Questions And Answers

By The Pathwork Guide

Golden blessings are with all of you, my beloved friends. There are so many questions you need to ask, both personal ones and general ones. In the end they become one and the same. The lectures I am called upon to deliver are also answers to unspoken questions, questions that arise out of your inner yearning, out of your searching, and out of your desire first to know the truth and then to be in truth. They arise out of your willingness to find divine reality, whether this attitude exists on the conscious level or on the unconscious level. But there are other questions that need to be asked consciously and deliberately on the active, outer, conscious level in order to fulfill the law. For only when you knock can the door be opened; only when you ask can you be given. This is a law. Therefore, I say to you all, do not hesitate, do not allow your shyness and your inertia to stand in the way, to prevent you from receiving what you need. By coming forth, you not only reach out for your own needs and thus make their fulfillment possible; you also give to others who benefit from your outward movement. Thus a great stream of giving and receiving is set in motion.

QUESTION: During the last few months, I have been experiencing the need to share and work with a massage and healing group, as an extension of the health committee, who would work closely together for natural healing. I am interested in working with arthritis, cancer, thyroid imbalance, heart conditions, stress, etc. We have been focusing upon the worker's negative intent, transforming this into positive will and our attuning more into our life's healing force and the Spirit of Christ.

Have you suggestions regarding the laying-on of hands and the energy centers as a way to help inner healing? And to help integrate our pathwork, core energetics, and healing touch, do you have any guidance regarding the following aspects:

1. Giving and receiving and attuning to God's will.

2. Purification, while working with our individual helpers.

3. Laying-out of hands. What conceptual emphasis for group consciousness?

4. Preparation of study, knowledge of healing systems and technique.

5. Prerequisites and stages of commitment.

ANSWER: All these approaches are very good and necessary. As far as they go, I have nothing to add. But I will make another suggestion. It will prove helpful and often necessary -- both to the healer and to the person to be healed -- to focus on what I have to say here. It is an attitude of letting go and letting God. This is very subtle and needs to be focused on with great sensitivity and awareness. There are subtle currents of anxiety that say, in effect: "If I am not being healed, then I cannot believe in the reality of God, in the reality of Creation. I cannot believe that there is a meaning to life. I cannot believe that there is eternal life." This amounts to a kind of secret ultimatum that puts a tremendous strain and pressure both on the healer and on the one to be healed. You need to ferret this out and make it conscious. If you, as the healing instrument, become conscious of this pressure in you, then you will also notice how you have unwittingly responded to a similar pressure from the person who puts himself into your hands. This even applies literally, in that the emanations from your hands -- whether you lay them on or not, but much more so if you do -- contain and carry this current, and intensify a mutual current of this kind. So the pressure -- the unconscious ultimatum -- and the fear and the anxiety connected with it create a direct block to the healing flow. Both the healer and the person to be healed need to free themselves of this obstacle. It prohibits the necessary attitude of letting go and letting God. Here the law that you must be willing to give up what you wish to gain applies. When Jesus spoke of giving up your life in order to attain immortality -- in order to find your life -- this is what He meant. The insistence and the need that it has to be one way and not another -- hence the unconscious stemming against this other way -- creates an inner tightness that is directly opposed to God's influx, whether this be healing, truth, wisdom, love, solutions to problems, or whatever. The tight attitude implies a lack of trust in Divine Nature, in the Divine Presence, and in the Divine Life.

All this may sound contradictory. It is indeed difficult to explain. It does not mean that you should "resign" yourself. It means awareness of the fact that God wants your health, that God wants your life, that God wants your well-being. It means that you first visualize this and then claim it. So it is really not contradictory to claim health and well-being and, at the same time, to let go of the tightness of needing it in order to assuage doubts and fears. You all need to grope for and then find this inner movement, this subtle attitude. It applies to all of life, not only to healing.

QUESTION: (1) Can the Path claim to be truly making use of all the spiritual contributions available to us from the riches of humanity's cultural history? (2) What would we be able to say to our friends from other traditions in which the deep truths are not personified in particular forms such as Satan, Jesus Christ, etc... or are you only addressing yourself to westerners?

ANSWER: As to your first question. It would be absurd to assume that any path, that any spiritual education, that any healing system, that any schooling, that any philosophy, that any religion, that any book could make such a claim. The diversification of God's creation is too widespread to put it all in a nutshell. The truth of Creation could not be put into a million books and treatises. And yet it could be contained in one word, if man's understanding is geared to it. What the path does is to communicate the kind of knowledge that is immediately accessible in order to undertake the personal purification of those who are called to go on this road. Therefore the knowledge given is cohesive, relevant, and connected. It is focused on that which is truly of weight and importance. You could collect knowledge all over the globe, esoteric and exoteric knoweldge, and it would be a meaningless pursuit, unless the knowledge is geared to a specific and meaningful goal. Collecting knowledge would become a burden and would confuse you and defocus you, unless it is given with the understanding of what is important now and why. No spiritual teacher of genuine origin and calling will dispense knowledge just for the sake of it. So, please keep in mind that the point is not obtaining knowledge per se. The point is to expand your consciousness so that, among other things, you can first properly assimilate this knowledge and then put it to use. It would no longer be wisdom if those cultural riches are not used in a way that would benefit personal purificarion, liberation, transcendence -- and thus finally help others to attain this goal. This path makes use of all of God's truth that is relevant to this purpose.

As to your second question, the point is again slightly off center. What should you say to your friends who think differently? Whatever the truth is, that is what you should say. Provided these friends are open to the truth and want to hear what you have to say. But if it is important for you to convince them, then perhaps you need their agreement in order to assuage your own doubts. These doubts are legitimate, whether they apply to this or any other topic. But it is important that you first voice them and then face them in order to obtain real inner answers. That is, answers that are experiential. What I say to all of you is never a dogma that you should accept blindly. It should only be considered as a map to help you forge your inner course until you can have the experience of what is being mapped out. This can be done only if a total willingness to see the truth exists; only if all previous preconceived ideas are given up -- at least temporarily -- until they can be verified from inner, divine experience. The obstacles to this inner experience of divine truth in any subject are fear, selfwill, the need to be right, and the need to be agreed with. Hence pride, prejudice, and many other attitudes that you learn to face and deal with on this path.

Furthermore, it is not true that all of Eastern spirituality deals only with the formless realities, no more than all of western spirituality only sees the form. This is an over-simplification and a generalization. Besides, how could any spirit of truth adjust the truth to only one kind of audience? In that moment it would no longer be the truth. But it is a fact that various groups of people, in different cultures, perceive only certain aspects of reality and then falsely conclude that these aspects represent the totality. You must have guessed by now that it is not either/or. When you first know and then comprehend these teachings better, then you will see that this is one of its basic approaches: to unify dualities on all levels, in many areas of human life. So also here. It would be just as false to state that there is only form (personification), as it would be to state that divine reality only exists as the formless. Both are true and neither eliminates the other. The real seers and knowers of this world, wherever they live, are aware of both these aspects of reality.

QUESTION: Is there a possibility that a homosexual relationship can be as healthy as a heterosexual one?

ANSWER: This touches on a very controversial question in your age and in your society. For a long time in human history, the homosexual was persecuted and maligned. He was accused of being a criminal because of his homosexual leanings. The counter-movement had to come in order to move humanity away from the attitude of moralizing self-righteousness. Those who have been treated in this unfair and painful way were not helped to work on their problem and had to become defiant and rebellious. In the process of their reaction, common sense often went by the wayside. Now there exists such a sensitivity in this respect that every reference to homosexuality actually being an inner problem -- or a manifestation of one -- immediately creates more defiance, as well as discouragement, especially for those who feel themselves far away from being able to resolve this problem. The fact that even Biblical scripture has been misused for the purpose of instilling debilitating guilt into people who happen to have this problem does not make it easier to approach this issue.

First of all I want to say that all moralizing and all sense of sinning must be eliminated from your consciousness in order to help your soul along the road it needs to travel. You also need to understand that all human beings enter this earth with unresolved soul problems and that it takes many incarnations to resolve them. It is no different with the problem of homosexuality. When you see a person turn to heterosexuality in a genuine, organic way, following true evolvement, then this is the last stage of this particular aspect of development. Those who cannot change in this lifetime may have more work to do along these lines. This work is often so subtle and it requires so many different approaches that it is impossible to adjudge superficially and rashly. It may require different incarnations with totally different circumstances, as far as sex is concerned also. This is no different from any other incompleteness in the human soul.

This does not mean that such a person needs to abandon all fulfillment and all happiness. If this were true, then no human being could ever experience any kind or degree of fulfillment. It means accepting the fact that you, as all human beings, are incomplete; that you are here to learn; that you are here to grow; that you need to make the very best you can with what you have and with who you are now. That means without self-judgement, without self-rejection, without resentments, without defiance, and without self-deprivation. So you should not abdicate all contact and the physical experience that you are now capable of having because of a false sense of sin and because of distorted religious principles. The fulfillment and the pleasure that you can have is actually necessary in order for you to grow out of the very problems that cause your homosexuality.

Beware of the equally distorted defiant attitude which claims that homosexuality is not a problem. In other words, that it is just as natural as heterosexuality. You do not need to replace one distortion with another. Nor do you need to feel self-conscious and insulted when homosexuality is said to be a soul problem. You do not need to feel isolated, to feel different, or to feel hopeless because of it. Therefore, you can do away with all kinds of defensive exaggerations.

Now let us consider for a moment why homosexuality is a spiritual and soul problem. When you look into the universe and all creation, it cannot escape you that there can be no creation of anything without the male and the female principles coming together. No tree could come about, no planet could come into existence, no living organism, surely. It is no different with great ideas or new inventions. Anything of value, of enduring reality, and of beauty is always a combination of these two divine aspects. The union between a man and a woman reaches far beyond procreation. It is divinely ordained. There is a merging possible on all levels of being that can never exist between two people of the same sex. This is an inexorable law that can perhaps be best compared with the fact that a key can never be put into another key, but only into a keyhole. This may sound crude, but it is not. It demonstrates a law that pertains even to mechanical creation. You need to meditate about this because it is a fact of life, and understanding this will open many a door for you within. It will remove the sense of sin and shame that makes you lean to an opposite stance -- that of defiance and unreasonableness, claiming that homosexuality is the same as heterosexuality. The fact that few heterosexual couples comprehend the divine nature of the sexuality between them does not alter the fact that they are nearer to where all created beings need to go at one time. The fact that heterosexual problems exist as well as homosexual ones does not alter this fact either. You should beware of comparing yourself with others by measuring and judging, "He is better, I am better, one is more developed than the other," and so on. This is impossible and always misleading. For what one individual may have gained in his or her evolutionary journey, he or she may yet have to learn in other ways, as compared to others who may be opposite in regard to what has been accomplished and what remains to be accomplished.

Some time in the not too distant future I shall speak again about the spiritual meaning of marriage, about new-age marriage, about certain stages of evolution in this regard. I will add here that it would be desirable for all of those who can experience physical intimacy only with one from the same sex to leave promiscuity behind and at least attempt to combine affection with sexuality, to whatever degree this may be possible. It is not true that promiscuity and a flip attitude about intimacy has no effect on the self and the other person involved. It does have an effect. I ask you all not to interpret these words as if they were moralizing and judgmental. They are advice given in love and in truth.

What exactly is the soul problem regarding homosexuality? I have said much about this in the past. Let me just sum up here that there is never only one single cause. Every ingrained problem must be the result of a combination of circumstances. We cannot possibly go into all the various combinations here. Suffice it to say that it is always a karmic residue that usually goes back several incarnations. If it were not, then it could be overcome with ease and speed. Anything that is ingrained, and therefore difficult to change, is of long standing. Therefore, the child is born into circumstances and to parents that make the appearance of this condition possible. These are referred to as the psychological factors, which are believed to be the cause, rather than yet another layer of effects.

The underlying common denominator is always a separation from the opposite sex on the one hand -- due to fear, to hate, to distrust -- and to an overidentification with the opposite sex on the other hand. Along with that goes a longing for contact with the same sex and a strong denial of the longing for contact with the opposite sex. These inner attitudes need to be changed, even if gradually. To begin with, these currents must become more conscious and less diffuse, so that eventually a real fusion between the sexes can take place. Out of this fusion between two individuals of the opposite sex, eventually fusion with the All can come about.

There is another spiritual law that is important to understand. It applies both to this question and to many others. Important as it is to visualize a more perfected model regarding any life attitude, it must also be kept in mind that if the person attempts to forcefully live up to such a model of behavior without having developed into this state organically, then it is more harmful than when the more perfected attitude is not even perceived. Let us apply this law to homosexuality.

If your knowledge of what I say here makes you self-rejecting, guilty and hopeless, if you try to force yourself to be what you cannot yet be, then you harm yourself. Yet it is important to also be aware of truth and reality in a higher way of being. It all depends on how you approach such knowledge. It must always be combined with realistic self-acceptance and with the understanding of the fact that the involuntary processes only give way indirectly. They appear as a natural byproduct of your work to face every aspect of your being -- all levels of your consciousness -- with kindness, with acceptance, and with love. Know that you are an expression of God and that you are attempting, through such a path, to bring God into your material manifestation. With that knowledge of cosmic truths about earthly matters, of spiritual meanings about physical manifestations -- such as sexuality, for example -- you will have an increasingly encouraging positive outlook that you can gradually grow into. In fact, you will know that one day, perhaps not in this life, you will become an expression of this spiritual meaning on earth.

There is yet another aspect to your question. Creation is shaped in such a marvelous way that whatever distortions exist, in the process of working them out and transforming them back into their original way even the distortion itself can become useful to the entire process of evolution, to the divine plan. So, for example, some years ago I explained that the drug problem in your era is an expression of souls with certain defects, distortions and misplaced needs that are being fulfilled in a destructive way. At the same time, in the process of coming to the true inner meaning of this problem for all the individual souls who fall into this category, the spirit world makes very positive use of the distortion. Taking drugs has opened spiritual doors to a great number of souls who would otherwise have remained totally cut off from and dead to all the inner levels of reality, to all spiritual aspects of life. I do not want to be misinterpreted here. No one should believe that this means that taking drugs is recommended, for there is surely a much better way to opening these doors. However, as long as the conditions in these souls were as they were, then a large influx of spiritual reality -- no matter how it was gained -- came into a very materialistic world, into a very separated consciousness.

Similarly, the souls who have not yet found liberation from their disturbed feelings toward the opposite sex were incarnated in greater number than ever before, all in one sweep, as it were, in order to fulfill a task through their very distortion. It is necessary in your world, at this time, to keep down the number of births. If all these souls were heterosexual, then many more births would occur than the earth can accommodate now. I do not speak about the physical aspects of this condition that is well known to your scientists. Rather I say that these physical conditions that make more births dangerous for the whole of humanity are a result of the spiritual conditions behind the material ones. The Plan of Salvation requires that the souls who now reach your earth sphere are deeply wanted by spiritually highly developed parents who are aware of the deep meaning of such a task. This means spiritual maturity, emotional maturity, and mental maturity of a heretofore unprecedented quality. You prepare the way for such births by your pathwork, often indirectly, through new educational approaches and new values that can be passed on to prospective parents. When sexuality is entered into with entirely different attitudes and motives than previously, then parenthood will also be approached and motivated by entirely different means. This will make room for much more highly evolved souls to enter this realm, so that evolution can take its course. For this the doors must be closed for less developed souls, who will find a training ground in other spheres. When the doors for higher developed souls will be open, and the ground prepared, then you will suddenly see that there will be enough food, enough air, and enough space for everyone. For these commodities adjust themselves flexibly to the spiritual needs of the Great Plan.

The answer to your question went apparently far afield, but is really very relevant. For there is no point in answering it only on more superficial levels. I ask all of you who are at all interested in this topic, who are affected by it, to study my answer deeply and to attempt to understand it on the deepest level possible.

QUESTION: I still do not understand the meaning for me of why I am with a man who is not on the path. At times I feel I can accept this; at other times I feel I am having temper tantrums about it; at times, when he seems he might come on the path, I am aware of feeling fear. Could you give me further guidance at this point?

ANSWER: Deep down you really know the answer, my child. There is a part in you in which you need to keep a separation, a good reason why you cannot give all of yourself. In that way you have an in-built reason to withold some of yourself, to feel superior to the man. In that way you can also use any difficulties that come up in a relationship to see his part of the problem clearly and hide your own from him. This can be done in a subtle way. What you need to do is to make this aspect of your consciousness very conscious so that you become intensely aware of the stake you have to keep up some separation for which you do not need to take responsibility. After a more or less permanent awareness of this intentionality has been gained, then you will be able to make the step into the apparently risky unknown to want to have a complete mutuality with a mate, in which you have no reservation, no holding back; in which you see yourself as his equal, no better and no worse; in which you can share your innermost soul, your spiritual truth, and your path of purification. By expressing this real need over and over in meditation, in prayer, and in a visualization, you will build a new inner reality that blots out the old obstruction. Thus you will create the outer reality accordingly.

QUESTION: I am feeling stuck and in a state of despair, and I hope you can help me. It has been pointed out to me that I keep an invisible wall around me to protect myself. During the intensive of last summer the wall came down and I was able to give love and take it in. Over the months the wall has re-established itself, though not as entrenched as its former position. This wall of separatism keeps me from having the contact and relationship with people that I desire and yet do not allow. I feel like an outsider to some exclusive club which my heart wants to enter, while my ego pulls back in an effort to shield myself from rejection. I pay a painful price for the separatism and exclusivity it affords me. How many times do I have I go through this revolving door of opening and closing myself without fully emerging once and for all?

Secondly, I do experience confusion regarding my spiritual path and the pathwork as it unfolds. Sometimes they mesh and sometimes I feel pushed into conforming to what is expected of a good and dutiful path person. Then I become resentful. Am I asking for the rewards without giving a true commitment?

ANSWER: The two questions are really connected. There is an aspect in your soul in which anything that is recommended, desirable, good, productive, and fruitful is interpreted by you as an authoritative admonition. Therefore it becomes unacceptable to you and you need to rebel in order to remain true to yourself. So you believe. Perhaps many things have been told to you when you were a child, under the guise that they are good for you, and it was not always true. But whether or not this is the case, it is time that you examine this attitude and change it. You need to live for what is truly good for you in the most profound sense, according to the most durable and real values. Your soul is yearning for contact and for intimacy -- in other words, for the elimination of this wall -- but you need to act upon this yearning, rather than upon the resistance to it. You need to express your deep desire and commitment, your intention to give to this in prayer and meditation. You need to ask for help specifically in this respect. But you also need to do more than that. You need to act so that divine help can come through, for if you only wait in the same isolation, then it can never happen. What does such action consist of? It means that you connect more with your brothers and sisters on this path, that you allow them to help you, and that you give of yourself to help them where they need it. In spite of the existing resistance, you need to make such connections, to seek contact -- in groups, in common endeavors and tasks. This will present a direct opportunity to share your feelings of shyness, of anxiety, and of inhibition with them, and thus to dissolve these feelings by the very act of naming them. There comes a time when prayer, when meditation, when theoretical work, and when recognition must be reinforced by direct action, even though there may still be resistance, fear, and anxiety. These can be overcome only by going through them. I can promise you that this cannot help but dissolve your wall of separation. It cannot help but dissolve the illusion of your fears and hesitancies. It will activate an involuntary current of feelings, of connectedness that seems to be stuck and inaccessible now. It is up to you whether you wish to follow my suggestion and in what spirit you will do so. As a "good path follower" who can then resent? Or as an adult who independently makes a choice to follow a suggestion because this seems a reasonable course to pursue for the purpose of your own unfoldment and deeper experience of life?

My most beloved friends, a few words about the commitment of stages one and two. This is a holy opportunity for you in which you can come to feel a profound blessing for your very life, for your fulfillment, and for your connection with a meaningful universe.

Love and blessings envelop all of you, as always when you gather in the name of the Lord.

May 3, 1978