Mutuality, A Cosmic Principle And Law

By The Pathwork Guide

Greetings, my friends. Blessings and love for every one of you. The topic of this lecture is mutuality. I would like to discuss this subject in three sections. The first one deals with this cosmic principle and law. The second one deals with how this manifests in human life. And the third one deals with those factors -- and their origins -- that disturb the law of mutuality.

Mutuality is a cosmic or spiritual law. No creation can take place unless mutuality exists. Mutuality means that two apparently or superficially different or alien entities or aspects move toward one another for the purpose of uniting and of making one comprehensive whole. They open up toward one another, they cooperate with one another, and they affect one another so as to create a new divine manifestation, in whatever form this may be. New forms of self-expression can come into being only when the self merges with something beyond itself. Mutuality is the movement that bridges the gap from duality toward unity. Where there is separation, there mutuality must prevail, or come into being, in order to eliminate this separation.

Nothing can be created unless mutuality exists, whether it be a new galaxy, a work of art, or a good relationship between human beings. This applies even to the creation of the simplest object. To illustrate this principle let us take the example of creating an object. First of all, the idea must be formed in the mind. Without such an idea, without the creative inspiration and the imagination by which the mind extends itself beyond its previous awareness of what already exists, then not even a plan can be formed. This creative aspect must then melt with the second part of two mutually cooperative attitudes, execution. This implies labor, effort, perseverance, and self-discipline. Unless the creative idea and all those activities that are mechanical and ego-determined work together hand in hand, in harmony, then the object cannot be created. The first aspect -- creative thinking and inspiration -- can never complete the creation unless the second aspect is brought to bear on the venture. This applies to everything, without exception. It matters little whether you create an object, whether you compose a symphony, whether you paint a great picture, whether you write a novel, whether you cook a meal, whether you search for new scientific discoveries, whether you heal illness, whether you create a situation of mutual love, or whether you develop on the path of self-realization. It applies to all endeavors, to all successful completions, to all meaningful self-expressions. This synthesis of creativity, of imagination, of ideas on the one hand and of execution on the other must take place. These are apparently alien attitudes.

The creative attitude is a free-flowing, spontaneous manifestation. Execution is an act that comes through the determination of the ego-will. It is more mechanical, more laborious, and it requires consistency and effort. This has totally different characteristics from the spontaneous, effortless influx of creative ideas. Human beings are uncreative for two reasons: Either they are unwilling to adopt the necessary self-discipline to follow through on their creative ideas, or they are emotionally and spiritually too contracted to open up their creative channel. In the first case, they childishly refuse to be bothered by the difficulties, by the trials and the errors. In the second, they lack inspiration. Both these lopsided attitudes gradually balance themselves out when the individual grows on the path and begins to resolve his inner conflicts. The healthy, balanced person who has found himself always finds his personal creative outlet that yields the deepest satisfaction to his life.

This imbalance is particularly striking in the area of human relationships. The initial creative, spontaneous, effortless act that brings two people together in attraction and love occurs often enough. Yet this connection is rarely maintained. All sorts of explanations are given for this. The labor of working out the inner dissensions is usually neglected and the childish idea prevails that once the initial act has taken place then the self is powerless to determine the course of the relationship. The relationship is usually conceived of as a separate entity that -- either favorably or unfavorably -- runs its own course. But we shall discuss this further in the next section of our talk.

The whole universe consists of this harmonious interplay of effortless creative imagination and of execution. The latter always requires labor, investment, commitment, and self-discipline. This bridge of mutuality is a very important aspect. Mutuality is not the same as the unified principle itself, which is opposed to the dualistic principle. The difference between the unified principle and the principle of mutuality is that the latter leads to it, it is the movement toward it. It is not yet unification itself.

For mutuality to take place there must be an expansive movement toward this other attitude, this other aspect, or this other person. In other words, there must be two expansive movements flowing out toward one another in a harmonious interplay of giving and receiving, of mutual cooperation, of positive opening. To put it differently, two yes-currents must be moving toward each other. We know from many of my previous words and from what you find in your work on the path that the ability to accept, to bear, and to sustain pleasure can only be increased gradually in human beings. It is one of the most difficult goals to obtain. This ability depends directly on a person's integration and wholeness. Hence, mutuality depends on the entity's ability to say Yes when a Yes is being offered.

This brings us to the second section of this lecture. How does the principle of mutuality apply to humanity's present state of development? Man's development can be determined by the following three gradations in regard to mutuality. The human being who is least developed -- and who therefore is still enveloped in fear and in misconceptions -- is able to expand very little. And since expansion and mutuality are interdependent, then mutuality is impossible to the degree that expansion is denied. All human beings are afraid of opening up to some degree. At the beginning of this work you may not have suspected that such a fear exists in you. Or, if you suspected it, then you may have explained it away because you were too ashamed to admit it. You erroneously thought that there is something especially wrong with you, something that no other valuable human being shares and must therefore not be allowed to suspect in you. But as you went on, you learned first to admit, then to accept fully, and third to understand properly the universality of this problem in you. Thus many of you after diligent work are now able to acknowledge your fear of opening up and therefore of expanding. You need to become aware of this fear and of how -- as a result of it -- you hold back your energies, your feelings, your vital forces. When you are contracted, then you believe that you make yourself safer with the control that you exert. To the degree that this holds true, to that degree you must have problems in mutuality. The person who is least developed -- and who therefore is most alienated from the truth within himself -- will deny any kind of expansion, and therefore any mutuality. But this does not mean that the longing for it is eliminated, for this longing is always there. But some entities are so afraid of opening up that they manage to squelch their longing for mutuality for entire incarnations. They never become aware of how much is lacking in their life. Such individuals content themselves with the false security of separateness and of aloneness, for this offers less of a threat, or so it seems to them.

When development proceeds a little more, then the longing becomes stronger, and therefore more conscious. There are many degrees and many alternatives, but roughly speaking, and in an oversimplified way for the sake of this explanation, the next stage is the person who is willing to open up but who is still afraid to do so in an actual mutuality. The only way the bliss of expansion and the pleasure of union can be experienced is in a fantasy situation. This leads to a very common, frequent fluctuation of the following kind. Such a person is always alone. In this case the longing is acute -- contrary to the previous state, in which the longing is deeply repressed. When awareness is still dim in regard to these processes, then the person is convinced that this longing indicates his actual readiness for a real mutuality. After all, he experiences it so beautifully in his fantasies. The lack of it in reality is ascribed to his lack of luck to meet the proper partner with whom he can realize these fantasies. But when a partner finally does appear in his life, then the old fear is still rampant. So the soul movements contract and, as a result, the fantasy cannot be realized. This is usually explained away by all sorts of outer factors, which may even be true as far as this goes. The partner may actually have too many obstructions to realize the dream. Yet does this fact not indicate that something deeper must be at work in the person's psyche that makes sure to attract the partner with whom the contraction appears justified? For the deeper self always knows where the person stands. And if the willingness to face the true issues is still lacking in you, then such subterfuges and such excuses are necessary for the preservation of the ego. But failure in the relationship -- such as divorce -- always indicates that the self is not yet ready to put true mutuality into practice.

Many people go through these periods alternately, on and off. First aloneness, hence an acute longing, then a temporary fulfillment of a sort in which either outer blocks or inner obstructions prevent full mutuality. The resulting disappointments may lend even more justification to the unconscious fear -- and therefore to the inner determination not to open up and to be carried by the stream of life. The pain and the confusion in people trapped in this stage are often very deep. But the same pain and the same confusion eventually lead to a full commitment to recognize the real inner source of this fluctuation.

The meaning of this state is rarely understood. The pain and the confusion are due to a lack of awareness of the true significance of the fluctuation. When a growing person comes to the recognition that the periods of aloneness afford him some opportunity to open up in comparative safety and to experience, even though vicariously, some manner of fulfillment without the necessary risks, then he has made a substantial step toward his self-realization. Concomitantly, when he recognizes the difficulties encountered in the periods of relationships in their underlying significance, then the same holds true. Both alternating periods have their own built-in safety valves. Each preserves the self in its separate state and simultaneously ventures out to some extent. To the extent that the entity is now ready to come out of his separation.

On the road of his evolution at some point every individual comes to a full recognition of the significance of this painful fluctuation. And this subsequently leads to a commitment to open up to mutuality, to open up to fulfillment, to open up to a mutual interplay, to open up to expansion, to open up to cooperation, and to open up to positive pleasure. This always requires relinquishing the negative pleasure and the false safety. The soul is then ready to learn, to try, to risk mutuality, love, and pleasure. In other words, it is ready to function safely in an open state.

The third stage is the person who is relatively capable of sustaining an actual mutuality. In other words, not in fantasy, not in longing only, not in an "as if" situation. Of course, not all steady relationships that exist on this earth indicate real mutuality. Very few do. Most relationships are formed on the basis of other motivations, or else the original motivation of mutuality could not be maintained and was replaced by other reasons.

These are the three basic stages that mankind goes through. Of course, in reality they cannot be delineated in exact terms. They often overlap, they fluctuate, they interchange. Many degrees exist and hold true on various levels of the personality. What may be true on one level of a specific person may not be true on another.

Now let us come to the third and perhaps most important part of this lecture. What are the factors that prohibit mutuality between two human beings? Usually this is explained -- and partially accurately -- by the problems that human beings have. Yet this does is not really saying too much. I will try to shed more precise light on this subject, which is a sequence to the last lecture.

Mutuality can exist only to the degree that the individuals involved are aware of and in contact with their previously hidden destructive side, their evil. Conversely, to the degree that there is a rift between the consciousness -- which strives for goodness, for love, and for decency -- and the unconscious -- which is still bent on its destructiveness, on its hate, and on its negation -- to that degree mutuality cannot take place. You may note that I emphasize that the cause for it not taking place is not the actual existence of the still-present evil aspects, but rather the lack of awareness of it. This is an all-important distinction. Usually man's approach is precisely the opposite. He believes that he must first eradicate the existing evil, for otherwise he is undeserving of the bliss that results from mutuality. The existing evil is so frightening that it cannot be acknowledged, so that the rift between the conscious awareness of self and the unconscious denial of self widens as life goes on.

If you are alienated from your unconscious, then you must act out with the other person what you know to exist deep within yourself. Therefore, you must affect that level of the other person that is similarly concealed. Unless this key is totally comprehended and applied, then all your relationships must either falter or be unrewarding. Mutuality in the true sense cannot take place. Therefore, it is of crucial importance that you gain increasing contact with the unconscious destructive aspects of your being. Of course, we have had precisely this aim ever since we started working on this path. And yet how difficult it seems for the individual to bridge this gap between the conscious good and the unconscious evil. How much struggle everyone puts up, and how many are tempted to leave this pursuit altogether, because it seems too painful and too difficult to accept previously unacceptable aspects of the self. Yet life cannot be truly lived unless this happens.

The split between you and yourself must reappear as a split between you and others, unless you are fully conscious of the former. Becoming conscious of the split between you and yourself is the beginning of mending this rift. For consciousness or awareness diminishes the rift. Consciousness must eventually lead to the acceptance of what previously had been denied. If there is no mutuality between you and yourself -- because your standards, your demands, and your expectations of yourself are unrealistic -- then it is unthinkable that mutuality between you and others can ever exist.

Mutuality between you and yourself is absent when you reject the evil in you. By rejecting your evil, you ignore and you deny the vitally important original creative energy that is contained in all evil. This energy must be made available to the person in order to become whole. The energy can be transformed only when you are aware of its distorted form, as I said in the last lecture. Yet, when you reject its present manifestation, then how can you convert it back? Hence you remain split within yourself. When this inner split is not conscious, then it mirrors itself in your relationships -- or in your lack of them. No matter how evil and how unacceptable a specific trait in you may be, no matter how undesirable and destructive it may be, both the energy and the substance which it consists of are a vital force without which you cannot function fully. Only as a whole person can you sustain pleasure and only as a fully conscious person can you be whole. Only then can you not block -- in other words, allow -- the expansive movement and can you let yourself flow out into the universe of another entity while remaining open to receive the other's outflowing energy currents and soul movements.

Your disunity with yourself cannot bring unity with others. It is utter folly to expect it. But you do not have to wait to become unified in the total sense. But if you take your ongoing relationships and you use them in the sense I describe here -- as yardsticks by which you can gauge where you are within yourself in your inner split; in other words, where you stand in your ability to accept the negative in you -- then you will grow into greater self-acceptance. At the same time, your ability to have mutuality will grow proportionately. Hence your relationships will improve and will become deeper and more meaningful. The acceptance of that in you which previously you have rejected -- and therefore you had denied yourself consciousness of -- will produce first a greater acceptance and then a deeper understanding of others you deal with. A mutuality will become possible. By the same token, if you cannot accept the evil in you -- in other words, when you say, in effect, "I must first be perfect before I can accept myself, before I can love myself, before I can trust myself, before I can esteem myself" -- then you must have the identical attitude toward another person. When it dawns upon you that he or she is far from perfect, then you do with the other person what you constantly do with yourself. Only most of the time you manage not to know what you are doing with yourself. And that is unfortunate. Even what you do with the other person you manage not to see for what it is. There are always handy explanations. Those explanations are destined to get you away from seeing how you reject the unpalatable reality both of yourself and of others and the fact that this causes a rift in you that makes mutuality impossible. Therefore, bliss is impossible.

All of you can use what I say here as a practical and immediate key in your work on this path. Look at all your relationships -- with your partners, with your associates, with your friends, and with your business acquaintances. In other words, look at all the situations in which you may be involved with others. Really look closely at those relationships and at your disturbances. To what degree are you truly open to the reality of the other person? If you answer this question honestly, then you will see that you are not open. As a result, you can use this key on yourself. Of course, you can easily shirk seeing it because you can always busy yourself with your explanations, with your justifications, with your rationalizations -- and even with your acute self-blame, which may be easily confused with self-acceptance, but which is just as far removed from it as overt denial.

Of course, you know perfectly well in your mind that both you and others are far from being perfect, and you pay lip service to accepting this fact. But do you really know this in your heart of hearts? When you attempt to answer this question on your deeper emotional level, then you will see that this willingness is very small. Your reactions will prove contrary to what you know in your mind. As you discover your intolerance of others, your criticalness of others, and your refusal to accept others for what they are, then you know that you do exactly the same thing with yourself.

It is indeed difficult to accept the projected, acted-out negativity of others which always uses a defense that is more destructive than that which the person defends against in himself. Your inability to cope with this acted-out destructive behavior of others toward yourself reflects your lack of awareness of when and how you are doing the same thing -- though perhaps in a different way.

By using your reactions against others -- which is easier to see at first -- as an indicator, it will be easier for you to discover what you are doing to yourself. The harm that you inflict upon yourself by the negation of the unacceptable part in you causes you to do precisely what I mentioned before. It makes you use subterfuges to cover up the unacceptable, subterfuges that are more acceptable than what you originally negated. Thus you compound your self-hate and you only widen the rift within you.

If you are in a shallow, unsatisfactory relationship that lacks depth, gratification, and intimacy, a relationship in which you reveal yourself only superficially -- perhaps you only reveal an idealized self-image, which you think is the only acceptable part of you -- then you have a gauge of where you are within yourself. You do not even take the chance of exposing yourself because you are unable to accept yourself. Hence, you cannot believe that your true, genuine person can ever be accepted, nor can you accept others on the basis of where they stand in their present state of development. All this excludes the possibility for mutuality.

The movement of opening up and the bliss of taking in the other person -- in other words, the relaxed bliss of streaming into another energy field and accepting the emanation of the other energy field -- this bliss is unbearable and it appears dangerous to him who hates himself, to the self-hater. When you contract each time a temporary opening occurs, then this happens not because of your evil and of your not deserving this bliss because you are bad -- as you may falsely believe -- but because you cannot accept the total forces and the energies as they are in you now. Therefore you remain locked in them, and hence you cannot convert them.

So the principle of mutuality must first be applied to the person within. In other words, to the relationship between you and yourself. Only then can it be extended to the relationship between yourself and others. But let me say, my friends, from another vantage point -- from a higher degree of consciousness -- that all that separateness that appears so real in your realm of being is just as much an illusion as the separateness that seems to exist between you and yourself. It is an artifact that comes into being because of what is denied. By closing your eyes and your consciousness to the total person that you happen to be at this stage, you create apparently two selves: the acceptable self and the unacceptable self. But in reality there are not two entities. They are both you, whether or not you choose to know this. But are you really two people? Of course not. The same illusion prevails about all the apparently separate entities. Here, too, the separation is an arbitrary, artificial construct of the mind. In reality such a division does not exist. This may not be easy for you to feel at this stage, but it does not alter the fact that mankind lives in this overall illusion of separateness. This mass image is the cause of pain and the cause of struggle. In reality all is one. In other words, every entity is connected with everything else in the universe. But this is not merely a figure of speech. The one Consciousness permeates the universe, and therefore everything therein. But you begin to experience this only when there is no longer any part of the self that is excluded, that is denied, and therefore that is split off.

Now, are there any questions regarding this topic?

QUESTION: Can you discuss the aspects of mutuality in terms of physical, mental, and spiritual levels in the person from the energetic point of view?

ANSWER: Yes. From the energetic point of view, the expanding movement is an outgoing and outflowing movement. When two separate human beings open up toward one another in mutuality -- because they have the ability to accept an open flow and do not contract -- then the energy from the one interpenetrates the field of the other, and vice versa. It is a constant interflow and exchange. With the people who remain separate -- who contract, who cannot open up toward a mutuality -- it is otherwise. Two such people remain enclosed, each like an island. Little or no energy is exchanged. When exchange is blocked, then the great evolutionary plan is delayed.

In the case of the alternation, where opening up is possible only when there is no mutuality -- in other words, when a yes-current must be met with a no-current because mutuality still seems too frightening -- then one energy flow streams out but it reverberates, it bounces back, because it is thrown back by the closed field of the other. The latter is like a wall that throws off the incoming flow. Thus two flows can never become one flow. This phenomenon can be observed in the everyday life of people. They always either fall in love when it is not reciprocated, or, for apparently unfathomable reasons, they fall out of love when their partner has deep feelings. To a degree the same principle exists in ongoing relationships. When one is open, then the other is closed, and vice versa. Only steady development and continual growth changes this, so that both learn to remain open to one another.

On the spiritual level and on the emotional level, the lowest stage indicates that an acute state of fear exists. The fear of accepting the self in its present stage is essentially the same fear experienced about true mutuality and bliss. Since fear exists, then hate must also come into being, with all its derivatives.

The mental levels are affected by this process by seeking explanations for what cannot be really understood unless the self is accepted for what it is now. Thus, the mental activity becomes so busy that it cannot hear or perceive or be attuned to the higher voices within the self, and therefore perceive the deeper truths of the universe. More separation is thus engendered. This mental noise creates more disconnection from the feelings and from the state that first created this condition. Also, such an entity is forced by his own choice, as it were, to live in a constant state of frustration and unfulfillment.

Physically this creates all the blocks. You know perfectly well what they are.

In the second phase of alternate opening up, the mental activity is confused. The search and the groping cannot yield truthful answers until the self is accepted with its very worst. The mental confusion creates more frustration and more anger. The faulty interpretations, which are supposed to explain the fact of always missing out on mutuality, increase the frustration, and therefore the anger and the hate. Emotionally there exists an alternation between longing and disappointment: fulfillment in fantasy (hence, some manner of opening and flow, although no real mutuality), and withdrawal and contraction. The latter includes, again, anger, hate, disappointment, and blaming.

When self-acceptance makes mutuality possible, and therefore energy is exchanged, then the universal movements flow constantly. The healthy alternation of the expanding, the contracting, and the static principles prevails. As a result, the individual finds himself in the eternal rhythm, harmonious with the universe.

In the next question and answer session many questions can be asked dealing with the specific aspects that you intend to bring up, namely group work, which is so important in this work. I will, of course, elucidate on this. All of you who are involved in group work may you really voice your questions, your areas of puzzlement, and your confusion as to how to apply what you learn here now to this aspect of self-confrontation. I will be glad and happy to answer for all of you how you can make this most meaningful in your group experiences.

Be blessed, my dearest ones. May this lecture be a little light going on within yourself, giving you hope and strength, and showing you the way from yet another side and lead you more strongly toward accepting yourself as you are now. Neither indulging anything nor excusing it, but first seeing what is and then accepting the imperfection fully and without any embellishment -- and also without the exaggeration that makes you cringe with shame and with fear. All of this must disappear, for these are pitfalls, which are much more disastrous than what you hate yourself for. When you first find this attitude in you and then apply it, then you will find your happiness and the truth that unites you with yourself and with the universe.

October 9, 1970