Winner Versus Loser -- Interplay Between The Self And The Creative Forces

By The Pathwork Guide

Greetings, my dearest friends. God bless everyone of you. Blessed be this lecture. Let us proceed with a lecture which is a direct continuation of the series begun at our last session.

The last time we discussed the arbitrary either/or concepts harbored by all human beings. They are the fences that hold you imprisoned. Now I wish to discuss one of the greatest limitations, one of the most common overall either/or concepts. It is an attitude toward life of winning versus losing. According to this concept, it is felt that being a winner means ruthlessness, selfishness, trampling over others, triumphing over others, belittling others. There is no room for consideration, for kindness, for sympathy. If these emotions are allowed, then the feared result is becoming a loser. Being a loser is supposed to mean unselfishness, sacrifice, goodness, kindness, consideration. Both sides contain the identical misconception. Some adopt the one alternative, some the other. Each fears the consequences of the other side of his choice. Neither one of the two choices is better or worse than the other. Both end up with the identical results of loneliness, of resentment, of self-pity, of self-contempt and of frustration.

When two people are involved in a close relationship with each having adopted the opposite choice, and with both representing the same wrong conclusion from the two opposite sides, then such a relationship must be fraught with friction, to the point of hopelessness. Each resents in the other what he fears and fights in himself. The winner fears his impulses of genuine affection just as much as he fears his weakness, and his resulting desire for dependency. The loser fears his resentments and his selfish impulses because he not only strives for goodness according to false, limited concepts and rigid outer regulations, but also his private pseudo solution may be a need for total approval from others. He may be unable to stand any form of criticism, even if it is justified. What these two resent most in the other is the mirroring of their own hidden tendency in the opposite side of their choice.

Most human beings have some measure of this false concept. Some experience it as a general, overall climate toward life, others feel it in certain areas only. It is a vague feeling which, if translated into concise words, says: "I cannot have what I want, so I must lose;" or, "In order not to lose, I must be tough and disregarding of others." The latter is convinced of losing, too, unless he sacrifices his need for warmth, his need for appreciation, and his need for love. This is an expensive price to pay, even if it were true that by paying it he could win. But just because he never allows himself to relax, to let down his defenses, to let go in general, he cannot experience that this is a false idea. He believes that he has a chance to win if he cripples his very being. Since in this way he certainly cannot win, his negativity increases, and he begins to doubt himself, to doubt his strength, and to doubt his own adequacy.

It is of great importance in this phase of the Pathwork to detect this subtle climate that you exude, in which you assume that you will lose, and therefore you anticipate losing because you expect to lose. Then you either fight against losing in an unproductive way or else you resign yourself to being a loser.

Do you feel that you have to be the cruel one in order not to be the poor, stupid one? Or do you resign yourself to the latter, priding yourself on your decency, while merely not daring to defy the world and the rules, which seem to decree that goodness means deprivation? In both attitudes guilt and uncertainty are inevitable. The one alternative makes strenuous demands on the self that are not only impossible to realize but destructive for all concerned. The other makes demands upon the world and on others to reward the self for the happiness that he sacrificingly forsakes. Since he does not allow himself to go out and obtain his own fulfillment, then others must obtain it for him as a reward for his self-sacrifice, for his "goodness." This demand cannot be fulfilled.

This is a tragic misconception. It is unnecessary to constrict and to distort life by believing that there are only two equally poor choices. It is tragic because what man deeply believes must appear to be true, by dint of his behaving according to this belief. As you know from all your images, they always appear to be confirmed in their wrong conclusions. When man sacrifices his human decency in order to gain his rights and his fulfillments, or vice versa, in both instances he must lose both.

The limitation of believing that only one of these two alternatives exists is wrong because it is indeed possible to assert your rights, to reach out, to obtain what you wish without being cruel or without depriving anyone of anything. In fact, it is necessary to reach out for what you want. But being enveloped in this wrong conclusion -- being convinced of it -- must make you feel guilty when you do reach out for what you wish. Hence a subtle no-current barricades your way.

By the same token, it is possible to occasionally forfeit your immediate advantage for the sake of a loved one without giving up forever all your rights and all your advantages. In other words, it is indeed possible to say Yes to your happiness without saying No to consideration of others. The more you are convinced of this truth on all levels of your being, then the less of a conflict there will be between the advantages of the self and those of others. The more you enhance your reality and you widen your horizon, the more do you break through a particular fence which sees reality as being much harder and much harsher than it actually is. The two available choices truly shed a dismal light on life. Both choices are poor ones. Therefore, the decision is impossible. For neither alternative is preferable. To discover that this choice does not have to be made means incredible liberation. It means liberation from guilt, from unhappiness, from frustration, from weakness, from dependency, from the need to belittle others, from the need to triumph over others, and from helplessly waiting for something that others can never provide for the self. When this widened outlook on life opens up and is assimilated by your innermost consciousness, then peace and certainty must fill you.

For some of you it is possible to feel the subtle climate of this atmosphere -- this most hidden atmosphere of either/or. Extended progress on your Path has brought you face to face with this climate which you emanate. It is a distinct climate, a definite atmosphere that fills your whole being. But it is not accessible to your awareness unless you have explored the depths of your innermost self to some extent.

When you have reached this awareness and you have found certain areas in you in which you take this limitation for granted -- the inevitable hopelessness that results from believing that winning or obtaining fulfillment is impossible -- then you will understand why you are unfulfilled in certain areas, or why you have difficulties, or why your life is so hard, or why it is fraught with so much anxiety and with so much tension. It is this negative, false idea that creates all your hardships. Bring out into the open how you are influenced by such a false concept of life. Translate your emotional reactions in this respect into concise words. Analyze their significance and then compare the result with reality as you know it, and therefore have experienced it, in other areas of living -- where you are healthier in your outlook, and therefore you are fulfilled.

Coming face to face with this climate -- this inner expectation of life -- is an enormous step in the evolution of an individual. The full realization of this limited outlook -- with its significance and its effects -- marks a major inner transition. The result of this transition is the giving up of this limited choice. It means knowing the truth: that one does not exclude the other, that both love and self-assertion are not only possible but actually interdependent. You can then envisage the many other choices in any given issue. Then you will see how the truth always existed in this respect. You will see that reaching out for what should be yours -- without hesitation and without guilt -- and simultaneously opening yourself up for the other person no longer appears as a contradiction. In fact, you must then experience that the more you open yourself up for your own fulfillment, the more you embrace others, and the more you are willing to allow them fulfillment too. Conversely, the less you feel that you deserve fulfillment yourself -- and therefore you close yourself up to your fulfillment as a result of your false concept -- the more do you automatically deprive others of their own right to fulfillment. You must deprive others in order to have yourself. For, how can you give to others something that you feel you have no right to obtain for yourself? After this particular transition, then you will experience once again the great truth that does away with mutual exclusiveness. From an either/or, you will change into a consciousness of fullness and of inclusiveness.

Examine this trend in you, both as a general concept about life as well as in specific areas of your personality. Man's tendency to escape reality is often based not merely on the fact that he cannot face the unpleasant aspects of it, but just as often -- on a deeper level -- on the fact that he fears happiness, that he fears fullness of living, that he fears fulfillment. In order to realize personal expansion and self-expression, with its concomitant bliss, it is necessary to tap one's inner resources. In other words, to find the well of divine strength deep within the psyche, with all its truth and all its love. But this seems such an impossible and dangerous undertaking that many people would rather pretend that life is dismal and that life is hopeless -- thereby clinging to others to sustain them and to save them -- rather than to forfeit this false salvation. Then they can flatter themselves that they are realistic. Often it appears more realistic to accept suffering and pain, rather than allow for constructive living and for the possibility of happiness. Often this is regarded as unrealism. For many people it is hard to face the fact that life could be all-embracing, that life could be meaningful, and that life could be beautiful because it requires the courage to look at the truth within the self.

To the degree that the truth is first faced and then understood, to that degree you become a creator. You become the creator of your own life, thereby continuing the creative process of the universe. There is no limit to how far you can go in expressing beauty, to how far you can go in expressing wisdom, to how far you can go in expressing happiness, to how far you can go in expressing fulfillment, to how far you can go in expressing productivity -- both for yourself and for others. To the degree that you liberate yourself from such either/or concepts, to that degree the fear will give way to the truth -- and to that degree you will expand. Then your whole inner psychic life processes will reach out. Your individuality will stretch and it will express the beauty that life potentially is. Your readiness to express the dynamic process of life in its marvel and its bliss must make the marvel and the bliss a reality, for then you are receptive to the truth.

In order to realize this, it is important first to understand and then to express the proper balance between the self and the universal powers, which are constantly at work in any creative process. How do they interact with the self? To what extent is the self engaged? To what extent are the universal powers engaged? This equilibrium is essential for the creative process to take place, whether this means the creation of a living being, the creation of a work of art, the creation of a scientific work, the creation of a relationship, or the creation of the particular style and atmosphere of your personal fate. All of these are creative processes, and therefore they require the creative powers. Where creation takes place, then the universal powers must be at work there.

Man is often confused about this. He senses that without these creative powers nothing of value can come into existence. On the other hand, every enlightened philosophy teaches him that he is the master of his fate; that he must create his own life according to his inclination; that both his happiness and his unhappiness are the results of his personality: of his beliefs, of his attitudes, of his concepts. Again, he is confronted with an either/or. He believes that he must make a choice between either disregarding these creative powers and trusting merely his outer mind and his outer will, which cannot get him very far; or he does not trust himself at all, but he externalizes the universal powers into an outer deity, which then must let him down. Both alternatives are disappointing, because they are the result of misunderstanding, of exclusiveness, and of limitation. The further result is that man is then unable to trust either the self or God. The balance in the proper interplay between the self-directing mind and the creative universal powers is upset the moment it becomes a question of one versus the other.

In order to comprehend the proper balance, it is necessary to understand the function of both. The part which the self has to play is to want the right thing, the constructive thing. I do not speak about this in moralistic terms. It may be any simple human fulfillment that man deeply yearns for, and which he is supposed to experience, if only he were not conditioned to believe that personal happiness is selfish or conditioned to believe that his own happiness extracts from him a price which he is either incapable of paying, or which seems not to be worth while. Any basic happiness must further self-expression, expansion, and the manifestation of the divine, not only for the person who experiences it directly but also for others around him. If man manifests his inherent potential for happiness, for fulfillment, then everything and everyone he comes in contact with must be positively and constructively affected. The more intense the contact, the greater the effect. This applies to every form of happiness.

It is not enough to want fulfillment in a superficial way. In other words, to take this desire for granted because it seems obvious. It is not enough to have this desire in a hazy, unformulated fog. All the unconscious countercurrents and all the misconceptions must be dislodged. The more tense and the more strenuous your desire is, the more is this a sure sign that an unconscious countercurrent must exist in you. Wanting fulfillment in a truly relaxed way can happen only when you first find your unconscious reservations, your doubts, and your opposite desires, and then you take the step to remove them. If you fear not obtaining the desired result, then it means that somewhere within your psyche you fear the desired result. Finding this contradiction is a great liberation and a giant step towards the fulfillment of your desire.

You may ask why you should fear happiness. For example, you may fear the abandonment to it. In other words, you may fear that the bliss would make you lose control over yourself. You may fear the obligations resulting from it. Or you may fear your inadequacy first to obtain it and then to maintain it. Wanting something does not exclude the possibility that unconsciously there may be a part in the self that says No to the same thing. When I say that the self-contribution to this mutual interplay -- between the self and the creative powers -- is a wholehearted desire, it is not always as simple as it sounds. It is imperative to determine what soul movements accompany this desire. In order to get to this point, you must first explore your most subtle reactions in this respect: where and why do you say No to what you want most? For there must be a part in you that says No if the desire is unfulfilled. Second, you must express -- in so many words and with your whole being -- specifically what it is that you want. As you do so, observe your inner reflexes. Are you relaxed when you express it, or are you tense and fearful? Are you confident or are you distrustful? Do you assume that it is possible, or do you feel that it is impossible? If you can give yourself truthful answers to all these questions by observing your soul movements, then you are closer to eliminating the obstructions than when you ignore them, and you therefore believe yourself to be free from any counter-currents.

Apart from this wholehearted desire that is relaxed -- in other words, a desire that is without urgency, without compulsion, without tension, and without fear -- it is necessary for the self to know the truth. In this particular context, the truth would be this. If you wish a particular fulfillment and you still do not have it -- whether it concerns your health, success in a career, a fruitful mutuality, good friends, the liberation from an inner problem, or merely a link in the chain toward obtaining any of these results -- first you have to find and then you have to dissolve your obstructions. In other words, the attitudes that hinder you. But then you must know the truth. The truth is that experiencing this particular fulfillment is within the scheme of creation and that it is good and right for all concerned. In other words, you must know not only that there is nothing destructive or wrong about it, but that it is good and right. You must contemplate its effects both on yourself and on others from every conceivable point of view so as to convince yourself that your wishing it -- and therefore your striving for it -- is constructive. You must see that every rationalization as to why it was not supposed to be -- perhaps deriving from a mass image with its prohibition -- bears no justification, no logic, no meaning. This conviction will strengthen your desire. In other words, it will make it free from reservations, it will remove the false guilt which lies behind your deprivation, and it will enable you to firmly state your desire with the knowledge that its fulfillment depends on you alone and that you will achieve it in the measure that you remove your doubt and your negativity. Always remember that the fulfillment of your desire will be beneficial both to yourself AND to others. Visualize how this will be so. Strengthen your will to remove all the obstructions within yourself. In other words, all the false ideas that keep you fenced in. To the degree that you are both relaxed and decided in this attitude, to that degree you approach the fulfillment. Your conviction and your firmness fulfill your end of the bargain and therefore will automatically set in motion the creative powers. Then you will experience a momentum which will give you the justification to entrust yourself to this entire creative process; to trust your ability to fulfill your end of it; to trust the creative powers to surge forth. To the degree that you trust both yourself and the creative forces, to that degree you increase their impetus. This, in turn, increases your trust. A benign circle is set in motion.

Moreover, it is necessary for the self to consciously and deliberately summon the universal creative forces so as to help you, so as to guide you, so as to inspire you to fulfill your part of the partnership, so as to remove all the obstrutions and all the reservations, and also so as to help the seed of your fulfillment grow. These powers can be set in motion only by a consciousness. Man has the choice of either letting the creative process happen automatically -- in other words, of letting his unconscious attitude affect the creative life force -- or he can consciously and deliberately pronounce the direction in which he wants them to work. The self-directing mind sets in motion the universal forces. They respond according to the direction set by the consciousness. Once the personality fulfills the necessary conditions, then it has nothing further to do with the creative forces. They take over and know exactly what to do in any given instance.

In this light, you can see that it is not a contradiction to say that on the one hand you are responsible for your fate, and that on the other hand powers beyond your scope and beyond your resourcefulness must complete the creative process. This same principle governs everything. For example, compare yourself to a gardener. He must prepare the soil, but he does not make the plant grow. Preparing your consciousness amounts to the gardener preparing the soil. Eliminating your wrong concepts amounts to the gardener removing weeds. Removing your blocks amounts to the gardener removing the rocks in the soil that hinder the spreading of the roots and the growth of the plants. Implanting truthful concepts into your soul substance amounts to the gardener planting the seeds. Cultivating the proper attitude and then waiting patiently until it has taken root, and can subsequently sprout its fruits, amounts to the gardener tending the soil. In other words, seeing to it that it has sufficient light, sufficient moisture, and sufficient nourishment. The gardener makes it possible for the plant to grow by fulfilling his task and thereby calling forth the creative process in existence. But it is not the gardener who possesses the ability to turn a seed into a flower, to turn a seed into a fruit, to turn a seed into a tree. If the gardener wants a particular plant, then he must sow a particular seed. But it is not up to him to perform the growth. There is nothing in the world he can do to actually make the seed develop into a plant. A creative process is at work that definitely requires his co-operation. There are certain conditions that he alone can fulfill. But then he must give over to nature to do her job.

Man often wishes a specific result, but what he sows in his consciousness is the seed for an opposite result. Then he distrusts life. But if he sees how he himself brings forth exactly what he has sown, then even the previous negative result -- which was due to the negative cause, to the bad seed -- must strengthen his confidence in the principle of the creative process.

The same principle prevails in the healing process of the body. When you cut your skin, then you have to wash the wound so that no dirt can cause poisoning and thereby prevent the healing process from taking place. So you tend the wound in order to help the healing forces to take their course.

When you observe any creative process -- on the physical level, on the mental level, or on the spiritual level -- then you must find the same principle. In other words, the same interrelationship. There is always a period of growth. Its duration depends on the kind of seed that was planted. It is the same with the mind. When you plant a seed and your innermost self cannot accept its outcome, or when powerful counter-currents have existed for a considerable time, then the period of incubation -- of quiet growth beneath the surface -- is longer than when you plant something that your consciousness is ready and prepared for. Man often despairs because he ignores the period of growth. Then he ceases to trust. In this way he inadvertently tears out the seed that he has planted.

This mutual interaction between the self and the creative forces creates a perfect balance betwen the activity of the self (fulfilling all the enumerated conditions), and passivity (letting the universal powers do their work, entrusting the self to them). In other words, in a full letting go of the self, in a total commitment to them.

When you find this right balance, then there will be no fulfillment missing in your life and there will be harmony in your soul. Then you will no longer be overly active by thinking that you have to do it all, nor will you be overly passive by entrusting yourself to a false god. In other words, to an externalized god who is supposed to do all the work for you. In the proper balance, there is perfect activity in a relaxed, unstrained, stimulating, harmonious way. There is perfect self-responsibility and there is the recognition that you are the master of your life. In other words, the recognition of the fact that it depends on you to prepare the soil. You will have the proper sense of limitation regarding your own function and your own power. You will have the humility to entrust yourself to powers that are beyond the confines of your little self. In other words, powers that are beyond your control. This enlarges both the self and its powers because it uses the life force as it is meant to be used. This means a proper knowledge of the creative process, which constantly takes place both within you and around you.

When you know that perfection exists as a potential, and therefore as a still unrealized goal, then you set in motion the creative process in a most marvellous way. This knowledge of the truth makes the realization possible. This knowledge allows the creative powers to enter into you after you have removed the wall of doubt, of fear, and of ignorance that exists in you. There comes a point when you actually feel and experience this wall and you can then just slide it away, thereby opening yourself to creation, and therefore to its manifold possibilities. At first this act is feared, then it is tentatively tried, and finally is experienced as the key to selfhood. The self is gained by not avoiding accountability and by letting go of the tight mind in committing yourself and giving yourself over completely.

Usually a reverse situation exists. The self is lazy and does not want to assume the necessary responsibility. It does not want to do what must be done in order to obtain a desirable result. For example, in order to lead a meaningful existence. This is an indication of the fact that passivity exists where activity should reign. And it is a sign of the fact that where the self must let go in order to allow the Cosmic Intelligence to produce the result, the self keeps busy, distrusting and holding itself together in a tight knot.

When the individual re-establishes this balance, then the fences dissolve. Then the expansion of the self becomes truly limitless. It will be as limitless as you know the universe to be limitless. You can realize these limitless potentials. This is a truth. This is not wishful thinking. It is not evading the self.

When you meditate and you embrace a truthful concept, first in the outer regions of your mind by removing the underlying obstructions and the no-currents, then this knowing the truth gradually spreads into the innermost layers of your being, so that your psyche, like a beautiful flower, unfolds into the rays of the sun. As each layer is soaked through with the truth, it is nourished by it with a new vitality that flows through the organism. In hours of deep recognition this can be distinctly felt. Where at first you were tightly laced in, you now open up to the liberation and the light that are always brought about by the infusion of truth.

Are there any quesitons? Is everything I said clear?

QUESTION: In my mind it is clear, and yet it is not really clear. This was always my trouble, and I can't understand it. For instance, the seed is put into the earth and everything is prepared. The seed will come out without prayer. I've heard and read that when one prays over plants they come out better than those plants one leaves alone. So, when I plant into my subconscious what I really want, I still feel that it can't come out. Even if I feel that I can do it, deep inside I feel that it can't come out. My doubt makes me feel that I cannot do it, even when I enlist the universal forces.

ANSWER: You feel yourself to be a loser to begin with. In the first place, let me explain what prayer really means. It means a straightening out of your consciousness. That includes your unconscious attitudes, your unconscious concepts, your unconscious thoughts, and your unconscious feelings. The truly integrated spirit would not need to pray or meditate. Every breath would be a prayer in that it would be an expression of his entire personality, which is at one with truth, at one with love, at one with purposefulness, at one with creation. In other words, he is at one with all the universal forces, which would then inevitably flow through him in a most constructive way. Prayer means shaping a loose mass of hazy thoughts and concepts, of contradictory emotions. It means impregnating the self with truth, so that the individual then knows the truth. Then the universal forces can automatically flow through such a consciousness.

As to your doubt, it is important for you to establish the fact that you are afraid of giving up your doubt. This is due to a wrong conclusion. But there is a distinct reason that you feel threatened, truly endangered without your doubt. It is as though your doubt is an indispensable weapon for you. By battling the doubt directly -- in the way you have tried to do it until now -- you will hardly succeed, because you are too afraid of letting go of it. It is necessary: 1) first to establish the fact that you fear to give up your doubt and 2) then to understand the specific wrong conclusion that leads you to fear to give up your doubt. In your meditation, ask yourself: "Why do I want to doubt? What is it that I fear would happen to me if I gave up my doubt?"

Moreover, it will also help you to realize that doubt is held on to because commitment is feared. Some of you have begun to find this out in your personal work. But the whole extent of such a fear must be more profoundly understood, with all of its consequences. Committing to and entrusting oneself to the universal powers (as well as to a person or to a cause) is feared because disappointment is taken for granted, and therefore is anticipated. So the individual plays a game with himself. He acts as though he believes in the possibility of a favorable outcome, but he does not really expect it. He doubts such a possibility so strongly that he is not even willing to take the chance of testing it or of risking it. His doubt means: "I pretend a maybe, but I am really convinced of a certain No. And I am unwilling to face this secret conviction so that I can go on pretending." In this way, the fallacy of the No -- as well as the fallacy of the maybe -- can never be proved. The person remains perpetually in a temporary state, on the fringes of being and of living. He never settles down to serious living, to confronting any issue wholly and truthfully. He continuously dabbles in theory, rather than taking the decisive step whereby the theory is put into practice.

Commitment is the most important key to life. It is the key to everything and to anything. You will get out of life exactly as much as you commit yourself to. You can commit yourself to calling forth the cooperation of the universal forces to help you to shape and to create your life; you can commit yourself to an undertaking; you can commit yourself to a person; or you can commit yourself to a relationship. It makes no difference what you commit yourself to. If you commit yourself only with reservations, forever watching out that you remain safe, only with strings attached, only with bargaining, and only with holding back, then life will give to you only with reservations and only with holding back. For life can never be cheated or deceived. As you give to it so shall you receive. The blind person believes that he can get by. He holds back, hoping that life will first give him a big slice and then maybe he is willing to give back a crumb. At times he may even give to others more than is either constructive or helpful, out of his unconscious desire to cheat life. In other words, of getting more from life than he is willing to put into it. Such a person avoids commitment precisely where commitment is necessary. It does not work that way, my friends.

A wholehearted commitment is feared because it is falsely believed that it requires giving up your intelligence, giving up your rights, giving up your reason, giving up your self-preservation, giving up your ability to choose, giving up your self-determination. This is not true. Commitment means integrity, direct purpose, no evasions, uncovered motivations, doing something for its own sake and without subterfuge. It does not mean blind foolishness and, most certainly, it does not create the helplessness that invites abuse. The truth is quite the contrary. A full commitment presupposes complete awareness, which is a prerequisite for the freedom to choose. So the work must begin with the truthful facing of the self, with the courageous self-confrontation of your deeply ingrained emotional reactions. Then the awareness of life and the awareness of others grows concomitantly. And through such awareness -- through reason, through vision, and through the freedom of choice -- it will be found that commitment is neither a hazardous, self-destructive process, nor a blind compulsion or a drive, but that it becomes a wonderful extension of the self: A reaching out into life and toward others, a reaching out toward fulfillment of the self and the fulfillment of others. That is the real and healthy power resulting from spiritual growth. This is the self-sufficiency that does not exclude love for others and a deep relating with others. This is the fine point where it is not mutually exclusive to stand firmly AND to love; to be self-sufficient AND to have a healthy interdependence, be it with the cosmic forces, or with other human beings. But the commitment must come first, for otherwise you will be poor and empty. Is that clear?

QUESTION: Yes, it is clear. In fact I have already found this in my private work regarding commitment. I now know that I have never really committed myself to anything out of fear. Here, I could feel that I can commit myself, but I fear so much that if I do and it does not come out, then I will be so lost that I do not dare it.

ANSWER: Yes see, it is exactly what I said. It is exactly the same reason why you never dared to commit yourself to anything. This is the reason why you feel unfilled in the important areas of your life. But now that you know this, that you see this, that you observe this, and that you understand this, not only can you increase your understanding of this cause and effect, it is also the key you need in order to exchange your present course of non-commitment for a new course of wholehearted commitment.

Your impatience tears out every seed that you plant. You are impatient because you doubt. You immediately conclude that your effort is fruitless, thereby not allowing for the necessary time of incubation. That is, of inner, invisible underground growing. You must remember that the more complicated a problem is, the more deep-rooted is the negativity and the conflict, the more indirectly the healing forces have to work from link to link, until the final result can be attained. For example, when you encourage doubt, first you must consider it -- that is, pay attention to it, treat it, eliminate it, understand its cause and effect -- before you can reach the goal you are striving for but which you cannot attain due to the existence in you of this doubt. When you wish a major fulfillment and it is blocked off by innumerable misconceptions, then it is those very misconceptions that you have to tackle one by one, otherwise the obstructions will remain and your work towards your goal cannot be successful. Tackling the misconceptions is often overlooked, and therefore they are allowed to undermine the work by confirming the doubt.

Now that you know what you have just declared, you can convince yourself of the unreasonableness of continuing to maintain your non-commitment. You are not a prey to it -- just as you are not a prey to your doubt. It is necessary to take the chance of finding out the truth, even if the truth turns out to be what you fear it most to be. You must love truth above all, instead of preferring a maybe and therefore never coming to terms with life. If you love the truth above all else -- in this respect as well as in any other -- then you will also give up your impatience. You will go step by step and give it time -- just as as the scientist does, who researches patiently and laboriously, without shying away from the effort, the time, the trials and the errors. He knows that this is the procedure he has to follow. He does not expect to arrive at the greatest of all truths in a hurry. Do not argue that you have spent many years on this. I know that. The number of years you have labored in a state of non-commitment and of impatience is irrelevant. It is the quality of the full commitment -- with its concomitant patient effort to move from one link to another -- that will bring you the result. The number of years, or the extent of the effort can never replace a full inner commitment. Just as man often tries to compensate for not giving of himself to life by giving to others more than is justified or warranted, so can he substitute a span of suffering, of labor, of effort, and many unproductive years for his unwillingness to give a full commitment.

The universal forces have but one aim, and that is reaching toward wholeness, reaching toward health, reaching toward unfoldment, reaching toward the expression of the divine aspects. They strive toward healing distortion, toward healing disability, toward healing emptiness. When your obstructions are too great, then the upward power is diverted. Then it manifests temporarily as a destructive power, as a downward movement. But this does not mean that there is another evil power at work. It is the same benign force which was forced to make a detour from its own course, so to speak. This growing principle is obvious once it is fully faced and understood. It can be observed at work all around you. You do not question or mistrust this growing principle because it requires a certain time-span for the seed to become a tree. It is no different with the matters of the mind and the matters of the spirit.

Try to work on these soul movements with the concepts I have given you. Always remember to first find and then to remove your misconceptions. In other words, do not try to superimpose the right concept over the existing misconception. With your thinking faculties, first find, then compare, and third establish what is the error. Then replace it with the corresponding truth.

Full expansion and personal fulfillment are waiting for all of you. This is your destiny. Sooner or later, everyone of you must come to the realization that life is what you think it is, temporarily; and that life is what you know it is, ultimately. This means that life's potential is indescribable happiness, even on this earth sphere. Once this is envisioned, then life opens up to vast and beautiful possibilities.

Be blessed, my dearest friends. Be in peace. Be in God.

November 27, 1964