The Birthing Process -- Cosmic Pulse

By The Pathwork Guide

My dearly beloved friends, love and blessings go forth to all of you. Your human struggle to find your way out of the mazes, your growth, and your expansion is a golden light that illuminates all of the universe. It is a powerful force that you may not feel at this moment because there is still so much disconnectedness in you. Yet gradually you are making the connections, until at one time it all flows together and there is no more puzzlement, no more fear, no more pain. There is only peace and only joy. On a deep level of your being this state of bliss exists already now; and there is a hidden part in you in which you know this. To make this knowledge available is the great task that you have all undertaken.

In isolated moments you experience the hand of God in your life, the breath of God. Such a moment may occur at any time and may be triggered off by certain experiences, either within you or outside of you. At such moments, inside and outside fuse and become one reality. It is then that you know God's reality. There simply is no longer any doubt about it. The peace and the joy that you experience at those times cannot be put into words. Then you know that all the isolated goals which you pray for converge on one central point: experiencing the reality of God. When this happens, then you are already pure -- at least in that moment in time. For the purity of your uncluttered, unobstructed spirit is freed from all the shells and all the layers. You are pure, so you do not have to pray for purification.

In such a moment, in that instant in time, you know all you need to know. So you do not have to pray for insight, for enlightenment, and for understanding. You understand, you know, you are enlightened. In such a moment love flows through every vein of your body and of your soul. So you do not have to pray for love. In that moment you activate the greatest healing power there is. So you do not have to pray for healing. In such a moment you have strength, imagination, resourcefulness, and creativity. So you know what is right and what is possible for your earthly existence at this juncture of your evolution.

When these rare moments occur, then you are bathed in the Grace of God. All your prayers flow into one central point. Through such an experience you come to understand that all you really need to pray for is to experience God's presence, to experience God's hand in all of life, and to experience God's breath in your own existence. But until such time, it may often be necessary to divide your prayers for the sake of your deeper understanding of what is necessary at any given time in your life. Your soul has to be impressed with certain aspects that need focus. This does not mean that now you should cease praying for the specific goal that fills the total picture. However, the time will come when you will simply pray that you may contact the power and the presence of God within you without waiting for these special occasions, which at first come only rarely and which seem to depend on circumstances outside of yourself. Eventually you will be so uncluttered, so freed, that the Light will come more often. At first it will be an indirect, apparently involuntary occurrence, an occurrence that seems unrelated to you in any way. Yet it is a direct result of your efforts, of your positive intentions, and of your commitment to God's will. Cause and effect are removed from one another on the level of appearance because of time. You have often experienced in other situations that with your growing as a whole cause and effect move closer together until a direct link can be seen. When this occurs in regard to experiencing the power and the presence of the Creator, then you have attained self-realization. You have both purified yourself and unified yourself. Then you can be one with Him at will. Although this is the outer will, now it is totally compatible with the will of the Highest.

This gradual growth process depends on your willingness to open your heart. Opening your heart seems to require a special kind of courage. You must be willing to risk the imaginary danger of truly feeling with your heart: of feeling your self, of feeling your lovingness, of feeling your vulnerability, of feeling the beauty of creation, of feeling the endearingness of others who struggle in their attempt to find the light. When you are truly willing, then the Christ Spirit will take over and will perform the operation of removing the tight lock from your heart that has existed for millennia. The more your heart is open, the more God can enter it with His magnificent reality. You will be touched by His breath more frequently and you will sense His hand in all things.

In this lecture I would like to discuss a law of timing that applies to the development of every entity. You surely must have sensed this law and you may even know about it vaguely. But it is important that you understand it thoroughly. According to this law there exists a certain necessary time sequence on an individual's path. This time sequence is entirely different for every entity. What for one person needs to be taken up at the very beginning -- because it is a fundamental key without which nothing further can be genuinely accomplished -- may follow only much later for another. You know that you are working with different levels and layers. You know about the spiral movement that seems to bring the same sequence up again and again. There comes a point when a particular spiral has truly resolved itself. An entirely new aspect is coming to the fore, an aspect so strange and so unfamiliar that it seems at first somewhat frightening. "Is that really me," you ask yourself?

This is not merely a question of going to a deeper level of the same problem. The deeper level brings to the fore new material that could not have been handled before. It may also bring a feeling of hopelessness about self-purification. "Will it never end?" I want to warn you about this feeling and tell you that it is a good sign of deep progress.

In the life of the average human being -- who is far from pursuing any path of self-confrontation, who ignores even the possibility of inner growth and of development -- these previously concealed aspects are taken on as new tasks in a new incarnation. Specific circumstances and your surroundings are both geared to bringing out these aspects that could not be brought to the fore in the previous incarnations, where the circumstances and the surroundings had to activate other material.

With people who follow an intense path, such as you do, it might happen that what would have waited for a future incarnation under normal circumstances is released now. The inner timetable has readied the soul for it now, since all the work intended for this life has been completed before physical life is terminated.

Going through these additional tasks -- which you were not certain you could handle in this incarnation -- may seem too much. It may appear to you better to leave them for a later time when you have gathered new strength in your spiritual home. And often this is true and these tasks are not even attempted. But when they are attempted, then the benefit is immense. It represents an immeasurable amount of saving for you: much energy and the expenditure of time and creativity is saved, time and energy that would otherwise have to be distributed ovew new incarnations, particularly destined for fulfilling these tasks.

Also, do not forget that when such additional new material to be taken on by you comes to the fore, it is never without your full consent. Sometimes you wish to undertake it and your spiritual advisors do not agree. Often they discourage you and they warn you of the difficulties. But in this state of greater consciousness and vision, you understand that it is truly worth undertaking this extra task in the same incarnation.

A long time ago I discussed some aspects of the process of reincarnation. You may remember my saying then that in the preparation before incarnation the life plan is layed out exactly and is etched into the soul substance. I say to you now that the soul substance contains much more than the life plan of the current incarnation. There is an overall plan that shows what has been accomplished in the past and there are the future tasks to be fulfilled. They are stacked in layers, as it were. It is difficult to convey these spiritual facts in human terms. They may sound oversimplified and therefore will be misleading. In our reality there is no such thing as up or down, as below or above, or, for that matter, time. So we cannot speak of past and future. Yet there is a sequel, a rhythm that takes its natural course. One step must logically follow the previous one. Each step or phase has a meaning and therefore cannot possibly be undertaken at the wrong juncture of the sequel. So only in that sense is there a past or a future. In other words, layers above and layers below.

I have occasionally mentioned the fact that some human beings experience a rebirth within the present incarnation. When Jesus spoke of the necessity to be born again, He did not only refer to the reality of reincarnation. He also meant that in order to experience the truth of the living God within, a rebirth must take place. This is made possible by fully following the life plan for this incarnation and then freeing those plans that might have waited for a subsequent embodiment.

The process of birth is never a one-time phenomenon, regardless of the circumstances. It is always gradual. Even on the physical plane, a human being is not born complete. The baby leaves the womb of the mother and first becomes merely a physically separate entity. Even this physical separation is still not complete right away. It takes a while until mother and child are truly separate entities. And I do not mean this in terms of independence and self-sufficiency, for obviously the child is not able to fend for himself for a long time.

If you think carefully, then you will note that all the childhood years are part of the birth process. The mind is gradually freed, it is released, it is born into the physical reality. Gradually, and much later, the person's spiritual nature and higher values may be born. However, they may often remain unborn, waiting to be released in a future existence. Talents often take time to be born. In most instances considerable time. Accomplishments which the soul has acquired in previous lives need to be nurtured; the technical skills learned in this body need to be assimilated so that the inner knowledge has an adequate instrument through which to express itself.

The time has come for you to become more aware of these possibilities: of incarnatory processes reaching the surface only now -- or at a later period, when sufficient groundwork has been done, when your current lifeplan has been fulfilled. You need to listen sensitively into your entire Path process and occasionally gain sufficient distance from yourself to have an overview. Then you will sense the beginnings of a rebirthing process. With some this may never be, not necessarily because they do not work as dedicatedly as others on their own purification, but perhaps because their present task is so vast and so all-encompassing that it suffices for this embodiment. So do not expect this to happen in all instances.

Also, you need to be aware of too simple and quick assumptions in this respect. Often a new phase on your Path merely indicates another facet of the present lifeplan and not an additional task that may be undertaken now, or possibly left for a later incarnation. I would not like to see this community rushing en masse into this explanation every time you enter another facet of your inner development. A finely attuned sensitivity will give you a deeper understanding about these processes. It will also make you realize that divine birth is never a one-time event. It is always an extended birthing process.

You keenly participate in your own birthing process by the work you are doing on this Path. Consider the entire purification work as a birthing process. For you truly give birth to your unobstructed, unencumbered spirit in its full glory. Step by step, you eliminate the enfolding layers. When your spirit is being born, then it always happens in stages. One aspect was already born when you came into this plane. Other parts shed the covers later, one by one. Finally, at one point, your spirit will stand free and unencumbered, without any covers, without any obstructions, without any layers that need to be removed.

I cannot stress emphatically enough that you are not to take this lightly. This concept should not be bandied about. Not every insight revealing a hitherto unfamiliar pattern, not every new phase, indicates the process of uncovering material that may have ordinarily waited for a future incarnation.

The information I give you is not to be confused with the practice of many psychics who tell a person where, when, and in what form he or she has lived in previous periods of history. Such information is usually -- with very few exceptions -- pointless, and it only serves sensationalism. Only when traits and attitudes are under discussion is this of any value. And even then, in most instances the realization should come from yourself: through your own intuitive sensing. Then such insight will complete a picture that has a bearing on your present struggle and on your current task.

The process of birth is always ongoing. Perhaps it will help you to visualize the universe as a breathing entity. Each breath is a pulsation that penetrates onward, that bleeds through a previously inert mass. It is the mass of the void. Once the pulsation reaches this mass with sufficient intensity and frequency, then the mass begins to soften. The breath of life enters and consciousness is being born where previously there was no life, no consciousness, no being. Each breath consists of expansion, of contraction, and of the static moment in-between. Each of these movements is designed to expand life, to spread it. In this way the pulse of life surges on. Each pulsation is another thrust of the life force, first penetrating matter and then gradually infusing it with life.

Every incarnation on the earth plane represents a pulse beat, an outbreathing. Each time life seems to die, an inbreathing takes place. The strength of the pulse beat is determined by the will to live on earth in a body and by the degree of fulfillment of the task which the entity has come for. If the task is negated because the inner life and divine truth are denied, then the will to live -- the life instinct -- is usually weak, although the reverse is not necessarily true. It is possible that the will to live is strong and yet the path is negated. In such instances, the spirit has a justified hope that at least part of the task may still be accepted. In other words, that it may be allowed into the surface consciousness.

Old age is a slow withdrawal of the personality that lives forever. When you humans speak about dying, then it seems absurd to us, from our vantage point. There can never be death, there can only be a withdrawal of life from the outer encrustations, leaving them inanimate again. When the entity builds a body, then this body consists of material that is as yet lifeless, but that will be enlivened once the spirit, or the soul, or the person -- with all his traits and all the special combinations of attitudes that form his or her unique personality at this point of evolution -- takes possession of this shell.

Each further incarnation represents a further thrust into the inanimate. Gradually the pulse beat of life will become so strong that matter is no longer matter. It no longer becomes inanimate, but remains forever imbued with the spirit. It has become so refined and its vibratory frequency is so high that it can no longer decay. It has been made wholly into spirit. In other words, it has been so absorbed by spirit, by life, by consciousness that it has become spirit, life, consciousness.

These are not idle speculations. You can observe this truth on your earth plane by the extension of life of the average age of the human being. Not too long ago in your history the average age was thirty years. Now it is seventy. In the not too distant future the average age will be over one hundred years. The inner meaning of this fact is that matter is more strongly imbued with life. Therefore, life can have a greater staying power. The forward thrust of the pulse beat can penetrate deeper.

Everything that exists in creation exists both in the macrocosm and in the microcosm. It is repeated over and over again in different proportions, to different degrees, and in different ways. So the breath of life, the cycles of life, the principles of life all exist in smallest and in largest measures, based on the same creative conditions and on the same laws. Try to visualize life as an ongoing breathing phenomenon. Each incarnation represents one pulse beat. Visualize each withdrawal from matter not as a dying of life, but as a withdrawal from matter. In other words, as an inbreathing. In this vision you will strengthen yourself and you will open up new doors of understanding.

Now it is of the utmost importance for you to fully understand what constitutes the strength of the pulse -- the single breath of life that is a human life. What determines the vigor of the pulse beat, that single cosmic beat that is a human incarnation?

Before discussing this, I should like to add that it is not only human life that fulfills this function. The earth plane is particularly designed as an arena to serve the purpose of breathing into the inanimate -- or the void if you will. Every plant, every animal, every life form existing on this plane breathes into matter and enlivens it. At first only temporarily, for after a while this life withdraws again, only to reappear at certain intervals. But the time will come when life can no longer withdraw -- even from plant life, from mineral life, and from animal life. The vibration of matter will be so refined that matter will become spirit. The thrust will have become so strong that all is life, all is spirit.

The human course of development is constituted differently from that of other life forms on earth. There the consciousness plays a major role. After a certain degree of evolvement has been attained, the consciousness can determine the strength, the vigor, as well as the length of the pulse-thrust. This happens in several ways.

In the first place, the understanding of these cosmic processes is necessary. This is why I give you this lecture. If you can think of and visualize life in these terms, then you will sense the truth on an inner level. Only in the rarest of instances is such a vision attained without outer help and without stimulation. Mankind has now reached a point in its overall development when such help needs to be given so as to accelerate the process. When you perceive life and death as a pulsating breath and when you experience the spirit as the constant that pushes into matter, then your entire world picture is going to change. If you permit this new consciousness to grow in you, to take hold of your being, then you will see life, death, and all happenings in a very different way. This way is liberating, and it will eliminate the existing anger, rage, and fear about life and death that we discussed in another recent lecture. But to read this and then to just file it away as additional spiritual information is not enough. You need to stretch your imagination, your inner senses, and your deeper vision so as to gradually make this knowledge your own experience.

Another determining factor is your attitude. When difficulties come, then it is human to be discouraged. When you are puzzled, when you are in pain, when you are disappointed, when you are unhappy about something, then it is normal to lose courage. You cannot help it. But with this inner consciousness growing in you, then you will learn that it is essential to keep your vigor toward life intact. In other words, it is important not to allow a negative experience to weaken your inner pulse. Your inner will directly affects the pulse beat of your life force. Therefore, your sincere decision to want to master the situation, to want to make the best of it, to want to learn from it, and to want to live it to the fullest directly affects the vigor of the cosmic pulse beat that enlivens your personal existence.

In addition to the understanding I mentioned, this requires good will, courage, and faith. And you will have all of these to the degree that you truly want to fulfill your part in the creation.

Every created being plays such a part. There are no exceptions. For every being is a direct expression of the Creator. Therefore, a part of the Creator in every being. The entire Plan of Salvation is a conjoint effort to penetrate all with life, with consciousness, and with the divine joy that is so exquisite that it cannot be conveyed in words.

Everything exists both in the microcosm and in the macrocosm in many repetitions. For the principles of creation are perfect and can be adjusted to many different situations and to many different conditions. Let us now think of the phenomenon of the pulse beat. In the human body there is the pulse that indicates the vital signs: the functioning of the blood, of the heart, of the arteries. On a larger scale each human life, each life manifestation is a cosmic pulse beat. This one pulse beat -- which constitutes an entire incarnation -- consists of many smaller pulse beats, for lack of a better word. What I want to say is that the pulse beat is repeated many times during a life time in order to pump the spiritual blood into hardened, inanimate matter. So, many beats take place during the course of a lifetime. These beats vary. At times the beat is vigorous, at other times the beat weakens. The entire incarnation is one overall pulse beat.

Here you can see how the same creative principle repeats itself and manifests in different ways. I mentioned before that on isolated occasions a person may live his or her next incarnation, or at least part of it, in the same lifetime, provided this lifetime has already been totally fulfilled. Instead of life withdrawing, a new pulse beat sets in, heralding another set of conditions, another task -- often within the framework of the same overall task, so that the outer life circumstances need not necessarily change at all. Sometimes, however, they may change drastically. It all depends.

The new pulse beat is often weak at first. A break has occurred, even though the break is not as crass as the body dying and later being reborn under entirely new conditions. But the break nevertheless exists. It is often experienced as an intense, sometimes prolonged crisis. Since a crisis is always painful, it weakens the pulse beat. Only as the new life is first embraced and then understood can a new continuity begin to evolve. Then the new cosmic pulse beat in the entity can resume with renewed vigor.

When you read these words, then you may fear such an occurrence. You may think that it is preferable to progress in slower stages. Apart from the tremendous value for your personal evolvement and for the overall task of the Great Plan, it is erroneous to think that the transition into a new incarnation within the same body is more traumatic than the greater break of dying and being reborn. In many human beings the fear of death makes dying traumatic. The threat of extinction -- the fear of death -- prevents the entity from experiencing the sweetness of the transition. In many instances this can be experienced only much later, after the real has severed itself from the temporary.

Birth is always painful. Therefore, it is always traumatic. The personality needs to squeeze itself into a very tight structure, and this is experienced as painful. When you see the baby's struggle and resistance, then it is not difficult to perceive this. It is also traumatic for the entity before the birthing process into matter begins to temporarily abdicate full consciousness and to wait for it to awaken slowly by stages. This seems risky. The entity wonders: "Will all that I know as an unencumbered spirit reach my brain through matter and through the dimmed experiences of earth life? Is it not preferable for me to stay in the continuity that I have gained through my growth and my development?" The break in consciousness can be avoided in that way.

This is not always possible. But there are instances -- when development proceeds both fast and well -- when this opportunity arises. However, do not assume anything too quickly and too glibly. Let it be a question within that may or may not find an answer. If it is necessary and important for you to know -- and if you are open, without preconceived ideas one way or another -- then you will know. Certainly you should not ask me whether or not this is so.

There is a general acceleration in the process of evolution. This manifests in various ways. For one, never before has knowledge of the inner realities been accessible to the general public. This is unprecedented in human history. In former times there were an elect few who could join a secret esoteric society, or what might be called a Mystery School, in which knowledge about inner truths, real values, and purification processes was disseminated. Nowadays it is open and available to all. The fact that many do not make use of this possibility is due either to their lack of development or to the fact that many do have the capacity to understand but do not move to do so out of their resistance and out of their apathy. As a result, they do not fulfill their potential.

Another manifestation of the acceleration in development is exactly what I explained in this lecture: the possibility to uncover layers of the soul that would ordinarily await a future embodiment.

In this ever increasing acceleration of the movement of divine life, the penetration of life into the void becomes ever stronger -- and therefore deeper -- with each embodiment. This movement comes even to those who do not fulfill all their potentials, or to those who are still on a much lower scale of consciousnesss. Even trees, plants, and birds participate. Their life span is not longer in your terms, but the general movement causes their real being, their eternal being to penetrate deeper into matter, so that this matter is altered after their life is withdrawn. The entire process is heightening and quickening.

The result is a particular phenomenon that, seen from the outside and out of context, may seem to contradict what I say. In your era there is a new balance between developed souls and undeveloped souls. As there are highly developed spirits coming into this plane in ever greater numbers, so is there also an increasing number of undeveloped souls reaching this plane. In former times these differences were much less acute. There was a greater levelling off. Less highly developed souls made the primitive incarnations less noticeable. Now the differences are striking.

For you who work on this Path it is important to be aware of these general cosmic processes and to incorporate them into your understanding about the world and into your understanding about yourself. At certain stages such knowledge would not help you at all and would not be relevant to what you are called upon to deal with. But the time comes when this is important, not just for some of you individually, but for the entity Path as a whole. For what occurs to you individually always repeats itself on a larger scale. So your individuality is a cell of the entity Pathwork. The entity Pathwork is a cell of the entity earth plane. The healthier each cell becomes, the better can the total organism function. Health includes both knowledge and understanding.

Your Pathwork entity has been reborn several times already. It will continue to do so if you give your best to your truth, if you give your best to your development, and if you give your best to the task of which you are a blessed part. I say this to you now because at this period you as a community are going through such a process. By understanding this fact, it will be much easier for you to grope, to search, to struggle, and to stretch so as to find new ways of being. In other words, to make the changes that in the end -- provided you allow divine inspiration to reach you -- can become a blessing on all levels for every individual joining this venture. My most beloved friends, be fearless in your trust and in your faith that you are involved in something that is infinitely bigger than your personal little concerns to which you sometimes assign such disproportionate importance.

The Christ Spirit is with all of you at all times and in all things. God's blessings enable your most mundane undertakings, for they are put into the service of the Divine Cause. Let your inner joy reach your consciousness, for there is only cause for rejoicing!

November 15, 1978