Chain Reaction In The Dynamics Of The Creative Life Substance

By The Pathwork Guide

Greetings, my dearest friends, all of you. Blessings for everyone. May the truth of the words spoken reach your innermost being and put a seed into the fertile soil of the creative substance of which you are born and which bears you, as it were, all the time. For being is a continuous process. Life bears new fruit all the time. That which has already been born is forever renewed. In other words, it grows and it changes. It is in a process of perpetual birth. Therefore, birth is not a one-time occurrence.

In this lecture I would like to discuss a very specific chain reaction -- both in its natural, unhampered, and therefore in its positive manifestation, and in its distortion. In its positive, natural version the particular links of this chain are the following: Life's basic characteristic experienced for what it is: as abundance, as generosity, as overwhelming givingness. Then man's similar and hence compatible attitude: self-possession, the ability to deal realistically and constructively with frustration, being true to the issue, to the self, to the moment.

The links in the negative chain reaction are: Life's limitation and life's enmity against man; man's defensive pettiness of spirit; self-alienation; man's false, destructive reaction to frustration; living for the sake of approval and for the sake of impressing others; and/or (often simultaneously) living for the sake of rebelling so as to prove independence of spirit.

Every one of these links has been amply discussed by us and, in many cases, worked through on your path. But we have never seen the importance of these links as a continuum. It is therefore necessary that we talk about this at length.

One of life's most outstanding characteristics, its very essence, is its fertility, its givingness. It is truly limitless in this feature. It sprouts forth forever new and more varied experiences of bliss, of self-expression, of fascination. It is literally everything that the mind can conceive of. This includes limited, negative manifestations. If man's mind is geared to conceive of life, and therefore to perceive it, as -- a priori -- hostile and mean, then this is exactly the way it will manifest to him. If man ignores life's versatility and richness, and the fact that it can manifest as anything he truly believes in and desires, then he is caught in a trap from which he can escape only when he recognizes it as such. He will not escape until he challenges his silent assumption, which had seemed so natural to him that he did not stop to even notice it before: the assumption that life is limited and negative. Then he will recognize that another possibility also exists, one that might then bring forth a different kind of manifestation.

One might say that the wrong focusing on this limited expectation of life is a trick of the mind. Then, finding the truth of being once again is a simple click of the mind. Life is continuously bubbling forth with an energy, with a force of powerful creative impact that is inconceivable for man's mind. Nevertheless, aspects or particles of this essence of life can be experienced once the door has been opened and life begins to present you with its gifts because you make it possible. The fact that life can manifest to the exact degree of man's expectation and concept is proof of its limitless power and generosity. This must perforce include limited, negative consciousness. In other words, when man's mind, as an intrinsic part of life itself, is geared in a way that is alien to life's essence, then this very alienness must be experienced. Only as life's manifestation and man's consciousness are seen as inseparable does the rift mend and life can begin to be what its potentials are.

The second link in the chain is man's attitude. I already mentioned how man's mind, the human consciousness -- his concept about life and his expectation of it -- has a direct influence on how life can manifest. When he is aware of life's essence -- of its richness and of its generosity -- then man's entire attitude will be totally different from an attitude that stems from a conviction that life is his enemy. In the former case his being is compatible with life's generosity. In the latter instance it is not.

Let us examine this a bit closer. When a negative conviction about life exists, then distrustfulness is natural. Distrustfulness creates ungenerous impulses and attitudes. It is ungenerous to suspect someone of negative motives when this person is actually very favorably disposed. Whether this someone is a particular entity or life at large matters little. The principle remains the same. The suspicious, ungenerous attitude creates further negative, limiting aspects. For example, fear and greed. Both fear and greed stem from blindness and thus breed further blindness. Greed wishes to amass selfishly, when this is not necessary in the least. Greed creates a closed-up, tight, and very negative energy. It creates an atmosphere that truly excludes the person from life. Thus, he must experience lack, want, frustration, and rejection. He then builds defenses against these eventualities. You all know about the nature of these defenses, how damaging they are, how they destroy the good of life that wants to come to you.

If man knows that life's essence is generous, then he will be open, trustful, and generous himself. He will be generous in his trust in life and generous in his being. For now he knows that there is no need to hold in, to hold back, to keep the self held together in a tight package of ungiving. All his feelings will stream forth generously, fearlessly, and, consequently, more of life's gifts will come to the individual who has understood the nature of life and who then acts accordingly.

I recapitulate. Man's compatibility with life lies in knowing that life is unlimited and in knowing that it must bring forth exactly according to expectation, to attitude, and to concept; therefore trusting it and building on this trust. The firmer this conviction has become as a result of repeatedly experiencing this truth because the focus has been adjusted, then the more trustful, the more relaxed, the more positive, the more creative, the more generous, and the more giving the person must become. There will be none of the petty defenses, of the pseudo protections, and of the pretenses which he who distrusts life inevitably adopts. When you look closer at those defenses, at those protective roles, then you will see that underneath them life's essential benignness is being doubted.

Where man finds himself encased in one of his problems, in an inner conflict, in one of those neurotic battles with himself and with life, he is negative in his perception of life -- at least in that area. Therefore, he is distrustful of life. Consequently, he institutes pettiness in his approach to life. Where there are inner problems, then there must be a negative outlook on life. As a rsult, there must be distrust, pettiness, and ungenerous attitudes both toward life and toward others. All the roles and all the games that we have discussed, and which we continue to work on, display these characteristics.

The next step in the chain reaction is self-possession versus self-alienation. If it is true that man must first be squandering of himself just as generously as life squanders itself on all created beings, provided it is allowed to do so, then the individual must first possess himself before he can give himself away. Only he who fully owns himself can safely give himself away and thus find self-renewal in this giving of the self. Each step of giving always seems to involve the risk of losing. First it is always an apparent abyss into which you trustingly throw yourself, only to find that all risk is illusory and that the giving of the self to life is the safest, the most realistic attitude conceivable. But this reality must be discovered by the taking of the illusory risk. Only he who owns himself can take such a risk. Never he who is not in full possession of himself. If you do not own yourself, then you have nothing to give. You are poor. For the richness of life is also in you -- it is within you. When you ignore this fact -- and you consequently build yourself, your value, and your foundation outside yourself -- then you become more and more impoverished. Hence, you cannot give anything away. On the contrary, you must strive to amass more; you must attempt to cheat life by manipulating the circumstances in such a way that you gain as much as possible and you give as little as possible. I do not discuss outer, material things here, although one's attitude in this respect may also be colored by one's emotional attitude. However, this is not always exactly parallel. What I am primarily concerned with is the more subtle level of feelings. Man's attitude to giving to others of his feelings, as opposed to receiving good feelings from others, is the criterion according to which we can determine in what way this chain reaction manifests in any respect of man's life. Most human beings wish to receive all the love possible but are not really willing to give any. Of course, they try to convince themselves that they would also love if only they were loved first. But they insist that this love be returned tit for tat, in the exact manner that their limited consciousness figures it out.

This brings us to the next link in this chain reaction. What are the elements that determine self-possession? There are several, and we cannot go into all of them. In this lecture I will select two specific aspects, which were also discussed previously, although not in this context. These two aspects are far-reaching and cover a great deal of ground. I would say that they are key points, so that self-possession undoubtedly exists when these two aspects are established. The first is the ability to deal with frustration and with disappointment. In other words, with life apparently saying No to you. It is one thing to know theoretically that in the last analysis every No that you experience in life -- no matter from where it comes to you and how undeserved it appears to be -- is your own doing and it is quite another to experience this truth. In order to do so, a great willingness for such an experience must be summoned. This is not easy, because it means overcoming the often strong temptation to indulge in feelings of self-pity and resentment, in complaining and accusing -- either overtly or covertly, by your emotional reactions and by your expressions. At first the latter course often seems justified and inviting. The former implies the willingness to accept our premise, even though you cannot see it yet and you may have to search for a while until the true cause reveals itself to you. Until such time, the frustration must be borne in a productive way.

There is a right, productive way and a wrong, destructive way to accept a frustration in life and to reject a frustration in life. The right kind of acceptance automatically brings the right kind of rejecting frustration. The right kind of acceptance is first the awareness of and then the willingness to see that each miscondition is self-produced and that it is then pushed out of sight voluntarily. Hence the result must be borne with courage and without self-indulgence. Then the attitude exists that mistakes must be paid for, and that this payment is not an unfair demand on the part of life. This is never a negative, hopeless attitude, but rather it leads to the right kind of rejection of suffering. The person expresses this attitude into life: "There is no need for me to suffer for the rest of my life. With all my heart and with the investment of the best myself I want to find the cause of my suffering and I want to change it. I know that life then will yield to me the fulfillment that I desire, and that I deserve all the more since I act as an adult who does not claim any special dispensation for his ignorance and for his destructiveness." This attitude conciliates the right kind of acceptance of frustration with the right kind of rejection of frustration.

The wrong acceptance of frustration leads to the wrong rejection of it, and vice versa. When frustration is being dramatized into annihilation, as "the end of one's world," then it soon becomes so convincing that the mood does feel as though it were really that -- and reasons can always be drummed up that make it appear that way. All the while the personality in effect says underneath: "I refuse to suffer any disappointment. I must have what I want at all times, instantly and in exactly my way, or else I feel persecuted." This denial of self-responsiblity leads to a false acceptance, which is hopelessness, resignation, doom. When the momentary frustration or the difficulty or the disappointment is being dramatized into a tragedy -- and therefore induces the person to have a negative outlook on life per se -- then a destructive kind of acceptance exists. If a disagreeable occurrence is being made into a catastrophe -- often only in one's emotional reactions, which may not necessarily be openly expressed -- then rigid selfwill, stiff insistence on it, arrogance -- in that the person demands special treatment from life -- and the exaggerated distortion that the difficulty is insurmountable and hopeless (in short, selfwill, pride, and fear) create a dark climate in the soul and a dissension within it. They disunify you and they make your dualistic split wider. It is always easy to get lost in two opposites, which are both wrong when they appear as real opposites. This is clearly illustrated here. The fact is that the acceptance of frustration and the refutation of frustration are not opposites, but can be a beautiful oneness. The attitude that comes into being from knowing of this unity expresses everything that is compatible with the nature of life. It creates a relaxed, confident, trustful state. It negates unfair special treatment. It has humility and it is generous in that it accepts its own part in the play. It is also generous in the sense of dispensing with the temptation to play the same old game of feeling victimized and accusatory.

In this way you become active and receptive at the same time, so that the creative substance can begin to sprout forth for you. Life's limitation will be overcome -- at least for you. When this right blend of the right way of accepting and the right way refuting a frustration by life exists, then you possess yourself. You truly own yourself. Conversely, when you get involved with the wrong blend of acceptance of frustration and the refutation of frustration in life, then you become alienated from yourself. You become decentralized, for your innermost best forces are automatically inactivated by the wrong blend. The negativity thus generated paralyzes all that in you which is essential for true selfhood.

The second aspect which is a prerequisite for self-possession is being true to yourself. This may mean many things. It means living for the sake of the truth of the issue that is momentarily problematic; it means being true to your own feelings; it means being true to your own opinions; it means being true to your innermost expressions, rather than to those of others; it means being true to the truth of the moment, which may be so disguised, so covered up by complicated twists in the minds of everyone involved that it requires wanting to see a reality beyond the apparent one. In any problematic situation people suffer most because they cannot disentangle the many pros and cons, the ifs and the buts. This is always the case when self-alienation exists and the central point has been lost. Self-possession can be regained only when the utter willingness is expressed to see the deeper truth, which always conciliates the apparent conflicts -- either within the person or between the person and others. This inner reality reveals itself when the self is willing to sacrifice selfwill, pride, and fear -- the defenses -- for the sake of the truth or for the sake of that which is most positive under the circumstances. This often requires a great amount of willpower so as to reject the line of least resistance, which is to insist on viewing the issue according only to one's personal case against life -- with all the complaints, the victimization, the accusation.

Being true to oneself must dispense with the tendency to submit, it must dispense with the tendency to conform, it must dispense with the tendency to appease others -- all of which are done solely for the sake of receiving their approval. This leads to nothing but sharp resentments and to further feelings of injustice. Man must also dispense with the prideful desire to prove himself better than others and with the equally prideful desire to impress the world around him. He must also dispense with the equally damaging tendency to prove his independence by blind, and therefore meaningless, rebellion. The latter does not lead to selfhood any more than the submission to other people's standards, although it is often falsely assumed that it means strength and true independence. In reality, a self is just as weak when it blindly closes itself up to other people as the self who repeats other people's values like a parrot. Again, we have two apparent opposites. The right kind of self-assertion, which must include the risk to be criticized, leads to an openness of mind that can afford to listen to what others have to say and then to weigh it in an honest way, asking for but one thing: "Is this a truth? Then could it be my truth?" When the answer is affirmative, then it ceases to be someone else's value. It becomes one's own value and one's own truth.

I recapitulate. When the self is concerned only with its appearance in the eyes of others, regardless of the circumstances or on what level; or when the self is only concerned with proving that it is not -- and thus blindly rebels and spites -- then in both instances there is no self-possession. You must get lost to yourself when you follow either course -- or else when you follow both courses either simultaneously or alternately. You will find your own essence if you search for the truth, for the underlying conciliating reality -- which reveals itself only when you are willing to give up all your negative, destructive attitudes. This willingness must be concisely expressed and then guidance must be asked for it. If this willingness is lacking, then it should be faced and examined, for there must be grave misconceptions hindering this desire. Nothing could be more harmful than denying the fact that the self is not willing to abandon its destructive attitudes, and then pretending that what happens to you is really undeserved.

Blind rebellion -- thus a closed mind -- means that the self is just as bound as the apparently too open self that wants -- or that it believes it needs -- to please everyone. In both instances selfhood is lost because the truth of the matter is lost under the rubble either of false compliance or of false rebellion. The truth of the moment can be found only when both these false alternatives are dispensed with.

Life's abundance and generous giving will manifest for you and give you the best only when you give it your best by being committed to the truth of the issue at all times, regardless of how difficult this may be to face, or may appear to be. Only then can you be as constructive and as resourceful as you wish to be in order to experience life with its inherent characteristic: utter abundance and goodness. Otherwise, your desire for happiness must be constantly counteracted by an equal fear of happiness. As a result, you repel it while you simultaneously strive for it.

This is not as complicated and, paradoxically, not as easy as it may appear. The complication ceases when you commit yourself over and over again to the ultimate truth in every issue of your life. But this is not easy because the self abhors to give up the pretenses and the games. It likes to play to an audience, even if none exists.

If these two aspects are observed -- the handling of frustration and being true both to the ultimate reality of the self and to the existing situation -- then you will be a functioning, creative being. You will do away with your roles and with your pretenses. You will allow yourself to see fully and to pulsate, for that must be the truth of being. You will accept your own temporary state -- not with despair but with hope, because the hope will be justified in view of the positiveness and the realism with which you approach yourself. In this attitude you cannot fail to discover the generosity of life; a life that again and again bestows its goodness upon you, far more than your wildest dreams could think of. Life will come to you as a reflexion of your own soul, in an unending series of new self-expressions, of new forms of pleasure, of depths of unifying relationships, of new challenges mastered, of new fascinations, of deeper well-being, and of peace. These are not empty promises, but facts. They are the facts of life. As you lose the negative attitudes and the defensive games, then you will find yourself in forever new ways, in forever greater excitement, and in ever greater serenity.

When man is involved in the negative manifestation of this chain reaction, then the limited, bleak nature of life that he experiences seems to be the reality. Therefore, words such as these seem like wishful thinking. The longer one dwells in the destructive defenses of accusing and self-victimizing, the more real does this temporary limited and false life become. Therefore, the tighter the prison doors close. Although those doors have been erected by the self, they are nevertheless prison doors and they must be opened by the self. The false reality, the apparent reality, draws in the self that has created it. For there seems to be nothing outside. There is no outside for him who has tricked himself in that way.

In his long journey, man must find his way back to the truth of the nature of life. He must see the trick which his mind has played on him by focusing only on negative views of life, thereby developing negative attitudes, and therefore experiencing life in the exact way that he perceives it.

The average human being is involved in this trick of the mind in some areas. These are then referred to as his problems. But he is by no means negatively involved in all the areas of his life. Therefore, it would be a mistake to ascertain either the positive chain reaction or the negative chain reaction in you as the only truth of your condition. You will find that you have both. In some individuals the positive is stronger, while in other individuals the negative is stronger. Look at the area of your life where you find yourself fulfilled and happy. You will see that in this area your concept of life is positive. Therefore, your expectation of life is equally positive. This is not so because life has been good to you. It is the other way around. If in this respect you have confidence in the richness of life, then you are relaxed, unfearful, trusting. You are not frightened, and therefore you are not easily threatened or frightened. You maintain a positive attitude even if there are occasional difficulties and disappointments, which you master whenever they come up. Thus the good that life gives you becomes more and more effortless and self-perpetuating. When you look closely, then you will see that, at least in this particular area, you can afford to be yourself; you are not strained or anxious, and you are not particularly worried about what others think about you. In this respect you possess yourself, and thus you can afford to be generous and to give of yourself. You are neither submissive nor rebellious. Ideas from others or advice from others are considered for what they are, and are then either accepted and made your own, or rejected without the fear of displeasing them.

At the same time, there is another area in you in which the conditions are totally different. Everything pertaining to the negative chain holds true. Human beings who have only the positive chain reaction or only the negative chain reaction are the exception. The former is a self-realized person; the latter cannot function at all in reality. He is not within society and is perhaps in jail, or he is a mentally ill human being. Most human beings are somewhere in the middle. They have some positive chain reactions and some negative chain reactions working within them. Their path of growth must lie in the discovery of the latter, so that they can be transformed into the former. The more this process takes place, the nearer self-realization comes.

If you approach yourself from this particular point of view and you really work through these chain reactions, then you will see that at first the battle is enormous. To make the click from the negative chain to the positive chain seems impossible at first. In this noble battle you have to take into consideration that there is another reality beyond the one that you experience now. This will be easier to do when you have established a connection with and an awareness of a positive chain reaction within yourself. Then you have an excellent basis of comparison on every point we have raised here. If you do this in depth and with a felt experience of all the links under discussion, then you have a key with which to understand both yourself and your problems.

When you actually come to the full recognition of the negative belief about a specific area of unfulfillment in your life and when you go deeply enough, always with the help of meditation, then you will see -- at first only in a subtle and concealed way -- that it is tempting to believe in the negative. After a while, you will see that this attitude is actually quite strong and obvious, and not so subtle at all. The temptation consists of a variety of feelings and attitudes. For instance, it seems secure to expect the worst, for then one cannot be disappointed. This is particularly important because of the inability to cope with frustration. There is also an element of spite in this negative attitude about life life, as if the individual wanted to accuse life of meanness. These are the most important aspects of the fascination with -- and therefore with the attraction to hold on to -- a negative outlook. If this satisfaction cannot be relinquished, then there is no hope for coming out of the cycle of doom. The false doom must be challenged. But only you can do this. Therefore, the more often you express the desire and the firm intention to see another reality behind the one that you are used to in the particular area in question, the more infallibly this will happen. At first gradually and with interruptions. In other words, the new vista is like the vague outline of a new landscape appearing on the horizon. But it will feel more real than anything you have ever known, even though it is tenuous at first. It must be recaptured again and again, for the old fascination with the negative belief is ingrained. Therefore, the bad habit must be broken over and over again. You will probably experience something like this. A limited, seemingly hopeless situation appears to offer very few alternatives -- usually one good one and either one or several undesirable ones. If what you conceive of as the desirable situation -- and it may actually be desirable -- does not come to pass, then you indulge in the temptation of playing the doom game with life, thereby fortifying the negative chain reaction. But once you have challenged it and you begin to envisage new possibilities, then a completely different solution will appear. This may not be the ideal end result yet. For that may require the overcoming of further obstacles within yourself, and therefore entail greater effort and more patience. But in the process of going through these steps lies the fulfillment you wish. Without going through these steps, it would be impossible. And you will discover this, too, in the vista of the new landscape. This will give you deep feelings of bliss, of security, of reality, of meaningfulness. The end result you desire will become your own production and not something that is merely handed to you from outside yourself. Therefore, you will have a grip both on it and on life, and there will be no fear that you might lose this grip in spite of your own power to do something. And this power of control is yours, regardless of others involved in the situation. No matter how they may fail, there is always a recourse for you -- and that lies in taking this road that I suggest here.

There is another important point for you to know. Do not to be misled by your limited expectation of the alternatives which now you deem to be possible for you. This is why it is so important to let the mind be flexible and wide open. In other words, not to close the door with preconceived notions, but to let life present to you its manifold possibilities -- which you cannot even perceive when you are totally geared to only one or two ways. You have to make yourself wide open for possibilities other than the ones which you are currently able to conceive of. When the ability exists to take No for an answer, then this flexibility will also be there. Once a specific No has been thoroughly understood, then you will see how often it turns into a Yes.

Everyone of you who follows this intensive pathwork should use this key. Although every link in the chain reaction is in itself not a new discovery, their connection and their continuity is of great importance. You will see something about yourself that needs clarification, so that switching tracts, so to speak, will become easier. In this way you can make a new reality unfold for you.

Take this lecture into your innermost being and then work it through. See yourself in terms of these chain reactions. See in what way both the positive one and the negative one apply to you. Be blessed, every single one of you. Receive the love and the power that stream forth into your hearts and into your minds. Be in peace!

January 16, 1970