Meditation, Its Laws and Approaches: A Summary

By The Pathwork Guide

Greetings and blessings for all of you. There is a lot of energy, of love, and of healing power accumulated here -- healing for the soul, healing for the spirit, and healing for the body. It comes from the unity of your desire to reach forever new levels of consciousness, of feelings and of experience -- both within and without. It also stems from entities who are not in the body and who are also present here. As I said to you occasionally before, there are many more entities involved in this venture of communication than there are human beings here. There are those who help and fulfill tasks and there are those who learn. It is as with you, some help and others only learn at this stage. But every step of their development is a beneficial influence, and thus gives learning to others -- whether they realize it or not.

As I promised, this lecture is going to be a summary about meditation. I will speak about what meditation is, about some of the laws inherent in it, and then, specifically, about how meditation is best to be used for this particular pathwork so as to fulfill its aim: the unification of the whole person with the as yet separated part, the lower self. Much of it will sound, perforce, repetitious, but this cannot be avoided in any summary. Yet it will prove helpful because it will give all of you a better understanding of the meaning of meditation and its laws, and therefore will make your attempts to put meditation into practice easier.

Meditation is conscious and deliberate creating. It is one of the most dynamic and creative acts imaginable. Man constantly creates, whether he knows it or not. He creates by what he is. That is, by what the sum total of his feelings is, by his conscious and unconscious opinions, by his convictions, by his conceptions -- which determine both his actions and his reactions -- by his goals, and by his attitudes. Every thought is a creation, and therefore has its consequence. It brings about a specific result that expresses this specific thought. Since man consists of many conflicting thoughts, and since his thoughts and his beliefs often vary drastically from his emotional conceptions, the result -- that is, his creation -- must be commensurate. The mixed-up, conflicting, and confusing lives that most people lead testifies to this fact.

There is an enormous difference between those who create unconsciously and unwittingly and those who create consciously and deliberately. The former never know that their unwise or erroneous thoughts, their destructive feelings, and their unchecked wishes bring about a result just as surely as if they were to commit a conscious act. The latter attempt to check, to test, and to challenge their concepts; they seek the truth and they adjust their ideas, their thought processes, and their aims to it; they purify their feelings by going through them with courage, with honesty, with wisdom, and with the foresight that what exists inside, no matter how painful, cannot be avoided but must be experienced. This latter attitude toward life can then result in the conscious and deliberate creation of one's life. That is meaningful meditation.

Meditation is creating because you are living in a highly potent creative substance. You live in it, you move in it, you have your being in it. Everything that a consciousness emanates, sends forth, and expresses into this substance must take on form. The creative act is the word that you either speak or think, the emotionally charged thought -- first knowing it and then pronouncing it. The creative substance in which you live and which lives in you is then being impressed by the thought form with which you mold the substance. This creative substance is so potent that it moves constantly. It is impregnated by the thought and the intent of the consciousness. This is how creation unfolds in its myriad ways.

In conscious and deliberate creation you emanate and express various thoughts, feelings, and attitudes -- the sum total of which creates the totality of your life. All concepts, all opinions, all views, and all desires create a will direction which is charged. This creating force then activates the creative substance, which is the receptive part of creation.

By understanding this principle, it will become obvious why one can tell exactly what a person is, exactly what a person thinks, exactly what a person feels, and exactly what a person believes -- both consciously and unconsciously -- when you see where this person has fulfillment and abundance, and in what areas he has impoverishment and want.

Therefore, it is one of the most important aims on this path to make conscious all that you think, all that you know, all that you perceive, all that you conceive, all that you believe in, and all that you want. Only then can you see the conflicts and the misconceptions. And only then can you begin to create meaningfully. For example, to create a good life. Meditation can and should also be used for the purpose of eliminating the misconceptions and the destructive attitudes. With the help of meditation you can become aware of what your misconceptions are and why they are erroneous. With the help of meditation you can gradually impress correct beliefs upon your soul substance.

But first you must use meditation in order to eliminate that which prevents you from meditation. This sounds like a paradox, but it is not. If you hold incorrect, negative beliefs, then you cannot create a good life. Instead, you unwittingly turn the creative substance into a negative manifestation. Once the misconceptions are eliminated, then you can actively create a more desirable life experience, a better and deeper feeling capacity, more creative self-expression, more joy, and more serenity. All this exists in the universe in limitless abundance, and it is available for you unlimitedly. The only limitation is your mind which, because of its false ideas -- and the negative feelings and destructive attitudes that result from them -- ignores this fact. It is this ignorance that prevents a person from stepping beyond the fences of this ignorance.

Every creative act in the universe comes about because the active and the receptive principles or forces fuse and create something new. This applies to everything, from the smallest -- and apparently most insignificant -- act to the most sublime. Whether you create a tiny object, whether the Cosmic Intelligence creates new galaxies, or whether you create your own evolutionary process, it is necessary that the active principle and the receptive principle merge harmoniously. The same principle applies to the act of meditation.

At various stages in his development, the various levels of the human entity can use different approaches to meditation. Each of these approaches can vary according to which of the levels assumes the active part and which assumes the receptive part. Later in this lecture I shall be more specific about this. Now let me say only that the first stage is always that the conscious mind assumes the active part by speaking the word: by concisely formulating the thoughts and the intents. The conscious mind issues forth, claims, and states -- and the more concisely this part of the creative act is executed -- and the more truthful -- hence the more constructive -- the thoughts and the intents are, then the fewer inner, unconscious obstructions will exist, provided they are being dealt with both realistically and honestly.

For example, let us assume that you meditate for more fulfillment with a mate. The force of your conviction that you deserve this, your knowledge of the fact that this is indeed possible, and your knowing of the fact that this wish is in keeping with divine law will depend on the extent to which you have faced and come to terms with your own wish not to love. When you are unaware of your secret wish not to love, then your statement and your request for more fulfillment must lack conviction. Therefore, it will be infiltrated with doubt. But if you face your incommensurate attitude -- your demanding love in spite of the existence of hate in you -- and you truly give it up, then you can first meditate for your own increased capacity to love. Thus the obstruction to more fulfillment is being dealt with realistically. As a result, all the resistance will vanish, as will the doubt that you deserve the best in life.

The soul substance is the receptive principle. The more your statement is one-pointed, unconflicted, and uncontaminated by secret doubts -- which are due to your unrecognized negativities -- then the more deeply and the more clearly the receptive part, the soul substance, will be imprinted. The soul substance will be molded by the consciousness according to the strength, to the conviction, and to the clarity of the consciousness.

The all-permeating Creator uses precisely the same principle that all human beings do, regardless of whether they know it or not. The higher the development, then the more truthful and real an entity's thoughts and concepts are. Therefore, the more powerful will be the energy with which the entity creates. In the case of the Ultimate Creator, the energy will not be eliminated by conflict, by the limitations of the mind, and by faulty visualization.

There is a correlation between the accuracy of the knowledge, the proper visualization of new possibilities of expansion and experience, proper concepts on the one hand, and the receptivity of the soul substance on the other. When the concepts are real -- and therefore the limitless abundance of the universe is being perceived -- then the attitudes will be positive and in accordance with the cosmic laws of truth and love. Hence no defenses are required. This defenseless state makes the soul substance loose, resilient, and therefore receptive. It will be malleable, and therefore will be easily impressed. Then creation can flow forth in a constant, ongoing flow.

Conversely, when the concepts are distorted -- and therefore the attitudes are destructive and the feelings are negative -- then cosmic law is broken. This causes guilt and fear, which, in turn, require defenses. The defenses cause brittleness and they harden the surface of the soul substance that is available for creating. Therefore, it will be much harder to impress and to imprint.

If you can comprehend this process at least to some degree -- even if at first such comprehension is merely theoretical and intellectual, until you can gain a more feeling understanding -- then it will be very helpful for your further attempts at meditation.

Meditation consists of the following stages or phases:

(1) Concept

(2) Impressing and allowing to be impressed

(3) Visualization

(4) Faith

Now let us see how this works.

As I said before, meditation must begin with your conscious mind. It is a decision of the will and the intent that is being followed through. The concepts and the thoughts that you form with your conscious mind are your initial tools. I repeat what I said before. Clarity, conviction, a concise statement, and an unconflicted directive determine the force and the energy of the process. If you feel that there is weakness and doubt in the statement that you issue forth, then it is an immediate sign that there is an obstruction in you. So you must deal with this obstruction first. Therefore your attention should be turned to them. Such as, for example, facing unaware negativities -- aspects of the lower self -- distorted concepts, etc.

When the existing obstructions are being removed by dealing with them -- and, consequently, the conscious mind formulates strongly and concisely -- then the inner will must be relaxed so that it will allow the soul substance to be impressed. In this way you can create a good life, you can create new attitudes, you can create better experiences, you can create better events -- forevermore expanding.

But when the mind remains within the narrow framework of its present state, then creation -- and therefore expansion -- is impossible. Therefore, meditation requires that the mind take a leap into conceiving of new possibilities. In other words, of new states of consciousness for the self. For example, if at the present time you cannot conceive of yourself free from a certain resistive attitude that blocks your way, then you must first take the intellectual concept into consideration that it could be that way -- and then affirm that you wish to be free of it.

First of all, you must know, and truly believe, that you have both the right and the possibility to mold the creative substance with your mind. You may never have thought of this as a possibility. Therefore, when you now examine your attitude, you may find that you strongly doubt that this is so. Accept this possibility as a hypothesis to begin with, until you know that it is indeed true.

If your unconscious mind rejects a thought which your consciousness has superimposed on it, then this process will not work. You can easily determine whether you reject a conscious thought or not by the way you feel about it. If you do, then you first must deal with the inner contradictions and you must use the creative process -- meditation -- in order to be successful at it, in order to overcome fear and resistance so that you face the truth that must be faced and you feel the feelings that must be felt. It may be redundant to say this again and again, but it is such an important point. Many people give up meditation because what they meditate about does not seem to work. They disregard this whole aspect and then give up.

For example, if you have an unconscious neurotic desire for a negative alternative which you have a stake in, then your unconscious mind may refute this fact, it may battle against acknowledging it -- let alone ousting it. While all of this goes on in your unconscious, then your conscious right thought will be impotent. At best, it will battle against an unconscious counterforce. The result may be vacillation between two states -- one fulfillment and the other deprivation. And this will continue until the hidden will for the deprivation is unearthed. Meditation is a wonderful way to test yourself and to perceive the presence of any existing resistance to the conscious positive desire for fulfillment. Concisely answer these questions: "To what degree do you really want what you want? To what degree do you fear certain aspects of what you desire most? To what degree are you really willing to pay the price for what you wish?" Meditation can set your mind on the right track, provided you do not overlook your emotional reaction to the thought that you issue forth.

The conscious concept must coincide with the unconscious concept. Therefore when you choose a goal, a wish, or a state into which you want to expand for your topic of meditation, then it is essential to determine that there be no conflict between the conscious concept and the unconscious concept.

This directly affects the second stage, impressing and being impressed. Both are part of you and both depend on you. With a unified concept, then impressing will be strong. No defenses and no hiding are necessary, hence your soul substance will let itself be impressed or impregnated with the truthful concept that you send forth into it. You will actually feel how the concept that you issue forth sinks into you, like a seed that falls into the soil to germinate. If this is so, then there will be no impatience, but you will let the germinating process take its course. In other words, you will not disrupt it with doubt, with fear, and with impatience. The less you are burdened with unconscious destructive attitudes, then the more you will feel the creative process at work. You will trust it. That is, you will allow it to happen in its own organic way, without hindering it with your selfwill and with the preconceived ideas that stem from your limited outer mind. Thus the new creation will begin to slowly unfold -- perhaps a bit differently from the way you thought it may come about. In other words, from the way you might have expected it to come about. This is the most desirable way for creating. Indeed, it is the only possible way. It may happen that for a while the creative process that responds to your meditation at first points to more hindrances. Since you may not be prepared for such an answer, then you may tend to overlook it at first. Therefore, you will fail to comprehend that either certain occurrences or certain reactions in you are the answer that you need now. The more you are prepared to accept difficulties if they occur, then the easier it will be to understand the language of the creative process that you have consciously and deliberately set in motion.

It cannot be emphasized enough that meditation -- just as all creative acts -- consists of both impressing (the active principle) and being impressed (the receptive principle). The more you can feel this interaction, then the more effective your creative act must be. This is why the person with strong defenses cannot meditate, no matter how well-intentioned he may be. His conscious mind may be active enough to formulate the proper concepts and he may imprint strongly, but inwardly nothing happens. He cannot be impressed because he has not removed the defenses with which he still hides from himself that which he does not wish to acknowledge.

The third stage is visualization. Let us first understand clearly what visualization means. It does not mean wishful thinking, it does not mean daydreaming, it does not mean fantasizing. In other wordd, it does not mean an illusory hope. All of these are attempts to whisk away the hopelessness which exists due to destructive attitudes and traits that one does not wish to first face and then give up, and to residual feelings that one does not wish to experience.

Visualization means that you can truly perceive yourself in the state that you wish to attain, in the new state that you wish to experience, or as the person that you want to become. In other words, you can actually feel yourself in that state or as that person. For example, in meditation you can experience yourself as a loving person, as opposed to being resentful. In meditation, you can experience yourself as a fulfilled person, as opposed to being eternally wanting and empty. In meditation, you can experience yourself as a joyful person as opposed to being depressed. In meditation, you can experience yourself as a person who is content, as opposed to being always anxious -- or whatever else it may be that you are concerned with at any given phase of your development. Visualization follows proper conceiving. Conceiving means that you consider the new state or the new experience as a possibility. Visualization means that you can feel yourself in that state. It does not mean that you picture particulars, for that may easily lead to wishful thinking, which is more a hindrance than a help.

If you find yourself incapable of visualizing the desired state of mind, the desired feeling, or the desired experience, then this is an immediate sign for you that you unconsciously block yourself with a counter-truth. As result, you maintain hardened -- and therefore unimpressionable -- soul substance. In addition, the power of your thought is weak. Then you can go work on that.

All of this requires a constant tuning into and being aware of your inner processes, and of your responses to them, as well as of the quality of your thought process, and of your responses to them.

The fourth state is faith. At the beginning you can only grope for faith by an honestly experimental attitude. You cannot enforce faith by an act of will. This would be dishonest. It would merely mean superimposing a wishful kind of faith over still existing inner doubts, negativities, and negation. Unfortunately, this is often what happens in religion, with very undesirable results. It discredits spirituality per se with many, who cannot distinguish between superimposition and real experience.

If you lack faith because you live in a state of blindness and of negation -- and therefore you are cut off from the truth of the universe -- then you must deal with this attitude in the most honest way there is. You must courageously examine this attitude and then you have to test yourself as to whether or not you have a stake in maintaining it -- and then see what this stake may be. Just as man's inherent nature is to love and not to hate, just as his inherent nature is to be joyful and not to be in despair, so it is his inherent nature to know -- that is, to have faith in -- the benign presence of the Cosmic Spirit in him and to know of, to have faith in, the continuum of existence. If he does not know, then at one point he himself has decided not to know. This must first be ascertained, then it must be admitted, and finally the dishonesty must be given us.

Then you must adopt the attitude of openness, of honest questioning. Openness means to consider a possibility that you have not yet experienced and then to give this possibility an honest chance. This includes the wisdom to have patience, the intelligence to know that in everything there are many possibilities which are beyond the scope of your present experience, and the good will to grope for the way. If you honestly seek answers, then you will receive them, and the true universe will communicate itself to you.

When this attitude is being cultivated, then positive results must inevitably occur. The human being who at this point in his development is still in a grave state of doubt is apt to believe that the first manifestations and the first answers are a coincidence: "They would have happened anyway and they may not mean that at all." This reaction is predictable, and even inevitable. It should not make you feel guilty and you should not hide it from yourself, any more than you should hide any other reaction from yourself. Rather, confront these thoughts and use your honesty and your intelligence.

For instance, you can say: "Yes, it does seem miraculous. There is a living process and an intelligence at work that surpasses by far my own imagination. It seems too good to be true. Although this is what I would like, there is also another part in me that doubts that it could be true. So I will give it a further chance." Right here meditation should be used for where you are conflicted and where you are doubtful. Examine what the doubtful side wants and what it does not want. Let it express itself. Request guidance for this. Then request further answers for yourself.

The answers may come in various ways. Through inspiration -- sudden new ideas, usually when you least expect them; through the realization of new feelings; through a word that someone else says; or through a word that you read somewhere. As you go on, you will gradually see that these answers are the manifestation of a live process that is so profoundly meaningful and organic that nothing the intellect can think of can ever match it. You will recognize that such answers -- and the enlightenment that comes -- are pieces in a jigsaw puzzle that little by little forms a comprehensive picture. Eventually you will rely on this process as on nothing else. It is more real than anything can be in the material world. It is your own path that unfolds, my friends. Eventually it will reveal to you the reason for your being here on this earth now, the meaning of your present incarnation. When this inner experience and this certainty comes, then you have faith.

But until then you must deal with the stages that prevent you from it. This may be years, it will certainly not be days. In the meantime, you must constantly examine the contents of your unconscious or partially conscious mind. Namely your beliefs, your attitudes, your feelings, and your reactions. The incontrovertible experience that we call faith can come only when you give yourself the chance, only when you keep an open mind, only when you are honest with yourself. Man often keeps a closed mind because he fears ridicule from others. Thus his disbelief -- his doubt -- is often every bit as unnatural, as dishonest, as superimposed, as opportunistic, and as conformist as false religion used to be in former times.

By the same token, it occurs just as frequently that a person will not allow the answer to his honest question to come to him because he fears that the answer may be No. In other words, he is afraid that he might then find out that there is nothing beyond the graspable and the material. He is so afraid of this alternative that he does not let go enough to keep himself open and receptive. The true answers can come only when there is no tight, fearful attitude. They can come only when a readiness exists to deal with whatever the answer may be. Since the negative answer is feared, then the person prefers to keep it constantly in abeyance. He vacillates, he theorizes, he stays on the edge -- before going into the apparent abyss of his commitment to testing the truth. This staying-with the theory sometimes can last for many lifetimes. The courage must be mustered to risk an undesirable answer. Then the truth will prevail. Theory allows for illusory faith, but never for real faith.

Real faith is knowledge. It is an inner experience in which there is no longer any doubt. Real faith can be acquired only if you are ready to risk an undesirable answer, and then are ready to deal with that. If you are truly prepared to deal with whatever is in life -- with whatever is in you -- then you can take chances, and therefore you will find out the truth. If you are not prepared to do that, and therefore you content yourself with theorizing sophistry -- living by proxy, as if -- then you can never go beyond the step of inner argumentation.

It must also be understood that this honest commitment and this readiness to deal with what really is goes hand in hand with the similar attitude toward the lower self. To the degree that you hide your lower self from yourself -- and therefore are unwillling to first face it and then deal with it -- to that degree you will not find the courage to deal with anything else, universal truth included. All four stages are interdependent. Therefore, they are directly related to one another.

Now I will discuss a few laws pertaining to meditation, which are also familiar to my friends. But it will be helpful to see the sequence and the continuity in an overall picture.:

One of the most important laws is what all Scripture reiterates: According to your belief you shall experience. This is actually already clear from all I have said before. Since you are living in an infinitely malleable creative substance which is a highly impressionable mass, your belief molds it. Therefore, it creates. The powerful, sizzling sea of energy in which you move, in which you breathe, in which you think, and in which you express yourself can manifest anything you can conceive of: from the most dismal state of hell to the most sublime state of heaven, with every degree in between. The realization of this truth can bring a profound change in your life. I would suggest that you first think deeply about this and then that you request inspiration and guidance in a meditation for this particular aspect. This is where visualization comes in. In conceiving, in impressing and being impressed, in visualization, and in faith first you express and then you act upon a specific belief, which you must then experience as the created response, as it were.

If your belief -- your concept and your visualization -- is that you cannot change, or if your belief is that the universe is hostile, or if your belief is that your ultimate fate is tragedy, then you will -- indeed you must -- experience just that. All your actions and all your reactions are geared to bring this about. The topic of images is ample proof of this. Conversely, if you truly believe that you can change, or if you truly believe that the universe is abundant joy in every respect -- and if you then truly believe that you can experience this truth -- then you cannot help but do so. If you are honestly committed to this, then you will feel increasingly free to believe in the possibility to experience the abundance of the universe.

A finely calibrated mechanism sends forth its messages according to which you cannot violate the divine laws beyond a certain degree. So, for instance, if you are unconsciously launched on a road of hate and spite, then you cannot believe in the possibility of love or in the possibility of fulfillment. If you unconsciously want to cheat life by wanting more than you are willing to give, then you violate another important law. Therefore, no matter how much you may try to believe in the possibility of life's abundance, it will not work, it will not take. In other words, your soul substance will refuse the impression, until you remove this violation of law. Life cannot be cheated -- and it is well that way.

Another law is that you cannot skip a step. If you want a certain result, but this result depends on the elimination of a specific obstruction which violates another law, then this obstruction must be dealt with first. Therefore, your meditative aim may have to be altered along the way. If you are not willing to correct what stands in the way, then the result cannot come. In other words, in this area creation cannot take place.

Here can lie either a vicious circle or a benign circle. The vicious circle is this. If you unconsciously hold back -- and therefore you do not wish to make an honest commitment to truth, an honest commitment to honesty, and an honest commitment to giving as much as you wish to receive, but you childishly and unfairly want to get more than you are willing to give -- then your conviction will be lacking. Or, if you want a positive result, but without wanting to make the necessary change in your own being, then you will inevitably doubt that change is possible for you. Thus your concept, your belief, and your visualization will be too weak. Therefore, your soul substance will be too brittle to be impressed. This will only reinforce your doubt and your negation.

Conversely, when you fulfill the law of truth and love, of honesty and openness, when you remove your defenses, when you face your lower self, and when you are willing to change, then you will feel that it is your birthright to experience the intrinsic nature of the universe: absolute abundance. If you are stuck somewhere along the way you -- and therefore you are blind -- then it is up to you to find the answer. It is never as obscure as you want to believe. It is always possible to find the answer when you really want to find it.

One of the most helpful things to remember is the fact that you can meditate to meditate. In other words, you can ask for guidance and for inspiration to help you to find the right topic, the right concentration, the right concern, the right words, and the right attitudes at any given phase of your path. You can meditate to become aware of where your soul substance is walled in, and therefore is cluttered up with untruth. You can ask to receive help so as to loosen it up. Meditation can and should be used for every step along the way. Where you feel that the resistance is too great, then you must know that this means that you do not want the positive, but that you still wish to remain in the negative. Then this must be dealt with. Meditation becomes problematic when you deny your negative desire, while you commiserate about the result. The moment you know that you want the negative, then you are one step further, because then you can meditate about that.

The more you progress in the art of meditation, the more aware you must become of the fact that it is a constant interaction between the active principle and the receptive principle, between the voluntary faculties and the involuntary faculties. After this first stage of meditation -- in which your mind performs the active, impressing part and affects the receptive soul substance -- then other possibilities arise in which the various levels of the human consciousness assume varying roles of active interaction and of receptive interaction. Your conscious ego mind can activate the divine process and then let it respond. The spiritual self is being impressed and is being called forth by the conscious good will and by the mind. But then another interaction must come about. The manifesting spiritual self must now become the active principle and the conscious mind must become receptive, listening, pliable, impressionable. It must be tuned into and it it must understand the messages that come forth.

Still another possibility is that you use your conscious ego mind, again in the active way, but this time you address it to the lower, destructive part of the self so that it will manifest and will then express itself in its messages. Subsequently, you must once again become receptive and listening with your conscious mind so that the lower self can truly be heard. This does not mean that the conscious mind gives in to it, that it identifies with it, that it is, in that sense, impressed by it. But the conscious mind first listens, second absorbs, third evaluates, and finally discriminates.

Just as your conscious mind can let itself be instructed by your spiritual self, so can your lower self be instructed both by your conscious ego mind and by your divine self -- perhaps in that order. After you have listened to the destructive nonsense of your lower self without impinging on its free expression, then you can tell in what way it is wrong, why it is wrong, what are the misconceptions and the damages -- the undesirable results. An interaction, a dialogue develops.

Perhaps a bit later you can request your divine self to issue instructions to your lower self. Let your divine self talk both to your conscious mind and to your undeveloped lower self. Listen to it, let it teach you, and let it inspire you on all levels. Ask it either to talk to you directly through you or to speak to you by writing to you through you.

When the divine self instructs the usually unconscious lower self, then this can happen in various ways. You may actually hear and be a witness to an inner dialogue conducted by these two levels of your being. The ego can then consciously and deliberately -- in other words, actively -- ally itself with the former. Or the process can happen during your sleep, without your conscious mind being directly involved. The process may create some momentary turmoil, which at first you may not understand. It may be a result of your wish to purify your lower self. After you have fully recognized its specific ways -- and this is always necessary, it cannot be skipped, since you must assume responsibility for it -- then the process of influence by the divine self may take place on the involuntary level. In order to become aware of this process, you must learn to listen, you must tune into yourself, you must become receptive. The last one is a much more advanced state. But it can come about only when the previous stages are already practiced, and therefore have been mastered.

However, there are occasional periods in the lives of all human beings when such an inner process may go on without the person actually being involved in such a path. This may be due to a previous intent before the incarnation started. The entity may have reached a specific crossroads where this inner guidance is instrumental for an outer decision and for a commitment to a real path, with all that is necessary. Such guidance may come in periods of upheaval through powerful dreams or through a specific succession of events. If a person is not already deeply involved with and attuned to the inner reality, then he is not able to decipher its meaning. Therefore, he needs help and guidance by others. Even then, the full understanding of the significance may come only much later.

If the mind -- both the conscious part of it and the unconscious part of it -- of a person does not obstruct such an inner process but waits and listens, then tremendous development takes place following such periods. More unfoldment and more enlightenment must come. But if conscious resistance, unconscious negation, fears, and blocks bar the way, then a very harmful process is set in motion because the inner expansion pushes forward but the outer blocks prevent it. That leads to a crisis. This may occur either on one level or on all levels. If the pull into expansion on the one hand and the obstruction on the other are too strong, then it may even cause a breakdown. It is always the obstructing side that must give way to the inner urge to expand. For the latter is the divine voice, and therefore the true voice that knows the right timing. All crises should be viewed in this way.

The further you go on the path, the more receptive to the inner process you will be. Therefore, the more you will be able to alternate between receptivity and initiating from level to level. The increasing awareness of and the attunement to the inner process -- to the inner world of truth -- finally eliminates the great wall that separates the ego from reality.

Meditation can be applied to all life experiences -- both inner and outer experiences -- and to all self-expressions. If it is done rightly, then it alternates. If your desire for outer fulfillment has no inner obstruction, then your meditation for fulfillment will immediately bring about the proper concept, impressing and being impressed, visualizing, and faith in the result. The creative process will be at work and you will feel it. But when there are inner obstructions, then your meditation must turn its focus on them, so that your meditation on the outer desirable goal can be resumed later.

It does not matter whether you first use meditation for the express purpose of experiencing life in a more meaningful way, or whether your primary concern is to experience the Creator within. For both mean the same and both bring about the same result. If you experience God in you -- and therefore you know that you are His manifestation -- then your life will be rich and fulfilled. Or, if you start with the richness of life, then you can succeed only when you know that this is the nature of creation and the will of God. For both aims, you must remove your inner obstructions if you want true unity and not the false unity that comes from splitting off the undesirable part because you do not wish to deal with it.

You can use meditation to first meet your deepest fears and then to deal with them. You can ask for guidance, you can ask for enlightenment, you can ask for strength, you can ask for courage. For man does not need to live in fear. But the fears vanish only when you go into them and you expose their phantom nature.

There is no human being who does not fear death. For man lives with a wall within him that separates him from the process that exists beyond death. That, too, can become a topic of meditation. You can want to remove this wall and you can ask for the necessary guidance. But are you truly willing to fulfill the conditions? If you are, then you can remove the wall. You can live without fearing death. You can experience the truth of eternal life right here and right now, in the body. But it means giving up all the ego attitudes, all the tremendous preoccupation with everything that sustains and that cultivates the ego: your pride, your selfwill, your fear, your vanity, your separateness, and your duality. In other words, the belief that there is a difference between you and others, and therefore that one should be more important, either you or the other. All these erroneous, illusory attitudes are part of the ego consciousness and they defeat your awareness of who you really are: the Greater Consciousness that knows no wall and therefore fears nothing. You may delude yourself that you do not fear death by not looking at it. But your existing fear will manifest in all sorts of other ways. As long as you are an ego -- and therefore you are encased in its walls -- then you must fear death, even though you sometimes wish it for destructive reasons of escape and of hostility. You can truly remove this fear when you abandon the ego attitudes; when you play fair and square with life, without cheating; and when you do not set yourself above others and therefore do not feel below them. For the one is conditioned by the other, as you know but sometimes choose to forget.

Any question, any problem, any conflict, any darkness can and should be taken into meditation, and it should be dealt with honestly. The only problem is that even when you have already experienced the truth of meditation -- and therefore you have genuine faith in it -- you still tend to forget to use this wonderful communication. It simply does not occur to you to use it at all times. You forget how effectively it can be used for the smallest and the biggest issues of living. In reality there is no big or small. Everything is important. Every issue makes room for the alternatives of either constructive attitudes or destructive ones; of either truthful attitudes or erroneous ones; of either divine attitudes or demonic ones. Hence, everything can be either important or unimportant. It depends on the vantage point. Therefore, everything can be taken into meditation.

As you meditate in order to remove your blocks, then you will increasingly be lived through, be lived by, and be a manifestation of the divine expression as this particular entity that you are now. Then there is no more wall, there is no more ego. You are the Divine Consciousness. Then you no longer need to go into specific acts of meditation in the sense of thinking, of concentrating, of consolidating your thoughts, and of listening -- of course, after having shut out the vagaries of your mind that want to take you away. In other words, you will no longer have to make an effort. You will simply emanate creating. You will live it, you will breathe it, you will be it. When the real you is free, then every expression, every thought, and every feeling will be a creative act, a meditative act.

There are other stages which are important to know, and I want to discuss them briefly. When the personality is least enlightened, then he will use petitionary prayer. We do not need to go into this, for none of you is in this state any longer. The concept that an outer deity hears you, rewards you arbitrarily, and so on is obviously the result of a childish, undeveloped state. Such a person believes that if he pleads humbly enough, then his wish will be granted by this separated other entity. Even these primitive petitionary prayers may often be "heard" because the power of the conviction, the visualization, and the laws of "according to your belief you shall experience" are followed. It is the power of the thought that does it. Love, humility of spirit, and honesty may also help the power of the thought to be effective, in spite of the primitive belief.

The next stage is already much more enlightened, and that is a request. It means that you request of yourself to go into a certain direction. It means that you know that these processes are bound to respond. It means that you know that what you desire is in keeping with the immutable divine laws.

The third stage is knowing that it must be that way; knowing that it will be that way; knowing that you have a right for every fulfillment; and knowing that you deserve it because you are willing to give up all your negative, obstructing attitudes. This total commitment makes you know that the Divine Power and the Divine Consciousness within you are bound to respond.

The fourth -- and the most advanced -- stage is when you know that it has happened even before it has actually manifested. This occurs with an inner click in which you experience the ongoing, immutable living process. This state has eliminated all doubt because the negativity and the negation in you have been eliminated.

In some areas of your life you may be in the second stage, in other areas of your inner being you may be in the third stage, and in still other areas of the self you may be in the fourth of these stages. This is a good gauge for you. The fourth stage means you are in a state of union.

My dearest friends, when I withdraw and you stay here together for a while, maybe one of you spontaneously feels like meditating aloud and then, little by little, others can participate. Let it become a spontaneous expression. Thus you can generate a marvelous energy which can be used for any purpose on your path. Eventually you can use it directly on a person who feels that he needs it for a specific purpose, in a way similar to the power I now give. In its own way it will be an even stronger tool. The energy of many is not only more powerful, but it will also help you to realize what power you can generate when it is channeled rightly. Let yourself be inspired and let come whatever comes. Be blessed with love, with truth, and with power.

October 22, 1971