Authority

By The Pathwork Guide

Greetings in the Name of God and Jesus Christ. I bring you blessings, my dearest friends. Blessed is this lecture.

I heartily welcome a few new friends and I want to say to them that this Path will bring many solutions for each of them, solutions they may have sought for a long time, either consciously or unconsciously.

Pople who have some spiritual knowledge know in a general way the reason for this often painful existence on earth and understand to some extent what their life is all about. You all know that this life is to be considered as a school. You go from one incarnation to the other, just as you go from one class to the next, either meeting the requirements or remaining where you are for a while, learning, developing, purifying. This is the explanation for all life on earth. But to know this is not in itself sufficient to solve your individual problems. You must understand the difficulties, the sorrows, the longings, and the unfulfillments of your life. And you can find out all this if you learn to understand yourself.

This is neither as easy nor as difficult as it may seem. When I say "to understand yourself," I do not mean your outer deeds, your decisions, and your reactions. For theses you can often explain away and rationalize, and therefore you believe that you know yourself. But most human beings are often forced into reactions and into decisions by their own unconscious, and therefore compulsive, trends -- trends which they do not control.

This Path will gradually give you the knowledge of where and how your outer problems are connected with your inner conflicts. It will help you to see how you react emotionally in such a way that you attract certain events as inevitably as a magnet draws certain particular substances. These forces can be understood only when you uncover your emotions and you find out their deeper meaning. Then with that knowledge you gain the knowledge of the particular reason and purpose of your own life, of your individual existence. When this is discovered, then it designates an important phase an entity has reached in his whole cycle of incarnations. This knowledge can be made conscious only as a result of important efforts. These, in turn, are a sign that a soul has reached a significant milestone on the upward road: he goes over the bordeline from unconsciousness to consciousness in a higher degree. The realization of one’s present existence marks a major point in a soul’s return journey to God.

The subject chosen for this lecture is the question of authority and what this concept implies for human beings. This is a much more important question than you now realize, my dear friends.

Authority is the first conflict for a growing child. When the infant reaches a certain degree of consciousness, then his first conflict is with authority. His elders, his parents, and later his teachers represent authority for the child. This authority denies the child many a wish fulfillment. Therefore, authority seems hostile. No matter how much love, how much warmth, and how much affection a child is given, and no matter how necessary the prohibition is at times, it represents the first hurdle of life. The child’s attitude towards authority is carried over into adult life. The unconscious reactions toward authority determine whether this hurdle becomes a stepping stone in maturity or not. If the grown person can adjust to authority maturely and freely, then another milestone has been reached in the overall development of the soul. But if the reaction toward authority remains childish because unconsciously compulsive attitudes prevail, then this milestone remains to be reached later. So even if authority were exercised in a perfect way, then the imperfect soul would still react negatively towards it, as long as this point in development has not been reached. But since mankind is imperfect, then authority too is often exercised in an imperfect way. And you know that there is more than one alternative to imperfection.

So authority can be exercised in many different imperfect ways. Thus, a barrier is set up between the child and this authority, the grown-up. It is worse if love is missing, or if love is not given in the way the child needs it. But even if love is there the conflict still exists. On the one hand, the child longs for the love of the parent; on the other hand, he resists and rebels against any restriction by authority. The child experiences this authority as something hostile, as an enemy force, as prison bars behind which he feels frustrated. There is often but one longing in the child: the impatience to be a grown-up so that these restricting walls will cease to exist, as he erroneously believes. But when the child grows up, then authority changes. Instead of parents and teachers, authority now is represented by society, by the government, by law-enforcing institutions, by his employer, by powerful people he may be dependent upon.

The person unconsciously carries the same feelings over from childhood. Authority now restricts him as an adult. Therefore, the same conflict exists in different ways. As a child, he was torn between the desire to be loved and accepted, which a rebellion towards authority has made impossible, or so he believed. He still has the basic conflict: on the one hand an open rebellion against any restriction, on the other hand the fear of the stigma of being despised, ostracized, of not belonging.

The solution devised by the unconscious is often a very faulty one. This conflict can be solved only if the unconscious emotions in this respect are recognized and translated into clear and concise thoughts and words. It will take time, but it is certainly feasible. You will find help and guidance in what I will say to you regarding this subject. It will help you to recognize your particular way of reacting towards authority. You do react towards authority in one way or another, for all human beings do.

Broadly speaking, there are two basic ways to react towards authority, with many subdivisions. Often the two basic alternative reactions intermingle and are found in one and the same human being. At one time one reaction may be predominant in a person, at other times he may be governed by the opposite extreme, or a variation of it. Then it is important to find out when each reaction is stronger and why. All this can and should be retraced to childhood reactions with regard to the early environment and the early feelings toward it. Then you can see the repetition of your reactions which form a pattern in later life. Only in that light will you be able to understand your present behavior.

For the moment, let us take these two basic categories separately. It will be easier to examine them this way. But you must realize that only in rare cases will you find such a strong predominance of one trend in one person; usually there is a mixture.

First there is the person who rebels and revolts against authority outwardly. He feels that authority is an enemy because many desires that were neither bad nor harmful -- in childhood as well as later -- were forbidden by authority. He thinks that there is nothing wrong with what he wants. Yet the authority hinders him, and he feels it not only as an injustice, but often as being harmful, narrow-mided, and unconstructive.

If he happens to have an extroverted, outgoing nature combined with a certain courage, then his rebellion will take a form in which he fights and resists openly. This can take place in the mildest form of personal and private attitudes or it can go the whole scale to social rebellion: through an affiliation with minority parties, with anarchist groups, or in crime. We may say that the strongest form of this attitude will be found in the person who commits anti-social acts. In other words, a criminal. The mildest form is the one that may not even be noticeable to others. Nevertheless, the same feelings do exist in both in the subconscious in subtle ways. These produce in the person’s life just as tangible outer results as do the open reactions.

The other category is the person who at one time has turned around and who -- although surely not thinking of it in just these terms -- feels: "If I turn around and become one with authority, much as I may dislike that authority, then I am safe." This safety, or this apparent safety, leads the person to become a strong law-upholder in extreme cases. In other words, not only in the strictest sense of the word, but also in more subtle ways. In order to uphold his own position and his own safety and in order to hide his own rebellion -- deep down so similar to the law-breaker that he is fighting -- the law-upholder must become extremely opposed to the law-breaker. The more afraid he is of his own hidden tendency of rebellion against law and authority, the more he will find it necessary to become very strict with the law-breaker in whom he sees a part of himself which he does not want to expose. This exposure is what seemed so risky and so dangerous that he decided to turn to the enemy camp. The fear of his own exposure makes him doubly good. Now, do not interpret the word "good" in the real sense, in our sense. Put quotation marks around it. Yet it does not mean that such a law-upholder cannot be a really good person; just as a hidden tendency to rebellion can also exist in a truly good person. Both react immaturely and ignorantly. But the inner motivations of the law-upholder, as described here, are rooted in weakness and in fear. An act or an attitude that comes from weakness and from fear can never produce positive results. The fact that this attitude was taken in ignorance and in part unconsciously does not alter the results. Instead of a free, strong, and independent choice, the choice was made, at least partly, out of weakness.

A person's unconscious affects the unconscious of another person much more than a consciously recognized attitude, act, or motive. In other words, if you are driven into certain attitudes by your unrecognized fears, then the effect will be infinitely stronger on other people than when you do the same act, have the same motives and attitudes, but you recognize your own tendencies and currents. Thus, the law-upholder, motivated by the wrong protective measures that he has chosen, has a particularly bad effect on the law-breaker. The latter feels differently and is much less rebellious if and when he encounters a law-upholder who is governed by healthy, conscious, and mature motivations of strength and not by weakness. Please, my friends, do not take the words "law-upholder" and "law-breaker" only in the crude and outer sense with regard to your social laws. Think about this also in the psychological sense, the sense in which I speak.

The stronger the hidden forces and reactions in the attitude of the law-upholder (even though he may be consciously in the best of faith), the more adverse is his effect on the law-breaker. The true law, the divine law, is different from that weak and often doubly intolerant attitude of the law-upholder who has chosen his position out of fear and in order to become free of the disadvantages that his own rebellion may have caused him.

There are many stages and many variations in both these opposite types. The law-breaking tendency must be combined with a current of courage. If certain other characteristics and circumstances exist in certain combinations, then outer rebellion will be dimmed to a dull defiance. As far as the law-upholder is concerned, although he lacks the courage to give vent to his true feelings, wrong as they may be, he has predominant qualities and faults other than those of the law-breaker. These determine his attitude. For instance, a strong liking for order and for organization, a wish for peace rather than for fighting, as well as many other facets, all put together, are responsible for determining the final attitude in this particular respect.

I hope that none of you will misunderstand what I say and believe that the law-breaking quality is desirable simply because the other wrong extreme is also imperfect. Such misunderstandings occur often in your world and they have been responsible for many wrong views, for many wrong philosophies, and for many wrong teachings. When humanity finds out that an attitude or an opinion is wrong, then it swings over to the opposite extreme, which is equally wrong.

These two opposite extremes set a vicious circle in motion. The greater the rebellion on the part of the law-breaker, the more severe and the more intolerant the law-upholder becomes in order to protect himself from his own fear and from his own rebellion. As a result, the rebellion and the resistance in the law-breaker must become all the stronger. He is unaware of the fact that his resistance is not turned against the law as such any longer, or against authority in its good and true sense, but actually against the false note in the equally unaware law-upholder.

This is a difficult subject because it is so subtle in nature. Each one of you can find out quite easily which of these basic categories applies predominantly to you, in what respect of your life one may be stronger than the other. A few of you may be predominantly of one type and a few of you predominantly of the other type. Think of your life and of your inner reactions in this respect. When you can give yourself this answer, then you can go a step further and think about the remedy. Also, think about the effect which this inner attitude has had on your life, on your conflicts, as well as on your surroundings -- including some of your dear ones.

If you find yourself to be more the kind who revolts and rebels against authority, then you should meditate in order to gain the right concept. You should strive for an awareness of the difference between real authority in the divine sense and the wrong kind of authority you have often encountered in your life -- since mankind is imperfect. You are unconsciously under the impression that authority can mean only the wrong kind of authority. Once you can differentiate and recognize the two kinds, even though you may have seldom or never encountered the true kind, then your resistance against authority will diminish automatically. And after such a recognition you will not mind the existence of the distorted and weak brother of the true authority and the upholder of the law that is just as much for your protection as it is everyone else's. You will no longer feel that authority as such is an enemy force. The mere knowledge of all this will help you to build the proper concept in yourself -- and this will enable you to sense the wrong kind without minding it, because now you will understand the motivations, and therefore you will be able to sympathize. You will recognize that currents similar to your own prevail in the enemy -- they just manifest differently. This process means raising one's consciousness. Then you will also recognize the necessity for law and order, and therefore for authority whose task is to uphold it. The fact that the ideal principle cannot exist on earth yet will not confuse you any longer. The ideal, wise, good, and understanding authority will remain a goal to be attained. You will understand that even the imperfect form of authority, as it manifests on earth, is necessary. In short, your rebellion will diminish in the measure that you gain insight and understanding. In other words, in the measure that you understand why in the past you have reacted so adversely to certain subtle manifestations of the wrong kind of authority.

Furthermore, you will become increasingly aware of the meaning of divine authority, that also manifests in human beings who have reached a certain degree of development in this respect. You will also learn not to react automatically against anyone or anything where you may just feel that it is authority. Unless you focus your attention on this whole problem, then you still would not be in a position to feel and to perceive the difference even if the right kind should happen to come your way, because your intuition is dulled by your blind and rigid reactions and by your revolt. But when you think about it in this way, then you may find that perhaps a few times in your life you have met someone who is very good, very wise, and very kind (without being perfect in all ways) and who, therefore, is an authority in his own right. But not necessarily on any particular subject, for this is not what I mean at all. I mean an authority as such. If you observe, perhaps retrospectively, the emanation coming from that person, then you will sense that the attitude of such a person is different from the attitude of the law-upholder who is motivated by weakness and by fear.

As I said before, when the vicious circle continues on and on with a person who is not developed spiritually, then it may lead to criminal acts -- and these have to be stopped, of course. Many criminals commit crimes not for the sake of the crime, nor for the advantages the crime may bring. The underlying root is the opposition to either the real or the imagined goody-goodiness of the law-upholder. When the person is that far in his vicious circle, then he can no longer reconize the true kind, the right kind of authority, even if he should come across it. He will react blindly, without inner discrimination, because he has no idea that there is a difference. That is why the concept has to be gained by thinking about it.

Once you realize that there are two kinds -- the self-righteous one and the kind that is with you -- then you will be able to divorce yourself from the generalization, from the image that one has to react to or rebel against any authority. This healthy process will, among other things, strengthen your power of discrimination in a subtle way -- not intellectually, but intuitively.

As far as the other category is concerned, if you find out that you tend to be more on the side of the law, then my advice is this: think back in your childhood and find the times when you revolted. When you search with this aim, then sooner or later you will discover, and actually remember vaguely -- as a feeling perhaps, but nevertheless you will remember -- when you decided to turn around and to become one with what appeared to be the stronger force, with the authority as you perceived it. True, good motives are surely also contained in these inner decisions, but also weak ones. When you come to this point, then you will have made great progress on the road of self-understanding, on the way to becoming yourself.

When you seek further, then you will also understand the reaction that others have towards you. The self-righteous severity that sometimes takes hold of you -- unconsciously and hiddenly -- towards a brother or a sister who strictly belongs to the other kind will lessen. Your reaction will change in the measure that you recognize the weak and fearful motives of your own law-upholding quality. Thus, you will make an act of strength out of an act of weakness. You will remain on the side of the law, of course, as you should -- the outer law as well as the inner law -- but with a different attitude, with a different flavor, with a different motive. And that is the important thing.

Then you will realize that just because you are on the side of authority, on the side of the law, you are doubly responsible in your obligation to not reject the side opposed to the law, but to pull the person out of his brand of error through your understanding. You can do this only if you first understand yourself and then by going with him -- which does not mean to be in favor of the rebellion and the acts resulting out of this rebellion.

Why do you think that the Man Jesus Christ brought so much censorship upon Himself? Human authority censored Him because He associated with the lowly, with common criminals, and with prostitutes. All those people felt this quality within Him. Here they did not rebel because they felt not only His true goodness, but also His understanding of the reasons why they were what they were. They felt that He did not judge them, they felt that He went with them, in spite of the fact that He was, of course, opposed to their acts and to their wrong attitudes. He could even laugh with them, and He could also laugh at the wrong and pompous kind of authority that is proud of its law and of its letter of the law. He is the kind of authority that you should strive for. Go with the other person who revolts in a subtle way that you may only sense, while being aware that you also -- just as subtly and just as unknowingly -- may react in the wrong way. The other person also senses this in a vague way. Try to understand his attitude by understanding your own. Laugh with him, build common ground with him. Do not set yourself up as a judge, although you may do so unconsciously. This is very subtle, my friends, and it has first be found and then solved in your innermost attitude.

I am not implying that the law-breaker should go unpunished. That is not the point. When he becoms dangerous to the welfare of others, then he has to learn a lesson. But if that happens, then it is partly because the wrong kind of authority has prevailed too long, and it has driven the law-breaker deeper into ignorance and into darkness, instead of lifting him out of it. You see, my dear ones, all the miseries on this earth, the real problems such as criminality, war, injustices of any kind, and disease, are the result of faults of long standing. When we spirits are asked what is the remedy for this or that situation -- be it a general one or a personal one -- then the answer cannot be given so easily. For a whole chain reaction has to be followed through -- and often followed through in an unpleasant way -- until you get to the roots of the problem. All severe problems are due to some raging vicious circle that has to be crystalized and understood before the roots of the problem are found. The final and the last link of the whole chain reaction -- the one that manifests outwardly -- (the previous links are hidden from sight) has to be helped. But this treatment will always be a painful one, particularly if the inner root is not sought while the outer remedy is applied. So, for instance, war is certainly tragic. But in certain instances it is a last resort that becomes inevitable, and that is even necessary, because humanity has neglected to look for the inner roots of the problem.

So it is with everything else. Common criminals have to be prevented from continuing their deeds by law-enforcing institutions that are, perforce, imprfect themselves. Again, the solution has to be found earlier so that this final and drastic result of the chain raction can be avoided. In all of these vicious circles all are involved, not only the law-breaker, not only the apparent wrong-doer. In order to build a world in which vicious circles are prevented or are broken before they come to the last and unfortunate outer manifestation, you can furnish the cornerstones by examining your reactions and understanding in what way you either have contributed or are contributing to set an avalanche rolling by your unconscious emotional reactions. In this way, you and many others can help to prevent the whole chain reaction.

What I said to you here is of more significance and importance than you may realize off hand. On the other hand, I realize that it is not only extremely difficult to squeeze these subtle questions into human language, but I also realize that it takes quite a bit of effort and searching on your part to begin to understand the inner and deeper meaning, and to see the wider effect of this whole question.

Are there any questions in connection to this subject?

QUESTION: Isn't the only person who is a real authority, in the final analysis, the one to whom God speaks?

ANSWEWR: Of course. That goes without saying. God is the only authority. But that is not the point of this lecture. None of you is so far developed that God can manifest through you at all times. It happens with all of you occasionally, but only where you are unblocked, and therefore flexible. Otherwise the voice of God cannot penetrate through the maze. There are too many layers of imperfection, of fear, of insecurity, and of selfwill to have God manifest in all instances. Besides, in the subject I dealt with in this lecture it is not a question of accepting God's authority versus human authority. The question is to find out your attitude towards authority as such. Your childhood reactions still color your present reactions without your being aware of it, no matter how much you may strive to find what God's will is. It may even have colored your attitude towards God without your being aware of this. This lecture did not deal with the question of asking the advice or the opinion of other people. That is another subject, and it is indirectly related to the problem I have discussed here. But this is merely a detail of the basic question and attitude. The first step is to consider the basic attitude of a person to the concept of human authority as such, in whatever form it may present itself. Do you understand what I mean?

QUESTION: May I ask, is it necessarily so with everybody that one or the two trends is predominant?

ANSWER: No. I said that in some cases there may a fifty-fifty mixture, more or less. I would say that in most cases one is a little more predominant. In some cases one is really predominant. But in many cases there is a mixture. In these cases it will be useful and interesting for the person in question to find out at what opportunities or in what instances and situations, or with what types of people, one trend is predominant and when the other. That will also furnish clues of the utmost importance in self-search. There will be patterns of behavior in that.

QUESTION: Is there a special way to go about rectifying or balancing the extremes?

ANSWER: Well, I gave some indications on that. The first step is to find out which type an individual is. If both, then at what opportunities one facet predominates -- and why. Once this self-recognition is established -- and this takes a little while in self-observation, in one's daily reactions, as well as in going back to one's childhood -- then the next step will be to clarify one's thinking about it. It is always the same procedure. Each time you have to recognize where you react in the erroneous way emotionally. All the image conclusions, for instance, are such recognitions. Also make a day-by-day observation of yourself, realizing that you cannot change an emotional reaction merely by the fact that you have recently recognized its faulty premise. Emotions cannot be controlled that way. By constant observation, by comparing the wrong reactions with the right concept that has to be formed by thinking upon it, by meditating on it, in the way I outlined in this lecture, you can expand it in your own words, and then you should pray that God help you to become aware of the right concept, even if the right concept at first is an intellectual one. If you then compare this intellectual concept without deceiving yourself into believing that it is already your emotional one -- seeing how your emotions still deviate from it -- then this process will gradually change your emotions. In this way, you will slowly rectify the wrong emotions. You lead them from the wrong channel into the right one by this process of development and purification.

QUESTION: Isn't selfwill the main hidden current in cases of the law-breaker and fear in cases of the law-upholder?

ANSWER: Yes, this is certainly true. It would be the predominant factor in each case. And pride also plays a role in both instances, only used in different ways.

So, I will retire into my world again. But I will leave you, my dear ones, with a very strong blessing, with a heavenly light that shines upon each one of you. Do not despair when you are sad and discouraged, for there is no reason. For life is eternal and you are building your eternal abode in this life on the path that you are so courageously taking. In that house you will be able to live in eternal happiness, without any woe, without any sorrow, without any parting, ever. So, go in peace, my dear ones, be blessed in body, in soul, and in spirit. Be in God!

February 13, 1959