly, this is it!
ANSWER: There is a great deal of confusion here. In the first place, there are many different kinds of love. It is perfectly true that a mature person can love many people in different ways. For clarity's sake, let us use the words warmth and understanding. This can be felt even by people who do not actively love this mature person in return. Yet, this same mature person will not harbor erotic love, the love between the sexes, when it is not eciprocated. It would be a crass misunderstanding to believe that the mature person can love if he is hated. The best that can be expected is that he will not hate in return because he is not defensive. He is uninvolved and objective, and therefore he senses why the other person hates, even if he ignores all the factors and the facts. But he will not seek a relationship in such a case, not even one of casual friendship. The mature person will have understanding and warmth in different degrees for different people. He will also relate to many people in different ways. But in marital love, mutuality is a prerequisite for a mature relationship. This does not men that both always feel the same way and with the same intensity. This cannot be measured in such terms. Relationships change and fluctuate. But on the whole there must be a reciprocity. You bring two different kinds of love together here, general human relationship and erotic love, and this is why the confusion exists.
QUESTION: In marital love, is it possible that perhaps the husband loves more at first, and then the wife, and then it changes again?
ANSWER: Of course. But this may also have to do with something other than love in its true sense. It may be that at one time the need and the insecurity of one person may be greater. Then he manifests his dependency. When this is satisfied, then the picture may change. This may not have anything to do with love.
QUESTION: Isn't the greatest and the best adjusting factor in marital relationship the ability to slowly grow into and see God in the other partner?
ANSWER: This applies to any kind of human relationship.
QUESTION: I'm growing aware of a new kind of feeling. As depressions, fears, and repressions dissolve, there emerges a personality that has no personal involvement and feelings, so that love is like a kind of negation and positiveness -- two sides -- both of which are a personal involvement with the self as the object. Then love becomes an understanding and a non-personal involvement, just as if you would see a stranger you do not like particularly, and you have no personal involvement with this person. It is just a sort of an acceptance. Then, when you have a personal relationship, this is simply a growth between two people without the "who loves most" and rejection. It is a deep personal giving. It is the most interesting feeling. It is the sort of feeling as though you have lost your body.
ANSWER: Yes, it is as though someone else feels in you and spreads this feeling into you. It is as though some new being takes hold of you inwardly. You may experience the same thing with your thoughts -- as though a thought is being thought in you. In other words, it is as though it is not your own thought process that thinks -- and yet it is very much your own. But you know that it comes from a new and unaccustomed area of your being. It is something calmer and wiser that thinks and that feels -- and that spreads gradually through you. This is what I talk about again and again. It is your real self that is slowly coming to the fore. In other words, it is emerging from the layers of disturbance. As you learn to understand yourself and to accept yourself as you are, you begin to resolve your conflicts. But not by repression, not by escaping from them, not by your pseudo solutions and by your defenses, but by squarely facing all that is in you, understanding it and comparing it with reality and with truthful concepts. In other words, as you go through the process of this work, then this real self begins to manifest. What you describe is the manifestation of your real self. However, this does not come in all areas of living and of being at once. At first it may appear in the areas where conflicts of lesser seriousness have been resolved. The next step will be to resolve the more serious problems where a deep, subjective, and destructive involvement still exists, even if non-involvement is a superficial pseudo solution. However, in the new state of the real self deep involvement does exist, but in an entirely different way: in a way that does not weaken and confuse, in a way that is productive for all concerned and that fills you and those in touch with you with a meaningfulness that you could not experience in a non-involvement, or in an over-involvement, or in a childish dependency.

From a certain point of view on the path, you may find yourself on a sort of plateau where you experience the result of your efforts, where you experience this manifestation of the real self. Yet, you may have to come away from it again as you tackle the still unresolved problems, repeating the cycles you have gone through on a deeper level, until you reach the next plateau. At a time like this, as you describe it, the feeling I spoke about before, the awe of God, the realization of one's limitation to grasp the Creator, may come simultaneously. A divine aspect in yourself begins to fill you. At first it feels as though it were something outside of you. But then it penetrates you, enveloping you from inside out, until you know that it is an integral part of you. This is your real self.
QUESTION: If a man marries and he is not really deeply in love with his woman -- first, is this wrong? Second, is it possible that with proper guidance this marriage could turn out well? Is it possible that they then fall in love, that it develops into a real love affair, even though it started rather coldly?
ANSWER: It is hard to answer with a definite statement of either right or wrong. It depends on many circumstances. It depends on the motivation, it depends on the kind of feelings you have, it depends on the will, and it depends on the effort that is put into the relationship. But generally, if the motivation is good and if the feelings of affection, of respect, and of liking for the other human being exist, if certain common basic interests prevail, and if both the goal and the motive are sincere, then this may turn into a better marriage than one that is based solely on passion. In the latter, the real values may be overlooked. Yet, this does not mean that if two people are in love they necessarily overlook the real values. They may have fallen in love just because of them. What you say is certainly not a rule, but it is possible under certain circumstances if the real values are perceived. However, a careful examination should be made in such a case as to the motivations in both people. This cannot be done quickly, because deep and hidden factors may play a role. Even distorted and unhealthy motives, when finally out in the open, may not have a damaging effect after they are looked at and come to terms with. But they will be extremely damaging if one is unaware of them.

My dearest friends, may you succeed in absorbing the material that I have given you in all of these lectures and in making it an integral part of yourself. Much of it has not yet been absorbed. Only your will to plow ahead in this work of self-finding will enable you to do so. May these words fortify your understanding, both in your intellect and in your emotions. Be blessed, each one of you. Be blessed on your Path. Be blessed in your work. Be blessed in your activities. Be blessed in your human relationships. May you all learn to accept yourself as you are without a feeling of sin. Then with this acceptance you will resolve the veryt conditions that lead you to sin. Be in peace. Be in God.
April 27, 1962
Copyright 1962, 1980 by Center for the Living Force, Inc.