The Interaction Between Expression And Impression

By The Pathwork Guide

Greetings, my dearest, dearest friends. Blessings for everyone of you. Blessed be this lecture. May this lecture help all of you to progress on this Path and to find missing clues and enlightenment where you struggle in the dark.

Whether or not he knows it, man struggles continually toward the light: the light of truth, the truth of happiness. In truth man must be happy. He loses the truth because he always seeks much more complicated solutions than the truth. He looks much further ahead and away from where the answer is. He is impressed with the idea that happiness is always in the distant future. So he strives towards the future, while happiness is in the Now. I have said this before, but it is not fully understood by most of you. So I want to talk about this a little more, and I want to show you the way to experience this truth.

If you truly understand yourself in relationship to this moment, momentary unhappiness notwithstanding, then you must be happy. No matter how unhappy you are now, by understanding the Now you must be happy. This may sound like a contradiction, but it is not. No matter how favorable the circumstances are and no matter how happy you may think you are at this moment, if you do not fully live in this moment and understand it in relationship to yourself, then you cannot be fully happy.

When I speak of the now and of the moment, this now can mean only one thing: you yourself. For your view of the world, your attitude to life, your attitude to happenings, and your attitude to others can only be a result of your view of yourself and of your attitude toward yourself. If you understand yourself and your relationship to life at this moment, then you cannot possibly be in darkness.

I have given you many tools that will help you to reach yourself, and therefore to live in the now. This whole Path, with all its various methods and approaches, is concerned with living in the now. When man realizes himself, when he finds his real self, then he is in the now -- in the very act of being in himself.

In our pathwork we have two fundamental approaches, both of which are equally necessary. One is finding, expressing, and emptying out what is within you, so that it can be re-examined as to its truthfulness and reality. The second is impressing, molding, and directing the powers within you to create more favorable circumstances. The two approaches are interdependent. In order to live meaningfully and dynamically, the two have to be interrelated. I can recognize that most of my friends are often in confusion regarding this happy interaction, this mutual interplay between expressing and impressing, between emptying out untruth and putting in truth. When there is no harmony between these two activities, then there must be confusion and darkness.

Each of these two approaches used by itself will make the fulfillment you seek unattainable. However, it is not easy to be aware of when one and when the other activity is appropriate. Let us try to shed a little more light on this subject.

By now you all know the importance of examining your unconscious thoughts and your unconscious reactions. You know that taking a truthful concept and impressing it over the as yet unrecognized untruthful idea is merely self-deception. It is superimposition. It cannot create a genuinely constructive attitude. Your psyche is like a vessel. If it is filled with unclear water and you pour clear water into it, then the clear water must become muddy too. So you must first empty out the unclear water in order to understand its contents. You must understand what particular misconceptions make the water muddy, what these misconceptions are, and in what way -- why -- they are misconceptions. This is the expressing, the emptying out.

One of the most important aspects of your work in expressing is your struggle to resolve problems which are based on false premises. In other words, the question that you unconsciously pose regarding a certain problem is based on an utterly false premise. The problem may be either non-existent, or it may exist in an entirely different way than you, either consciously or unconsciously, consider. When you build defenses against a non-existent problem, then no matter how you struggle, no matter how you defend yourself, you must entangle yourself deeper in a web of confusion. This is the general difficulty confronting all of mankind, even those who are already on such a path of self-realization. Each and every one of you has yet to disentangle himself from the predicament of struggling and defending against a false assumption, against a non-existent danger.

You have already made such discoveries. Some of you have already liberated yourselves from some of those false struggles. You have understood them to some extent, but I venture to say that everyone still struggles against a problem that does not exist.

Let us take a very simple, common example. Every one of you is constantly afraid, in one way or another, of being inadequate, of being rejected, of being looked down upon, of not being taken seriously. Whether or not you realize that you consider it as such, this is a problem that you battle against, trying, in your own way, to solve it. Trying to solve a problem that does not exist must create real problems. The predicament against which you battle is nonsensical, for others are not out to reject you or to diminish you, as you emotionally perceive it ever so often. Whether or not you are aware of it at this moment, a great part of your attitude to life, of your attitude to yourself, and of your attitude to others is created by this struggle against this false premise. You build an elaborate structure in order to defend yourself against this dreaded happening.

When you enter such a path, and even when you are already on it for some time, then your endeavors are geared -- without specifically thinking of this -- to making this dreaded event not come true. You hope to make your defenses more adequate in order to solve the problem of rejection and of inadequacy -- a problem that does not exist. As long as you move in this direction, then real relief cannot come. You must first recognize that all your energies and all your aims are focused into a direction that was chosen on a false premise. You focus onto illusion, not onto reality. When this recognition dawns on you, then you will not project happiness into the future, onto a future perfection. In other words, you will no longer need to strain toward being something that you are not. Then the now will be fully satisfactory. In order to reach this experience of the now, this emptying out must occur.

This emptying out consists of recognizing that the problem that you struggle against is not a real problem, but an imagination -- an image. This imaginary problem creates a number of further general and specific misconceptions and destructive attitudes. For instance, you will find a current I have discussed in the past but not in this context. If a desire or an aim which in itself is legitimate and realistic nevertheless remains unfulfilled, then the cause of the unfulfillment is the struggle against the non-existent problem. Here a no-current works against your conscious wishes. It is essential to become specifically aware of this connection.

When an aim of self-expression and a fulfillment stubbornly remains unfulfilled, then an attitude that does not want it, that holds back from it, that denies it, is overlooked. Such an attitude will, even without saying an outright No, refuse to reach for this positive aim -- for a multitude of motives and reasons. If you do not empty out the fact that you reject your very wish, then you cannot eliminate the hopelessness which is always a byproduct of such an inner situation. As long as you are only aware of your conscious desire and you do not see the unconscious witholding of yourself from the fulfillment of the desire, then there must be hopelessness. The only way you can dissolve the hopelessness is by directly going toward that part in you that says, "No, I do not want it." This still has not occurred to many of my friends, who linger and dwell in their hopelessness. Instead of that, say: "If I feel hopeless because I do not get what I want, then I must find where in me I say No to it. I want to find this denial and I intend to find this denial." Then the hopelessness will dissolve.

Your negative attitudes toward fulfillment must be unearthed, as well as the non-existent problem that you battle against. Only then will the blocks dissolve. This is the expressing, the emptying out of your psychic vessel.

The second approach is the impressing, the putting in. Where you are in untruth, then there the truth must be unearthed. For behind every untruth there is the truth. It cannot be either blotted out or dissolved by erroneous assumptions on your part. When you discover an untruthful concept, then it must be understood. In what way is it untruthful? Then you must also understand the truthful concept behind it. I once compared this with the sun behind the clouds. If a person lives in a climate where the sun rarely comes out, then he can forget that the sun even exists, and therefore he will become hopeless. But if he knows that the sun exists behind the clouds, then there is no hopelessness, even while the clouds still prevail. It is the same with truth and with untruth. It is important to realize that no matter now negative, how hopeless, or how unhappy your momentary moods may be, the truth is behind them. The truth is happiness, even if you cannot experience it at the moment. The knowledge of this principle will bring you nearer to understanding your particular momentary untruth and the truth behind it.

You cannot impress yourself with a specific truththful concept before you understand your particular untruthful concept. Only then can you impress your psychic substance. As long as you are confused, and therefore you do not even know in what way you are in untruth, and as long as you fight against an imaginary problem, then how can you impregnate yourself with the corresponding truthful idea?

The constant interaction between those two approaches is of great importance. It would be a mistake to assume that these two activities follow each other consecutively on this Path -- first expressing and then impressing. Although up to a certain point a person's Pathwork at first concentrates mainly on bringing out what is inside -- and only then does the examination and the analysis of this material begin -- both expressing and impressing exist throughout the process from the beginning. In other words, both activities are necessary all the time. Even at the very beginning of such a Path, when the personality is still filled with misconceptions and is utterly unaware of its confusions and what they are -- in other words, when all this material still needs to be expressed -- it is necessary to impress the self with certain truthful admonitions and statements. This impressing has the power to gather inner forces and to direct these forces into the proper channels. Your intent must be clearly formulated so as to activate the inner powers. Such clearly formulated intent will prevent stagnation, despair, and confusion. Hence, even at the early stages, when the inner vessel is still filled with unclear substances that need to be emptied out, a constant interaction must prevail between stating truth, formulating the constructive intent (impressing), and expressing.

As progress is made on the Path and the inner vessel brings forth the false ideas, the wrong conclusions, and the illusory problems that are fought against on wrong premises, then a harmonious interplay between the two activities becomes even more necessary. The exact timing for each must be found.

There is no rule as to when to focus more on one and when on the other of these two approaches to the self-expressing and the impressing. The only way you can find this balance is by feeling into yourself and by listening into your innermost soul movements. By doing this, not only will you come to be very sensitively attuned to the need of the moment, but you will also strengthen your selfhood. Honoring the rhythm of your personal path, your very individual rhythm, means assuming self-responsibility, instead of trying to fit into prescribed rules. Your own cosmic attunement can unfold only when it is consciously and deliberately reached for. It cannot reveal itself when you ignore its existence and when you follow blind, rigid practices.

Man is bound to obeying an authority. We have discussed this amply in the past, but perhaps never in this connection. In a very subtle -- and still vastly undetected -- way you go about even such a liberating activity as this Pathwork -- whose aim is selfhood in every possible way -- without using the material given to you according to the needs of your psyche at this moment. Instead, you try to treat the material as a set of rules to be governed by. This has a stifling effect. Even if it cannot kill the vital stream within yourself, such a rigid approach does not encourage its manifestation.

Specific aspects of the lectures -- of the material -- and of the help that you have received on this Path must be freely taken up when you feel that they are commensurate with and appropriate to a particular aspect of your work. In other words, the correct approach would be to try to use these words by first listening into yourself, freely allowing for what may come up, following through, and then recognizing that the evolving material fits into this or that lecture or into this or that statement of the teachings. Too often, in a subtle and unrecognized way, you first try to squeeze yourself into the tools given to you rather than taking your inner material first and then choosing the particular tool afterwards. The latter approach will make you free, while the former continues to bind you. Only the authority has changed, not you and your attitudes. This becomes even more confusing because everything you learn and everything you read points to liberation, to selfhood, and to self-responsibility. Therefore, it is easy to overlook the subtle bondage that you subject yourself to by squeezing your soul movements into patterns and stages of this work, rather than first letting out and then seeing the stage into which you fit. In order to do that, you must have the courage to listen into yourself, to tune in on your soul movements, and then to decide: "Am I now more in need of emptying out -- perhaps because heaviness and depression indicate that I ignore what really bothers me -- or do I need to instruct myself?"

This instruction may also be necessary when it is important to empty out, but its character is completely different. Impressing the need for expressing -- for facing what dwells inside, for overcoming resistance and the unreality of the fear to do so -- means using impressing in order to be better capable of expressing. At the stages when expression has sufficiently taken place, then the nature of impression is that of stating the truthful idea and concept, as opposed to the hitherto false one.

Let me recapitulate. Impressing has two distinct facets. One aspect helps to overcome the resistance to expressing. The other re-orients and re-builds the inner personality by the conscious and deliberate formulation of a specific truth and by a profound understanding of it, as opposed to the previous specific untruth.

The re-orientation of negative and destructive consciousness can take place only when it is first understood that there is an inner struggle against a non-existent problem, and when subsequently that struggle is finally given up. When you come to this understanding, then the second type of impressing is necessary. Without it, then the understanding fades away after a while, and therefore your old habit-bound emotions still revert to the old fight, in blind automatism. Only knowing the truth will prevent this. In order to know the truth, the now empty vessel has to be filled with it, so as to prevent it from being filled with the same untruth all over again.

The aim of this Pathwork is precisely this intercourse between your outer mind and your innermost self, finding the proper rhythm and the right balance between impressing and expressing, and determining which kind of impressing is to be used at what juncture. When you go into your periods of meditation and concentration, then listen closely into yourself, into your soul movements. Instruct the deepest strata of your psyche: Say that you first want to properly express. Say that you need to gain the awareness of when to impress and when to express, and how to do either one. Ask for inspiration as to the extent that your volitional mind has to function and to what extent and when you must let go of your volitional mind, and therefore let yourself float, while observing what is coming up. This selfhood, this trusting of your soul movements, will exist in the measure that you overcome the sluggish soul movements that want to prevent you -- in false fears and in false premises -- from doing just that. This is why the imaginary problem that you fight against, with its concomitant false fears, keeps you from the dynamic living that is the aim of this Path.

Once you are well launched on this intercourse between the volitional impressing and the soul movement that expresses itself from deep within, then you will find a deep harmony and a reason to trust your innermost self. For then your creativity, as well as your positive elements -- which could not truly express themselves until now -- will increasingly guide you towards the light that you seek. Then the useless struggle will be over and true growth, self-knowledge, and expansion will be your reality.

Are there any questions regarding this topic?

QUESTION: Would you say that the action of emptying is the surrender of the outer self, saying "I am in confusion. I ask to know from the supreme will and the supreme intelligence what is the truth." And that the impressing is the uniting, the identifying with this inner intelligence, this true, higher self, in acting with the force purely as it comes from the source, without distortion, without imaging, without limiting? Is that the way it goes?

ANSWER: That is quite right. In fact, what I said at the very end just now is exactly that. You see, as long as man is in this false struggle, the struggle that is based on nonsensical premises -- and I deliberately call it by such a strong name, for if you examine every one of your images from this point of view, then you will recognize that the premise itself is nonsensical -- then he must be divided within himself. He is not only divided in his motivations -- energy currents going into conflicting directions -- but he is primarily separated from this highest self of wisdom, of intelligence, of strength, of happiness, of love, and of abundance. Everything good that exists in the universe is in man. But he cannot reach this source, which is so near him, unless he first perceives the false struggle and then he understands it. This can happen only when he turns inward and he allows himself to listen to his soul movements. Unless he requests this source to manifest, then he will remain ignorant of it. His outer, volitional intelligence must call this deep inner intelligence into play. Thus the two will unify after all the material that kept the two separated is absorbed. Then integration -- which is the aim -- will occur. As long as man harbors false ideas, then the original oneness is split. On either side, as it were, there exists one set of intelligence. The two can melt when the outer one consciously and deliberately reaches toward the inner, still hidden one, removing those false elements that have created the split in the first place. Only through working on such a Path can this goal be accomplished.

I should like to examine a frequent situation in order to demonstrate this point. Let us assume that you are tired, depressed, hopeless, and at the point of giving up your efforts because your struggle does not bring relief. You do not wish to abandon your goal, but you cannot see a way in which to seek. This stagnation is a result of your energies being geared to the unconscious false struggle. Now, what do you do? Instead of going on struggling on a conscious level by forcing yourself to adopt truths that your psyche is as yet unable to absorb, focus your efforts on the simple realization that this highest of all wisdoms must exist in you -- even if at the moment you either do not feel it or perhaps you even doubt its existence. Honestly acknowledge your doubt. But also honestly allow for this realization which will open the way. If you are truly open to the inner source, then you can request its guidance. But what usually happens is that when you examine yourself in such a situation, then you see that you cannot even get to the point of considering to reach for this highest source of wisdom within yourself. It does not occur to you, although you have discussed it many times and you know theoretically of its existence. Why not? If you look deeper inside, then you will find that at such moments you do not want to believe that this highest source of intelligence and beauty exists in you. For some strange reason you do not want it -- you even fight against it. As long as you are unaware of this, then you cannot give up this false struggle. In other words, there is something in you that does not want to accept this possibility.

You must come to the point of ascertaining this tiny voice that says No to the possibility of its higher consciousness, the voice that is frightened of that marvelous truth, namely that you carry all you need and all you can possibly wish for within yourself.

By that I do not mean that you can get to such realizations without help. Of course not. In order to find this perfect source, you need help. Just as a healthy balance between expressing and impressing does not mean the one versus the other, a healthy balance between accepting help and accepting self-responsibility does not mean the one versus the other either. In both instances the two are not mutually exclusive, but interact in a harmonious interplay. To the degree that you learn the harmonious interplay in both instances, to that degree your innermost self becomes your outer self. Then there no longer is a separation or a conflict between the two. The superimposed intellect, the outer intelligence, is filled with, is motivated by, and is moved by this inner source of all, the original source of all -- which is in you. This must never be forgotten. It exists in you right now, and therefore is completely accessible. To the degree that you know it, to that degree it can manifest.

QUESTION: What you have just expressed so perfectly fits the stage where I am at present and with which we are concerned in my private work. I have a feeling that I have such a fear of this self-responsibility. Is that true?

ANSWER: Yes, indeed. In fact many of my friends find themselves in this same phase at present. In your case there is, as you correctly surmise, a fear of self-responsibility. This fear is completely unjustified. It may help you if I show the following. Because you are afraid of self-responsibility, then you are constantly dependent on circumstances which are outside your control. Therefore you feel helpless. In other words, you feel like a straw in the wind, as if you have no power over life and over circumstances. That much you know. But in order to understand this a little better, it is important to see the following. Perhaps you will feel an echo now. You are afraid to acknowledge this highest source of all -- the key to all life within yourself, perfect wisdom, perfect intelligence, perfect strength, and perfect beauty -- because you feel that this would be wrongly proud. You fear that the mere consideration of such a possibility would infer an overestimation of yourself. In other words, you feel that it would be giving yourself airs that you do not deserve. In other words, you fear that the possibility that you may harbor such powers within yourself might be a gross over-evaluation of yourself. In order to be a good, obedient child, you negate this possibility. You are afraid of the pride, for which you may then be punished, as well as of the disappointment. You do not take a chance on being disappointed, and therefore you cannot find the truth of it. Does that ring a bell? (Yes, it helps me.)

Perhaps now you can approach this problem with this new understanding. Ask yourself: "Am I willing to take a chance? After all, I cannot be worse off than I am now. I do not need unjustified hope. Even if my doubts about having these powers and this source within me should be justified, it is better to know this and to go on from there than to keep this possibility constantly dangling as a theory which I never dare to explore." In other words, commit yourself honestly to the problem of your doubting. As long as you doubt -- and therefore you do not even give the positive side a chance -- then you do not honestly commit yourself to the problem. How can a problem be resolved, or dissolved, if one does not give it every chance through a full commitment to it? The full honest commitment lies in testing it again and again. Such fair testing cannot be terminated the day after tomorrow, because too many misconceptions and too many false fears clog up the channel. Giving it a full chance means consciously and deliberately reaching inside for the express purpose of contacting this source for the purpose of this Pathwork of self-realization, or for the purpose of creative living. Honest testing means an attitude of "I give the possibility every chance." In other words, it does not say No to it even before such a chance is extended, in the false assumption that disappointment is unavoidable when you deny it even before trying it with an open heart and an open mind.

Many people find themselves constantly in negativity because they do not dare to find out once and for all whether a given situation or a specific attitude is either positive or negative; whether it is either true or not true. You negate even before you find a true basis for accepting because you are afraid that your acceptance may prove disappointing. This is a general situation that is widespread. You need to have the courage to allow for the possibility of a positive alternative.

QUESTION: You speak of the outer self as "the child." Is it not the very essence of the whole thing that the child must mature? And in order for maturity to take place, for this growth pattern to be fulfilled, there is this transition, this uniting with the higher self?

ANSWER: Yes. Only it might be misleading to believe that the child is always necessarily the outer self. This might not always be accurate. The child exists between a superimposed, or partly superimposed, intellectual maturity and this highest source of all wisdom and all happiness. In other words, it dwells in-between. It is neither completely outer nor completely inner. It is relative to the position of the viewer. In other words, when you consider it from the point of view -- from the perspective -- of the outer maturity, from the level of where you know better, then the child is inner. When you consider it from the point of view of the innermost self, then it is outer. It is important to understand that because the outer maturity -- which may be in part a genuine, integrated maturity, but which is also interspersed with a false, superimposed, merely intellectual maturity that is not cemented by emotional experience in certain respects -- must try to ally itself with the real self in the great endeavor of teaching the child the truth. The outer maturity must not be confused with the real self. It reaches up to a certain level, but where that level ends, then the stubborn, lost child, battling against false premises can be found. To bring out this lost child, in its full irrationality and in all its ignorance, is the expressing that I talked about. In order for the child to grow up, it must learn what is true and what is false.

Many of you partly see the wrong conclusions, but it is still a haphazard realization because the extent of the wrong assumption -- namely, that you are struggling with a problem which does not exist -- is often still overlooked. You must attain this awareness and then this understanding.

When you are stuck on this Path, when you are in great anxiety, when you find yourself in a resistance that seems insurmountable, then you can be sure that this is a wrong conclusion. It means that you inordinately fear something that has no existence, that you fear a phantom. Nothing true ever needs to be feared in such a way. Where you have made progress on this Path, there you have found it to be so. You have found that your faults never induce this despair. Despair is the result of an untruthful verdict that you have pronounced either against yourself or against the world. This intruthful verdict is always connected with an imaginary problem. Unfortunately, even though this fact was already ascertained by some of my friends, it might have been forgotten, until it is recaptured on the next level.

May the material I have given you -- the lecture and the answers to your questions -- give you a new incentive for your efforts and for the hard work on your Path of self-realization and selfhood. Then you will find within you that which you falsely believed to be far away.

My dearest friends, be blessed. May these blessings, which are an actuality, be able to reach everything in you that needs to be activated in order to find yourself. Be in peace. Realize the truth, which is so liberating, namely that there is nothing to fear, that fear and unhappiness are both errors. Be in God.

February 5, 1965