Images -- The Damage They Do

By The Pathwork Guide

Greetings in the name of the Lord. My dear friends, I bring you blessings as usual. Blessed is this lecture.

There is so much fear, so much shame, and so much separateness in the human heart. We recognize it again and again. Often this fear and this shame is hidden away, so that the personality is not even aware of it any more and just suffers vaguely in a continuous, gnawing pain. How sad it is for us to observe this. It is particularly sad because it is unnecessary. It is but a phantom, my friends. This fear and this shame that you are so busily hiding have no reality. And yet they spoil your life, the very life that you could enjoy and that you could use to build up your spiritual strength and your development.

Let us now continue this series of lectures about the human image. There is no person who does not have such images, as we call them. Such inner impressions are formed in young years. Then wrong or false conclusions were drawn from those impressions. These images are responsible for your suffering and for the unnecessary phantoms that you carry around decade after decade, and often incarnation after incarnation. You all strive for the light of God and for liberation from your chains. But many people seek this liberation by outer means. Either by intellectual knowledge or by outer events, whereby it cannot possibly be done. The only way you can reach this freedom that you strive for is to delve into yourself. In that way you will go through a tunnel of darkness and then emerge on the other side only to encounter the light of true independence. Only after you have recognized your own responsibility for the darkness while passing through the tunnel -- which is not an easy experience -- will you have truly gained real independence. So do not seek this liberation outwardly, for this is of no avail. He who has not found and dissolved his images is ensnarled by them. You are constantly re-enacting the drama of your errors and wrong conclusions. You are unconsciously caught in them. As a result, you repeat again and again throughout your life -- and often through many lifetimes -- what your own conclusions are leading you to and what they are leading towards you, and what they are actually drawing towards you. I cannot emphasize strongly enough for all my friends who have not yet really started on this search: IT IS WORTHWHILE!

It is the only thing in life that matters and the only thing that will bring you relief. I would like to advise all those who have not yet had such an experience to have a conversation with those who have already had some success in their endeavors. For nothing can be better proof of what this search is all about than to learn from those who are already on the way. You may be hesitant about starting because you do not know how to go about it. You may even lack the courage to ask for advice and for help. Therefore it may be wise to start by discussing this with the friends you know well and who have already been successful in this endeavor. He who searches for his images cannot help but go through confusion and upheaval for a while, and also to encounter reluctance and resistance. But these are the factors that you have built within yourself. You cannot eliminate such points of suffering unless you go through them, unless you understand their real meaning, their wrong defense mechanism, and their hidden significance, no matter in what form you may have consciously rationalized it all. All the doubt and all the mistrust that you have for others in reality is nothing but the distrust and the doubt that you have for yourself. Remember that!

Find out why you distrust yourself. You will always find that the root is that you do not live up to your own standards, and you cannot accept this fact. So the first step must be to accept yourself as you happen to be now, at this time.

I know that I have said this often, but you will encounter the necessity of applying this truth again and again on new levels of your being. If you search successfully, then you will encounter within yourself the trend of wanting to be more than you are. Unconsciously you reason: "Since I am not true to myself by wanting to appear better and greater than I am, then I am not trustworthy. Therefore, others are probably the same." One always judges others according to oneself, even if this self-knowledge is not conscious. If you can find this inner reasoning -- if it comes out into the open, if you can experience this entire reasoning process consciously -- then it will give you a great deal of clarification. It is not enough to think that this is probably what is going on within you because it makes sense. It is absolutely necessary that you first discover, then feel, and third experience this reasoning and how it works personally in your case: what it applies to and in what way you react in exactly that way.

At first you will be reluctant to discover this within yourself. It seems easier and more pleasant to resist and to distrust others, and then to justify this with rationally, well-founded arguments. But once you have overcome this resistance for the sake of truth -- in the spirit of the real truth searcher who asks himself: "What is actually going on in me?" -- then you will feel the relief and the freedom that only facing one's own truth can bring, no matter how unpleasant it may appear at first and no matter how unflattering it is in itself. The self-respect that you must be lacking as long as your self-contempt is hidden within you will automatically vanish, at least to some degree -- even before you have changed your inner attitude -- by the mere fact that you had the courage to face the truth within yourself.

There are many factors that are important for you to understand. I should like to discuss a few more concerning your images and your search for them. Often you do not understand what made you retain such an impression upon which you formed a wrong conclusion. Your intellect, your mind as a whole, has grown up. It has changed by experience, by what you have learned, by your surroundings, and by life as such. Yet, as long as your image is alive, you have not changed. At one time during your childhood you had a painful experience -- a shock. This shock did not necessarily happen as you imagine a shock to take place. When you think of a shock, then you think of a sudden experience with a very strong and unexpected impact, like an accident for instance. But a shock may also happen, particularly to a child, in a gradual discovery that things are contrary to one's dearest and most cherished expectations. For example, a child lives with the idea that its parents are perfect and omnipotent. When a child finds out that its heretofore accepted concepts about its parents -- or about the world as such for that matter -- are not true, then it loses security. It becomes frightened. Since it does not like it, it will push this knowledge into the subconscious because it is unpleasant and because it feels guilty. Then it will build defenses against this threat.

This threat -- whether it happened suddenly or in a slow realization -- is the shock that is referred to. You know that a shock causes a numbness. Your body becomes numb, your nerves become numb, and your mind becomes numb. It may go so far that you temporarily lose your memory, or you may have other symptoms. Thus, the child will experience a shock because the parents, the world, or life are not the way they were thought to be. The impression that created the shock may or may not be be objectively correct, but the deduction which the child is capable of making must be wrong. Because children tend to generalize, they project their own experience to all other alternatives. A child's parents are its world, its universe. Therefore what it concludes after the shock must be applied to everyone else, to life in general. This is the wrong conclusion that creates the image.

The image was created when the orderly world and the concepts of the child were destroyed. The wrong conclusions are: (a) the generalization. Not all people have the same shortcomings as the parents; not all conditions of life are similar to those which the child discovered in its own surroundings; and (b) the defense mechanism which the child chooses in its still limited understanding of the world is wrong as such; and even more so when applied to other people and to situations other than those of its early surroundings. This is the way images are created. But off hand you will not remember your emotions, your reactions, your inner intentions, and your conclusions. You cannot remember them because you felt the need to hide this whole procedure for the reasons already stated, and also because you were ashamed that your parents are not what you think they should be.

In your child's mind you assume that your own case is singular. Therefore, you conclude that everyone else has perfect parents and perfect home conditions, and that only you alone experience this shocking uniqueness that must be hidden from everyone, even from yourself, as well as from your parents or others close to you. The shame is built on the mistaken idea of the uniqueness of your case. This causes the whole thought and emotional process to be hidden away. Due to the fact that it remained hidden, this part of your personality could not change, it could not adjust, it could not learn better. For only what is out in the light can grow. If a plant is left hidden in the earth by the suppression of its roots, then it cannot grow. It is the same with every emotional current, trend, or tendency. Therefore, you should not be surprised when you discover that your image-conclusions do not conform to your otherwise grown-up intelligence.

The same process exists with animals. Let us take the example of a dog. A dog may have the experience that before he receives food, he always hears the same kind of noise that his master produces. After the dog has experienced that food is served to him each time the noise sounds, then he will respond and he will know instantly that now food is forthcoming. When he hears the noise, then he will come to the place automatically. Thus the dog has formed an image. In this case not by a shock, but by constant habit first the impression is formed and then the conclusion is drawn. Or let us take the following example. A dog was burned by a fire and hurt. When he sees fire afterwards, then he will be frightened by it, especially if he had this experience not only once, but twice or several times. Yet another dog may experience fire only as something pleasant. When the fire is lit, then he is with his master at the fireside. His master caresses him and plays with him. So this dog will not have a fire image. So even with animals the same procedure works. If it did not, then you could not train them. With a child it is similar. An infant or a very young child knows only the most primitive emotions. It knows either good or bad. It knows love and pleasure when its will is done. It knows hatred, resentment, and pain when its will is not done. It is as simple as that. Only much later in life does one learn to evaluate more objectively and not subjectively -- in other words, according to one's own pain or pleasure. But as long as your image lives, then you continue the childish procedure because in that respect your mind remains as it was when you were a child, regardless of how much the rest of your personality has improved, has learned, and is otherwise capable of judging maturely, intellectually, and, in some instances -- other than with the image-currents -- even emotionally. But where this shock-impression has taken place (either slow shock or sudden shock), there the mind remains childish due to the fact that one does not assimilate the experience consciously. In other words, in those areas the mind remains in the state it was in when the image conclusions were formed and put into the subconscious.

You may remember that in many of my lectures I often mentioned the term emotional maturity. Now you will understand better how it happens that a part of an otherwise mature being remains immature. As long as it is not lifted into your consciousness, then this part continues to make the same deductions -- emotionally and unconsciously -- which the child made. Thus now you will perhaps understand better how it is possible that you discover conclusions and deductions within yourself that do not correspond to the rest of your person. You may find it shocking to recognize the primitive way in which your inner emotional reasoning functions. Considered in the light of this explanation, you now know that parts of you simply could not grow up because they were left submerged in your unconscious. And you will not be surprised to find still living within yourself the child that has not assimilated what you have otherwise learned. That is why images cannot be found unless one re-lives emotionally -- and not merely by intellectual memory -- one's childhood and penetrates the irrational layers of consciousness. Without some procedure to make this possible, then it is out of the question to find your images. That is why I have suggested to my friends certain techniques and ways to make this possible. So you will find that your image conclusions are logical in their limited way. You may even be surprised about the reasoning faculty, faulty as it may be, that existed in you when you were up to perhaps 10 years old. This is the way you reasoned then.

The tragic thing about the images is that they become a power. They will make you see and notice only certain things connected with your image conclusion in such a way that later in life your image will be constantly supported and strengthened. Your image conclusions conflict with the grown-up desires and aims of your life. As long as they exist in you, they cause not only a painful discrepancy, but untold conflicts and problems with your conscious goals, as well as with the reality of life. This must be understandable to all, even if you do not believe that emotions and thoughts are forms and realities that create magnetic fields which then draw towards you events, people, and experiences. The more unconscious the emotions and the complexity of one's thoughts are, the more powerful they must be. This is because as long as they remain unconscious, they are out of your control and therefore they cannot be adjusted to reality and made to coincide with your conscious conflicting desires. Thus, they are rigid and therefore inflexible. Therefore, your images and their conclusions must repeatedly bring you into situations which you did not consciously ask for. But your image conclusions necessitate them. It is very important to understand all that. I am sure that those of you who have started on this search understand me very well. The others may not. But whoever begins on this particular Path will be able to make use of these words. This rigidity -- this ungiving form -- causes the following factors: you want life to move according to your desires. And when things do not happen as you wish them, then you kick and scream inside, like the baby that you still are in that part of your being. That is the immaturity where your image exists. The mature being knows that he can control life only by going with it, not by demanding that life follow him. He knows that he can follow life by adjusting to it. But where you have your image, there you do not adjust. You demand, and therefore you have inner temper tantrums when your demands are not met. And since these demands are made on faulty premises, you often get what you ask for, but in addition you also get what is part of your unconscious demands, only you did not know it. You want a certain thing, such as a certain way of life -- whatever it may be -- for its advantage, but as the child you were when you thought this desire to be advantageous. You ignored -- and you still ignore -- the fact that every advantage has a disadvantage. Then you think that life has treated you unjustly. It is extremely important that you consider all this when you search for and discover your images. If you do this, then it will help you considerably. These will be just words as long as you do not experience your image finding. But he who gets started will be able to use this constructively. It will give him a deeper, a profounder understanding, and it will help a step further, if he thinks about it in these terms.

As I said before, everyone who is nearing an image-recognition feels a profound shame. And often the shame is not because all of a sudden you discover something very wicked or hideous. No. You may be much more ashamed of something that is merely silly. Try to understand that when you formed this image the reasoning that now makes you feel ashamed was in accord with your capacity to reason and to think. Only relatively is it silly. And you, intelligent human being that you are, cannot reconcile the fact that such a silly reaction actually lives in you. You are now at the point when you can actually recognize that this has been your deduction, your conclusion for years until now. And now you are embarassed to see that this was part of your mind -- underneath, but still your mind, your reaction. It will be easier for you to accept this if you consider that in this respect you remained a child because you left the whole reasoning process in the darkness of your subconscious mind; and also if you realize that there is no one you can name among all those you know who does not have his own images, and therefore similar incongruities. If you conversed with a child of 4 to 10, then you would not be surprised at such reasoning. Realize that and you will overcome your embarrassment. And realize also that you are not the only one. However, most people do not realize this and hence they keep their images covered. So you certainly have a great advantage through self-awareness by knowing what your own stupidities were, while others do not know them. Yes, my friends, this sounds strong, but in the infant part of your soul (as compared with your conscious mind, soul, and intellect) these discoveries are stupidities.

When you start to search for your images, then you should be more concerned with your own inner conflicts, with your own problems, and with the wrongness of the conclusions as such. You should view your reactions. You should re-experience the wrong emotions and compare them -- at least in theory -- with the right principle. That is what you should do. But after you have thoroughly understood all this, the work has to go on, much work. You have to find not only in what respect you have re-enacted your images -- going from one pattern to another -- but you should also begin to evaluate everything that happened in your life: hings that are apparently not your doing. They just happened from outside. Common sense and logic will tell you about a number of life experiences that you question with such questions as: "What could I possibly have to do with that? I did not lift a finger, it just came to me." When you have found your images, then you will see that everything -- regardless of how out-of-your-control such happening seemed -- was called forth by yourself. In the first moment of discovery this may be shocking, but not necessarily in all cases. Often the first glimmer of recognition will already be a relief. But this relief must always follow, even if at the moment it seemed preposterous and incredible. For then you can clearly see the connection between your image and a happening that seemed to have come at random or as something coincidental. The relief must come because from the moment you understand how you have directed your life -- how you have caused events that heretofore you thought you were a victim of -- you will gain the certainty that you are not a drifting little boat tossed by the winds on a great stormy ocean. You will realize that there is no injustice. That realization will make you strong and will make you feel safe. You will become mature first by the mere knowledge of and then by the demonstration in yourself of the principle and the truth of self-responsibility. You will understand how your hitherto unconscious desires, trends, and attitudes have governed your life. But now that so much has become conscious, you will be able to control, to govern, and to direct your life in full consciousness. Thus you will be the captain of your own ship. In this way you will approach life with joy and with strength. You will have a strong feeling of certainty. It will appear to you as though for the first time you have a firm ground under your feet.

Perhaps there are a few questions now in connection with this subject, before we turn to other questions.

QUESTION: How do images and complexes combine?

ANSWER: A complex is a symptom, a result, or the outcome of an image. A complex in its manifest form is a subterfuge for its real meaning. For instance, someone may have an inferiority complex about his intelligence. This is manifest. This he thinks he knows. In reality he covers up a very different emotion of self-contempt. Perhaps what I spoke of at the beginning of this lecture, namely that he knows that he is not true to himself, that he wants to be more than he is, and so on. A complex exists in connection with an image. It is a part of it. It is like a message that there is an image. A complex is easily recognized, in others as well as in yourself. The image in the soul of man appears to us like a hardened form. The healthy soul -- where there is no image -- shows itself to us as a glowing form, but continuously in motion, just like the universe. Everything is flexible and flowing. All the divine forces that flow through the whole universe -- and that also penetrate the human soul -- flow constantly in multi-colored splendor, in harmony with the qualities, the characteristics, and the personal trends of the entity. But where an image exists, in that area the forces of the human soul are hardened, constricted, twisted, and therefore they remain rigid. And all these healthy and beautiful strengths and forces of the universe -- which the soul needs for its revival -- cannot penetrate it. Therefore, they cannot enliven it. They have to flow around it, and that creates a disharmony. Every quality is a healthy strength that mates with a corresponding strength in the universe, whereas every fault is a twisted strength. A complex is also a twisted strength, but twisted in a way other than a simple fault that is on the surface. It comes out of the image. Can you visualize it in this way? Perhaps one of my dear friends who is an artist will be inspired to draw such an image form and show how around it, outside the image, flow all these many-colored cosmic forces in a beautiful, harmonious motion, while they stagnate -- and therefore congest -- where the image exists as something hardened. Then out of this image come the sharp and twisted forces. These would be the complexes.

QUESTION: You say that images are a general fact, that everybody has them. Why do we have to have them? Why does one have to have images?

ANSWER: Everybody does have them, but you do not have to have them. You create them.

QUESTION: For development?

ANSWER: No, not for development, but out of ignorance. By selfwill and by pride. Everything that the Fall has brought about. You chose it so.

QUESTION: Did I understand that right: any event about which we really can't do anything was caused by our images?

ANSWER: You understood correctly. Except when it is really a question of the karma of a previous life. But the principle is exactly the same, inasmuch as you reap what you have sown. But you have sown it in a previous life and you only reap it now. That may be a one-time event that may not have anything to do with an image. But even in cases like this, you will still find the root in your image. Because a karma that has not been paid off means that the root is still within yourself. If you had paid off the karma, then you would not have the root anymore. You may find the same faults and trends that in a former life made you commit a graver action that you are incapable of committing anymore because of your development. Nevertheless, the same root must still be there, for otherwise you would not have that karma. You will be able to find it in the depth of your soul, and you will certainly find it enfolded in your image.

QUESTION: This means that karma and images are a vicious cycle?

ANSWER: Of course. If you re-read the lecture I gave some time ago on birth, now that you have learned about the images, then you will understand how it works. I explained then that when the entity is prepared for life, then certain problems are left more on the surface in the fluidal bodies. And it is according to these problems that the parents, the country, and the life circumstances are chosen, so that the image can be challenged. If you so choose, then you can become aware of it. So both karma and the images must work hand in hand. If you have certain experiences in your childhood, then it is because you have certain parents and a certain environment. This was most suitable for you, according to your entire incarnatory history, in order to bring out your problems for the purpose of development and of purification. You cannot eliminate a problem if you do not first become aware of it. In order to become aware of it, then something unpleasant has to happen, otherwise you would never pay any attention to these inner disharmonies. Karma is nothing but cause and effect. The same law works within one life span. If you find your images and your wrong conclusions in this present life, then you will see cause and effect clearly demonstrated. First by seeing, then by understanding, and finally by experiencing the truth of the law of cause and effect in your own person. Thus you will know that karma works on the same principle, only it is more extended in time. Only in the image-finding can you see it work. You can see it demonstrated, and then understand all the better how it works in the same way over a span of several incarnations.

QUESTION: If somebody dies in a concentration camp, which is a karmic effect, how does that combine with the images? What kind of image would there be?

ANSWER: My dear friend, there are millions of possibilities of images. I cannot possibly enumerate them all. You will gain more understanding about these things by continuing the work that you are doing, not only on yourself but also by working with others. If you can translate the milder cases into stronger cases of law violations, then you can see that a heavier karma is built on the same principle as in the cause and effect of image-conclusions. Both draw events -- built on the wrong conclusions -- which are always violations of divine law and divine truth. This is only a question of degree. It does not make any difference if the deviations from law and truth occur out of ignorance and error or are committed willfully. The principle remains the same. When a person deviates from divine law consciously, because his spiritual development is still low, then an image does not result out of that. An image is the result of unconscious reasoning, of an unconscious deduction, and of an unconscious conclusion. A conscious, willful violation of law will draw outward effects, that which you call karmic results. The violation of law happened in a lesser degree, and in the unconscious. So the two alternatives we are discussing operate on the same principle, but they are not the same. If a criminal kills someone, then this is not an unconscious act, and therefore you cannot speak of an image when he reaps the fruits of his action. But in the next incarnation he may wish to kill, but without actually doing so, suppressing his desires, and having them either as an imagined defense against the hurts of life or against the fact that his wishes are not fulfilled. Then this may create an image. But you cannot say that every crime that happens and every punishment for it is due to an image. The image exists out of subconscious wrong reasonings and subconscious factors. It contains desires and conclusions that the more primitive people act out in consciousness and in deeds.

QUESTION: For instance in the case of the death of the many children in Chicago who burned in the fire. If those little spirits come into the Spirit World, is a death like this not a tremendous shock?

ANSWER: Well, my dear, you know that children die and I have often discussed this. If it did create a shock in certain areas, then it was good for the entity. It had to go through it. And if it was not good for the entity to experience a shock, then it will not have to go through it. You can be sure about that.

QUESTION: How can a child spirit reason?

ANSWER: Why not? Before it was incarnated, it was not a child spirit. It was a grown up spirit and it voluntarily undertook a short life. Perhaps the spirit preferred to choose a violent, unpleasant death and thus get it over with quickly, so as to be reborn after a shorter span and then start on a higher level. To a large degree entities have their own free will, and therefore their own choice. Others may prefer to do it more slowly. Even if an occurrence in the state of shock, whether with a child or with a grown spirit, makes no sense, the experience will be evaluated and assimilated afterwards. And whatever the entity experiences will be fruitful and not for nothing. Let us take an example. A person is responsible for many cruel deaths, such as in a concentration camp. Now this spirit is in the spirit world and he sees that he has debts to pay, that he has much to learn. He may be given the choice to remain in the spirit world for 200 to 300 years, by your earth measurement. In this period, life cannot be very pleasant for him. The sphere that he has created for himself -- with his thought forms, by the forms of his emotions, as well as by his deeds -- is a dark and dismal one. An incarnation is waiting for him where certain possibilities exist. But they are limited due to what he himself has called forth. None of these possibilities can be too pleasant or too easy. Then such an entity may ask: "Is there no other way to get this over with more quickly?" And then he may be told, "Yes, there may be ways. You can be reincarnated very soon, perhaps in 10, 15, 20 years, and you can help to fulfill the fate of some parents who have to go through the hardship of losing a child. In this way you can pay off a great deal yourself by enduring a violent and unpleasant death. He will be asked: "Would you prefer that to the other alternative you have and then start on a cleaner slate for your further development?" Many a spirit may desire this. This is only one possibility, there are many others. But you ought to know that there is no injustice and there is no coincidence.

QUESTION: Disregarding the question of justice, doesn't it appear a strange coincidence that there should be the wholesale slaughter of many individuals, like, for instance, in a concentration camp, and that such a large group is burned in a fire? Isn't there some sort of wrong thinking or action there?

ANSWER: There is no coincidence. You see, when you go back in history, then you will see that there were always times when great cruelty existed and mass slaughtering happened. After certain intervals it happened again, the next time caused by another group, by another nation. You can be sure that in the following period the former torturers then became the victims. Because that is what they have drawn to themselves. I do not say that this applies to every individual's fate. There may be cases when the retribution -- the effect of the cause set in motion -- may be carried out in a different way in an individual fate. Then, again, some victims may have undertaken a special task, voluntarily enduring more through one incident like this than they normally would have to go through in their desire to develop faster. In other words, to overstep many levels in one fell swoop. But as a rule you can be sure that one mass killing causes another, changing the roles from torturers to victims, until all have learned their lesson. In some instances the paying off of such a debt does not happen in the succeeding incarnation, but several lives lie between cause and effect. You must not forget that all of you went through periods of cruelty, some of you ten incarnations ago, some of you earlier. If great disasters and accidents happen where many people are killed, then you can be sure that this is a measurement taken by the spirit world where everything is executed in full justice and according to the freely chosen fate of the various entities involved.

QUESTION: Do I understand that images can be either karmic or non-karmic?

ANSWER: They must have a karmic origin, because if they did not have a karmic origin, then they would not form an image in the first place. It would be something that is so much on the surface that you could easily discover it. In the process of this image-search, you will probably discover little reactions where the process of the mind operates on the same principle, only you cannot talk about an image, because it is not something that is so important, or significant, or deep-rooted, or weighty. If it is of deep significance, and therefore causes conflicts, then it must have karmic origins. But to think about it, what it may have been in a former life, will be of no avail, it will not lead you anywhere. Because with your own memory you can go back to its origin in this life if you work in the right way. And that will be sufficient. If, in certain instances, the knowledge of the previous lives is good and helpful, then it will be given to you, one way or another. But only then.

QUESTION: Is it possible at all, and if so at what age, to lighten, to ease in the formation of images a child makes?

ANSWER: Of course, it is possible. If the parents were be on such a Path, then they would have to know what their own problems are, and thus what the child may absorb from them which would be image-material. In that way, they could, at least to a large degree, avoid the formation of an image by helping to draw it to the surface while the conclusions are being formed, and therefore are still on the surface. Then the problem could be treated right away in consciousness. And when the child grows up, then the conclusion will alter with the growing process. Furthermore, parents who are on such a Path develop a sensitivity by which they can observe the reactions of the child. This would be the ideal case, but as yet it happens very rarely.

QUESTION: Is there a test by which one can know which is one's image?

ANSWER: There is no test necessary because if you have found your image, then you will know to the core of your being: "It is that way." When you look at it, then the equation will always come out right. It must come out even. But it may often be the case that the consciousness or the awareness of an image is approaching and yet the personality is so reluctant and so full of resistance that he cannot see it. Then all you have to do is to go on working from all sides, from all aspects, and all of a sudden the knowledge will be there. And then you will not need any confirmation, because you will just know: "This is it!" All of a sudden, your whole life will make sense to you. You will understand your life, you will understand your failures, you will understand yourself -- and therefore you will also understand the people around you. The riddle will be solved. The puzzle will be complete, with every stone falling into its own place. So there is no test and no trick and no magic. No confirmation is really necessary. For if you know your main image, then everything will fall into its own place. Even before you can dissolve it, the mere knowledge of it will make you free. That feeling of freedom may occur occasionally occur before your main image has come to the surface by little -- but significant -- recognitions that are an integral part of your main image. When you have the little images, then you may already experience this feeling of freedom occasionally, but much more so when the picture has been completed.

QUESTION: One of our group now here for the first time would like to know how to develop her psychic powers.

GUIDE: I would like to ask this friend first, what is the purpose of it?

QUESTIONER: To help children, the aged, and those in need.

ANSWER: The motive is a good one. There is only one really good way for such a development, and that is the following: first give up thinking about it at all and concentrate on your spiritual development, on your mental development, and on your emotional development, as well as on your Path of purification. The more the subconscious has been explored and has become conscious, the clearer is the channel. I am speaking generally now and not just to you, for it applies to anyone desirous of helping others in such a way. The development of psychic powers should always be secondary. It should be left to the will of God in what manner these powers manifest. And the stronger they manifest, then the greater is the necessity for a stringent Path of self-development. I cannot stress this enough. So if you can leave the psychic powers aside for a while, in the wisdom that this is dangerous material unless self-awareness is present to a marked degree, and if you do so for the sake of God, then He may give it back to you a hundredfold when the time is ripe. Learn to put aside your own selfwill by saying this and meaning it: "Father, Thy will be done. Let me be Thy instrument in any way Thou choosest, not in the way I choose. I know that in order to be an instrument for Thy world, I have to go on this Path and I must not shirk its hardships." Then you have the proper healthy attitude that must be pleasing to God. That is the only way. Anything else may prove dangerous. Good will alone is not enough protection. Your ignorance of many factors can bring you a great deal of trouble. The unexplored unconscious plays a great role, particularly in this type of work. Self-awareness must be developed if the psychic powers are not to prove dangerous.

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My dear ones, Christmas is approaching and therefore the light of Christ is spreading all over and is also touching this earth sphere. Imbibe of this light, of this wonderful strength, so that you will find new stamina for this Path of self-finding that is a joy to all of us. Receive the blessings of the Lord again. Be in peace. Be in God.

December 5, 1958