The Next Phase on the Path: Questions and Answers

Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 87 | June 09, 1961

Greetings, my dearest friends. God bless each one of you. Blessed is this hour.

Looking back at the past working season, we recognize that it was indeed a very fruitful period for all my friends. You have developed. You have, in some cases, grown more than you are aware of at this time. If you try to evaluate where you stood a year ago and where you stand now; if you consider your development not so much in terms of perfection, but rather in terms of awareness of your problems and conflicts, you will truly see that this has been a very decisive period for most of you.

In the next working season we hope you will accomplish further insight, growth, and self-understanding. In order to accomplish this without unnecessary delay, do not consider this interval of inactivity in the group and in private work as a period of stagnation. It need not be that, but it depends on you. You can all relax and enjoy yourselves as much as possible and yet continue your search and self-observation. Make this period, in its own way, a time of further growth, even though this may be accomplished in a different way. Let it be a time of preparation and of increased training in awareness of what your emotional reactions signify.

When the new working season starts, we shall enter into a new phase, just as we did last year. In this coming phase the principal aim will be less a further theoretical understanding than a great deepening of your emotional awareness. To some degree this has already been accomplished, particularly in the last two years, but more is necessary. In the next season I shall give you specific help in this endeavor. You all should know that this is the goal now.

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. Only as you become increasingly aware of the true significance of your emotions will you understand that spiritual development deals much more with your unconscious emotions than with your actions and thoughts. The general knowledge you can acquire about them will not really help your spiritual development. But each apparently insignificant insight about your own reactions and emotions will constitute a major step toward spiritual growth. This is why the emphasis has been, and still is, on the unconscious. And the approach that explores the unconscious is a psychological one.

The time will come, however, when the circle will close and we will return to a more spiritual emphasis, but with a deepened and broadened understanding. We shall come back to this point with a different attitude. Spiritual knowledge, even spiritual action, is one thing. But spiritual living, feeling, being, and inner experience is an altogether different matter, and can be experienced only after the inner world of feeling has been explored and understood. The inner world is the only reality that counts. It determines your material life just as much as your spiritual life, as you will find out more and more on this path. You can already see clearly, as a consequence of this work, that your inner problems are responsible for your outer ones.

So, my friends, do not for a moment believe that you move away from spirituality by our emphasis on psychological work. The one must include the other, and you will recognize this more and more in the coming phase of our work.

If we purposely refrained from evaluating your inner conditions from the viewpoint of spiritual law, we had good reason to do so. As you know, stringent self-judgment is usually destructive and hinders your search. It must not be encouraged at a time when you cannot yet get away from the childish distinctions between so called good and bad. This would only strengthen your guilt feelings. It would also strengthen the exaggerated demands and standards of your idealized self-image. It would hinder you from accepting yourself as you are, and that acceptance is the only basis for growth and change. This fact requires the neutral approach we have adopted.

But in the last analysis you will realize that you must apply spiritual values, which up to now you have applied more to actions and thoughts than to feelings, to your inner life. In order to spotlight the feelings without courting the dangers of self-judgment, more substantial growth has to take place. True development is indicated when your inner life corresponds to what you all know to be right, good, true, and loving. However, since feelings cannot be controlled by an effort of will, you cannot simply influence and control them as you do actions and thoughts. Only if and when you completely understand your unconscious reactions and therefore control them, can you safely take a spiritual approach to your emotions.

The distinction between the spiritual and the psychological is arbitrary and, in reality, nonexistent. But since you do think along these lines, it is necessary to explain the difference.

When you become aware of how you use spiritual values to castigate yourself for falling short of a false perfection; when you understand the falseness of your motivations; when you see the pride and the pretense, contrary to your belief in your goodness; when you are aware of the real aims you wish to pursue with your desire for spiritual perfection, then, and only then, can we return to spiritual evaluation and consider your inner problems without damage and obstruction.

And now, my friends, I am ready for the questions you have prepared for me.

QUESTION:  In a previous lecture you briefly touched on the subject of myth, which you defined as universal truth in picture form. Most people, and even most mythologists, including Frazer, regard all myths as stories of events that never happened. There are a few contemporary scholars, however, such as Bellamy and Hoerbiger, who state that there is a new scientific vindication of the cosmogonic myths in the Book of Genesis. There are many myths in Genesis, but there is one in particular that I would like to interpret. It is the one about the Tower of Babel, especially now when we are living in an age of confusion of tongues.

I quote now from Genesis XI/1-9:

1: [Originally] the whole earth was of one language… 2: And…as they journeyed from the East…they found a plain…and they dwelt there. 4: And they said…Let us build a city and a tower whose top may reach unto heaven…lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth. 5: And the Lord came…to see the city and the tower which the children of men had builded. 6: And…said…This they begin to do:  and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do… 7: …Let us…confound their language that they may not understand one another…

8: So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth:  and they left off to build the city [and the tower]:  9:…because the Lord did… confound the language of all the earth.

ANSWER:  In order to explain fully only the passage you have just read, books could be written about philosophy, psychology, and religion. There is so much contained in it. However, I will briefly give you some clarification on it, from the viewpoint that is now of most interest to you. Mind you, I will discuss just one aspect now. There are many more that I cannot possibly go into at this time.

As you know, at one time the human entity was a whole being, completely integrated, in harmony, without conflict, without contradictions. This is the meaning “of one language.”  The expression of the spirit was focused to one point and not scattered as is now the case with humanity, where so many contradictory aims and attitudes exist. After all, you who are on this path now know how many contradictory attitudes exist in you. Because of these contradictions, which can be symbolized as “different languages,” you do not understand yourself. Chaos comes into your life. The outer confusions and problems, conditioned by the inner ones, are enigmatic to you because you ignore the reason for them. Likewise, you ignore the contradictory aims, attitudes, and desires within yourself. You can no longer link cause and effect and therefore you will not clear up this “Babel” until you explore the meaning of your previously unconscious emotions.

Since this Tower of Babel exists within your own soul, it must also exist outwardly in the world. World conditions are the sum total of all of humanity’s inner conditions. Lack of understanding, confusion, unawareness of cause and effect, contradictory aims, and wrong conclusions make up the inner and outer world of humanity. This is the Tower of Babel.

If you cannot understand yourself, how can you understand others?  The more distortions and confusions exist within you, the less you will be able to communicate with others. You cannot understand them, reach them, or make them understand you. This, too, is the Tower of Babel. It symbolizes your inner world and the result of it in the outer world:  difficulty of communication.

The East, whence you came, symbolizes one point of eternity, if I may express myself in such a very paradoxical way. The West is the goal. The East was the perfection you once had. The West is the perfection you will have regained. Yet in reality they are one; only in your eyes do they appear as two different directions. Evolution is always the movement of a circle closing. This applies to the huge overall picture of cosmic evolution that starts with an outward movement and ends in a return to perfection. It applies also to the work on the Path. There are many closing circles. Tonight I mentioned commencing with spiritual emphasis, then going away from it, only to return to it later but with new understanding gained while having been away from the spiritual point of view. You return to the same point, not to a different one. Only it is not quite the same point because you have become richer and wiser. It is the same with the perfection that you once had and the one you will regain after you have explored the depths, having in the interim been away from perfection.

Humanity is stationed at the point on the curve where the symbols of your inner problems exist in different groups, nations, religions, languages. All of them are symbolic of the inner world. The world of reality, the world that determines your life, is the inner world. That is always the cause. The world of matter is always the effect. Whether you examine nations, languages and religions, or atmospheric conditions, it makes no difference. All express the harmony or disharmony of the soul. If you look at your earth life from any conceivable point of view, you will see and learn and sense that it truly is the opposite of what you always thought. You are deeply convinced despite occasional appearances to the contrary, that the outer world is the cause and the inner world is the effect. No!  It is just the opposite, and as you advance in your own growth and development, you will perceive cause and effect in truth.

For instance, what you see in a landscape is the expression of all souls:  the beauty on one hand, or pollution, dirt, barrenness on the other. Significantly, nature and atmospheric conditions express a purer picture of the sum total of humanity’s soul life than world conditions and relations among nations. This is not hard to figure out. The greatest problem is how to get along with others despite so much immature egocentricity. Alone, you are now advanced enough, generally speaking, more or less to get along with yourself. Nature and atmosphere represent that part of the soul in which you think, meditate, contemplate, and raise your thoughts to higher things. That is much easier than truly getting along with others, than putting one’s ego out of the picture.

Nature symbolizes certain aspects of the human soul, art and artificiality symbolize others. You will learn to perceive anything in material existence as a symbol of the soul forces or inner attitudes.

You all know that the true barrier among peoples is not the difference of languages. You can see that the difference of languages on earth is indeed a symbol of something more profound. As the inner barriers to one’s real self are removed, the outer barriers will gradually disappear.

Much of this can already be observed. In spite of so much that is wanting, humanity as a whole has come a long way. The very technical means — often invented for the purpose of destruction — that symbolize your inner pseudo-defenses that are so destructive for the individual, have nevertheless contributed to remove the barriers among peoples.

What you can contribute to better world conditions in every respect is the removal of your own inner barriers, your own Tower of Babel; the dismantling of your own defense mechanisms, which are so damaging to yourself and others.

In the passage my friend just read, it also says that these people tried to build the tower so high that it would reach the heavens. Of course, they did not, and could not, succeed. Does not the attempt to reach the heavens clearly symbolize your idealized self-image?  While you struggle within yourself, being at war with yourself, you nevertheless wish to attain heights of perfection and superiority quite incongruous with your present inner state. The people in the story attempted this venture out of pride. They wanted to reach the heights by the wrong method and out of the wrong motives. The same is true of the idealized self-image, which cannot succeed and is bound to crumble. When you realize that you cannot live up to these goals and demands, your pride collapses. You are crushed and feel defeated. To reach perfection — the heavens — in a hurry and by shortcuts through material means, is a venture bound to end in failure, for it is unrealistic. It is just as illusory as building a tower that reaches the heavens. It cannot be done. Attaining development and growth requires much less pretentious and ostentatious means than constructing the idealized self-image or the Tower of Babel.

It is your idealized self-image, your Tower of Babel, that divides you within and estranges you from yourself. The estrangement symbolizes the foreign language you do not understand. You cannot understand yourself since you are estranged from your real self. Consciously you have one desire. You act upon it, but without realizing how an undercurrent flows into the very opposite direction and produces just the reverse of your conscious aim. Again, this is symbolized in the story of the Tower of Babel. Here you have just a few symbols of this important myth.

QUESTION:  Why is it that one is often more restless when pleasant things occur?  In depressions one may be calm. In happy incidents, one becomes overstimulated, and, in a way, disharmonious.

ANSWER:  The obvious answer would be self-punishment, guilt feelings, fear of success. But such answer will not bring you further understanding. Although some of these factors may contribute to the complex, in themselves they do not clear up anything for you. You will understand their origin and their erroneous purpose only if you become aware of the more basic reason. I am quite sure that each one of you is experiencing such emotions; if you question yourself truly, you will ultimately find that if a happy incident makes you feel restless, overstimulated and, in a way, disharmonious, it is because the goal you attained, whether in a little or in a big way, represents a false value. That does not mean that the goal is wicked or wrong in itself. But it must be somehow connected with your search for glory, with your idealized self-image, no matter how subtly or unobtrusively it may mix with true aims.

When your false aims and values are gratified you are bound to be left feeling empty. False aims are illusions, and even if, at times, they materialize, they will not really satisfy you. These aims and values are resorted to as pseudo-solutions. When such an aim is actually realized, it becomes obvious that the solution was misguided — and the soul is stunned and confused even more. If you pursue a goal, believing that its attainment will solve your problems, in a sense it feels better to believe the goal itself is still valid, but for one reason or another, you were prevented from attaining it. On the other hand, if you actually do succeed and then the victory turns sour on you by its failure to solve your problems, by leaving you still insecure, frightened, and restless, you are at a loss. You feel worse because now you do not know what to do, where to turn.

Since this entire process is vague, and utterly unconscious, you are unaware of its implications. You are even unaware of the acute disappointment of now having attained a partial goal. You still feel not so different than before when you thought that attaining the goal would make all the difference in the world.

Even small gratifications of this sort — let us say a success in social life — will generate this reaction in your unconscious. Only close analysis of the incident and your reaction to it will reveal the truth of the matter and prove of utmost importance for your further development because it will bring into clear focus the false value and pseudo-solution and show how illusory both are.

Depression sets in because the pseudo-solution and the goal seem difficult to attain. You believe you have an aim, even though it may be wrong. But when your aim is proven wrong, whether or not you consciously realize it, you become more frustrated, and an inner haste and pressure is generated. It seems more pressing than ever to find a solution, only now you do not know where or how.

Let us suppose the false goal of the pseudo-solution that you attempt is to be approved of, admired, envied, and feel powerful. Now an incident occurs where you receive this gratification. People do act according to this desire of yours. Consciously you may feel you had a very pleasant time. But if you analyze your feelings, you will find that the goal of your idealized self was actually partly gratified in this “pleasant situation.”  This may very well happen along with the real values that are being attained and lived up to. But it is enough that the gratification of a false value occurs to make you restless and disharmonious. Now the psyche feels, “I have received what I thought I needed and I am still unhappy, alone, and insecure. I still lack something, I still have nothing secure to hold on to. Where do I have to go now in order to alleviate this condition?  What should I do now?”  So insecurity and inner haste increase just because the false value and desire has been gratified. Outwardly you may be quite content, but the inner restlessness is a sign of the process I just described.

These are subtle processes and when explained in crude language they appear exaggerated. You have to uncover, feel, and experience the truth of these words. When you really question yourself honestly, you are bound to find the answer in the form of an inner truth.

QUESTION:  Is this something similar to what is called “Weltschmerz”?*

ANSWER:  Not necessarily. Usually in “Weltschmerz” self-pity predominates, while the emotion we just discussed is joy without harmony. It applies to happy incidents, not causing sadness, but rather the opposite, while still being in a state of restlessness, inner haste, impatience, and a kind of nervousness.

QUESTION:  I would like to ask two metaphysical questions. Last time in our discussion after the lecture, the subject of reincarnation was touched again. Reincarnation as a hypothesis was doubted and rejected by someone, and the statement was made that this was also confirmed by communications from the other side that reincarnation takes place only in certain instances. I know that you have already talked about this, but I would like to ask for a confirmation.

ANSWER:  This hardly needs to be reconfirmed; however, I have this to add. Not all spirits know everything, especially if those entities held very strong convictions during their lifetime. Such strong convictions will not automatically disappear. They may linger on for decades and even centuries. When such beings then notice a reincarnation taking place, they prefer to believe that it is an exception. Otherwise such spirits may be highly evolved, yet they have blocks in certain areas.

In this subject, as well as in any other, you may always encounter contrary opinions from various groups, people, or spirits. In itself it is not even important what you believe. The important thing remains always one’s own development and the clearing up of inner conflicts.

If you independently think things through and ponder this subject, you will come to the conclusion that reincarnation is logical and in keeping with the universal laws of the cosmos. The argument can be advanced that other planets also afford opportunity for growth and development. That is quite true. However, each planet or sphere represents different conditions so that different lessons have to be learned. None can be completed within just one life span, neither the ones on earth, nor those in other spheres. Conditions on earth that are called forth through humanity’s general development are particularly impossible to master in one life span. By the same token, it is true that repeated returns to other planets are equally necessary. Time, if I may use this wrong term, for lack of a better one, is unlimited in creation, and repeated lessons are necessary in every stage of overall development, regardless of what sphere it may be.

QUESTION:  The second question concerns the time of the entry of the spirit’s soul-body into the physical body. We have learned that it is at the moment of birth, which also corresponds with astrology. The same person stated that the soul enters in the twelfth week of pregnancy and then in stages.

ANSWER:  In this case I may say that both theories are true to some degree. It is true that the whole being of the spirit entity, in a very substantial and decisive way, enters the body at the time of physical birth. If this decisive entry were to occur earlier, it would be impossible for the infant to survive without oxygen. But there are additional periods of completion before birth, as well as afterward. But these stages are smaller, or less decisive. You all know from occult science that there is not just one subtle body, but several. Actually, the division goes further than is known to humanity. There are different layers. In a psychological sense, these layers are examined in the work you are now doing on the path. These psychological layers exist as various substances of radiant matter. Such stages occur at certain intervals before birth, as well as after, until maturity has been attained. But the most important major step of full incarnation into the body, enabling the entity to live on earth, occurs at the time of birth. It is not coincidence that this event is especially obvious and decisive for the mother, as well as for the infant. The event of physical birth corresponds with something equally decisive spiritually.

Yet even this decisive moment does not indicate complete integration. This can be accomplished only through the work of self-search. Wherever unsolved problems and conflicts exist in the soul, a part of the entity is not at one with the rest of it. Each resolution and victory on the path makes you less alienated from yourself.

What does self-alienation mean?  I have used this expression quite often. It is used even in traditional human psychology without any awareness of its spiritual significance. For self-alienation means that in some way, some part or parts of yourself are not within you; they are outside you. So every step toward maturity unifies more parts within yourself — and this process is, in principle, similar to the unification of the body of matter and the substantial part of the subtle bodies. That is why you always feel reborn when you outgrow illusions that had kept you alienated from yourself.

QUESTION:  Will you enlighten us on the relationships among the main image, the idealized self-image and the God-image, particularly in regard to prayer?  How does this conglomerate interfere with our ability to pray?

ANSWER:  This is a very good question. Any conflict, distortion, or illusion interferes with creative processes, the search for truth, or any constructive endeavor, such as prayer. Regardless of how much real talent, healthy desire, or serious striving you show, the severity of your conflicts proportionately influences your activities, thoughts, feelings, and motives. This may occur through the subtle coloring of self-deception, or it may be crass enough to make prayer or any other constructive activity impossible.

The God-image** is not an actual concept of God, common to all human beings. The God-image may be life, the rules of life, or it may be authority, in the sense of a “must.”

The main problem in life, resulting in the main image, is always the feeling of helplessness in the face of a difficulty that the child finds impossible to cope with unless special defenses are established. The God-image plays a major role in building these defenses, whether as a vague authority or an imaginary, severe, punishing God. The decrees of this powerful authority make safety and happiness impossible, cause frustration and unhappiness. Here you are, the helpless, unloved child — whether you actually were unloved, or felt unloved makes no difference — feeling lonely, misunderstood, not accepted for your own sake, insecure, frightened. Only by adhering to certain rules do you have a chance to feel safe and gain a minimal amount of pleasure. Alternatively, if this is your main image, you may believe that you can find the safety and pleasure you need for survival only by breaking the rules, exercising power, and becoming the dictator in your environment. In either case, the God-image is the first obstacle and, according to character, personality, and environment, you either comply with it, or try to become it. Neither alternative works. Broadly speaking, either one of these attitudes to the God-image determines the type of idealized self-image that you establish; this attitude represents your pseudo-solution. Your pseudo-solution, in turn, represents the predominant attribute of your idealized self-image.

The establishment of the idealized self-image has a further purpose in connection with the God-image. To obey the hated rules against one’s will would be very humiliating. Therefore the psyche pretends to accept these rules for the sake of perfection per se. In other words, the rigid standards and demands of the idealized self-image not only serve the purpose of coping with a hostile, dangerous world, but also cover up the helplessness of having to adopt rules one inwardly rebels against. This holds true even if the idealized self-image is predominantly rebellious and antisocial, because the rebelling minority also represents rules, but of a different order. The rule then may be ruthlessness, dominion over others, selfishness. This then is regarded as intelligent and those not following these particular rules are viewed as stupid.

In such a case, the God-image will subtly merge with the idealized self-image. You try to identify with what you fear most. Such emotional reactions can be found constantly in your self-search. They exist with the predominantly power-driven person, as well as with the predominantly submissive type. Each does it in a different way.

In addition to the separation and loneliness that this distortion generates, there is the added yoke of feeling that you have to obey, whether you want to or not. The idealized self-image serves the additional purpose of easing the brunt of this yoke.

So you see how the basic helplessness links the God-image and the idealized self-image, creating the fundamental problem with its pseudo-solutions. The pseudo-solutions are adopted in order to cope with the God-image, and that, in turn, creates the idealized self-image.

QUESTION:  How should I regard my guilt feelings over the joy I feel about the assassination of Trujillo, the dictator of the Dominican Republic?

ANSWER:  If you ask a personal question, I will give you a personal answer. The guilt feeling comes from the unrecognized desire yourself to be a Trujillo, to have that kind of power. Oh, you may have recognized such emotions already, to a degree, but not to their full extent, and you do not yet understand their significance. You wish to gain safety and pleasure through a strong power drive, which is simultaneously counteracted by an equally strong submissive attitude. This is one aspect. The guilt is the reaction of your submissiveness to your power drive.

An additional aspect is the tendency of submitting to the very person you fear most. In other words, it is the attitude  discussed in the previous answer. There is a tendency of cringing, appeasing, and submitting to the most feared person. This is your way of coping with danger, which is why the strong submissive attitude was originally chosen. But since the power drive also exists, it reacts to such self-effacing submissiveness with self-contempt and guilt of a different nature.

On the one hand you have the desire to be like such a person. On the other hand, you tend to submit to such a person. And in the third place, the desire exists to free yourself of the yoke of such a person — and this happens through fantasies of glory about your own omnipotence. All this creates guilt, from whatever angle you look at it. It creates the false guilt of not being as good and obedient as the submissive attitude demands; the false guilt of daring to rebel and to hate whatever contradicts the image of obedience and goodness. It also creates the false guilt of not living up to your fantasies of glory, of not being strong and powerful, but actually cringing. And it creates the real guilt of the intrinsic self-centeredness, pride, and pretense that all these attitudes really represent.

If you fully acknowledge, accept, understand, and follow through these feelings, you are bound to grow out of these pseudo-solutions and therefore you will free yourself of the guilt, which is only one symptom.

QUESTION:  I’d like to ask you a rather vague question about truth. What does the phrase “artistic truth” mean and how does it bear on objective truth, subjective truth, and psychic truth?

ANSWER:  There really is no such thing as “subjective truth.”  I know such terminology may be used when finding a distortion or wrong conclusion. It is true that certain misconceptions exist and need to be faced. Then it is said that one has come across a subjective truth, but actually this term is a contradiction. Truth is objective.

Artistic truth is the result of the truthfulness of a person. If one is basically untruthful with oneself and with life, one cannot, in spite of creative talent and ability, produce artistic truth. There is no separation. The overwhelming existence of truthfulness will produce an overwhelming result of artistic truthfulness.

QUESTION:  What is the best technique for distinguishing between truth and opinion?  Or fact and opinion?

ANSWER:  There is a substantial difference between a fact and truth. A fact is a segment of truth. You may be in possession of a fact, but you ignore additional factors. Therefore you do not have a true outlook on a situation. Let us assume you witness one person insulting another. This is a fact. But judging this fact alone may be misleading because you ignore what led to this insult. Only the knowledge of all relevant factors can show the truth of the situation. To see truth is a very difficult task. As long as you are aware of this difficulty, you will not be tempted to believe you are in truth, when you are merely in possession of facts. This knowledge will increase your own truthfulness, whereas believing that you are in truth when you are not, can only increase untruthfulness.

The ability to acquire a deeper, wider, and greater perception of truth is determined by your ability to face yourself truthfully and sincerely, no matter how unpleasant this may be. To the degree that you succeed in facing yourself, your ability to perceive truth automatically grows. It cannot grow by a direct technique or process. It is an indirect outcome of inner growth, self-awareness, and self-facing.

QUESTION:  Can one draw a conclusion about character in a person who loves animals and nature and a person who does not care for either?

ANSWER:  Generalizations, my friends, are very dangerous. Anything is a symptom of something. But beware of readymade opinions and generalizations. They are very misleading. The assumption that the person who loves animals and nature is a better person than one who doesn’t is very wrong. It might very well be that in this respect a person is more receptive to one manifestation of divine life. But this very same person may be utterly closed to another manifestation while the person who does not love animals and nature is otherwise receptive and open. For instance, the latter may be less afraid of people than the former and therefore love and understand them better. However, it is equally wrong to judge that just because certain people do not love animals, they automatically love people more than those who do love animals. There is no rule, and every case has to be judged individually.

COMMENT:  It’s funny because I have a deep distrust for a person who does not care for animals and nature, so I must be completely wrong. But I feel there must be something wrong with such a person.

ANSWER:  Those who do not love and understand the manifestation of creation do have “something wrong” with them. But that does not mean it is more warranted or justified to distrust a person with this particular limitation than other people who have other limitations that you do not even perceive.

COMMENT:  Maybe because they are not so obvious.

ANSWER:  They may be obvious, but perhaps not to you.

QUESTION:  Does being born out of wedlock have an effect on the unconscious, even though we may not know the circumstances of the birth?

ANSWER:  Your unconscious knows everything about your life condition, but that does not necessarily mean there is a negative effect on your life. In the case of illegitimate birth, certain souls with specific problems are chosen. This fate will enable the entity to work out the particular problem with the ensuing difficulties. However, if circumstances occur that remove the difficulty, such as ignorance of this fact, life conditions produce sufficient material to work out the existing problems without this added burden.

May you all absorb the powerful rays of love, truth, strength, and purity that are given unto each one of you and your dear ones. Do not think for a moment during the coming time of interruption that you are cut off from us. It will depend very much on your endeavors and your outlook whether there will be continued contact with our world or not. If you proceed in your sincere self-facing, you will learn and you will be guided by us. Particular blessings are given unto you. I think that most of you can sense and feel their reality. May they have a lasting effect. May you continue to grow, as you have grown, in the immediate months ahead, as well as in the coming season, when we enter into an important new phase of work.

Be blessed, my dearest friends, our love envelopes and penetrates you. Be in peace. Be in God!

* world-weariness

** see lecture #52 The God-Image