Connection Between The Ego And The Universal Power

By The Pathwork Guide

Greetings, my dearest friends. May this lecture give you renewed insight and strength so that your attempts to find yourself, to find your position, to find your situation in this life, to find where you belong, to find what you are, to find who you are, and to find how to fulfill yourself become a little easier. May you find a new shaft of light through these words. It will be so if you truly open up to new aspects of the same ideas that you may have heard before, but which as yet have not become a personally experienced truth for you.

In the last analysis, the meaningfulness and the fulfillment of one's life depend entirely on the relationship between man's ego and the universal life principle -- the real self, as we also call it. If this relationship is balanced, then everything falls into place. All these lectures deal with this topic, in one way or another, and I always try to discuss it in different ways. This is necessary in order to finally experience the truth of these words.

Let us try to define what the universal life principle is and how it manifests in man. The universal life principle is life itself. It is eternal consciousness in its deepeest and highest sense. It is eternally moving. It is pleasure supreme. Since it is life, then it cannot die. It is the essence of all that breathes, of all that moves, of all that vibrates. It knows all. It is that which creates unceasingly. It perpetuates itself because it cannot be untrue to its own nature.

Every individual consciousness is the universal consciousness. It would not be correct to state that it is a part of it, for a part implies that it is only a little of it, a fragment of a whole. Where consciousness exists, then it is all of the original consciousness. This original consciousness, the creative life principle, individualizes itself in varied forms. When individualization surpasses a certain point and progresses beyond the state of knowing its connection with its origin, then a disconnection comes into existence. Thus a consciousness continues to contain all the possibilties of the universal consciousness, but it is oblivious of its own nature, of its own laws, and of its own potentials. This is the state of the human consciousness.

When man begins to become aware of the life principle's ever present nature, he then discovers that it has always been there but that he has not noticed it because he was under the illusion of his separate existence. Therefore, it is not entirely accurate to state that it manifests. It would be more correct to say that man begins to notice it. He may notice its ever present power either as autonomous consciousness or as energy. The separated ego personality possesses both, but the ego intelligence is inferior by far to the universal intelligence that man potentially is, whether or not he realizes it and utilizes it. The same applies to the energy. We will come back to this a little later.

These two aspects of universal life are not two separate factors, they are a oneness. But some people tend to be more open and receptive to one of these basic aspects, as it is perceivable to man, while they are either more prejudiced or more ignorant in regard to the other. With other people it may be just the opposite. Both must be experienced when the self realizes itself.

One of the universal principle's basic characteristics -- whether in its aspect of autonomous intelligence or as energy -- is that it is spontaneous. It cannot manifest in any other way but spontaneously. It cannot possibly reveal itself as a result of a direct laborious process, derived at in a cramped and over-concentrated state. Therefore, its manifestation is always an indirect result. It occurs when it is least expected. By indirect I mean that man must, of course, make efforts. He must overcome resistance in order to face himself in truth, to admit his problems, to admit his shortcomings, and to shed his illusions. This does require a great deal of effort. He must use effort to summon all the strength and all the courage that he can possibly muster at all times. But the effort must be expended for the sake of seeing the truth about oneself, or for the sake of giving up a specific illusion, or for the sake of overcoming a barrier to wanting to be constructive rather than destructive, or for the sake of seeing all there is to see in oneself -- and not for the sake of an as yet theoretical process called self-realization that promises good feelings. If the latter is arduously forced and looked for, then it cannot come. It comes as a byproduct, as it were, although it is all that man can ever wish to attain.

Each step toward seeing the truth in the self -- without any subterfuges and without self-deception -- and each step toward a genuine desire for a constructive participation in the creative process of life frees the self. Thus the spontaneous processes begin to manifest. They are never volitional. Hence, the greater the fear of the unknown, the fear of letting go, the fear of the unvolitional processes in one's own body organization, then the less is it possible to experience the spontaneous manifestations of the life principle in the self. Such spontaneous manifestations may be inspirations of a hitherto unimaginable wisdom that help one either to solve one's personal problems or to cultivate one's creative talents. Or the life principle may manifest in a new way of experiencing and tasting life. It may give a new flavor to all that one does and to all that one sees. It is as though an awareness or a consciousness had awakened within -- a being that thinks, that feels, and that experiences in an entirely new and vibrant way. It is always safe. It always holds out justified hope, one that never disappoints. There is never any fear in this new life experience. But it cannot happen when it is pushed and forced. It happens exactly to the degree that the unvolitional processes are no longer feared.

Man finds himself in the ironic position of deeply yearning for the manifestation of these unvolitional processes on the one hand, and of fearing them -- and therefore battling against them -- on the other hand. This is a terrible and tragic conflict. It can be resolved only by giving up the fear. In other words, the yearning can be fulfilled only when the fear is given up.

In the final analysis, all the psychological problems come from this much deeper existential conflict, one which goes far beyond the individual neuroses and the personal difficulties that a child experiences, and which later cause inner conflicts and misconceptions. All of life tends to resolve this basic existential conflict. For this to happen the individual neurotic conflicts must first be found, then understood, and thus resolved. The self must learn to first see and then accept reality in himself, in others, and in life. Honesty must prevail and the little cheating processes must stop. All the character defects must be removed. And when I say removed, I mean that the individual must fully acknowledge them and observe them objectively, without plunging into despair, and then into a renewed denial of those same defects. In other words, it is not a question of first having to have removed the defects so that then something else can happen. It is a question of being able to quietly see oneself in the defect. Only then is a person able to perceive the existential conflict between the ego and the universal consciousness. This spontaneously manifesting universal consciousness has nothing to do with religious precepts of a removed deity, or of a life beyond this physical life. These are misinterpretations that have come into human existence as a result of sensing the truth of this immediately available universal life principle. When a person senses it and gropingly tries to convey this experience to those who are still in the conflict of the ego with the creative life principle, then such misinterpretations must follow, as well as spiritual processes alienating man from the immediate self and from practical daily life.

A person who is frightened of these alienating processes must remove them as a vague theory in order to find a compromise between his yearning -- the deep sense of the present possibilities available to him -- on the one hand and his fear of them on the other. The compromise is every form of organized religion that removes God from the self and from daily life; that splits man into a spiritual being and into a physical being; that removes total fulfillment from the Now and into a life after death. All such views and all such approaches to life are nothing but compromises between what one senses could be and what one fears. This fear goes beyond the individual, personal neurotic fears that come into a person's inner life as a result of misconceptions and personally experienced traumas which you must make utterly conscious in order to dethrone them from the power which they have over you. What is this basic fear of letting go of the outer ego so as to let the universal processes unfold and carry you? This fear is the result of the misunderstanding that giving up the ego means giving up existence. In order to get a little better understanding of this problem, let us consider some of the aspects of the process by which the ego formed itself out of universal life.

Individualization is an integral aspect of this universal life power. Since life is always moving, always reaching out, always expanding and contracting, always finding new areas of experience, always branching out into new boundaries, then creative life itself cannot be different. Thus it finds forever new forms so as to experience itself. As I said before, when individualization separates itself further and further in its consciousness from its original source -- in other words, when it forgets its essence and therefore becomes oblivious of its principles and its laws -- then it seems a totally separate entity. Therefore, it is understandable that it can identify itself only as a separate entity. In other words, it can associate individual existence only with separate existence. Thus, giving up its ego must appear to it as the annihilation of its unique individuality.

This is the position of the human being in its present form. It lives under the illusion of being a separate existence and under the further illusion that only as a separate existence can life, the sense of "I am," be found. This illusion has brought death into the human realm, for death is nothing but this illusion being carried to its final absurdity.

The realization of the illusory character of separate ego existence is an extremely important step in the evolution of mankind. Any kind of self-realization brings this into clear focus. To the extent that you, as individuals, look at the immediately available truth of yourselves -- at all these apparently insignificant patterns and attitudes that seem to have nothing to do with such metaphysical concepts as I discuss here and yet are directly connected with them -- to that degree you will find out the truth, namely that you and the creative life principle are one. Then you will know that everything I say here is not a theoretical teaching that you can, at best, consider with your intellect. It is realizable and ascertainable right here and right now. The more you look at yourself in truth and you shed the illusions about yourself, the more you will come to realize the truth that individual existence is not surrendered when the unvolitional processes of the creative life principle are allowed to take over and integrate with the ego functions.

Some of you have begun to experience the immediacy of this greater life in you more and more frequently. You experience a renewal of energy. Thus you find yourselves in the apparently paradoxical position of experiencing that the more you give of your energy, the more renewed energy is generated within you. For that is the law of the universal life principle. In other words, the law of life. The separated state finds itself in the dualistic way of life, in which it seems logical that the more one gives, the less one has, and therefore that the more depleted one becomes. This is the result of the illusion that the outer ego is all there is to individuality. This is the root of the fear to let go of all tight ego defenses.

By the same token, he who begins to experience these powers and energies also begins to notice -- at first only sporadically but then more and more steadily -- the influx of an inspirational intelligence that seems to be much vaster than anything he knows in his outer intellect. Yet it is essentially his best self. At first it seems to be a foreign power, but it is not. It only seems so because these channels have been clogged up because the individual ignores their existence, because he does not even consider them as a possibility, because of his personal little lies, and because of his self-deceptions. This vaster intelligence manifests as inspiration, as guidance, and as a new form of intuition that comes not in a vague feeling, but in concise words, in definite knowledge, graspable and translatable into daily living.

The discovery of this new life reconciles the apparent opposites of being a unique individual and of being at one with all others. In other words, of being an integral part of a Whole. Now these are no longer irreconcilable opposites but interdependent facts. All such opposites -- all the apparently mutually exclusive alternatives that present so much heartache to man -- begin to fall into place when the ego connects with universal life. When I speak of letting go of the ego, I do not mean its annihilation, or even disregarding its importance, or letting it fall by the wayside. I mean that that which has formed itself as a separated part of the universal life -- which is to be found deep within the self and which is immediately accessible if so desired -- now connects itself back to its origin. When the ego becomes strong enough to take the risk to trust other faculties besides its limited conscious ones, then it will find a new -- hitherto undreamed of -- security. The fear of this step is governed by the idea that the ego will be crushed, that it will fall into nothingness and therefore cease to exist. This fear is alleviated by holding on to unmoving, petrified psychic substances. The unmoving seems safe, whereas the moving seems perilous. This is why life is feared, for life is eternally moving. When the moving is found to be safe because it carries you, then you have found the only real security there is. All other security -- trusting and leaning on the static -- is illusory and therefore breeds forever more fear.

The principle is the same as that which moves the planets, which do not fall into space. At the core of the human predicament there always lies this feeling: "If I do not hold on to myself, then I endanger myself." Many of my friends have become aware of it. Once you are conscious of it, then you possess an important key, for then you can consider the possibility of it being an error. There is nothing to fear, you cannot be crushed, you cannot be annihilated. You can only be carried, just as the planets are carried in space.

The state of consciousness that mankind is in at present creates the world it lives in, including the physical laws. Man is used to putting effect first and cause later. This is a result of his dualistic state of mind, which is unable to see the whole of the picture, but always thinks in a split manner. Man is not put into this sphere, but this sphere, with all that it contains, is an expression of his overall state of mind, the sum total of it. One of the physical laws expressing this state of consciousness is the law of gravity. It is a uniquely special law, pertaining to the dualistic sphere of consciousness. The law of gravity parallels, or expresses on the physical level, the emotional reaction and the apprehension of falling and then of being crushed when the ego is being given up as the sole form of individual existence. Those spheres of consciousness that have transcended the dualism of this plane have different physical laws, corresponding to their own overall consciousness. Human science, even from the merely materialistic point of view, shows this to be so. The science of space proves this. In outer space there is no gravity. Yours is not the one and only reality. This, as well as many such other analogies, is more than a symbol. They are signs that could widen man's horizon in first thinking of and then inwardly experiencing new boundaries of reality, thus diminishing his fear and his illusion of being an isolated ego existence.

How to apply this to where most of you are in your search for your real self? This connects with looking at the various layers of consciousness. The more you succeed in making hitherto unconscious material conscious -- and consequently re-orienting the faculty reflexes of previously unconscious material -- the closer you come to the reality of the universal life principle in you. Then the universal life principle becomes free to disclose itself to you. Therefore, you become free from your fears, from your shames, and from your prejudices, so that now you can open yourself up to its possibilities. Anyone can corroborate that the more courage is summoned to look at the truth of oneself -- and nothing but the truth -- the easier it becomes to connect with a vaster, safer, more blissful life within. The more connected you become with something that removes all uncertainty and all conflict, the more you will feel a security and an ability to function which you never knew could exist in you. These are functions of power, of energy, and of intelligence that resolve all conflicts and that furnish the solutions of problems that hitherto had appeared unsolvable. All the ifs and all the buts in daily practical living begin to be removed. But not through magical means, but through your increasing capacity to cope with everything that happens to you as an integral part of and an outcome of yourself. Moreover, you develop an increased ability to experience pleasure, as you are meant to do. To the extent that man has disconnected himself, to that extent he must yearn for this potential way of living.

In connection with what I have just said, there exists a peculiar phenomen I want to tell you about. A few years ago I used the following terms to describe certain overall fundamental states of the human personality. The higher self means what I discussed here, the real potentials in everyone, the fact of the universal life in every human being; the lower self means all man's deceits, all his character defects, all the illusions, all the pretenses, all his destructiveness, and the way in which he impairs his integrity -- all in secret, always hoping it does not count when he plays his little games that no one knows, not even his outer consciousness. Then I discussed a third factor, which I first called the mask self and later the idealized self. This is the pretense to be what one wants to be, or what one feels one ought to be in order to be liked and approved of.

We have worked together for years in order to come face to face with many aspects in this triad. At one time I spoke of the frequent phenomenon that man is often ashamed of his higher self. In other words, ashamed of the best in himself. I then discussed that for many personality types it seems shameful, or embarrassing, or humiliating, to display one's best. That is, one's most loving and one's most generous impulses. For these character types it seems easier to show their worst. Somehow it seems less embarrassing.

Now I can speak a little more about this topic, on a deeper and more subtle level. For this is a very important point, immediately connected with the fear of and the resistance to allowing the real self out into the open. What I discussed then merely described a certain phenomenon of certain personality types on a relatively superficial level. Although this phenomenon is related to and is influenced by this other deeper and more subtle phenomenon that I want to discuss now, it is not exactly the same, for the specific personality type I discussed then feels this primarily with good qualities, such as with giving and with loving. It appears to him as though he gives in to society's demands and that he thereby loses the integrity of his individuality. He fears this submission and his dependency on the good opinion of others, and therefore he feels ashamed of any genuine impulse to please others. Therefore, he feels more himself when he is hostile, aggressive, and cruel.

All human beings, regardless of their outer personality type, have a similar reaction to their real self, to the reality which they are at this moment. This does not apply merely to their actual and genuine goodness, to their love, and to their generosity, but also to all other feelings and to all other ways of being. This is a strange shame. It is a feeling of embarrassment and of exposure in regard to the way one really is. It is as though one were to expose oneself nakedly. This experience can be registered by everyone. However, it is not the shame of one's deceits, of one's dishonesties, of one's destructiveness, nor of one being compliant. It exists on an entirely different level. In other words, it is a shame of a different quality. The only way I can describe it is that what one really is feels shamefully naked -- regardless of whether it is good or bad. This is extremely important to comprehend for it explains how the artificial levels are created. These artificial levels are not exclusively a result of misconceptions in the usual sense. When the naked core of oneself as one is now is exposed, then the personality is less frightened of annihilation or of danger, but is more ashamed. Whereas the element of danger comes in when the exclusive ego functioning is given up for the sake of non-volitional processes, the shame comes in when it applies to being what one is, as one is now.

Because of this feeling, man pretends. It is a different kind of pretense. It is not the pretense that covers up his lack of integrity, his destructiveness, and his cruelty. This kind of pretense is deeper, it is more subtle. Man may pretend the same things that he actually feels. He may really feel love, but to show this real love feels naked, so he creates a false love. He may really feel anger, but this real anger feels naked, so he creates false anger. He may really feel sadness, but he feels mortified to acknowledge this sadness, even to himself, so he creates false sadness, which he can then easily display to others. He may really experience pleasure, but this too is humiliating to expose. So he creates false pleasure. You will now understand the connecting link between this lecture and the one before, when I spoke of the artificial intensification and the dramatization of emotions. This applies even to such elements as confusion and puzzlement. The real self seems naked and exposed, so he creates a false one, often in the same area. Emotions are subtly falsified. This falsification appears like a protective garment that no one but himself -- in his unconscious self -- knows of. But this protective garment anesthetizes him to the vibrancy and to the buoyancy of life. All such limitations build a screen between him and his life center. This, too, separates him from reality, for it is the reality of his being that he cannot stand and that he therefore feels compelled to imitate, to falsify, thereby counterfeiting his very existence. The moving life stream seems dangerous, not only as far as his safety is concerned, but also as far as his pride and his dignity are concerned. But all this is a stark and tragic illusion. Just as man can find true safety only when he unites with the source of all life in him, so he can find his true dignity only when he overcomes the shame to be real -- whatever this may mean at the moment. Sometimes the fear of annihilation seems a lesser evil than the strange sense of shame and exposure of one's real being. To first recognize and then to not push away this shame as inconsequential is a tremendous step, my friends. It is the key to the numbness of feelings that causes despair and frustration. This is not translatable into rational language because there is nothing you can possibly say that distinguishes the real from the false in mere words. The words are the same for the real and for the false. Only the flavor of the experience and the quality of being are different. The imitation feelings are often subtle. They are so deeply ingrained -- in other words, they have become so much second nature -- that it takes quite a bit of deeply sentitive letting go and letting yourself be, and letting yourself feel -- and wanting to be discerning in what you discover -- before you become acutely aware of the apparent exposure and nakedness that your real feelings cause in you. The subtle imitation does not reproduce merely opposite feelings from those you register, but also, and just as frequently, the identical ones. Then the next step is the intensification, which serves as a form of substitute and as a measure to make the false appear real.

Everyone who first comes in contact with the universal life center that he is can only do so when he is real -- whatever this may mean for him now. Hence, before this experience is possible, he encounters the phenomenon of the shame and the nakedness. When meeting this momentary real self, it is far from perfect. This is not a dramatic experience, yet it is a crucial point. For what you are now contains all the seeds, all the potentials, and all the material that you can ever need in order to live deeply and vibrantly. That which you are now is already this universal life power. Every conceivable power and every possibility is contained in it. Yet you are what you are now. What you are now is not shameful because of your faults, it is much more shameful -- at least, it seems to you -- in its immediate existential reality that seems so naked. When you have the courage to be what you are, then a new approach to your inner life can begin. Then all the pretenses will fall by the wayside. This applies both to the obvious, noticeable, and crude pretenses which usually can be seen by all but oneself, and to the subtle pretenses I just described. They stand between the ego and the universal self. They form a thick but firm screen that blocks out the life-giving force. They are responsible for your alienation from the universal principle. They create the apparently dangerous and seemingly unbridgeable chasm between the ego and the universal power. They are responsible for this illusory fear and for this shame. This shame is just as basic as all the fears which are responsible for the misconceptions and the splitting up of the individuality. It creates its own fears and it comes from some fears, but it is not exactly the same as the fears themselves.

The shame of one's own nakedness in regard to one's self as it is now is the deep symbolism of the story of Adam and Eve. The nakedness of reality is paradise. For when the nakedness is no longer denied, then a new blissful existence can begin -- right here and right now, not in another life or in the beyond. But it takes some acclimatizing after one has become aware of the shame. It takes a path within the Path in order to become more and more conscious of the subtleties involved here, and of the habit one is steeped in of covering up one's inner nakedness. It is so easy to revert back to it out of long-standing habit! But once you pay attention to it and you elicit the powers available to you, so that you will notice your shame and your hiding and you learn to uncover yourself, then you will finally step out of your protective shell and become more real. You will be the naked you, as you are now -- not any better than you are, not any worse than you are, and also not any different from the way you are. So you will stop the imitation, the counterfeit feelings and ways of being, and you will venture out into the world the way you happen to be.

Are there any questions in connection with this lecture?

QUESTION: How can you determine whether your feelings are real or put on?

ANSWER: The only way you can determine that is yourself, by probing deeply. First of all, you have to consider the possibility that they may be put on -- and you must not be frightened of this possibility. For man is terrified of the thought that his feelings are fake. He fears that if these feelings are not real, then he has no feelings. He fears his emptiness. This fear is devastating. It exerts a subtle pressure to go on pretending. There is always a point inside where you say: "No, I do not want to feel." Whether this stems from childhood and personal traumatic experiences, or whether it connects with the deeper human problem, applying to all individuals, as discussed in this lecture, there must always be a determination not to feel. This determination not to feel is often totally unconscious. As a result, one is disconnected from it and therefore helpless about the result -- which is no feelings. The terror is infinitely greater when the conscious self, which desperately wants feelings, is ignorant of that side of the self which fears feelings. For the terror of being unable to feel cannot be comparared to any other. Therefore, it is of enormous help to realize that no one has no feelings per se and that these feelings cannot ever die permanently. Life and feelings are one. Therefore, where there is the one there must be the other, even if one is inactivated at the moment. Knowing this makes it possible to set out for the search within: "Where have I decided not to feel?" The moment you become acutely aware of your fear of feeling, then you will cease to fear that you have no feelings. Then it is possible to reactivate them with the help of reason -- through a realistic and rational evaluation of the circumstances.

I have given you a lot to think about. This is quite a bit of material, which you can use fruitfully in the continuation of your pathwork. The next time, in the question and answers session, we can discuss more personal problems, perhaps also in connection with this lecture.

*****

Be blessed, every one of you. May your endeavors to become real, to have the apparently necessary courage to be nakedly real, without any false covers, succeed. You cannot help but succeed if you really want to. Whoever does not move does not want to. Whoever does not grow does not want to grow. Whoever does not liberate himself does not want this liberation. It is important to know this and to find the inner voice that refuses to move, that refuses to grow, that refuses to liberate itself. May all your false layers fall off you because this is what you truly want and what you freely decide. Then you will discover the glory of living. Be in peace, be in God.

May 7, 1967