More On Image Finding -- Summary

By The Pathwork Guide

Greetings in the Name of the Lord. I bring you blessings, my dear friends, blessed is this lecture. I greet all my friends.

This lecture is a continuation of a series that was started some time ago. For the benefit of those who missed the preceding lectures in the series, I would like to say a few words about the spiritual work we are concerned with at this stage on the path of purification. What does purification mean in its true sense? It means the elimination of every current and attitude in the soul that is contrary to divine law. These currents cannot be regarded merely as sinful. They must be viewed also as the cause of suffering and of personal disadvantage to the human being who violates the laws. The fact that the violation happens unconsciously does not change the effect. In this group we are not concerned with wrong actions and deeds, or even crimes. All of you know what the proper action is, and most of the time you will try your best to perform only proper actions. But none of you are as yet able to control your emotions, to understand their hidden meaning, and to recognize how these emotions have influenced your life. Many of you constantly wonder about and doubt God's justice, because you feel that you have to endure so much suffering while you are trying your best to be good and decent. You may think of others whose ethical standards are infinitely lower than your own and yet who seem to fare better than you. And you do not understand the reason for this, nor the injustice. The reason is that the personality creates reactions and conclusions in the subconscious mind that become a rigid form. We call such a rigid form an image. This image consists of certain impressions from which wrong conclusions have been drawn. These conclusions cause a chain reaction within the soul of the person, and they eventually also control and direct his outer life. They do this for the reason that the existence of the image is unknown to the personality. On this Path we are concerned with seeking and finding the wrong images that the human soul harbors. There are practically no exceptions to this rule, unless we think of the few purified beings who come to this earth in order to fulfill a mission.

In the two previous lectures I started to indicate how these images can be found. This cannot be an easy process, for what dwells in the subconscious is hidden from conscious awareness. I have given you methods to bring these subconscious images to the surface. This is the only way to rule and to control your life to some extent. There are those -- often devoutly religious people -- who think that they have to accept any difficulty to prove their humility. But such acceptance is necessary only to the extent of accepting the law that was violated by him. The willingness to accept a difficulty -- recognizing one's responsibility instead of vaguely blaming the injustice of the law -- is what constitutes true humility. However, true humility cannot be a completely passive state, which has no more to do with humility than outright revolt and rebellion. True humility is passive inasmuch as it accepts the temporary state of suffering in the understanding that it is self-inflicted. But it is also completely active in the willingness to fight against, to work on, and to overcome the distortion and to recognize self-responsibility for all suffering in the most direct way possible. Here you have a good example of what should be a harmonious interplay between the active current and the passive current. So you cannot sit with your hands in your lap, waiting for things to change. You have to change yourself from inside out. Whatever mishap occurs in your life, you have the power to change it. In other words, you have the power to alter your life entirely. But it cannot be done if you merely change superficially, by trying to merely alter your actions.

It can be done only if you search for the inner causes, the wrong conclusions. In short, for your images. However, before you can change anything, you must understand what it is in you that brings you all your suffering. Only after you dissolve your images -- slowly and gradually -- will you be able to re-educate your emotions and thus to create in your soul new productive forms that correspond to divine law. But you must comprehend fhat this wonderful possibility cannot come to you cheaply. It is worth every effort and every conceivable sacrifice, for then you truly become master over yourself. If you are willing to do it, then the help will be given to you. But do not expect that God will change your life for you. He has given you free will. Therefore, it is up to you to find out first what these wrong images are and then -- with the methods, with the help, and with the guidance that you receive through this channel -- to change these images. During the process of this search, and the ensuing change, you need the right kind of humility that accepts the unhappiness that you have produced. At the same time, you must not be angry at yourself for still being imperfect. You can exert a vigorous activity, directed into the channel of self-knowledge.

You have to learn to accept -- on all levels of your emotions -- the fact that you are imperfect at this moment. I have said this often. I know that I repeat myself. But I want to make it clear that although you all know in your conscious mind that you are fallible, your emotions do not know it. In your emotions you want to be perfect. And when you discover an imperfection that seems new to you, then everything in you revolts against this recognition. One of the many symptoms of this revolt is a guilt feeling. When you approach your inner, hidden images -- the causes of your suffering, the causes of the same patterns running through your life, repeating over and over -- then you have to make up your mind beforehand that you will come across inner misconceptions that will give you an unpleasant sensation at first. To encounter them with a feeling of guilt will get you nowhere. Realize that a guilt feeling is really the rejection of the state in which you happen to find yourself at this time. In other words, you are unwilling to accept yourself as you are. When you feel uncomfortable in doing this work, then ask yourself: "What am I feeling?" Often you are not even aware that your emotional reaction is a guilt feeling. And if you are, then you do not realize what this guilt feeling really means. In fact, it is often confused with humility and with repentance. In order to know this beforehand -- to have this right and healthy attitude -- the analysis of your feelings will help you to encounter a major recognition in yourself. Formulate these feelings, be aware that the unpleasant reaction often occurs before you are aware of what the recognition actually is. The formulation of your feelings into a concise thought is a major part of the work on this Path. I cannot stress this enough! When you do so in this respect, then you will find that you feel guilty for having erred. Ask yourself: "Why do I feel guilty for being fallible? Why do I feel guilty for having made mistakes? Why do I feel guilty for having faults?" The answer must invariably be: "Because I wish to be more than I am: more perfect, and on a higher level. Something in me does not want to accept my ignorance, does not want to accept my selfishness, does not want to accept my desire to find the easy way out." If you analyze your reactions in this way, then you will facilitate matters greatly.

Now some further advice about how to find your images, your inner wrong conclusions. The task is a hard one. I am not trying to make it easier for you. You could rightly be suspicious if you were told that the greatest and the most perfect treasure can come easily. You would have all the reason in the world to be distrustful of such a statement. But your efforts will be well rewarded. Nothing will give you as great a power and as great a feeling of security as surging ahead on this road, at least after the initial stages. At first you need to gather a vast amount of isolated information about your inner reactions. By letting your emotions come to the surface and putting them into concise words -- instead of pushing these emotions aside and covering them up -- you will find things that you have never been aware of. This will often present a surprise to you. In some cases all this information may not connect for quite a while. You will not know what to do with it. You will be inclined to say: "And now what next? What does it help me to have found that I actually feel so and so while I thought that my motives were different?" You must not be dismayed. On the contrary, the finding of this information will be extremely useful, even if at the beginning it does not add up. You should go on searching, and you will receive the necessary help. I emphasize that no one is capable of doing this work by himself. That is impossible. But whoever is willing will receive help and ways will be found to bring such a willing person to another human being of this group where a team can be formed. When you go on, then you will see that all the isolated information will begin to connect. You will find a consecutive chain-reaction in yourself, a vicious circle. One reaction leads to another, until the circle closes. When you have found several inner vicious circles, then you have made a major step forward. Slowly but surely, you will begin to understand some things about yourself and about the happenings in your life. But even this is not sufficient. You have merely found the barest structure, the overall plan which will make it easier for you to go on, but the work of filling in has yet to start. At this point you will still be unable to really grasp -- on all levels of your being -- what your life means and what your conflicts mean and how you have caused them. You may perhaps grasp some, but not all.

Some of you have arrived at this stage. Therefore, I would like to discuss how to go on from here. Those who have not followed this work, those who are new, will not be able to understand what I say. But it does not matter, for something may reach you and be like an echo in your soul. Thus it may open the door a little wider so that you, too, may go over the threshold from dependency on your unconscious motives to your independence as free children of God.

My advice is that after you have found some of these vicious circles you put concisely into words what the wrong conclusions of these circles are. Put it in writing so that the wrong conclusions cannot slip out of your conscious mind anymore. Then start meditating on how this wrong conclusion has influenced your life. For nothing is as powerful as these images. If desires are contained in the images that contradict your most cherished conscious desires, then the desires in your images will overrule your conscious wishes -- no matter how strong the latter may be. Your images draw you into certain situations that correspond to them. In other words, they draw to you both people and circumstances. Therefore, when you formulate the wrong conclusions, then it should not be too difficult for you to understand what was -- and still is -- responsible for your problems in life. You should have your lists of problems and conflicts in front of you, black on white. First, after some thinking, find a common denominator in all these conflicts. You will not yet know what caused it, how it came about. But at the stage when you have found these vicious circles, in your further search you will find one common denominator. After you have made this list, you will probably be puzzled to find that certain problems occurred again and again, in various forms, including a pattern of repetition. This is the first indication that an image is involved. If a problem occurs just once, then it does not necessarily have anything to do with your image. But be careful in judging that. You have to be able to understand with clarity how the wrong conclusions which you have become conscious of have influenced you and have caused your various conflicts. The effects of these wrong conclusions should be gone through painstakingly. All my friends who work together should try to do that.

How can the breaking point of the image be found? After the wrong conclusion is clear in your mind and after you have recognized how it has influenced your life, then start to reverse the cycle and the conclusion into its opposite. At this point in theory only. For emotionally you are not yet capable of living according to the right reactions. But if you face your own wrong conclusions by feeling them, by re-experiencing all the emotions consciously, then you can see in your mind what the right conclusion would be. If you meditate on this daily, then eventually your reactions will change. It is not sufficient that your thinking changes. Your thinking might have been absolutely correct before you knew anything about images. The important thing is that your emotions change. These wrong conclusions always contain several of your faults. Some of these you may be aware of, but you are still not aware of how these faults played into your image. There may be a whole nucleus of faults involved in the image. Although you should look for your faults when you search for the images -- always keeping in mind that the subconscious does not like a moralizing attitude -- at the point where the image has become conscious in its bare structure you should see which of your faults play a role in it. One universal factor in all images is the element of fear. If you analyze how a particular individual fear is connected with your personal faults -- and if you also understand where your ignorance and the resulting wrong conclusion lie -- then you have advanced a major step towards the dissolution of your images.

There are several general factors that apply to all images. One invariable factor is that the human entity is afraid of being hurt and is afraid of things going against his will. Due to this fear -- which can only exist due to selfwill and to pride -- the personality builds wrong defenses. He thinks that by adopting a certain attitude he will then avoid that which he fears in life: pain, suffering, disappointment. The error -- the wrong conclusion -- lies in the fact that by building these wrong defenses not only does he not avoid the suffering which he does not wish to face, but the suffering actually becomes worse. To the ignorant lower self of the human being -- to the childish and therefore immature side of the personality -- the protective measure seems not only a very good one, but also logical. If you think it through consciously -- viewing the entire problem from this angle -- then you cannot help but realize how faulty your defense mechanism was when you built your image. As I said, not only were you unable to avoid pain, but in the long run the image brought you an infinitely greater amount of pain than you would have had if you had not built this image. It is important that you consider your image from this viewpoint. Ask yourself: "Why did I build it? What was the occasion? What did I want to protect myself from? How did my image work out in reality? And how would my life be if I did not have this image, this false protective measure?" The answer will be that there is no iron-clad insurance for warding off pain. Life cannot be gone through without it. Since no ordinary human being is pure, then pain is unavoidable, at least to some degree. But if you accept life with its pain -- always trying to understand what in you called it forth and you meet it voluntarily -- then not only will you encounter much less pain than you have encountered in your life first by having built and then by having tried to live up to these rigid images, but the pain that is present in you due to your unavoidable imperfections will not hurt half as much. Remember that, my friends. Look at your images, at your wrong conclusions, and at your defense mechanisms from this angle: "What did I try to avoid and how much did I succeed?"

Then think about your pain a little differently. Try to think about it with a maximum degree of detachment, or with a new and fresh outlook. You will realize that pain is also relative. The fear of the pain is always infinitely worse than the pain itself. It is the same way with physical pain. If you push against it -- if your muscles tense up -- then an incision will be much more painful than if you relax. There are certain people who have such control over their minds and over their bodies that they are able to endure dreadful injuries without feeling any pain. They have learned to accept the oncoming pain. In other words, to accept it without any revolt -- to give themselves up to it. Thus they are in a state of relaxation to such a high degree that what would ordinarily hurt badly does not hurt anymore. It is exactly the same way with the soul. Many of your problems and your worries would not exist if you understood yourselves and your images.

When in this work you find out that you yourself are responsible for your pain, then you will have reached a major point on this road. Many misunderstandings about responsibility can arise. In the first place, many people think that self-responsibility eliminates the Almighty God and Father. They think that either there is a God Who directs their lives. Thus, they conclude that if they suffer then they have to take it on the chin. The other alternative is atheism, the belief that there is no God. Neither alternative is true. Only as long as you feel guilty about finding your inner errors does self-responsibility represent a burden to you. Once you have overcome this state of false guilt by having accepted yourself without revolt and without anger -- in other words, when you no longer have the wrong kind of shame or guilt -- and when you have the courage to be yourself in every respect, then accepting self-responsibility will liberate you. The understanding of that in you which has caused your problems, which has caused your worries, which has caused your discontent, and which has caused your unhappiness will make you so strong, so sure, and so secure as no false security ever could. Whether this false security was looked for in your relationships with other human beings, in ideas, or in a wrong concept of God does not make any difference. This feeling of strength and of freedom will come to you long before you are able to change your emotions, your images, and your inner reactions -- that are strongly habit-bound. It will come to you at the moment you have fully understood your own causes and effects. Self-responsibility is a very important point in this connection. There is hardly a human being who does not want to avoid it in one way or another, in some part of his nature or in another. Meanwhile, the other part revolts against his self-inflicted lack of freedom. This conflict can be solved only by finding out why and how the personality has curtailed his own freedom. In other words, has given up self-responsibility in order to choose what seemed like an easier way of life at the time. The reactions that have brought this about vary with each individual. Everyone is made up of different currents, of different faults, and of different qualities -- all of which interact in different relationships. So one person may have a completely different reaction than another, although they are both motivated by the desire to escape self-responsibility. The more you escape self-responsibility, the more chained do you become. Straining in these chains, you kick against the world, feeling that it is unjust. You even wallow in self-pity, while you prevent yourself from breaking these chains.

The first step to take is to recognize how, where, and why you have inflicted this dependency on yourself. If you understand how your inner motivations have actually brought you more suffering than the suffering you had hoped to avoid, then you will become free. So go this way, approach your image-finding from this angle:

1) Self-responsibility. Find out (a) where you have caused your suffering in this respect and (b) how it is in your power to change it.

2) Your fear of being hurt. Realize that this causes all your misery. You are in the situation of a person who is so afraid of death that he commits suicide. That is what you are all doing with your images. You are so afraid of hurt that you create forms in your soul that bring you infinitely more needless hurts than would befall you without your imagined defenses. Hurt has to be accepted. But not because God gives it to you -- as many people falsely believe -- but because you have done it to yourself. However, this should not lead you to revolt against yourself or against the wise law that made it so. You must accept the fact that you are imperfect and that you suffer in the measure of your imperfection. The more you try to become perfect, the more you will alleviate your suffering. And that means, among other requirements, that you do not expect a miracle overnight. Understand that you also learn by learning to meet your pain. Therefore, learn to accept it as long as you are not over this stage. The more relaxedly you can view yourself and your suffering -- first finding out the causes and eliminating them -- the faster you will get over it. And then you will have the proper attitude towards pain. Only by accepting pain in this way -- and this is the only healthy way: neither with masochism nor with revolt, cringing from it, making yourself tense inside -- will your pain finally cease to be pain. When you completely accept it, then you can go through it. And only by going through something can you reach out and get beyond it. All the great philosophers of this world teach you that pain and pleasure become one in the Absolute. This is the only way to reach that state. But pain and pleasure cannot become one when you avoid pain, but only when you go through it in the measure that you have produced it yourself -- and fully understanding what in you produced it. I emphasize once more, so as to avoid possible misunderstandings, that the acceptance of pain does not exclude your power to avoid pain by way of this Path of purification. Quite the contrary! Yet it cannot be done superficially. It calls for hard and patient work in order to go into the depths of your soul. It demands your best, for that is the only way you can receive the best of life.

And now to your questions, my dear friends.

QUESTION: You said several times that the cause of sickness is in ourselves. I am meditating on this subject and I can't figure it out. Let's say a disfiguration of a bone.

ANSWER: You must differentiate between karmic sickness and non-karmic sickness. This does not apply only to physical sickness, but to every other hardship in life. For a hardship is always a disease, spiritually speaking. The technicalities of cause and effect work the same way in karma as in effects arising out of the same life. In both cases it is up to you to eliminate the bad roots and the causes. But there are certain difficulties that you cannot overcome in this life: you just have to bear them. That does not mean that you cannot eliminate the causes -- for that has to be done by you at one time or another anyway -- but the effects have to be borne. Other, non-karmic effects can be eliminated. A karmic debt to be paid happens as one event. An effect that can be dissolved usually happens constantly, in a pattern. It does not mean that the causes were not started in former lives and are thus karmic, too, technically speaking. But you can find a starting point in this life.

By following through with this work, you often can change your life and eliminate your conflicts. Besides, it is not even necessary for you to know which effects are karmic and which are not. Since any ill effect must be dissolved by you in any event, then you should approach your purification in the same spirit, whether it concerns a karmic debt or whether it applies to the effect of causes started in this life (perhaps with a "seed" you have brought over from former incarnations). The definite knowledge that such and such a state is "karmic" would only make you lazy and make you say, "I have to bear this," instead of doing the work that is necessary, no matter where and when you have started a cause. I can safely say that with very few of my friends do factors exist that cannot be changed. Here is a room full of people and there is not one person who is completely happy. There is not one person who would not want a change in one way or another, perhaps not even a pronounced change, a conscious one of "I want this instead of that." Yet you are in a state of unhappiness, of worries, of unrest, of disharmony, of fear, of insecurity, of loneliness, of yearning. All of you have the power to change if only you want to. And if your unconscious immature nature were not so unreasonable as to wish this change without any effort, then you would be much further advanced. It is my advice for all of those who are still uncertain, who are still struggling on this threshold, to ask themselves this question: "What do I really want? What does my uncertainty or my indecision actually mean? Doesn't it mean that I revolt against unhappiness and that I would wish a change, but that I am unwilling to bring it about myself?" Anyone who has this resistance should pose that question to himself. If you can answer honestly, then you have attained the first victory because then you will see what an unreasonable and childish side lives within your own self. For that is what you actually desire. Yes, my friends, that is what all of you would want: that the work should be done for you, that our dear God in heaven simply gave it to you.

QUESTION: A question was asked by one of the students: What is more important, outer knowledge (in the form of general knowledge, science, knowledge of the universe, the manifest world) or emotional knowledge? The answer is clear, emotional self-knowledge is more important. But what do you have to say with regard to those spiritual aspirants who disregard science? They claim that spiritual development alone would bring the highest good without integrating with the knowledge of the manifest world.

ANSWER: There are many whose call it is to concentrate mainly on their spiritual development -- and they fulfill their task by doing so. There can be no doubt about it. Certainly this is the most important thing for all human beings. But it is a mistake to transfer their task onto all others, or to make a general rule out of it. The unfoldment of the universal forces is manifest and varied. Nothing must be curtailed. Many have different tasks. One in the unfoldment of artistic talents, another in making scientific discoveries, and so on. Oneness must eventually result out of this versatility of creation. The ideal case would be that the scientist, the artist, or whoever else is contributing to the final oneness, follows his spiritual development while he simultaneously also works on his particular talent and task. This can certainly be done. His work would increase many times in quality and in creativity if it were combined with purification and with self-development. However, there are many talented human beings who are not that far yet. They may have a great talent in one direction and eventually they contribute with it to the unfoldment of the spiritual forces, even though the connection cannot always be discovered right away. In a roundabout way, scientific improvement must lead to the same conclusion about spiritual reality as a spiritual path does, no matter how much it may be temporarily abused. Therefore it is a mistake to advocate one's own inclination for all.

One human being may combine his spiritual development with science, another with art, a third in the kitchen, another in nature, and so on. In much later stages all these will become one. But this oneness can never be accomplished if you are not one with yourself first. You have often heard the expression: to be one. How can you follow this through in practice? By this work of image-finding. It will be easier to understand how your conscious layers are convinced of your good motives because of the rationalizations you have concocted for yourself. When you dig deeper, then you will find that your reactions and your desires go in an entirely different direction. So you are split, not only in one but in several respects. If you cannot become one within yourself -- and that can be done only in this work that I am showing you -- then how can you become one in all the divine manifestations later? First things must come first. There are several thoughts in this room: "Why should it be possible to purify only in this way? There are many people who do not know anything about images, yet they also develop." This is true, my friends. But in the last analysis it always comes back to this. No matter in what period of history, in what country, or what part of the earth you live in, no matter what names are chosen, the fact is that the names and the designations change, but the idea always remains the same: You have to find how you deviate from your conscious mind in your unconscious mind. He who does not take advantage of this wonderful opportunity cannot escape this work at a later time. Granted, the same purification is possible in the spirit world. And by coming back incarnation after incarnation with these same images life teaches the entity until they are gradually dissolved. But think how much you can save if you are willing to do it. Only he who has understood some of his images will have an inkling of how much he would have had to go through in order to learn what he has to learn -- and what he could still learn in this search. You are always concerned with finding out about your previous incarnations. It would be more useful if you would meditate and think about your future life. By knowing your images -- first by finding them and then by understanding them -- you can figure out what your future incarnations might be.

QUESTION: Could there be a person almost without manifest knowledge who could still reach into the highest sphere?

ANSWER: But of course. Erudition has nothing to do with self-knowledge, unless it serves and helps one's development. If it is an end in itself, then it does no good when it comes to spiritual development. A natural intelligence is a necessity for this Path. But that is something completely different. Sometimes erudition is more a hindrance than an asset. Erudition may serve as a subterfuge and a rationalization, even as an escape. (Also erudition does not stay with the monad; in other words, it can be discontinued.) Certainly. Anything that is superficial is discontinued. Only what reaches the deeper layers of your being remains. That is why it is so important that you integrate your emotions with your superficial outer knowledge, provided the latter follows a higher ethical line, as is often the case. That is the whole point on this Path. When you die, then not only does your physical body disintegrate, but the outer subtle body disintegrates as well some time later. None of it constitutes your real personality. These outer layers are necessary to fulfill your work on this earth plane. Therefore, they should serve to bring out your inner person. The inner subtle bodies remain. These are the layers you reach by digging into your emotions. An entity may be incarnated with a certain amount of knowledge. His present environment may offer him additional knowledge. It is up to this entity what he does with it.

Does he use it on a superficial level? If he does, then this knowledge will be gone after the outer subtle body disintegrates. But if he uses it to integrate his real self with this new outer knowledge for the purpose of development, then the knowledge that he has the privilege to absorb in this environment will have served the only good use, the only valuable use.

My dear human brothers and sisters, receive and absorb the divine blessing that is streaming to all of you. Let it strengthen you where you need it most, namely to go out and break your prison walls. First you must be willing to do it and then you must go to God and ask for His help and for His way. But do not expect God to do it for you. He will show you the light of His love and He will help you. Courageous and noble is the person who has said Yes to this search. And may many more of my dear friends enter this threshold and leave the dark tunnel behind. Joyful blessings of love envelop and penetrate you. Be in peace, my dear ones, be in God.

November 21, 1958