Pleasure principle

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.

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.

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.

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.