The Spiritual Meaning Of Crisis

By The Pathwork Guide

Greetings and blessings to every one of my friends. In this lecture before your summer vacation the topic I have chosen is the inner meaning of crisis. What is the real meaning, the spiritual meaning of crisis? Crisis is an attempt on the part of nature, of the natural cosmic lawfulness of the universe, to affect change. If change is obstructed by that part of the consciousness that directs the will, then crisis must be the inevitable result in order to make structural change possible. Without such structural change in the entity, then balance cannot be attained. Every crisis ultimately means this, whether the crisis appears in the form of pain, of difficulties, of upheaval, of uncertainty, or merely the insecurity of going into a new -- and therefore unaccustomed -- way of living after giving up an old familiar one. A crisis in any form, shape, or manner attempts to break down old balance structures which are based on false conclusions, and therefore on negativity. It shakes loose ingrained frozen lifestyles so that new growth becomes possible. It tears down and breaks up, which is momentarily painful. But transformation is unthinkable without it.

The more painful a crisis is, the more is this a sure sign that the will-directing part of the consciousness must be obstructing the necessary change. The necessity of crisis is so great because negativity is a stagnant mass that needs to be shaken up in order to let go of itself. Change is an integral characteristic of life. Where there is life, then there is unending change. Only those who are still in a state of fear and negativity, and who therefore resist change, perceive change as something that ought to be resisted. Thus they resist life itself. Therefore, the suffering closes in on them even more tightly. This fact applies to people not only generally, as overall characteristics of their overall development, but it also applies to specific aspects of a person. In other words, human beings can be free and healthy in some areas in which they do not resist change. In those particular areas they are in harmony with the universal movement, and thus they constantly expand, they grow, and therefore they experience life as deeply satisfying. However, those same individuals react entirely differently in those areas where their blocks exist. They cling fearfully to unchanging conditions both inside and outside of themselves. In the former instance, their lives will be free from crisis; in the latter, crises are unavoidable.

Human growth means to free the inherent potentials, which are truly infinite. But where negative attitudes stagnate, then there the infinite unfoldment of these potentials is rendered impossible. Only a crisis can shake loose and tear down a structure that is built on wrong premises. That is, on premises which are contradictory to the laws of cosmic truth, of love, and of bliss. Crisis corrects the frozen state, which is always negative.

We work intensely on this path in order to free you from your negativities. What are they? They are the misconceptions -- and the negative emotions, the destructive attitudes, and the behavior patterns that arise from them; they are the pretenses; and they are the defenses. But none of these would present too much of a difficulty in themselves if it were not for their self-perpetuating force that compounds each negative aspect in an ever increasing momentum within the human psyche. All thoughts and all feelings are energy currents. Energy is a force that increases by its own momentum -- always based on the nature of the consciousness that nourishes and directs the energy current in question. Hence, if the underlying ideas, concepts, and feelings are according to truth -- and therefore are positive -- then the self-perpetuating momentum of the energy current set in motion will increase ad infinitum the expressions and the attitudes implicit in the underlying thoughts. We shall come to this later in greater detail. If the underlying ideas, concepts, and feelings are founded on error -- and therefore are negative -- then the self-perpetuating momentum of the energy current set in motion will increase and will compound. But not ad infinitum.

Let us take some examples. You know that misconceptions create behavior patterns which inevitably and inexorably seem to prove the correctness of the assumption, so that the destructive, defensive behavior becomes more firmly entrenched in the soul substance. All of you who work on the path have battled and fought such inner entanglements. You have discovered the truth of this statement. The same principle exists in regard to feelings. Let us take some examples of destructive feelings. Fear could be easily overcome if it were challenged and exposed as to its underlying misunderstanding and mishandling. Apart from the fact that many times manifest emotions are not direct, primary emotions -- for example, fear may be a disguise for rage; depression may be a disguise for fear, etc. -- the difficulty lies in the fact that the fear creates fear of facing and, therefore of transcending, the fear. Then one fears the fear of the fear -- and so on, and on, and on. It compounds.

Or let us take the emotion of depression. If the original feeling of depression is not courageously exposed as to its underlying causes, then the person becomes depressed about being depressed. He may then feel that he should be able to face his depression, rather than being depressed about it, but he is not really willing to do so, and he is therefore unable. So he will become depressed about being depressed -- and that only depresses him even more. And so on, and on. The first depression (or the first fear, or whatever else) is the first crisis that is not heeded, that is not understood as to its true meaning. It is evaded, so that depression about being depressed will set in in an ever increasing self-perpetuation. The consciousness becomes more and more removed from the original feeling, and therefore removed from itself. Consequently, it becomes more difficult to find the original feeling. The increased negative momentum finally leads to a breakdown of the negative self-perpetuation. Contrary to truth, love, and beauty, which are infinite divine attributes, distortion and negativity are never infinite. They find their own end when the pressure bursts. This is painful, it is crisis, and an entity usually resists it with all his might. But imagine if the universe were created differently and if negative self-perpetuation would also continue ad infinitum. It would mean eternal hell.

This principle is obvious with frustration. Most people can see comparatively easily that the frustration itself is less difficult to bear than their reaction of frustration at being frustrated. Or their anger at themselves for being angry. Or being impatient about one's impatience, wishing that one could react differently, but not being able to do so because the underlying causes are not exposed and faced up to. Thus the crises of emotions such as anger, frustration, impatience, and depression are not recognized for what they are, which makes the swelling of the negative self-perpetuation stronger and stronger, until the inflamed boil bursts. Then we have an obvious crisis.

If a consciousness so chooses, then a crisis can mean the end of the continual swelling of a negative self-perpetuation. When the eruption comes, then the choice of either recognizing the meaning of the crisis or of continuing to escape becomes more clearly defined. If this eruption does not lead to a recognition and to an inner change of direction, then a final crisis is bound to come where the entity can no longer take refuge from the message of the crisis. Therefore, the personality must realize that an eruption -- a breakdown or a crisis -- means to tear down the old structure so as to re-erect a new and better functioning structure.

The dark night of the mystics is such a time of the breakdown of old structures. Most human beings are still plunged in the darkness of not understanding the meaning of a crisis. They continually look in the wrong direction. If nothing would be broken down, then the negativity would continue. Yet it is possible -- after a certain amount of awakening has taken place in the consciousness -- that the person does not allow the negativity to become too firmly entrenched. Thus the negativity is prevented from starting the self-perpetuating cycle. In other words, it is confronted right at the start. A crisis can be avoided by looking at the inner truth when the first inkling of disturbance and negativity manifest on the surface. But it requires a tremendous amount of honesty to challenge one's tightly cherished convictions. This cuts off the negative self-perpetuation. In other words, the motor force that compounds the destructive, erroneous psychic matter -- until it finds a breaking point. This avoids the many vicious circles within the human psyche and those between human beings in relationships that are painful and problematic.

If difficulties, upheaval, and pain in the individual's life, as well as in the life of humanity as a whole, would be viewed from this point of view, then the real meaning of crisis would be truly understood. Therefore, much pain could be avoided. I say to you now, do not wait for a crisis to come in an eruptive fashion, as the natural, balance-establishing event which takes place just as inexorably as a thunderstorm takes place when certain atmospheric conditions have to be altered and clarity in the atmosphere has to be re-established. It is exactly the same within the human consciousness. Growth is possible without intense painful dark nights, provided honesty with the self becomes the predominant factor in the personality. True inner looking, deep concern for the inner being, and the giving up of pet attitudes and cherished ideas must be cultivated, instead of obstructed. Then the painful, disruptive crisis can be avoided, because no inflamed boil, whose pus must then come out, would form.

The process of death itself is such a crisis. I have discussed various deeper meanings of death. This is yet another. Superficial death -- and it is nothing else but that -- could be avoided if crisis were not allowed to swell to an eruptive boil, but were dissolved voluntarily with the available consciousness. The superficial death of the human body takes place because the consciousness says: "I cannot go on any longer" or "I am at my wit's end." Any crisis contains this thought and this attitude. The consciousness always expresses to itself: "I can no longer deal with the situation" -- either a specific one, and then a specific crisis in life occurs, or with one's present incarnation, and then physical death will occur. In the latter case, the eruption takes the form of the spirit breaking out of the body, until it finds new life circumstances in which to deal with the same inner distortions all over again. Since eruption, breakdown, and crisis always aim at discontinuing old ways of operation and creating new ones, then the process of death and rebirth signifies this identical principle.

However, mankind opposes this going on to other ways of operating and to other ways of reacting. This obstruction is so unnecessary. It is actually this opposition that creates the tension and the strain of a crisis, not the giving up of the old structure itself. When the necessary change is not accepted willingly, then you automatically put yourself into a state of crisis. The intensity of the crisis indicates the intensity of the opposition, as well as the urgency of the need for change. The greater the need for change, and the greater the obstruction to change, then the more painful the crisis is going to be. The more openness and willingness there is, on whatever level, to go into a change, and the less necessary the change is at any given moment of the evolutionary path of an individual, then the less severe and the less painful the crisis is going to be.

The severity and the pain of a crisis are by no means determined by the objective event. I think that most of you can readily verify this, my friends. Most of you have gone through severe changes outwardly. You may have lost a loved one, you may have coped with the most drastic changes and with the most objectively traumatic events: wars, revolution, loss of fortune, loss of home, illness, etc. Yet you may have been inwardly much less agitated and in pain than in situations which are outwardly incommensurate with the agitation of your inner feelings. Thus we can say that an outer crisis may leave you inwardly in greater peace than an inner crisis. The objectively more traumatic event sometimes hurts less than the objectively less traumatic one. In the former instance the necessary change takes place on an outer level, which your inner being accepts more, adjusts better to, and therefore finds a new modality of dealing with life with much less resistance. In the latter instance, the need for inner change meets up with greater resistance. Your personal, subjective interpretation of an event makes the crisis disproportionately painful. Sometimes one tries to find rational explanations for this seemingly peculiar fact -- and these explanations can be called rationalizations. Sometimes both inner changes and outer changes and inner crises and outer crises meet with the same inner attitude.

When the process of the crisis is accepted, and therefore is no longer obstructed -- in other words, when one goes with it instead of fighting it -- then relief will come comparatively quickly. Once the pus runs out of the boil and the flexible adjustment of new soul attitudes is made, then self-revelation brings peace; understanding brings new energy and new aliveness. The healing process is at work, even while the boil erupts. The negation of this process prolongs the agony. This negation is the result of the inner attitude that says: "This should not be. I should not have to go through this. Why do I have to go through this? This and that and the other is wrong with others. If it were not, then I would not have to go through this." This attitude in you is trying to avoid the necessary eruption of the boil -- which consists of a painful entanglement of ever increasing negative energy whose momentum makes it more difficult to alter the course. Hopelessness is a result of the ongoing negative cycle and of its futile automatic repetition that the consciousness seems unable to stop, but which it could stop by no longer avoiding the necessary change.

How many times have I emphasized that every negative experience, every pain, is the result of a wrong idea? How many times have you, my friends who work on this path, found this to be so, when you go deeply enough and you look at those subtle levels in which you harbor secret convictions which you do not permit yourself to challenge, or even to consciously express? An aspect of this work is the articulating of these ideas. And yet, how often do all of you still miss the necessary recognition by not keeping these incontrovertible facts in mind when you meet with an unhappy situation.

Once an individual acquires the habit of questioning his hidden wrong assumptions and his destructive reactions when anything unwelcome comes his way -- in other words, when he opens up fully to truth and to the need to change -- then his life will change in a drastic way. Pain will become proportionately less frequent and joy more the natural state. Then crisis becomes superfluous. Therefore, eventually death becomes superfluous. This may sound like an extreme statement, especially to those who are still awed by the mystery of death -- and therefore also of life -- but it is nevertheless true. Then the rhythm of growth can proceed smoothly. That is, without the leaps and the bounds of breaking up negative structures in the soul substance.

We have discussed the negative aspect of self-perpetuation. However, it exists primarily on the positive side. Let us look into this now. Let us say that you love. The more you have the capacity to love -- and therefore you can produce genuine feelings of love -- the more capable you will become of producing more of these feelings without impoverishing yourself and others. That is, you do not deduct anything either from yourself or from anyone else by giving out of your inner riches. On the contrary, more will come to you from giving out what is innately in you. By being in tune with this universal feeling, then you will find new ways, deeper ways, and more variations of experiencing love, both of giving it and of receiving it. The ability to experience it and to express it will grow in an ever increasing self-perpetuating motion within you.

So it is with every other constructive feeling and with every other constructive attitude. The more meaningful, the more fulfilled, and the more joyous your life is, then the more of all of these attributes it must generate. It is an ongoing, never ending process of steady increase, of expansion and of self-expression that multiplies within itself. This principle is exactly the same as with the negative self-perpetuation. The only difference is that in the positive process there truly is no limit, no breaking point. It is infinite.

Once you make contact with your innate wisdom, contact with your innate beauty, contact with your innate joyousness, and you allow them to unfold, then these qualities will increase and will multiply by themselves. Once these energies are released and are admitted by the consciousness, then the ongoing automatic motion of self-perpetuation will take over. The initial actualization of these powers does require effort. But once the process is flowing, then it is an effortless, ongoing inner movement. The more you bring forth of the universal qualities, the more there will be for you to bring forth.

Your innate potential to experience beauty is infinite. Your innate potential to experience joy is infinite. Your innate potential to experience pleasure is infinite. Your innate potential to experience love is infinite. Your innate potential to experience wisdom is infinite. Your innate potential to experience the creative expression of your innermost being is infinite. These words have been said, they have been heard, and they have been registered. But how deeply do you know that this is a reality? How deeply do you believe in your innermost potential to be self-creating, in your innermost potential to be in bliss, in your innermost potential to live the infinite life? How much do you believe in your inherent resources to solve all your problems? In other words, how much do you trust in the possibilities that as yet are not manifest? For example, do you believe that it is true that new vistas of yourself can be discovered? Do you believe that you can unfold the quality of peace coupled with excitement? Do you believe that you can realize the quality of serenity coupled with adventure, through which living becomes a string of beautiful experiences -- even though initial difficulties are still to be overcome? Ask yourself these questions. To the extent that you only pay lip service to this belief but you do not actually and actively -- in other words, consciously and deliberately -- express it into yourself, to that extent you will continue to be heavy, hopeless, depressed, in fear, in anxiety, and entangled in apparently insoluble conflicts both with yourself and with others. This is a gauge which tells you that you do not truly believe that you are an infinitely expanding potentiality. If you do not believe this, then it is because there is something in you that you desperately hold on to. You do not wish to expose it because you do not wish to give it up and change.

This applies to everyone in the world. For who has not the dark night to put up with? Some have many little dark nights, coming and going. Or their dark night is continually grey. In other words, they may not be in a great crisis at the moment, but their life is grey. Therefore, it fluctuates comparatively little. But then there are those who have already worked their way out of this greyness. They no longer want to content themselves with its comparative safety from crisis. They want more. Therefore, they are willing to chance or risk a temporary upheaval for the sake of reaching a more desirable steady state. In other words, they want to realize their potential of deeper joy and their potential of greater self-expression. Then their dark nights must become more circumscribed. Either in the ever changing, fluctuating experience of upheaval and liberation, of joy and light, or, in some lives, these may come bunched up in stronger manifestations. Changes from a state of utter darkness, of loss, of pain, and of confusion alternate with heights of golden light, which carry the justified hope for an eventual uninterrupted state of bliss. Whatever it may be with anyone of you, whatever state you may now be in, there is always a message for you to discover about your life. It is up to you not to project your experiences outwardly, which is always the most dangerous and the most insidious temptation. Or, for that matter, to project them into yourself in a self-devastating way, which avoids the issue just as much as when you project it onto others. The attitude of "I am so bad, I am nothing" is always dishonest. This dishonesty has to be exposed, so that the crisis can become meaningful, whether it be small or great.

If you learn to take the smallest shadow of your everyday life and you explore it to its deepest meaning, then you will handle the little crisis -- this small event -- in such a way that makes the swelling of the boil impossible. Hence no painful eruption is needed to destroy rotten structures. This will reveal to you the stark reality that in its untampered state universal life is golden joyousness of ever increasing beauty. Every smallest shadow is a crisis, for it need not be there. It is only there because of your turning away from the issue that created the crisis. Therefore, take even the smallest shadows of your everyday life and ask yourself what their meaning is. What do you not wish to see because you do not wish to change? If you wish to face the real issue and if you are willing to change where it is necessary, then the crisis will have fulfilled its purpose. You will discover new dimensions about the issue which will then make the sun rise again. Therefore, the dark night will turn out to be what it actually is: the educator, the therapist that life continually is if you wish to understand it in this way.

Your capacity to cope with the negativities of others grows to the extent that you can do what I said in this lecture. Often you sense negative feelings from others, but you cannot handle them because you are anxious, uncertain, and not clear about the nature of your involvement with them and of your interaction with them. At other times, you may not sense the presence of hostility in others. Their subtleness and their indirectness confuses you and it makes you feel guilty about your instinctive responses, so that you are even less able to handle the situation. This frequent occurrence is the result of your blindness to yourself and the result of your resistance to change that in you which needs to be changed -- and which therefore ought to be changed. Due to projecting all your negative experience onto others, it is impossible for you to have an adequate awareness of what actually goes on in the other person. Therefore, you cannot deal with them. Many of you have begun to experience the magnificent change that comes into your life as you grow in your capacity to look honestly at what disturbs you within yourself and as you become more willing to change. Almost inadvertently -- as if it had nothing to do with your efforts -- a new gift of insight arises in you. As a result, you see the negativity in others in a new way. It is a way that leaves you free and that permits you to confront them. This new way not only is effective, but has no adverse effect on you. In the long run, it must also be beneficial for the other, provided he desires it to be so.

When you resist change, then your fear grows because your innermost being knows that a real crisis -- an eruption, a breakdown -- is inevitable, and therefore that it is growing steadily nearer. Yet you resist doing what could offset the crisis. What I say here is the story of human life. This is where human nature is caught. Then the lesson must be repeated again and again, until the illusory fear of change is exposed as being an error. If crisis can be understood in the way I have shown you here, if you really meditate about it in order to understand your crisis, and if you give up what you hold on to -- and if you then challenge and question the limitation of your vision in a particular issue -- then life will open up for you at almost at once.

Are there any questions in regard to this before I continue with the rest of this lecture?

QUESTION: I am involved with someone in a similar way to what you described. I cannot cope with this person's angry rebellion. I know that I have this trait in myself, but I still react to it negatively. I do not communicate and open up. I do not let go. Instead, I suppress it. Maybe you can help me in suggesting what my positive response should be.

ANSWER: First of all, I recommend the following assertion: "I am in a state of stress. I am in pain. I am in a situation that gives me anxiety and that I wish did not exist. What is the meaning in it for me?" Open up anew. Do not use the knowledge that you have already gained about yourself as the answer. It may even be correct, but the previous recognitions can subtly serve as a barrier. You will have to be willing to let go from deep inside of yourself. In other words, first to see it and then to let it go.

Here I come to the further aspect of this lecture, which will also be an answer to you. You must realize that change cannot be executed by yourself. The ego cannot accomplish it. The willing, conscious self alone is incapable of doing it. I have talked about this before, but I see how often it is forgotten and therefore is not applied. Both the difficulty of changing and the resistance to changing are largely based on the fact that man forgets that he cannot do it without divine help. Thus he goes from one wrong extreme to the other. One extreme is that man thinks that he is the one who must accomplish his inner transformation. Since deep inside he knows that he cannot do this -- that he simply does not have the equipment to do it -- then he gives up. He feels that it is hopeless to make himself change. So he does not even try. In other words, he does not express the concisely formulated desire to do so. He is right to believe that the capacity to change is missing in him as long as he considers himself to be exclusively the conscious, willing ego self. This resistance is partly the expression of trying to avoid the frustration that inevitably results from wanting something that cannot be had -- and therefore that must prove to be a disappointment. This extreme takes place on the innermost level of the human psyche. So does the opposite extreme. Man professes a belief in higher powers, or God, who is supposed to do it all for him. He remains in an absolutely passive state, waiting for it to be done. The conscious self does not try. False hope and false resignation are the two sides of the same coin of absolute passivity. But the pushing ego -- which is always attempting to go beyond its capacity -- must inevitably end up in the same passive state: either falsely waiting or falsely giving up hope. The pushing exhausts the self and renders it passive. These attitudes may exist either simultaneously or alternately.

The way to go about a positive response is to want it. You must be willing to be in truth and you must be willing to change. Then you have to pray to God -- in other words, to the innermost divine functionings within your soul -- and ask Him to make the change possible. Then you have to wait for the change to take place in a trusting, confident, and patient way. This is the absolute prerequisite for change. When it does not occur to a person to assume this prayerful attitude -- in other words, to say: "I want to change, but I know that my ego cannot do it. Therefore I want God to do it through me. I will make myself a willing, receptive channel for this to happen." -- then it means either that he is unwilling to change or that he is doubtful about the reality of the higher forces within him, or both.

This confident, patient waiting, this assurance, and this trust that it will come when you are utterly willing to look at the truth can be acquired. It is not a childish attitude that wants an authority to do it all for him. On the contrary. This approach conciliates the attitude of adult self-responsibility -- that takes action in the sense of facing it; of wanting truth and change; of the willingness to expose the hidden shame -- and the receptive attitude in which the ego knows its limitations. In this receptive attitude, you let God in you into your soul from deep within yourself. You open up for this to happen. When this attitude is adopted, then change can become a living reality for anyone. When the trust and the faith are lacking that this can come to pass -- in other words, when you doubt that the Divine can actualize Itself through you -- then it is because you have not given yourself the opportunity to experience the stark reality of this process. You have denied yourself this experience. And since you have never experienced it, then how can you trust it? Also, since you have this or that little back door -- which you wish to keep in reserve so that you do not have to enter into life fully and committedly -- then you cannot experience the marvel of the reality of the Universal Spirit within yourself. Since you are not honest with life, then you cannot believe in the power of the Universal Intelligence dwelling in you at all times, and which goes to work the instant you make room for it. Total commitment without any reservations is necessary.

This unreserved commitment to it is the absolute prerequisite for your discovery of its reality within you. Even if you do not know what the immediate outcome may be, or how it is going to be, or what the implications may turn out to be, or whether it is going to work either in this way or in that way, or whether God's way will be agreeable to you, the commitment must be made. Not knowing the total answer right now is part of it. All such considerations avoid your commitment to the new way of life and they keep you holding on to your old distorted, cheating way of handling life, while still wanting to reach for the new liberated, free way of life, in which you are whole, in which you are not inwardly divided, and wracked by the pain of this division. But you cannot have it both ways. Your commitment to the Ultimate Creator must become total and it must be applied to the most seemingly insignificant aspect of daily living and of being. You must be totally committed to the truth. Then you are also committed to the Universal Spirit. If you thus commit yourself, then you will let go of the old shore and you will float momentarily in an apparent no man's land. But you will not mind this. You will feel safer than ever before -- when you held on to the old shore, with the false structure that must be torn down. But soon you will know that there is nothing to fear. This courage must be summoned. Then you will find that this is really the safest and the most secure way to live, the most secure way to be, the most secure way to expand, the most secure way to vibrate in life, and the most secure way to expand toward life. Actually it requires no courage at all. Then the dark nights will turn into instruments of light.

QUESTION: This lecture is very close to where I am. I just begin to discover the meaning of crisis. I feel that I either have to take refuge somewhere or I that have to ride through the storm, which I feel I am doing now.

ANSWER: This recognition is very good. It touches upon the age-old question, the age-old alternative: either taking refuge or driving through. This is perhaps the all-important question, one which appears again and again on the evolutionary path of each entity. Man remains in the cycle of death and rebirth, of pain and struggle, of conflict and strife -- physically, spiritually, and psychologically -- because he cuddles the illusion that going through can be avoided, and therefore that refuge is possible. Not only does refuge not do any good, but it actually increases the boil. The momentary relief is an illusion of the most serious nature. It is serious because the inevitable crisis that comes later is then no longer connected with its source and with its inner reason, and that hurts more. However, when the mind is made up, "I will not take refuge, I will go through it," then the capacities and the resources within the human soul will become instantaneously available. These resources are hidden -- and therefore remain obscure -- to the person who tends to take refuge. Such an individual feels weak. He does not believe in his innate capacity to actualize the infinite powers of the Universal Spirit in him. He does not know of his potentialities: of the strength that will arise in him, of the inspiration that will come to him. These resources become available only when the mind has decided to go through and the help of God is asked for this in meditation or in prayer. Then the trust that the conscious ego self is not alone is awakened. In other words, you will know that it is not the only faculty available to you to deal with the issue.

I emphasize again that a person may be oriented in this way in some areas of his being, while he still remains closed and therefore unwilling in some of his problematic manifestations. Then he will experience life and he will experience himself accordingly.

It is important that you simply want to do the best you can. It is not important whether or not you make mistakes, whatever that may mean to you. What counts is the struggle itself. And that is what must eventually bring conciliation. The blessing, the strength, and the growing wholeness of the personality which thus arise cannot be put into words. They cannot be described. Man always wants ideal solutions. So he always temporizes on the threshold of this total commitment. But what are ideal solutions? They mean nothing if they are not based on the growing wholeness of a person, which comes to pass through the process described here.

I bless you and I ask you to open up your innermost being, your whole soul, all your psychic forces. In other words, to let go of the cramp which denies truth and change, and therefore self-expression and light. Open up in this way, so as to let the blessed power -- that is a constant presence within you -- permeate your whole being. This power is strongly activated in such gatherings when you come together here. In other words, when you receive help and when you open up to one another, and therefore to another channel of help. A blessing comes forth that will meet with the inner power of which I have spoken, thus doubly strengthening you. Continue your growth process in the way I discussed in this lecture. In this last year that I have been privileged to help you, each one of you has made great strivings. You have grown and you have unfolded, perhaps more than you know. Let this process continue -- in the spirit advocated in this lecture -- so that your wholeness and your connectedness with the universe will grow and will give you more of the joy that is inherently your birthright. Be blessed, be in peace.

June 5, 1970