The Call Of The Life Stream And The Response To It

By The Pathwork Guide

Greetings, my dearest friends. The blessings given are a strength and a power consisting of the sincerity, the wishes, and the love of all who are involved in this venture -- both inside the body and outside the body.

At the beginning of this new working year I should like to set up a direction, a sort of blueprint, which, at the same time, constitutes a reformulation of our work and its purpose. Man needs a continual clarification of his concepts and motives: Where is he going and why is he going there?

As long as man identifies exclusively with his ego self, and as long as he ignores that there is another aspect of himself, then man must be in a painful struggle that tears him apart. He must be in a conflict for which he cannot see a solution, or a way out. This often causes unbearable tension and anxiety. This fundamental mental insecurity, with all its byproducts, can be overshadowed or covered up by all sorts of pursuits. But these pursuits, although in themselves they may be worthy, are illusory as a means of relieving the basic fear, the sense of waste, and the meaninglessness. Only when man finds the center, deep within himself, which he then activates and realizes, does he fulfill his destiny, the reason for his existence. Whatever else he accomplishes serves only, if he so chooses, to make him more aware of his real self, and therefore of the reality of being. Only then will he find a genuine security and a real peace that come from within. In order for this to happen, the hold on the outer ego must be relinquished. In other words, the complete reliance on the ego must be given up and the ego must be used as a tool to activate the universal self, which is slumbering within, not yet quite awake.

Many people know this and pay lip service to it. But to know this as a theory and to live it are two entirely different things. The work on this path is destined to help you to accomplish the awakening of a new self that you have not consciously experienced before. This path gives you the means to actually bring this about.

Life issues a call, it makes a demand of every living individual. Most people do not sense this call. As you become more aware of your own illusions you can simultaneously become aware of the truth within yourself, and therefore of the truth in life. Consequently, you will understand the call of life and what it wants to convey to you in each moment. How do you respond to it? Do you respond with your total being, or do you respond halfheartedly? Or do you perhaps resist responding at all and therefore make yourself deaf to the call of life? This is the big question, my friends.

What I say here, as simple as it sounds, can become a very important aspect of your concentration, so that you honestly question yourself as to whether you truly wish to understand the call of life to you and what it requires of you, as well as to whether you are wholeheartedly responsive to it. This call of life is a dynamic movement that can also be felt as a stream of life. This stream of life manifests differently at any given moment to every individual. It is universal, while also being intensely personal. It is universal in the sense that the values on which the call is based aim exclusively at the awakening of the real self, of absolute reality. It knows no other considerations and it goes about this in a totally unsentimental way. It disregards personal attachments, social considerations, values that aim at other considerations than the one mentioned, as well as personal pain or pleasure. If the awakening of the real self involves what temporarily may seem like destruction, then this seeming destruction will turn out to be the ground stone of the real inner life and the tool needed to awaken the inner center. If the awakening brings that which also happens to be most joyful to the individual, then the very fact that he lets himself experience the joy proves that he is more attuned to the real self than he may know. But often moralistic, self-defeating attitudes induce the person to reject that which leads him to his destiny and to self-fulfillment just because it brings joy, in the mistaken idea that self-realization must automatically mean deprivation and self-sacrifice. If conditions are based on considerations that do not further the coming into one's real self, then sooner or later their destruction is inevitable. If conditions arise out of considerations for the awakening of the real self, then peace, joy, well-being, and intense pleasure must be experienced. This is the stream of life, which is often blocked by man's stubborn blindness.

This call is universal. The attitude necessary to awaken the inner center follows universal values. Truth, love, and beauty are universal aspects of the real life. The isolated ego existence is a general factor that is applicable to all human beings. How this ego blocks the real self is a personal question. But however this may happen, it is a universal fact that transformation of the character is necessary in order to unblock it, and therefore to permit the life stream to flow freely. We shall come back to the subject of transformation a little later.

These universal aspects can be recognized intellectually, but they need not necessarily be felt and experienced. This can happen only when the personal aspect of the life stream is recognized and responded to. Therefore, any path leading to genuine self-realization must be an intensely personal one and must deal with intensely personal problems. Anyone who believes that he can accomplish the goal by imbibing general truths and collecting truthful beliefs deludes himself. He deludes himself for the reason that he does not want to look at the truth of his being at this moment, but prefers an idealized picture of what he wants to be. This evasion alienates him more from the goal than does the honest admission that he does not want to look at himself, the honest admission that he does not want to permit himself to experience emotions that he either fears or disapproves of, the honest admission that he does not wish to transform his character defects. The actual -- not theoretical -- activation of the real self, with its vibrating life, with its limitless abundance, with its infinite possibilities for good, with its supreme wisdom and joy, happens to the exact degree that man dares to look at the temporary truth of himself, dares to feel what he feels, has the courage to transform himself into a better human being for no other motive than the desire to add to and to contribute to life, and not for the purpose of making an impression and grasping for approval.

When the immediate barriers to do just that are overcome, then the real self, with all its treasures, will manifest its presence and its reality. One of those barriers is shame of what you are now. This shame makes you set up a wall of secretiveness, behind which you must be lonely. This loneliness may then be either denied or rationalized. That is, other circumstances may be blamed. In reality, it is your wish to hide yourself both from yourself and from others that keeps you separated. In the deep recesses of your mind you fear that you are different from others, that you are worse, and this is a shame that cannot be exposed. In this secret conviction you remain in this particular illusion and therefore you deprive yourself of the benefit of discovering the universality of yourself and of your life, with its healing climate for your psyche. This cannot be accomplished by knowing the theory of it. It can be done only when you are actually experienced in those areas where you still happen to hide yourself. This is precisely one of the barriers separating you from the life stream. The loneliness that results from this inner condition of secretiveness cannot be relieved, no matter how favorable the outer circumstances may be. This loneliness can be removed only when you overcome the pride of your shame. This intensely personal work leads to the realization of the universal values that alone can give you the courage to go with the life stream.

The universal self often contradicts the outer rules, which come from the ego self of mankind. Hence, no matter how much an individual rebels against conformism and social laws, he still finds himself within the confines of the ego self, deeply immersed in its struggle and in its duality between comformism and submission, versus rebellion and defiance. True emancipation from the ego, with its outer rules, means neither conforming nor rebelling. The real self acts upon inner values, which may or may not coincide with the dictates of society. In neither case will the person be damaged. Even if temporary upheaval arises, the person will become more whole. The key is this, and it is not as far away as it may seem: Are you motivated by considerations of love and truth? Do you totally commit yourself to a course of honesty and integrity in this particular issue, regardless of public opinion? Do you let go of the fear, of the pride, and of the selfwill of your ego and strive toward the voice of the divine in you, again regardless of appearance?" This way is always open, and when it is chosen, then it must result in emancipation from the ego struggle, with its insoluble pain and anxiety. Answers inevitably follow that resolve the conflicts and that bring peace.

The call of life disregards the superficial morality that most people either ardently adhere to or equally ardently fight against. This is the morality that is based on the fear of disapproval. It is alternately either fought against or shunned because goodness is thought to mean deprivation. The call of life knows no consideration of outer appearance, or of shortsighted sentimentality. It surges toward bringing every individual into his birthright. It is concerned solely with this universal value, for all else that matters is contained in it.

Why does man put up such a struggle against fulfilling his destiny, when this destiny brings him nothing but good? Why does he resist hearing the call of his life stream, when it brings him to all that is safe, to all that is good, to all that is productive, and to all that is joyful? This is the tragic battle of man. On the one hand, he is disturbed by the insecurity of his existence. He senses the waste of his life as long as he pays allegiance exclusively to the outer self, and therefore to outer values coming from outside of him. On the other hand, he does everything in his power to maintain the state in which he is so unhappy. In fact he seeks more and more means to reinforce the ego identification. He looks for more outer ways, for more outer activities, for more outer beliefs, for more outer escapes. At times all he succeeds in doing is in making himself deaf to the voice that comes from deep within. At other times, he feels the deep unrest, but he refuses to understand it.

He who consciously and deliberately makes the decision and commits himself once and for all to living his life for the primary purpose of activating the real self, he alone can find genuine peace, the deep inner peace that exists even while inner errors still prevent the total realization of self.

Let every one of you who reads these words question himself: Why are you on this Path? What is your aim in life? Do you live in order to just make do the best you can? Do you work on this Path because there are certain symptoms that you wish removed that you feel are an unpleasant interference in your life? Certainly you are free to do so. But try to realize the deeper meaning of it. For as long as your aim is solely to remove certain effects of your inner misorientation of identifying with your ego because you either ignore or fear the activation of the real self, then other symptoms of this principal disease must appear. Total well-being cannot be accomplished, even if you succeed in removing temporary states of pain and deprivation. There is a vast difference between these two goals. As long as your whole orientation is not geared toward activating the inner center of your real self, then you cannot know real safety, real peace, and true well-being; nor can you make use of the storehouse of potentials within yourself; nor can you experience your freedom to make use of the unlimited funds available in the universe for your benefit. Not being able to do any of this, not being able to be what you can be and what you should be, is an endless pain that you must allow yourself to consciously experience in order to have the incentive to do something about it. On the other hand, the pursuits of the ego, no matter how great the accomplishments, will never give you peace and security, nor the sense of being the best you can be. The ego drive can appear to give you power over others, but it cannot ever give you autonomy and independence, so that sooner or later the illusion of power over others is exposed as illusion.

You are free to merely remove symptoms. I advise all those who seek help, as well as those who are helpers, to define the aim very clearly. What is your aim? How far do you wish to go? What do you wish to accomplish? Do you commit yourself to the whole way? Then visualize the specific symptoms that you wish to remove. And any disturbance is but a symptom of the basic ill of exclusive ego identification, no matter what name you give it -- neurosis, sickness, distortion, or unhappiness. Consider what the removal of the symptom alone means in terms of your future. What can you envisage afterward? Can you envisage that more is possible? Let us discuss this now, my friends. For I believe that anyone who really thinks about it and properly envisages the whole meaning of this important question and who clearly questions himself, without either delusion or escape, will make the total response to life with his total being. Let us now discuss this totality of a commitment to the real self.

You have all experienced, at least to some degree, through the means of certain meditations, that the universe contains unlimited good, which is available for you if you open yourself to it. There are times when you vividly experience this truth, and you then know -- beyond the shadow of a doubt -- that the proof of this is neither coincidence nor illusion. You know this to be a fact. When this is so, then your entire attitude is clean, free, and relaxed. You are deeply convinced of this truth and therefore you trust it. You feel deeply deserving and therefore you do not cringe away from the fulfillment. Hence it comes. Your whole being is in a positive, constructive vibration in which there is no conflict. You do not feel selfish because you wish to experience beauty, nor do you withold giving the best of yourself.

But then there are also those occasions when it does not work that way. Even though in certain areas of your life you have already experienced such positive manifestations, in other areas they cannot come through. When you try to attain this undifferentiated good with your ego self, then it does not work. Where your real self is not activated, it is there that the doors to the universe are closed. This is not due to any forbidding authority who decides that you are not worthy of this or that particular fulfillment. It is because something within yourself bars the way. This something has to be found so that you have the possibility of eliminating it. Whatever the obstruction is, it makes you fearful of letting go of your ego. Hence you remain oriented to and centered in your outer ego. This outer ego, since it is split within itself in duality, is incompatible with the unified world of all good. It can only be open for partial good, to which there always exists another, undesirable side. This undesirable side may -- entirely unconsciously on your part -- weaken your wish for the good. In addition, that aspect that stands in the way of letting go of the ego is, when fully exposed and understood, always something that impairs your integrity and that deforms your character structure. Hence your deep conscience feels undeserving of all the good and therefore cringes away from it. That defect makes the personality unable to cope with the good, even if it believed in its existence.

Only the total self can relate to and unite with the total good. If you wish, then you can test this by trying this experience right now. Take any of the problems that you are working on, be it an outer problem in your outer experience, something that you wish changed, or be it an inner condition in your inner personality, something that you wish to overcome. Meditate, extend yourself, and reach for the total goal. Claim this total goal. How often does it happen that you feel that it is impossible to do so? Test it right now. Although you really would want to, still you feel that it is impossible. There is some wall in you that does not let you get through.This wall must never, under any circumstances, be either disregarded or glossed over. You must never use the pressure of your will to overcome the No of this wall. This will remove you further from your inner self, from your real self and hence from the reality of life, in which all good is available. Instead, you first must question the significance of the wall and then translate it into coherent meaning. Whether it is doubt in the possibility of having it, or the feeling of wrongness about getting it, or the feeling of not deserving it, or the fear of the demands of life when you do have it, whatever the answer is, this is still not the final answer. Why do these misgivings come up? You must probe further. This reservation within yourself must be linked with a character defect that you have not really faced, and that you do not wish to face because you do not want to abandon it.

Character transformation is an absolute necessity in order to be able to shed the ego identification. When I say "shed," I do not mean this in the sense of giving it up. I mean that the ego can be used as a tool first in finding the inner being and then allow the real self to integrate with it. This should be clearly understood. This is possible only when certain character defects have either been transformed or when the person is truly willing to do so, and therefore is on the way -- in all sincerity and without subterfuge. It must be a total commitment. There must be no pretense and no play-acting. When this is a total response to life, then the life stream will become discernible, and then its wise guidance and its meaningfulness will become a reality in your life.

For the longest time we concentrated on finding error, misconception, and defects, all of which are interdependent. We were always careful not to judge jurself or to moralize with yourself, for such self-moralizing is a hindrance. The time has now come when the difference between moralizing and the sincere desire to transform yourself should be clearly recognized, for I believe that most of you are now in a position to understand this difference with your heart. And this understanding is what really counts.

Judging, moralizing, and perfectionism occur when the values are based on outer standards. Their aim is to please others, to conform with outer standards, to want to impress others. Moralizing always tends to make known to others how right, how good, or how superior the self is. It always needs to prove something. To whatever extent the moralizing quality exists, it exists on the basis of appearance only, and not because the individual is really concerned with the issue as such. Consideration for the feelings and the rights of others or for the liberation of the real self of others or of the real self of the person in question is usually superficial. Deep inside this is not the motive. The motive is appearance, it is proving something.

The genuine desire for the transformation of character defects is not in the least concerned with outer appearance and with what others think. It is exclusively concerned with the transformation itself, regardless of whether others see it and admire it or not. The false, damaging, tortured, and hindering moralizing and self-accusation always harbor a deep inner insistence not to change. Hence moralizing is a tortured inner movement. The recognition of the fault involved is unbearably painful only because the person refuses to give it up. Since moralizing refuses to give up a negative trend, it only brings more negativity in its wake, notwithstanding its appearance, which seems to convey honesty in seeing the fault and high standards of morality, because one is seemingly so unhappy about its presence.

The genuine desire to transform one's defects is never burdened by the unpleasant admission of a defect, no matter what it may be, just because it is a genuine desire to transform. In this desire there is love -- love for the universe -- expressed by the willingness to contribute to one's very being. This lightens the heart, even if one may not be capable of an immediate transformation because certain missing links have yet to be understood. Let this be a yardstick to you in the continuation of your pathwork. When a distortion cuts deeply into your soul and therefore makes you hopeless about yourself and the ability to transform the defect, then know that on a deeper level of your being you do not wish to give up this trend. Then set out to find out why not.

When your personality is geared to a positive soul movement, then you will feel the effect: there will be no obstruction to the transformation of a defect in the character, and consequently no obstruction to the unlimited abundance of good that is available in the universe for every single individual. Try to perform this inner movement of letting yourself stream out in complete affirmation, instead of the old negation. When this inner movement can be made -- in other words, when you move toward the world with a relaxed inner attitude of being equally ready to give AND to receive -- then transformation will not seem hazarduous. It will seem a wonderful venture. Therefore, when you find yourself stuck in pursuing your desire to reach the undifferentiated, unlimited good of the creative power available in the universe within yourself, then find out what it is -- not only where you are negative in the expression of your desires but also where you are connected with the persisting negativity. There is surely a character defect here that is equally difficult to give up. For as long as the corresponding character defect is not seen, then the negativity must remain. This negativity excludes unfoldment, it excludes self-expression, it excludes fulfillment, it excludes the creative powers within yourself. This could be a key for many of you.

For the longest time we had to be primarily concerned with uncovering the defects and the illusions. In other words, the fact that you are negative, the fact that you are destructive, and therefore that you deny, that you negate. This was of great importance. I do not say that all of you have succeeded completely in this. But many of you have begun to succeed considerably in this. Now a second major phase can be envisaged. It is the phase in which you practice extending yourself into the universe. Where you succeed because you are inwardly free, there you will see new manifestations in your life as never before. But where you still feel yourself blocked, where you are unable to believe it, and therefore are unable to follow through, there you will find even more deeply-rooted aspects in yourself that you could not bring out before and that you will now recognize as being deformations of your character structure. But now without the past danger of closing the door through your damaging moralizing attitude. Then this will set the stage for the decision to transform, which can be tested as to its inner sincerity by your meditation on the subject. How deeply do you want the transformation of this or that defect? Or where and why do you refuse to transform these defects? The moment you are truly willing to transform, then in that moment the door will no longer be closed. You will feel it open into the unlimited universe. Then you will be able to extend yourself into it and, consequently, you will feel both worthy and capable of receiving from it. Then no good needs to have a shadowy side.

That is also the time when you will know the real values and you will do away with all the false morality, based on any consideration other than the unfoldment of the real self. The more you are truly willing to transform your defects, the less necessary do the outer, superimposed values become, which in reality are often senseless, especially from the point of view of life's call, which requires your total commitment as your response.

Why is man so afraid of this total commitment to life, so afraid of relinquishing ego identification, so afraid of the extension of positive manifestations that enrich him? Why does man resist the good and battle to maintain the life of painful struggle and of insoluble conflict? Why does he fear the good that liberates him? And why does he put all his faith and all his stake into the narrow, confined, confining, imprisoning ego aspects of the little outer self and of the little outer values? Why is that? There are several ways to answer these questions, depending on the angle. Let us choose the following approach to these questions.

When man doubts a larger reality, and therefore does not take a chance on it, then he is in a world of duality. In this world of duality the following conflict exists: "If I am unselfish, then I must suffer. But I do not want to suffer. But if I am selfish, then I will be rejected, I will be despised, I will not be loved, I will be left all alone. And that is suffering, too." In this struggle man goes back and forth and he seeks a solution. The more he believes the truth of these two alternatives to be inevitable, the more he is bound to experience life accordingly. He does not dare to be unselfish; he cannot wholly want to be unselfish, since it means giving up personal fulfillment and happiness. Nor can he fully commit himself to a life of selfishness -- partly due to the ever-present existence of his real self, and partly because he fears the world's opinion. This is the tragedy of the uselessness and the senselessness of this struggle. He cannot extricate himself from its meshes as long as he identifies with -- and therefore he entrusts himself to -- the values, the rules, and the concepts of ego logic. When he truly wants to transform himself, then he must want to give up both the selfishness and the desire to cheat life, to cheat himself, and to cheat others -- in whatever form. But he cannot risk that when it spells the personal sacrifice of all that he wants. The most painful state is a state of indecision. This holds true on all levels. And this is man's fate as long as he has not transcended the ego level of reality. Since he cannot find the reconciliation between fulfillment and unselfishness, he must remain undecided. In other words, he must continue to vacillate, and therefore to be in two different camps at once. If man were capable of committing himself totally to a life of selfishness, then he would soon come out of it because he would recognize that it leads nowhere, that it does not lead to the salvation that he -- halfheartedly at best -- seeks on both sides.

You are all in this struggle, every one of you. Every one of your problems is an expression and a direct outcome of this duality. Look at your problems, go deeply enough into them, and you will see that this is so. You fear the impulses of the larger self, of the wider, of the wiser self. You cannot wholeheartedly want to commit yourself to it as long as you believe that a disadvantage must result from this.

The fact that you can be capable of first reaching toward and then receiving the good of the universe only when your defects are in the process of being overcome may, at a superficial glance, appear like the concept of reward and punishment. This concept is a misunderstanding and a distortion of the process that I just explained. Reward and punishment suppose an outer authority who hands out the deserved effect of the individual's actions and attitudes. Either the reward or the punishment is often supposed to take place only in a hereafter. What I explain here is a mechanism that takes place within the personality itself. The innermost self senses the incongruity of reaching for the best when refusing to give the best. When one is not willing to give one's best, then obtaining the best is a burden that one fears. Conversely, giving the best is impossible when one associates it with sacrifice and with a disadvantage to the self. The existence of a belief in reward and punishment covers up the deep despair that results from the false conclusion, the image that says: "unselfishness brings deprivation." As a result of this image, one is forced to hold back one's total desire to love and to give. The concept of reward and punishment, in whatever form it may exist, is a compensations for the unbearable reality that is perceived in duality.

When the real self is activated, then this conflict no longer exists. It is possible to activate the real self in this particular respect when this particular conflict in you is brought out of hiding. In the reality of the inner center this split no longer exists. You will find that it is equally possible to extend yourself wholeheartedly, to give of yourself, to love, to feel, to be unselfish, to be humble, to relinquish the egocentricity of the frightened child, to have the integrity of allowing others to be free no matter what this means for you, and at the same time not to be a loser. Soon the feeling of not necessarily having to be a loser will change into a conviction that being a winner is possible. First, that being a winner is possible, later that it is inextricably connected with the decency of the self. This will be so because you are free enough to want both. When the transformation of your defects is taken on by you, then you will like yourself sufficiently to open yourself to all the good that is available. When you begin to succeed in this transformation, then you will be strong enough to withstand happiness. You can claim the best when you are in the process of transforming that which makes you dislike yourself, whether or not you are aware of this self-dislike. In other words, whether or not you are still in the state of projecting your self-hate onto others. Then you will realize the truth of absolute reality and of your real self: that there is no limitation to expansion. Through this unfoldment, your intuition will become strong and reliable. Then you will both hear and heed the demand of your personal life stream, and therefore you will go with it. You will have the courage to go with it, whether or not it seems to conform with outer expectations, with outer rules, and with outer values. When you are determined to follow the inner values, then the outer values will cease to be important, either in your own mind or in the outer manifestations of your life. That is, you will no longer fear when your personal course of life does not coincide with the conventions. You will not fear this deviation. Soon your outer life will follow suit, and no friction will accrue. The world will fall in with you.

There are two important keys for you in this lecture, which may be the very point you seek in order to come out of your momentary bottleneck. I recapitulate them briefly:

1. What is your aim in life? What is your aim on this path? How far do you wish to go? Do you want only to remove a few symptoms? Or do you wish total self-realization. That is, the activation of an inner center in which all good and the salvation from anxiety, from insecurity, and from confusion exist? If so, then are you truly willing to pay the necessary price of perseverance and of total commitment? The total commitment brings out the total possibility that you contain. Then the unlimited potentials of your innermost being will enable you to realize unlimited good.

2. First find the exact point where your positive wishes are blocked -- in other words, where you feel that you cannot get through. Then question yourself as to what particular character defect does not permit you to abandon a self-destructive, self-denying attitude. State clearly that you wish to find it. Once you see it, then there is still time to decide whether or not you want to give it up. If you do not, then find out why. That concept is behind the insistence on holding on to something that violates your integrity and your decency, that holds back the best that you have to offer and the best that you can be. This must impair your self-respect. It may not be a crass outer manifestation. In other words, it may be a hidden little deviation that does not seem to harm anyone, but which always does, whether or not you are aware of it.

The next time I shall answer questions. I hope that many of you will ask about your personal problems, where you feel stuck and therefore need help. This is always helpful for all who are present, not only for the one who asks.

This coming work year will be even more fruitful than the past year, which was truly unprecendented among the majority of my friends. This progress, which is vividly experienced by quite a few of you, is in exact proportion to your willingness and to your openness. There is no mystery about what brings this progress, for this path must work when this willingness and this openness exist. And those of you who are not satisfied with your progress, question yourself deeply and sincerely: Where have you held back? Where did you not want to go all the way? Where have you lost the clarity of the aim? Where have you disconnected the aim from where you are personally at this moment because you do not want to expose yourself? Therefore you ignore seeing that you do hold back in fear and shame, which are such unnecessary burdens and with which you barricade the doors to liberation. Those of you who have progressed, and who therefore sense the excitement of a new life to come, have much more to look forward to, for now you will fortify the powers forevermore. You will be able first to activate them more and more, and then to enlist them in order to remove the obstacles of your remaining illusions and to orient yourself to that within yourself which alone is eternal, and which is never in conflict and which is never tortured. You will learn to experience it as a living reality.

Be blessed, receive the strength and the love that stream forth. Be in peace. Be in God.

September 9, 1966