The Masculine And The Feminine Principles In The Creative Process

By The Pathwork Guide

Greetings, my friends. Blessings and love are extended to you and they reach you in your deepest being to the extent that you open up toward them. You receive them, you let them come into you.

In direct sequence to our previous lectures, I would like to talk about some more specific elements in the creative universal power. I have often said that each human being not only possesses this power, but he expresses this power. Coming into your own means the conscious and deliberate -- in other words, purposeful -- use of the creative power which you are and which emanates from you. For unconsciously, and therefore unknowingly -- without realizing it -- you constantly create your life circumstances with this power. What you think, what you feel, what you believe, what you conceive of, what you secretly wish and fear -- all this shapes and determines the creative substance. And all of this is the motor force of this power.

What a tremendous difference it makes when you create your life consciously and deliberately and when you create your fate unknowingly. In the latter case you do not know why you go through certain experiences, and therefore you ascribe them to some obscure fate, which seems to have nothing or little to do with what you are, with what you feel, with what you wish, with what you believe in right now, and with what you then choose to do with all of these thoughts and feelings. The self-realized individual knows exactly how he creates his life. One interim state toward this final realization of the human consciousness is when man connects with his unconscious blocks. Then he comprehends his obstructions, and therefore his unhappiness in life. This is a great moment. An individual understands that he himself has done it and how he has done it. In other words, he now recognizes the specific secret attitude that has produced the unwelcome fate, so that now it is no longer blind fate. Therefore, he is able to connect cause and effect. Thereafter man ceases to be helpless. He has never been helpless in regard to any force or power outside of himself. But he is helpless against his inner processes. That is, until he first recognizes them and then he changes them.

This is the way of the path. When you discover the root of your negative experience, then you become capable of changing it. In order to consciously and deliberately create a positive fate, it is necessary that you understand more about the creative force of the universe and that you learn how you can use it personally. The comprehension of this is essential. Now I would like to discuss certain specific aspects of this creative power.

There are two fundamental aspects with which the creative process works. One aspect is activation. The other aspect is letting it happen. First, you activate, then you get out of the way and let it happen. This creative principle exists throughout the entire universe and it manifests in everything in your life -- whether good or bad, desirable or undesirable, important or unimportant. From the mundane little occurrence to the creation of a universe, these principles exist. If what is created is constructive, fruitful, joyful, and pleasurable, then it means that these principles must interact in a harmonious way. They must complement one another and must be in harmony with one another. Conversely, if what is created is destructive, painful, wasteful, and unhappy, then it means that these two principles must also be at work, only they are distorted, and therefore are misunderstood. Instead of complementing one another, they interfere with one another. Instead of two aspects making one unitive whole, a dualism makes two mutually exclusive opposites out of them. When duality is conciliated, then two apparently opposing forces work together toward one goal and complement one another. I have discussed this facet of unity versus duality in many other respects. It pertains to all of creation. Where an entity is removed from the center -- and is therefore in a state of ignorance and error -- dualism comes into existence. The entire earth sphere -- that is, the human consciousness -- is in that state. As a result, all perceivable creative functions are split in the middle. It is no different with the principles discussed here.

Those two fundamental principles in creation, the activating attitude and the letting it be attitude, are universal laws. As I said, everything that has ever been created must contain both aspects of creation. But these are not mechanical laws, such as the law of gravity. Although all laws, even impersonal, physical ones, have come into existence from, through, and by consciousness -- and must therefore have been created in the same manner of combining these two aspects -- direct creation, with its own specific laws, is always an expression of consciousness. Whether this consciousness stems from an individual brain or personality, or whether this consciousness is the great Universal Spirit permeating all of life, does not matter. The principle is the same.

The conscious attitude expresses whether or not you activate, or whether or not you let it be. These two aspects deserve much closer scrutiny. To activate means that the conscious entity consciously and deliberately issues, claims, sets in motion, moves toward, causes, determines, makes happen, and uses purposefully the forces at his disposal. He does so by first knowing of these forces and then by calling them into action. He does so by removing all possible obstructions and by doing whatever is necessary. Therefore, effort and endeavor are an integral part of setting in motion the creative forces. This is active doing. We may say that this represents the masculine principle in creation.

The attitude of letting it be means to be receptive and waiting. It is also a movement, for nothing that is alive can possibly be not moving. But this type of movement is different from the movement of the activating principle. The activating principle moves itself out toward another state. The spirit of letting it be is a movement within itself. It is a pulsating involuntary movement, while the movement of activation is deliberate and self-determining. Words are insufficient to explain these facts and you have to listen with your inner ears and use your imagination and your innermost faculties in order to perceive what I am telling you.

The consciousness of the attitude of letting it be is one of trustful waiting, of letting a ripening process come to fruition, of surrender to a force set in motion. This may be called the feminine principle in creation. The masculine and the feminine principles exist in every endeavor, in every creative act. The self-determining, voluntary act expresses self-confidence and knowing of one's divine nature. The going with the creative forces -- in other words, the trustful surrender to them -- expresses a deep trust in life. In other words, in the state of being that does not require one iota more movement than to activate the powers that one trusts in. Everything that functions well -- in the universe as well as in the smallest manifestations of mundane life -- combines these two aspects of life and of consciousness. Nothing can be created without these principles being at work. No union between the sexes can be fulfilling unless these principles function as they are meant to. Pleasure supreme is possible to the degree that these attitudes are healthy and to the extent that trust in the self and trust in life makes both attitudes possible.

Both men and women represent these two principles, only in a different arrangement, in a different emphasis, in a different degree, in a different proportion, and in a different relation. But this does not mean that the healthy, integrated man represents exclusively the activating principle, or that the healthy, integrated woman represents exclusively the principle of letting be. Both must express both. But, as I said, the emphasis differs and the areas in which both principles manifest or apply also differ with men and with women.

Each act and each happening in the world must express both principles. Once you begin to think about this and you look at life with this slightly altered vision, then you will see and understand a lot more about creation as such, as well as about world events. Whether you create a business, whether you create a situation between yourself and another person, whether you create your fate, or whether you create a universe, it depends on the extent to which you understand and use harmoniously the masculine and the feminine principles of creation. It depends on the degree to which you are conscious of both and allow both of them to unfold out of yourself.

Both these principles are often distorted. As a result, they create confusion and disharmony. Destructive occurrences are a result of these distorted creative principles being used in erroneous ways.

A man cannot dare to be fully a man, and to activate the creative force in a deliberate and purposeful way, when his unconscious is still steeped in hostility, in rage, and in anger. For then the activating principle threatens to express these destructive impulses. There are many people in this world who are still so undeveloped that they have no compunction about expressing their destructive impulses. They do not mind activating the masculine principle, even though it brings forth the most violent and the most negative actions. Only when the development proceeds further, and therefore the individual no longer wishes to express violence and destruction, will he become frightened of his own active principle and hence hold it back. This is why a man cannot be fully a man unless he first comes to terms with his negative emotions and selfish desires. When he faces them fully, then they will lose their power. But as long as you are unaware of their existence, then they will control you. Therefore, they will force you to act upon them without even knowing what you are doing and why. Then you will rationalize your actions and find reasons why you do these acts. Or you will turn the destructiveness upon yourself in your desire not to let the activating principle out into the world and sow negative seeds. Thus, in a transitory state of evolution the individual prevents himself from using his activating principle, for then all activation would be based on negativity. This explains why so many people find themselves paralyzed in inactivity and in stagnation. They hold themselves back temporarily, and thereby prevent themselves from using their creative principle. Therefore, healthy activation, self-assertion, autonomy are also temporarily bound and must wait for release until the personality has settled his difficulty with his own destructive nature. He may have to go through a number of appearances on this earth plane in which the activating forces must be dimmed in him, so as to no longer express the distorted creative principle of activation.

You all experience on this path the necessity to contact your hidden cruelty, your hidden brutality, your hidden sadism, your hidden vindictiveness, your hidden malice. As you learn first to see, then to accept, and third to understand these emotions, then you can come out of these feelings. For only then do you become genuinely convinced that there is no need for your destructiveness. As long as it is not squarely faced, then this conviction is lacking and the holding back, the restraint, is motivated almost entirely by the fear of retribution and by the fear of the consequences. Only when you have both the courage and the honesty to first fully see and then to accept these damaging emotions and desires, only when you totally comprehend them and evaluate them, will you see, without the shadow of a doubt, that they are superfluous as a defense and that they therefore serve no other purpose either. As these feelings become superfluous and you therefore no longer need to be on guard against your own spontaneous reactions, you will be free enough to activate the greatest power in the universe within yourself. You will no longer fear this power, for then it will be free from pollution, free from perversion, and free from distortion. Then you can claim your own birthright. Then you can call into being your own creative forces. It often happens that a person is sufficiently cleansed of the destructive distortions so as to safely use his own inner powers, but the old habit pattern of holding back is so firmly rooted in the personality that he will needlessly forego the use of the activating principle. He is not yet aware of this possibility -- namely, that now he can afford to use these powers. Although some destructiveness still exists in him, now it is no longer dangerous because he is sufficiently conscious of it and alert to it to not allow it to rule him and, as a result, to drive him into negative actions. However, he does not know yet that the power to handle his remaining aggression also enables him to use the greatest force in the universe within himself. Now he can become God-like and to consciously and deliberately use the activating power to create circumstances according to his own choice.

So you must differentiate between him who rightfully dims his creative activity because he is justifiably afraid of its negative facets and him who dims this power simply because he does not know of its positive potential. It is like a person who has been asleep for a long time, and when he wakes up he has not yet discovered all his faculties and the scope of his unfoldment.

The masculine principle is outgoing, active, and leads to action, with all its consequences. The act following the driving force, or the motor force, or the impetus actively builds, affects, causes, determines. When the personality is fully aware of no longer needing, and therefore no longer fears, the destructive forces, then he also begins to know that he can create. In other words, he discovers the powers at his disposal that his mind can then bring into activation.

The feminine principle is the principle of receptivity, of letting it be. In other words, of letting the activating forces work their own lawful way toward fruition. This principle is distorted when the entity refuses self-responsibility. If self-activation is relinquished and if instead of surrendering to the self-activated forces one surrenders to another person's authority, then a perversion of the creative feminine principle is taking place. By the same token, a woman who surrenders her autonomy to a mate because she is too fearful and too lazy to assume the consequences for her own actions makes a travesty and a caricature of her femininity. Her surrender to the mate will never be motivated by love for him and by trust in him, and the aim will not be to experience ecstasy by uniting these two creative principles in this particular manifestation. Instead, she surrenders out of her fear of life. In other words, out of her refusal to assume her own obligations in life. Thus this distorted surrender cannot bring anything favorable to either partner. When a woman wants to be a parasite in life -- and therefore wants to burden her partner with the brunt of her responsibilities -- then it amounts to cheating life. And life cannot be cheated. The result is that she must increase her fear of life, as well as her fear of the man, who is supposed to be her authority. She must fear her self-determined enslavement. Thus the feminine principle is often wrongly associated with helplessness, with passivity, with inferiority, while masculinity is often wrongly associated with brute force.

In reality, a woman cannot truly be a woman unless she is self-determining. To put it in terms of this lecture. Only when she is secure in her selfhood, as a result of activating the creative principle within herself, only when she is accountable for her mistakes, only when she is willing to accept them and learn from them can she be both strong and self-responsible. Only then will she be unafraid of total surrender, of letting go. In other words, of allowing the involuntary forces in herself to guide her.

Conversely, a man cannot be truly a man when he is not free from his destructiveness and when he is not willing to let the activating principle in him go to work in its own fashion. In other words, he must observe his feminine principle in order to fully activate his masculine one, just as the full woman must activate her masculine principle in order to give herself to her feminine one.

The interaction between man and woman expresses the two facets of the creative power in a very obvious way. The union between the sexes can be satisfactory only to the degree there is harmony within each partner in regard to the two facets. Only then can harmony be established between them.

Just as a man is justified to fear the activating forces as long as he is unaware, and therefore not in control, of his destructiveness, so is a woman justified in fearing her self-surrender as long as she makes herself helpless, for whatever distorted motives. If she is not in possession of her inherent powers, then her surrender must be debilitating and dangerous. Since both men and women express the masculine as well as the feminine principles, then both of them must cleanse their activating powers of violence and of hostility. In addition, they both must learn means to ascribe the cause for all happenings to the self, rather than blaming outside factors for their suffering.

This is why you find on this path that both men and women come across the identical patterns of false activity -- aggression, hostility, violence, overactivity, impatience, not waiting for the powers to lawfully come to fruition -- and false receptivity and letting go -- the denial of self-responsibility, laziness, the line of least resistance, seeking another authority to shoulder the brunt of accountability. They must both work out the same problems, but they interact on a complementary level, rather than on an identical one.

Self-realization is not possible unless you first become full men and full women, in the deepest possible sense. This is why the human problems are always concerned primarily with the relationship between the sexes. No matter what other problem a human being has, it is -- at least indirectly -- connected with a person's masculinity or with a person's femininity. The expression and the handling of the masculine and the feminine creative principles permeates the whole personality. For example, let us take a work problem. How can one's work be successful if the activating principle is lacking, if it is dimmed and, therefore, if the person is not sufficiently outgoing and healthily aggressive? In other words, if he does not activate his own creative powers, if he holds back on them? Or if the activating forces are hostile and anti-social? He must inevitably get into difficulties with his environment, no matter how accomplished he may be in his trade. If the spirit of love is lacking, then he will not want to contribute to life with his work and through his work. Therefore there can be nothing creative about it. As a result, the deeper spiritual powers cannot manifest. However, if he truly and sincerely wants to enrich life, then he can safely enrich himself by his activity and through his activity, without feeling falsely guilty about the latter. The creative activation will do justice to both -- enriching both others and the self in every possible way.

These laws are applicable for all endeavors. Whether you do menial work, whether you are an artist, whether you are a scientist, or whatever, the law is the same, although the degree may vary in which these principles must be at work. Simple menial work can be done mechanically and yet relatively efficiently, although it can also be a creative act if or when it is done in the spirit of creation mentioned here. Artistic work, scientific work, and spiritual work can never succeed unless it follows these laws.

Thus, success in your work must fail, just as your human relationships and all your partnerships must fail, when both the masculine and the feminine principles do not interact properly and therefore complement one another. In all these areas the relationship between the two aspects of creation varies, the emphasis varies at any given time or during any given phase.

If one of these two principles is healthy, then the other must also be right. In other words, it is impossible that one be healthy and the other distorted. Hence, the man who has a problem in self-activation must, in other ways, be unable to let go and let himself be carried. It would be false to assume that the man who is not sufficiently active and aggressive is so all the way in his total personality. He will inevitably discover an area where the feminine principle should reign. Or, the man who expresses an exaggerated extreme of masculinity must harbor areas in which he is too passive, and where he therefore expresses the distorted feminine principle. Both these examples are also applicable to women.

Because of the importance of the manifestation of the masculine and the feminine creative principles in the inner life of the individual as a substantial part of self-realization, this pathwork must be particularly concerned with this entire topic. True spirituality must make fuller men and fuller women out of you -- in the best sense and on all levels of your being. To what degree and in what way the imbalance exists varies in each case and must be found by self-search.

When you become truly capable of loving, then these principles will be perfectly expressed in you. Or, to put it the other way around, when you can deliberately and knowingly activate the creative power to its highest potential because you have come to terms with, and therefore no longer fear, your own destructiveness, and when you trustingly allow the universal powers to finish lawfully what you have deliberately set in motion -- because you do not fear to surrender to a power that is greater than your willful ego self -- then you will be capable of loving. Then whatever you do will be creative and it will combine these two aspects of creation. Your desire to enrich life will never appear as self-impoverishment -- quite on the contrary. Then the loving man will activate a sublime power in him and in his mate for the purpose of enriching them both. He will warrant trust in him, which then makes her self-surrender justified, dignified, and enhances her individuality. Giving up the determining ego will be for her an experience that need not be feared. His activation becomes lovingly enriching to both. This is different from the kind of activation which the pseudo masterful man issues forth. In this attitude he puts her down for the sake of his self-aggrandizement, so that he makes her fear of surrender reasonable. Thus he hinders her fulfillment as a woman.

The loving woman will surrender in the spirit of enhancing the mastery of self-activation in her mate. She will encourage his full selfhood by not competing with it or rejecting it because it no longer appears as a threat. Her receptivity must not be confused with paralyzed passivity, which is but a distortion. The pulsating activity of the soul in the receptivity of letting it be, in the state of being, of self-surrender, is a vibrating force that contributes to her mate's selfhood and to his strength.

When letting go means a deliberate choice of foregoing the active principle because the person recognizes that at a certain point other faculties must take over, then an enormous difference is experienced. The activating principle deliberately causes to happen. The being principle is self-perpetuating and involuntary: its effects occur indirectly.

The pathwork itself consists of the blending of these two aspects. I have discussed this previously in different terminology. Now I wish to show you how it works here. No obstruction can be removed, no unhappiness can be eliminated, unless the person involved -- either man or woman -- uses the activating power. It is necessary to get up and claim one's possibilities. For example, to claim one's inherent right to become a happy person. At the same time, you must not shy away from the effort required to find the cause of one's unhappiness within the self. In other words, he or she must be moving in the direction to uncover what is hidden and doing in the direction of correcting what needs to be corrected. At the same time, you must consciously and deliberately call upon a higher wisdom and a greater power, deep within the self, to make this endeavor meaningful. The mind issues the will and determines the steps, as well as calling upon a greater aspect within. All these are truly activities, each in its own fashion. But then the other principle must be at work. Once these forces are activated, then the entity has to let them come to fruition in their own way. In other words, he must let them go to work. He who is impatient, who cannot wait for this to happen, but who wants to connect immediately with the desired result -- in other words, to attain the result of the activation at once -- violates the feminine principle in his creation. Thus he will not be successful, or only to the degree to which the two creative aspects were able to function. When man sows a seed into the soil, then he cannot pull out the plant right away. He must give it time to grow within the earth, until he can see the first shoots of the plant. Agricultural law demonstrates beautifully the wholeness of these two aspects of creation. The pathwork itself is such a purposeful creative act.

My friends, this is very important for all of you to understand, to ponder about, to meditate with. There is a great deal of material here, which is bound to help you in the most vital way in your further efforts to find your true nature, and thus your happiness as a co-creator.

Are there any questions?

QUESTION: I have a statement that you can comment on, if you will. Since the vital recognition I had at Thanksgiving, I felt this release, which I take to be as sort of letting it be and a simultaneous activation. It feels very creative. Things are happening in my mind that I can't believe. Also, I think that my intellect has been released, my mind faculties which I think have been numbed to some extent. Therefore, my learning processes are enhanced. I feel very much in motion and I feel that my faculties have been supercharged and expanded.

ANSWER: All this is true, and more so. There is a tremendous process going on in you. To put it in terms of this lecture, I would like to explain what has taken place, for it will help you further. During the time you have been on this path, you have activated your forces to an enormous extent. In fact, as I have said to you elsewhere before, there was an over-intensity of the activating principle, although I did not use these terms. In this over-intensity, the letting it be principle was not sufficiently in play. So it must be cultivated now so as to round out not only your progress but your personality per se. In this new phase, you will learn how to let it be; but now without indifference, without unconcern, or without giving up. This is often misunderstood. The blind, escaping line of least resistance is also a distortion of the feminine creative principle. The key here is awareness. If you are fully aware of yourself, and if you activate that awareness at all times, then you can afford to let the forces come to fruition in their own time and in their own rhythm without the danger to stagnate. In other words, now you will learn to let fruition take place in you. You will learn to tune in on these forces and then you will begin first to perceive and then to experience their living reality in you, a reality that builds up new life. This will never mean giving up effort. On the contrary. But your efforts will be more relaxed, more meaningful, more harmonious, and more rounded. As you consciously and deliberately set in motion the activating principle, you will deliberately let the fruition come about. No rules can determine when to use more of one and when to use more of the other. It must be intuitively perceived by activating this intuition. For the intellect cannot decide when and how to use both forces harmoniously. Theferore, the Greater Intelligence within must be deliberately activated.

Be blessed, my friends, every one of you. May you find new strength from these words, new stimulation, and a new opening up of doors that will help you where you may have been stuck. And may the new friends who are here for the first time be touched by some of the things I have said. Perhaps somewhere an echo is created that will set something in motion within you and make you want to activate more, to search more in the direction that leads deep into yourself. After your obstructions are first faced, second accepted, third understood and thus eliminated, then the highest creative powers can unfold. Be blessed, bring forth more and more the greatness and the beauty that you inherently are -- God.

January 3, 1969