Shame

By The Pathwork Guide

Greetings in the Name of the Lord. I bring blessings to each one of you and to all your dear ones. When we spirits observe human beings, we can always see your bad need for spiritual nourishment. Your body is nourished, as is your intellect, and even your emotional nature -- though the latter one not always with the best possible food. But when it comes to spiritual nourishment, then most human beings starve themselves. There is a great deal of confusion about what spiritual nourishment really means. It does not merely mean to read, to hear, or to learn about spiritual truth or law, about God and His creation. It does not even mean prayer and meditation which, if done in the right way, is also a very important part of spiritual nourishment. However, the most important substance of spiritual food is self-development. Your innermost self and your divine spark are constantly crying out for this. And you, your conscious being, are refusing this food ever so often. When you are either sad or depressed, when you are dissatisfied with your life, whether you have actual and rational reasons or not, then it is always because your spirit is starved. Only he who partakes of this most important food, spiritual development, can be truly happy and fulfilled. For there is no human being alive who has not the opportunity to become happy. It is in your own hands, in your own decisions, my friends. But so often you turn the wrong way: you seek happiness in the wrong direction; you blame others for your misfortunes; you blame fate, you blame God, you blame the alleged injustice of the world. But you do not take the one and only step that leads to fulfillment through a deep sense of having lived your life in the way your Creator had in mind for you in this particular incarnation. Of course it varies, for not everyone has to fulfill himself the same way. In other words, not the same work or effort is expected of everyone alike. But one thing that you should keep in mind is that if you are not quite happy, in spite of occasional outer difficulties, then you have denied your spirit some of the nourishment it craves -- most probably in the right way of self-development and of self-recognition. Anyone reading these words has sufficient means to acquire this food.

To continue the series of lectures I have given about self-development, I will now discuss a subject I have not yet gone into, at least not in the public lectures. I have mentioned several factors in the human soul which are what you might call God-eclipsing. Pride, selfwill, and fear are the three factors responsible for all faults, for all unhappiness, and for all the untruth that exist in each human soul. They work hand in hand in strenghtening one another in different degrees and in different combinations with each individual. Now I will discuss the subject of shame.

There is the right kind of shame and there is the wrong kind of shame. Expresed differently, the right kind of shame would mean repentance. Without this kind of shame, then there could never be the incentive for self-development. No one who does not feel this shame would ever undergo this noble fight against one's lower self. No one would take the path of purification if this shame did not exist within him. Therefore, repentance is a constructive and positive element. But there is also the wrong kind of shame. Since all human beings often confuse these two kinds of shame, I shall devote some time to this subject.

What is the wrong kind of shame? Expressed differently, we might call it a guilt complex, which is entirely destructive and negative. What do your emotions actually say -- even though you certainly do not consciously think these thoughts -- when you have the wrong kind of shame? You say: "I am bad, I am hopeless. Therefore there is nothing that can be done." With this attitude you not only wallow in self-pity, but, what is even more important and harmful, this attitude expresses, to all intents and purposes, the sluggishness that prohibits you from lifting yourself up and working actively on the elimination of that which is wrong within you. Furthermore, this attitude becomes more and more unreasonable and unjust, for you still demand and expect respect and love from others although you do not respect and love yourself. Mind you, this is not because of your shortcomings; but in the deepest regions of your being you cannot respect yourself because of this wrong attitude and this wrong kind of shame that makes you passive where you should be active.

Thus you find yourself in a vicious circle. The more you deny yourself the constructive kind of shame that would make you lift yourself up and work on yourself with realistic self-recognition, which is the foundation of development, the more you despise yourself. The more you do that, the more you demand love and respect from others in order to make up for the lack of self-respect. The blind, unconscious, immature side of you believes that if you receive sufficient appreciation from others, then this will make up for the lack of self-respect that you can never truly possess unless you fulfill the basic spiritual laws within your soul and unless you do the maximum that can be expected of you in self-development according to your overall spiritual development.

I know that no one thinks these thoughts consciously. But if you test your emotions -- their demands and what they actually mean and express -- then you will easily find out that this is what you mean in a heretofore hidden part of yourself. So remember, and this is very important, your lack of self-respect is not due to your faults, to your weaknesses, to your shortcomings, to your sins -- no matter what they may be -- but it is due to the wrong kind of shame. The moment you exchange the wrong kind for the right, then I can promise you that in the measure this change takes place within you, in that measure you must develop a true and justified self-respect long before the faults in you have disappeared. You do not have to be perfect in order to respect yourself. All you have to do is to have a realistic attitude about your imperfections and to adopt a constructive attitude in regard to them. The more your self-respect is established, the less you will crave for the respect of others, for you are then resting secure within yourself. And this will so change both your inner attitude and your emanations that you will then have a different effect on others. Then this will make is much easier for your surroundings to actually give you the love and the respect that you desired in the first place.

Perhaps it has not occurred to you that this wrong kind of shame comes from your pride and that it furthers your pride even more. Let me explain it to you in this way. There is your lower self, with all its shortcomings. This is a fact that you have to reckon with if you do not want to escape your present reality. The more you try to escape these facts, the sicker your soul must become. That you know, for I have talked about this fact again and again. But by having the wrong kind of shame, you do escape reality, for your emotions express that you will not accept yourself as you really are. The moment you hopelessly despair about the lower side of your nature, then you have not accepted yourself as you are. That means that you are lacking the humility of courageously facing everything about yourself. And that is pride.

Let me stress once again. Intellectually you know that you are imperfect, but not emotionally. Often there is a wide chasm between what you know and think consciously and what your emotions claim and desire. It is not difficult to make these emotions conscious, if only you take the trouble to translate them into a concise thought. But it needs a little effort in this direction. So now your emotions already desire perfection, while this perfection is not yours as yet. Your emotions place you on a higher point than you have taken efforts to reach. On the other hand, you do know or feel that this place is not yours. But instead of consciously recognizing this and slowly working up to the point where you want to be, you become angry at the world and at yourself because you are what you are. And you refuse to make the inner effort to become what you want to be. So the wrong kind of shame means pride, laziness, injustice, and the escape from your present reality. And this makes you feel guilty, my friends. But this is not because of the actual faults you may possess. These would never make you feel guilty, provided you adopt the right kind of shame, in which you accept yourself in humility as you are at present, not fleeing and not escaping from this reality. And thus it builds up from there -- slowly, step by step. It is the only realistic and constructive way to change and to develop.

However, the wrong attitude brings further hazards. Because of your pride and because of your need for respect and for love from others, you begin to withdraw from what you really think and what you really feel about yourself and you hide it behind a wall, so to say. You do not dare to stand up for what you really are because your emotions say that if you were yourself, then you would be despised. As I said before, the more you lack self-respect, the more important the respect of others becomes to you. So you create a mask self. In other words, in a subtle way you become a fake. And that, in turn, makes you even more despondent with yourself, and you despise yourself even more. The vicious cycle continues in full force and it carries you into deeper emotional conflicts, until you develop the courage and the humility to break it. Please do not confuse standing up for what you are -- which includes your lower self -- to mean that you should give in to the trends of the lower self in your deeds. There is a vast difference between that and simply recognizing and then accepting what you are and not building a different personality for the sake of the outside world by which you appear different. What I mean is that man often establishes a fake of his real self for the reasons I explained here.

As long as you feel sad, bitter, defiant, or disharmonious in any way when you encounter your faults, then it means you have not yet accepted yourself as you are. Once again, you have to strive for the middle path. Accepting does not mean that you wish to stay in that state of imperfection, which you first have to learn to accept. Furthermore, you should find out where in your emotions you desire to be cherished by others for your shortcomings as a compensation for your imagined inability to change, and thus cherish yourself. When you have made these unreasonable emotions known, then it will be easy for you to direct them into the proper channels.

When you are capable of really and truly accepting yourself as you are -- not wanting to have a higher place nor desiring to be better than you are -- then you have fulfilled the basic requirement to be on this Path. Before that, you are not on it as yet, but you are still in a state of preparing to enter the most important and decisive gate leading on to it. In other words, as long as there is the wrong kind of shame in you, then you cannot advance on this Path. You have to exchange it for the right kind of shame.

The wrong kind of shame, the guilt, will create a state of mind that is not only unhealthy, but is also one that will make you feel more and more alone. When you feel lonely and not understood, then realize that, at least to some degree, what I am saying here must be responsible for it and not other people: their lack of love and understanding. No matter how incapable of love your surroundings may be, you would never feel lonely if this wrong attitude were not prevailing within you. So do not seek a remedy from without, but turn around within and look at yourself from this point of view.

Whoever you are, you may feel ashamed of something. You do feel ashamed, whether it be big or small, grave or unimportant -- that is not the point. You know how you react. You cover it up, you hide it, you appear to be without that something of which you are ashamed. This is the wall that separates you from others. In this way you can never be sure that you are really loved and really appreciated. For this little voice in you always keeps saying: "If they only knew how I really am and what I have done -- whatever it may be -- then they would not love me." That makes you feel alone, suffering, and cold. You feel that all the affection given to you is destined for the person you appear to be and not for the person you really are. In that state you are uncertain and lonely. But only you can change it -- only you. It will be easy for you to see that the only remedy for this constant state of loneliness, of uncertainty, and of growing self-despisal is the one step that appears the hardest to you, namely to break down the shame and to stand up for what you really are. The more you try the other way -- the way of deception -- the deeper you will be in your dilemma. You have seen that. So it is up to you to take the one courageous step of becoming yourself. Only in this way will you gain true security and the true evaluation of your friends. For he who is spiritually developed and capable of love will certainly not love you any less. On the contrary. And he who is immature -- and therefore who is incapable of love in the first place -- will not be retracting his love for you since he never really gave it nor did you ever really own it. For such a person finds himself in exactly the same spot as you are in now: He is craving for your affection, for your respect, and for your love in order to assuage his own lack of self-respect. This is lacking because he does not have the courage to be himself. This kind of love was an illusion in the first place. So the only way to build a secure ground on which to stand in life is to take off the pretense that you have laboriously planted all your life. This seems a hard step at first, my friends. Again, I want to stress that you are not expected to tell your secrets to everyone you meet. Choose the right person to whom you can open up. Choose the person who can help you. Then choose the people with whom you are really close and those who know you as you really are. Otherwise, you can never be really yourself. Aside from that, it is not a question of what you say to all the other people you meet in life, it is more a question of what you feel. In other words, it is a question that concerns your inner attitude. In order to adjust your emotions from the wrong kind of shame to the right kind, you have to delve into your emotions and translate them into clearcut, concise thoughts so as to determine what your emotions actually say. Then you can readjust them when you see the unreasonableness of the immature side in your soul. Only when you do that will you be able to take the next step. And only then will you have both security and self-respect. For as long as you hide behind a wall of falsity, you must despise yourself -- much more than a brother or sister of yours who may have more weaknesses but who has the courage to live according to what they really are and to do so without pretense.

Thus, it is not a question of how good you are or of how many weaknesses you still have that determines your self-respect. Self-respect -- and as a result of it also the respect of others -- can be determined only by how true to yourself you are, or by how much you deceive, by how much you escape yourself, by how much you hide behind a wall of pretense. I want to stress that this wall of pretense is not something easily recognizable from the outside. It is something subtle within you, and therefore only you can find it in the manner prescribed: by testing and probing your emotions and their meaning.

Repentance means to take stock of the self and to accept the weaknesses in their present state, deeply desiring to change them, but realistically recognizing that the change can come only by recognizing the deeply ingrained fault and then comparing the faulty reaction to the ideal state. Thus humility is learned while the fault lingers on by necessity, for it cannot be overcome so quickly.

When you no longer wish to appear better than you are or more than you are -- even in your own eyes -- then you will have taken yourself down from the high place in which you have put yourself. Only then can you start rebuilding, after you have torn down the false house. If you have the courage to stumble one hundred or a thousand times over the same faults, and every time you lift yourself up to try again, recognizing your own weakness, then you pay God the debt you owe Him. Then you are worthy of His grace. Then you are truly on the Path. Then you rid yourself of pride and of falsity, long before you are perfect in the many details of your character. Thus you approach perfection much faster than you think, in spite of the lingering on of some of your stubborn shortcomings. When you have that courage and you can conduct your emotions in that way, then you must win. But if every time you stumble over a previously recognized fault you become so despondent and so depressed that you despair with yourself in a way that you wish to give up and you consider this to be senseless, then it means that you have the wrong kind of shame. This is the destructive and weakening kind that is not pleasing to God and that will never get you anywhere. For as long as you despair so easily, then it means that there is still too much pride in you. The healing, curative action of being able to observe your weaknesses in the true light of what they are, and by not exaggerating them, will never be able to adversely affect your soul.

So, my friends, do not despair if you have no success for quite a while in overcoming your weaknesses. Now you may perhaps understand better that in the very fact that you are unsuccessful for a time lies a great curative agent for something that is even more important than the actual weakness you are treating, namely the learning of the right kind of shame and the acceptance of yourself. In this way you learn humility, you overcome your pride, and you live in your own reality. If you were too easily successful in overcoming your individual faults, then it might make you even more proud. And this is even more harmful than any fault. Apart from that, the faults against which you are battling are often ingrained in you for many incarnations. So you cannot expect to get rid of them within a few years. However, if you are capable of facing these weaknesses, if you meet them with your eyes open and with a healthy attitude, and if you learn even while you are still stumbling over them, if you have the humility to face yourself, knowing where you really belong -- not too low nor too high -- then, even though you are still imperfect in one respect or another, you contribute the ground stone to this healthy and normal inner make-up that you need.

Think about this, my friends. Meditate on these words. Again, I want to stress the fact that it is not sufficient to just read them once, for that will not be spiritual food. Spiritual food is when you try to compare where your feelings still deviate from the ideal state which I have explained here and where you can find an echo in you to go on from there in your daily strivings and in your daily spiritual work. When you do that, then you will give yourself the food which your spirit needs.

Perhaps you will begin to understand or to sense why it is necessary on the Path -- at one time or another -- to be able to talk openly about yourself to a qualified person and then to the people with whom you are really close. For as long as you keep things hidden within you, then it puts everything out of proportion.

Then you may exaggerate one thing and underestimate another. But another person -- who is detached from your problem and from your inner struggle -- may see things in the right light. But that is not the only reason. As I have often said in private lectures, there is a spiritual law involved here. This same spiritual law also held true when humanity invented psychoanalysis, or for that matter confession. The same idea is behind both. It is the law of brotherhood. The moment you open up to another person, then this indicates an act of humility, at least towards that one person. You do not want to appear more perfect than you are at that moment with that person. This is one of the most harmful things in the laws of the soul, for it is harmful for you. Thus, to that one person you show yourself as you are, at least to some degree at the beginning. Even if that person does not give you one piece of advice, you instantly feel relief, the relief that your spirit has cried for. Your spirit suffers when you act against its laws. And you feel better when you are able to see things differently. It is the law of brotherhood. Something in you says: "At this moment I do not want to appear better than I am. I want to show myself as I am. I do not strive for respect and love that I think is not really due me because of these things of which I am ashamed." Because you are wrong in that too. Love and respect are due to every living creature. But you think that they are not due to you because of something that you keep in hiding. In this distorted view, you suffer from loneliness and you go on pretending in some subtle way. So you can see that the wrong kind of shame also violates the law of brotherhood, in addition to the aforementioned violations. Thus you may see once again how every emotion and every inner feeling can be right when it comes from God. However, the same can be distorted by the luciferic powers. So it is with shame.

If you really and truly desire to develop on this Path, then you will find guidance. There may come a point in which the guidance will manifest. It may manifest in such a way that you are almost pushed into a corner where you will open up for your salvation. Of course, you always have your free will and we spirits will respect it at all times and will never violate it, even if we do know what may seem so difficult for you to express. But you have to do the talking. We will not do it for you. Therefore, you are always free to refuse, you are always free to back up, you are always free to retire deeper into your corner and to resent the fact that you are being "pushed" in this way -- as you may think. However, you can also refrain from backing up and being pushed and having to step out of your hiding place, if only you wish to open your eyes and see that herein lies your salvation. In other words, it is up to you.

Such guidance -- appearing at first like a test in the form of an unpleasantness that you cannot fully understand -- is to help you to do what is necessary. You do not understand the necessity and the healing of such opening up of your personality. Therefore, you would not do it unless such guidance came to you. And because you do not understand it yet, you think of these happenings as an unpleasant hardship. Once you have understood, then you will cease to see it in that way. In that respect you are all like children: you do not know what is good for you. God's helpers, who are all constantly around you -- particularly with the person who is willing to take this Path of purification -- manage to guide and inspire people around you in such a way as to create a certain situation in order to afford you this opportunity. But you have to decide with your free will whether or not you want to do it. Then you can either open your eyes to the significance of the situation viewed in that light, or you can shirk the issue and refuse to recognize the call. For it is a call! Therefore, decide, my friends: "Do you want to take your courage into your own hands or do you want to continue to hide in your cowardice?"

After reading this, do you still think that you can advance on this path by not having the courage to do that? But I promise you one thing. After it is done, then there will already be a foretaste of that spiritual new birth that must come sooner or later when a certain phase is reached on this path. The greater the effort and the apparent difficulty in doing it, then the more relief, the more victory, the more happiness, the more self-respect, the more inner joy, and the more peace you will feel after it is over and after you have fully understood how to go on from there. I beg you to remember this, my dear friends. Do not choose to forget these words merely because you want to evade the issue, thus thinking in your innermost self that by evading it then the situation does not exist. When you are faced with such a decision, then read these words.

We are not dealing only with what you consciously know and consciously hide. That is comparatively easy. Once this consciously hidden thing comes out, then you have -- with our help -- to try to find what unconscious currents lie behind these conscious actions that you may be ashamed of. That is the work that needs to be done. Of course, you cannot do so alone. You cannot do so unless you have displayed the courage to bring into the open what you do know. With many people there are unconscious factors that are hidden, in the same manner as the conscious ones. And that is a little more complicated to find. The first preliminary step is to be free and open enough to be able to talk about everything pertaining to your person. As long as that is not done, then you can never reach your hidden motives, your hidden currents, and your hidden emotions. If you fulfill the necessary requirements, then help will be given to you. Of that you can be sure. This help you need is the grace of God. Without it you cannot reach your unconscious -- and stubbornly hidden -- shames that at times block the way. But if you wait for this grace of God in defiance and in anger, saying to yourself, "Why can't I have it? Why someone else and not me? I have suffered so much. I am due for it now. I have tried so hard," then you push away the time of grace, because your attitude is not a humble one. You take it upon yourself to judge, and you cannot judge. You have no way of judging how much you have suffered and when the grace of God is due and how hard you have tried, especially in comparison with others. You lack this opportunity for comparison. You even lack complete self-recognition, for as long as you cannot delve into what your subconscious hides, then you do not know yourself. If you do not know yourself, then how can you dare to judge and to compare? But when you nurse a spirit of true humility and patience, then the grace of God will be much nearer. So if you have difficulties, try to concentrate on this. If you cannot advance in spite of the fact that you are working and doing your best (and many do not advance because they are not working they way they could; so it is not the lack of grace) and if there exist blocks that you cannot seem to penetrate, then ask yourself: "How humble is my attitude?" Nurse this, instead of turning away from God the moment things become difficult for you. This is also my advice to all of my beloved friends.

I should like to discuss one more subject before we turn to your questions. I have already mentioned that you are ashamed of your faults. This is true in many instances. Some faults you are really ashamed of. Other faults you really do not want to have. However, there is also another category of faults in you. The time has come when it is important to mention this so that you may look upon this from this point of view, which will help you a great deal. It will explain to you why you cannot get ahead in some particular way of your development. In each one of you there is a certain number of faults with which you are in love. You do not admit it, but you are actually quite proud of them. As long as this is the case, then you cannot possibly overcome them. The only way in which to go about it is by finding out where this truth applies in you. Once you are aware of the fact that emotionally you actually like some of your faults, then you can pray that God may help you to recognize why this is so, what lies behind it, and that you may be able to see it objectively in its true light so as to develop the right kind of shame in this respect.

Check all your faults and then check your emotional reaction to them in all honesty. By going through your list, you will see that there are some faults that you really do not like and that there are others that you may cherish in some way. When you feel that, then ask yourself: "How would I react if another person were to display the same fault in the same way or perhaps in a slightly different way?" Because often you are irritated when another human being displays the same fault that you are proud of having in yourself. Once you approach it from this point of view, then you will lose that feeling of pride that you take in some of your faults. As long as this feeling persists, then you cannot possibly get over a fault.

In the following lectures I will be happy to let you bring up any fault you choose at random and to present it to me for analysis. I will show you how every fault is connected with pride, with selfwill, and with fear. I will show you how to analyze this fault, how it leads to other faults, and what is connected with it, so as to give you more and better help for your self-understanding. I will show you how to meditate on it, how to proceed particularly with the spiritual work on your Path. Then I will also show you how every single fault or weakness or imperfection or shortcoming is a direct hindrance to love -- and therefore to God. I will further show you what the underlying good quality is behind each fault. For there is no fault that is not a distortion of something that at one time was good and pure. Try this as an exercise yourself. Apply this to your faults. For your spiritual work is useless if it is abstract and impersonal. And where you are unable to do so, then bring these faults here as general questions. I will treat it as though it were entirely a general question.

Now, are there any questions in connection with the subject I just talked about before we turn to your other questions?

QUESTION: In this lecture you touched on the fact that this opening up has to be done to a qualified person. Could you elaborate on the problem of a person who has the desire to open up and be humble but does so indiscriminately and therefore there is no good coming from it -- only harm and repercussions?

ANSWER: Yes, you see that this is the opposite extreme. And you know that all extremes are bad and wrong. In such a person this is a deep need for which the spirit cries. What it really needs is not recognized consciously. Therefore, the wrong means are sought. However, the case you mentioned is not as much of an extreme as you think. It is often possible for a human being to open up about many things, perhaps little things, and even actual shortcomings so as to ward off or to keep the real thing hidden. That is true also in the case of which you are thinking.

QUESTION: Yes. I was going to ask that. But what if that same person actually masks the true faults and then invents artificial guilts that he wishes to divulge?

ANSWER: That is right. You see, it will not do any good to tell such a person to choose the right people to whom he should open up, for he will never know who the right people are. Both intuition and sound intellectual judgment are lacking. It cannot really function well as long as one rationalizes and covers up the reasons. So a person like this has to be brought to understand that he must first recognize this fact. That can be done only very slowly. But it cannot be done at all if the desire is not there. But the desire can grow. In this case, the desire will eventually come.