Movement, Consciousness, Pleasure Principle As Essence Of Life

By The Pathwork Guide

Greetings, my dearest friends. God bless all of you. Blessed be this path of self-realization and of self-unfoldment. All my friends who really make serious efforts toward overcoming the inborn resistance to first face and then change that which is unrealistic, and therefore destructive, begin to reap the fruits of this endeavor. They notice this through an increasing awareness of themselves and an increasing liberation of vital forces and energies.

This lecture will bring out several points which we have discussed in the past, but I shall attempt to link up aspects which we had previously looked into separately because the inner understanding of this group now enables me to go deeper. As you know, on the deepest level all cosmic aspects and all human aspects unify.

A long time I gave a lecture about the life force. Let us look into this again with a new insight. The life force is a free-flowing energy current that is manifest in the entire universe. When an organization fulfills certain essential conditions, then it tunes into the life force, which enables it to first be permeated by it and then revitalized by it. It lives. In other words, a living organism has come into existence.

We discussed definitions of life from various points of view. Let us now be very simple about it. There are three essential elements which determine life. They are: Movement, consciousness, and experience. As you may have noticed from a number of topics in the past there are many triads in the spiritual facets of life. Each triad forms a whole. One aspect of the triad harmoniously combines the other two. If harmony prevails in the living organism, then the third factor blends, balances, and harmonizes. If the life organism is in disharmony with the universal laws, then the three factors will become a contradiction to one another and, instead of harmonizing as a whole, they will be in opposition to one another. So it is with this triad.

Let us look closer at the significance of each of these three aspects. Without movement, life does not exist. What lives must move. When movement goes out, then it is because life goes out. The entire universe is in motion because it is alive. This applies not only to the universe itself, but to every particle of the human entity. On the physical level it is obvious. When the muscles do not move, then they atrophy. Part of the physical body is losing its life. On the mental level or the intellectual level, it is also easy to observe. He who does not train his brain to think -- in other words, to move -- loses the capacity for thinking. The intellect stagnates; it becomes lifeless. It atrophies, just as the muscles of a body atrophy when the body does not move. Thinking is movement.

On the emotional level it is generally more difficult to observe, unless one is on a path of self-exploration. Some of my friends are becoming aware of inner conditions of their emotional life which show that repression creates rigidity. Rigidity is the opposite of life, which is always flexible, always in motion. Feelings are movement. When feelings are either prohibited or manipulated, so that they cannot function according to their own harmonious law, then they deaden.

Hence, in order to be fully alive, all levels of the personality must keep on moving in a natural, organic way. In order for the live organism to function harmoniously, it has to grow. In other words, it has to move. For without growth there is no life. One may also put it axiomatically that since growth is movement, then without movement there is no life.

Movement contains the outreaching quality. It contains the elements of relationship, of communication, of love, of understanding. It reaches out to the other being. Union is unthinkable without movement because it must always reach out of the confines of the self.

The second factor is consciousness. This has been discussed so extensively that not much has to be said about it here. It is self-evident that to the degree that an entity is conscious, to that exat degree it is alive. There are many degrees of consciousness. The human being is the first creature in the upward scale that possesses self-consciousness, awareness of itself, in all its varying degrees. People such as you, who pursue a path of increasing self-awareness, raise their level of consciousness in the fastest possible way. Increased awareness of the self must, perforce, increase awareness of others, awareness of the universe, and awareness of life as a whole. Awareness determines the measure and the direction of movement and regulates it according to reality concepts. Movement without consciousness is bound to lose itself in wrong channels. It may be either too extreme, too one-sided, or it may give in to apathy and to stagnation.

On this path you often detect how your emotional life either stagnates or is uncontrolled. Your awareness gradually regulates this and brings harmony into your organism. Although physical movement and mental movement are frequently neglected, it is the emotional movement which suffers the most. Often physical inactivity and mental inactivity are due to emotional stagnation.

Expanding the consciousness entails movement. The activity and the effort necessary for such an endeavor are movements. On the other hand, movement without consciousness -- to the degree of the individual personality's capability -- hinders the harmonious movement of all levels of the personality. For example, if movement and consciousness are directed into a channel that deal exclusively with outer matters, or if self-understanding is neglected, then the integration of all the personality levels cannot take place. The body and the mind may develop, but the spiritual entity suffers when the emotional level is not infiltrated with movement and with consciousness. Blind emotions -- emotions that one is not aware of -- are a consequence of the lack of consciousness on the emotional level. When the movement of the Path -- search, thinking, discriminating, and evaluating -- is not directed to those hidden areas, then the movement of the emotions is off balance. In part it is blindly wild -- such as uncontrollable hostility -- and in part it paralyzes the best faculties of the feeling body.

Experience is the third factor. The fuller the experience, the more harmonious must be the interplay between movement and consciousness. Shallowness is the lack of experience. When the feeling body is paralyzed, then the ability to experience must suffer. When the feelings are distorted, one-sided, negative, then it is because of misconception. In other words, of the misinterpretation of reality. All of this indicates faulty awareness and the lack of comprehension. In other words, insufficient consciousness. The ability to evaluate an experience determines the maximum of pleasure and the minimum of pain. For the maximum of pleasure, then the feelings have to be in motion. For the minimum of pain, then the consciousness has to function. Thus it can be seen that consciousness is the third factor in this triad.

The higher the overall development of an entity, the greater the bliss -- in other words, the fuller the experience of pleasure -- and the lesser the experience of pain and suffering. This is due to correct evaluation, to realistic perception, and to free-flowing movement. That means movement that is unhampered by fears, by inhibitions, and by paralysis. In short, the maximum experience of bliss is the result of the harmonious blending of movement, of consciousness, and of experience.

Experience contains the pleasure principle. The possibility for utter bliss is contained in the life force. It is man's inborn longing to partake of this experience. This becomes possible when his entire organism is in harmony with reality. That is, when he no longer fights against reality out of his misunderstandings and his false ideas.

When the deepest layers of the psyche are reached, then it becomes apparent that the raw, primitive instincts are concerned only with the experience of pleasure. Behind the superstructure of moral standards, of laws, and of rules lies the craving for pleasure supreme at all costs, regardless of the consequences. In the immature creature, the pleasure principle would like to function, but insufficient consciousness creates a discrepancy between the ability for pleasure and the environment. Hence, the frequent situation arises where intellectual maturity hinders the pleasure principle, which is repressed because consciousness does not penetrate these levels. Therefore, the ability to experience pleasure is unable to grow. It remains childish, and therefore self-concerned. If it does manifest at all, then it is patently destructive. If it is prohibited from manifestation, then the inherent destructiveness is not eliminated because it festers underground. As long as it is kept in check, then no real fulfillment can be experienced. This is because consciousness does not reach these hidden layers. Movement is checked. As a result, the pleasure principle cannot unfold in the life of the individual. Thus, the faculties which are equipped to experience a maximum of pleasure are thwarted.

Man is meant to experience the maximum of pleasure. But as long as this occurs at the cost of harming either others or oneself, then it means that a harmonious balance has not yet been established among these three factors of life within the personality. Harming oneself occurs out of unjustified guilt feelings. This is bound to eventually also harm others.

One of the most damaging factors in the general development of the entire human personality is the influence of deeply ingrained prejudice, of preconceived ideas, and of misconceptions. This world is so filled with generally accepted facts that even the most enlightened and independent spirits blindly accept certain postulates without a fresh new approach as to why matters are what they are supposed to be. In other words, without asking why certain things are supposed to be right and good and why others are supposed to be wrong and therefore bad. The sense of wrongness that exists in man about the free development of man's faculties to experience universal bliss combines with his personal fears and his negative experiences so that the personality may remain crippled for many incarnations, until it has the courage to free itself. Fearing disapproved instinctual drives -- being ashamed of them -- cannot possibly allow them to mature so that they reach out and integrate. As a consequence, many people develop in a lopsided way. The further this one-sided development is encouraged and therefore increased, thereby leaving other parts of the personality untouched, the greater will be the crises and the conflicts that the personality will experience.

Society's taboos regarding the erotic and sexual forces contained in the life force have resulted in mankind's intellectual and technical over-development, as compared with his ability to love. For the love force cannot grow if it is arbitrarily separated from the erotic and sexual forces. They are all one stream. If man's consciousness fearfully watches over every stream of feeling, anxiously cutting out of this life stream what he believes to be wrong, then the entire capacity to love must suffer. This does not apply merely to love between the sexes, but to love in every human facet. The great spiritual love force knows no such divisions. Its cultivation is impossible if a continuously watchful eye tries to pull out what is supposed to be wrong. It is as though man attempted to play a symphony without certain essential notes that he decided to eliminate. During early practice some notes may ring false, but after sufficient practice these notes will eventually harmonize and will form one integral whole.

A misconception of long standing, which has only been eliminated in the last fifty years or so, was the idea that infants do not experience erotic or sexual pleasure. The truth is that infants experience physical pleasure more strongly than the average human being does. The infant is not burdened with guilts, with shames, and with misconceptions. Therefore, the instinctual drives manifest much more intensely. However, the experience of the pleasure principle is naturally undeveloped, and therefore self-centered, (which does not make it wrong or sinful) because consciousness and movement are still hindered. Thus, in the child's early years pleasure is primarily either self-centered or directed to its immediate environment. In other words, to the parents. This is completely natural. But man's traditional misconceptions put the stamp of utter wrong on this natural phenomenon. Generation upon generation of inherited prejudice causes a halting of the growing individual's natural development. The fear of perversion, the fear of homosexuality, and the fear of incest also play a role. But the baby knows no such boundaries. Its sexual instincts thrive without consideration of these concepts and ideas. If guilt and a sense of sin do not drive these instincts underground, if mental awareness and spiritual awareness are cultivated, and if the entire human personality grows harmoniously, then the sexual drive changes. It undergoes the same process as man's general development does. The more man grows, the more he reaches out: first from the self to his immediate environment, and later to the world outside his family circle. In early years, the adolescent is most preoccupied with companions of the same sex -- intellectually, mentally, emotionally, and also sexually. The companions of the same sex are an extension of himself and of the parent of the same sex. But as growth proceeds further, then he reaches out to the other sex.

Overt perversion is not prohibited by decrees of sin, with their inhibiting fears, but by the entire human organism which grows up and readies to go out of itself. The fear of the sin of perversion tends to drive the underdeveloped instincts inward. When man is ashamed of his hate, of his hostility, of his envy, and of his vindictiveness, then these trends fester in the unconscious too. Man can only grow out of these emotions if he learns first to face these feelings and then to understand their origin and their reason reason for being. If this does not happen, then he may not appear to be harboring such feelings, but he will harbor them nevertheless. Their existence comes out indirectly and manifests through a paralysis of his creative functions, a paralysis of his ability to have rewarding and meaningful relationships, and a paralysis of his ability to have fulfillment. It is exactly the same with the forbidden immature feelings. They, too, have to be faced, then re-experienced, and finally come to terms with if the personality is to grow harmoniously and thus fulfill itself.

These forbidden feelings are frequently on a layer below the level of hate and resentment. Hostility and other negative emotions may have been difficult to face because they contradict one's idealized self image and because they bring disapproval and rejection. But they are often more acceptable than pleasurable feelings in connection with one's own family. Therefore, they are kept even more securely locked up than hate. Often hate is artifically fostered as an antidote against forbidden pleasure-feelings, and the repression of hate and anger occurs only subsequently. This points to the necessity of unrolling this entire process, layer by layer, until this most primitive area is reached. Only then can the organic process of growth take place, and the personality can then unfold in its full splendor. When one life-activity -- no matter how useful, productive or creative in itself -- seems to hinder the unfoldment of one's emotional depth in experiencing the pleasure principle, then the inner being is off balance. For, in a balanced, integrated, full personality one activity will enhance the other. Creative endeavor never suffers by the full experience of the life force in all its aspects. Quite the contrary is true.

Before prejudice, fear, and misconception prohibit the natural flow of an infant's participation in the life force, its experience of the pleasure drive is very acute. Every experience in infanthood is influenced by the pleasure principle. This enters into all of the child's activities, regardless of what comes to pass. The type of experience and the child's psychic condition -- the condition with which it is born -- subsequently influence its attitude toward the pleasure principle. Hence, when the baby is caressed, fed, and loved, then it experiences acute physical pleasure in connection with its surroundings. If development proceeds naturally, then the out-reaching movement will induce the entity to direct the pleasure drive first from the self to the immediate family environment, then to the outer world, and finally to the opposite sex. This necessitates the integration of love, of eros, and of sex (as discussed in a previous lecture). This, in turn, is a consequence of the equal development of movement, of consciousness, and of the ability to experience. However, this integration does not take place if there exist taboos, fears, and an artificial separation of the instinctual drives. Their existence will prohibit this natural development.

With growing maturity in this direction, the perfect union between two individuals of the opposite sex becomes possible. Apart from the immesurable bliss of this experience, it also enables the personalities in question to function incomparably better in every aspect of life. Such healthy union does not exclude productive activities and rewarding relationships with others. On the contrary. The more the personality is integrated, and therefore capable of experiencing what it is destined for -- the utter bliss of the life force -- the more it must include others. The realm of its experience widens, with each experience perfect in its own uniqueness. Needless to say that this does not mean promiscuity.

The more the individual reaches out, integrating all of his faculties into a harmonious whole, the more does the entity fulfill his spiritual destiny. Beyond the human sphere this reaching out occurs to a degree that is extended infinitely, but this is not beyond human comprehension. The concept of spiritual union is at best a theoretical one for man. The great life force -- which reaches further out and embraces, rather than witholds and excludes -- knows no arbitrary separation between the various facets of the great life stream that contains the pleasure principle. Life on earth is a preparation for this. Therefore, it is of the utmost importance to remove the trouble spots within the psyche. These trouble spots mean that the pleasure drive was fixed -- in connection with negative, unpleasurable experience -- by guilt, by fear, by misconception, and by the faulty assimilation of experience.

This fixation may take two extreme forms, with many degrees between them. The first extreme is that there are superimposed rules, taboos, and false guilts which cause anger and rebellion. These feelings are the result of fighting against that which one accepts in part. Therefore it does not indicate real freedom, which derives only from awareness and from comprehension. Outwardly this may manifest in the living out of raw, undeveloped, primitive instincts in a spirit of defiance. Such defiance and such rebellion harbor fear and guilt. As a result, organic growth does not occur. The instincts remain in their primitive childhood state. Therefore, what at one time ws natural and organic at a later period of life is destructive. The other extreme is that guilt and fear thwart the unfoldment of the pleasure principle. Hence the soul is prohibited this aspect of its development. It is frustrated and it feels a void, for the longing for happiness is not wrong, but is really a spiritual factor. Over-compensation and mischanneling are further results, until the soul ultimately follows its destiny and brings all of its faculties into a growing process. Usually, there are stages between these extremes, either overtly or unconsciously, so that the personality battles in a blind way against both extremes, fluctuating but never being enlightened and freed.

Consequently, it is essential that everyone on the Path investigate his most primitive, heretofore untouched areas of feelings in this regard. They have to be lifted out of hiding and then seen in connection with the personal experiences and the conditions in the early environment.

Humanity often claims that pleasure for its own sake is wrong. The truth is exactly the opposite. When the personality is harmoniously developed, then the pleasure drive includes others, it gives and it receives. And this is as it should be. In a mature individual it is not self-centered, and therefore is not excluding. Hence it cannot be anti-social. It is anti-social, and therefore excluding, only if the adult person manifests his sexual drive as it is appropriate with a child. Children are anti-social, self-centered, and therefore excluding. When emotions remain more or less fixed in the childish state, then it is not sinful, but it is indicative of a lag in the overall development. In these instances an individual will frequently use the pleasure drive for other needs. For example, in order to enhance his ego, in order to diminish his feeling of inadequacy, in order to to feel wanted and desired because he feels insecure and helpless. Often aggression and hostility are taken up by the pleasure drive and they manifest in the sexual drive without the person's awareness. It is then that one may truly speak of perversion because the pleasure principle is used for something other than it is destined for. In other words, it does not fulfill the function it is destined for, but it is supposed to fulfill that which only self-awareness and the growing out of one's problematic emotions can fulfill. The pleasure principle becomes a substitute, or at least partly so.

These web of entanglements -- consisting of guilt, of suppression, of repression, of fear, of the early childhood fixation of the pleasure principle, its lack of organic development, the effects of this stagnation on the person's life and on his inter-relationships -- can be uncovered only by looking deeply inside, into the recesses of the hidden primitive feelings in connection with one's early environment. This is not easy, and it cannot be done at once. It is necessary that the psyche be loosened up gradually, by previous stages of this pathwork, so that the re-experiencing of these early emotions becomes possible. This can be done only if one does not resist this endeavor. The reward for the ensuing liberation is beyond any words.

As long as the personality is unconsciously fixated on its early experience -- regardless of whether this manifests in a direct way or in a covert way -- the soul is incapable of truly growing and of truly experiening. These fixations cannot be given up unless awareness enters into the areas which heretofore were closed up. Only then can one come to terms with the inadequately assimilated early experience. And only then is the psyche ready to truly reach out. Fixation implies a lack of movement -- therefore a lack of growth. It implies a lack of consciousness, for consciousness means the proper understanding through which the movement of the life force can dissolve the fixation. Hence, experience can then take place on the level which the individual is potentially ready for. Where movement, consciousness, and experience function harmoniously, there the individual must be fulfilled and essentially happy, regardless of occasional outer difficulties. In such a case, love, eros, and sex will be one force. Then there is no conflict between the intellect, the emotions, and man's spiritual center.

Now let us look at certain basic conditions in childhood, from which it will be easier for all of you to look at your own childhood in the light of this subject. As mentioned before, the child experiences intense pleasure in contact with his parents. Whether or not of the same sex, each parent stands in the foreground at certain periods of the child's development. This is normal and healthy for these limited periods. But labels stamp such feelings as perverse, and therefore as sinful. The child soon absorbs these ideas -- even if they are never mentioned in these terms -- because both the entire atmosphere and the adult environment's conscious and unconscious thinking are permeated by such labels. So, instead of growing naturally out of these stages, the child fixates the feelings in its unconscious psychic life to guilt, to shame, and to fear, thereby making it impossible for the personality to relate to others without the influence of these early feelings. As a result, layer upon layer of destructive artificial emotions cover up this basic condition. Since love is combined with the pleasure drive, it is turned into hate. This hate has to be covered with a sterile, false, pretended love. Hence, the hate is not only due to rejection and to its resulting hurt, but equally to what seems like forbidden love.

Man relates to his parents through his other relationships, particularly with his mate. The topic under discussion has to be included in this vital factor. The more the emotions are fixed, the more it is an indication of powerful emotions being involved. The most powerful feelings are those in connection with the pleasure principle. If you now consider a number of previous lectures, particularly those dealing with the influence of one's parents and the behavior patterns deriving from the parental relationship, then you will gain a considerably deeper insight. This will enable you to re-experience, in one form or another, what keeps you rigid. In other words, what prevents your complete organic growth. Do not be afraid of facing these feelings. You have nothing to fear in doing so -- on the contrary. Be alert, and you will truly liberate yourselves. Be particularly watchful when the feelings seem problematic because there is either too much blind adoration, or too much resentment -- more than the occasion may warrant. If such over-reaction exists, then it is an indication that you have not yet come to terms with the natural phases of your past development.

When the erotic longing in childhood was fulfilled to a degree, due to a demonstrative and affectionate parent, then this does not necessarily guarantee healthy further development. When the sense of guilt is too strong, then the entity is incapable of coming to terms with the experience. Therefore, he will battle against it. This will later manifest in battling against love and against erotic or sexual fulfillment. On the other hand, if the child did not receive the fulfillment it longed for, then it is later convinced that its longing was wrong. Consequently, as an adult, he will continue to battle against his own feelings. This may be occasionally counteracted by the healthy longing of the soul, but it is always diluted by the original experience that one has not properly assimilated.

It may be believed that only the experience of pleasure during childhood activates the erotic and sexual force in the growing individual. But often it is just as much the painful experience -- which melts into the pleasure drive -- that fixes the erotic and sexual pleasure to the painful experience. It is important to recognize that this is possible and that often it is a fact. Fear and pain are the essence of all negative experience. It is often the case that a human being functions erotically and/or sexually only in connection with fear and with pain. When these emotions are absent, then the pleasure principle cannot manifest. I cannot stress sufficiently how important it is to look into these areas and to establish a connection between such a factor and the particular circumstances in your childhood which produced both pain and fear. Then the fixation can be found directly and without detour. As long as the person is fixated in such a way, then it is impossible for him to maintain a fruitful, dynamic relationship. It must always end. Therefore, such a person cannot experience what his soul longs for.

Nevertheless, this is not as negative a factor as might be believed, because the entity alleviates the pain by the process of allowing the pleasure principle to influence the painful experience, which might otherwise have been unberable for the undeveloped ego of the child. If a painful experience is eroticized or sexualized, then it permits the entity -- to a limited degree of course -- the experience of the vital, revitalizing life force. Thus, it is a better solution than the other alternative, which would be thwarting the pleasure drive altogether. Most of the time, it is a combination of these two alternatives that one unconsciously grasps for in order to deal with painful experience. In either case -- as well as in the case of being fixated on the pleasurable experience of childhood -- it is of the utmost necessity to dissolve all these fixations and thus set the life force free. Frustration, unfulfillment in every respect, even in those areas which seem to have nothing to do with this topic, self-dislike, guilt, disease, lack of energy, lack of creativity -- in short, any negative aspect in creation -- must ultimately be connected with this facet of human development. Every human being contains within his psyche the infant he once was. And this infant responds and reacts as it once did. All it is concerned about is the simple wish to experience pleasure. Either this pleasure was given or it was not. The parents had the power to give it or to withold it. The basic struggle of the infant is to attain pleasure and to eliminate that which stands in the way. This simple primitive struggle still exists within each individual. In itself it is not sinful, shameful, or wrong. In growing out of this primitive state, then the flavor, the emphasis, and the ramification of the search all undergo a change.

One parent may have given more pleasure, the other parent may have given more pain. Both parents may have given both pain and pleasure. In any case, pleasure and pain go on battling within until they are brought out into the daylight of consciousness. Then the struggle continues in an entirely different way, in a healthy and constructive way, tending toward spiritual maturity.

When all images, all pseudo-solutions, all misconceptions, and all inner conflicts are brought down to the simplest common denominator, then it will be found that the infant struggles between attaining pleasure and avoiding pain. When pain and pleasure are unified as a way out, then this must not be confused with the unity between pleasure and pain that come about when overcoming the duality of life on earth. It is a blind -- and therefore erroneous -- attempt to overcome the duality. As such, it is not real, and therefore not productive.

On your further steps on the Path, it is necessary to consider this lecture together with the last one. Working them through as one unit will facilitate matters greatly. Try to detect the hidden fear of your feelings, because mankind has created a separation between general human affection and the erotic sexual flow. In reality they cannot be so completely separated. This fearfulness cramps you, and it makes you manipulate your feelings in the most subtle but nevertheless distinct way. Man erroneously fears that his as yet undeveloped, primitive instincts will lead him astray in action. The truth is that becoming aware of these instinctual drives will merely make you attuned to the development that is otherwise achieved. My words must not be misunderstood, my friends. I do not advocate a living out of your childish instincts. All I mean to say is that as a child you all have these instincts. And they still exist to some degree in all of you before you truly come face to face with them, so that you can free yourself of a self-imposed prison. When you face them and you come to terms with these heretofore hidden primitive feelings -- after you have overcome the unreasonable fear of and the shame to do so -- then you will outgrow them, and therefore you will reach out further. Only then will you truly relate. Hence, the new person will no longer be a substitute for the original parent that you still seek. You will not only experience new heights in fulfillment, new heights in fullness of living, and new heights in bliss, but your productive activities will also know a new height, being executed in peace and in harmony. Tension, frustration, and irritation will leave your psychic system, for these constant companions of so many of my friends are the result of instincts that one cannot accept in oneself, and therefore that one fears and runs away from.

I venture to say that every one of you, at least to some degree, will find that your erotic response occurs only when there is at least a slight element of rejection, of fearfulness, of uncertainty, of insecurity, or of pain. When these negative emotions are completely absent, then your erotic response may also be absent. For such people it is often impossible to establish the proper climate in which they can function erotically. Complete rejection is not possible either, because since it is anticipated, then it only serves to perpetuate the vicious circle. Even if either one or both partners feels beyond the need or the wish for partnership fulfillment due to advanced earthly age, dissolving this fixation and meeting the original childhood condition is of equal importance so that the life force can flow and revitalize you in other areas of your life. By keeping these fixed areas unresolved, the life force is prohibited. This must take its toll on your general well-being and on your overall development. Do not fear the consequences, for the freer you become of your blind, unrealistic fears, of your guilts, and of your misconceptions, the more you are capable of choosing freely. In other words, of not being forced into patterns that you do not select out of penetrating, realistic awareness. Going with the life stream can only be right in every possible respect. Conversely, stemming against it -- out of your blindness, your ignorance, your stubbornness, and your fear -- is bound to cramp you, and thus to hinder you where you least desire it.

When dealing with the area just described -- in which pain and pleasure live together because your painful experience could not be assimilated otherwise -- then it is important to note that on the one hand as long as this condition prevails within yourself, you shortchange yourself in the most tragic and unnecessary way. For, by facing it, it can be changed in a way that will give both you and others immeasurable happiness. On the other hand, it is also important to see it with a wider view. If pleasure and pain can only live together in the conflicted psyche -- although it may often be called perversion or labeled as masochism -- then it is still a blessing. If the life force could not enter into the distorted areas -- even though compelled to manifest in an erroneous, inverted way until growing out of the conflict -- then the organism would become more incapacitated, weaker, and emptier in all areas of living. This would mean that the entity could not grow at all, and therefore that it could not experience or enjoy any kind of pleasure. Think of those individuals who do not derive any joy out of living. They are always those who have inadvertently managed to stop the enlivening stream, which often is accused of being evil merely because it is arbitrarily divided into acceptable sections and unacceptable sections and because its primitive manifestation is evaluated as an unchangeable aspect, and not as a temporary stage.

These childhood phases have to be gone through, re-experienced, and seen in their proper light, my friends. Many of you are approaching the stage in which you are capable of doing so. Some of you have already begun and have made considerable headway. Others are still too blocked and too fearful. But even they will eventually muster the courage to discover that it is natural. It is not shameful. It is in the scheme of universal development. I cannot tell you how grateful you will be to yourself for not shirking this vital part of your development. You have seen in the past how exhilarating and how liberating it was when you overcame the resistance to go deeper. The greater the struggle and the resistance, the more meaningful was the insight and the more liberating the effect.

This lecture may be interpreted as psychological material. But nothing could be further from the truth, even though great insight has been made in this particular respect in the last fifty years from a purely psychological point of view. That is, in terms of present fulfillment, of personal happiness in this life. But here I am saying something much more than that. This opens the spiritual vistas of Union. It reaches further than Freudian psychology. It includes the evolution of the created entity in all its facets. It is important that you understand this message from this point of view. The aim of the spiritual unfoldment discussed in this lecture reaches beyond the personal pleasure that man could experience. Although the latter is a result of a harmonious overall development and certainly does not oppose it, the development of the soul has an infinitely more far-reaching significance in the entire evolutionary plan.

The universal life force embodies greatness, beauty, and purity. It is man's impurity that would make one facet of the life force seem impure.

Some of my friends may yet have difficulty in understanding all this. Some of them may believe that this is repetition. But those of you who are really exploring yourselves deeply, and who are about to reach these areas, will not find these words repetitious, nor will you find them beyond the possibility of being understood.

This lecture should give you a great deal of material to work on. If you truly pursue your inner development, and you are not merely interested in outer patches, then it must have a listening effect on your psyche and in its direction of search and unfoldment. It must be food for thought. Otherwise you will continue to fear that part in you which paralyzes your best potential, until you summon up the courage and make the effort to do what your spirit is waiting for you to do.

Since there is no more time for questions now, I will give you all the time you wish when we come to the discussion reserved for this particular lecture. Then I will answer all the questions and discuss all the examples and all the problems that are brought to me.

I want to close this lecture with the statement that those of you who do not shy away from this deep and ultimate growing process in this life are blessed indeed. You can indeed rejoice! Do not be put off by the possible crisis, which is always present when one unreasonably fears to face something that one feels is hard to accept. The ignorant child, believing it has to hide, reacts very strongly before it is brought out of hiding. After this crucial liberation, you will no longer be satisfied with small insights, with a little relief -- which inevitably has relapses, until you find the same process all over again. Instead, you will achieve a substantial and significant growth of lasting value, of lasting impact.

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Be blessed, all of you! Receive the vibrant life force which contains all that which cannot be evaluated in terms of right or wrong, of good or bad. It is all one. Be in peace. Be in God.

November 15, 1963