Images

By The Pathwork Guide

Greetings in the name of the Lord. Blessed is this lecture. Blessings for all of you, my dear friends. Most of my friends in this group have made serious efforts on their path of development, and therefore it was decided in the spirit world that you are ready for stronger medicine. So I shall go a step further. Most of my friends come to a point when the struggle on the path becomes a bit discouraging. You have begun to recognize your faults, you are full of good intent to overcome them, and you may even have succeeded in a small measure. You recognize some of your wrong attitudes, and you wish to change them with all the will power at your disposal. Yet you must face the fact that this outer will is insufficient. No matter how hard you try, you seem unable to execute some changes. So you ask yourself why not. In your ignorance of the facts responsible for this inability, you are often inclined to give up altogether, saying to yourself that it is useless. And that is where your gravest mistake lies.

It is very important to realize that every personality in the course of a lifetime, usually in earliest childhood and often even in infancy, forms certain impressions due either to environmental factors and influences, or to sudden, unexpected experiences. These impressions or attitudes are usually conclusions formed by the personality. Most of the time they are wrong conclusions. One sees and experiences something unfortunate, one of the unavoidable hardships of life, and the person then generalizes on account of these happenings, thus forming certain preconceived ideas. These conclusions, which at times may be formed even in infancy, are not thought out. They are what might be called emotional reactions, general attitudes concerning life either in one or in several respects. They are not completely bare of a certain kind of logic of its own very limited and erroneous kind. And as the years go by, these conclusions and attitudes sink more and more into the unconscious, molding to some extent the life of the person in question.

We spirits call each such a conclusion an image, since we see the whole thought process as a spiritual form, or an image. You might say that a person can also have a positive, healthy image engraved in the soul. That is true only in some measure, because where no wrong image has been produced, then there all thoughts and all feelings are fluctuating, they are dynamic, they are relaxed, they are flexible. The whole universe is penetrated by a number of divine forces, currents, and influxes. Thoughts, feelings, and attitudes which are unconnected with an image flow harmoniously with these divine forces and currents, adapting themselves spontaneously to the immediate need. They change according to the necessity of each moment and of each situation. But the thought and feeling forms emanating from wrong images are static and congested. As a result, they do not "give" in accordance with different circumstances. Thus, they create disorder. The pure currents flowing through a human soul become disturbed and distorted. A short circuit is established. This is the way we see it. The way you see it and feel it is through unhappiness, anxiety, and puzzlement over many apparently inexplicable events in your life. For instance, you realize that you cannot change what you wish to change, or that certain happenings in your life seem to reoccur regularly without an obvious reason. These are just two examples; there are many more.

The wrong conclusions that form an image are drawn out of ignorance and out of half-knowledge. Therefore, they cannot remain in the conscious mind. As the personality grows up, then the intellectual knowledge contradicts the emotional knowledge. Therefore, the person pushes the emotional knowledge down, until it disappears out of conscious sight. The more the emotional knowledge is hidden, the more potent it becomes.

How can you be sure that such an image exists in you? In the first place, you know that you cannot overcome certain faults, no matter how much you want to or how much you have recognized that these faults are wrong and therefore undesirable for you. This is an indication of such an image. I have mentioned the fact that sometimes people love some of their faults. Why should you love them? You do this for the simple reason that, according to this image, certain faults seem like a defense measure or like a protective covering. This is unconscious knowledge or reasoning. The conscious effort to overcome this fault remains fruitless because the roots are unconscious, and therefore the whole inner reasoning process is hidden from the intellect. And it will remain so until the image is recognized.

Another indication of such an image is the repetition of certain incidents in one's life. An image always forms a pattern, in one way or another. It forms a pattern of behavior or a pattern of reaction to certain occasions, and also a pattern of outer occurrences that seem to come to you without your doing anything to call them forth. In fact, consciously the person may fervently wish something that is the very opposite of the image. But this conscious desire is the weaker of the two, since the unconscious is always stronger. The unconscious does not realize that its attitude prohibits the very wish which the person consciously has but which he cannot fulfill. In other words, that the price for this unconscious pseudo protection is the frustration of the legitimate desire. This is very important to understand. It is of equal importance to understand that outer events -- certain situations and certain people -- can be drawn like a magnet to a person on account of such inner images. This may be difficult to perceive, nevertheless it is so. The only remedy is to find out what the image is, on what basis it was formed, and what the wrong conclusions were.

Often you do not notice the repetition and the pattern in your life. In other words, you just pass over the obvious. You are so used to the assumption that certain things are a coincidence, or that some fate is testing you arbitrarily, or that other people in your surroundings are responsible for your repeated mishaps that you pay more attention to the slightest variations of each incident than to the basic character, the common denominator of all the happenings that are due to your image.

Most human psychologists have found this to be a fact. But what they often do not know is that these images have seldom been started in this lifetime, no matter how early they were formed. Most of the time an image is of old standing and is carried over from one lifetime to another. That is why incidents that will not form an image in a child or in a person who is free of that particular conflict will help to form an image in an entity who has brought that image into this life. Although the essential thing is to find the image and its formation and origin in the present life so that it can be adequately dissolved, there are cases where the knowledge of all the complete facts would be very useful to the physician. In other words, such an image can often be treated successfully without the knowledge of the previous life origin. But there are cases where the knowledge of the carryover principle would be of invaluable help.

In a previous lecture I gave an explanation of how an entity is prepared for this life on earth. The plans are made according to the previous existences, according to what should be accomplished, and according to what should be overcome in the next incarnation. The subtle bodies are prepared according to these considerations, so that the conflicts are arranged in such a way as to bring the problems to the surface. Families and other life circumstances are chosen for that purpose. When an image exists from previous lives, then the incarnation takes place in an environment where provocations to the existing images are bound to occur, perhaps due to similar corresponding images either in the parents or in others around the growing child. Only in that way will the image bring out the problem. And only if it becomes a problem will the person pay attention to it, instead of looking away from it. If the latter occurs, then the circumstances will be much more difficult in the following life on earth, until the conflicts become so overwhelming that no outside factors can be blamed any longer. This is the time when the person begins to turn upward and inward.

The only solution is to make these images conscious. I can give you certain advice and hints on how to begin, but you will not be able to execute them completely by yourself. You will need help. But if you are serious in your desire to find and dissolve the images which are in your soul -- for your life is not without problems -- then pray to God, Who will give you further guidance and help and Who will lead you to the proper person with whom you can form a cooperation and work in that direction. In order to do this, you will need, among other things, humility. Humility is a very important asset for your spiritual development. The person who is continually reluctant to work with another person must lack humility, even if it is only in this one respect. And perhaps there is also a fear involved of facing the images. But how shortsighted this is, my friends. For it is this very image that causes you so much trouble, although unconsciously you do not think so. Instead, unconsciously you are convinced that it is a protection for you.

Let me give you a very primitive example. A little boy takes a bath. The water is boiling hot and therefore injures him. The child may then come to the conclusion that to take a bath is dangerous. As a result of this image, he will never take another bath if it can be avoided. Conflicts will arise out of this. In youth the parents force the boy to take a bath. Every time this happens the child will go through untold misery. This misery is unnecessary. In later life other conflicts will come up. Either the man actually adheres to the inner conclusion, even though by that time the reasoning process is not conscious any more, or perhaps he finds more rational explanations. But the fact that the person remains unclean will create new conflicts. Rejection from other people will set a new chain reaction in motion. Or the man may have realized intellectually that his resistance to bathing is unreasonable, not knowing about the incident in childhood. Having pushed it out of sight, he forces himself to take baths in spite of the strong emotional repulsion. Thus he develops certain symptoms in connection with bathing that he cannot explain. The mystery of such unreasonable reactions and the anxiety connected with bathing will present difficulties to the personality that cannot be overcome unless the image is found.

This is a very primitive example. Most of the time there are much more subtle and complicated emotional reactions involved. This occurs when an image is formed, along with the emotional reactions which are responsible for many a deprivation of fulfillment in later life. It cannot be stressed enough that the person is no longer aware of the original reasoning behind such conclusions. If the person were confronted with the facts within the soul, then he would laugh, insisting that it is entirely untrue, and that the person saying so is having a wild fantasy. It is also important to understand that the chain reaction and the consequences resulting from the original impression -- from the original image -- will create certain mishaps and hardships. These will be even harder for the unconscious to understand, because it was convinced that to avoid certain actions and certain reactions would be a protection against the hurts of life.

How can you find your personal image? You will do it not by working on the symptoms, whatever they may be, but rather by working with the symptoms. These symptoms are your inability to overcome certain faults and attitudes, your lack of control over certain happenings in your life that come to you regularly and that create a pattern, your fears, and your resistances at specific occasions, to name a few. The harder you try to eliminate the symptoms without having understood their roots and their origin, the more you will exhaust yourself in useless effort. The symptoms are merely one part of the price that you pay for your wrong and ignorant inner conclusions.

The way to start searching for your image is to think back in your life and to find all your problems. Write them down. Include problems of all sorts. You cannot do it unless you take the trouble to put everything down concisely, black on white. For, if you merely think about it, then you will not have the overall view that is necessary for comparison. This written work is essential. It is certainly not too much to ask. You do not have to do it all in one day. Take your time, even if it takes a few months. It is better to do it slowly than not to start at all. When you think of all your big and small troubles, even the most nonsensical, the most insignificant ones, then start to look for the common denominator. In most instances you will find the existence of one common denominator, but sometimes even more than one. I do not say that a difficulty cannot occur only once in your life, independent of any inner image. This is possible. This, too, is based on cause and effect, as everything in the universe is, but it may not be connected with your image. But be careful, my friends. Do not put an occurrence aside superficially, designating it as being unconnected with your personal image merely because it appears that way at first sight. It is very possible, and even probable, that there are no such happenings in your life. All unpleasant experiences are probably due to your image, and therefore are connected with it, at least in some remote way.

The common denominator may not be easy to find. Only after you have thoughtfully grasped your image will you be in a position to judge which of your experiences, if any, have something to do with it. Until then you must keep all happenings in reserve. Check your emotional reactions both in the past and in the present, and with the help of prayer you will -- after a long and arduous search -- find what the common denominator is. It is pride. In selfwill something in you says: "I do not want the risks of life. I do not want the pain of life. Therefore I draw this conclusion, which seems to me to be a safeguard against it." That is not a safeguard, for it will bring you infinitely more trouble, the very trouble you are trying to escape from, for life cannot be cheated. This is the merciful law of God. How merciful you have no way of knowing yet. For otherwise you could never come out of the misery of the lower planes, with their darkness. Only when you begin to face what your wrong conclusions and fears are -- and you are then ready to accept life for what it is -- will you be able to cure your soul. Only then will you have given up some of your selfwill, which wishes to deny life in its present form, the very form that is necessary for your development. Only then will you have acquired the humility not to wish to be protected from the risks and the hardships of life. They will cease to be necessary only after you can fearlessly accept them and shoulder them.

Therefore it is a good beginning to make a review of your life, concisely enumerating all your troubles. Then go on to search for the common denominator. Do not turn away from it hastily if something appears to be unconnected. Probe and you may experience a surprise. The most apparently unconnected happenings turn out to have one common denominator. When you have found that, then you have made a major step forward in your search, for you possess a clue to the image. But the common denominator by itself is not yet the key to the image. It is a strong directive, but by no means does it open the door that will make you fully understand your whole life. In order to get to the image itself -- to all the devious ways in which it was formed -- and to the understanding of the processes of your reaction when you formed it, you will have to explore your unconscious more thoroughly.

There are various ways and methods in which this can be done. You cannot do it by yourself. That is impossible. But if you make the beginning which I have suggested here and pray for guidance, being ready to overcome your pride -- so that you can be open with another person who will be chosen by the spirit world to help you -- then God will guide you and He will lead you to further victories.

Do not let yourself be dissuaded by your inner resistance. For that resistance is just as erroneous, as ignorant, and as shortsighted as the image itself. In fact, the very same quality that makes you resist is the one that has created the image in the first place. Without your knowing it, it has created -- and it will continue to create as long as you have not dissolved it -- untold misery for you and it will counteract your conscious wishes. It causes you either to never gain what could be rightfully yours or to lose if if you somehow manage to gain it. So have enough wisdom to see through this and to evaluate your resistance for what it is worth. Do not let yourself be governed by it. How can you be a spiritual person -- one who is developed and detached in the right sense -- if you remain governed by your unconscious forces and by the illogical, erroneous, and ignorant conclusions that have formed such a painful image within you? This image is the one factor in your life that is responsible for every unhappiness. No one else is responsible for it, only you yourself. True, you did not know any better then, but you do now. Therefore now you are equipped to eliminate the source of your unhappiness. And please, do not say: "How can I be responsible for other people acting in certain ways toward me again and again?" As I said before, it is your image that draws these happenings to you, as inevitably as night must follow day on this earth plane. Your image is like a magnet, like a chemical law, like the law of gravity. The components of your reactions forming the image influence the universal currents entering your personal sphere of life in such a way that certain effects must occur, following the cause that you have thus set in motion.

If you do not have the courage to delve into your unconscious, to face your image, and to dissolve it -- and thus to really make a new person out of yourself -- then you will never be free in this life. In other words, you will always be chained and bound. The price for your freedom is your courage and your humility to face up to things. When you have taken all the necessary steps, then the victory of freedom is such a joy that no matter what happens outside of yourself thereafter nothing can ever again mar your happiness. Furthermore, you can be sure that the images which you do not dissolve in this lifetime will have to be dissolved in a future one. This should not be taken as a threat. It is a logical consequence. And how can anything that is supposed to liberate you from your chains be a threat? No, you must not take it that way. You must be realistical and see that the sooner you find your image of your own accord -- and not because life has become too much for you due to to the increased twists which your image keeps acquiring -- then the easier it will be. That you may safely believe.

In certain moments of your life you may say: "All this talk about being born again with the same problems may be speculation. There may not be another life after all. So why should I go through all the trouble now?" But I say to you that you should do it for the sake of this life. For it is never too late and it is always worth the effort. Your remaining years will present a different kind of life for you, a life as a free person instead of a chained one. And those who have no more doubts about the reality of reincarnation should consider this an additional incentive. Actually, it may be a very good exercise for meditation to think about what your next karma may be. You are always concerned with your previous incarnations. It might be even more beneficial for you to be concerned with your next one. With some spiritual knowledge and with a modicum of intuition about yourself, you will be able to reap more benefits. In addition, by finding your image, even to some degree, you may form a pretty accurate idea of what your next life may be, perhaps not in detail, but a basic idea of what you still have to fulfill. Consider what the conditions must be in your next life in order for you to fulfill it so that you will be able first to realize and then resolve your conflicts. Of course, the actual next existence will also depend on your development during the rest of this life.

Do not forget an aspect of the law of cause and effect, or the law of karma, whereby every entity is always given the chance to solve his or her problems, conflicts, and disharmonies in the easiest circumstances possible. When not enough courage and willpower are mustered in these circumstances, then the life that follows must, of necessity, be a little more difficult. And if, again, the courage, the humility, and the willpower are not mustered, then the life afterward will be even more difficult. When the time comes that the going gets really hard, then you cannot help but face what you were fleeing from. So, by law, and as result of its violation, increasingly difficult lives succeed each other. The violation of escaping from oneself precedes the facing of oneself.

This should also bring into clearer focus a subject that is controversial among people interested in the spiritual life. There is uncertainty and confusion among human beings about how to take and how to react to tests, to trials, to hardships. One school of thought claims that God does not send tests. God is love, so how could God want us to be unhappy? This is true, my friends. But there is another school of thought which says that it is necessary that we experience tests, and therefore they are God's will. As the tests come, we should accept them in humility and thus prove our worthiness of God's mercy and of God's bliss. This is equally correct. However, the full truth lies in the middle, or rather in an extension of these two concepts. God has made perfect laws, and God has given you free will. If with this free will the laws could not be violated, then the free will would not exist. The perfection of the law is that the remedy is contained therein. In other words, in the long run the remedy lies in the very committing of these violations. For the more you twist these laws, either consciously or unconsciously, the more they work against your interests, until you finally reach a point where you cannot twist them any further, and therefore you must eventually change your ways. For only in God lies infinity. Therefore, only the Divine, and strict adherence to it, can be infinite. Therefore, the violation of anything Divine must perforce be finite. Thus you cannot twist the law ad infinitum. So your violation of divine law finally reaches a point where it is automatically reversed and then you work for the good once again.

It is true that to take a test in a spirit of humility, with the attitude of, "Father, Thy will be done," is the right thing. But this is not enough if you want to attain a higher level. The best thing that you can do is to accept a test in that way and in addition that you search for your image. Your unconscious wrong conclusions are directly responsible for the tests that you are experiencing in any given time. But in order to be able to do that, you cannot be impatient with yourself, for it is utterly impossible first to find, then to comprehend, and finally to dissolve an image in a short time. It is a long, drawn-out process. And even after you have understood it, the re-education of the emotional currents and reactions that have been conditioned in one direction for a long time takes time, effort, and patience. So, both patience and humility are absolutely necessary. Until now you may have revolted against God for causing your unhappiness. But when you begin to realize that it is not God and the fates who are to blame but you yourself, then your revolt may turn against yourself. As a result, you will become impatient with yourself. As long as such such currents are in you, then you will never succeed in finding -- let alone dissolving -- your image. You must be in a relaxed state of mind. Such a state of mind can be yours only if you understand and accept the length of the search. In addition, if you accept your inability to become perfect quickly, thus humbly accepting your temporary unhappiness.

There is a vast difference between accepting unhappiness with resignation, without understanding why, and the course I am showing you here. You accept the tests without understanding their underlying roots, but nevertheless in a spirit of devotion. For some this is already accomplishing a great deal. This attitude also conditions the entity to develop the patience and the humility that are necessary in order to do the work outlined here when he or she is ready to do it. It is healthier for the soul not to revolt against God and against creation. However, the best, the highest state on this earth plane is the procedure outlined here. Purification cannot come cheaply. And it would be cheap indeed if merely a list of faults and the attempt to overcome them by sheer force of will were all that comprises it. Purification is much more than that. You cannot purify yourself or become purified unless you first understand and then control your own unconscious. And that must be a long journey. But if you are willing to do it, then you will receive all the help you need. You should also understand that you are doing it both for God and for yourself. For what God wants for you must be for your own best interest. So you are not really making a sacrifice to God, since God and the true you are one and the same. Think about that, my friends.

There are some people who are so selfish that they do not want to do anything for God that inconveniences them. At the same time, there are some who are still so blind that they believe that what God wants for them is contrary to their own happiness. And then there are others who are willing to sacrifice anything for God -- although without an understanding of their images they will never succeed. The more happiness results from it, the worse do their guilt feelings become. Or rather, this is the way they feel before true happiness is achieved. This is the way they think they should feel about it. For such guilt feelings are always a twist of the emotions which are connected with the image. Actually, happiness cannot come before both the image and the guilt feelings are understood and dissolved. But in their present state of mind this is the way they feel. And they feel very heroic if their guilt feelings mingle with their devotional capacity.

QUESTION: You mentioned twice matters having to do with willpower and courage. Are the batteries of both recharged by prayer?

ANSWER: Of course, certainly. If you pray specifically for willpower and for courage for a good purpose -- like the one outlined in this lecture -- then the prayer will absolutely be answered. If you pray for something else, then you will get something else, provided it is good and according to law. That is why it is so important to know what to pray for at any given time of your development. It is seldom that a person knows specifically what he or she needs in order to get ahead and therefore prays for it. Often you are not sure what you need most at various phases of your development. You may put more emphasis on something else that may be worthy too. But though it may have been more essential two months ago, it is not that way now. As Jesus Christ said, "Knock and it will be opened unto you." The knocking indicates that you are alert and interested enough to try to figure out what you need most at various stages of your path. This path changes constantly. And you surely cannot pray with equal concentration on everything at once.

QUESTION: Are all our limitations a result of this image?

ANSWER: Most of them are a result of this image, but not entirely. I might say that you must have limitations as long as you are still in the cycle of incarnations and have not reached the state of divinity. You cannot be a universal genius. Limitations on a broader scale have nothing to do with the image. But if there are limitations -- for example, where you have a talent and you cannot make sufficient use of it or you run against a wall with that talent -- then they certainly have something to do with your image.

I will now retire with blessings of a special kind that are coming to each one of you, my dear ones. It is the blessing of courage that you all need so badly. And I beg of you to use it in the right way. For if you open yourself, your heart and your soul, to the strength that is flowing to each one of you, then you will feel courage. And if you keep that strength, then you can make it last for a while. But you must use it where it matters most for you. Do not use it for nonessentials. It is up to you to determine how to use it. You have your free will whether you will open yourself to receive it. But you should know what to do with it. If you now accept that strength willingly, then you have to decide how you will use it. And this will be a test for you. The love of God touches all of you, my dear ones. Be in peace. Be in God.

October 24, 1958