Greetings, my dearest friends. As always, blessings stream forth. A blessing is a current which is a power, to be received by you to the extent that you open yourself to it, knowingly and willingly.
I would like to begin this lecture by discussing the fact that almost always man's unhappiness is supposed to be an indication of sickness. This is usually interpreted in a wrong, distorted way. The result is that man then fights the manifestation of his inner being, as though the manifestation itself were the sickness. It is true that if man were entirely in harmony with the universal forces, then he would not be sick, neurotic, or unhappy. But it is equally true to state that his sickness, his discontent, and his disharmony are an indication of health. For it is precisely man's real self, man's spirit being, which speaks through the unhappiness, sending the conscious ego a message that something should be different. The real self says to the outer personality that it conducts something in a wrong manner. This message comes from health, and wants to
re-establish health, well-being, and happiness. Truth and life equate with feeling good in the deepest possible way, without reservations, in joyful security and self-liking. When man acts and moves in life in a way that is conducive to such a state, then the spirit being of his innermost core is completely content. Thus a neurosis, an unhappiness, is in a deeper sense a sign of health. The freer man's divine being -- in other words, the less encrusted and hidden it is -- the more clearly does the outer personality register its messages. Sometimes this is experienced as "having a conscience." Less developed individuals, whose real self is deeply buried, register such signs much less acutely. They may go along for extended periods of time -- even incarnations -- without feeling their inner discontent, without registering qualms, anxiety, doubt, or pain about their outer deviations from the lawfulness of universal life. They do not register unhappiness when they violate their integrity and they may even feel a temporary, precarious sort of satisfaction when they feed the needs of their destructive demands.
Usually it is totaly overlooked, or even ignored, that neurosis is, in itself, a sign of a healthy spirit which rebels against the mismanagement of the outer personality. Thus the weight is subtly shifted in regard to what is healthy and what is sick, so that the individual combats the very language of the healthy spirit. He then tries to adjust himself to an unhealthy condition in the assumption that his rebellion against this condition is immature, unrealistic, and neurotic.
I am not saying that it is not also frequently the case that people with immature, unrealistic tendencies strive away from self-responsibility, deny any sort of frustration, and want to get by with giving nothing and receiving all. You know that these attitudes are decisive factors of the human personality and therefore have to be faced and changed. But the strange thing is that the more man ignores his birthright to be happy, the more he overlooks the messages of his spirit that wants to set him into the direction of living according to these basic rights, the more does he want to cheat and to get by with giving nothing. In fact, it is a logical connection. The more a human being believes that he must sacrifice his fundamental happiness because to do this is right, because this is good, or because this is mature, the more does he become deprived, with the inevitable result of secret destructiveness and ruthless selfishness somewhere underground, as far as emotional inclinations are concerned. These underground tendencies may erupt at any moment. The greater the suppression becomes, the greater the contrasts with the false superimpositions are, and the greater will be the likelihood of a breakdown,
of a violent eruption which the personality then cannot control. We shall come back to this topic later in the lecture.
Let us take the example of a human being who neglects his personal growth. Inevitably discontent must exist. But the conscious mind may
be unable to read the message of discontent correctly. The diagnosis is made according to the person's understanding of these matters. Only too often professional help consists in trying to make a patient accept his condition in the belief that his frantic struggle is, say, exclusively a rebellion against authority, or exclusively a self-destructive maneuver against a secure, safe lie. The personality's own resistance against recognizing the real cause cooperates in leading the helper astray. Fear of the consequences of a total commitment to growth makes it appear more desirable to be merely a recalcitrant child. All this is even more misleading because, as mentioned before, such immature rebellion and self-destructiveness actually exist as well. But they are hardly ever the cause of the evil, merely one of the effects.
You can see how easy it is to be confused about the subtleties of health and neurosis. Neurosis is simultaneously a sign of health and a sign of sickness. It is a message leading man toward feeling good in himself once
again after having lost his proper course. This is, once again, a demonstration of the transcending of duality. The dualistic conception
is either sickness or health. Thus neurosis is always seen exclusively as sickness. True as this is, it is equally true that it is coming from health and striving toward health. It is extremely important to approach yourself and
the state of your mind and of your emotions in this manner and with this view.
This brings me again to the topic of duality. I repeat, man's tensions, his confusions, his suffering, and his fears are a result of the dualistic state of consciousness in which everything is split in half; in which one half is adjudged as good and therefore as desirable, and the other is adjudged as bad and hence as undesirable. This is always an erroneous, illusory way of perceiving and experiencing life. The opposites are not to be divided in this fashion, as I have shown you with many aspects in many different lectures. I have attempted to do so again just now. When man transcends the opposites and conciliates them through his personal evolution, then he can reach the unitive state. In order to approach this state, the opposites must
be faced and accepted as long as they appear as opposites.
There exist some opposites that are no longer experienced as one versus
the other, even in this dualistic sphere of consciousness. Mankind has evolved sufficiently to have transcended some of the polarities. In these cases the average human being no longer experiences one opposite as good and the other
as bad. When I say "no longer," I mean that previous states of consciousness existed when this was the case -- with all individuals and in all respects.
Let us take the masculine and the feminine principles that I discussed in the last lecture. Only he who is very distorted, very subjectively influenced and disturbed -- and even then it is hardly ever an overt manifestation -- will experience one as positive and the other as negative. The deep psyche, in which not all old obstructions are overcome, still harbors the division of good versus bad. But generally, and to a much larger degree, the average person experiences these opposites in a truthful fashion: that both are intrinsically good and beautiful; that they complement one another in a most wonderful way, making one unity, one whole; that both contain aspects of the creative universe.
Let us take a further example of where, in a halfway healthy mind, the opposites are transcended -- are no longer good versus bad -- but are seen as complementary facts, both fulfilling their own function, both equal in beauty. These are the forces of activity and passivity; the expanding and restricting principles; initiating and receptivity -- to quote the most recent issues under discussion. There are many more which are seen as complementary and mutually fulfilling, rather than as mutually exclusive -- even in this overall dualistic state. Everyone will consider night and day as mutually complementary manifestations of nature -- both as having their own value, both as having their own beauty, both as having their own function, and both as having their own reason for being. Only the most distorted personality will consider one as good and will battle against the other as being evil.
These are good demonstrations to make you sense that in reality it is this way with all the opposites, even those that seem most difficult to comprehend in this way. I have attempted to show you that even a pair of opposites like health and sickness is not, in reality, good versus bad. Both can be good. That is, if health prevails while a person violates his spiritual needs for growth, for total feelings of love, for the deepest experiences of happiness, pleasure, and union with others, if health continues while an ego remains isolated, separated, and unfeeling -- both for its own innermost self and for other people -- then it is not good. Conversely, ill health is "good" if it is seen as a symptom leading to total health, to total fulfillment, and to total happiness.
Thus what is good and what is bad is never divisible -- so that one polarity is one and the other polarity is the other. Each polarity is all
good when it is in its natural, undistorted state. Each polarity is bad when distortion and error set in.
This is most difficult to experience with the greatest polarity of all: life and death. Perhaps the foregoing can help a little to
make you wonder and to begin to sense in a new way, namely that it can hardly be different with this duality. I must tell you that the more you succeed to conciliate the polarities within your soul system and with your soul currents, about all sorts of aspects, the more you will sense that it is no different with life and death: that both are good, that neither needs to be feared, and hence fought against. The more other polarities or dualities begin to unify and are experienced as vital functions of living, both being meaningful and beautiful in their own way, the more this is bound to happen regarding life and death.
There are many other opposites that at this stage of his development man cannot help but experience as good versus bad. To the degree that he has evolved, that he has come into his own, that he has realized his divine nature, to that degree he ceases to experience life in this divided way. Only then can the soul be peaceful, only then can the soul movements be relaxed, and consequently be in a state of delight. For tension is inevitable as
long as one is under the illusion that there are always new things to fight against. When an entity believes itself to be in danger, then all its soul currents close up toward all the good of life. Since all the opposites are constantly around, are always there -- deep within man's own self as well as around him -- when he assumes that one of the opposites is bad, then he lives
in a perpetual state of tension.
Since all of life consists of polarities, the fact that most of them appear as mutually exclusive opposites -- one being good, the other being bad, one being grasped at, the other being tensely denied -- puts man in a constant state of painful tension, of anxious grasping, and of needless denial. The consequences are pain and frustration. This is all the more confusing when man believes that he has done right to fight against the bad and to grasp for the good. Then why is he so discontented, so empty, so lacking in the vital joy of life? Such confusions are rarely conscious and concise. If they were, then it could be easier to question and challenge the premise that led to the distortion in the first place. The difficulties are truly illusory, just as illusory as the split of good versus bad, but nevertheless they seem real in all the discomfort they give. The opposites that he struggles with and against create a tremendous amount of tension in man. For centuries and centuries of his psychic existence man has been geared to feel one opposite as good and right, and to experience the other as bad and evil. Thus he gets lost in confusion. He tries to resolve all his personal problems on this basis and, of course, he can never succeed, he can never find a real solution, one that gives him peace. He approaches all his personal alternatives of action in this fashion. Thus the premise that he starts from is already the groundwork for further and deeper entanglement
and error.
At times this tension leads to eruptions, to breakdowns. At other times, the two polarities -- which arbitrarily seem to be mutually exclusive -- annul one another. In the groping for a solution with such erroneous premises one polarity is always set off against the other. Thus they cancel each other out. In the truthful perception both opposites are accepted and therefore function organically, mutually aiding one another. In the illusory perception of mutual exclusiveness, when they are unequally distributed and at the same time fought against, then they create a short-circuit. In the darkness of the confusion, the individual is called upon to make a choice, but he cannot do so successfully. When the distribution is uneven in a non-organic, distorted way, then an eruption may occur. When the distribution is even, balanced, again in a non-organic, distorted way, then all the power currents become inactivated, short-circuited. What the mind believes to be true actually happens. In this case, the two opposites annul each other. The further result of this state is the numbness, the lifelessness, the deadness of feelings that we so often discuss in our work together. We usually discuss this numbness and deadness in connection with other aspects, which are quite true as far as they go. For example, the fear of feelings. But such a fear is based precisely on such a dualistic struggle -- the struggle against their choice of polar forces in the inner life of man.
Let us take a simple example that is also descriptive of the basic Yes and No currents which we have discussed before in different connections. The Yes-current represents the affirmative principle,
the principle that expands, that embraces, that is open, and that is receptive to life. The No-current represents the negating principle. It pulls back, it retracts, it denies, it shrinks into itself. There exists an overall conviction
and assumption -- a mass image -- that the affirmative principle is good and desirable, while the negating principle is sick, bad, and therefore undesirable. Religion has made this division, implicitly representing God as the affirmative power and the devil as the negating power. This is only a half truth at best. To blindly accept this division in the depths of one's unconscious reflexes means untold confusion and pain. The moment a person is governed by such an attitude, then he must become involved in errors leading to further errors and to misinterpretations of life, until it becomes increasingly more difficult to extricate oneself from the maze.
Let us demonstrate this in the simplest possible way. To affirm an undesirable condition, a destructive attitude, is as unrealistic as it is to negate a positive condition, a constructive attitude. Hence, to an individual geared to affirm only, then any negation would be experienced with pangs of hesitation, with doubt, with uncertainty, and with guilt, even if
the negation is healthy and constructive in a particular situation. I am discussing very subtle levels of reactions which are lodged either in the unconscious mind or in the semi-conscious mind. The next link in this chain reaction is a difficulty to assert oneself, a difficulty to claim one's inherent rights as a part of creation, a difficulty to be healthily aggressive. Such an individual feels compelled to always submit, to never say No to any demands, no matter how exploitative. The spinelessness and the weakness of
many people is a result of a deep-seated fear to deny anything. This is not goodness. True goodness is based on the free giving of love, on
the generous spirit of wanting to give of oneself. False goodness is a subtle fear to make any self-assertion, to claim anything for the self. Such lack of freedom and lack of selfhood decreases the love capacity and it increases the underlying separateness -- selfishness in the destructive way. So you can see that even with the apparently "obvious" good versus bad of the Yes-current and the No-current it is never one versus the other. It would be totally mistaken to adopt the affirmative principle as an overall attitude for all contingencies and to negate the negating principle.
Once again, I am showing you that the dualistic world view leads
to error, to suffering, to confusion, and to tension -- and away from all
true solutions. The conciliation of all the polarities lies in seeing
the good in both opposites. This alone will lead to truth, to reality, to health, to the unfoldment of universal bliss, and to the expansion of consciousness. This has been underlying all my lectures. But
as we proceed further, and therefore as you go deeper within yourself, then
it becomes more important that you gradually re-orient all your faculties of living according to the unified principle. First this applies to your thinking processes and later to your most subtle emotional reactions and perceptions. More and more you will come to the point where you can embrace both opposites in their truthful, real, healthy manifestations. More and more you will become attuned, so as to recognize both their healthy version and their distorted version. You will feel -- perhaps more than judge through your thinking processes -- which is which.
In this same vein I would like to discuss the important topic of selfishness. In the course of our work together we have touched on this topic in various ways. But in this lecture I should like to be a little more explicit and to go a little deeper. For it is an extremely important topic that has a great many ramifications in each human existence, in each human psyche and, therefore inevitably also in his outer life. At the same time, the topic is a difficult one because it may easily mislead childish, self-centered, falsely selfish separating personalities, who may desire to proclaim that their destructive selfishness -- their separateness -- is healthy self-assertion. This is why I have waited a considerable time before going into details on this topic. Most of my friends have progressed sufficiently in their capacity to distinguish between healthy selfishness and destructive selfishness that they will not fall into the danger of pretending the one to be the other. This danger must be avoided. Then the comprehension of these words will represent a great liberation for you.
It is an overall and universally accepted concept of mankind to adjudge selfishness as wrong, as bad, and therefore as undesirable, while all kinds of unselfishness are deemed to be laudable, good, right. One rarely makes the discrimination that there exist forms of selfishness that are intrinsically healthy and right. They guard a person's inalienable right to be happy and they protect his ability to grow, to expand, and to evolve. Concomitantly, one rarely sees that unselfishness can be a sick manifestation of self-destructiveness, of weakness, and of exploiting others through one's self-enslavement, just as one allows others to exploit him. This has little to do with the genuine concern for the rights of others. In fact, only he who can be selfish in the right and healthy way is capable of genuine concern for the rights of others.
Selfishness has a tremendously healthy origin. Its origin says:"I
am a manifestation of God. Therefore, in my healthy, unobstructed state I am
a happy individual. For only a happy individual can spread and give forth happiness. Only an individual who grows according to his potentials and to his ingrained destiny is happy. Thus I know that my happiness and the fulfillment of my life are synonymous. The one is unthinkable without the other. I am also a totally free individual. I am autonomous and I am completely responsible for the life that I shape for myself. No one else can determine my life, my growth, or my happiness. I will not allow myself to hitch this responsibility to others by buying them off through my false unselfishness, through my enslavement, through making myself feel unselfish because I abdicate my own rights."
The above realization cannot be assimilated deeply enough. Meditate over these words in the most personal and in the deepest way and then see in what way you inadvertently deviate from such an attitude. The more you express this honest, healthy, and self-responsible way of life, then the more you will feel secure in yourself because security is found in being anchored within yourself. Thus truth brings out your divine kernel, which then becomes your anchor. False unselfishness makes man lose his center. Then he is anchored in the other person for whom he sacrifices. When such attitudes are faced, then it shows that such a sacrifice is never made out of genuine, spontaneous love, in a free spirit of spontaneous giving. For when such is the case, then the very idea of sacrifice is no longer applicable. The act is so pleasurable that it is just as selfish as it is unselfish, to use a seeming paradox. Unselfishness IS selfishness and selfishness IS unselfishness. Sacrificial unselfishness always connotes an inner bargaining, a secret desire to get away with something, while there is an outer sentimentality that pretends the act to be good. It is always loveless and it defeats growth.
When man is anchored not in his real self but in the approval of others
-- through whom he hopes to gain his selfhood, his self-respect, and
his happiness -- then he cannot comprehend the messages of his divine nature. He is disconnected from his vital life center. As a result, he flounders in contradictory alternatives, he gets confused about what is right and what is wrong, both for him and for those he is involved with.
As a result of the decentralization of his being, man pursues a path in which unhappiness is equated with unselfishness, which in turn is equated with being a good person. This error is the beginning of a cycle of further errors, creating many chain reactions of destructive emotions and attitudes. To name but a few: self-deception about what is being good; dependency (which is also interpreted to mean love and concern for the person that one is dependent on); weakness; helplessness; false humility -- and therefore rage, anger, rebellion. The more these are kept underground so as
not to disrupt the false structure, the greater is the discrepancy between
the surface emotions and the underlying emotions. The greater the sacrificial unselfishness that one has assumed becomes, the more the ensuing rage and hostility will build up destructive selfishness under cover. In the hidden emotions and the hidden desires one pays no heed to the other fellow, whom one would gladly elbow out of all his rights, since the other fellow cannot have a reality for him who gives himself no reality. The hidden destructive selfishness is feared and it makes guilt an obstruction that seems insurmountable, just because the picture underneath is so different from the one on top. He who cannot be selfish in the right and healthy way does not experience himself in reality. It is all a game: How to get by most easily with a minimum of investment into life. How can anyone who takes himself, his growth, and his happiness not sufficently seriously, and as real factors to be reckoned with, experience other people as sufficiently real to have concern for their true being?
When selfishness is deemed to be bad and unselfishness is deemed
to be good regardless of the how and the why, then duality and error are rampant. Therefore a conflict between self-interest and the interest
of others is inevitable. It seems to be a real conflict. And on this level it is. But once the duality is transcended, then such conflicts no longer exist. For what is good for one's own real self must, absolutely and inevitably, also be good for the real self, for the ultimate happiness and growth of the other person. In the realm of inner reality, of universal truth -- to be found in the depth -- there can never be a conflict between the real interests of individuals. Conflicting interests exist only on the superimposed levels of falseness, of neurotic needs, of destructively selfish and exploitative demands that hinder the unfoldment of truth and the happiness of all concerned.
When duality splits selfishness into false divisions and into false values
-- so that untruth, pretended and therefore distorted attitudes prevail -- then that which destroys true growth and happiness is deemed the right thing. It lends false humility, thus false pride, to him who sacrifices. It makes an exploiter out of him who accepts the sacrifice -- always under the guise of righteousness. Can this be furthering truth and beauty, bliss and unfoldment? Either for him who sacrifices or for him who blindly accepts it? Even if it can be claimed outwardly that such an arrangement connotes the righteous action, is this truly so? What takes place in the psyche of both people involved in such an interaction? He who accepts must have a growing guilt. Yet he cannot permit himself to face it, for this would make the structure that he built collapse. And he does not want to part from such a situation. I already mentioned the rebellion, the anger, the false sense of goodness, and the spirit of being victimized that takes hold of the psyche of the self-sacrificing person.
When the polarity of selfishness vs. unselfishness is reconciled, then
it is like this. The self is accepted as the center of existence. But not by evaluating oneself as more important than the other fellow, but by knowing that your ego is responsible for your life. It is the carrier in this life, the captain who determines which way to go. Only then is it possible to perceive and to experience that inwardly both you and the other are really one. Then you will inevitably experience that self-interest in the right way can never interfere with the interest of the other where it really counts, on the deepest level. However, even self-interest in the right and healthy way almost always interferes with the egotistical self-interest of the other fellow. This is why following one's true self-interest is often a great struggle and requires a lot of courage. The world around man fights it and deludes itself into claiming that what is actually true self-interest is nothing but egotism and destructive selfishness. This is why it takes a very strong person to follow his own spiritual path in order to withstand the disapproval of the world. Since one's own spiritual path cannot be anything but blissful, and since the world is geared to believe that what
is blissful is wrong and selfish, then it is easy to see how strong and how independent man must become in order not to be influenced and feel falsely guilty for that which truly deserves no guilt.
Man must overcome a number of these deep obstructions and resistances before he can come to feel that the Path of growth itself is the most blissful experience imaginable. However, all self-deceptions must be eliminated before this truth can unfold itself to man.
If you understand this principle and if you ask yourself a number of questions, then what will happen to you will be a wonderful new awakening. Perhaps in this phase of your pathwork you can ask yourself: "What makes me most happy?" If you go deep enough into this question, then you must see that what makes you really happy must be constructive. In other words, it must bring you growth and it must make you more connected with cosmic life, hence with God. You must also see -- provided you go deep enough and you do not stop in hesitation and fear of your probing -- that your own happiness cannot be against the true interests of growth and unfoldment of those whose egotistical, sick interests play into the hands of your own fearful, dependent self -- that wants to abdicate all self-responsibility. Healthy self-interest can be against the interest of the stagnation -- the
non-growth -- both of yourself and of others. Once you view this frankly and unsentimentally, then the courage to be yourself will arise in you from such a truthful vision. All falsity, and with that much suffering and tension, will fall off. The kernel that is so simple will remain: what produces growth, unfoldment of the soul, must also produce vital happiness, vibrating stimulation, and pleasure. For such is the goodness of God's world.
It is the distortion of God's world that makes commendable that which does not further the evolution of the individual.
Be blessed, my dear friends. Be deeply in the truth of your Divine Being. Let yourself become more and more what you truly are -- God.
June 7, 1968
Copyright 1968 by Center for the Living Force, Inc.