Forces Of Activity And Passivity -- Finding God's Will

By The Pathwork Guide

Greetings in the name of the Lord. I bring blessings for all of you, my friends. Blessed is this lecture. There are twelve basic active forces in the universe and twelve basic passive forces or principles. In the highest realm of Light, according to the scheme of the "Pistis Sophia," these forces are concentrated in and are conducted by respective entities each of whom is a representative or a personification of each of these active and passive principles. They are all perfect in their own way. The whole universe is penetrated by these forces and an infinite variety and combination of them is possible. Incidentally, you have heard in the Pistis Sophia the expression "24 invisibles." This refers to these principles, as well as to these entities. They are all invisible in all the spheres below the one I mentioned just now. But in that sphere these principles are visible. Not only are the entities visible, but also the forces. They are visible in the form of rays or fine threads running through the atmosphere. They are noticeable not only by various colors and shades, but also by scent and tone, and other means of perception of which as human beings you know nothing.

My reason for telling you about this is not merely to give you information about these higher spheres, for that in itself would not be sufficient. Interesting as this knowledge may be, it is not enough. What you should get out of these lectures must always be of some benefit so that you can use it in your actual life, right here and now. Since every force or principle present in the universe also penetrates each individual human soul, then a benefit can be derived from this at first very faraway and abstract-sounding piece of information. In other words, a connection can and should be made, for the whole universe is within you.

It is important to consider how man uses, exploits, and directs these principles or forces that determine his life, his harmony, and his happiness. I have often mentioned activity and passivity as being two basic divine aspects in the universe. There is not only one active and one passive principle in existence, but twelve of each. The question arises for man regarding in what instance should he assume an active attitude or a passive attitude. In other words, when should the free will with which he was endowed be used corresponding to activity and when should this same free will be used corresponding to passivity so that God’s will can be fulfilled. Here lies a fundamental falsity, my friends. It is not true that you can be passive when you want to fulfill God’s will. In order to truly fulfill the will of God a great deal of activity and of will power is necessary.

When the active forces are used in the channels destined for the passive currents, then there occurs a congestion. The result for the human being is a frustration. On the other hand, if the passive forces replace the active ones entering the channels where the active principle should work and flow freely, then there will not be a congestion but a standstill or a stagnation. This will affect not only in general development -- which the wrong use of the active forces bring about too -- but also result in a sluggishness in certain particular respects in the human soul, a sluggishness that gradually affects the entire inner makeup of the person in question.

Particularly the person who is on the Path has great need to find out in what respect the forces should be active and in what respect they should be passive. I shall try to help you by shedding a little more light on this subject. So please understand that there is no passivity involved in fulfilling the will of God. Being active and using your will power does not mean selfwill, for these are two different things. Using your will power at all times means to adhere to the laws of God. That is not so difficult to find out, even for people who do not have this personal guidance and these particular teachings. This is true even for those who find God in any of the currently existing religions or philosophies, and even for people who are not particularly close to God, the agnostics or atheists who have high standards of ethics and morals. They know what is right and what is wrong by simply facing the particular issue in question and asking themselves honest and self-probing questions. Then they will know. But to do this you certainly do need your will power.

However, where the passive forces have set in, and where unfortunately they still are, are all the instances where you cannot change either the circumstances or the other people. Man is inclined to revolt within when things do not go according to his will or when other people are wrong. Then there is a certain kind of activity. Whenr an emotion is felt and you follow that emotion through to its roots, then you will always discover that there is a desire behind it. Desire means activity. You may have right desires -- for instance the desire to go on the Path of purification; the desire to learn to learn to love; the desire to overcome your weaknesses; and the desire to feel the pain of self-honesty which comes at the beginning. All these are positive, constructive desires. Therefore, the active force must be put into use in order to fulfill them. But there are also negative desires. When resentment, fear, and hatred fill your heart, then there is a negative desire. Therefore, an active force is used instead of a passive one. Since a wrong desire cannot really be fulfilled (if it appears that way, then it it is temporary and very illusory), then you become frustrated.

What must your attitude be in those instances when you are supposed to be passive? You cannot change either this world or other people, my friends. Your intellect tells you that, but do your emotions always know it? Certainly not! It remains to be seen whether your emotions will begin to follow what you know in your intellect. In those instances, the proper attitude would be to accept what you cannot change, as well as to accept the actions and the attitudes of other people and the circumstances beyond your control. If you can accept these in your emotions as well as in your superficial knowledge, then you will re-channel the wrongly used active and passive currents. This also means to accept the imperfection of this earth sphere in humility, knowing that since you are not perfect, then you cannot and therefore must not resent the imperfections of others, even though they may be different from your own. It even means that you must accept your own imperfections, though you should not be satisfied to remain imperfect. It means that you should accept them for now and acknowledge their existence. At present you still possess many imperfections which as yet you have not accepted. Somehow, you unconsciously revolt against this state of affairs. By revolting you set in motion an active force where a passive one should exist. Only after this passive force has been cultivated will a different active current be brought to work so as to gradually begin to overcome this imperfection. However, as long as you revolt against things that cannot be changed, or that could be changed only by a different inner activity, then there is a pressure and an inner pushing against a stone wall. As long as you do not relinquish or relax this pushing force in the wrong direction, then you cannot make order in your soul. You must learn to recognize where your desires surge in the wrong direction. If the pressure is taken off these wrong desires, then you will have that much more strength left for good and proper desires where the active force is badly needed but where you are presently too weak. Why? This is not because less strength has been given to you than to other people, but because you have not managed your household well. You have allowed disorder, disorganization, and mismanagement to set in. There is just the right amount of strength available for you to fulfill your life as best you can. It is up to you to use this strength where it is necessary and not to waste it.

Do not believe that those people who appear weak and without will on the surface use less active force than those who are strong. The former simply do not display their will on the surface because of other conflicting psychological trends. However, everything sizzles from within because of this frustrated will pressing in the wrong direction. Such people may not be consciously aware of it, but the symptoms are their health, their strength, and their peace of mind. The moment you become passive where you should not be passive, not in your thoughts alone nor in your perceptions, but in your innermost emotions, when you accept that which you cannot change now by direct action, then you will have new strength and a new live force to an extent that you have never known before.

So far this may still sound confusing to you, my friends, because you may not know how to find out how you really feel within, nor do you know how to begin. It is not as difficult as you may think. The fundamental factor in this is to get to know yourself. In other words, to ask yourself pertinent questions. This is really very simple once you decide to accept it as being an unavoidable necessity.

Each time you feel an unpleasant emotion -- anger, anxiety, resentment, or whatever it may be, and your days are often full of this -- then stop rationalizing it by thinking of the wrongs of others involved. Instead, ask yourself what you really want -- because there is something you want the moment there is an emotion in you. Otherwise, you would not feel that way. I do not say in this respect that all emotions are wrong; but the unpleasant emotions must have a faulty premise somewhere, no matter how wrong others may also be. This faulty premise is often an active pressure where acceptance should reign. So find out this pressure, this desire, and examine it from this point of view.

From this point of view it does take training and habit-forming to observe yourself. But how beneficial this will be for you! Once you begin, and you do not let up, then you will see that it becomes second nature with you. It becomes a good habit without which you would not, and should not, want to live anymore. It is part of the daily cleansing of your soul. Before you start in this way, you often are constantly in an emotional state about its nature. You are not clear and you do not realize what is going on in you and what your desires are. Once you begin to focus your attention on these feelings -- from this point of view, concerning what is the desire behind it -- then it becomes very simple. And that is the purpose of the daily review that I mention so often.

However, if some of you cannot do or do not like to do it in this form, then there are other ways of doing it. Whenever you have a free moment, then think about the past few hours and think of what your feelings actually were during the past few hours or during a particular experience. Then ask yourself with regard to your respective emotions: "What is my desire?" When you find the answer, you will already have a clue. The answer often will be that another person has done something that is wrong or that seems wrong to you. There you can actually observe close at hand that where you should be passive, you are active because you actively desire a change that you cannot change or control. Because of these constant overactive desires in the wrong place, you completely forget those instances where you do have the power to change, if you would only look at it. There is so much power given to you, to each one of you! Yet you do not realize it. Why? It is because you constantly waste your power in the wrong channels. You use it unproductively. You often create a short-circuit within yourself, one that stems from conflicting desires. For if you learn to examine yourself in this manner, you will not only find that there are so many wrong and unqualified desires in you as such, but also conflicting desires.

You wish two impossible things at one and the same time. The point is simply that you have to become aware of this paradoxical state of affairs within you. The only way in which you can do so is by any type of daily review that you conduct; by self-honesty; by examining your feelings and the desires behind them. That is the process of maturity, my friends. Because your unconscious, often conflicting desires are always immature, they desire the impossible, just as a child frequently does. You are desiring something that cannot be had; or you are desiring something for which you are not prepared to pay the price. The fact that you do not consider the problem from this angle -- and are therefore unaware that there is a price to be paid for each desired gratification -- does not alter the circumstances in the least. Because of your unwillingness to pay the necessary price for a desired goal, you leave the issue in the unconscious, thus thinking childishly that you can get around it. It is uncomfortable for you to realize and to obey the laws of justice. So you leave the whole issue in the unconscious and thus you make yourself ill -- not only physically, but on all levels of your existence.

So, try to observe yourselves from this point of view. Considere what your desires really are. When you make these findings, then you will be surprised at how much relief this knowledge has already brought you -- provided you have really embraced it and have wholeheartedly decided to do so without subterfuges and without any half-heartedness about it. You will be relieved by the mere knowledge, for that will explain to you the mishaps of your life and that will strengthen your trust in God’s justice and wonderful order of the universe.

God does not want you to be a puppet or to be dependent on a wrong conception of the Divine in which you hold on to God’s apron strings, expecting Him to run your life for you. If your life is not what you want it to be, then you blame Him for it in some way. He wants you to be independent and strong, which you can be only by being the way I am showing you here. You can conduct your own life satisfactorily -- but He will not do it for you. He will let you run your life. And if it becomes a mess, then you must change it. It should not be left to others or to circumstances to change your life. When you change your wrong over-active currents so that they become passive and the wrong passive currents so that they become active, then you can even control circumstances and other people. For that will emanate from you and will it indirectly affect the subconscious of other people. Then that will come gradually come back to you.

The question regarding God’s will for you still remains open. I have said to you that it is not only wrong to believe that you have to be passive in order to fulfill God’s will, but it is also impossible to be passive and without will to do that. To fulfill the will of God means overcoming your own inner resistances. And for that you do need activity, though it be carried over into another channel or on different tracks, so to say. But you wll need activity and the strength of your will power nevertheless. The passivity is necessary, but certainly not in order to fulfill God’s will. You confuse this with selfwill. First of all, let us determine clearly what is selfwill in comparison with free will. Selfwill is the will of the little ego. Free will comprises everything. You can use free will either for good or for bad. It is up to you. To agree on the terminology so as not to invite any misunderstandings, selfwill is the will of the little blind ego. In other words, it is the will of the lower self.

In order to find out what is God’s will you must be free of your selfwill. However, your active and clear will power must be used. First, it is used in the desire to really find out without any wishful thinking and self-deception; in the fact that you do leave your selfwill aside; and in the preparation of putting it even more actively in use after you have found out, so as to be able to follow it through. To determine what the will of God is in individual instances you rarely need a particular revelation or a transcendence from the supernatural. God’s will is always contained within you and is behind your blindness. When you take off your masks -- in other words, the rose-colored glasses that you use when you view your own self, your motives, and your life -- then God’s will must evolve clearly and without doubt. When you discover your real desires and you put them down in black and white and you say to yourself, "This is what I actually want when I am honest with myself," you may often be surprised how this wanting deviates from your conscious desires. Do not believe that just because another part within you conflicts with your conscious desires that this makes you totally despicable. Remind yourself of the fact that you consist of many layers. Broadly speaking, they are the higher self and the lower self. Accept the fact that both are in you and all will be well. Then you will not lose your sense of proportion in your estimate of yourself, neither in one exaggerated direction nor in the other.

When you examine the desire of your lower self, then bring this into your consciousness and do not allow it to slip away again into the unconsciousness. Consider the repercussions, the meaning, the significance, and the consequences of this desire. Compare it with the spiritual laws as far as you know them. Then you will be able to know what is God's will in nine out of ten cases. I promise you that. It is only a matter of examining the various chain reactions that have led you to the present state. For if you are in a certain situation now and you want to change this situation, or if you are faced with a decision and you do not know what this decision should be, then you will not know what God's will is if you do not ask Him for it. But the moment you ask more penetrating questions of yourself and of these underlying desires that may be responsible for the presence of certain conditions in you, then the answer must evolve clearly, strongly, and self-evidently. It will evolve all the quicker and all the better if you enlist God's help for this purpose. God never gives any help of this sort if you have not made the first step. The first step is always that you endeavor to seek self-knowledge, self-honesty, and the sincere good will of purification to do God's will in all instances. But there must be a wise and mature attitude. That means that you should not believe that you can change from one day to another without exerting any effort on your part. If your present situation is unsatisfactory or if you are not clear about an important decision you have to make, then do not expect God to decide for you or for Him to alter an unpleasantness for you without your active participation in this process. First you have to realize that there must be something wrong in you to begin with. Then you must be willing to find this out and change it with the help of God. Do not forget that this wrong -- this sin -- is not necessarily a sinful action or an evil thought, but often an unrecognized emotion that surges in a wrong channel or that violates a spiritual law. If God recognizes your good will and if you combine prayer with the work that you are willing to undertake in your self-examination and in the tearing down your masks, then His answer will become even more clear. As a result, no doubt will have any place in you. However, as long as the resistance against this procedure, no matter what the pretexts and excuses are, and as long as this sluggishness and the immaturity of your lower self have the better of you, then you will have wrong reactions and wrong instincts -- which you will then want to interpret to fit into the resistance of your lower self.

The only way you can know whether a right and good instinct or a wrong and false instinct guides you is by the happiness, the relief, the freedom, the sense of utter rightness, and the peace with the world that you will have as a result of it -- or the opposite of these feelings. Only if your will is really free of self-pampering and if it is pure and humble, can God's will be clearly manifested, no matter how He chooses to reveal Himself to you. But you will not need a particular revelation. With your good efforts and God's help -- enlisted in prayer -- you will find out the answer yourself. God will only help you through His angels in order that you yourself can do it better; so that you may have more support from the spirit world, more guidance, and more help. However, you must be the one to decide: "I want to do it wholeheartedly." Only then will God help you. Then there will be no problem as to what God's will is for you. The answer is within you. The key is within you. It lies in your imperfections; it lies where you have deviated from or have broken a spiritual law, be it merely in your unconscious desire currents. Then the active forces will function properly almost automatically, and will flow into the right channel -- and so will the passive forces. Yes, my friends, this change will happen and must happen. It cannot be otherwise. And that will change your entire life and will make it much better.

Is there anyone who wants to ask a question pertaining to this subject before we turn to the other questions?

QUESTION: Why are desires always from the lower self?

ANSWER: I certainly did not say that. On the contrary, I have shown clearly that there are also proper and very important constructive desires. (Maybe I misunderstood) You overheard it. You will see when you read this lecture. (But how can we tell if a desire comes from the higher or the lower self?) By examining the desires and their real motives you will be able to differentiate. Clearly and concisely, ask yourself this question: "What is it that I want and why do I want it? What is my real motive behind it?" You see, it is often like this. You may have a right desire with a good motive behind it, but at the same time there is also -- notwithstanding the good motive -- an impure motive in it as well. The moment you recognize this, then you have already done something for your purification. Purifying does not mean merely that you are already perfect, but the process of becoming perfect is already purification. It is an integral part of this process to say: "In addition to my good motive, there is also a selfish motive or a vain motive hidden under this good cause." By saying this to yourself, you have already purified yourself to some extent. To illustrate: A person may be spiritually active, having clean and pure motives to help other people. These good motives certainly exist. Yet, at the same time, the desire current of the lower self mingles in -- perhaps the ego or a vanity to be outstanding, to be admired, to be an authority. When the mixture of the motives is recognized by you, calmly and freely, then it becomes a purification process. With such an act, you have raised your consciousness to a pretty high degree. This is so merely by the recognition of it, even if you are as yet incapable of shedding the impure motives. Something in the chemistry of your body and of your soul begins to change with such clear a self-recognition because you approach the truth. The most severe and the most frequent violation of spiritual law -- one that is mostly overlooked by human beings -- is living in truth. When I say that, then you imagine that I mean that you should not lie. I do not mean that at all. It is self-understood that a person should be honest and should not lie. Lying to oneself is often infinitely more dangerous and more harmful than lying to others. Why do I say more dangerous? I say this because when you lie to others, then at least you are aware of it and you know it. Thus you are a step nearer to being in truth than when you lie to yourself. When you lie to yourself, then you do not realize it. This is not because you cannot, but simply because you do not want to do so. Thus you are completely away from the truth. And that is a grave violation, setting you apart from God. That afflicts you with a dark wall behind which you must be unhappy, for you are then involved in the outer conflicts that this must create for you sooner or later. Behind this wall you are lonely and lost. The only way you are able to find the light is by tearing down these walls and viewing what is behind them, even if it is unpleasant. The first moment you do this is a fight. But after you have decided to do so and after you have torn down the first few stones of this wall, the relief will be tremendous. For the first time you will know what it means to be on this Path. You will know that in the last analysis this manner of work, and nothing else, is what counts.

I am trying to make you understand that if you choose to fulfill the will of God, then you are not bound creatures. The contrary is true. For it takes the greatest and the freest effort of will power to decide to live within the law. In order to do that, it is necessary to recognize your innermost motives and your hidden currents. Only a free person can do that. On the other hand, if people decide to constantly use their little selfwill, then they become more bound and more chained. The more you live in divine law, then the freer you must become; the more you break divine law, then the more enslaved you must become. A person who does not recognize his own hidden motives cannot conduct his life freely anymore. He is completely enslaved by his lower self and by his unrecognized desires, which push and pull the person backwards and forward, left and right.

QUESTION: Does that mean that whatever we want to do we always have to ask God if this is all right with Him? Do you have to see whether or not it does not deviate from God's law?

ANSWER: I would suggest it be done this way. In the first place, when you are on this path, then you should take an inventory of your own person, as I have often suggested. In order to find out who you are, you must do the following. You must seek your faults; you must seek your qualities or your virtues; you must also seek what you want, what your desires really are. When you have done all that and you begin this constant process of the daily self-analysis of your feelings, then you will automatically get to know in what respect you have deviated from divine law in your emotional currents. Sometimes when you discover the nature of a deeply hidden desire, you will know at once that this is contrary to God's will, even without any special metaphysical knowledge. In other cases, you may have to probe a little deeper and separate the clean motive from the impure one in the same desire current. You can seldom find an answer by viewing the issue in question by asking yourself whether the action you contemplate is right or wrong. None of you would ever consider committing an anti-social act or a sinful act. Therefore, the decisions you are faced with could be right either way in principle. For each individual there is only one right way and many wrong ways possible. So you have to consider your dishonest motives behind the apparently good motives. In other words, the motives that determine the right action or the wrong action for you and not the ethical value of the action itself. As long as you have not found all the motives of the respective desire, then you will not be able to know the right action for you. The right procedere is NOT to ask God to simply let you know whether you should do such and such, thus avoiding the effort and the work of self-knowledge on your part. There may be isolated instances where this can be the right thing to do, but not in general and not when there seems to be a pattern and a conflict involved. The right procedure is to decide wholeheartedly that you wish to find the motives behind the motive, and for that you should pray for God's help. Then He will help you. Is that clear? (Yes.) So the question remains: Find out your real motives. This does not mean that the motive which is on the surface is annulled. The other part that mixes in has to be found and then you will have the answer.

There is one more thing I should like to say to you before we turn to your general questions. There is the outer will and the inner will. By the latter I do not only mean the subconscious will. The inner will can be made conscious comparatively easily. Where you listen within you is where your solar plexus or your spiritual field is. You may receive answers there; you may feel right or wrong from this part of yourself, provided you have wholeheartedly decided for the right course and the resistance and the fight is over and done with. If you become very quiet and relaxed and you listen within you, then you may find that there is another will coming from there -- or the lack of it, for that matter. This will or its lack is often conflicting with your outer or conscious will. To illustrate, let us suppose that a person sincerely desires to love one of his fellow creatures. He desires to do so because he knows that it is right. This desire is in the outer will. If he becomes quiet and he consults the inner will, then he will find that the inner will does not conform with that. To find out such a discrepancy is extremely important, for you cannot control yourself if you do not know what is within you. By controlling yourself I certainly do not mean suppressing anything, I mean to hold life's reins firmly in one's hands. How can you cure a wrong current if you do not discover it first? As an example, I will choose a positive one this time. If it is right, then the inner will exists quietly deep within, though it is conscious. If a person desires to do his best and desires to fulfill his task as well as he is able to or desires to overcome his faults as best as he can at this present stage, then his inner will should be directed towards that end without pressure and without haste. But the inner will does not press but is relaxed. A pressure in the outer will must make the person tense and will only delay the process. The inner will must be there for the right thing and for the ultimate goal. The outer will must be serene and give you leeway for life's hindrances and imperfections that make it impossible to proceed speedily and according to a certain plan. On the contrary, the apparent obstacles should be met voluntarily as a means of growing faster and of learning to accept that which cannot be altered by the self as a means of learning humility and so on. Then the obstacles will cease to be obstacles but will become stepping stones upward. The outer will must be flexible; it must be prepared for change; at one time it has to be more active so as to act; at other times it has to become more passive. But the inner will has to be active, but quietly, as the whole foundation of the person's life. To understand these words, you would have to meditate on them deeply and perhaps quite often.