Infinite Possibilities Hindered By Emotional Dependency

By The Pathwork Guide

Greetings, my dearest friends. Once again, I shall try to help those of you who are on the path to move forward from where they may be stuck. Although each of you may have a different problem to encounter in himself at this moment, this lecture will converge into the one point that all of you now need in order to proceed without too much hindrance from within yourself, So, let us understand certain fundamental factors, as they exist in yourself and in the universe.

It has been said by all great spiritual teachings that creation is infinite in its possibilities of happiness and that man's potential to realize these infinite possibilities of happiness exists in the depths of his being. Almost all of you have heard these words. Some of you may believe them, at least in principle. Others may have their doubts about accepting them, even in theory. Let us now try to overcome some of the difficulties in this respect.

First of all, it is necessary to understand that no one creates anything new by himself. Nothing new ever comes into existence. This would be an impossibility. But it is possible to make manifest something that already exists. It is a fact that everything, absolutely everything, exists already. The word "everything" cannot convey the scope of this concept. When one speaks about the inifinity of God, about the infinity of Creation, this is part of the meaning. There is no state of being, no experience, no situation, no concept, no feeling, no object, no manifestation -- in whatever variety, or type, or degree -- that does not exist already. It exists as a potentiality, and already in that potential lies the finished product. I can see that this idea is not easy for man to embrace, for it is so contrary to the way of thinking, to the way of being, and to the way of experiencing on the level of consciousness he generally lives in. But the more you can deepen your thoughts on that subject, then the easier it will become to perceive, to sense, to grasp this truth.

Nothing is created anew, all exists already. It exists on another level of being, of experience, of consciousness. It can be found right now, immediately -- if and when specific obstructions are eliminated. First knowing and then understanding this principle of creation -- that all exists already and that man can make these existing possibilities manifest -- is one of the necessary prerequisites.

Before man can create new possibilities of unfoldment and entirely new ranges of experience in his personal life, it is necessary that he first learns to apply these laws of creation to his problem areas: to those aspects of his life where he is troubled, where he is limited, where he is handicapped, where he feels trapped. Healthy unfoldment follows the creation of a healthy personality. The learning and the comprehension of the laws of creation can take place only if one first applies them to the afflicted area of the personality.

Whatever possibility you can conceive of you can realize. Suppose you are in a conflicting situation from which you cannot see a way out. As long as you do not conceive of a way out, then you cannot realize the already-existing possibility. Or, if your concepts about the way out are either hazy or unrealistic, then so will be the temporary solutions that will appear as the only possibilities. This applies both to your life as a whole and to specific areas of your life. If you truly comprehend the fact that an infinite number of possibilities exists in any given situation, then you can find solutions where hitherto it was impossible to do so.

It is man's prerogative to make use of these laws of creation, and to use them in order to reach out for and then to unfold these infinite possibilities. In other words, to partake of life's offerings. If man's life seems so limited, then it is because he is convinced that his life must be limited. He cannot conceive of anything more than what he has experienced until now and of what he is experiencing at present. This is precisely the first handicap. Therefore, in order to expand your own possibilities of happiness, your mind must grasp this principle: You cannot bring to life what you cannot conceive. This sentence should be truly meditated on, for the understanding of it will open new doors. And you should also understand that there is a vast difference between conceiving of further possibilities of expansion, of happiness, on the one hand, and of daydreaming on the other. Wistful, resigned daydreaming that grabs the fantasy as a substitute for a drab reality is not at all what is meant here. Such daydreaming is really a hindrance to the proper conceiving of life's potentials. What I mean is a vigorous, active, dynamic reality concept of what is possible. When you know that something that you wish to bring about exists in principle, then you have made the first step toward its realization.

Therefore, I invite everyone of you to contemplate what you truly conceive of as possibilities for your life. If you examine yourself closely, then you will find that you conceive primarily of negative possibilities, which you naturally fear and therefore wish to avoid. In other words, you defend yourself against negative possibilities. You use the main part of your psychic energies in order to defend against negative possibilities.

Negative motivation does not necessarily mean a destructive intent. For that matter, a positive motivation, in this context, could mean a very destructive intent or aim. Negative motivation means the avoidance of a feared possibility. Upon the close examination of your mental and emotional processes, you will find that you are negatively motivated to a considerable extent. This is one of the first obstructions which encloses you in an imaginary and needless prison. This applies to all levels of your personality. It applies to the mental level, where you cannot envisage the infinite vistas of experience, of expansion, of stimulation, of all sorts of wondrous and happy possibilities that you have a prerogative to achieve in this life. It exists on the emotional level, where you do not allow the spontaneous and natural flow of your feelings. Instead, you fearfully, anxiously, and suspiciously hold back this spontaneous flow of what you really feel. And it exists physically, where you do not permit your body to experience the pleasure which it is destined to experience.

All these are limitations which you artificially and needlessly inflict upon yourself. The next hindrance and obstruction in connection with expanding your life and creating the best of all possible lives for yourself is a cluster of misconceptions which are widespread in the world. We have discussed them in the past and in various other connections. Briefly recapitulating, they are these: "It is not possible to be really happy. Man's life is very limited. Happiness, pleasure, ecstasy are frivolous, selfish aims which the truly spiritual person must abandon for his spiritual development, which must consist of sacrifice and of renunciation." We do not have to elucidate on these deeply lodged misconceptions, which often are to be found more in the unconscious mind than in the conscious mind. We have discussed this sufficiently in the past. But it is necessary that you discover the subtle way in which you abide by such concepts, no matter what you consciously believe. You may discover these subtle reactions by observing the reluctance which you feel against realizing a perfectly harmless and normal fulfillment, a genuine need, a truly constructive aim. You feel as though something in you were holding you back, as if it were paralyzing your efforts. Although there are often a number of other reasons for this reluctance as well -- some of which we shall discuss shortly -- it is also often true that you have simply accepted a negative idea that really makes no sense and that has no good purpose.

The fear of happiness, of pleasure, of wide expansion in one's life experiences is based on ignorance that such fulfillment could exist and on ignorance of the fact that you do possess all the powers, all the faculties and all the resources necessary to create and bring about what you wish. It is also based on the misconception that pleasure is wrong and on the misconception that it is selfish to want personal fulfillment. Finally, it is based on the fear of being annihilated and dissolved if one were to trust the flow of the universal forces and one went with them. Such trust necessitates letting go of the ego-will and the ego-forces and then surrendering to the beneficial forces of your deep nature.

Every single human being in this world harbors an attitude of fear and of weakness. This corner of the personality usually induces a very strong shame, so that it is kept secret, often even from the conscious mind. Many different devices are invented in order to hide this weak, dependent area in which one feels utterly helpless, dependent, unable to assert the self, unable to even protect one's own truth and one's own integrity. Here one is constantly compelled to sell out, to betray oneself in order to ward off disapproval, censure, rejection. The need for such acceptance by others is less shameful than the measures to which the personality goes in order to submit, to placate, to appease. We did discuss some of these aspects in the past, since they are psychologically so fundamental that we could not have gotten very far in our work unless considerable work had already been done in this respect. All the defense mechanisms that you have discovered, and perhaps to some extent begun to remove, are nothing but ways to either obtain this apparently vital acceptance from others or ways to hide this shameful submission -- or both.

In this lecture we shall go into this topic with a still closer scrutiny, especially from the point of view of realizing the possibilities of life. We are less concerned with the ways in which you hide this shameful area -- often by an apparently opposite attitude, such as indifference, hostility, compulsion, blind rebellion, over-aggressiveness, and so forth.

Few things give man as much pain and as much shame as this weak spot in himself, which makes him feel impotent and compelled to sell out. We already know that this area has remained a child. The child does not yet know that the whole of the personality has grown up, and that he therefore is no longer helpless and dependent. An infant or a young child truly is helpless and therefore dependent on the parents. But in this corner of your being that is still a child you either do not know or do not want to know that this is no longer true, that you are no longer helpless and dependent, that you are an adult.

To briefly recapitulate, the child is dependent on the parents for everything: for shelter, for food, for affection, for protection, and also for the necessary supply of pleasure. For man cannot live without pleasure. It is one of the most harmful errors to deny this truth. Body, soul, mind, and spirit wither without pleasure. As the adult is able to establish conditions by his own forces and resources to provide shelter, food, affection, and safety, so is he able to do the same about pleasure. In all these areas he must have contact, cooperation, and communication with others -- in varying degrees. He cannot provide any of these necessities for himself without interplay with other people. But this interplay, or interaction, is entirely different from the passive, weak, dependency of the small child. The thoroughly adult person uses his own best forces -- his intelligence, his intuition, his talents, his observation, his flexibility -- to get along with others both in giving and in taking. His sense of fairness makes him sufficiently pliable to give in. His sense of self makes him sufficiently assertive not to be stepped on and abused.

The fine balance in these forces of communication cannot be taught. It is an awareness that comes through personal growth. The child is incapable of this. He is rigidly one-sided in his insistence to receive, for this is his need. The same applies to pleasure. The child must have the parent's permission, as it were, to have pleasure. The adult must have his own permission to establish and utilize the source of all pleasure deep within himself. Through his own permission, he will have the force and the security to make meaningful contact with others. If he first needs the other person to approve before he can allow himself to experience pleasure, then he is still in the position of a child, or perhaps even of an infant. I repeat, this never implies that one can do without others. But the emphasis is shifted. The adult finds in himself an inexhaustible well of wonderful feelings. Insecurity and weakness are not possible when these feelings are activated.

When man is distorted in this respect -- and therefore part of his development is arrested -- then he waits for another person, a parental substitute, to make it possible for him to realize this deep source of his own rich feelings. He knows of them and therefore he yearns for them. But he does not know that he is no longer a child who is dependent on others for being allowed to feel them, for being able to first activate and then express his feelings. This is his tragedy, for he thus moves into a vicious circle. When a misconception is adhered to, then a vicious circle comes immediately into being, which paralyzes the pleasure forces, a good part of energy, and thus makes life dull and lusterless.

To deny the intense pleasure of being, the pleasure of the energy flow of man's body, of man's soul, and of man's spirit is to deny life. When a child suffers such a denial, then his psyche receives sort of a shock -- perhaps by the repeated absence of pleasure and the pain of his unfulfilled yearning. This shock prevents growth, so that the personality grows lopsidedly. In his conscious mind, man ignores the fact that in him there exists a crying, claiming, angry, and helpless child. He believes himself entirely grown. Yet on the unconscious level, where this child exists, he is unaware of the fact that he has grown up and that he therefore no longer needs the parental permission -- or, even more, the parent-substitute's permission -- for the source of pleasure and of life. In other words, he does not know that he is free to move toward his own pleasure, toward his own fulfillment, toward the realization of his own power to obtain whatever he wants and whatever he needs. This is one of the most fundamental splits in man's personality.

Let us now look a bit closer at this hidden corner, where man has remained a child. Let us see where his consciousness ignores this and where the child ignores the rights and the powers of the adult state. The particular vicious circle I mentioned before is this: not knowing that all exists already -- so that it can be (re)created as a manifestation in his life -- makes him dependent on an outside force, on another authority, for all his wants and for all his needs. In this distortion of facts, he waits for fulfillment from the wrong source. This keeps the need perpetually unfulfilled. The more unfulfilled it is, the more urgent the need becomes. The more urgent the need, the greater his dependence, his hope, and his attempt to please whomever is supposed to fill it. He becomes desperate because the more he tries, the less the need is fulfilled, as it must be in this unrealistic attempt. Consciously he knows nothing of this. He knows neither what forces drive him nor in what direction. He is desperate because in his urgency to have the need fulfilled, he betrays himself, he betrays his truth, he betrays his best. Both his frustrated striving and his self-betrayal create a forcing current. This forcing current may manifest in a very subtle way. It may not be overt at all. But the emotions are all cramped up with it. Therefore, it must inevitably affect others and have its lawful and appropriate consequences. Any forcing current is bound to make others resist and shrink back, even if what they are forced to do is for their benefit and their delight. Thus the vicious circle continues. The continued frustration -- believed to be caused by the mean refusal of the other to cooperate and to give -- brings rage, fury, and perhaps even vindictiveness, and also varying degrees of cruel impulses into the soul. This, in turn, weakens the personality even more, for guilt then comes up. The destructive feelings must be hidden so as not to antagonize the source of his life. The net of entanglement becomes tighter and tighter, until the individual is completely ensnarled in this trap of his own misconceptions, of his own distortions, and of his own illusions, with all the destructive emotions that follow suit. He finds himself in the preposterous position of craving for the love and the acceptance of a person whom he hates, and whom he then resents for having left him unfulfilled for so long. This one-sidedness -- this insistence to be loved by a person whom one deeply resents, and therefore wishes to punish -- increases guilt, for the ever wakeful presence of the real self flashes its reactions into a mind that is unable to first interpret and then sort out the messages that come out of the real self from the messages that come from the child inside.

The fact that this need is not fulfilled by the other also weakens man's conviction that he has a right to the pleasure that he desires so much. He vaguely suspects that he may be wrong to want this. Thus he begins to displace the original, natural need and the original desire. In other words, he conducts them into other channels, where they are "sublimated." More or less compulsive other needs come into existence. All the while he is torn between the force of the deeply hidden original need and the doubt that he has a right to it. The more he doubts, the more dependent he becomes for reconfirmation by an authority person -- a parent substitute, public opinion, or certain groups of people who represent the last word on truth.

The more the vicious circle goes on, the less pleasure and the more unpleasure exists in the psyche. Therefore, the more such a person must despair about life and doubt that fulfillment is possible at all. There comes a point when a person inwardly gives up.

There is not a single human being who does not harbor, in some way and to some degree, such a weak area within. In this secret corner he feels not only helpless and dependent, but deeply ashamed for the means he employs in order to placate the person who, at any given period, is supposed to fulfill the role of the authority and grant him what he needs in pleasure, in safety, and in self-respect.

The forcing current says: you must. It makes demands on others to be, to feel, and to do what the person needs and desires. This may not manifest outwardly at all. In fact, on the surface it may have the entirely opposite effect. Man's inability -- or at least his difficulty -- to healthily assert himself is a direct result of hiding the shameful and threatening forcing current. It is threatening because the person knows that if it shows openly, then it will evoke great censure, disapproval, and possibly even overt rejection.

I invite all of you to vigorously face this feared area in yourselves. Some of you have done so already, others are still struggling with it, and therefore have admitted its existence half-heartedly at best. Perhaps some of you may still have to face up to it. But all of you must tackle it if you wish to realize life's and your best potentials and if you wish to discover your infinite power to create infinite goodness in your life.

The stronger the must is secretly and inwardly thrown at others, the more does man inactivate his own power and therefore the more paralyzed and the more inactive he becomes in his body, in his soul, and in his mind. Where this inactivity exists, then he does not move into his own nucleus, where all realistic promise lies, where the potential for every kind of fulfillment and the potential for every kind of delight exists. He inadvertently makes himself hang on to others, which must elicit hate. Finding the treasure of one's nucleus, on the contrary, makes one free, and therefore contact with others becomes a delightful luxury that elicits only love.

By continually using inner, covert pressure on others -- because he believes himself dependent on them -- man diminishes his available energy supply. If energy is used in its natural, correct, meaningful way, then it never exhausts itself. There are innumerable means that man uses in order to send forth this forcing current. It may vary from every degree of compliance, of passive resistance, of spite, of withdrawal, of the refusal to cooperate, of forceful outer aggression, of the attempt to persuade through false strength, of assuming for oneself a kind of authority role, of intimidation, and so forth. Deep down they all mean one thing: "You must love me and you must give me what I need." The more he is blindly involved in this way of being, the more does man weaken himself, and the further does he alienate himself from the center of his inner life, where all is found that he needs and all that he can ever want.

In order to re-orient and to re-condition the soul forces into health and into their true nature, the following must happen: man must let go of the particular person or persons of whom he expects his life fulfillment and whom he, simultaneously, resents for this fact. In other words, he must recognize the fact that he extends expectations to others and makes demands on others that no one but himself can fulfill for himself. The real love that you all need, and therefore that you long for, can come only when your soul is fearless and only when you know that the material to love with -- the strength of your feelings, with which you can give and receive -- is found within you. For as long as you hang on to another in the ways of a child, denying the adult that you are, then you enslave yourself in the true sense of the word. The more you do this, the less can you either receive or give; and the fewer real feelings of any sort, feelings about any vital experience, can find a place within you. For fear and anger take up most of the room in your psyche. This is why it is so essential to let out these negative emotions, in the way you learn to do on this path, where no one is harmed. Letting them out makes room for the good feelings. But many of you are still locked and paralyzed in this respect. It is the last thing you want to do. Even if you admit such negative emotions in principle, you still prefer to act them out. That is, rather than to express them and to take the responsibility for them onto yourself. You still claim a false perfection -- which you do not really believe to exist in yourself any longer -- in order to favorably dispose others toward you. You also cling to the negative emotions for dear life because you fear the positive feelings.

The less you are responsible for yourself in the deepest possible sense -- concerning both the negative feelings you still possess and your possibility to create your own happiness -- the more you must live in fear. Consequently, the more you must do to assuage that fear. Thus negative motivation comes about. You live a makeshift life of avoidance, rather than a life of unfoldment, of expansion, of positive experience, and of pleasure. You aim to avoid the threat of your negative feelings, which would spoil your aim of obtaining from others that which you must obtain from yourself. You stake your salvation on others, from whom it can never come.

Apart from recognizing all these aspects, which is the fundamental necessity, the reorientation must always begin by the willingness to let go. This cannot be forced upon one who has not been made aware of the dependency itself in very exact ways. But once this has been done, then it becomes possible to give up what one so tightly holds on to. This loosening up must occur in order to bring about a change in the balance structure of the soul forces so that benign circles are set into motion. You must also be willing to dispense with your rationalizations that make your case seem so right. For you can always succeed to present it to yourself and to others as though your wishes, your needs, and your demands on others are not only justified, but that there is nothing wrong about them, that, in fact, they are also beneficial for the other. And this may even be true, as far as it goes. What you want may be good and legitimate in principle. But in a hidden emotional forcing current you go about it in the wrong way and you do not grant the other person the same freedom that you wish for yourself. You do not give him the right to freely choose whom to love and whom to accept: you coerce him. When he asserts this freedom, then you feel rejected and hated. In other words, you refuse him the right to be wrong without being hated and totally denied. This is a freedom that you very much wish for yourself, and therefore you deeply resent it when others do not grant it to you. The only reason you are unable to defend yourself adequately in such cases is because you do not grant this same freedom to others on certain emotional levels. When you look closely, then you will find this to be true. And when you do so, then your sense of fairness and your objectivity will help you to give up what you so desperately hold on to, even while you emotionally still believe that your life depends on getting the other to feel as you wish and to do as you wish.

Once you have learned to become aware of this destructive condition -- surely with a number of inevitable relapses, that must forever be newly observed and dealt with -- then you have taken a giant step towards the source of your inner being, where you are not chained in weakness, in anxiety, in fear, and in anger. You all chafe at the leash around your neck that keeps you dependent and anxious in a situation in which you cannot find the strength to assert yourself, in which you find yourself caught or trapped, and therefore cannot see a way out, for each possibility seems wrong. None of the visible alternatives gives you that good feeling about yourself, that resilient strength and well-being in which even different steps become feasible because you know that they are right for you. Most of you have experienced this, at least occasionally. It means that your real self is freed and therefore is operative through you. It is our aim to bring it out completely. In order to do so, this weak point must be found so that you can eventually let go of it.

The weak point is where you are most bound and most anxious. This is precisely where you are bound, where you are resentful, where you are afraid, where you are weak, and therefore unable to assert yourself. This is your leash, and it can be given up only when you stop wanting from others that which you yourself must supply yourself. Therefore, ask yourself what it is that you want from the other person. In other words, whatever it is that you find you need from others, verbalize it concisely to yourself. This will bring you nearer to letting it go. Then you will know that this is precisely where you enslave yourself, where you weaken yourself, where you paralyze yourself. Then you will experience a new resilient strength coming out of you that suddenly conciliates apparently insoluble problems. You will become free as you let the other free. Only when you can let go on the ego level -- in the areas where you exert force -- can you gain or win the power to form a good life on the level of Creation. Conversely, your inability to give up, to let free, to be fair -- in other words, your insistence to win and to have your way, your refusal to lose on this ego level -- makes it impossible to win where it counts and makes it impossible for you to find your real strength.

Jesus Christ spoke about this when He said: "He who wants to live must be able to lose his life." This is the meaning. In one of the first lectures I spoke this sentence: "You must give up what you want to gain." This is the meaning. Here we are dealing with levels. I hope it is clear that there is no sacrifice or renunciation involved. What is meant here is that you cannot obtain what you want, and what you should have, in the manner you use and through the source you exert your effort against. The emphasis must shift. If you insist to win on the wrong level, then you cannot win. If you can lose on that level, then you will win. You will inevitably come into that nucleus of yourself where every conceivable power exists. To the extent that you grant others the right to be, regardless of whether it is convenient for you or not, to that extent you will truly find your own rights.

To find these rights is a steadily growing process. At first it will manifest by no longer selling out, and therefore by no longer downgrading yourself. You will find genuine and healthy defenses against abuse. And you will feel good about them. Later, you will discover ever increasing rights for pleasure and for happiness, which you can then expand towards obtaining. You will find yourself moving toward vistas and visions of what your life can be -- possibilities which you never dreamed could exist. Suddenly you will permit yourself pleasure. In other words, you will no longer cramp up against it, as you inadvertently continue to do. First you will stop undermining the spontaneous processes and then you will learn to trust in them. This will open up a richness of life and a security that are truly heavenly. By letting go and giving up your inner forcing, you will experience the beauty of free relationships, as opposed to forced relationships. When you live in your dependency pattern, then you force the other and, consequently, you are forced to make him do what you want. Thus you have mutual force. This weakens you and it creates a host of negative emotions through which you lose contact with the nucleus of your real being, as well as with your good feelings. When you can lose gracefully, then you will find a treasure within that is an entirely new venture -- a new way of life -- whose beginning stages you are just embarking on. You will feel free in the areas of your life where heretofore you have felt weak and trapped.

My beloved friends, reach into your inner being and communicate with it for the purpose of eliminating this weakness in you that binds you and that wastefully and needlessly holds you back in your life for no good purpose whatever, no matter how much you may glorify this holding back. All of you do this in one way or the other, just as mankind has done for millennia by saying that pleasure is wrong, that pleasure is frivolous, that pleasure is unspiritual. In this way you have your private excuses to beautify your weakness and to make an asset out of it. Thus you cannot really come face to face with yourself. By coming face to face with the forcing current in you that says to others you must you also come face to face with the strength, with the beauty, and with all the other potentials that exist in you in a way that you cannot even fathom yet.

Be blessed by the great strength that dwells in you. Be in peace, be in God.

November 10, 1967