Lecture No 139

Deadening Of The Live Center Through The Misinterpretation Of Reality

By The Pathwork Guide

Greetings, my dearest friends. Blessings for everyone of you. Blessed be this lecture. May your understanding of this lecture open your mind and your vision so that you advance a step further in your self-realization.

One of the most difficult accomplishments is to fully understand your present situation. In other words, to see it as a direct result of who you are. Just because this understanding is immediate and close, it seems distant. Just because it is so available and so easy, it seems to require much effort and struggle to obtain it. Yet once you discover the knack of it, it is so easy, so natural. Obviously, it has been "here" all along. Even my friends who have been in this pathwork for a considerable time still fail to see themselves as they are. They do not understand their present situation, they do not see it in terms of their innermost being, because the deeply entrenched mechanism of escape makes them overlook that which is most significant. This lecture is designed to shake up your escape mechanism, to make you more aware, to awaken you to yourself and to your immediate outer situation.

When man finds himself in an undesirable situation that leaves him unfulfilled in any way, then his vague discontent usually causes him to strive for another situation, away from the one that he has to face. A clear-cut goal-directedness and a precise concept of a better way of life can succeed only when the present situation, and whatever is lacking in it, is totally understood. When the present situation is not fully understood, then striving into a different situation must result in failure, and therefore in frustration.

How can your present situation be fully understood? It can only be done by first becoming fully aware of what you really miss. It must be put into words stating precisely what you would want to be different in your life. This must be the first awareness. The second awareness must be of how much you suffer from what you miss. For that, too, is often pushed aside and not really acknowledged. How much do you really miss what you miss? Do not glibly content yourself with a vague general acknowledgment. The full intensity of your partly repressed longings and frustrations must be aired. The third awareness in this respect must be a total comprehension of your present situation. And that means -- after realizing what you miss and how much you miss it -- to understand how you endure your present situation. It is essential that you profoundly understand how your present situation is a direct outcome of yourself.

Although I have discussed this many times, I repeat it now because I see that despite your progress, this is still vastly overlooked. Therefore, I invite all of you to use this simple formula and to give your total attention to what you feel right now, to what you experience right now, and then to why this is so. In other words, how is your outer situation a symbolic representation of your inner state of being? You will finally find that your outer state, no matter how undesirable it may be, is exactly the result of what you are, of what you think, of what you feel, and of what you want. Then you will understand that your outer situation cannot be any different, in view of what you think, of what you feel, and of what you want. It will reflect how you act, how you react, and what your attitude is. When you know that it cannot be any different, then you have totally exploited, assimilated, and comprehended your present now, your total situation. This analysis in depth results in knowing that any present situation must be what it is, and that it forms a direct link to the inner being. The present situation must be found to be an exact result of the sum total of the personality. This connection also includes the favorable circumstances. When you overlook and fail to enjoy all the good circumstances in your life, then you must be commensurately unaware of your values. As you learn to value, to appreciate, and to enjoy what life offers you in each moment, then you must become aware of the good in you: of your values and your assets. This will give you greater strength to come out of your vicious circles and your self-generating negative attitudes. It will also make more realistic your understanding of how the undesirable situation relates to your inner personality. You will gain a more rounded picture of the total situation of your person, and therefore of your life.

As long as you are vague and hazy about what you miss or as long as you deny what you miss, then you cannot possibly understand your life. Understanding one's life in this fashion is the key to changing it into a more desirable and fulfilling process.

Most of my friends on this Path have had occasion to understand that their lives and themselves are one unit. These moments are always deep experiences of the reality of being, of vibrant aliveness, of light, and of truth. Such experiences seem difficult to attain just because they are so immediate and so near. It seems much easier to wish for something vaguely different, or even precisely different, in discontent and tense struggle, or in a mood of complaining resentment and self-pity. In doing so one ignores a) the intensity of the real longing, b) the presence of reservations as to this real longing, c) the reasons for these reservations, d) the consequent thoughts, feelings, emanations, and attitudes in inner and outer behavior, and e) how these must affect others, and thereby create the present situation. Also, it is overlooked that the present situation is the result of many years of deeply entrenched patterns of thinking, of acting, and of feeling. Therefore, it cannot be changed instantly, after some recognitions have been made. The expectation of instant results contains the same childish demand from life and the same angry refusal to cooperate with life's laws which contributes to the unfulfillment itself. The expectation of immediate results also causes the individual to overlook the good he has, and therefore not to enjoy it and appreciate it.

When one ignores the oneness between one's innermost self and one's outer situation, then one runs away from oneself. One does not really want to see oneself as one is -- only in a limited way and with reservations. Ask yourself: "Do I truly wish to see myself totally as I am?" If you do, then do you cultivate such an aim by expressing this desire, particularly in moments of discontent and disharmony? Or are you quick with glibly admitting that the disharmony must be in you -- because you know enough about the truth of these matters -- but you let it go at that? In other words, without summoning the willingness to really look? The simple formula of expressing the deep and full intention to see the full truth about oneself at all times is still not sufficiently used. If this were followed through in greater detail and with more attention to your immediate situation, then you would feel much more liberated.

The reasons for the human tendency to escape from the self -- and therefore inevitably from life with all of its good possibilities -- are manifold. In the course of these lectures we have discussed many of the possible motives for escape. Let us now pay specific attention to one aspect that in the past I have touched upon only generally and vaguely, for the simple reason that none of my friends were ready to face this aspect in themselves. Then it could be discussed only in general terms. The last few months have brought considerable progress for a number of you, and therefore what I have to say now can be accepted and looked at by many of you. A few of you have already come to see this; others are still struggling with this aspect in themselves.

What I want to discuss is not mere hostility. Hostility has become too vague a term. It has become almost meaningless in its repeated use. Let us deliberately be as crass as possible. In most human beings -- in some more and in some less -- there exist elements of cruelty. This cruelty is hard to face. But when you do face it, then relief and liberation must follow, because nothing further bars the way to being totally in truth with yourself. As long as the cruelty within yourself is not fully faced -- in other words, as long as you run away from it -- then you cannot be clear with yourself, you cannot be comfortable with yourself, you cannot be unafraid of yourself, and you cannot be relaxed about yourself. In other words, you cannot be good friends with yourself. You can be good friends with yourself only when you first acknowledge, then accept, and third understand -- in other words, only when you work openly and candidly on -- these cruel aspects, even before you can totally eliminate them. But as long as you struggle against your cruelty in this self-defeating way -- namely by denial and by hiding -- then you must constantly have friction with yourself, and therefore inevitably with life and with others. You cannot be comfortable in your own skin. Therefore, you will feel wrong about life and you will feel wrong about yourself. Your problems will appear to be without any solution.

Solutions can appear on the horizon only when you face that in you which you fear most. And that is usually cruelty. You cannot think of anything worse in you. Nothing could frighten you more than this aspect of yourself. A reliable gauge to determine the extent of the still unrecognized cruelty within yourself is the amount of fear you have left. This can be fear of other people -- either fear of others in general or fear of certain individuals -- fear of life, fear of death, or fear of the unknown. The more you are afraid of ruthlessness, afraid of separateness, afraid of rejection, afraid of humiliation, afraid of physical cruelty, afraid of mental cruelty, then the more the same aspects must slumber within yourself, as yet not fully acknowledged. As long as this is the case -- regardless of how large or of how small these unrecognized aspects are -- then you will be in conflict. And you will run from these difficult and uncomfortable areas in your life. But it is preciisely because they are unpleasant for you that they harbor the key you need. You can find this key only when you stop running. Therefore, look at yourself and see that you run from yourself by avoiding certain outer situations and certain inner situations. Then see why you do so. In these instances lies the one secret that you are still unwilling to unveil, in spite of your good efforts. As long as you cannot meet yourself and others without reservations, then you cannot fulfill yourself. This means that you want to continue to deceive yourself by avoiding these aspects. You may vaguely feel something like cruelty, but there is a great difference between a vague feeling and really looking into this aspect.

He who has begun to do so must already have overcome the worst. This is not necessarily a question of time, of how long one has been in this pathwork.

As long as your inner center is still in the condition it was in when you were a child, then it is not yet in a position to handle life. The inner wisdom contained in the live center begins to manifest only after integration with the ego occurs. In the child the inner center is alive, full of feelings, full of energy, and full of the capacity for the experience of pleasure. It is also contains as yet unutilized potentials of creativity and of intelligence. What you must learn to do now is 1) to observe the existence of your live center, 2) to observe the mechanics by which you discourage its manifestation and you toughen the vulnerable spot, and 3) to consciously and deliberately stop doing the latter and allow its unfoldment by encouraging it. Through appropriate meditations, this live center will become integrated with the ego so that its substance will become strong and resilient, without however losing its soft aliveness.

You now find yourself in the predicament of possessing an adult ego, with all its faculties intact, but separated from that vulnerable live center. This vulnerable live center is separated from your wakeful consciousness. And that is your problem.

The more the live center is unrealistically and inadequately defended, blocked, denied, and covered up, the more do aspects come into being which man must be ashamed of and feel guilty for. Among the most severe are cruel impulses. Cruelty will cease to exist in the depth of the human soul -- in other words, not only in action and conscious thoughts, but in the unconscious emotions -- when the live center is no longer denied and hindered, but is recognized, observed, and allowed to function. The intense feelings of this live center can then be compared with reality as it unfolds. The ego faculties will help in the process. Your intelligence will adjust your imbalances and your deviations from reality. But when the reason or the mind is used to deny the depth, the scope, and the richness of the feelings that manifest from the live center, then the human personality cripples itself and brings itself out of balance. It is up to you to bring the manifestation of the live center -- with its vulnerability and its strength of feelings -- together with your adult understanding, with your ego faculties.

Cruelty is a result of the separation between the live center and the ego. To put it in more practical terms, cruelty exists because reality is misinterpreted. The individual thus further inactivates the live center. The child misinterprets the happenings around him. Where the child has done that is precisely where the adult continues to do so now, unless and until the misinterpretation has been first found and then corrected. Therefore, all of you go on misinterpreting reality in the areas of your difficulties, in your problem areas. In other words, you do not perceive what really goes on around you. You do not see things the way they really are, but you misinterpret them.

How can you discover such misunderstandings? First acknowledge to yourself what you believe. Then interpret what it means to you. This applies to anything that makes you feel disharmonious. Ask yourself how you interpret what others think of you.

Let us take a common example so as to make this more understandable. Let us say that you feel slighted, discriminated against, rejected. As a rule, you admit this only vaguely, if at all. You may even admit these words, but you do not fully admit and acknowledge to what extent you feel this, why you feel this way, and what makes you believe that your feelings are justified and appropriate. Then you can go to the next step and ask yourself: "Is this real, or do I just believe it? Could it be otherwise?" Even when you admit to feeling rejected, you usually let it go at that and you live in a fog -- in a haze -- without fully examining whether or not your rejection is real. You may say that perhaps it is not real, but then there is another level in you in which you do believe that it is real. This is the level that needs to be totally faced and fully examined.

Cruelty -- which is the greatest stumbling block to self-facing, to living in the dynamic, adventurous beauty of each now, and the greatest cause of your wanting to run away from yourself -- is ultimately the result of misinterpreting reality. You cannot interpret reality accurately as long as you do not formulate precisely what you believe. You must see clearly how you interpret happenings which seem to call for hurt, and therefore for defenses. Then you must consider the possibility that reality could be different from what you believe it to be.

I have discussed several points, which in your work must be combined:

1) An undesirable situation, a lack of fulfillment, an emptiness cannot be eliminated and changed into a more desirable condition unless you fully recognize that the present situation cannot be any different because its causes are in you.

2) Having admitted that you create the causes, which is the first point, you must now determine and recognize what in you is responsible for creating these causes. In this way you will experience the oneness between yourself and your life situation.

The cruel aspects in you are mainly responsible for your resistance and for your fear of self-facing. Often these cruel aspects can be found only when one acknowledges one's fears. Do not forget the important correlation betwewen the fear of others -- or the fear of any outer facet of life -- and the fear of your unrecognized cruelty. If you are free from your cruelty, then you can never fear others.

4) Establish the moment when the live center is bare. But bare as in the vulnerable child, who has not yet integrated these energies and feelings with his ego faculties. When the integration takes place, then the vulnerable live center is no longer vulnerable in a negative, dangerous, or debilitating way, but in a good, most wonderful way. This divine center is flexible. It is alive. It is vibrant. And it is full of strong, wonderful feelings without which no pleasure, no joy, no happiness can exist. The tremendous strength and the intelligence contained in this vulnerable spot will govern all your actions and all your attitudes. It will emanate thoughts and feelings which must bear fruit all around you. It will make you totally constructive in all you do. You will want to give your best and your total attention to everything you experience, to all your undertakings. Nothing will be done half-heartedly, with half attention, or with divided motives. Therefore, the outcome will be fulfilling and hence desirable. There is no strain in this attention. You will be carried by a sweeping, marvelous strength. Instead of covering up the vulnerable spot, you will bring it out. Instead of shying away from the feelings in this vulnerable spot, you will widen the area of your aliveness, and strengthen it with a new resiliency. All of this comes first from understanding reality and then from correctly interpreting what goes on both in you and what goes on in others.

When this vulnerable spot is gradually integrated with the ego, even in the beginning stages, then your goal in this phase of your evolutionary process has been accomplished. You have to go through the points I have indicated. Connect your fears with your unacknowledged cruelty. Discover how this cruelty is a result of misinterpretation. Question yourself closely as to why you have these cruel impulses. As you do so, acknowledge what hurts you; acknowledge what you would want to be different; acknowledge what you believe comes from others to you and what you believe comes from life to you. As you put all of this into words precisely, then take the next step: ask yourself if you are in reality when you believe these things to be true.

My friends, this lecture must not remain a theoretical study. To the extent that you use it on yourself, to that extent you make it a reality. Some of you have begun to do so in your personal pathwork. Others have not yet begun this particular phase. But I expect that you present me with such problems. For instance, when you begin to express exactly what hurts you and why, then you might come to certain recognitions. Begin there with your questions and then I will help you further. Let us consider together whether or not this hurt is justified. Is it really the way you feel it to be? The moment you can ask a question as to the reality of your experiencing a slight or a hurt, then you have a firm foundation. As long as you cannot ask yourself this question because you do not know that you feel hurt, then you have to seek another way that suits the momentary phase of your pathwork.

Some of you may be aware of your cruelty, however vaguely. Then you can proceed from there. Some of you may be aware of your fears, but you do not see the reverse side of the fear, namely the cruel impulses in you. Others may be acutely aware of their unfulfillments, of their undesirable present situations. But they have not yet connected these with the innermost causes in themselves. Still others may have accomplished this to some degree, but they overlook the rare instances when their vulnerable spot comes to the fore; they have not yet observed how they manage to get away from it, how they cover it up, how they either harden it or numb it in one fashion or another. All these possibilities for further work exist. Some of you have awareness of one or several of these aspects, but not of others. But none of you are aware of all these aspects. May all of you bring these points together, not in thought-understanding only, but as a deeply felt experience. This will give you courage and liberation. These aspects are not equally strong in everyone. For example, with some of my friends the area of their illusion -- of their misinterpretation of reality -- is relatively small. They are rational and real in many areas. Their misinterpretation of reality applies to certain areas only. And these areas may be so hidden and so vague, so subtle and so elusive that they are difficult to ascertain. Just because these friends are apparently so much in reality, it is easy to overlook where they are not -- and the extent to which they are not. These friends may have a more difficult time than those who are overtly, obviously, and even on an intellectual level, in illusion or in delusion. The latter may suffer more acutely until they reach the point of questioning their interpretation of happenings and their interpretation of the reactions of other people to themselves. And then there are those who believe that they are reasonable and realistic, yet they are even deluded about that.

This material I give you here can be a major help for all of you. Now, do you have any questions regarding this topic?

QUESTION: I have found this cruelty in me, in connection with revenge. I also feel that I punish others cruelly in isolation and withdrawal. In spite of having found this, I feel that I cannot give it up, I must hang on to it. Can you help me to go on from here?

ANSWER: Yes. Actually what I said in this lecture is an answer. Your particular key is to ask yourself why you feel cruel. What do you believe is being done to you? What do you expect might be done to you? What do you expect of the other person? Why do you believe that the other person is acting, or has acted, or might act in a way that induces the cruel impulses in you? In other words, the first step is to acknowledge precisely what you believe. Then the next step must be to ask yourself whether it is real, or whether you only believe it to be true.

QUESTION: To me it seems real.

ANSWER: Of course. That is exactly what I mean. Because it does seem real, then you seem to need your cruelty. You have always acted on the unexamined assumption that it is real. Now you must open yourself to the possibility that it might not be as you believe. That must be your next step in this respect. As long as you let it go at "this is the way I feel --" in a vague attitude of "perhaps it is not so, but to me it seems real," without going to the consequences of such an implication -- then you will remain stuck. When you want to see the truth above all else and when you you reach out for it, then the truth will come to you. As long as you let yourself remain in this hazy climate, then you must hold on to your cruelty. The cruelty will be your precarious pleasure. The negative pleasure will cease only when you understand the true facts. This can happen only when you want to consider new horizons. In other words, possibilities that you have never thought about. Specifically ask yourself this question: "Are the circumstances really the way I feel, or could I be mistakenn? Are the desires of the other person really the way I think they are, or could I be mistaken? Are the facts really the way I see them, or might I be mistaken? If the reality is different from the way I think it is and from the way I feel it, then I would like to see that reality. I open myself up for that reality. I do not commit or obligate myself to anything, except that I want to see the truth." Then the truth must come. The truth must remove your conflict and your suffering. This is the way.

QUESTION: I am extremely aware of cruelty and vulnerability in myself. When I feel slighted, my feelings are so strong that I feel the desire to kill those who seem to slight me. Yet, I also sense that my reactions may be exaggerated. What should I do about this now that I have become aware of it?

ANSWER: An exact answer can be found in this lecture. But I also wish to answer you personally. I said before that with some people the areas of their unrealistic understanding are relatively small, while with others they are much more obvious. You belong to the latter category. Due to your unrealistic perceptions, you suffer more. On the other hand they are so crass that you will have an easier time to discover the unreality and find the way out of your illusion. Here you have an example of what I demonstrated in this lecture. It is wonderful that your distortion is out in the open as much as it is and that in the short time of your work it has come out so strongly. Your vulnerability is also still relatively accessible. You think that you defend it by separating it from your ego and trying to numb it by cruelty. On the other hand, your cruelty is also generated by your misinterpretation of reality. This is extremely strong and obvious, therefore rather easy to determine once you begin to question it seriously. What you believe people think and feel and what they actually think and feel is totally different; what you believe they are and what they actually are like is also totally different. Every day think of where you feel that you were insulted, where you feel that you were slighted, where you feel that you were rejected, where you feel that you were discriminated against. Every single instance, put it down in writing. I want you to do this every day. When you do this for a while, only for a few weeks, or even for a few days, then you will see to what extent almost all the time that you are in contact with people, you anticipate rejection, you expect discrimination, you anticipate slight, and you expect disapproval. Often you even think that it has already happened, while in reality nothing could be further from the truth. When you begin to ask yourself whether your feelings are true, whether they are commensurate with what actually takes place -- in other words, when you want to see what is true, as opposed to what you believed until now -- then you must begin to experience genuine and lasting relief. I want you to work along these lines both by yourself and also in conjunction with your group. Ask yourself what you believe the other group members feel about you. When you bring it out, then compare it with their actual reactions to you. Then learn what is behind their reactions and why they feel what they feel. Your aim must be to discover what is actually true and how this differs from what you think is true. Then you will no longer need to toughen your vulnerable spot, which is the essence of the live center -- and without which you cannot live successfully.

When you formulate precisely what you think others feel about you and when you then, with equal precision, formulate the possibility that you might be mistaken and you contemplate other alternatives, then a new world will open up for you. It will be a free world in which you can live without fear; a world of light in which you no longer need to be isolated. Now you feel that the whole world is against you. Since you feel that the whole world is against you -- that it is out to harm you, to slight you, to reject you, and to humiliate you -- then you must toughen yourself. Cruelty is the only weapon with which to defend yourself against such a cruel world. Therefore, you must hang on to it. But when you begin to see that this is not so, then you will no longer need your cruelty. You will be relaxed and light, because now the world will no longer be your enemy. Other people will no longer be your enemies. Observe yourself now. When you walk in the street, observe the subtle and yet distinct feeling of how you perceive the strangers around you, how you perceive that they are all your enemies. Then ask yourself: "Is this true? Are they really my enemies, or may the truth be different from the way I feel? Might they feel similarly to the way I feel -- just as frightened and just as lost? And when they are angry, maybe they also hit out, just as I do, as a result of their feeling that everyone else is their enemy?" Millions of people pass each other by, day in and day out, each feeling singled out to be persecuted. This is often a subtle -- and therefore not easily detectable -- feeling. But nevertheless it is there. Once it is brought out into your awareness, then you can begin to question the accuracy of your perception. Thus you can find your way back to reality, to truth, and to light, into a world which is wonderful, instead of frightening.

*****

My dearest friends, may this lecture bring forth all that is healthy in you, all that is creative in you, all that is constructive in you, all that is real in you. You will find it immediately "behind" that vulnerable live center, once you allow the manifestation of its initially disquieting emotions to reach your awareness. Go through this and then see what will manifest, especially when your consciousness reaches for this possibility. The blessing that is constantly given unto you combine with this power within you and will fill you from within yourself. Be in peace. Be in God.

January 7, 1966