Lectures  >  Pathwork Lectures 1996 Ed.

Pathwork Lectures 1996 Ed.

The 1996 Edition, which contains 258 lectures, some of which were transcribed from question and answer sessions, has been edited to simplify the complex language structure in which the original lectures were created. Eva’s native tongue was German and her sentence structure reflected this, sometimes resulting in awkward English usage. This edition also eliminates what can be seen as sexist terminology, common in the period of transmission of the material but not accepted in practice today and, in general, simplifies the language where to do so will not interfere with the meaning of the lecture itself.

1.

The Sea of Life

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 1  |  March 11, 1957

Spiritual material resembles threads, fine, ray-like threads—in this case of somber color and texture—which are spun, knotted, and entangled, until there is such a tight ball of confusion that one can disentangle it only with the greatest difficulty. . . . it takes a great deal of effort to find the truth at all.

2.

Decisions and Tests

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 2  |  March 25, 1957

[W]hen you understand that this life is one of many learning periods, one link in a long chain, you will at first sense and later comprehend more and more fully the connections. Then your goal will no longer be immediate happiness through the fulfillment of every single wish in this existence. You will instead direct your vision toward the whole.

3.

Choosing Your Destiny—The Will to Change

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 3  |  April 09, 1957

So it is important for you, my dear ones, to recognize that many of the events in your life which seem to repeat themselves were chosen and planned by you when you still had your wider vision, before matter enveloped your spirit. It will be helpful for you to know this. A very ambitious spirit may sometimes even ask for a particularly difficult destiny, knowing clearly in the state of freedom from matter that the pain to be suffered is little and of short duration in comparison to the gain. This should give you food for thought.

4.

World Weariness

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 4  |  April 22, 1957

[T]here are a variety of possible causes for world weariness. Of course the yearning for God and perfection plays a role here too whether consciously or not, as well as the nostalgia for one’s true spiritual home that dwells in every human being. For here on earth you are only visitors, it is not your true home. But that is never the main reason for the indefinable longing. Its background is more complex, and this is what I want to talk about now.

5.

Happiness for Yourself or Happiness as a Link in the Chain of Life

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 5  |  May 06, 1957

How far along is any individual in this respect? Is anyone willing to give something up for the sake of another? Ask yourself: “Do I want happiness for my own sake, or is this the second consideration?” Can you address God and say, “Of course I cannot fool you, just as I cannot fool myself. True, I want to be happy. But also when I obtain this happiness, I want to maintain it by becoming a connecting link. What I receive from you I wish to convey to others in some form, even if I have to make a sacrifice—perhaps to renounce my ego-gratification. Please show me how I can give out to others all that I have received from you.”

6.

The Human Role in the Spiritual and Material Universes

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 6  |  May 20, 1957

I have said it before, but I want to repeat it: Every human being, not only a medium, can and should have personal contact with God’s world. Everybody can have it! But the conditions have to be met. When God’s spirits speak to you through a medium, they never want to turn you into some puppet who is dependent on them. Yes, there are unaligned spirits—and I am not even talking about the dark ones—who would gladly give you instructions about what to do or not do; this would give them power and flatter their vanity. But an evolved spirit of God does not need or want power, does not need or want flattery. An evolved spirit wants what God wants, and God wants to make free and independent human beings out of you.

7.

Asking for Help and Helping Others

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 7  |  June 17, 1957

Each emotional reaction, thought, opinion or 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 or inner reaction, also create such luminous threads. Wherever your personal rays agree with those of the spiritual laws, you fulfill your life and you are in harmony and bliss.

8.

Mediumship—How to Contact God’s Spirit World

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 8  |  July 01, 1957

Those who have made the decision and given themselves into the hands of God immediately sense what is happening within. The first reaction is a great relief and an inward joy that for a while completely takes possession of one. This wonderful feeling, though, does not stay with you forever. Hearing this, you could easily conclude, at least in your feelings, that if the heaviness and unpleasantness is likely to return, there is no point in making the decision in the first place. But I say to you that this is not so. After having crossed the first threshold, you are only at the beginning of the path. I have told you before that the spiritual work only begins after this crossing, and that being on this path consists in not giving up, but continuing to press on steadily. That has to be the price.

9.

Prayer and Meditation— The Lord’s Prayer

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 9  |  July 15, 1957

My dear friends, today I would like to speak about prayer and meditation. What is the difference between the two? Many people are not quite clear about it. It is always a matter of agreeing upon the meaning of terms. I should like to make the following distinction: Prayer is a preliminary step to meditation. Prayer is a matter of thinking, meditation is prayer with feeling, it engages the soul forces as compared to the thinking forces. To get to the second and further step you need a certain discipline and concentration which you learn through prayer. Most people are not used to be spiritually and mentally active, yet one cannot enter into meditation unless one has first learned the preliminary state of concentration.

10.

Male and Female Incarnations: Their Rhythms and Causes

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 10  |  August 19, 1957

It is generally difficult to understand the real meaning of the teaching that the Kingdom of God is within, just as Hell is within, too. You imagine that this refers to a mood and therefore to some unreal thing that cannot be grasped. People only take for real what they can see and touch; feeling states cannot be seen or touched.

11.

Self-Knowledge—The Great Plan—The Spirit World

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 11  |  September 03, 1957

Deep within the heart of each human being is the longing for happiness. Now what is happiness? If you ask different people, you will receive different answers. The spiritually immature, after thinking about it for some time, will say, perhaps, that if they had this or that fulfillment or a worry eliminated they would be happy.

12.

The Order and Diversity of the Spiritual Worlds—The Process of Reincarnation

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 12  |  September 17, 1957

One hears people say again and again, “If God exists, and there is indeed a divine order, how can it be that so many terrible things happen on earth?” You all know, you have all learned that human beings forge their own destinies. That you have to carry such heavy burdens is the result of breaking spiritual laws, often unconsciously. Still, this will not sufficiently explain to you events like wars, in which, through the decision of a few, many who seem innocent have to suffer a heavy fate. To this I reply: First of all, even in mass or group disasters, an individual will never need to experience anything that does not fit into his or her own destiny. Second, every person, except those very few who have already reached a higher state of purification, is also sharing the responsibility for wars and other mass disasters. Not only the politicians or those few who visibly and publicly shape world history are to be made responsible for wars, but every single person who, with impure thoughts and emotions, pollutes the cosmic “reservoir,” and this, one day, must have its effect.

13.

Positive Thinking: The Right and the Wrong Kind

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 13  |  September 27, 1957

Doubt is the opposite of faith; and faith, my friends, is in reality nothing other than the certainty of all that you may doubt now: it is the inner experience. Inner experience cannot come into existence through outer events. So we are dealing here with two entirely different levels of consciousness. To accomplish something within you, you have to prepare the inner conditions as well as the outer, by finding and conquering your inner blocks and hurdles, in short, everything that stands in your way to faith in its true meaning.

14.

The Higher Self, the Lower Self, and the Mask

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 14  |  October 11, 1957

I have promised to talk to you tonight about how we in the spirit world see the entire human personality, the complete unit. You all know that you have not only a physical body, but also various subtle bodies, each representing something different. You also know that your thoughts have definite spiritual forms, and that such forms are created not only by thoughts, but also by feelings, since a feeling is really just an “unthought thought” not yet made conscious. Although thought creates a different form than a feeling does, nevertheless, both create very definite and substantial forms. Each subtle body, as well as the physical body, has an aura: the vibration and emanation of that body. Thought-forms or feeling-forms reflect their image in the aura. These forms really do exist in the spirit. The auras, therefore, are not the images themselves, only reflections of the images. These forms create the spheres in the spirit world and, according to the intensity of the thoughts or feelings, are vague and weak, or definite, strong, and durable. In other words, all these forms fluctuate and change since everything in spirit is in perpetual motion.

16.

Spiritual Nourishment—Willpower

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 16  |  November 08, 1957

It is not surprising if a person, confronted the first time with this phenomenon—that a spirit should indeed be able to talk through a human being—cannot readily accept it. Many things are possible, however, of which you know nothing as yet. So just be open and wait. Eventually you will see that not only is this so, but much more exists than you can even dream of. You will not only be able to accept all this intellectually, but you will actually experience it! Your lives will change when you know certain truths. This will give you direction and purpose, while now you often do not know what this life is all about and why you should have to go through so much hardship, so much testing. And yet, there is a sense to all of this. So relax, untie knots, be open.

17.

The Call—Daily Review

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 17  |  November 22, 1957

There are many of you who admit God exists. God or this Higher Intelligence—or whatever you choose to call it—is of course one and the same. Yet you do not believe that it could be possible in this wonderful Creation for an entity of higher intelligence than human beings to manifest to you through a human instrument, if preparations are made and certain conditions fulfilled. This, you think, is incredible. This is something you cannot believe. But why not, my friends? Why is it so hard to believe? It is certainly not unimaginable that creatures of higher intelligence, of greater wisdom, endowed with more love than human beings should exist! If so, it should be possible to communicate with them.

18.

Free Will

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 18  |  December 06, 1957

The subject I will discuss tonight is free will. People are forever and ever debating this subject. One group claims there is no free will whatsoever: everything is fate or destiny. Another group says, more or less, that there is only free will. According to a third group, some things are determined by free will while others are not. Now which is actually true?

19.

Jesus Christ

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 19  |  December 20, 1957

Now who is Christ? Some Christian religions claim he is God. This is not so, for he himself has said, as you can read in the Holy Scriptures, that he is not God. He is not the Father, or the Creator. Some say Jesus was just a wise man, a sage, a great teacher with great wisdom, not unlike a few others who have lived at other times in other countries. This is also wrong. The truth is, my friends, whether you want to believe it now or not, that Jesus, the man, was the incarnation of the Christ. And this spirit is the highest and most exalted of all created beings. He is the first direct and inborn creation of God. His substance is the same as the substance of God. All of you possess some of this substance which I call the higher self or the divine spark; it has to come out gradually through spiritual development. But no other created being has this substance in quite the same degree as the Christ. And there is the difference.

20.

God: The Creation

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 20  |  January 01, 1958

I want to stress that there is no coincidence here; none of you have been drawn to this community by chance, not even those who come here once and do not stay because they lack either the spiritual maturity to understand what is going on, or because they do not want to develop spiritually and walk this path of perfection for which a continuous supply of spiritual food is necessary.

21.

The Fall

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 21  |  January 17, 1958

Since one of the most important divine aspects is free will or freedom of choice, this had to turn into its opposite too. The spirit who was the first to succumb to the temptation of abusing this power, the one who is sometimes referred to as Lucifer, Satan, or the Devil, who influenced others to follow him, would naturally have been the first one to inhabit the new world that came into existence. This spirit had complete power over all those who followed him, and, contrary to God, he used this power. God gives the freedom of choice and this has deeper significance than most of you realize. With that freedom necessarily comes the possibility to abuse the given power and to use it contrary to the divine laws. If no choice were available, there would be no freedom and no power. There can be no divine happiness, in fact, no divinity at all, if it cannot be attained or maintained by free choice. By the same token, the opposite of God and His laws must be the prohibition of free choice and the domination of the stronger over the weaker ones.

22.

Salvation

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 22  |  January 31, 1958

There are many ways, indeed, to test with what spirits you are communicating. Anyone who wants to judge must, under all circumstances, take the trouble to study the vast subject of how to test spirits. Only then will that person be in a position to determine from where they come. I have spoken about this subject and will do so again in the future. For the time being, I only wish to say this: If you still lack the necessary knowledge to determine with what spirits you are communicating and what laws are involved, you can ask your heart right now. You will get the answer to some extent, provided you do not let your doubts shade your feelings. If your feelings are receptive and open, you will be able to find and feel harmony, as well as love, patience, wisdom, and humility—or the opposite of all this. But your heart will only be able to speak to you and confirm what you wish to know if you are receptive, if you are open and put all prejudice aside for the moment.

23.

Questions and Answers

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 23  |  February 14, 1958

Greetings in the Name of God and Jesus Christ. I bring blessings to all of you, my friends. As I have promised, we will have tonight a question and answer session. From now on I will be ready to answer also personal questions in these general sessions, my friends, but only those of you who…

24.

Questions and Answers

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 24  |  February 28, 1958

Greetings in the name of the Lord. I bring you blessings, my friends. Again I will answer your questions tonight, instead of holding a lecture. I will resume regular lectures after most of your questions have been answered. It is a very good sign if my little group has questions, for this is proof that…

25.

The Path: Initial Steps, Preparation, and Decisions

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 25  |  March 14, 2013

Everybody knows that it is important to be a decent person, not to commit so-called sins, to give love, to have faith, and to be kind to others. However, this is not enough. In the first place, knowing all this and actually being able to act on it are two different stories. You may be able by voluntary action to refrain from committing a crime such as stealing or killing, but you cannot possibly force yourself to feel that you do not want to harm anybody, ever. You may act kindly toward another, but you cannot force yourself to feel kindly. Neither can you force yourself to have love in your heart or to have real faith in God. Whatever pertains to emotions is not dependent upon your direct actions or even on your thoughts. Changing your feelings requires the slow process of self-development and self-recognition.

26.

Finding One’s Faults

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 26  |  March 28, 1958

Another great misunderstanding is the mistaken idea that to follow the path I am showing you means neglecting your life in other ways. You see, my dear friends, I can observe the forms of your thoughts and feelings. I can see your lower self that fights constantly against the right decisions, delivering all sorts of excuses and pretexts, while you remain unaware of why you have these thoughts and what is really behind them. Some of you may believe that a certain amount of time and effort for your spiritual development will take too much time away from your daily struggle for livelihood; you think you may not have enough strength left for your professional efforts and thus fear that your finances may suffer. Another may believe that not enough time remains to enjoy life, and so on. But this way of thinking is so very wrong because spiritual development in general, and this path in particular, is not an extra activity in your life that you simply add on to your other activities, thus diminishing the strength, time, effort, and zest that would otherwise be available to you for all your other duties and pleasures. Actually, it is quite the contrary, my friends.

27.

Escape Possible Also on the Path

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 27  |  April 11, 1958

Oh yes, the outer conflicts are always noticed, but you all know the outer conflict is only a reflection of the inner one. Yet people so often have the wrong attitude; in a very subtle way they think if they are trying to advance in a certain way, the outer conflict will eventually cease and they somehow expect conditions to change according to their own ideas, the preconceived ideas they have formed because of this wrong basic attitude. So you overlook the simple fact that first your ideas have to change before the vexing conditions have a chance to change too. Thus you find yourself at a certain crucial point on this path in a vicious circle: you wait for a change in your conditions, while the conditions wait for you to change your ideas.

28.

Communication with God—Daily Review

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 28  |  April 25, 1958

It is the same way with love. If love of another human being is sought with the current that is destined for the love of God, it will always leave you with a feeling of emptiness, dissatisfaction, or even frustration. So if God is not truly the basis of your life and if instead you seek worldly substitutes, the latter will never really satisfy you. However, you may certainly also feel love for and from other human beings—and indeed you should. But this love will have its proper value; it will not be your sole anchor, and you will never feel your life to be meaningless if for some reason you lose a human love as long as God has his rightful place in your heart.

29.

The Forces of Activity and Passivity—Finding God’s Will

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 29  |  May 09, 1958

There are twelve basic active forces and twelve basic passive forces or principles in the universe. According to the scheme of the “Pistis Sophia,” these forces are concentrated in the highest realm of light and conducted by respective entities; each one is a representative or a personification of one active or passive principle. They are all perfect in their own way. The whole universe is penetrated by these forces and an infinite variety and combination of them is possible. In the “Pistis Sophia” the expression “twenty-four invisibles” refers to the principles as well as to the entities. They are invisible in all spheres below the highest realm of light. But in the latter sphere, the principles or forces as well as their personified entities are visible in the form of rays or fine threads running through the atmosphere. They are noticeable not only by various colors and shades, but also by scent and tone and other qualities that are unknown to human sense-perception.

30.

Self-Will, Pride and Fear

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 30  |  May 23, 1958

In the first place, we may again clarify that there is a distinct difference between self-will and free will. To make sure that you understand it clearly in this connection, I will repeat that free will can be used for good or for bad; this is important.

31.

Shame

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 31  |  June 06, 1958

There is a right kind and a wrong kind of shame. The right kind of shame is true repentance. Without this kind of shame, there could never be an incentive for self-development. Without it, no one would ever undergo the noble fight, my friends, against one’s lower self; no one would take the path of purification if this shame did not exist within. True repentance is therefore constructive and very positive. But there is also shame of the wrong kind. Human beings so often confuse the two kinds of shame that now I want to devote some of our time together to this subject.

32.

Decision Making

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 32  |  June 20, 1958

“All things work together for the good for those who love God.” Let us examine this statement of the Scriptures to find its deeper meaning. The words, “those who love God” do not mean merely that you believe in God or that you profess to love Him or that you recite some prayers. As you know, the true love of God means to work spiritually, to develop, and to get to know Divine Law in all its psychological aspects as they pertain to you personally. You have to get to know yourself so thoroughly that not only are your deeds, your words, and your thoughts in conformity with spiritual law, but also your emotions. You must come to love God in your emotions. To achieve that is, of course, a lengthy process.

33.

Occupation With Self–Right and Wrong Faith

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 33  |  July 11, 1958

Many good, kind and even spiritual people say, when hearing these lectures, that it is not good to think so much about the self. They feel it would be better to think more about other people. They say, occupation with the self leads to selfishness. Of course, it depends entirely on how the occupation with the self is done or in what way one thinks about other people. It is wrong to think about yourself in a destructive way filled with self-pity, complaining about your fate, and brooding unproductively about things you may have missed in life and about things you cannot control and therefore cannot change. Whoever leans toward this sort of preoccupation should not only heed the advice of shifting the emphasis from the self to others, but should also learn to channel the self-occupation into a different direction, namely a productive one.

34.

Preparation for Reincarnation

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 34  |  July 25, 1958

As promised, I shall speak tonight about the process of birth. I have received permission to do so from higher authority. My dear friends, let me first tell you that whatever I will say can only explain a very small and limited part of this extremely complicated procedure for which the human understanding cannot possibly be adequate. So please understand that my words can only give you a rough outline. They have to be squeezed into the limitations of human language and understanding.

35.

Turning to God

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 35  |  August 29, 1958

Many people seek God in the wrong way. I will try to explain what I mean. On this earth sphere there is a considerable amount of disappointment. Sometimes human beings turn to God only because contact with other human beings proves to be unsatisfactory. Perhaps not enough love is forthcoming; perhaps fear and caution cloud the expression of the innermost divine spark. Contact with other human beings can be experienced as hazardous, not bringing the blessings you seek. You may be hurt. The person in frustration often turns to God. The feeling is, “God will not disappoint me. God has enough love. God is far away and intangible: I risk nothing by loving Him. From human beings I experience only disappointment and hurt.”

36.

Prayer

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 36  |  September 12, 1958

Now what is prayer? Many people have no questions about it; they just take it for granted. Many others cannot understand prayer. They say—in their own way and not without logic—why should God grant a human being help or grace simply in response to prayer? Why should someone else who works but fails to pray not receive it? This argument seems, at first sight, logical. But the simple fact is that a person who does not pray will never be able to act or experience fulfillment like the person who has learned what proper prayer is and practices it. I will now try to explain this to you.

37.

Acceptance, Right and Wrong Way—Dignity in Humility

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 37  |  September 26, 1958

What is a wholehearted decision for God? It always involves giving up something. It may mean letting go of an opinion, a desire, perhaps a way of life. Yet in reality you do not give up anything, but the act of “giving up,” which is how this surrender appears to you, must be carried out. Only after you have proven your willingness and taken this step will you find that you actually receive much more than you have given up: you find that you have given up nothing! This paradox is veiled in a cloud of unknowing, which automatically disappears when a person has proven the willingness to sacrifice something important for God.

38.

Images

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 38  |  October 24, 1958

My dear friends, it is important to realize that over the course of a lifetime, usually even in earliest childhood or infancy, every personality forms certain impressions due to environmental influences or to sudden, unexpected experiences. These impressions or attitudes usually take the form of conclusions in the mind of the person. Most of the time these conclusions are wrong. You see and experience something unfortunate, one of the unavoidable hardships of life, and you then make generalizations from them. These generalizations later establish themselves as preconceived ideas.
The conclusions are not thought out; rather they are emotional reactions, general attitudes toward life. They are not completely devoid of a certain logic, albeit limited and erroneous. As the years go by, these conclusions and attitudes sink more and more into the unconscious. From there, they mold the life of every person to some extent. We call each such conclusion an “image,” since we spirits see the whole thought process as a spiritual form—or image.

39.

Image-Finding

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 39  |  November 11, 1958

I promised you that tonight I would continue my discussion of image-finding. A few facts are important for pursuing a diligent search. What I say here will not mean very much to those who still feel reluctant about embarking on this path and who merely listen to these words. Perhaps they will gain a little more understanding of the Pathwork principles. These glimpses may eventually open the door for the active, personal search so necessary for complete purification, to voluntarily step across the threshold from the darkness into the light. I beg any of you who has not started yet, but is willing, to ask one of the people of the inner group to work with you, for it cannot be done alone. Arrangements will be made; guidance will come. Anyone truly desirous of spiritual growth will find help; of that you can be sure.

40.

More on Image-Finding: A Summary

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 40  |  November 21, 1958

In the two previous lectures I started to indicate how the images can be found. This cannot be an easy process, for what dwells in the unconscious is hidden from conscious awareness. I have given you methods to bring these unconscious images to the surface. This, my friends, is the only way to control your life to some extent.

41.

Images: The Damage They Do

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 41  |  December 05, 1958

I am continuing this series about the images in the human soul, for there is no person who does not have them. Such inner impressions are formed in young years, and from those impressions wrong conclusions were drawn. These very images are responsible for your suffering, for the phantoms you carry about decade after decade, and often incarnation after incarnation.

42.

Christmas Blessings—Objectivity and Subjectivity

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 42  |  December 19, 1958

There is a right and proper kind of self-love. Cowardice is nothing but self-pampering, self-pitying self-concern. Courage ascribes as much importance to a cause, to an issue, or to another person as to the self. Therefore courage and love, in the last analysis, are inseparable. Think about that, my dear ones. You will not only better understand Christ’s life and death, but you will also be able to better understand and evaluate yourself, which means that you will be more successful in the process of purification. In the light of the work you have done so far, it should not be difficult for you to see where you are courageous and where you lack courage. And where you do lack courage, you will always find that you must lack love as well.

43.

Three Basic Personality Types: Reason, Will, Emotion

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 43  |  January 02, 1959

There are three basic types of human personality. The first type governs his or her life and reactions mainly with reason. The second type does so mainly with emotion, and the third does so with the will. In other words, the three personality types are dominated by reason, by emotion, and by will. In your self-search it will be useful for you to find out which type you are. A personality is never completely one-sided; every person is a mixture of types, but one is always predominant. In some cases, the predominance is obvious; in others, the mixture is more complicated, and therefore the predominant type is more difficult to detect.

44.

The Forces of Love, Eros, and Sex

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 44  |  January 16, 1959

The erotic force is one of the most potent forces in existence and has tremendous momentum and impact. It is supposed to serve as the bridge between sex and love, yet it rarely does. In a spiritually highly developed person, the erotic force carries the entity from the erotic experience, which in itself is of short duration, into the permanent state of pure love. However, even the strong momentum of the erotic force carries the soul just so far and no farther. It is bound to dissolve if the personality does not learn to love, by cultivating all the qualities and requirements necessary for true love. Only when love has been learned does the spark of the erotic force remain alive. By itself, without love, the erotic force burns itself out. This of course is the trouble with marriage. Since most people are incapable of pure love, they are also incapable of attaining ideal marriage.

45.

The Conflict Between Conscious and Unconscious Desires

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 45  |  January 30, 1959

Your unconscious desires often deviate from your conscious ones. I think you all understand by now that this is one of the main reasons for your conflicts and frustrations. You often create similar conflicts and unfulfillments, while ignoring their full significance. The fact is that your conscious desires and aims that guide your actions are in accord with the goals of your higher self, but simultaneously lower and selfish aims are also present in your motivation. These lower aims find justification in the higher aims, which serve very well to hide their existence. It is very important to find this fact out, my dear friends. Although your actions are worthy and good as such, although the high and noble motives truly exist in you, they lose their splendor if you cannot see the lower motives coexisting with the higher ones in the very same goal. Even long before you can purify yourself to such an extent that these selfish, proud, vain, and fearful motives cease to exist in you, the fact that you simply recognize their existence purifies you to a considerable degree and therefore also purifies your right action.

46.

Authority

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 46  |  February 13, 1959

Authority is the very first conflict for a growing child when it reaches a certain degree of consciousness. Elders, parents or parent-substitutes, and later on teachers represent authority for the child. This authority denies the child many a wish fulfillment. Therefore, authority seems hostile. No matter how much love, warmth and affection a child is given, no matter how necessary the prohibition is at times, it represents the first hurdle of life. The child’s attitude toward authority is carried over into adult life. The often unconscious reactions to authority indicate whether this hurdle has become a stepping stone toward maturity or not. If the grown person can adjust to authority maturely and freely, another milestone has been reached in the overall development of the soul.

47.

The Wall Within

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 47  |  February 27, 1959

The more you learn self-honesty, the deeper can the truth penetrate into the core of the soul. But it takes a lot of doing before the core is reached. Wherever the conscious emotions, opinions, thoughts, conclusions, and desires are separated from those which are unconscious, we can see a wall in the human soul. You all know that thoughts and feelings create forms of subtle matter which are of a substance every bit as real as your material substance. So this wall is a reality and, alas, often a greater reality than your matter. For your matter is much easier to destroy than some of these walls. This side of the wall is what you face and know. Behind the wall you store all that which is unpleasant to face. You store not only your faults and weaknesses, but also all things that confuse and frighten you. Due to an unconscious wrong conclusion, you continue to fear all that is locked behind the wall and prevent yourself from facing it.

48.

The Life Force in the Universe

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 48  |  March 13, 1959

An inanimate object is petrified life force. A beautiful idea, a truth, is flowing life force. Life force is eternal and therefore all life is eternal. Death is but an illusion. An inanimate object you call dead is only so temporarily. All life, in whatever way it manifests, must exist eternally, for non-eternal life is no life and therefore a meaningless contradiction. The life force contains all divine attributes. It is, it has not come into existence, it does not do, it does not work or have. It simply is. Try to understand the significance and the distinction of these words. Life force is all around you and within you.

49.

Obstacles on the Path: Old Stuff, Wrong Guilt, and Who, Me?

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 49  |  April 10, 1959

Identifying and analyzing your images and wrong conclusions will lead you finally to the recognition of their common denominator: The constructive attitude is: “In my ignorance I believe—perhaps unconsciously so far—that selfishness will bring me reward, will protect me from hurt. In what way have I been selfish? In what way has my conclusion been wrong from this viewpoint? What is the right conclusion?” If you will consider your inner problems from this angle—after you have found hitherto hidden emotions, reactions, and tendencies—you will be able to make a change in your personality that will eventually change your life.

50.

The Vicious Circle

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 50  |  April 24, 1959

Tonight I shall discuss one of the vicious circles that is very common among human beings. To some degree it operates in every human soul. Most of the time it lives in the subconscious, although some parts of this circle may be conscious. It is important in this work that you follow the circle until you uncover it in its entirety, for otherwise you cannot dissolve it. My words are not addressed so much to your conscious mind, to your intellect, but to the level of your emotions where this vicious circle exists.

51.

Importance of Forming Independent Opinions

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 51  |  May 08, 1959

These obstacles arise from the blindness in which you are encased and from your lack of understanding of the blindness of others. The blindness of others hurts you, and in your own blindness you are unaware of how much and how often you hurt the other person. If you can keep this mutual blindness in mind, my dear ones, it will constitute the basic steppingstone for proceeding further.

52.

The God-Image

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 52  |  June 05, 1959

Children experience their first conflict with authority at an early age. I have talked at length about this. They also learn that God is the highest authority. Therefore it is not surprising that children project their subjective experiences with authority on their imaginings about God. An image is formed, and whatever the child’s, and later the adult’s, relationship to authority is, his or her attitude toward God will, most probably, be colored and influenced by it.

53.

Self-Love

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 53  |  June 19, 1959

Tonight I should like to discuss the subject of self-love. You all know — I have said it again and again — that each truth can be distorted into an untruth. This is, perhaps, the most powerful weapon of evil. Complete untruth is not dangerous. But when something that may be true in some circumstances is misapplied in others, distorted and rigidly set up as an inflexible rule, that is the danger of evil. The truth and meaning of any concept or idea can be distorted to the extreme point of nullification.

54.

Questions and Answers

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 54  |  March 27, 1959

QUESTION: The first is from someone who is not here. It concerns the Holy Ghost. It reads: May I ask the cosmic sense and the human meaning attributed to the power of the Holy Ghost? In some religions and philosophies the Holy Ghost is considered as a future leader and messenger to humanity. In our life and work can we or should we be so devoted to and helped by the Holy Ghost as we are supposed to be devoted to and helped by Jesus?

55.

Three Cosmic Principles: The Expanding, the Restricting, and the Static Principles

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 55  |  September 11, 1959

It is appropriate that we start the new season with a subject that deals with three cosmic principles existing in the entire universe. They are the expanding, the restricting, and the static principles. They manifest in nature; they govern and influence everything that has ever been created and ever will be created. There is no branch of human science where these principles cannot be found. They penetrate and form the human soul as well. In other words, they exist on all levels and in all forms, from the most subtle to the coarsest. They exist in their pure form as well as in deviation and distortion.

56.

Capacity to Wish—Health and Unhealthy Motives in Desire

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 56  |  September 25, 1959

First of all, let us determine the difference between the healthy and unhealthy motives in desires. We will not concern ourselves with the motives of desires which are obviously unhealthy because they are destructive. Instead, we will delve into the deeper regions of the mind and soul where the deviations are very subtle and unobtrusive.

57.

The Mass Image of Self-Importance

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 57  |  October 09, 1959

Such a universal mass image is the following: “If I receive attention or approval or admiration, all my worth is established not only in the eyes of the world but in my own eyes. If I cannot get it, then I am inferior.” Needless to say that this is a wrong conclusion and not a conscious thought, but an unconscious emotional attitude. None of you will fail to verify this emotion within yourself.

58.

The Desire for Happiness and the Desire for Unhappiness

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 58  |  February 05, 1960

The desire for happiness is already in existence when the human entity is born. It exists in the small infant. The infant’s idea of happiness is fulfillment of all its desires instantly and in exactly the way it wants it. Regardless of how adult a person may be, a remnant of this infant remains with him for the rest of his life.

60.

The Abyss of Illusion—Freedom and Self-Responsibility

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 60  |  March 04, 1960

At times I have described the path you are taking by depicting landscapes as you know them on earth. There are shrubs and thickets, narrow ledges and cliffs. At times the going is rough and tedious, the way steep and stony. At other times you find yourselves on a meadow of rest and light until you are ready to tackle the next hurdle. All this is not merely symbolic. These forms truly exist. They are the product of your inner attitudes and convictions, thoughts and emotions. Many of these create obstacles through which you have to grope your way.

61.

Questions and Answers

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 61  |  March 18, 1960

QUESTION: Is the total number of spirits incarnated and discarnated finite, and if so, does that number remain constant or are there additions and subtractions?

62.

Man and Woman

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 62  |  April 01, 1960

The original spirit as first created was male and female in one. When the development of all the fallen beings will have been completed, male and female shall be one again. As one of the byproducts of the Fall, the original being separated and split. I have stated this before at various times. The lower the development of the entities that have been involved in the fall, the more the original being is now split into a greater number of separate parts. The development of humanity has reached a stage where the split is twofold. It manifests in the existence of the two sexes: man and woman.

63.

Questions and Answers

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 63  |  April 15, 1960

QUESTION: I would like to ask something about self-responsibility. Would not self-responsibility lead to irresponsibility toward others? If I am responsible for just myself, how then am I my brother’s keeper? Wouldn’t it lead to selfishness, being responsible only for my own life and well-being? I would look for that which is best and most suitable for me first, and only then consider the other person. Although I would give the other equal rights, I would consider myself first.

64.

Outer Will and Inner Will—Misconception About Selfishness

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 64  |  April 29, 1960

Tonight we will discuss willpower. One often hears that with the proper application of willpower practically anything can be achieved. Yet you all have had the experience that you wish very much for something, but in vain. This is due not only to unconscious contrary will-currents that divide your will, but also to something that is vastly overlooked. It is the fact that two different kinds of will exist: the inner will and the outer will. This is very important for you to understand.

65.

Questions and Answers

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 65  |  May 13, 1960

QUESTION: I have two questions in connection with the last lecture. The first is: I understood that the inner will you spoke of stems from the super-conscious. It was not clear to me whether the outer will then comes from a combination of the conscious and the subconscious?

66.

Shame of the Higher Self

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 66  |  May 27, 1960

Strangely enough, people are just as ashamed of their faculties of love, humility, generosity — the very best they have to offer — as they are of the small, selfish and ungiving part of their nature. Let us consider what causes this inner tragedy, this senseless struggle. One main factor is responsible, which varies in extent, detail and manifestation with every individual.

67.

Questions and Answers

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 67  |  June 10, 1960

QUESTION: In the last lecture you said in connection with raised consciousness that we will no longer be frightened of bad people. But how can I not be frightened of murders, hold-ups, and all such doings? This is still reality. We still feel the effect of all this.

68.

Suppression of Positive and Creative Tendencies—Thought Processes

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 68  |  June 24, 1960

You may think it makes no sense to suppress positive aspects since only the negative is unpleasant to face and therefore only that needs to be suppressed. But this is not so. Just as frequently as you suppress the more unpleasant, you also suppress the most creative, the most constructive aspects in you, those that would lead you to personal growth as befits your individual personality.

69.

The Folly of Watching for Results While on the Path; Fulfillment or suppression of the Valid Desire to Be Loved

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 69  |  September 16, 1960

First of all, I should like to discuss a subject about which a few of my friends are quite confused, namely the results that your work on this path are supposed to bring. Many of my friends consciously believe or vaguely feel that when they have worked on themselves for a few months or years, no difficulties or life problems would come to them any longer. This is completely unrealistic. It just is not so. True, certain outer manifestations of your inner problems might be alleviated to some degree. It is erroneous, however, to measure your progress by whether or not life’s ups and downs continue to manifest for you.

70.

Questions and Answers

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 70  |  September 30, 1960

QUESTION: In your answer to my question after the last lecture, about the right way toward the love we all desire, you described the work process of realizing, observing, and finally abandoning the wrong way in order to clear the path for the right way. You ended with the sentence: “Then you are on the road upward.” I would now like to ask you to describe that road upward, the right way, the healthy approach that should follow the work of letting go of the compulsive wrong way.

71.

Reality and Illusion—Concentration Exercises

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 71  |  October 14, 1960

By becoming aware of the unreality within yourself — that is, by seeing how untrue your concepts have been and perhaps still are — you may glean a momentary recognition of reality, of its totally different quality and steadfast character.

72.

The Fear of Loving

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 72  |  October 28, 1960

We now know that those who cannot love are immature. Immaturity causes unreality. Unreality, being untrue, must perforce, cause unhappiness and conflict, darkness and ignorance. Thus, maturity is really the ability to love. We also discussed that the child in you requires an unlimited amount of love. The child is as unreasonable, as void of understanding, as demanding and one-sided as all immature creatures are. Its impossible wants are: to be loved by all, to be loved totally, to have every wish gratified instantly, and to be loved in spite of its unreasonableness and selfishness. This is why you are afraid of loving.

73.

Compulsion to Recreate and Overcome Childhood Hurts

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 73  |  November 11, 1960

Since children so seldom receive sufficient mature love and warmth, they continue to hunger for it throughout life unless this lack and hurt is recognized and properly dealt with. If not, as adults they will go through life unconsciously crying out for what they missed in childhood. This will make them incapable of loving maturely. You can see how this condition continues from generation to generation.

74.

Confusions and Hazy Motivations

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 74  |  November 25, 1960

I cannot emphasize too strongly that you need first to find out exactly what the confusion is. Whenever something bothers you, be it merely a mood, an unpleasant inner reaction, or an actual outer happening apparently caused by other people, try to find out how you are confused; how your thoughts are muddled; how you are not clear about an idea, a supposedly right reaction, about a principle of general conduct. Ascertain if there is a contradiction of right principles. Put this confusion down concisely, in writing: “I am confused because I do not know…” whatever it may be. Break it down into several questions. The more concise your questions are, the more aware you will become of exactly what your confusion is.

75.

The Great Transition in Human Development from Isolation to Union

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 75  |  December 09, 1960

Now comes a third major phase on this path. For those of you who have already gained an overall understanding about your inner problems, it will become necessary to now evaluate your hidden images and complexes with a focus on your faults that are embedded in them. You may rediscover the very same faults you had found at the very beginning of your work and which you thought you had overcome, or perhaps variations of them, deeply hidden within your innermost conflicts

77.

Self-Confidence: Its True Origin and What Prohibits It

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 77  |  January 06, 1961

The subject tonight will be self-confidence. What is self-confidence? When your real being, your real self, your intuitive nature manifests, there is no uncertainty in you, no doubt about your right reaction or action, and no wavering. Your instant and spontaneous reaction is of such a nature that you know deep down, “This is right, this is so.”

79.

Questions and Answers

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 79  |  February 03, 1961

QUESTION: What is the meaning of the Way of the Cross, its principles and its course of actions? How is it comparable to the Eastern concept, the one that follows the Buddha?

80.

Cooperation, Communication, Union

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 80  |  February 17, 1961

I will, however, discuss two preliminary stages in the evolution toward union. These two stages do exist on your plane of existence and consciousness. They are, at the lower level, cooperation, and, at a higher level, communication. No living creature can exist without cooperation and communication. Even on the material level humanity could not survive without them. Food, drink, shelter — all that you need for your physical survival — depend on cooperation and communication,

81.

Conflicts in the World of Duality

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 81  |  March 03, 1961

Having to choose between everyday alternatives that confront you often generates confusion. These alternatives are not crassly “good” or “bad”; they both stem from the same basic struggle in the human soul.

82.

The Conquest of Duality Symbolized in the Life and Death of Jesus

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 82  |  March 31, 1961

A spiritual teaching, often misunderstood, says that one must rise above pleasure and pain. This is of course true in the ultimate sense. However, it cannot come about by flight from the unpleasantness of the duality. Instead, the transcendence of pleasure and pain happens only by accepting and fully facing the duality: life and death. Those who misunderstand the meaning of rising above pleasure and pain do so because they wish to avoid rather than go through those deep experiences.

83.

The Idealized Self-Image

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 83  |  April 14, 1961

I have occasionally used the term mask self in the past. The mask self and the idealized self-image are really one and the same. The idealized self masks the real self.

84.

Love, Power, Serenity as Divine Attribute and as Distortions

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 84  |  April 28, 1961

The attitudes of submissiveness, aggressiveness, and withdrawal are the distortions of love, power, and serenity. I would now like to speak in detail about how they work in the psyche, how they form a supposed solution, and how the dominant attitude creates dogmatic, rigid standards that are then incorporated in the idealized self-image.

85.

Distortions of the Instincts of Self-Preservation and Procreation

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 85  |  May 12, 1961

The instinct of survival — or self-preservation — aims at gaining, maintaining, and improving life. By its very nature it works against anything that destroys or endangers life. Just as the body needs health to live, so the soul needs health to live most constructively. In order to live, one needs to be safe from destruction and damage.

86.

The Instincts of Self-Preservation and Procreation in Conflict

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 86  |  May 26, 1961

Growth, development, maturity and the healing of distorted soul forces lie in eliminating the pseudo-solution and replacing it with truth, which is always flexible and knows no rules. It alone can provide true security, although the personality going through the process feels acute insecurity and anxiety when called upon to give up the pseudo-solutions.

87.

The Next Phase on the Path: Questions and Answers

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 87  |  June 09, 1961

Some of you have wondered why at the beginning my talks were of a more spiritual nature, while lately the emphasis has been more psychological. Although you all realize by now that true spiritual development cannot occur without clearing up distorted emotions, your knowledge is still largely theoretical and not yet conducive to a true understanding.

88.

Religion: True and False

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 88  |  September 15, 1961

Obedience to authority has been encouraged by exponents of religion under the half-true and only partly valid argument that humanity was too much enslaved by its passions to be let free. Therefore obedience had to be stressed in order to protect society.

89.

Emotional Growth and Its Function

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 89  |  September 29, 1961

But why is the emotional nature generally neglected? There are good reasons for that, my friends. To gain more clarity, let us first understand the function of the emotional nature in human beings. It includes, first of all, the capacity to feel. The capacity to experience feeling is synonymous with the capacity to give and receive happiness. To the degree you shy away from any kind of emotional experience, to that extent you also close the door to the experience of happiness.

90.

Moralizing—Disproportionate Reactions—Needs

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 90  |  October 13, 1961

Once you stop repressing your emotions, you will find not only definite individual negative emotions, such as hostility, resentment, aggressiveness, and envy, but also certain psychological conditions. It is important to recognize their existence and their significance. Are they real? Are they mature? When you ask these questions, you will understand how they breed the negative emotions about which, consciously or unconsciously, you feel so guilty.

91.

Questions and Answers

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 91  |  October 27, 1961

QUESTION: In a previous lecture about emotional growth and its function, a question was asked as to how to handle very wild emotions at a time when one has no helper available. But what does one do if the emotions are so deep-seated, so deeply buried and repressed, for such a long time, that they simply will not come out to the degree one would like?

93.

The Link Between the Main Image, Repressed Needs, and Defenses

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 93  |  November 24, 1961

The child in you resists growth, desires to remain immature, and is burdened with unworkable wrong conclusions and destructive defense mechanisms. Without the pseudo-solutions and defenses, a part of you believes itself lost and endangered. To let go of that which seems to you the very protection you seek causes the psyche to resist. Yet such states of struggle are not due entirely to the resistance to growth and change and to the fear of letting go of familiar, although defective, behavior patterns.

94.

Sin and Neurosis—Unifying the Inner Split

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 94  |  December 08, 1961

Now let us try to determine the difference between your genuine, true self and the superficial self. Whenever you act out of your real self, you are in complete unity with yourself. There is no doubt, no confusion, no anxiety, and no tension. You are not concerned with the appearance of your act in the eyes of others, or about principles or rules. You are concerned with the effect of your action on others and on yourself and with its consequences; and you choose this particular alternative because, even though you recognize its imperfections, it still seems better to you than another alternative. It corresponds to your innermost nature. This does not apply, of course, to destructive actions of a crass nature.

95.

Self-Alienation and the Way Back to the Real Self

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 95  |  January 05, 1962

Let us first understand the human struggle as such. The very state of being human is a problem because you find yourself in an in-between state. You have awakened from a lower state, a plant or animal form where you were in a state of being and in harmony, but without awareness. You have not yet reached a state of being in harmony with awareness. This in-between state is the human struggle, . . .

96.

Questions and Answers and Additional Comments on Laziness as Symptom of Self-Alienation

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 96  |  January 19, 1962

We discussed some of the symptoms of self-alienation such as: not relating to yourself and to others as you and they are in your true selves; not experiencing yourself in your true strength; not identifying with yourself and your deep inner reality but instead with the superimposed layers of your personality; relying on public opinion rather than on your own convictions, on pseudo-solutions and defense-mechanisms that you have laboriously built up over the course of years.

98.

Wishful Daydreams

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 98  |  February 16, 1962

From our vantage point, we see you barricading yourselves behind a wall of separateness. This wall is a useless and illusory form of self-protection. In the last analysis it is simply a barricade against happiness and freedom. So, my friends, realize for all time that the goal of dissolving your obstructions is to enable you to enter the great flow of the eternal current. The ultimate reason for living is to make your life meaningful, but without being merged into this current this cannot happen.

99.

Falsified Impressions of Parents: Their Cause and Cure

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 99  |  March 02, 1962

Once again, let us talk about love. Let us remember that anyone without love is withering away. The love you receive is not the most important, you need the love force in your heart; it is your spiritual life-blood. This is the driving force — in a good and healthy sense — that gives meaning to life. Without the love-capacity your life will be empty, meaningless, shallow.

100.

Meeting the Pain of Destructive Patterns

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 100  |  March 16, 1962

First, let us briefly recapitulate. To begin with, the child suffers from imperfections in the parents’ love and affection. It also suffers from not being fully accepted in its own individuality. By this I mean the common practice of treating a child as a child, rather than as a particular individual. You suffer from this, although you may never be aware of it in these terms or in exact thoughts. This may leave as much of a scar as the lack of love or attention. It causes as much frustration as the lack of love, or even cruelty.

101.

The Defense

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 101  |  April 13, 1962

When you are on the defensive, you are frightened; you feel threatened and endangered. There certainly are realistic dangers, and the human system is equipped to deal with them. If an actual attack is made on you, all your faculties will withdraw from their usual preoccupations and will be directed to and concentrated on this one danger. In order to deal with an urgent issue at the moment, you need all your faculties to focus on that one point.

102.

The Seven Cardinal Sins

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 102  |  April 27, 1962

The first cardinal sin is PRIDE. I have discussed this in the past.* You all know its origin, reason, effects, and side effects. Briefly: pride is always a compensation for feelings of inferiority and inadequacy. That the effects of your pride must lead to separateness is self-explanatory.

103.

Harm of too Much Love Giving—Constructive and Destructive Will Forces

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 103  |  May 11, 1962

You have learned that it is very harmful to force yourself to feel love when you do not experience it. In such a case, the wrong kinds of will and love are used and therefore a negative result is produced. Yet you also know that if you do not give love, you cannot receive it. Therefore, consciously or unconsciously, you try to force it. You use your will to produce a feeling that as yet does not exist in you.

106.

Sadness Versus Depression—Relationship

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 106  |  September 14, 1962

Let us first define the difference. In sadness you accept without self-pity a painful fact of life as something beyond your power to change. When you are truly sad, without depression, you not only feel it as a healthy growing pain free of hopelessness, but you are sad due to an outer circumstance, knowing it is going to pass. There is no superimposition, no hiding, no shifting of emotions. In depression the outer circumstance may be the same, but your feelings of pain are, to quite an extent, due to other reasons than the outer occurrence.

107.

Three Aspects That Prevent Loving

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 107  |  October 12, 1962

Within each individual there exists a well of wisdom and love. It is a treasure deep within you which can come to the fore only as you become aware of all those aspects of yourself that bar access to the treasure. You are accustomed to look for truth, guidance, and solutions to your problems outside yourself — perhaps through wise teachings, through a helping hand. But the most reliable and realistic answers come from inside yourself. In order to tap the well, outside help is necessary, but it is valuable only if it succeeds in bring you to the inner source.

108.

Fundamental Guilt for not Loving—Obligations

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 108  |  November 09, 1962

. . . little and unjustified guilts substitute for the real guilt of withdrawal, unlovingness, and isolation. In other words, these little guilts are supposed to atone for violating the great cosmic inner forces, breaking the flow, as it were. This very deep-rooted guilt prevents you from claiming your freedom, asserting yourself, feeling that you deserve to be happy.

109.

Spiritual and Emotional Health Through Restitution for Real Guilt

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 109  |  December 07, 1962

The most difficult thing for a human being is to face the lower self, and it is in connection with the lower self that real guilt exists. You go to any length to avoid facing the lower self. Perhaps you are capable and willing to face parts of it, yet certain other parts you are absolutely unwilling to accept.

111.

Soul Substance—Coping With Demands

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 111  |  February 01, 1963

When a new child enters this earth, its soul-stuff is very malleable, very soft. Within this soul-stuff lie all the potentials — the talents, qualities, tendencies, characteristics, and also the unresolved problems. It is according to these potentials — positive, as well as negative — that the entity grows.

112.

Humanitiy’s Relationship to Time

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 112  |  March 01, 1963

Tonight I should like to discuss a new topic, humanity’s relationship to time. This is, indeed, an important subject. My words will be very helpful, if you take the trouble of pondering them and trying to apply them to yourself. What I will say may at first seem utterly inapplicable to your personal lives because of its abstract, philosophical and metaphysical nature.

113.

Identification with the Self

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 113  |  March 29, 1963

And now, my friends, I wish to discuss a topic I have not gone into before, identification with oneself, as opposed to identification with others. Last time I talked about humanity’s relationship to time. I said, in essence, that very rarely do people live in the now. They push into the future. They pull back into the past. Often these two contradictory movements happen simultaneously. In both alternatives, you strain away from the now.

114.

Struggle: Healthy and Unhealthy

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 114  |  April 26, 1963

People often say that life is difficult and painful, that it is a confusing and puzzling ordeal, that there is no meaning to it. They believe that they are separate from life, but they are not! Regardless of how your life appears, it is an exact facsimile of how you experience yourself. Your personal life, as it manifests for you, is a conglomeration of all your attitudes and traits.

115.

Perceptions, Determination, Love as Aspects of Consciousness

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 115  |  May 24, 1963

Through your work of self-search, deeper levels of understanding are opened up, so that words of truth will directly reach those inner levels — or have at least a chance of doing so. It is therefore important to discuss the same subjects from different vantage points at specific phases of your pathwork. What you have heretofore understood in a shallow way will then be more profoundly comprehended. Always use your new understanding in conjunction with proper meditation. These lectures can be regarded as meditations.

116.

Reaching the Spiritual Center—Struggle Between the Lower Self and the Superimposed Conscience

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 116  |  June 21, 1963

In this final session of the year, I would like to restate certain facets and goals of this path of self-realization. When you live unto the day without understanding the relationship between you and your life, you must be in despair. Whether or not you know it, you go through life searching for the answer. Only too often you seek the answer outside of yourself; and there, as you know, it can never be found.

117.

Shame: A Legacy of Childhood Experiences, Even Favorable Ones

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 117  |  September 20, 1963

When you pursue this path, you discover certain areas in yourself that you are ashamed to acknowledge, even to yourself. What you may be ashamed of may be faults, but not always and not necessarily. You may be as ashamed of very legitimate needs as you are of faults, or of assets, for that matter. First you are not even aware that such shames exist. It takes a considerable amount of time and effort before you become aware of those facets within yourself you are deeply ashamed to face. You cover these facets with a pretense that is the reverse of your specific shame.

118.

Duality Through Illusion—Transference

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 118  |  October 18, 1963

Many manifestations of your earth life symbolize duality because so many things appear as pairs of opposites. In philosophical thinking, humankind itself is paired — man and woman, night and day, life and death. These are but a few examples of how life on earth presents itself in two-way splits. Humankind thus expresses a twofold split that manifests in many other ways, . . . .

119.

Movement, Consciousness, Experience: Pleasure, the Essence of Life

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 119  |  November 15, 1963

A long time ago, I gave a lecture about the life force. Let us look into this again with the greater understanding you have gained. The life force is a free-flowing energy current, manifest in the entire universe. Wherever an organization fulfills certain essential conditions, it tunes into the life force. The life force permeates and revitalizes it. It lives. A living organism comes into existence.

120.

The Individual and Humanity

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 120  |  December 13, 1963

. . . . This will give you greater understanding and a wider vision of the relationship between the individual and the totality of all individuals. It will enable you to visualize that humanity as a whole is an entity, governed by the same laws as the individual who is a part of the bigger body — humankind. There are aspects within the individual that you do not fully understand and therefore cannot control, thereby destroying union, peace and integration of the personality. This also applies to humankind as a whole.

121.

Displacement, Substitution, Superimposition

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 121  |  January 10, 1964

As you know from my previous talks, each emotion, each feeling, each thought, each attitude, each need is an energy-current. There are many different types of energy, corresponding to the type of feeling or need. The integrated individual with a full rich life expresses a variety of needs and feelings — not just a few.

122.

Self-Fulfillment Through Self-Realization as Man or Woman

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 122  |  February 07, 1964

All who fulfill themselves contribute something to life. They enrich life not merely by using their vocational abilities but also through their ability to relate to other human beings and have fruitful contacts with them. As self-development proceeds, barriers fall; fear of others, and fear of oneself in connection with others vanishes, and therefore true relatedness becomes possible.

123.

Liberation and Peace by Overcoming Fear of the Unknown

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 123  |  April 03, 1964

To the degree you are unaware of what goes on within you, you will fear the passing of time and the “great unknown.” When one is young, these fears may be assuaged. But sooner or later every human being will be confronted more directly with the fear of death. I want to emphasize it again: to the degree that you know yourself, you fulfill your life, yourself, your dormant potential. And to that degree death will not be feared but experienced as an organic development. The unknown will no longer pose a threat.

124.

The Language of the Unconscious

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 124  |  May 01, 1964

Whatever is hidden from awareness continues to govern you without your being able, through your reason, to change it. Hence it is of utmost importance to detect such hidden erroneous outlooks.

126.

Contact with the Life Force

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 126  |  June 26, 1964

Let us recapitulate certain aspects of the life force. The life force is profoundly intelligent. Its intelligence is always available, always present and ready to be applied not only to great, important issues; this super-intelligence “deigns” to express itself . . .

128.

Limitations Created Through Illusory Alternatives

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 128  |  October 30, 1964

Imagine wide open spaces, containing all the beauty of the world, all that an individual could possibly require for his or her enjoyment. But people do not see these wide open spaces. They do not see the powers, forces, assets, beauties surrounding them.

129.

Winner Versus Loser: Interplay Between the Self and Creative Forces

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 129  |  November 27, 1964

When two people involved in a relationship have adopted opposing choices, the relationship must be fraught with friction to the point of hopelessness. Each resents in the other what he or she fears and fights in himself. The “winner” fears impulses of genuine affection as much as fearing weakness and desire for dependency. The loser fears . . .

130.

Finding True Abundance by Going Through Your Fear

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 130  |  January 08, 1965

There are two philosophies about life and spiritual reality which seem completely contradictory. One says that the spiritually and emotionally mature person has to learn to accept the difficulties in life. In order to cope with life, people have to accept what they cannot immediately change, what is beyond their direct sphere of influence.

131.

Interaction Between Expression and Impression

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 131  |  February 05, 1965

We have, in our pathwork, two fundamental approaches, both of which are necessary. One is finding, expressing, and emptying out what is within you, so that it can be reexamined as to its truthfulness and reality. The second is impressing, molding and directing the powers within yourself, so as to create favorable, or more variable, circumstances.

132.

The Function of the Ego in Relationship to the Real Self

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 132  |  March 19, 1965

First I wish to discuss how the inner self differs from the outer self, or the real self from the ego. What is their relationship to each other? There are many confusing theories about the function of the ego. According to some the ego is essentially negative and undesirable and the spiritual goal is to get rid of it. Other theories,

134.

The Concept of Evil

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 134  |  May 28, 1965

Numbness and insensitivity toward one’s own pain in turn means equal numbness and insensitivity toward others. When examining one’s reactions closely, one might often observe that the first spontaneous reaction to others is a feeling for and with them, a compassion or empathy, a participation of the soul. But

136.

The Illusory Fear of the Self

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 136  |  October 01, 1965

The fear of the self is the basic fear behind the fear of life and even the fear of death. Neither could the fear of others possibly exist without the fear of oneself. A number of my friends are now approaching the point where the “big lie” of the mask and the pretense must be given up. A battle rages in the face of this decision. It is exceedingly important now to discuss where your fear of self comes from and what it does to you if it is coddled instead of overcome.

137.

Balance of Inner and Outer Control

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 137  |  October 29, 1965

The separation from the center is the wall of not knowing that this inner center of wisdom, love and power exists. You therefore do not seek contact with it, hence more confusion, error and ignorance arise. The less aware you are of this inner center, the greater your separation from it will be.

139.

Deadening of the Live Center Through Misinterpretation of Reality

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 139  |  January 07, 1966

Whenever you find yourself in a situation that is not desirable, that leaves you unfulfilled in any way, your usually vague discontent causes you to strive for another situation. A clear-cut goal-directedness and precise concept of a better way of life can succeed only when the present situation, with its lack, is totally understood. Striving toward a different situation when the present situation is not fully understood must result in failure and frustration.

140.

Conflict of Positive Versus Negative Oriented Pleasure as the Origin of Pain

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 140  |  February 04, 1966

The principle I explain here holds true on all levels. It is indeed ascertainable on the physical level. The physical system, like all other systems or planes, also strives toward wholeness and health. When a disturbing force pulls in an opposite direction, the pull of the two directions creates the pain. You can tell that this is what actually causes the pain because when the struggle is given up and the individual lets go and gives in to the pain, the pain stops.

141.

Return to the Original Level of Perfection

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 141  |  March 18, 1966

Every once in a while it is important to restate what the pathwork is and what it is supposed to accomplish. It is important to always see this in a new light, from different angles. This path is not supposed to be taken as a cure, nor is it to be taken as a luxury —

143.

Unity and Duality

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 143  |  May 13, 1966

On the unified plane of consciousness there are no opposites. There is no good or bad, no right or wrong, no life or death. There is only good, only right, only life. Yet it is not the kind of good, or right, or life that comprises only one pole of the dualistic opposites.

144.

The Process and Significance of Growing

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 144  |  June 10, 1966

We were discussing the unitive and the dualistic principles. Human consciousness, perception, and experience are generally geared to the dualistic principle. This means that everything is perceived in opposites — good or bad, desirable or undesirable, life or death. As long as humanity lives in this dualism, conflict and unhappiness must persist.

145.

Responding to the Call of Life

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 145  |  September 09, 1966

Life issues a call; it makes a demand on every living individual. Most people do not sense this call. Only as you become aware of your own illusions can you simultaneously become more aware of the truth within yourself, and therefore in life.

146.

The Positive Concept of Life—Fearlessness to Love—the Balance Between Activity and Passivity

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 146  |  October 07, 1966

In the last lecture I discussed the necessity of transforming faults of character. The first step toward this transformation is always awareness of the faults. This is not easy, but not difficult either, if approached with the proper attitude. Once you are aware of your specific faults, the next step is to understand the reason for their existence, and why you cling to them.

147.

The Nature of Life and Human Nature

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 147  |  November 04, 1966

. . . life will manifest exactly as you believe and conceive of it — not one iota differently. If your life experience and your conscious concepts are at variance, this is proof that your unconscious concepts must accord with your actual life experience.

148.

Positivity and Negativity: One Energy Current

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 148  |  December 02, 1966

It is not easy to reach an awareness where you can see yourself think, feel, and act destructively; where you are furthermore aware that this causes you misery, and yet are unable and unwilling to give up this way of being. It is a great measure of success, if this word can be used, to be aware of being in this state. But to accomplish the second part of this phase of your evolution, namely the letting go of destructiveness, the nature of destructiveness must be better understood.

149.

Cosmic Pull Toward Union—Frustration

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 149  |  January 13, 1967

The life force therefore consists not only of the pull toward others, but also of pleasure supreme. Life and pleasure are one. Lack of pleasure is the distortion of the life force and comes from opposing the creative principle. Life, pleasure, contact and oneness with others are the goal of the cosmic plan.

150.

Self-Liking: The Condition for Universal State of Bliss

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 150  |  March 10, 1967

The universe is so constituted that each individual creature is capable of being in a constant state of bliss. Bliss is not just a theoretical possibility: it is humanity’s natural state of being. It is the natural law. An individual who is not in a state of bliss is in an unnatural, disturbed condition. It is important for you, my friends, to grasp and appreciate this fact.

154.

Pulsation of Consciousness

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 154  |  September 15, 1967

Let me briefly enumerate certain basic aspects about pulsation. Everything that lives must pulsate, as it must breathe and move. Therefore pulsation and breathing are interrelated. The movement of life is contained in both. The movement is involuntary and occurs in rhythmic intervals, provided the organism is healthy, harmonious and undisturbed.

155.

Fear of Self—Giving and Receiving

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 155  |  October 13, 1967

In order to become what you truly are, the fundamental prerequisite is fearlessness. Overcoming fear of self is the key. Every kind of fear amounts, in the last analysis, to fear of self; for if there were no fear of your innermost self, you could not possibly fear anything in life. In fact, you could not even fear death.

156.

Questions and Answers

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 156  |  October 27, 1967

On your path, you begin to come face to face with your images. That is, you begin to feel how you emotionally react according to them, you experience their reality, you connect with them, as opposed to before, when this was not the case. Certain emotional experiences come out from the depths of your being, but it is just the beginning.

157.

Infinite Possibilities of Experience Hindered by Emotional Dependency

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 157  |  November 10, 1967

When one speaks about God’s infinity or about Creation’s infinity, this is part of the meaning. There is no state of being, no experience, no situation, no concept, no feeling, no object that does not already exist. Everything in the world exists in a state of potentiality which already contains the finished product within it.

158.

The Ego’s Cooperation With or Obstruction of the Real Self

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 158  |  December 08, 1967

The moment you transcend dualism, two opposite and apparently mutually exclusive aspects become equally true. This applies to the ego in relation to the real self. It is true when one says the ego’s predominance, its exaggerated strength, is the greatest hindrance to productive living. And it is equally true when one says a weak ego is incapable of establishing healthy living.

159.

Life Manifestations Reflects Dualistic Illusion

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 159  |  January 12, 1968

One of the great difficulties in life is the inevitable downward curve in all growth process. Life is growth, and growth is a continuum of movement that goes in a fluctuating line. Each down brings a new up; each up must bring a new down in order to go up again. There can be no upward movement unless there is first a downward one. Thus, there can be no life unless it has gone through a form of death.

160.

Conciliation of the Inner Split

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 160  |  February 02, 1968

A very deliberate, yet relaxed attempt must be made to feel the underlying causes of the outer results in your life. All sorrow and unhappiness, all emptiness and unfulfillment, all frustration and suffering are caused by being disconnected — as you know and I so often say — from the causes within yourself.

161.

Unconscious Negativity Endangers Surrender of Ego to Involuntary Processes

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 161  |  March 15, 1968

There are various states and processes in material life which afford humans the possibility of replenishing themselves from the universal source. One of the most automatic, generally accessible of these states is sleep. Human beings who are deeply troubled are so because they are too enmeshed in their ego. Insomnia occurs precisely because the ego is too predominant and the involuntary forces of life cannot take over.

162.

Three Levels of Reality for Inner Guidance

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 162  |  April 12, 1968

A person cut off from inner reality is indeed lost. The majority of humans are almost totally cut off from their inner reality and must therefore find their way back to it. The few who have attained this connection always were and will be the spiritual leaders of humankind. Every effort on this path is aimed at reestablishing such a connection for inner guidance, for the manifestation of the inner reality.

163.

Mind Activity and Mind Receptivity

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 163  |  May 10, 1968

There are two powerful forces or attitudes in the universe and therefore in each human personality. One is the force that is striving, moving, acting, initiating, activating, doing. This aspect includes self-responsibility, independence, autonomy, free choice, and the power of the self. The other is being receptive to and waiting for whatever is to happen. This aspect includes patience, humility, the awareness of interdependence and of being a part of a whole. It has trust in the processes of the greater life. The former involves direct action, the latter means waiting for growth and indirect manifestation, which takes place in its own way and according to its own laws.

164.

Further Aspects of Polarity—Selfishness

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 164  |  June 07, 1968

It is, of course, quite true that if people were entirely in harmony with the universal forces, they would not be sick, neurotic, unhappy. But it is equally true that sickness, discontent and disharmony are an indication of health. For it is precisely your real self, your spirit being, which speaks through the unhappiness, sending the conscious ego a message that something should be different.

165.

Evolutionary Phases in the Relationship Between the Realms of Feelings, Reason, and Will

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 165  |  September 13, 1968

The function of this path is not to remove a bothersome symptom in a person’s life. This is not a treatment of sickness. Nor is the path simply a way of becoming a better person, of developing spiritually. All this happens, of course. But it must be fully understood by all of you, no matter how far you decide to follow it, that the aim of the path is the total realization of the divine kernel.

167.

Frozen Life Center Becomes Alive

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 167  |  November 08, 1968

The experience of who you are now cannot be avoided. Only by learning to do this can you come to your life center. By the very act of self-acceptance, the unwelcome emotions and attitudes gradually dissolve. Even before that happens, all strife ends when you accept yourself.

168.

Two Basic Ways of Life: Toward and Away From the Center

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 168  |  December 06, 1968

In the very center of the human personality exists a potent, white-glowing mass of energy. It is a constant fire that continually bubbles and explodes within itself. Each tiny explosion multiplies the mass expelling kernels of the same substance and energy. When this fundamental creative process is unobstructed and harmonious, the endless continuum of energy spreads and floods over with joy and well-being. The constant flow spreads and spreads and yet is contained within itself. There is no chaos in this process.

171.

Spiritual Laws

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 171  |  February 01, 1969

In the course of giving these lectures, the Guide has often referred to spiritual laws. In February 1969, Eva decided to compile some of the basic laws to give us further understanding of these very important concepts.

172.

The Life Energy Centers

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 172  |  March 28, 1969

What determines the proper function of the life force in the human being, and hence of the energy centers, can be understood only if we gain a view of the entire structure of the human personality. For this, some recapitulation is necessary. The life force is the creative force that enlivens the whole universe. It contains all life elements, all potentials, every possibility for life expression.

173.

Basic Attitudes and Practices to Open the Centers—The Right Attitude Toward Frustration

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 173  |  May 05, 1969

The opening of the centers creates a full capacity for living and feeling. Their closed state is responsible for unhappiness, negativity and lack of feelings. How closed the centers are determines exactly the degree of living in unreality and therefore in a state of strife and numbness. Joyful, fruitful, meaningful living implies a commensurate degree of openness of the centers.

174.

Self-Esteem

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 174  |  May 23, 1969

Self-esteem, self-liking, or self-value—whatever you call it—is sorely lacking in every human being who experiences feelings of uncertainty, fear, insecurity, guilt, weakness, doubt, negativity, inadequacy, and inferiority. To the degree these feelings are present, self-esteem is inevitably lacking, only this is not directly recognized. Such ignorance is all the more damaging, for you are then less capable of tackling the problem directly.

176.

Overcoming Negativity

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 176  |  October 10, 1969

Since you are human, my friends, every one of you creates negatively. Your deliberate negative attitudes and feelings, which you do not want to give up, are a creation. To believe that your unhappiness and your suffering are inflicted upon you by others or by life is utter folly.

177.

Pleasure—The Full Pulsation of Life

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 177  |  November 07, 1969

In truth, there is essentially no difference between the ultimate spiritual state of bliss and the human potential for it. Only the degree of intensity varies, for no human being is capable of the depth of experience which is possible for an unstructured, highly developed consciousness.

178.

The Universal Principle of Growth Dynamics

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 178  |  December 05, 1969

Tonight’s lecture is a sequel to all the lectures I gave this year and can be fully understood only in that context. It will deal with the topic of dynamic growth, the spontaneous unification inherent in the process of growth. All life is to some degree a growth process, either quite deliberate and committed or haphazard and unconscious, obstructed by blind opposing forces that pull toward a state of stagnation.

179.

Chain Reactions in the Dynamics of Creative Life Substance

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 179  |  January 16, 1970

In this lecture I would like to discuss a very specific chain reaction—both in its natural, unhampered, and therefore positive manifestation, and in its distortion. In its positive, natural version, the links of this chain are the following: life’s basic abundance and generosity; its overwhelming “givingness”; humanity’s similar and hence compatible attitude; self-possession; the ability to deal realistically and constructively with frustration; being true to the issue, the self, the moment.

180.

The Spiritual Significance of Human Relationship

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 180  |  March 13, 1970

I should like to say that relationship represents the greatest challenge for the individual, for it is only in relationship to others that unresolved problems still existing within the individual psyche are affected and activated. This is why many individuals withdraw from interaction with others. The illusion can sometimes be maintained that the problems arise from the other person when one feels disturbance only in his or her presence, and not when by oneself.

181.

The Meaning of the Human Struggle

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 181  |  April 10, 1970

You invariably mistake the manifestation for the root cause. You must learn laboriously, through your personal growth, to discriminate between cause and effect, reality and manifestation. This deeper, and always liberating comprehension of life, can be attained only through personal self-confrontation, never through theoretical speculation.

183.

The Spiritual Meaning of Crisis

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 183  |  June 05, 1970

Crisis in any form attempts to break down old structures based on false conclusions and therefore on negativity. Crisis shakes loose ingrained, frozen habits so that new growth becomes possible. It tears down and breaks up, which is momentarily painful, but transformation is unthinkable without it.

184.

The Meaning of Evil and Its Transcendence

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 184  |  September 11, 1970

In this dualistic approach you become split within yourself, for you reject a whole part of yourself that is the source of essential, potent creative energy without which you can never be a full human being. Your sense of awareness dims as you repress the undesirable part of yourself. The less aware you are, the weaker you become, and therefore more confused and less able to solve this, or any other problem.

185.

Mutuality: A Cosmic Principle and Law

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 185  |  October 09, 1970

Nothing can be created unless mutuality exists, be it a new galaxy, a work of art, or a good relationship between human beings. This applies even to the creation of the simplest object. To illustrate this principle, let us take this example. First the idea of the object must be formed in the mind. Without the creative inspiration and imagination by which the mind extends itself beyond its previous awareness of what already exists, not even a plan can be formed.

186.

Venture in Mutuality: Healing Force to Change Negative Inner Will

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 186  |  November 06, 1970

At the beginning of one’s path, one is aware only of what one consciously desires, wishes, wants, wills, intends, longs for. The person is convinced that their lack of fulfillment is a result of ill luck, or is someone else’s fault. It takes time and growth to experience the truth of life, that there must be something at work within the person that thwarts fulfillment.

187.

(The Way to Handle) Alternation of Expansive and Contracting States

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 187  |  December 04, 1970

Expansion takes place when a positive, open, committed, honest, loving, giving attitude exists. When the good feelings and thoughts create a corresponding attitude in life, they influence actions, behavior, responses, reactions, emanation and deeds. Such an attitude brings forth desirable experience, fulfillment, pleasure, bliss and abundance in all respects of life wherever this attitude holds true.

188.

Affecting and Being Affected

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 188  |  January 15, 1971

All human beings suffer from a basic conflict and pain; whether individuals are aware of it or not, it always exists. Again, the more aware of it you are, the better you can face and deal with it and the sooner you will resolve it. The conflict is the following: On the primitive, irrational level you hate and want to destroy senselessly, and hardly know any longer why you hate and want to destroy

190.

Importance of Experiencing All Feelings, Including Fear—The Dynamic State of Laziness

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 190  |  March 26, 1971

The capacity to own up to being fallible, human, vulnerable, irrational, wrong, needy, defenseless, weak and unhappy must by necessity increase your capacity to be strong, truly right and not self-righteous, truly independent, and fulfilled. The admission of heretofore apparently inadmissible feelings is the bridge to inner unity and fulfilling self-expression of life.

191.

Inner and Outer Experience

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 191  |  April 23, 1971

Usually, when humans hear the word “experience,” they think of outer experience. This, however, is not the meaning of the word. The real meaning is the inner experience. You know that you may experience all things outwardly, but if the inner experience is inhibited, the outer experience will mean little.

192.

Real and False Needs

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 192  |  May 21, 1971

In the course of this journey toward experiencing old feelings which had not been fully experienced before, you also came across the needs you had as a child whose unfulfillment caused most of your painful, and therefore repressed, feelings. As I said, any person not bringing his or her unconscious feeling experiences into consciousness must carry this repressed material into the next incarnation.

194.

Meditation: Its Laws and Various Approaches—A Summary (Meditation as Positive Life Creation)

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 194  |  October 22, 1971

Meditation is conscious and deliberate creating. It is one of the most dynamic and creative acts imaginable. You constantly create, whether you know it or not. You create by what you are, by what the sum total of your feelings, your conscious and unconscious opinions and convictions are, by your conceptions, which determine your actions and reactions, by your goals and attitudes.

196.

Commitment: Cause and Effect

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 196  |  December 17, 1971

You can never measure yourself against others. Where you are now may be just right for you. It may be exactly where you have to be. When you know this, you will feel bright and hopeful. Others who find themselves at the identical inner crossroads may lag behind on their personal path.

197.

Energy and Consciousness in Distortion: Evil

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 197  |  January 14, 1972

The various concepts of what evil is and where it comes from are all true, provided they do not exclude the apparently opposite approach. If you say that evil does not exist at all, on any level of being, this would be wrong. But if you state that in ultimate reality there is no evil, that is true.

198.

Transition to Positive Intentionality

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 198  |  February 11, 1972

The first step is to realize that your negative intentionality is really not unconscious in the strict sense of the word. It is not at all deeply repressed material. It is really a conscious attitude and expression, only you have chosen to ignore it, until you have finally “forgotten” that it is there.

200.

The Cosmic Feeling

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 200  |  April 21, 1972

I wish to discuss a very specific feeling, a feeling that is rarely recognized because it transcends the usual human being’s experience of feelings. Within the spectrum of human emotion there is none higher and closer to divine reality than love. The feeling I wish to discuss is beyond love. Since it is a generally very rare human experience, except to the few people who reach full self-realization, it has no name.

201.

Demagnetizing Negative Force Fields—Pain of Guilt

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 201  |  May 19, 1972

The force field of a specific attitude to life is also ruled by laws of attraction—like attracting like. Thus you who have created various force fields as a result of your attitudes, ideas, concepts, and approaches to life, attract or repulse events, people, happenings, and actions of others and also of yourself.

202.

Psychic Interaction of Negativity

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 202  |  January 01, 1970

When you are only vaguely aware of your negativity, only dimly sensing the hurt that it inflicts on others, you are caught in a battle of blame, self-justification, helplessness, self-rejection and self-doubt. You cannot help but hook others, with their own unconscious conflicts, into your negativity.

203.

Interpenetration of the Divine Light Spark into the Outer Regions—Mind Exercises

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 203  |  September 22, 1972

Creation “started”—and of course it never really started, so when I say “started,” I am again squeezing a concept into human language, a concept for which there is no other word. Try to feel this truth! Creation “started” with the divine spark. The spark may have been tiny in an immense vacuum. Yet in this tiny spark was the utmost divine reality, comprising everything that is conscious within the most powerful creative energy, the most incredible wisdom and love.

204.

What Is the Path?

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 204  |  October 20, 1972

It is essential to deal with confusions, inner misconceptions, misunderstandings, destructive attitudes, alienating defenses, negative emotions, and paralyzed feelings, all of which psychotherapy also attempts to do and even posits as its ultimate goal. In contrast, the pathwork enters its most important phase only after this first stage is over. The second and most important phase consists of learning how to activate the greater consciousness dwelling within every human soul.

206.

Desire: Creative or Destructive

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 206  |  December 15, 1972

Every attitude, every expression, every feeling creates an energy movement in your system—a specific soul movement. I spoke of this a long time ago and I will now do so more specifically. We will discuss the energy movement of wanting, wishing, desiring—its meaning, its significance in the total expression of the human personality, and its importance in the self-creating process.

207.

The Spiritual Symbolism and Significance of Sexuality

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 207  |  January 12, 1973

The sexual force is an expression of consciousness reaching for fusion. You all know that fusion, which you can also call integration, unification, or oneness is the purpose of Creation. Whatever term you use, the final aim of all split-off beings is to reunify the individualized, separated aspects of the greater consciousness with the whole.

208.

The Innate Human Capacity to Create

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 208  |  February 09, 1973

As I have often said, the sum total of all your conscious, semi-conscious, unconscious, explicit and implicit thoughts, beliefs, assumptions, intentions, feelings, emotions and will directions—conflicting as they may be—creates your present experience and the way your life unfolds for you.

209.

The Roscoe Lecture: Inspiration for the Pathwork Center

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 209  |  July 03, 1972

Human evolution travels a curve of development from acting out negativity to the next step, which is holding it back. This leads to repression. The step after repressing is making it conscious but not acting it out. Only after reaching this level of consciousness is it possible to change the energies, feelings, and creative power involved in the negative attitudes into positive attitudes.

211.

Outer Events Reflect Self-Creation—Three Stages

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 211  |  May 04, 1973

The human mind is squeezed into a narrow box, as it were—a box of misperceptions and limited perception. Only as you know yourself do you gradually gain a proper perspective and perception of life and its relation to your inner self-creation.

212.

Claiming the Total Capacity for Greatness

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 212  |  June 01, 1973

How rich and full is your life? How much are joy, peace, and abundance increasingly open to you? How much less are you afraid and reluctant to meet and expose the deepest regions of your innermost self? When you encounter inner blocks in momentary crises, how fully do you travel through them to find yourself more fully you? These questions when honestly probed, will lead you to the truth about your progress.

213.

The Spiritual and the Practical Meaning of “Let Go, Let God”

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 213  |  September 19, 1973

Letting go obviously means letting go of the limited ego with its selfwill, its narrow understanding and its preconceptions. It means letting go of fears, distrust, misconceptions, and suspicion. But it also means letting go of the insistent attitude that says, in effect, “I can be happy only if so and so does thus and thus, or if life responds exactly as I determine.”

214.

Psychic Nuclear Points

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 214  |  October 17, 1973

Creation requires the meeting of two essential principles that you, in human terminology may best be called the masculine and feminine principles. They permeate all of creation. They are the active and receptive principles. These two principles are aspects of one whole. Nothing can ever exist or be created without them coming together.

215.

Psychic Nuclear Points Continued—Process in the Now

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 215  |  November 14, 1973

Every smallest particle of creation consists of endless series of psychic nuclear spiral configurations that are intense energy movements, winding up in a climactic point which brings the particular creation into manifestation, on whatever level of reality that may be. Each of these configurations consists of a series of psychic events of consciousness content.

217.

The Phenomenon of Consciousness

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 217  |  January 09, 1974

Consciousness permeates all being, all creation, all existence—everything that is. In your dualistic realm, you speak of consciousness and energy as if they were two separate phenomena. This is incorrect. Consciousness is a creator of energy and energy must contain consciousness—various aspects of consciousness, perhaps “variations” of consciousness, as well as degrees.

218.

The Evolutionary Process

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 218  |  February 06, 1974

The topic of tonight’s lecture is the process of the evolutionary journey, for it is a journey. You begin to notice this process increasingly as you grow, through your efforts on your path, as an organic reality that communicates itself to you. It has its own laws, its own sequences, its own rhythm, its own supreme wisdom, and its own inner meaning.

219.

Christmas Message—Message to the Children

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 219  |  March 01, 1974

Here, on this path, you are learning to eliminate the obstructions and the obstacles. At this particular time, when the birth of the Christ consciousness is celebrated, we shall talk about the event as it begins to take place. Of course, my dearest friends, you do know that this does not happen at once. It happens gradually, again and again. It occurs, is lost, recurs, and so on.

220.

Reawakening from Pre-Incarnatory Anesthesia

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 220  |  April 03, 1974

In this lecture, I will again speak about the phenomenon of consciousness, particularly in connection with the evolutionary process and the meaning of individual life.
All knowledge is in you. I have often said this, but it is rarely understood. Before you are born into this life, a process of anesthesia sets in

221.

Faith and Doubt in Truth or Distortion

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 221  |  May 01, 1974

When you go deep enough and look astutely enough, you also find out that what really obstructs you is the sum total of everything that is negative and destructive in you. The mind does not want to accept this. The mind has concocted all sorts of other explanations for unhappiness.

222.

Transformation of the Lower Self

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 222  |  May 29, 1974

You may imagine what this means in terms of ever increasing joy, love, peace, security, strength, creativity, deep friendships and unity. Even these first steps of transforming work have already changed your relationships, your experiences, your community, your sense of well-being and meaningfulness in life. You are often startled by this change. It sometimes seems miraculous, yet it is merely a beginning and so much more is yet to come.

223.

The Era of the New Age and New Consciousness

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 223  |  September 25, 1974

The planet Earth is an entity of which each individual inhabiting it is a cell, not unlike the cells of your body. Each of these cells is a consciousness and energy center, just as you are a consciousness and energy center. Now the entity Earth is growing up. It is coming to an inner crossroads just as a growing person comes to an inner crossroads.

224.

Creative Emptiness

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 224  |  October 23, 1974

Most human beings create an agitated mind, an inner and outer overactivity, because they are frightened that they may be empty, that there may be nothing within to sustain them. This thought is rarely conscious, but on a path such as this the time comes when you do become conscious of this fearful thought.

226.

Approach to Self—Self-Forgiveness Without Condoning the Lower Self

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 226  |  December 18, 1974

One of your most basic fears is the fear of death. The fear of death has its origin in the confusion of dualistic thinking and perceiving. The fear itself leads to further confusion. The fear of death can be allayed by not thinking about it, but nevertheless it lurks in the soul until the personality has completely fused with divine reality.

228.

Balance

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 228  |  February 12, 1975

This lecture is about balance. Balance is what keeps the universe intact. If there were no balance, no balancing consciousness, no balancing law, everything would disintegrate.

229.

Woman and Man in the New Age

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 229  |  March 01, 1975

As the planet is maturing, so are men and women. What does this really mean? How have woman and man evolved and where are they going? What is the ultimate realization of womanhood—and of manhood? Woman is coming into her own in this phase of history; she is coming out of her confinement.

230.

The Universality of Change—Reincarnative Process in the Same Life Span

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 230  |  April 09, 1975

What is the seedplan? It is truly allowing Divine Substance to infiltrate all that is. And that substance is never static. It contains limitless possibilities for being, expression and creative manifestation—literally limitless ways of joyousness, ecstasy and wisdom, to such an extent that it cannot even be put into human language. Wherever this movement is stopped, a break in consciousness and energy occurs.

231.

New Age Education

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 231  |  May 07, 1975

As a fundamental prerequisite, education in the coming age has to make room for the understanding of the principles you are learning on this path, and also of the levels of human consciousness and their interactions.

233.

The Power of the Word

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 233  |  September 24, 1975

What is the word? The word is the creative agent. The word is a psychic nuclear point that creates movement and a systematic chain reaction, one link logically and inexorably following another, until the word has become deed, fact, and finished creation.

234.

Perfection, Immortality, Omnipotence

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 234  |  June 22, 1975

The three aspects I want to discuss this evening are perfection, immortality, and omnipotence. Let us see how these three states of reality compare when you experience them in the higher-self consciousness, and when you experience them on the personality level. I venture to say, my friends, it will help you a great deal if you can assimilate what I attempt to give you here.

235.

The Anatomy of Contraction

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 235  |  November 19, 1975

The path is a spiral movement. You know this. You have heard this and experienced it. Each round of the spiral is a new layer, and at the entrance of each round a new and deeper commitment needs to be made. The rounds or circles are not closed, they have openings. As you discover a new opening, you need to make a new commitment, on a yet deeper level: to let go and to let God; to give all of yourself to the truth—to the truth of being—to no longer hide from your truth.

236.

The Superstition of Pessimism

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 236  |  December 03, 1975

When you reach a certain level of awareness you will come across an attitude that says, “If I believe in the positive, I will be disappointed, and I may chase it away by my very belief in it. It may be smarter to believe that nothing good can happen to me, that I cannot ever change, that I cannot ever grow out of my obstructions.” This is a game, a kind of deliberate but destructive playfulness, which is based on nothing but superstition.

238.

The Pulse of Life on all Levels of Manifestation

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 238  |  June 11, 1976

The outer mind is sluggish at times and does not immediately comprehend and follow through. But the greater meaning can indeed become a reality if you use all your feelers, your inner sensitivity, to attune to the meaning of this meeting, or linking. A mutual giving and exchanging and learning can become an ongoing process that will yield much more than you can now imagine.

239.

Christmas Lecture 1975

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 239  |  March 01, 1976

The Christ has been given birth by your work, my beloved friends. At each step of your path where you find a misconception, a negativity, a block, a destructiveness, a problem, an ignorance, you find a direct obstruction to the Christ within.

242.

The Spiritual Meaning of Political Systems

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 242  |  June 02, 1976

For this lecture I have announced a somewhat unusual topic, but you will see that it fits into the sequence of lectures and has its integral meaning in your own process, both as individuals and as a community. The topic is the spiritual meaning of political systems. I will speak about the best known political systems on your earth plane at this point in your evolution. I shall explain the divine origin of each of these systems and the distortions in each. I will then show you how every one of these systems, in their divine as well as in their distorted manifestations, is a reality of your internal world.

243.

Th Great Existential Fear and Longing

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 243  |  October 06, 1977

The path I have the privilege to bring to you and help you on prepares you for this process. Little by little you deal first with the personal, individual violations of integrity and truth, level by level. The more open you are to this process, and, consequently, the more you recognize and loosen up your defenses so that a state of open flow is established, the easier it becomes to lift out the existential fear that grips all humankind.

245.

Cause and Effect on Various Levels of Consciousness

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 245  |  November 16, 1977

If you commit an overt act—you kill someone—the consequences will be obvious. But if you malign another human being by questionable accusations, ill will, blindness or stubbornness; if you refuse to give him or her the benefit of the doubt and do not attempt to be open and create a different reality through honest communication with this person, your thoughts are killing him.

246.

Tradition: It’s Divine and Distorted Aspects

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 246  |  December 14, 1977

The topic of this lecture is the meaning of tradition. Let us first examine what tradition means in its best sense, and then what it means when it is distorted. Many human beings have distinct images about tradition. These images trigger off conditioned reflex reactions as soon as this term is mentioned or when human conditions reflect adherence to tradition either in its real or in its distorted sense.

247.

The Mass Images of Judiasm and Christianity

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 247  |  January 11, 1978

This lecture grew out of an answer to the following question.
Question: I am very puzzled by the tremendously strong reactions about the whole issue of Jesus Christ. I understand what you said about the fear of expansion that applies to all phases of expansion. But the reaction to your emphasis of the role of Jesus Christ in the pathwork is so strong that I have the feeling there is more to it than resistance to expansion. Could you comment on this?

248.

Three Principles of the Forces of Evil—Personification of Evil

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 248  |  June 08, 1978

In this lecture I wish to instruct you again about certain realities and laws concerning evil. It is very important that you understand more about this so controversial subject at this present moment. For many centuries the power of evil was fully recognized. Humanity had a sense of the invisible and what is usually referred to as supernatural regarding both the forces of light and the forces of darkness, as well as their manifestations, their effects, their influence in your realm, and their personification as spirit entities—as angels and as devils.

249.

The Pain of Injustice—Cosmic Records of All Personal and Collective Events, Deeds, Expressions

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 249  |  June 08, 1978

The specific pain I wish to discuss, that is so important to be seen in a new light at this state of your development, is the pain of injustice. This type of pain contains more than can be expressed by this word. It is not just actual injustice happening to you here and now. Such injustice could be classified as pain of being wounded and hurt. There is more to it than that. It is a fear that the universe can allow destruction to exist without safety valves.

250.

Inner Awareness of Grace—Exposing the Deficit

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 250  |  April 19, 1978

In the present general state of humanity, self-responsibility is much more developed. You understand that you create your reality and your experiences—good or bad. How then does grace come in? Is it totally eliminated from your vision of life and reality? No, it is not. Grace is as much a reality as self-creation and self-responsibility—and they are by no means mutually exclusive. I wish to give you some perspective on this subject, which will then open up another equally important topic, that of faith.

251.

The Evolution and Spiritual Meaning of Marriage—New Age Marriage

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 251  |  May 17, 1978

During the many centuries of its existence, humanity has developed in many areas. Let us consider marriage. Under standing its evolution thus far will open your vision to the future. You will view the current attitude toward this institution with the larger picture in mind. History can be properly understood only when the spiritual meaning that underlies earthly events is gleaned.

252.

Privacy and Secrecy

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 252  |  June 14, 1978

Today I wish to explore the concepts of privacy and secrecy. Much confusion exists about these two concepts. This confusion fosters the forces of evil and prevents you from fulfilling all your needs and attaining true expansion. It also makes closeness and intimacy impossible, and closeness is surely one of your legitimate needs. So is privacy. If privacy and secrecy are being confused, either the need for closeness or the need for privacy must be shortchanged.

253.

Continue Your Struggle and Cease All Struggle

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 253  |  September 20, 1978

I would like to discuss a particular aspect of this transformation of consciousness, giving special emphasis to what was previously discussed only in general. Humanity’s greatest imprisonment, from which stems all fear and pain and suffering, is the duality in which the human mind is entangled. The mass mind then builds an environment and creates conditions that express this bent of consciousness. It is perhaps the most difficult task of the evolutionary journey to penetrate this seeming reality, namely, that the world is dualistic.

254.

Surrender

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 254  |  October 18, 1978

You often use the word “surrender.” You sense that this word contains an important aspect of spiritual fulfillment. Yet there is also a great deal of confusion attached to this word which needs to be explored. Human beings who are incapable of surrendering cannot find their core, or their divine nature, cannot love, and cannot truly learn and grow. They are very stiff, defended and closed. Yet the ability to surrender is an essential inner movement from which all good can flow.

255.

The Birthing Process—Cosmic Pulse

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 255  |  November 15, 1978

In this lecture I would like to discuss particularly a law of timing that applies to the development of every entity. You surely must have sensed this law and may even know about it vaguely. But it is important that you thoroughly understand it. According to this law a certain necessary time sequence exists on an individual’s path.

256.

Inner Space, Focused Emptiness

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 256  |  June 13, 1978

We have occasionally discussed this inner landscape. I have made mention of the inner space that is the real world. The term “inner space” is used quite frequently in your world these days, as opposed to outer space. Most human beings think of inner space as merely a symbolic description of a person’s state of mind. This is not so.

257.

Aspects of the New Divine Influx: Communication, Group Consciousness, Exposure

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 257  |  January 10, 1979

In this lecture I would like to speak about some significant aspects of the New Age. This term has been used a lot recently by certain groups of people. Some use it with correct understanding, some manage to make it into a cliche. This, however, is unavoidable; it happens with all concepts of truth, because of a human tendency to be glib and lazy and to label, so as to avoid feeling the reality of a specific truth. But those who do not fall into this trap should not give up altogether using a term that conveys a true concept.

258.

Personal Contact With Jesus Christ—Positive Aggression—The Real Meaning of Salvation

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 258  |  January 10, 1979

If you seriously long, pray, and search for a realization of Jesus Christ’s personal love for you, the answers will come forth. Perhaps you will not recognize the first answers as such. They may have something to do with specific barriers that prevent you from this experience, this reality. They may bring up new, or again old, material on your path that you need to work on for your purification. These are the answers! Once the barriers begin to crumble, you will experience what it means to feel Jesus Christ’s personal love for you.