The Suppression Of Positive And Creative Tendencies -- The Thought Process

By The Pathwork Guide

Greetings, my dearest friends. I bring you divine blessings. Blessed is this lecture.

I promised that this discussion would approach the human personality from a slightly different angle, and this is only fitting for the last lecture of the season. Let us consider this talk not only as the end of the past term, but also as a preface to the work to be done in the new working season.

In the past I discussed first certain general factors in the universe, in the creation, and the part played in it by the human entity. This brought out the importance of personal development and of purification. The second phase of my lectures dealt with the obstructions in the human soul, which are due to conscious or unconscious misconceptions, to wrong conclusions, and to deviations. In short, to the images, which cause conflict and unhappiness. In other words, we dealt with the healing of the sick part of the human soul. Such healing occurs when the personality learns to face his errors, his faults, and his selfishness, all of which are suppressed. When these suppressions come to the surface and are understood in their significance -- as to why they are based on erroneous assumptions -- then the realistic and true concept can be gradually built into the psyche. Thus, the former phase of our work dealt mainly with the facing of the suppressed negative aspects of the human personality.

But this phase is by no means all that is necessary in order to first unfold and then develop the personality to its maximum capacity. Man suppresses not only the negative aspects, but positive and creative tendencies as well. Our aim is not only to cure or heal the sick part of the soul, but it is of equal importance to encourage the growth and the unfoldment of that in you which is striving for fulfillment, which ought to but which was not allowed to express itself. Suppression of the negative inevitably causes suppression of the positive. The presence of destructive tendencies in the unconscious -- negative traits which are based on wrong conclusions, on images -- causes the prohibition of that in you which is constructive and creative. Therefore, we shall go on treating the deviations in you as we have done so far. The introduction of a new approach does not mean that the past approach will now be discarded. On the contrary, it will be necessary to continue searching for and finding these destructive images in all their aspects and their variations. I do not think any of you believe that this part of the work is concluded.

At the same time, we will add this new approach in which we shall search for the suppression of positive and creative tendencies which clamor for expression in your individuality, in a manner not necessarily corresponding to the ideas of your environment.

You may wonder why positive aspects should be suppressed. You may think that this makes no sense, that only the negative is unpleasant to face and therefore needs to be suppressed. But this is not so. Just as frequently as you suppress the more unpleasant aspects of yourself, you also suppress the most creative, the most constructive aspects in you, those that would lead you to personal growth as befits your personality. (For, upon closer analysis, you have surely noticed that all misconceptions and all images contain your faults, since the faults in themselves are wrong conclusions.)

You will come to see how often you discourage the best in you, not only due to wrong motivations, but also because it is -- or seems to be -- discouraged by your environment. The last lecture about "Shame of the Higher Self" is a general and universal part of this subject. With this lecture we gradually prepared you for the phase to come. Apart from such universal conditions, there are many personal, individual suppressions that have nothing to do with good or bad, with right or wrong. What may be wrong for another person may be the very thing for you. But you do not know it. You think that you have to do, that you have to think, that you have to act, and that you have to express yourself in a way that is generally prescribed by your environment. One of the most common diseases of mankind is its tendency to generalize and to standardize. This has more far-reaching effects than you realize. It affects your own psyche by suppressing your personal unfoldment, your creativity, and your self-expression. This may manifest in a particular way of life not of your choice because your environment seems to disapprove of your own way. In reality, there is not only nothing wrong with your way, it may even be that this particular way of life is what your soul needs most in order to attain its maximum growth. This way of life may apply to many things. It may mean that you suppress a talent or an activity that affords your soul the maximum development. It may apply to a seemingly unimportant detail of the way you would want to live. But this apparently insignificant detail may be more important for you than you realize. For the whole of your personality is influenced by many seemingly unimportant details. By now you may no longer be aware of what it is that you do not dare to want or to do. By freeing yourself of your deviations, with all their negative motives, you will be able first to bring your positive suppressions to the surface and then to view them in the proper light, as you have learned to do with your negative suppressions.

Apart from these individual, personal suppressions of your most creative forces, there are some universal, general ones, such as outlined in the lecture about the shame of the higher self. Another one of these general suppressions, to be found in every soul, is the suppression of spiritual unfoldment. This may no longer apply to you outwardly, but you may still find aspects of it within the depths of your being. If man denies himself the expression of his spiritual nature, then he damages himself just as much as when he supresses any other manifestation of the life force. Although now you may give yourself the right to express your spiritual nature, you may not have done so in the past. And it will be important to learn why. It will also be important to find how much defiance was required to do so, how much rebellion caused you to do that for which you should need neither defiance nor rebellion; and how much fear and shame still lingers regarding this facet of your personality, especially towards certain people. All this is important to recognize. You may already surmise that the interaction between the suppression of the negative aspects and the suppression of the positive aspects is often quite strong. Therefore, your dependency on public opinion and your dependency on approval apply not only to your faults, to your selfishness, and to your destructiveness -- all of which cause you to form images in your unconscious mind -- but they also cause you to forfeit the best part of your nature. And the latter makes you suffer just as much as the former.

When I speak of the urge for expression of your spiritual nature, organized religion is seldom the answer, especially not in your time. But even in former times organized religion could accomplish but little. Like most human institutions, it was affected by the human tendency to generalize and to standardize. In other words, to make rules and dogmas which are supposed to hold true for all beings. Although this holds true for certain modes of conduct relating to crime and to the upholding of social laws for the good of the community, man's personal spirituality is an eminently private affair. The maximum growth of one human being may be based on entirely different spiritual factors, on entirely different ways of life, and on entirely different expressions than the maximum growth of another person. Organized religion does not take this into account. Nor do the various modern substitutes for religion. The only way man can learn to express this important side of his nature is by such work as we are doing, namely by recognizing all the factors that cause you to suppress your individuality, with all of its manifestations.

The expression of your divine nature cannot be fitted into standard rules, regulations, and dogmas, no matter how ethical they may be. These can show only right outer conduct and never right inner conduct. In former times, man's spiritual nature was hindered by dogmas, such as the materialistic philosophy of life. When man bends to the rules of his society at the cost of suppressing his individual spiritual unfoldment, then his soul begins to suffer and to lose direction.

When you are born into this life, then you carry within yourself your individual life plan. In order to fulfill it, your psyche clamors demandingly that you proceed in a certain direction. When you deny this inner call -- either because of deviations, of images, of wrong conclusions, or because you believe that the right thing to do is what is proclaimed by your environment -- then the consequences are that the maximum growth of your personality is gravely thwarted.

Just as man often ignores the difference between love and sentimental weakness, masochistic dependency -- thereby withdrawing from love -- so does he ignore the difference between true individual spirituality and the escape into a false religion out of weak motivations. This lack of discrimination has very serious consequences for the human personality.

The lack of awareness as to where your innermost self wants to lead you, and why your outer self does not listen to this voice, is just as much cause for personality disturbances as the suppression of the negative aspects. It will be our aim in the work ahead to approach this facet of your personality. It will be an additional consideration in connection with the work that we have been doing. This is of supreme importance. It will also have a more joyful character for you. For it is not always pleasant to face your faults, your childish selfishness, and your various misconceptions. It becomes a liberation after you have a full understanding. But until such time your unconscious resistance and your struggle against such recognition often impairs your joy in the work. It is true that you may also experience a certain sadness when discovering that you did not heed the inner voice that would have brought you the fulfillment which you did not consider as right. It is also true that despite your wanting the right goal and having the pure motive of soul, your negative tendencies played a role in your not listening to the voice of your innermost self. A certain amount of this resistance might also persist in this phase of the work. But on the whole, it will be easier to search for suppressions which you now know have a full right of expression. What at one time you felt was wrong -- and therefore had to be concealed -- you now will find that it is either part of the best in you, or that it will bring you to your best: your individual fulfillment in the highest spiritual sense and in the highest emotional sense. Even what you may have felt guilty about, you shall now be able to embrace in joyful recognition. It will lead you a step closer to being the person you are meant to be.

In order to unfold the human personality in its entirety it is also necessary to approach this development from still another angle. For a long time we were preoccupied with the emotional side of your nature. Again I say, any new approach does not mean the lessening of efforts in that direction. You are fully aware by now of the importance of the unconscious emotions, and we shall use any new approach as additional help that will yield other benefits in the unfoldment of the personality. In addition to working on your psyche and on your unconscious -- your emotions and your feelings -- we shall also pay close attention to the thought process in man. There really is no strict and clearcut borderline between these two personality aspects, they often interplay. But, roughly speaking, there actually is a difference.

The importance of understanding the thought process will lead you to mastery over your self, just as the psychological work is doing this from another side. If you are governed by your emotions, either conscious or unconscious, then you lose control over both your self and your life. The same applies to your thought process. If you become master over your thoughts, then you become master over your mind. As a result, you have mastery of your life. When I say master, I certainly do not mean any kind of discipline that suppresses anything either negative or positive in you. Unfortunately, this is often often misunderstood and therefore mispracticed. Hence, we will have to be careful not to fall into the same error. Thought control can be mastered without rigidity and without suppression. On the contrary, if properly done, then it will bring into your awareness what needs to be on the surface. Many current movements teach thought control, but by way of suppression. And this, as I have often said, is not necessary and is actually quite damaging. Thought control must never lead you to disallow your emotions to come to the fore so that you can first observe them and then evaluate them.

The understanding and the control of your thought process is one more very important aspect of personality growth. Without it, then the full expression of the maximum you can be is impossible. We shall attempt to learn this and we shall go into details in our sessions next season. In the meantime I will give you something to think about regarding this subject so that you can prepare yourself during the summer, at least in some measure.

As always, the first step is the recognition of what is amiss. Recognize your uncontrolled thoughts. Recognize their power over you. Recognize both their significance and their lack of significance. The thought process occurs on different levels or layers. Broadly speaking, we can distinguish between foreground thoughts and background thoughts. Both have many subdivisions and many layers. By proper observation and concentration in this direction, you will gradually learn to become aware of these various layers. And this will be very beneficial for you in more ways than one.

Foreground thought is voluntary and background thought is involuntary. Whatever I say to you, you will experience as true if you learn proper observation. Foreground thought, voluntary thought is always clear-cut and concise as long as it remains in the foreground and does not slide unnoticed into background thought. If you want to think something, whether constructive or unconstructive, as long as you follow it through, then it is a foreground thought. When you become calm and you observe your thought process, then you will begin to notice the importance of your background thoughts. Background thought comes unbidden. It is disorganized and mainly unconstructive. You will also notice that the majority of background thought material is as follows: (1) symptoms of disturbed emotions and symptoms of inner conflicts that never express the conflict itself. If these symptoms are analyzed and properly understood, then they might bring the nucleus of the inner conflict to the fore. In order to do that, the vague unvolitional background thoughts have to be made into foreground thoughts. (2) You re-experience either the events of conversations or impressions in snatches and fragments. If these do not belong to the first category, then they are completely without significance. Your mind has registered certain impressions and it repeats them automatically, like the rolling of wheels. As long as these thoughts remain in the background -- in other words, as long as you harbor them without a full awareness of them -- then you cannot distinguish in them what is important and what is utter waste. The repetition of impressions may be important because it is indicative -- the symptom -- of a conflict; it may also be important because a constructive impression may add something to your life, to your person, to your inner self. Only when these impressions and these thoughts are consciously and deliberately observed can you derive such benefit. In other words, you must make foreground thoughts out of your background thoughts. But the stereotype repetition that goes on in man's thoughts much of the time is really waste matter, and therefore should be eliminated. (3) Wishful thinking. There are a few subdivisions in this category. You may re-experience a conversation. You go over how it might have been, or how it should have been, what you should have said instead of what you did say. Or, you build up a daydream of what you wish to happen in the future. But it is vague, unrealistic, illusive, unconnected with your real desires, or inconsiderate of what the obstacles within the soul are. Such thoughts are entirely wasteful, unless they are first made into foreground thoughts and then analyzed as to their reality value.

Such wishful thinking, the fragments of impressions, and the automatic repetitions make up most of the material of the background thoughts. These thoughts come unbidden. They come and go. They are not consecutive. They interrupt your voluntary thoughts. They are unconstructive as long as they overpower your volition and they keep you from taking the reins into your own hands through learning to control your thought world. Increasing awareness and raised consciousness is also brought about by such thought control. But instead of forbidding yourself to think, do the opposite: transfer background thought material into conscious foreground thought and then learn to discriminate as to the meaning of these vague background thoughts. If and when you find that they are insignificant, then learn to discard them. This process will bring forth additional material about your unconscious conflicts, and it will teach you to control your mind in a healthy and constructive way.

Moreover, it will release a great deal of strength in you which was formerly taken up by such background thoughts. You have no idea how much mental strength and how much emotional strength they consume. If enough mental strength and emotional strength is consumed, then it also has a physical effect.

Some exercise and concentration is necessary in order to learn first the observation and later the control of your thought process. But these exercises need not be strenuous, nor will they have to take up too much time in your life. But some regular effort is necessary.

By becoming master over your thought process -- by first learning to make foreground thoughts from background thoughts and then by discriminating as to their importance -- you will not only release a great inner strength, but you will raise your consciousness, and you will increase your awareness in a general way. You will become more and more aware of yourself -- of your inner situation, as well as of your entire person and of your life -- and you will become more aware of and more observant of others around you: of life, of nature, of things. Thus you will increase your understanding. You will be capable of concentrating on those thoughts and on those occupations that you elect to -- but now undisturbed by the fluctuating wasteful thought material that has no importance and that serves only to decrease your awareness of self and to frustrate the occupation at hand.

Unvolitional background thoughts make you the governed instead of the governor. Not only your emotional disturbances and your psychic disturbances cause this lack of control, but you are also prey to your unvolitional background thoughts. There is a connection between these two factors, which we shall go into later.

Unvolitional background thoughts disturb you and interrupt you. Even if they do have significance, you derive no benefit from them as long as you do not learn to transform them into foreground thought. In other words, as long as you are not actually aware of them. They overpower you when you are deeply interested in an activity or involved in an occupation. And they have no significance whatsoever. Thus, in both cases, waste occurs. They are weak insofar as your awareness of them is concerned. But they are strong in that they often are more powerful than the apparently stronger foreground thoughts. By learning to observe this process, you will discover how often these weaker background thoughts take hold of you on the sly, so to speak. At first you are utterly unaware that you are drawn away from thinking what you wanted to think about. All of a sudden, you find yourself involved in background thought material that you can begin to evaluate only now. When it is said that the mind wanders, then how little is the significance of this statement realized and the effect that such wanderings has.

These background thoughts make concentration very difficult. They are responsible for your difficulty in focusing your attention on one particular thing. It is due to them that so much time, so much strength, and so much effort is wasted. If your time, your strength, and your effort are not constantly utilized either in constructive thoughts or in constructive occupations, then your mind should be allowed to relax during the unused time. The best form of relaxation is attained by giving the mind a chance to be calm. The presence of background thought material in your mind makes this impossible. For background thought material disperses the mind in many directions. Therefore, it exhausts your mind without your knowing it.

This disorder and this disorganization is universal, and there are few exceptions. Unfortunately many of these exceptions have learned to control the thought process at the price of emotional awareness, so that the benefit is cancelled out. It will be our aim to combine the two factors, so that one is helped by the other rather than hindered.

The aim of this work is not only to make the sick part of human nature strong and healthy, we are equally interested in the unfoldment and the development of the entire personality. Thus, in the coming season we will be concerned with three major approaches:

(1) Continuation of the process of first finding and then dissolving your images, your wrong conclusions, and your deviations.

(2) Finding your suppressed creative forces, your suppressed creative directions, your suppressed creative activities, and unfolding your nature as it was meant to function in certain particular aspects.

(3) Understanding and then gradually learning control of the thought process.

In many respects these three will interact and overlap. To find these links and connections is part of the work, and therefore is of the utmost importance.

I should like to suggest an exercise for you to start with this summer to give you some preparation for our later work together. Sit down twice a day for five minutes, not more, any time you wish. Choose a time and a place when you know that you will be undisturbed, when you do not have to fear interruptions. Sit down comfortably, do not lie down. Then become very calm. Relax completely, without trying to exert any force, any strain, or any pressure. Begin to follow the abdominal movements of your breath when you breathe very quietly: up and down, up and down. Or, if you prefer, imagine a point between your eyes, whichever is easier for you. Be prepared for your mind to soon be disturbed by your unvolitional background thoughts. Expect them, observe them quietly. If they are not of pressing importance for you now (because of a disturbance in your psyche), then discard them, again quietly, without getting impatient with yourself. Resume the task of either following the abdominal movements of your breath or of concentrating on the imaginary point between your eyes, all the time aware of what these background thoughts are when they do come. It suffices to observe them as they appear in order to become conscious of the mechanism of the thought process: to become aware of your being a victim of them. This awareness will bring you nearer to the goal. At the beginning it will seem impossible to think of nothing but your breath movements. Uninvited thought fragments will constantly rush in. Most of the time, they will be so powerful to make you unaware that you are actually indulging in them. You will notice it only later. When you do notice them, then try to recollect what your thoughts made you think of. Say to yourself: "I was thinking of this or that," whatever it may have been. This is a means to become more aware of yourself. Then you may either go on with your concentration and defer analysis of this thought material until afterwards, or you may do so right away if you feel the urge, and then resume the concentration exercises at another time.

If you faithfully persevere, then you will eventually get to the point where you will become a watcher of your thoughts. You will stand guard, so to speak, at the threshold of your thinking process. You will begin to sense what calmness really means. Your thoughts and your emotions will stand still, be it only for a moment. As you go on, you will learn to gradually extend this moment. The longer you can do it, the more you will feel rested after such periods. Many other benefits will also befall you. You will also get accustomed to watching your background thoughts during the day; for example, during certain activities which do not demand your entire attention. Thus, more self-awareness on all levels will come to you.

When you do this exercise, then approach it in a relaxed frame of mind. At the same time, try to use your calm inner will. Most important of all, do not feel frustrated when you do not succeed right away. In other words, when you find yourself involved in unbidden background thoughts. Rather, use this experience as a means to understand what I am trying to explain here. Such an approach will be most beneficial. It will open new vistas to you and it will eventually get you to what we are after. If at one time or another you find it impossible to concentrate in this manner because your thoughts always come back to the same thing, then this is a sign that this thing ought to be investigated. For it bears the seed of one of your conflicts. If such is the case, then you will not be able to become calm until you have found some clarification. Remember that calmness is indispensable for this exercise.

Even minor success in this direction will bring a marked improvement in many ways. In addition to the benefits I outlined before, such as the power of discrimination of your thought material, you will derive further benefits. Some of these are a greater power of discrimination; increased inner and outer vitality; a better memory; clearer and stronger thoughts; and the increased ability to follow through and learn what we are discussing here. Moreover, your inner will is bound to function better in the measure that you learn concentration. Due to the decrease of your background thoughts, you will learn the ability to direct your thought process and to attain calmness of your mind.

The awareness and the control of background thoughts -- the understanding of the whole thinking procedure with its various levels -- is much more important than you realize. It is a mistake to separate this approach from the conflicts in man's psyche. They are intimately connected. This becomes apparent when both approaches are followed through properly.

Background thought material appears to us spirits in a certain form. It is of a fluid substance. But fluid in a negative sense. It is a kind of thick, hazy, stubborn mass, very difficult to dissolve. Sometimes it is easier to dissolve an outright rigidity. For a rigidity can be grasped. But a negative fluidity is evasive, such as in the nature of a gelatinous substance, or of mercury.

When you progress a little in this exercise and you succeed in becoming a watcher of your thoughts, then visualize a compass needle. This compass needle represents your thought movements. Watch the needle sway back and forth. The more background thoughts you have -- dispersing you in all possible directions because you do not control them -- the more the needle will sway from one direction to the other. The more you succeed in becoming inwardly calm and focusing your thoughts on what you consciously and deliberately desire, the more this needle will remain still, poised, restful, and controlled. Not controlled by any strenuous discipline and by your outer will power, but controlled by relaxing and summoning your calm inner will. The more detachedly you observe your involuntary thought process, the more you will succeed in being above it.

It would be beneficial if during the summer months you try to prepare yourselves for the coming phases in our work together. Try to follow my advice with regard to this exercise. Also try to think about your past desires from the point of view I introduced here. Whether it is something important or an apparently insignificant detail as to your way of life, think whether you desisted at the time from following through because, you are now seriously convinced, it was wrong for you. If it was not, then did you desist out of fear, out of dependency for approval? Or was the wish based on unhealthy motives in the first place? Was there underneath the unhealthy motives a healthy one which you could not see because of your vague awareness and your guilt over the existence of the unhealthy motives? Would you have had the courage to follow through with your desire if the unhealthy motives were absent? Would you then have stood your ground and been true to your personality? Or can you discover that the original desire either disappears or weakens with the absence of the unhealthy motives? You should try to first formulate and then answer these and similar questions. As always, the most difficult part is the beginning. What you have to find first is what might apply exactly to this subject. It need not be an important part of your life, such as the choice of your profession or your main activity in life. It may be something small and subtle, something that is not easily discovered because it is invariably a part of a whole. But it must lead to something more vital in your inner life and in your outer life.

By doing this and by trying to feel the difference between volitional thought processes and unvolitional thought processes, you can prepare for our work in the fall.

Now, are there any questions?

QUESTION: In my work so far, I discovered that one of my wishes was not followed through due to fear. I have resigned myself to this. But If I now approach this question with this new viewpoint, then I cannot imagine this as a joyous experience. It will be painful all over again.

ANSWER: Not necessarily. As I said before, often these inner motives overlap and interplay. In your case, it will have to be established first whether you desired this goal because of unhealthy motives, or whether the unhealthy motives merely covered this form of self-expression best fitted for your individual personality. In either case, it need not be painful if your approach is right. Even if you should find that the fulfillment of this goal would have been right for you, it is still the negative aspect of your soul that stood in the way. Hence, in this respect nothing changes from the approach you have used so far. It will be neither more painful nor less painful. On the other hand, a discovery of the suppression of healthy outlets (which is always based on fear and dependency) may show you a new road which might be extremely satisfactory and fulfilling.

In many instances what one wants is not what one really wants but what one thinks one wants. When this is the case, then it is always due to unhealthy tendencies and reactions.

When you face your lower nature, your deviations -- in other words, your phantom world -- so that you can then change all of these aspects into true concepts, then it is more painful than facing something that you have suppressed because you erroneously thought that you have to be guilty for it and ashamed of it. The fact that you suppressed it is due to negative motivations. However, you will experience great joy and liberation when you now give vent to -- when you express -- something in you that is vitally creative, something that will lead to the fulfillment of your individual personality.

My dearest friends, let me give you very special blessings. A wonderful divine strength is around you. Open your heart, open your soul, and open your inner will so that you can receive it. Let it envelop you. Let it penetrate you. Let it work for you and with you, so that this strength helps you to unfold the best and the most creative that you as an individual can be -- so that you will make the best of your personality: that which still lies covered and dormant, but which is waiting to be let out. Let this divine strength help you to remove the obstacles existing in you so that your divine spirit may truly unfold and manifest in your life. With this, my dearest friends, I withdraw. But I will always be near you. Go on your way in divine peace, in the joy that comes from knowing that all of you are divine creatures, and therefore that all of you contain within yourselves so much that is truly wonderful and which is clamoring for manifestation. Be in peace, my dearest ones, be in God.

June 24, 1960