Asking For Help And Helping Others

By The Pathwork Guide

Greetings in the name of God. I bring you God's blessings.

Each emotional reaction, each thought, each opinion, each tendency, even the smallest personality trait, is a luminous ray which is invisible to you, but belongs very personally to each individual being. In the same way, the fixed and yet eternally moving spiritual laws, which pertain to every possibility or modality of outer and inner reaction, also create such luminous threads. Where the personal rays coincide with the spiritual laws, there man fulfills his life and so is in harmony and in bliss. Where the personal rays deviate from the spiritual laws, there man finds himself in disharmony. This disharmony causes those difficulties which you so often, and so erroneously, believe to be blows dealt to you by fate. The more one removes one's self from the roots of the difficulties by either covering them up or pushing them into the unconscious, the more difficult it will be to perceive the connections and to dissolve, or pull out, these faulty roots. But if you wish to be happy, then you have to look for the unhealthy roots within yourself. This digging to find the unhealthy roots is the path of perfection or purification or the healing of the soul -- whatever you may wish to call it. He who seeks contact with God's world for this purpose -- and without this contact purification is not possible -- will receive the greatest help, support, and guidance. Everything will proceed and develop in the best way for his personality. He will indeed be in good hands.

In order to follow this Path, man also needs outside help and advice so that he can remove the first stones which block his way to contact with God's world. The purpose of outside help is to make inner help possible. To put it another way, help must first come through outer perception in order to bring about inner perception, with which the personality can then become independent. This outside help can be given either by a human being who has already reached a higher level on this Path, or it can be given through one of God's spirits. But outside help is not enough -- and it must not be thought to be enough. It is only an impetus, only the seed which has to ripen into fruit through your own work. You must achieve a breakthrough to your own inner self. It is not possible to accept something, no matter how illuminating, just because somebody says it is so. It is especially not possible when there are personal, inner, unconscious resistances to it. All the truths of creation, all the spiritual laws, everything that man is capable of comprehending, have to be experienced personally in order to become genuine inner knowledge, and thus be utilized in a personal, productive way. Only by following such a Path as this are inner knowledge and the personal use of it possible. The inner knowledge and the experience of any truth can become a reality only when you have established a personal contact with the world of God, at least to a degree. And such contact can come only when you have achieved a breakthrough in your soul to your higher self.

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Whoever asks God, "Father, show me the truth," and then opens himself to the truth will always receive an answer. But you often neglect to do this. You cover up what is most important, you push it aside, and then you busy yourself with your worries and your petty concerns. In this way, you forget what is most essential. Yet these worries are trifles, superficialities, compared to finding the way to total truth. Summon up your inner will for truth and open yourself to it. Ask God for help to experience a deep recognition of His truth.

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If you sincerely wish to perfect yourself -- and therefore to know yourself -- then you will receive the necessary spiritual help. It will come to you in an ever-expanding way. It will alternate between help from outside guidance and perceptions from inner experiences. The latter will also serve as answers and signposts.

The connection with God's spirit world is usually referred to as mediumship. Not everybody has to become a medium in the sense of this medium through whom I speak. Yet everybody can make contact in some way with the spirit world. Be open to this. Don't say, "I want it in such and such a way." Just be open and free to letting yourself be guided. Then the individual guidance will come at the time and in the manner which is best for you. Much will change in the life of the person who follows this Path, one who commits himself entirely to God, not only in words but also in actions. But each change will come slowly and naturally, as if by itself. What is wonderful is that nothing will happen in a way which could be harmful or create disharmony. But man has to continue to do his part by staying open and stretching out his inner antennae, so to speak. The faculty for staying open will also be strengthened.

Now I want to give you some general instructions. There are people who believe that something is right just because its opposite is wrong. I want to give you an example. The higher a person's development, then the more important it becomes for him to surround himself with kindred spirits, human spirits, so that something productive will come out of this contact, namely mutual help and stimulation -- contacts which will not harm the soul, as some contacts do, no matter how innocent they may appear. Yet here, too, nothing should be forced. Ask for guidance, "will" this guidance, for then it will come in a much wiser and more wonderful way than you can conceive of. Only he who has experienced guidance can know the wonder of it in the depths of his soul. On the other hand, it often happens that people who have already achieved a higher level, and therefore have sufficient strength, when remembering some unpleasant experiences while on a lower level, will withdraw from contact with people of a lower development in cases where they should not. A person trained in contact with God's spirit world will know which relationships to keep and which to give up. The stronger you are, the better grounded in your Path, then the smaller is the danger that you can be harmed by lower beings, and the greater is your opportunity to help them and to influence them.

However, man's first reaction will always be to do that which is easiest. He who can still be harmed spiritually through contacts with less evolved souls is usually still at a stage where such lower contacts will not be unpleasant to him. So he doesn't wish to give them up. He persuades himself that he can help those who are less evolved because he is on a higher level, yet he is not truly capable of giving such help and will be weakened instead. He ought rather to seek out contacts which will strengthen him. On the other hand, the person who can no longer be harmed, the person for whom such disharmonious contacts are but tests through which he can strengthen himself, is in a state in which such a contact feels like a sacrifice. He only wants contact with kindred spirits with whom he feels comfortable and he avoids those which do not give him pleasure. He is generally inclined to apply what was once his experience, what is also true and was true for him too, and yet should no longer be applied by him in the same way, namely that contact with people of lower development is harmful. Here one can sometimes make a mistake if one does not fulfill a task with such a weaker fellow human being, when one could fulfill such a task. When the soul of someone who has already progressed quite far on this Path is still not happy, when there is something that makes the soul restless despite many inner recognitions, then the cause could be the avoidance of an unpleasant contact with somebody whom one was meant to help. In other words, the avoidance of a soul with whom one could have fulfilled a task and learned from it.

You see, the rule is not always the same. Think about this when you are not entirely happy. Avoiding a task with a person of lower development may be the very cause of your unhappiness. The soul of a highly developed person is very sentitive. Therefore, when it registers the slightest lack of harmony, then you will know that something is wrong.

But those of my friends to whom this does not apply must not deceive themselves that giving up a contact which they cherish but which they should not keep would be wrong for them, referring to the reasons I just gave. The truth is -- and you can best affirm it yourself -- that most of the time whatever problem is most difficult and unpleasant to tackle is precisely in the very area where something is missing that you could find if you went about it in the right way. If you lose this opportunity to take up the challenge, then you will take something away from the happiness that could be yours if you totally gave yourself to your Path and if you fulfilled your life task. You might think about this topic further. Everyone can learn something from it, but no one should force himself to act in one way or another. Be ready to be guided to the right action, ask for help, be open. That is all you need to do. However, if you are not ready to follow guidance, either in this area or in any other, then you cannot be helped. Man could be helped so very much if only he would open himself again and again to receive help. Yet he simply forgets to ask for it; and often he does not even think about it. How much happiness, how much bliss he loses in this way!

The wonderful forces and the luminous rays of the spiritual world are ready to surround you in harmony, but you often make it impossible for your own rays to change direction. Unless they do change direction, then your rays cannot harmonize with the luminous threads of the greater reality, and therefore beneficial influence and help cannot reach you.

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QUESTION: I just read a book by Prentice Mulford which almost completely agrees with your teachings, but there is one thing in it which I do not completely understand. He says that man should not preoccupy himself with the negative, especially not with his own faults; that such preoccupation creates more negativity. It is enough to note the negativity and leave it at that. You, however, taught us not only to confront our faults, but also to fight them. Yet in order to fight them we have to think about them every day. Here I find a contradiction between your teachings and the book.

ANSWER: There is no contradiction. It is a question of how to confront faults. There are many people who like to wallow in their faults, to immerse themselves in a kind of false guilt, which I have already mentioned to you several times. These people lament their faults, saying, "I am a sinner. I am so bad. I cannot overcome my sins. How terrible that I have this fault." Whenever they encounter this fault, they throw themselves into the same unproductive current, and so increase their guilt feelings. These guilt feelings have further consequences and a chain reaction is set in motion. This kind of preoccupation with one's faults is obviously wrong. It not only attracts negative forces, it also expresses an attitude based on self-deception. Such a person thinks that he is very humble, while in reality he only wants to make himself comfortable by telling himself that he is hopeless. Such a pattern of behavior is frequent and the person who uses it is just as much at a false extreme as his opposite: the person who wants to see himself as already perfect. A person with spiritual understanding who wants to dissuade you from preoccupation with negativity means this kind of preoccupation. On the other hand, it is absolutely necessary on this particular Path that man learn to know himself as he is and to accept his temporary reality. This doesn't mean that he should put his hands into his lap and not do anything, but that he say to himself: "I am like this, I have this or that fault. I know it takes time, struggle, and will power to eradicate it, but I can and will do so." This is productive. For when you look closer, you must realize that when someone is so terribly upset and feels so guilty about his faults and shortcomings, his exaggerated guilt is nothing but a form of pride and arrogance. His attitude is, "I want to be better than I am," while he actually is not. Such a person wants to be already perfect, without taking the trouble to become perfect. And when he has to recognize that he is still imperfect, he feels so devastated because his vanity is wounded. He cannot accept himself as he still is, and this is unhealthy. Whoever feels the truth of these words can think and meditate about them; this will open new doors.

As I have said so often, it is "the how" that matters. Of course, once you have come so far that you can see yourself "with" all your faults without feelings of disharmony or defensiveness, you can build something positive -- and only then. For you must build on a foundation of truth. You cannot build on lies or untruth. And whoever does not know himself, either by not wanting to know himself or by deceiving himself, builds on untruth. When man has come to the true humility that enables him to build positively, he sees the turning point. It is the original good quality at the root of his faults. By visualizing this man creates a positive thought form and directs his will towards it. As I speak to you, my dear ones, about this perfection that you should strive for, you may vaguely imagine this as something to be gotten from the outside, something you do not have in yourselves. This, of course, is not so. The perfection slumbers within you deep down, beneath the layers of the crust hidden by your lower self; but it is only covered up, because this perfection is already in you. You only need to remove the crust. That is done by recognizing it, by accepting the thought that there is a crust that takes such and such a form. Only when this is done can the layers of the crust be thinned out and thus allow the breakthrough to the higher self to take place in those places where until now your faults have made it impossible for you to establish contact with your inner perfection. When you clearly understand that perfection is already in you, then it will be easier to overcome your difficulties and to free yourself of your fetters -- of the imperfections which rob you of your freedom. Then you have to unfold your latent, and in many places hidden, inner perfection. Whoever has clearly crystallized his lower self into a definite form and sees it as a foreign body within himself can begin to build up the positive form whose realization is his ultimate aim.

Let us take an example. A man is fighting his selfishness. This is a fault which is in almost everybody. Some have it to a greater and others to a lesser degree; one in this form, the other in another; but everyone has at least something of this fault in him. When man examines his reactions at the end of the day, then he will come to the following stages, step by step. First, he will find it very hard to recognize where he was being selfish. When he asks to see the truth and he opens himself to it, then he will recognize certain events which he used to pass by but which he now sees as examples of his selfish behavior. At first such recognitions will make him very uncomfortable. They will upset him and will give him a bad conscience. These feelings, in turn, will create a resistance against the recognition. In this initial phase, the battle will have to be fought with the resistance, so as to overcome it and to continue seeing in truth what he is really like. Persevering in this fight will bring, in time, an immeasurable spiritual strength, which will bring with it further spiritual consequences in the best possible way. To progress in this phase man has to attack the resistance from several sides. He needs to pray for strength and for the willpower to see himself as he really is. He needs to meditate for the inner recognition of his lack of humility. In other words, of how proud and arrogant he is when he is so upset about this fault. He must be far away from the truth when he cannot accept himself as he is. Then he has to go deeper into himself and find what other characteristics his pride and his arrogance have given rise to. Thus he will acquire a better understanding about his own personality and about the unconscious emotional currents in himself. After a certain time these efforts of daily self-finding, of introspection, of meditation, of prayer, and of resolutions will enable a person to handle his reactions in a different way than he did before. In time he will succeed in applying what he learns in the silent hour that he has everyday and then to react with that knowledge to whatever happens. As he once more retires into his stillness, he will recognize the progress he has made in handling his problem. Yet he will also have to notice that his feeling was still opposed to his controlled reaction, and thus there was still an inner split behind his action. It is easier to control action than feelings, and the danger is that man may cover up the emotional reaction, pretending that it is not there, until the feeling disappears into the unconscious. It is precisely this split and this repression which often gives rise to the unhealthy soul currents. Man may act right because his conscience says that he must follow what he has learnt about right and wrong, or because he wants to win recognition and love from his surroundings. Yet when the action is not supported by a corresponding feeling, then it will become a lie. But if man fights on courageously for his inner truth, then he will be able to avoid this lie and he will be able to clearly recognize the false emotional currents underlying his correct outward actions. He will know that it requires more spiritual work to change the feelings, and he will not shy away from such work. Then in his meditations he will build good, healthy spiritual forms. For instance, by visualizing himself free from selfishness, or whatever other fault he may still have, and by feeling how much joy he can have by letting others also have that which hitherto he had wished only for himself. In time this form will become so powerful that it will stand out just as clearly as the part which is still a residue of the lower self. He will always be aware of the discrepancy -- but now without being upset about it. Slowly your old false currents will transform themselves and will be in line with your outward actions and what you recognize as being right. This is the process.

Of course, it is more convenient not to do all this. It is inconvenient to have to face oneself over and over again in this kind of self-honesty. And man is very resourceful in finding excuses why he doesn't need this or why he can't do it. He is inclined to cling to what is easiest. But what is easily gained is not worth much. Only what comes to us through inner discipline and as a result of overcoming what is difficult -- in other words, only that for which one has paid the price -- brings lasting happiness. It cannot be otherwise.

QUESTION: How can one dissolve one's fear when one is not in personal healing at the present time? How can one dissolve a deeply embedded fear and insecurity?

ANSWER: You can do it on this spiritual path. You cannot do it alone. You can accomplish it only through the two kinds of help: the outer help and the inner help. Once you have made the decision to walk this Path and you commit yourself totally to God -- not only in words and in a general way but through your entire inner attitude and by accepting the consequences, both inner and outer, that follow from this decision -- then will you be guided to the outer help which will open the inner doors, so that the inner help -- that is, personal contact with God's spirit world -- can be established. With this help, you can remove any emotional distortion. Some of my friends have already experienced the truth of these words in their lives.

Everybody who makes such a decision will be given everything he needs. Whoever makes the decision to seek such contact, to walk this path of perfection, will also want to free himself of all imperfection. And when fear exists, it is the symptom of imperfection, of a violation of spiritual law. Such fear can be a large, entangled skein, which actually exists as a spiritual form. On this Path it can be disentangled, knot by knot, until the whole entanglement is straightened out and you can live without fear. Of course, fear has a different source with each individual, and therefore I cannot give general rules as to what is at its root, nor exactly how to dissolve it. The topic of tonight's lecture may apply here also. He who always wants a back door, who does not commit himself to anything completely, whether it is God, an important spiritual issue, or a minor mundane one, will find himself in an emotional current in which his fear will increase. Of course, he will have no firm ground under his feet, as a result of his over-cautiousness, his indecision. He doesn't belong anywhere, he has nothing to hold on to in the erroneous, though often unconscious, belief that he doesn't risk anything when he doesn't commit himself to anything. This attitude can be a factor in fear increasing in a person.

Another frequent factor in fear is lack of faith. The conditions required for creating the grace of living faith were not fulfilled. Therefore such a person will have to rely on himself entirely: he believes that everything depends on him; yet, paradoxically, he will neglect doing exactly that which truly depends on him and in situations where he could affect change. At the same time, he will feel that he depends in many respects entirely on God, but he cannot experience this feeling clearly, and he wavers in his loneliness, because he does not fulfill the lawful conditions whereby he could put himself into the hands of God. Even when a person has some intellectual knowledge of the great truths, this kind of knowledge will be something vague, unreal, and doubtful, something that will not support him. The more such thoughts take possession of him, and the more he nourishes them through his intellectual channels only, the more he removes himself from any positive divine influence -- and the greater his anxiety will grow. In his ignorance, he will violate more spiritual laws and thus remove himself even more from the possibility of a direct experience of spiritual reality.

Furthermore, the fear may also come from clinging too tightly to the ego, with its self-pity, its vanity, its cowardice, and its pride. In short, everything that nurtures the ego -- the ego which wants to feel so special. This is also mostly unconscious, yet the more unconscious this process is, the further away one is from putting an end to it. This is why it is so important on this Path to make conscious everything that is unconscious and to examine it in the light of truth. The elevated ego makes man lonely, it puts him into a special place, though in a different sense than he had imagined. It separates him from his surroundings and makes him blind to spiritual truth, because spiritual vision cannot come when spiritual law is violated. The man who surrounds himself with a wall of separation will become lonely and he will detach himself more and more from the people around him. And this has nothing to do with his social life, which might be very active. Then the separation also increases the fear.

These are the main points about fear, and they can be linked to other, more personal inner currents. As I said before, all these can only be recognized and overcome on the path of self-recognition. Whoever commits himself to this Path will obtain all imaginable help.

QUESTION: At certain times I had dreams of insight, and after a few of these I had longer periods without dreams, even though I prayed for dreams before going to sleep. Does this have to do with my physical tiredness? Is this perhaps similar to the connection with the spirit world for which we also need a certain kind of energy, the so-called odic force?

ANSWER: Yes, the odic force has something to do with it, as the mutual influence of the spiritual and the physical is very strong Yet this is not the only factor that is involved. It is all right to ask for signs and for answers, but the forms which these take cannot be determined by man. Perhaps it is better for you, in a certain period of your development, to obtain answers in a different form than in dreams. At this point you are not yet able to judge why such help should come to you in a different way from the one you ask for. But perhaps your dreams of insight have become too habitual and therefore they do not require too much spiritual labor for you to interpret them. The intention may be for you to exert a greater spiritual effort. If you do, then you will receive the answer in another form. Your accustomed way might still be used when it is more important for you to recognize something. By and large, however, the guidance for you will come in a way that will require from you greater spiritual effort to understand it; in such a way you will establish a connection in yet another way than just your dreams.

QUESTION: If a person who has become convinced of the possibility of spiritual healing, even though he has not yet reached that stage in practice, turns to a doctor for help, does that show a lack of faith? Should he fight the illness without using medical help?

ANSWER: No. Doctors are also God's instruments. Where a doctor can help, one should go to a doctor. Where he cannot help, one can search for healing in the spiritual way. It is not advisable to focus too intensely on one thing; that is to want something in the wrong way. Again, it is easy to misunderstand this. To want the overall goal with a healthy will is very important, but to exercise a cramped, over-intense will on a specific detail could be a great obstacle. In the case of an illness the truth is that such a condition has different causes. It may be karmic, or it may be the symptom of a certain distortion in the soul that can be traced to the present life. Such a symptom cannot be removed while its root remains in the ground. When the root is pulled out, then the symptom will disappear. Therefore the problem of sickness must be examined from this point of view. It is not enough to remove the outer symptoms, the sick root must be found in the soul and uprooted. That is the solution.

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My dear friends, I now withdraw into my world and I tell every one of you to continue on this Path. As you do so, your life will become better and better. No one is alone. All of you are blessed by God and His world.

June 17, 1957