Self-Fulfillment Through Self-Realization As Man Or Woman

By The Pathwork Guide

Greetings, my dearest friends. God bless all of you. Blessed be this lecture.

In order to fulfill one's life, one must fulfill one's self. Self-fulfillment, or self-realization, happens on many levels and in many different respects. In order to fulfill oneself, one needs to find one's primary vocation and to develop it, to grow in it and through it. In other words, to cultivate it fully. In order to fulfill oneself, one needs to find and to develop all one's potentials -- all of one's individual assets, as well as all the general human ones with which every human being is fundamentally endowed. Such a process requires building up and integrating into the rest of the personality those elements which are free from obstructions. In order to do all that, it is essential to first find and then eliminate the obstructions, the destructive currents. All this means self-fulfillment. He who fulfills himself contributes something to life. He enriches it, not merely by his vocational abilities, but through his fruitful human contacts. Through self-development barriers fall; fear of others vanishes, and the fear of oneself in connection with others also vanishes. As a result, true relatedness becomes possible.

Self-fulfillment also means something much more specific. Humanity consists of men and women. A human being cannot fulfill himself if a man does not fulfill his manhood and if a woman does not fulfill her womanhood. This must be the primary aim on which everything else hinges, either directly or indirectly. Let us now discuss this aspect in a little more detail.

These lectures are predominantly destined for those who follow this path of intensive self-development. The lectures affect inner areas which are not accessible unless a path such as this is taken. Hence, on reading these words, many of my friends who follow this path feel an inner echo and an understanding which goes beyond a mere intellectual and theoretical grasp of the subject. Sometimes this understanding comes only a bit later, when the necessary layers of their consciousness have become free to take in the material. However, all those who work on the path can make use of these lectures in an entirely different way from those who merely read them without doing the personal work. This difference is distinct and real, but it can be ascertained only when you have both kinds of understanding. When the inner experience of truth is lacking, because self-development in its vital form is not practiced, then these lectures may be either merely interesting, self-evident material, or far-fetched theory. But being affected deep within your being will enable you to further transcend yourself and to understand your problems in a more profound way. Self-exploration makes forever new layers of your own psyche accessible to your awareness. The lectures are directly aimed at the layers, which then become free to receive them.

Any path of self-realization must bring out one's attitude toward one's own manhood or toward one's own womanhood, and also one's approach to and one's attitude to the opposite sex. When the person wants to skirt around this issue, then he takes many divergent paths, hoping to avoid the issue because it is so unpleasant to look at. The most obvious signs, coming forth from the psyche, are disregarded. The greater the resistance to openly face a problem, the more important it is to do so.

Considerable work has been done in this respect in your private sessions and we have discussed this topic repeatedly in previous lectures from various angles. But it is important to discuss this topic again.

It is a common fact that all human beings possess both masculine traits and feminine traits. But there is still much confusion regarding this topic even among my friends, and obviously with most human beings. There are some whose conscious concepts are quite reasonable and truthful, but unconsciously almost all human beings harbor distorted ideas on this subject. These distorted concepts create fear of the other sex and fear of one's own proper functioning in the sex that one is born in. Such fears are a barrier preventing relatedness to the oppposite sex. Yet such relatedness is one of the important aspects of self-fulfillment. Relating to other human beings is always a gauge to one's own inner freedom and to one's own integration. Since the relationship between the sexes is the most intense form of human communication, it is more influenced by inner conflict and strife than any other.

Where you find a barrier to the opposite sex, a similar barrier must first exist within yourself towards your own sex. When a man fights against his own masculinity and is confused about it, then he creates a barrier, and therefore he must fight against woman. The same applies, of course, to woman. Age-old misconceptions, handed down from one generation to the next, have a tragic influence on mankind, particularly in this respect. Either consciously or unconsciously, people reverse the facts into exact opposites: that which is healthy, constructive, and good appears undesirable, and the opposite appears desirable. Hence their attitude is distorted, and the resulting unrealistic reflexes affect their entire value system. To be more specific. If the drive toward union is, a priori, experienced as something wrong, then it is inevitable that the healthy striving of the soul will be discouraged. One will be confused about it and one will then feel that the the isolating, separating tendencies are either more constructive or more mature. Hence one will fear all the natural impulses toward union. One will fear the self which produces them and, as a protection, one will create a barrier to the opposite sex. This fear not only separates man from woman, but it splits the great cosmic force of union itself into affection and into the procreative urge. When human beings experience, however unconsciously, the sex force as something wrong, then they must fear their own sex. In other words, they must fear themselves as men or as women. They must distrust themselves in this respect. By constantly holding themselves in check, they can never afford to be free and spontaneous. How can true overall growth take place with such an attitude of inner timidity and lack of freedom? How can the spirit surge forward in harmony with the cosmic flow? How can an entity learn the all-encompassing love which knows no barriers?

The universe strives toward union in every possible respect. All the forces of nature, all the forces within the human being, reach out toward union, on all levels of being. Where there is error and blindness, fear must arise and, consequently, the universal flow must be stopped and therefore evolution is halted.

In a tragic human conflict human beings desperately yearn for their fulfillment with their counterparts as men and women and often equally desperately flee from it in unreasonable fear. This fear is needless, and without it the tragic conflict would not exist. Nature constantly shows that the happiness of self-fulfillment is a part of life. Therefore, it cannot be denied and should not be squashed. But humanity, in its blindness and in its false modesty, does not understand. It misinterprets this benign voice that invites it to a blissful destiny and it often ascribes this voice to "the devil's temptation." As long as humanity cannot discriminate between what is constructive and what is destructive, then it must be caught in a tragic and unnecessary conflict that obstructs self-realization.

Life speaks very clearly but man, steeped in and impregnated with false concepts, does not hear. For example, my friends on the path again and again experience that where a real insight, a deep recognition, is made, then a surge of new strength and energy, of joy of life, of hopefulness, and of brightness comes forth. And also, specifically, the erotic element manifests in this experience of the life force. The erotic force is an integral part of the life force. They are inseparable. So when you gain a truth about yourself, then a channel opens within tuning you into this life-giving force. Only when misgivings and apprehension -- the old, as yet unresolved problems -- gain the upper hand again does this channel close up and you are separate once again. Then stagnation and gray hopelessness set in once again. But when you move in truth, when you keep on being alive by facing the truth about yourself, then you must be enveloped by and permeated with this vibrant, life-giving force which knows no barriers and no fear.

When you ponder over this phenomenon, that anyone on the path can experience, then you must come to the realization that what is said here is truth. Truth brings eros and eros brings union, and all of these forces make fear, distrust, and insecurity disappear. Such an experience shows the unity of life and it proves the untruth of concepts which have bred separateness. If you truly meditate on this topic, then you will see for yourself personally some significant factors.

The world harbors many untruthful ideas about what is masculine and what is feminine. This makes it more difficult to overcome the basic fear to transcend oneself in the other sex. Each sex feels unfairly put upon and resents its supposed disadvantages, competing with the other sex for its advantages. Hence men secretly envy women for their privileged position of not having to fight to quite the same degree as they do in order to survive. The man's responsibilities are heavier. His failure to be successful is much more indicative of his personal failure. More is expected of him. Women envy men their privileged position of greater freedom, of being recognized by the world as the superior sex. But all these envies and these resentments are superficial in comparison with the deeper fear both men and women have of losing their own selves.

Many distinctions between the sexes are arbitrary and unreal. But some are also true. These are wholeheartedly embraced by the healthy person. The more they are embraced, the lesser is the barrier between the self and one's sexual role -- consequently the greater is the union with the opposite sex. The lack of anxiety and of distrust, and the removal of the barriers, sets in motion a healthy flow which then induces the entity to come out of itself and to be capable of true relatedness. Then all distinctions and all differences disappear. In rare moments of bliss, this can be experienced right in this life on earth. The disappearance of distinction is not to be confused with its distortion, where men become feminine and women become masculine. Every divine truth can be distorted. So it is here. The fear of one's own sex, and therefore of the opposite sex, levels off the difference through diminishing either one's masculinity or one's femininity and assuming the traits of the sex that one fights against. The truth is that but by embracing one's own second nature, and thereby embracing the other sex, one becomes either more masculine or more feminine, and one unifies through acceptance, through understanding, through strength, through love, and through truth.

Let us briefly recapitulate what was said previously in different contexts. A main barrier which the man puts up against his masculinity is the fear of losing himself. He fears self-loss when he accepts the necessary discipline of fulfilling his responsibilities. Such discipline seems to him a disadvantage and a sacrifice, and therefore a loss of self. But he also fears letting go of himself in a full relationship. In this sense, discipline needs to be given up, and such giving up seems perilous. Therefore he is confused by having to choose between discipline and the ability to let go of himself. In fear and misconceptions, he uses both in the wrong way. He holds on where letting go would be productive and harmonious, and he refuses discipline and self-responsibility where this would be functional for his self-realization. If one is out of kilter, then the entire inner balance must be upset. To the degree the man learns to be responsible for himself, in the true and deeper sense of the word, to that degree his fear of letting go of himself must disappear, so that both letting go of himself and disciplining himself function in a unifying way. The person who is isolated behind barriers also practices both the inner letting go and the holding on, but in reverse.

The same applies to the woman, but from a different angle. The woman fears the apparent helplessness of giving herself up, of surrendering herself. Thereby she defeats her femininity, and in the end she becomes more helpless, and therefore more dependent. The more control she exerts -- in other words, the more false discipline she uses in order to prevent the dreaded self-loss -- then the weaker, and therefore the more dependent, she actually becomes on other levels of her personality. She becomes either emotionally dependent, in the need of being excessively loved and approved of, or mentally dependent in order to excel over others, or even physically and materially dependent. Her resourcefulness as a human being suffers to the degree that she defeats and discourages the functioning of her femininity. So she, too, fluctuates between discipline and letting go of herself, using both in the wrong way, to prohibit her self-fulfillment. When a man refuses self-responsibility -- not only in his vocational life or in his everyday life but more specifically in his emotional life -- out of fear of a burden, then he actually burdens himself more. At the same time, he also isolates himself from all that his spirit yearns for. When a woman refuses the apparent helplessness of self-surrender by exerting an artificial and unhealthy control, then she becomes even more helpless; she also isolates herself, and thus forfeits her destiny. For such is the spiritual law.

In a healthy state, the two primary aspects of discipline and of letting go -- they might be termed the prototypes of the masculine and the feminine aspects -- exist in both sexes, but are arrived at from opposite ends. When the man accepts his full responsibility on all levels of his being, with all that this entails, then he can let go of himself without danger. When a woman does not -- in fear, pride and selfwill -- fight her destiny, then she must gain the strength and the selfhood which give her full security in herself. She finds herself by losing herself. He loses himself by finding himself. And they are both the same.

When wisdom, truth, strength, freedom, and love lead to discipline and to letting go of oneself, then the result is unity and self-fulfillment. Harmony with the universal forces is established. As a result, a continuous supply of the life force regenerates and unifies all personality levels. But when discipline and letting go of oneself come from blindness, from weakness, from fear, from the lack of inner freedom, and from error, then the result must be separateness and stagnation.

The two principles of discipline and of letting go might be visualized as primary cosmic forces motivating the human entity. It all depends on the manner in which they are used. The disharmony created by misusing these forces simultaneously brings about unrest and inner worry. For the deep knowledge that the soul cannot fulfill itself to its maximum potential -- and is therefore missing out on the happiness that is available to all beings -- can never be entirely squelched. It is only a question of understandings the inner messages.

These words are very theoretical and abstract. Just reading them merely opens a philosophical concept. But when you are seriously engaged in the pathwork, then you will fill in the gaps by deep personal experience. You will see how these words apply to you: in what way and why. Many of my friends have already made important recognitions in this respect.

These masculine principle and the feminine principle -- discipline and strength versus self-surrender and letting go of the self -- meet and become one in the last analysis. Each principle goes over into the other and helps the other to integrate more fully and harmoniously with itself. Through healthy strength, through flexible discipline, and through mature self-responsibility the entity becomes strong enough not to fear self-surrender and wise enough not to surrender indiscriminately. Through healthy, relaxed openness and outgoingness the personality finds the strength and the discipline to live productively in union. The capacity to do so comes from living self-sufficiently as an individual.

This benign circle of an interflowing movement between the masculine and the feminine principles has to start by determining where your specific fears exist. This is not always easy, for they are so hidden. They manifest so subtly -- and yet so distinctly once you begin to be aware of them. Try to ascertain in what respect and to what extent you fear and resent the role of your own sex, and you therefore avoid contact with the opposite sex. Where do you believe are the injustices that you unconsciously exaggerate in order to hold on to yourself so as not to risk the danger of your self-forgetfulness? This is a much more fundamental aspect of this problem than the more superficial rebellion against sexual injustice. Try to reach the level of awareness where a much deeper fear of losing yourself exists. Once you are aware of it, then you can examine and overcome this obstructing fear which divides you within.

You may argue that it is justified to be on guard. Are not many people out to take advantage of one's love, or of one's need to love and to be loved? Does self-forgetfulness not create stronger needs, which may then be frustrated? Does this not mean more intense pain when rejection occurs? The answer to the first question is yes. It is true that many people are childishly selfish, and therefore abuse openness and outgoingness if the latter is blind and is accompanied by wishful thinking. The answer to the other two questions is no. Healthy involvement does not bring more pain than isolation. Fulfilling one's needs only partially does not make them more stringent than when they are denied altogether.

However, you have a never-failing key which when used will do away with the conflict. It is possible to use a cautious wisdom and not hold on to yourself, thereby restraining your best qualities and your outgoing forces. Once you have found and used this key, then your life must change drastically. The key is the willingness to see reality even if you do not welcome it.

In the last lecture we discussed the topic of needs. Now we continue from there, linking the two topics. If you are unaware of the intensity of your needs because you have displaced them, then your blindness must make you equally blind to other people around you who are supposed to fulfill your needs. To use this key is very much within the realm of the possible. Becoming aware of your needs -- of their original direction and of their force -- directly leads you to an awareness of how much others are either capable or willing to fulfill them. If you can face these facts and if you stand the frustration of your will, then wisdom and the perception of truth will become your guiding lights. They will show you how reasonable and how productive it is in any given instance to have no expectations, and therefore to let go of yourself. There are basically four aspects that you, and most human beings, blindly fight against. The four aspects are: 1) the lack of awareness of their specific real needs; 2) the lack of awareness of the extent and the urgency of such needs; 3) the lack of awareness of specifically who is supposed to fulfill the needs, and often in what particular way (all original desires having been displaced); 4) the lack of awareness of the ability or the inability, of the willingness or of the unwillingness of the other person to satisfy the full extent of this need. Therefore your relationships become fraught with friction, with misunderstanding, with hurts and with either real or imagined rejection. This conflict must lead to withdrawal in one form or another. But if you are aware of these four aspects even to a small degree, then you instantly become capable of evaluating the interaction between yourself and the others in question. The intensity of the need may not diminish automatically, but it becomes bearable to the degree of your awareness of it. As it becomes bearable, then you no longer need illusion and wishful thinking. You can look the truth in the face and accept what is at present, no matter how imperfect, no matter how far it may be from what you wish it. Your blind needs issue unconscious demands, which are often impossible to fulfill. The moment you are aware of them, then you can also envisage that someone else may be personally unsuited for filling your needs. You may then relinquish your demands. As you no longer displace your needs, then you will mature sufficiently to stand frustration if need be. Discipline and the self-responsibility of facing the reality of the situation make you grow, and they inevitably increase your self-respect, your self-liking, and a sense of security in yourself.

Apart from the frequent unreasonableness of the unconscious excessive demands on your part, it may also happen that your demands are in themselves quite reasonable, but others may be driven into a different direction and may therefore be incapable of fulfilling them. This does not mean that they reject you. Once you gain insight into these interplays, then the freedom that you will have gained cannot be measured in words. Your ability to observe yourself, and consequently others, in a spirit of objective detachment -- ascertaining the trouble spots without either guilt or anger -- is the healthiest way conceivable of practicing discipline and self-responsibility. In this way you can face the reality of the relationship in question and therefore the fear will vanish. If you can accept a No without becoming either an angry child or a hurt child within yourself, then your independence and your self-respect will grow consistently, and it will give you sufficient security to truly let go to the extent commensurate with the occasion, and to the extent that it is healthy at any given phase of your life. In this case the limits of letting go are not set by mechanisms of fear and distrust, but are simply one's present potentials. If you can stand the frustration of your will and if you can relinquish it if need be, if you can face what is, rather than close your eyes in wishful thinking because you do not wish to give up your will, and if you objectively evaluate the unreasonableness of your demands, then the flow of true relatedness will open up within you.

So, my friends, let us briefly recapitulate. Self-fulfillment is dependent on fulfilling yourself as a man or as a woman. Manhood and womanhood can be fulfilled only when you recognize your barriers and your fears regarding the full functioning of your manhood or the full functioning of your womanhood. Once you have made this recognition, then the barrier to the other sex must go. In order to accomplish this, first determine and then experience the extent of your fear and of your holding back. Both are a result of blindness and of the unwillingness to objectively evaluate both others and yourself. Even those of you who are actively engaged in this pathwork, and who have made most remarkable progress, are as yet utterly unaware of the strength of the unreasonable demands and of the commands that you issue into your surroundings. It is all rationalized, or covered up, or explained away. If only you can look at the raw demands that you send out into your surroundings, if you can just face that, then you will no longer fear the demands that others make on you. Because only when you have faced your own demands can you cope with the demands of others. If you can then take these raw demands with a little laughter at your childishness, then you can begin to evaluate the situation in relation to reason, to justice, and to fairness. This little laughter will indicate a large step forward. This step leads directly to freedom from fear, to freedom from distrust, to freedom from insecurity, to freedom from isolation, to freedom from separateness, and to freedom from stagnation. It must open the door to full relating and to full living, to the immeasurable happiness that every individual human soul desperately yearns for.

I cannot emphasize strongly enough that you look at your demands without any excuses. Thereupon you will be able to encounter the demands of others. Do you know that your unconscious excessive demands make you prone to the unconscious excessive demands of others? And these two forces make real relatedness absolutely impossible. For, as long as excessive one-sided demands exist due to the lack of awareness of one's needs, then disappointment and fear must create the barrier of separateness. Follow through this sequence, my dearest friends.

Are there any questions?

QUESTION: The demands are so hard to find. We all know that we have them, and yet it is very hard to find what they are.

ANSWER: It is really not as hard as you think, provided you approach it in the following way. When there is friction between yourself and others, then look at your naked feelings and ask yourself what you expect of the other. In other words, what do you want of them, or what do you fear that they demand from you? If you look at your confused, disturbed, disharmonious feelings, then you must dare to be irrational and you must have the courage to let the unreasonable child manifest on the surface. To the extent you can do so, to that extent you must gain information about your innermost self, unadorned by your superimposed rationalizations. In this way, you will find your demands and, subsequently, you will be able to come to terms with them. Face your anger that your demands often remain unfulfilled. Also face your apprehension of other people's demands on you, which you vaguely feel as a stream coming toward you. The more you realize your own demands, the better you can cope with those silent, subtle currents of demands flowing to you, and which in the past have made you compulsive, guilty, confused, and wavering.

A disharmonious mood will often yield unconscious needs and unconscious demands -- either yours or those of others -- that you cannot cope with. Sometimes both are present. It is impossible to cope with something that you consciously ignore, feeling it only as a dull, vague force. But the minute you can pinpoint in clear-cut terms what you did not dare to acknowledge previously, either because it was uncomfortable or because it was beneath your dignity, then you become strong and capable. The procedure is simple, provided you take the daring step to own up to your unreasonable feelings, to your unfair requests, to your unfair demands, to your childish selfishness. In other words, let the irrational voice -- which exists even in the most reasonably contained personality -- reach your surface awareness. Then view it with a little distance, with detachment, and with a maximum of honesty. You are all so indoctrinated with a compulsion to cover up this little voice. Relatedness -- the true flow of union -- is directly determined by this chain reaction. Facing the selfish, greedy child within you brings you liberation, dignity, and strength. These qualities, in turn, establish relatedness in the most satisfying way. In this way, you truly become men and women, thereby fulfilling the destiny of your sex.

The aspects discussed in this lecture may appear to be far apart from one another. On the one hand, I discussed self-fulfillment in a cosmic sense. On the other hand I speak about the immediacy of the selfish child, dwellling to some extent in all individuals. But these two aspects of human life are so interwoven, so interconnected! This little unadorned child can begin to grow out of itself and into its spiritual potentials only when you are ready to face it. When you can risk giving of yourself, then you will no longer have to hold on to the pseudo safety of your isolation. However, if you cannot trust others, then you cannot risk giving of yourself. And how can you trust others if you do not know what they ask of you and what you ask of them? And how can you trust yourself if you persist in blinding yourself to your real needs, in blinding yourself to your demands, and in blinding yourself to the childish voice requesting angrily and endlessly? Only when you know this aspect of yourself can you trust yourself. Only when you perceive reality around you and in others, at least as far as your needs are concerned, can you come to terms with it and trust your ability to do so. When you are capable of enduring the frustration of your will with equanimity and with harmony, then you can trust life. Therefore, you can relate, and hence you can fulfill yourself. What is more, you are then equipped to find the partner you need because your eyes are open. You do not keep them deliberately shut because you prefer to cling to a rosy illusion due to your unwillingness to stand frustration. So, my friends, look at this chain reaction. It must work in that order.

It will be useful if my friends participate more actively in the discussions following the lectures. Real participation would be of great help, but you do not utilize it fully. This is to your detriment. Even if you have not reached these specific levels of awareness in your private work, then it is possible to study the lectures and to determine where you are confused and in what respect you remain unresponsive. Determining this will prove very revealing as far as your immediate problems are concerned. When you come with a question regarding what you do not really understand and why, then the answer may help you to open the way. Even if there is no personal inner response to something said in a lecture, that should not in the least deter you from participation. On the contrary, it will furnish material for participation.

Now, my dearest friends, study, meditate, and try to assimilate in your work the material given to you. If only you can experience these words to some extent, then it truly means a new life. It also means the inner understanding of self-fulfillment. For only then can you contribute to life in the true sense of the word. Man can certainly contribute to life by his works, but this will leave something to be desired. Some spark of aliveness must be missing if the self is not fulfilled. For self-fulfillment is the life-flow without which all deeds, all actions, and all contributions to living remain somewhat stale.

Be blessed, every one of you. Receive our love and our strength from the universal forces which are both all around you and deep within yourself. They are ready to help you if you but tap this source through such a path. Be in peace, be in God.

February 7, 1964