Cooperation -- Communication -- Union

By The Pathwork Guide

Greetings, my dearest friends. Blessings for each one of you. Blessed is this lecture.

The highest, the most desirable state in the whole plan of evolution is union. Union on this earth plane does not exist. There are some who have a vague idea of union. In isolated moments they sense that there is something like it. But then this moment passes and they no longer sense, or feel the significance of the state of being, which is union. Since union IS, then it is outside the law of cause and effect. Therefore, there is no point in my discussing it. You could not possibly comprehend and I could not find appropriate words in the human language to convey it.

But I will discuss two preliminary stages that finally lead to union. These two stages do exist on your plane of existence and consciousness. These states are, at the lowest level, cooperation; and, at a higher level, communication. Without cooperation and communication, then no living creature can exist. Man could not survive without them. This holds true even on the material level. Food, drink, shelter, all that you need for your physical survival, depend on cooperation and on communication. They may vary in form and execution according to the civilization man lives in. They will manifest in a different way in a primitive society where man organizes his own communication with nature and the elements. But, as he proceeds to extend his development and the community increases in number, in that measure he has to organize the processes of communication with his fellow creatures. The better he gets along with his fellow creatures, due to proper cooperation and communication, the better his life will function on the most material level, namely the physical one. This is so obvious that I need not discuss it at greater length.

Understanding this will also show you that man's mental, emotional, and spiritual subsistence must be just as dependent on cooperation and on communication as is his physical subsistence. The same laws hold true for all levels, and it is one of the great errors and tragedies of the human race that this truth is ignored. If people were properly educated so that this truth were understood, then your world would be very different.

In man's soul there is a center out of which the forces flow, or to which he responds. This governs both the laws of communication and the laws of cooperation. But we shall not discuss cooperation since it will become evident when you understand communication. Cooperation is simply a more superficial form of communication.

These, as all universal laws, tend to flow freely if the respective human entity is in harmony with them. If the human being is in disharmony with these laws, out of ignorance or lack of development, then they are broken, twisted, distorted, and therefore communication cannot take place. Thus the pathway towards ultimate union is delayed until these laws are restored within the entity.

By reviewing the preceding lectures on the manifold human soul problems, it should be very easy for you to see how man breaks these laws. If man is over-eager, over-anxious, if his desire for communication is an exaggerated craving, then these soul forces will automatically become harsh, pointed, and rigid. Their movements will be sudden and their impact too strong. Then they will have a corresponding effect on the other person's soul center out of which he, in turn, responds, often quite unconsciously. The whole universe is based on balance. When balance is upset, then the universal forces work towards re-establishing it. This is often a painful process wherein the effect on the other human soul must be a withdrawing. The corresponding inner forces restrist and seem to reject the over-eager attempt.

In your everyday observation you can easily see this, especially when you are engaged in this work of self-search. You may be quite unaware of the hidden craving and exaggerated need: you may have covered it with a layer manifesting quite the opposite. Nevertheless, that which is really in you counts. And when you discover it, then you will understand that this current, heretofore unknown to your conscious self, causes the door to close. You will no longer feel this as a personal rejection, but you will understand that the other person's unconscious soul forces must respond in accordance with the law of re-establishing balance.

In order to understand this process better, we have to be clear about the meaning of over-eagerness. You may think this to be merely a strong positive factor and, as such, it cannot, or should not upset the natural balance. But this is not so. In the light of our previous discussion, you will now understand that such over-eagerness is a distortion of reality, in the sense that the urgency of your need is not according to truth. It is imaginary. As this word implies, it comes out of your images, conflicts, and distortions. In this unconscious frame of mind, you believe that you must have love, that you must have affection, that you must have attention. In other words, it is not a question of desiring it for a healthy mutuality. It is a one-sided childish demand, in which your life seems to be at stake. This causes such a strong inner motion that the balancing forces cause the other person to withdraw from this exaggerated motion. In the person who has his own inner unresolved conflicts and problems, the motivation for such withdrawal will be unconscious and negative. In the relatively healthy person, the response will be similar, but out of motives that are positive and conscious.

Just try to visualize this strong forward-surging motion with all the impact of the forcing current, and then you will fully understand the inevitable response. Visualize these soul forces as such. And then try to remember incidents when you were involved in either end. At one time the exaggerated need surged out of you and was repulsed; at other times, such forces were directed at you and, in spite of all your desire for love and communication, you could not help but repulse it. Such observation will broaden your understanding of this matter and will be very beneficial for you.

Until now, before you really penetrated into the hidden regions and motivations of your soul forces, all of these inner actions and reactions were unconscious. At best, you felt something like it, but vaguely. But now, as you continually progress on your Path of self-search, you have already become much more aware of these factors. If you combine this awareness with the laws of communication and balance, then you will gain an even deeper insight. Among other benefits, it will guard you from the wrong conclusion that your love is rejected and that, therefore, you are worth nothing. You are exposed to hurt and disappointment when you do love and have to guard against it. You will understand that the childish, exaggerated craving has nothing to do with healthy love, and that actually this is the reason for its unhealthy impact and subsequent rejection. Once you fully understand that, then you will no longer need to protect yourself against the danger of hurts. This protection, or pseudo-protection, causes you to withdraw into isolation and you refuse to communicate. If, due to such withdrawal, there is no attempt initiated on your part, then no forces will be generated to seek or feel out. Hence nothing will happen. This is just as damaging as the other extreme indicated here.

These are two major distortions of the laws that govern communication. There may be many subdivions and personal variants, which have to be found as they manifest in the individual. Only when you grow, realize, and become aware of the wrong reactions -- due to wrong impressions -- can you gradually set out to change this state. Alway keep in mind (and you will find this to be so when you examine your inner reactions as to their significance) that you constantly fluctuate between the state of over-eagerness, this exaggerated need, and the state of withdrawal. Sometimes, strange as this may seem, you pursue both alternates simultaneously. Or, at least, you try to, just to be on the safe side, so to speak. No wonder your soul is torn in half. No wonder your strength evaporates. No wonder you are in disharmony, unhappy, and hopeless. You never realize for a moment that all these outer events that you blame for the situation are actually the natural result of the inner state that you have brought about.

My friends, again I say that the theory of this knowledge will avail you nothing. Only your personal work, your personal search for these deviations, distortions, and errors will show you the truth of these laws. This will also show you that the outer events, which seem to have nothing to do with your inner state, are actually the very effects that you have set in motion. The liberation of this knowledge will give you the strength and the perseverance to change and to gradually learn to communicate without an exaggerated need. As you know from previous talks, this need comes, in one variation or another, from your childhood disappointments which you still have not come to terms with and which you try to overcome by accelerating the need even more in your unconscious reaction and motivation.

Once you fully see and understand this and you subsequently succeed to let go of the exaggerated need, then you will find it to be an illusion. Once it ceases to be a question of life or death for you, then you will not have to resort to the other extreme of sabotaging it: either by frightening the tentative feelers of the other soul back into withdrawal, or by your own isolation and refusal to risk your way out of it, by erecting a wall around you, be it ever so subtle. Thus, out of your own center of being these soul forces will flow harmoniously and will have a favorable effect, even upon those who still have unresolved problems of this sort, because this law has to work. As you give out, so must it be returned unto you.

When people truly learn this, then a change must take place in their lives. They will truly begin to communicate, instead of merely subsisting on mutual dependency and need. One fulfills the need of the other in order to get his own need fulfilled. This is the interrelationship of most human beings. Whether this happens in business life, in professional life, in your personal relationships, in a marriage, or in friendship makes no difference. To a large degree, your world here on this earth is governed by dependency and need rather than by true communication. Realize this, my friends, and in the findings you have made within yourself try to see how you prohibit, how you sabotage, how you make impossible the very thing that you desire so much.

Many of you fail to even realize that you do want communication. Your disappointments, because of rejection, have made you so cautious that you consciously believe yourself to be genuinely and healthily detached. In reality your exaggerated need merely festers underground, covered by layers of false detachment, which is nothing but fear and withdrawal into isolation as protection against being hurt. But the hurt would not be necessary if you were to first unroll and then understand this entire process. After you have found and acknowledged and experienced this underlying need, then try to determine how much of an urgency, of a craving need is there. The stronger the need, the craving, and the unhealthy exaggeration, then the more likely it is that you are unaware of it, contrary to your belief. You may think that the stronger this need, the more aware of it you must be. But this is not necessarily so. It may often be just the opposite. Something in you senses the exaggeraration and is ashamed of it. There is the knowledge that something is wrong about it. You also unconsciously feel humiliated that this constant nagging desire can never be fulfilled (because of its unrealistic exaggeration) and therefore you put it out of sight. In other words, you cover it up. You dislike yourself for the dependency on your need. It makes you feel helpless towards those to whom you are inclined to submit in order to get your need fulfilled. This may cause an opposite outer reaction of extreme and ungenuine independence. Be on the lookout for that, my friends.

First find the existence of the need and its intensity. Then, as the next step, try to see what measures you have resorted to. There are many ways and many possibilities, all of which I have discussed previously, but which you will now understand in a new light.

I have discussed your submissiveness, regardless of how subtle, out of which you often sell your soul in order to get love. When this trend is on the surface, then you may tell yourself that this is your ability to love, your readiness and willingness for it. You may believe that your submissiveness is true sacrifice and unselfishness. Only upon very close analysis and insight will you see that this craving has nothing to do with real love, and therefore no real communication can be established.

I have discussed the aggressive aspect which you assume as a protective measure against the vulnerability of the underlying submissive aspect.

I have discussed the withdrawal aspect which is another, similar protection, only it manifests in a different way.

I have discussed the artificiality with which you over-dramatize your life, your emotions, and everything pertaining to your person.

All of these are measures by which you hope either to gain what you want, or to protect yourself against the disappointment and frustration of not getting what you want. Since this protection automatically precludes the fulfillment of your desire, you are constantly torn and undecided between these various measures, never deciding for either, but simultaneously pursuing contradictory ones. It will now be clear to you that even one single one of these measures is bound to distort the law of communication, and therefore sabotage your heart's desire. But when you simultaneously pursue several mutually exclusive alternatives, then you bring such disharmony into the universe of your own soul that the disentanglement and the re-establishment of order will be that much more difficult.

Find all of this and you will set the way free for true communication in all its facets and in all its aspects. Then you will realize and understand what may have seemed a contradiction in your belief that you are healthily interdependent on one another. However, this healthy interdependence can exist only if you are independent not of the other person, but of your own distorted need and urgency. Only on the basis of independence can you have healthy interdependence. But both also exist in the wrong way. And unfortunately that is very often the trouble. He who either withdraws into his shell of isolation, or who aggressively antagonizes his surroundings, in the false conviction that he does not care, shows an unhealthy independence that comes from and that leads to further unhealthy dependence and need. Such inner behavior patterns (no matter how camouflaged) are never an expression of the free wish and decision for healthy independence and interdependence.

Now, are there any questions in connection with this subject?

QUESTION: Did I understand correctly that the exaggerated need is a neurotic streak?

ANSWER: Of course. It is illusion, because you believe and feel that your life depends on this need. You may not think so, but when you examine your feelings with regard to a disappointment, a frustration, then you will find the true intensity of your feelings. Only upon closer examination of their intensity and significance can you discover the illusion. The strength and the intensity of your emotions has no relationship to the issue at stake.

QUESTION: I really meant something else. You said something about two people needing each other in a wrong way. One fulfills the need of the other in order to get his own need fulfilled. Why is this unhealthy or wrong?

ANSWER: Such a relationship can exist for quite a while, and it can even work for a limited time. But it is not a relationship based on true values and on true interdependence, because independence from the individual's own need has not yet been established as the core of right communication. Such an unhealthy relationship is based on bargaining, on the interplay of submissive and domineering attitudes, with either attitude either being dominant in one partner, or alternating in both at various phases of the relationship, rather than on free inner action on the part of both.

QUESTION: It seems a very thin borderline separating healthy and unhealthy dependence and independence. How can we distinguish between the two?

ANSWER: The borderline is always thin. It is always such a subtle and elusive matter that by discussing it you cannot find the truth within. Again, there is no rule and no formula. You may develop the best theories and believe them in your intellect, but your feelings may deviate completely. The only way you can discover it is in the work you do on this Path, in facing and examining your feelings and reactions, and in understanding their significance by tracing them through to their roots. Behind all negative, disturbing, and disharmonious feelings there must be an original wish and its frustration. When you find this, then you can determine how real or how illusory this wish is. Only after being able to fully comprehend the immature and distorted emotions can you come to realize the right ones -- where they may already exist to some extent and where they may be built in, so to speak, as you continue to develop.

Then you will feel the difference between wanting something freely and needing it to the extent that non-fulfillment really hurts.

COMMENT: May I add something here? I think we can understand it by the degree of frustration and anxiety that a non-fulfillment creates in us.

ANSWER: Yes, that is right. But you should also be careful of the pseudo-calm harmony and lack of need which is superimposed, and which is really nothing else but your withdrawing from life, from love, and from communication out of fear. That, too, is something that has to be carefully examined.

QUESTION: You spoke of the subject of unity. An occurrence in this week's news brings to me a question regarding the possible unity of the Christian churches. There have been soundings made through the Pope and his Ecumenical call, and through various denominational groups getting together in the hope of becoming united. But in spite of these attempts, there still rages a battle between fundamentalism and liberalism. Just this week, Bishop James A. Pike, of the Protestant Episcopal Church, referred to various myths that appear in the Bible, such as the myth of Adam and Eve, of Eden, of Heaven and Hell, and others. He was immediately accused of heresy by many of his own clergy. What do you think is the place of myth in religion?

ANSWER: People do not understand what myth really means. For the majority, myth means invention, fantasy, imagination, fairy tale, lie. That is the usual idea. The real meaning of myth is very different.

This misunderstanding is not the only reason for the failure of various religions to come together. If this were put out of the way, then something else would stand in the way. Often people are bound to their allegiances and loyalties in religion, in politics, or in anything else they belong to that they are afraid to let go. A personal fear is involved, a personal threat. They feel: "If I have to give up what I thought or believed in, then my whole world and personal safety crumbles." They cannot afford what they consider as a threat to their security.

So the core of the problem does not lie in the misunderstanding of myth, of symbol, or of anything else for that matter. The core lies in man's psychological problems, in the false safeties he has built for himself, and in his resistance to re-examine the true motivations for his tenacity in holding on to certain ideas, whether they be right or wrong. As long as this state prevails among the majority of people responsible for bringing unification in this respect -- I will not call this Union, although such unification leads a step closer to it -- then their inner obstacles will always produce outer ones.

This certainly indicates an improvement and a step in the right direction. Nevertheless, many times it is still approached with a very childish attitude, in the spirit of: "I will give this up, but you have to give that up." It is a spirit of of bargaining, rather than with a common desire to find the truth. Thus, at times a truth may be abandoned in order to affect a compromise.

QUESTION: Could you give us some idea of the true meaning of myth?

ANSWER: I could discuss this for a long time, which we do not have now. Perhaps at a later period I will go into this subject in detail. For the moment I will only say that myth represents a truth which is conveyed in a form that is acceptable to and understandable by the human being. Similar to a symbol, concisely put together, myth is a vast truth in a picture form, like the picture language in the spirit world, like the picture language you experience in dreams. The difference between a symbol and a myth is that you can have a symbol for anything: either for something important or unimportant. A myth, on the other hand, deals with a general, universal truth. It is presented in a concise pictorial way to make it acceptable and understandable, so that you can perceive it. The principle of myth and symbol is the same.

QUESTION: Is it true that a specific psychic activity that is projected into the outside world is highly individual and relative? In other words, what one sees and perceives as truth is related to what he projects. And what he projects is relative to his specific psychic activity and experience?

ANSWER: Yes, this is true, but it also goes beyond that. A myth, contrary to many symbols, is something that is actually true. But it is presented so that the individuals in question can grasp it. But it is, in itself, a representation of absolute truth.

QUESTION: Could you comment on something I saw recently. I witnessed a demonstration of clairvoyance in which the medium was not in a trance but could see certain spirits. What happens in such a case? Is this a case of mind reading, of the perception of etheric bodies, or is it possible that the spirit in question was actually there so that the medium could see it?

ANSWER: All these alternatives are possible. Humanity always thinks in terms of either/or. I have no way of determining now which of these alternatives apply to this particular case. But it really does not make as much difference as you are inclined to believe. You seem to think that if it a question of mind reading, then this eliminates the spirit being's living and existence. The spirit's aliveness and existence and bond with you may cause your subconscious to be impressed by it, so that a clairvoyant perceives it on the detour of your own subconscious.

QUESTION: But is it possible that the actual spirit was really there?

ANSWER: Of course it is possible. Absolutely.

QUESTION: In the lecture you spoke about the mutual need that may hold a relationship together and that this is unhealthy. But it seems to me that it is only fair and right that if I love a person that this person should also love me. Otherwise it would be much more unhealthy.

ANSWER: My dear friends, you are very much mistaken if you believe that I advocate one-sided love. In a healthy state, then you will never even have to worry about this, because if you free yourself of the need, then your innermost self, your real self, your intuitive self, will make you direct your affection and love towards the person who is capable of responding. Then it will come by itself. There is no such thing as a lack of mutuality. This can exist only in an unhealthy situation, based on immature craving, instead of a free readiness to love and to communicate. Since you are new to this group, then it is understandable that you ask this question, but if you were familiar with these teachings, then you would fully understand that such healthy mutuality is the essence and the natural result that comes automatically when one frees the soul of its fetters. A one-sided love is the very proof of distortion and deviation. In order to avoid it, you do not have to worry, to plan, or to direct your emotions. In other words, you do not have to force your feelings in any direction. If you think you have to do that, then it is a sign that there are many levels of unconscious reaction which should become conscious so as to be handled properly. If you react freely, then the result must be mutuality.

QUESTION: Psychiatry today uses shock treatment. Could that damage the psyche and the subtle bodies?

ANSWER: Yes, it does damage, and it does not affect a real cure, but only the temporary semblance of a cure.

QUESTION: What does it do?

ANSWER: It gives a temporary, superficial, and very unreal pseudo cure.

COMMENT: It takes you by mechnical means out of a psychosis and brings you back to reality. But then you have to start working out what the cause was in order to avoid a reocurrence of the psychosis. But it is purely mechanical.

ANSWER: You said that it brings one back to reality. It does that only in a very limited way. At the same time, these shocks can, and often do, damage parts of the human psyche and of the subtle bodies.

QUESTION: I saw in the last few days how people received such shock treatments and it seemed that they were actually dead for a few minutes or seconds. Is it possible that they actually do die for a few moments?

ANSWER: No. What you call death is when the silver chord is severed. But there are many stages of unconsciousness which may outwardly resemble death, but they are not really dead because the cord is not severed.

QUESTION: Could shock treatment damage the cord?

ANSWER: That could happen, too. But even if not, then it may damage other faculties and parts of the inner being that may be just as harmful.

QUESTION: Is it possible for you to give us some sort of formula we might adapt for interpreting dream symbols?

ANSWER: Yes, my friends, I have done this in many years of training. But I cannot give you any preconceived formulas. This would oversimplify matters. To really understand and interpret dreams is a lengthy and often tedious process. It does not only take the knowledge of doing it, and the experience, but it also demands a great deal of intuition, of understanding, and of talent. A dream is something extremely personal and there is so much over-simplification in your world. As a result, the real benefit, that which the dream really wants to convey, is often lost when people diligently, but automatically analyze dreams.

QUESTION: Why are dreams given if it requires an expert to get to the meaning?

ANSWER: If you really want to know the truth about your dream, and if you take the time and make the effort, then you can find out, sometimes even by yourself. At other times you will need help. But if you really want to know about your innermost self, then you will not shy away from the possibility of receiving such help and therefore you will be guided to it. As I have often said, the real work of self-search cannot be done alone. This applies not only to dream interpretation. But most people do not want to know about themselves. They put everything that may give them a deeper understanding about themselves out of sight, whether this be a dream, or other indications of their unconscious daily reactions.

May you all derive some benefit, some strength, and some further victory from my words. Make is so, my friends, for this is up to you. Be blessed, each one of you. Be enveloped in the strength and the love we bring you from our world. Be in peace, be in God.