The Anatomy Of Contraction

By The Pathwork Guide

Greetings and blessings, my very dearest friends. Love and truth envelop all of you. May this lecture help you to realize more your of innermost being and to actualize it.

The path is a spiral movement. Each round of the spiral is a new layer. At the entrance of each round a new and deeper commitment needs to be made. The rounds or circles are not closed, they have openings. When you you discover this new opening, then you need to make a new commitment -- on a deeper level -- to let go and to let God; you need to make a new commitment to give all of yourself to the truth -- to the truth of being; and you need to make a new commitment to no longer hide from your truth. This truth can have many different facets. It is up to you to find which particular truth you are called upon to face, and to alter if necessary. Each entrance to a circle represents such a phase of renewal of commitment on a deeper level.

Often you do not know which particular aspect or facet of your personality your inner path organically calls you to deal with -- and to alter if necessary. As long as you grope without knowing what it is, then you will feel beclouded. As a result, your life will seem to contract into a crisis. This is a period of testing. It gives you the opportunity to find what it is that you need first to see, then to know, and finally to change. In other words, where the new commitment needs to be made. Without this momentary darkening -- this crisis -- then you may never feel sufficiently motivated to undergo the necessary search. The moment you first find and then understand the meaning of this period -- of this phase on your path -- and you experience it as a meaningful piece that fits into the whole picture, then you will have passed the test. You will have the information available from your innermost being; you will be able to make the commitment specifically -- where and how it needs to be made -- so as to shed your old bad habits of thinking, of feeling, of reacting, of willing, and of being. Then you will enter a new round on your spiral and you will find yourself on a deeper circular motion. It is one that leads to the treasure of your inner universe.

On the outermost level of the spiral configuration, you experience life as a disconnected happening. In other words, the occurrences in your life seem to have no meaning. Everything seems arbitrary. You may feel occasional happiness and fulfilment, or the gratification of your desires, yet this never relieves the inner anxiety that comes from the false belief that you are a helpless straw in the wind and the false belief that you are living in a world without rhyme or reason. The fulfillment comes to you just as haphazardly as the tragedies and the crises -- or so it seems to you. At this stage you are so far removed in your consciousness from the inner causes that you experience the effects as chaotic coincidences. This is the reason why even if you do have your desires fulfilled, even if you live in health, and even if you do have material security, you feel much less secure and much more frightened than when you have reached deeper circles on the spiral of your growing consciousness and you go through a period of confusion, of darkness, of crisis. For then you may already understand the meaning of this period and therefore you feel a deep security in the meaningfulness of it all. Happiness that appears to be coincidental contains no security. When you have happiness in that state, then you always fear to lose it. And when you do lose it, then the loss has no meaning or connection, just as the happy states themselves have either no meaning or no connection with a deeper sense of life.

As you progress into deeper levels on this spiral and you enter into new commitments to your God and to your truth, little by little you see that the daily occurrences in your life have another meaning. They have a connection that gives a sense, a meaning to your life. When this occurs in the practical matters in your life, then cosmic reality opens up to you. And from this, more deeper layers of the spiral rounds take on a light and an experience of bliss that cannot exist unless you make this renewed commitment about specific issues on these new levels. It is up to you to find them. When you arrive at a new entrance on the spiral, then it often seems difficult and fraught with tests. Yet these tests are necessary. Without them you cannot find the deeper meaning of everything that happens to you, of everything that occurs in your life, both personally and generally. When you see their meaning, then your security increases.

This lecture is going to deal with the anatomy of contraction. Many years ago -- in your earthly time dimension -- I gave a lecture about the principles of expansion, of contraction, and of the so-called static principle. It will be important for you to reread this lecture so that this lecture will have more meaning for you. I will specifically concentrate on the principle of contraction because there is so much misunderstanding and so many misconceptions about this principle in your world of duality. In your duality you imagine that contraction is bad and therefore negative, while you believe that expansion is positive and therefore good. While this may be true on certain levels, it is not true per se. There is a specific spiral configuration that applies to the development of your soul in this respect.

In the early stages of the development of a human consciousness, the state of expansion and the state of contraction are both negative. Therefore, they are equally painful. As the soul begins to evolve and to grow, a new spiral phase or round is being entered. On that level, expansion may have become positive and contraction negative. Gradually the movement changes again, and on a different level -- or even simultaneously -- this can be reversed. Expansion can then have a negative manifestation and contraction a positive one. In still further evolutionary states, both expansion and contraction become positive.

Let me show you how expansion and contraction can be both positive and negative. This is something that you do not understand yet. You do understand that in the positive manifestation of expansion the outgoing movement is reaching out, it is giving, it is making yourself available for further beautiful states of consciousness. It is a highly volative creative expression, it is active, it is aggressive in the best sense of the word. It means penetrating into new realms of being, giving forth from the inner riches, and eliminating the walls of separation. It implies courage and strength. It is an active force that propels itself outward. On the universal level it is the force that first penetrates and then enlivens the void.

What would be the negative facets of expansion? When expansion manifests as negative aggression, as a hostile, conquering force that disregards others, then it creates more separation rather than less. Thus it contrasts with positive expansion.

Contraction is negative when there is a tight holding back, a cramp, a refusal to flow and to give out. It is a seeking of safety through isolation and separateness. It is a movement reaching inward that is motivated by fear, by distrust, by ungivingness, and by false ideas about what is safe and what is not safe. It contains itself in one's own inner world. But not for the purpose of bringing out the riches of the inner world so as to spread them out, as is the case with positive contraction, but rather in a refusal to move, in a refusal to reach out, in a refusal to love, in a refusal to trust, in a refusal to give out.

Contraction in its positive form has a very beautiful meaning. It is an in-gathering of all the forces. What has occurred in the expanded state is now being gathered back into the self. It is being digested and assimilated. It means reaching into the depths of your infinite divine reality in order to bring out the treasures of the deepest aspects of the self. Expanding means letting this flow out into the world. But in order to do so, positive contraction must occur first. Contraction means gathering the riches of divine creation to be found in the inner universe so that they can then be brought into the outer universe. Expansion means bringing into the outer universe the riches that you have gathered in your inner universe.

So there are two movements involved here. The expanding, outgoing movement brings out what has been collected and has ripened in the positive contracted state. The positive contracted state means bringing to fruition what has been gathered. It is a renewed delving into the deepest layers of divinity. In this state that which had been brought into the soul during the expansive period merges with what is ready to come out. It is a meeting of two movements within the soul, simultaneously digesting and assimilating the former period, and preparing for the following one. In its positive manifestation the in-gathering movement bears no resemblance to the negative contraction. There is no fear, no distrust, no ungivingness. There are no false safety measures. It contains a love that is just as pure as is the positive expansion. It is going into the self for the purpose of serving the universal creative process harmoniously and bringing it to fruition. Could this possibly be designated as negative?

In positive contraction you gather from without, like a wave that rolls back into itself, so as to first reach in and then to bring out in order to move outward again. This is the ever-present pulsation of life, to be found in all creation, in every creative process. Nothing can be created without this threefold principle. It does not matter whether it is a small object of the simplest form or whether it concerns worlds and universes, material realities and spiritual realities.

Of course it is all one universe -- as without so within. But the movement must make the exchange. From the human vantage point the inner universe offers different kinds of riches and states of being than the outer universe does. The inner universe offers the material that has to be utilized and brought out into the outer universe so that the outer universe can be given form. The outer universe only repeats what exists in the inner universe in an as yet undifferentiated form. Then the outer universe recreates itself. In other words, it duplicates the inner forces and the manifestations of the inner universe, and then it brings back these outer forces to nourish the inner universe. Thus the inner universe and the outer universe nourish each other back and forth.

There must be a momentary pause between every alternation of expansion and contraction. We call it the static principle, for lack of a better word. Static must not be thought of in the sense of stagnation. It is static in the sense of allowing to rest, of allowing the process to ripen so that after each contraction that restful ripening phase must set in. This threefold principle exists in every phase of creation. Creation is unthinkable without all three aspects. Yet in your consciousness you associate the expanding principle with the creative movement, while you perceive the contracting principle as destructive. You totally ignore both the existence and the importance of the static principle. This is a mistake. So your mind becomes fixed and therefore closed to the truth. When the contracting principle expresses itself, then you judge yourself. Your preconceived idea is that contraction is automatically something that is bad and undesirable -- and therefore that it should not be allowed. Consequently, you prevent yourself from going through the total creative movement in a state of loving comprehension, welcoming what unfolds, going with it, aiding it with your mind and with your will. Instead, you obstruct the process through your attitude and with your false idea. For as you believe, so must you experience. Therefore, if you believe that contraction is bad, then you will experience only its negative facets. Hence, you will fail to see that these negative manifestations have a tremendous meaning for you, one that is both necessary and beneficial for you, and indeed most positive.

Your false idea that contraction is negative makes you judge one aspect of the threefold creative principle. This judgment makes you focus only on what is negative, which is often only a superficial, disconnected facet -- disconnected from the Whole. This limited focusing eliminates the possibility first to see and then to experience anything other than what you see and what you believe. You lose sight of its regenerating, benign nature and of its meaning. Incidentally, the same is true in reverse for the expanding principle. Although you know that negative aggression does exist, you seldom recognize it when this is the negative manifestation of the expansive movement. You feed yourself with the words of your existing image about contraction: "It is bad, it is negative. Therefore, I must not contract." Thus you miss out on the beneficial meaning of your contracting phase.

There are many overlapping, intermingling spiral movements in regard to this principle. One level of your personality may need to expand in a given phase of your development. But in order for this expansion to be truly meaningful and cohesive with the overall plan, then a simultaneous contraction on another level has to take place. This may seem complicated at the moment. But first you will see and then you will understand that this is extremely important. If you do not fully give yourself -- in a most positive spirit -- to the contraction of one aspect of your personality, then the expanding on the other level cannot be wholesome. The expanding movement can manifest harmoniously and in a meaningful pattern on one level only when the other level gives in to the contraction and derives the most benefit from it.

Until a certain state of self-realization has been reached through the process of purification and transformation, you are totally unaware of this simultaneity of the two levels. In other words, where on one level expansion exists and on the other level contraction exists. You only connect with that level that is on the surface and you ignore any other ongoing movement and reality within you. But when your consciousness increases, then you become aware of this double -- and apparently contradictory -- manifestation. When this happens, then it is a wonderful awakening that indicates a connection with other levels of reality. It also means that you can first perceive and then learn to trust these other levels. Then this perception makes the level of manifestation easier to deal with. It sheds a new light on everything that you experience. In that way a true balance will be established.

Therefore, it is necessary that you cease seeing your contraction as bad. You hinder yourself in that way, you blind yourself, and then you really make it into a negative manifestation. In this blindness you contract about your contraction, as it were. Then this contraction becomes self-perpetuating. And that is undesirable because it is unwholesome. But when you derive the full meaning from your contracted state, then it will no longer be a negative manifestation. It will be a harmonious in-gathering in which something new prepares to come out of you. In other words, in which the receptive principle alternates with the active principle.

This is another new idea for you. You think in terms of the active principle always being the active principle and of the receptive principle always being the receptive principle. This is not so. In one manifestation what is the active principle on one level must then reverse itself if it is to be harmonious. Therefore, it must become the receptive principle, and vice versa. When you sense the flow and the meaning in the spiral movement of both the contraction and the expansion, then you will see that what was the outgoing movement -- the active principle -- in one moment and in one phase becomes the receptive principle in the next moment and in the next phase -- and vice versa. This is harmony. It is the harmony of life.

Contraction is just as necessary as expansion. It is part of the pulsatory movement that infiltrates all of life. Creation cannot exist without this. I invite you to sense deeply into yourself and then to ask yourself: "Where, when, and how is my present contraction part of my creative process? How can I encourage it? How can I utilize it for my next expanding movement?" Sense in yourself how both create, how both are necessary, and how both unfold your innermost being. You want to bring out your innermost being, for it is your ultimate reality.

As you proceed on this Path, many new levels of life experience will open themselves up to you. In other words, as you follow the harmony of expanding and contracting and letting it ripen in between, and reaching out and reaching in, and nourishing the reaching out from within and nourishing the reaching in from without. This is the dance of life. Feel the reality and the music of these words -- not in your intellect, but try to feel them in your deeper consciousness. When you train your positive will to no longer deny the courage to believe in the best in you and the courage to believe in the best in life, then you will be carried by the larger force of that which is the ultimate you. This goes beyond the little intellect with which you are used to govern your precarious safety. There is much greater safety that comes when you have the courage to believe in the best. But not out of wishful thinking, not out of fear of the bad, but in the strength that comes from knowing that there is nothing in you that you cannot see, that you cannot face, and that you cannot go through. It also comes from knowing the truth, namely that there is only light at the end of each tunnel.

As you do this increasingly, then you will see that what seems like a negative manifestation is actually the blessing of the next level that swims to the surface.

I will now give the force and then I will answer some questions.

[In view of the shortness of this lecture, we reprint some of the material that followed.]

Before making your commitments, I say to all of you that the force is particularly strong at this time. This is a manifestation that is in keeping with the topic of this lecture. The outer, physical manifestation is weak and contracted. The inner, evolving life is stronger than ever.

TOM REID: I ask for the force to help me to uncover my inner feelings and to discover my heart. For years I have been repressing them and now that I want them, I find it difficult to know them. I ask for the force and for God's help.

GUIDE: You need to believe in yourself. In other words, in the forces which are within you. Then you need to let them melt into the forces that are being given to you now. You need to ask your innermost being to let you know how much beauty, how much life, and how much experience is waiting for you. I give you the force. You are being blessed.

MARGARET SCHWARM: I'd like to say that this lecture points very much to where I am in this in-gathering contraction of rest. My defenses against my sexuality and my denial of the baby in me are slowly breaking apart on a very deep level since I have made the commitment to go deeper into my body, to accept it, and to love it. I see now that I have taken the first step on the bridge I want to cross. My body is feeling the struggle between the old and the new. The old is stubborn and hard to move, and the new desperately wants to change. It is frightening and painful, but I know that I will win and I pray for that. I would like the force to strengthen the new and to weaken the old. I want that baby to grow up into a beautiful woman who can claim her full sexuality and experience the joy and the pleasure of it.

GUIDE: It will be so if you wish it with all your heart. It will be very helpful if you conduct a dialogue between the old and the new. You need to learn to love that part of you that you have hated and rejected until now. Then you can unite with its positive forces and use them. In other words, the inner uniting must take place first before the total flow and the force of your sexuality can unite with another entity. Make peace within yourself! Stop hating yourself! Learn to love yourself! You have received the force. You are blessed. Go in peace.

Everything I say to these individuals can also be useful for many others and can be a force-giving and a force-bringing element in all of you.

GENE PIPER: I'd like to say that this lecture struck me very deeply and is also an indication of where I am. I ask for the force because I feel apprehension about this new phase on this new spiral round. I come up for trial in two weeks. I ask for the force to be able to face the apprehension that I feel mounting and to be able to give in to my fear that has many aspects and that I'm just beginning to get in touch with. One of these is the violence and the rage that you have told me about before and that I'm just beginning to see and feel in myself. It's a place in me that I have denied for a long time. I feel it loosening now inside of me and surfacing. I ask for the strength to be able to confront this place in myself and find the strength to go into and through the fear of my violence. I know that I need to do physical work, and work on many levels. I ask for the strength and the help and the guidance to be able to do this.

GUIDE: As I give you the force, I want to say this to you. Let out your strength that at first -- and on the most superficial level -- manifests as violence and as rage. Express it courageously with your physical being. But express it with a joyous welcoming, receptive attitude toward it. Know that this is your true strength. It only manifests in a distorted way for the fraction of a second in cosmic time. Then you can use this beautiful strength as your power in the best sense of the word. It is the power of your love. It is the creative power with which you can shape and mold your life. The following is the attitude you need to cultivate. It is a step of courage: "Here is my strength!" This power that is yours may manifest itself in the form of rage, of violence, and of cruelty for a few minutes. But when you have developed this attitude of welcoming, positive expectancy, then you can express the same strength in the great hallelujah to your life, to yourself, to God, and to your beautiful unfoldment. For that I give you the force. The force has been given to you. You are being blessed. Go in peace.

SHARON GREENFIELD: I have felt, ever since I joined the pathwork and more intensely the last few months, how I really do not want to know the truth about myself or about anything else. This refusal to look at the truth manifests in confusion, in lying to myself and to others, in alienation from myself and from others, and in a very strong, intense resistance to meditation and prayer. I have been experiencing lately a lot of feelings of hopelessness and isolation which I know, at least intellectually, as states of unreality and distortion. And I feel very much that this refusal is an expression of the words "I won't" to life, to giving, to changing, to taking the responsibility for myself as a woman. Along with all of this I'm also in touch with a part of me that does deeply want to know the truth about myself and that wants to acquaint myself with the lower self and my higher self without exaggerating or belittling either one. I ask for the force to help me sustain my commitment, to look into myself for the truth, to going through whatever emotions and experiences I need in truth, and to travel into the place where I can say, in truth, that I want to devote my life to living and to working according to the will of God.

GUIDE: I give you the force and I say to you, as a suggestion, learn to say the positive commitment that you have just expressed: "I will face the truth. I am a divine manifestation. I want to completely unify with this part of myself. I want to give my best to life and I want to receive the best from life." The more you say this with affirmation and you mean it, then the more this is going to be so. The key for you is to have the courage to mean it. Then it will become your reality. If you say it and you mean it -- and you state it strongly, joyfully, and believingly -- then it will be so. But you have to do all that in order to make it so. I give you the force, you have received the force, and it will take its effect. You are blessed.

My dearest friends, all of you on this beautiful path are also entering into a new spiral round of beautiful unfoldment. Many more of you are ready to experience this deeper, more beautiful reality of life, where you are carried by a benign and meaningful force, reality, entity -- call it what you will. You are being carried by something that is so strong, so true, so connected with all of life, so meaningful, and so joyful that you need courage in order to let yourself see what is already here and not to go back into your petty denial. In other words, to go back into your old way of focusing your gaze solely on your negativities -- thereby becoming hopeless because you see only what is life-denying and you do not see where your life already expresses a much higher reality. This is neither wishful thinking nor is it escapism. But it needs to be acknowledged by your consciousness. But when you have done this honestly, then there comes a time when your manifestations have a different meaning. In other words, when you no longer have to wallow in the negative. Have the courage to see how beautiful your life is and how more and more of it continues to unfold, rolling endlessly, like the waves of the ea.

Now, are there any questions?

JOHN PIERRAKOS: I would like to ask a question. This is a question that has to do with the Center. We are in the middle of a very complicated transactional situation in relation to acquiring the rest of the property in our Center. Would you like to comment primarily upon the complexity of this transaction about the complexity that is preventing a clear and direct solution?

GUIDE: You see, my friends, the trouble is that I do not see it as complex (laughter). What to you humans seems so complicated and so complex is often nothing but the necessary outpicturing of your doubts, of your fears, of your negativities, of your negation, and of your denial -- both in the personal and in the collective. But it is not so complicated. If you trust, if you do your best, and if you struggle just a little bit with it, then everything will flow, as it actually already does.

JOHN PIERRAKOS: May I ask another question, in relationship to the lecture? Could you give any kind of an idea about the rhythmical state of the expansion, contraction, and the static. In terms of our time, does it have any rhythms?

GUIDE: Yes, each aspect has a different rhythm. That is, each aspect of the individual consciousness and each aspect of the collective consciousness, of the universal consciousness. In your personal life the development of a single quality has a different rhythm and a differen timing from the development of another quality. Even the same quality may have different phases. This is the overlapping mentioned before. So there is a constant interchange. When the development is harmonious, then it makes a beautiful tune. There is a harmony. All these different spirals and pulsatory nuclei create a different note in the symphony of life.

My dearest friends, perhaps you can sense that a new power, a new force is preparing itself to come into manifestation on the physical level through this instrument. Perhaps you can taste it and sense it in this meeting here. You are all blessed, my loved ones.

November 19, 1975