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Greetings in the name of God and Jesus Christ. I bring you blessings, my dearest friends. Blessed is this hour.
I heartily welcome a few new friends, and I want to say to them that this path will bring many solutions for every one of them—solutions they may have consciously as well as unconsciously sought for a long time.
Most people with even a little spiritual knowledge know in a general way what this life is all about, what the reason is for this often painful existence on earth. You all know that life is to be considered a school. You go from one incarnation to the other as you go from one class to the next, making the grade or remaining where you are for a while, learning, developing, purifying. This is the explanation for all life on earth. But to know this is not in itself sufficient to solve your individual problems, my dear ones. You have to come to the point where you understand your own, individual existence; where you understand the origin of the difficulties, the sorrows, the longings, the unfulfillments of your life. And this you can find out if you learn to understand yourself.
This is neither as easy nor as difficult as it may seem. When I say “to understand yourself,” I do not mean your outer deeds, decisions, and reactions. These you can often explain and rationalize, and therefore you believe that you know yourself. But is there any human being who is not forced into reactions and decisions by his or her own compulsive and unconscious trends?
The particular path on which I lead you, my dear friends, will make you understand, step by step, how and where your outer problems are connected to your inner conflicts, where you react emotionally in a way that will attract certain happenings to you as inevitably as a magnet draws iron to itself. These forces can be truly understood only when you uncover your emotions and find out their deeper meaning. And with that knowledge you find the particular reason and purpose of your life, your own individual existence. When this is discovered, an entity has reached an important phase in his or her whole cycle of incarnations. That this knowledge can be brought forth is the result of important efforts, which in turn are a sign that a soul has reached a significant milestone on the upward road. At that point you step across the borderline between unconsciousness and consciousness with a higher degree of awareness. The true understanding of one’s present existence marks, indeed, a major stepping stone of a soul’s return journey to God.
The subject chosen for tonight is the question of authority and what this concept implies for human beings. This is a much more important question than you now realize, my dear friends.
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. If, on the other hand, reaction toward authority remains childish because unconscious compulsive attitudes prevail, then this milestone remains to be reached later. As long as this point in development has not been reached, the imperfect soul would react negatively toward authority, even if it were administered in a perfect way. But since people are imperfect, authority too is often administered in a very imperfect way.
Thus a barrier is set up between the child and the authority, the grown-up. It is worse if love is missing, or is not given in the way the child needs it. But even if love is there, the conflict still exists. On the one hand, the child longs for the love of the parent, on the other, it resists and rebels against being restricted by authority. The child feels the authority as a hostile force, an enemy that locks it behind prison bars where it feels frustrated. There is often but one impatient longing in the child: to become an adult so that what it erroneously believes to be restricting walls will cease to exist. But when the child grows up, authority merely changes: instead of parents and teachers, authority is now represented by society, government, law-enforcing institutions, an employer, or other powerful people he or she may be dependent upon.
Unconsciously, your old feelings are carried over from childhood, and authority now restricts you as an adult. The same conflicts re-emerge in different ways: as a child you were torn between the desire to be loved and accepted, therefore to rebel against authority was impossible—or so you believed. As an adult you still suffer from the same basic conflict: on the one hand, openly rebelling against the restrictions; on the other, fearing the stigma of being ostracized, despised, of not belonging.
This conflict can only be resolved if the unconscious emotions in this respect are recognized and translated into clear and concise thoughts and words. It will take time, but it is feasible. The usual solutions devised by the unconscious are often faulty. I will help you and give some pointers how to recognize your own particular way of reacting toward authority.
Broadly speaking, you react to authority in one of two ways—all human beings do. There are two basic categories, with many subdivisions—and often the two groups intermingle and are represented in one and the same human being. At one time one reaction may be predominant, at another, the opposite extreme, or a variation of it, may predominate. It is then important to find out when one reaction is stronger and when the other, and why. You can and should retrace all this to childhood feelings and reactions to your early environment. Only then can you find the pattern-like later repetition of your early behavior and reactions, and only in that light will you be able to understand your present reactions.
Let us examine these two basic categories separately for the moment. It will be easier this way, but please realize that only in rare cases will you find such a strong predominance of one trend in a person. There is always a mixture.
First, let us look at those who rebel and revolt outwardly against authority. They feel authority as an enemy because many desires that were neither bad nor in any way harmful—in childhood as well as later—were forbidden by some authority. They know, or think, that there is nothing wrong with what they want. Yet, authority hinders them, and they often feel that the authority is not only unjust, but generally harmful, narrow-minded and unconstructive.
Now, if the person happens to have an extroverted outgoing nature, combined with a certain courage, the rebellion will take a form in which he or she openly fights and resists. This can take place from its mildest form of personal and private attitudes, spanning the whole scale, up to overt social rebellion, through affiliation with minority parties, anarchist groups, or committing crime. The strongest form of this attitude will be found in the person who commits antisocial acts. The mildest form may not even be noticeable to others. Nevertheless, the same rebellious feelings do exist there, too, in subtle ways, in the subconscious. These produce in the person’s life just as tangible outer results as the openly rebellious reactions.
In the other category are those who at one time have turned around, unconsciously thinking, “If I become one with the authority, much as I may dislike that authority, I am safe.” The belief in this apparent safety leads the extreme type in this category to become a strict law-upholder—not necessarily always overtly, but perhaps in more subtle ways. The law upholders, in order to safeguard their own position and to hide their own rebellion—which deep down is quite similar to the law-breakers’—will become extremely opposed to the law-breaker. The more afraid they are of their own tendencies of hidden rebellion against law and authority, the more will they find it necessary to become very severe with the law-breaker in whom they see a part of themselves which they do not want to expose. Exposing their true feelings was exactly what had seemed so risky and dangerous that they decided to join the “enemy camp.” The fear of their own exposure makes such people doubly “good.” Now, do not interpret the word “good” in its real sense. Put quotation marks around it. Yet I do not mean that such a law-upholder cannot be also a really good person—just as truly good as one with a tendency to hidden rebellion. Both react immaturely and ignorantly. The inner motivations of the law-upholder described here are rooted in weakness and fear. And an act or an attitude that comes from weakness and fear can never produce positive results. The fact that this attitude was adopted unconsciously and in ignorance does not alter the results. To achieve a positive outcome, a free, strong and independent choice has to be made.
As I often say, a person’s unconscious affects the unconscious of another person infinitely more strongly than a consciously recognized attitude, act or motive. In other words, if you are driven into certain attitudes by your unrecognized fears, the effect will be infinitely stronger on other people than when you do the same act, have the same motives and attitudes, but recognize your own inner tendencies and currents. Thus, the law-upholder, motivated by the wrong protective measures he or she has chosen, has a particularly bad effect on the law-breaker. The latter feels quite differently and much less rebellious when he encounters a law-upholder who is governed by healthy, conscious and mature motivations based on strength, not weakness. Please, my friends, do not take the words “law-upholder” and “law-breaker” only in the crude and outer sense, referring to your social laws. Think about them also in the psychological sense, the sense in which I speak.
The more hidden forces and reactions in the attitude of the law-upholder—even though he or she may consciously be in good faith—the more adverse will be the effect on the law-breaker. The true law, the divine law, is different from the weak and often doubly intolerant attitude of the law-upholder who has chosen that position out of fear and in order to become free of the disadvantages their own rebellion may have caused them.
There are many shades and variations in both these opposite types. The law-breaking tendency must be combined with a current of courage. Otherwise, if certain other character traits and outer circumstances combine, their rebellion will be dimmed to a dull defiance. As far as the law-upholders are concerned, who lack the courage to give vent to their true feelings, their predominant qualities and faults are different. For instance, there may be a combination of a strong liking for order and organization and a wish for peace rather than for fighting, along with many other tendencies, which will then determine a person’s final attitude in this respect.
I hope none of you will misunderstand me and conclude that the law-breaking stance is the desirable one, simply because the other wrong extreme is also imperfect. Such misunderstandings occur so often in your world and become responsible for many wrong views, philosophies and teachings. Whenever humanity finds out that an attitude or an opinion is wrong, it swings over to the opposite extreme, which is equally wrong.
These two opposite extremes set a vicious circle in motion: the greater the rebellion on the part of the law-breaker, the more severe and intolerant the law-upholder becomes, in order to protect him- or herself from their own fear and rebellion. As a result, the rebellion and resistance in the law-breaker must become all the stronger. The law-breaker is unaware of the fact that his or her resistance is not turned against the law as such any longer, or against authority in its good and true sense, but actually against the false note in the equally unaware law-upholder.
This is a very difficult subject because it is so very subtle in nature. Each one of you can find out quite easily to which of these two basic categories you predominantly belong, in what aspect of your life one or the other tendency may express itself more strongly. If you examine your life and your inner reactions in this respect, it will not be difficult to find out which. Once you can give yourself the answer, you can go a step further and think about the remedy. Also, consider the effect your attitude has had on your life, your conflicts, as well as on your surroundings, including some of your dear ones.
If you find yourself to be more of the kind who revolts and rebels against authority, then you should meditate to gain the right concept. Strive for an awareness of the difference between real authority in the divine sense and the imperfect human authority you have often encountered in your life—since humankind is imperfect. See that unconsciously you are under the impression that authority means only the wrong kind. Once you can differentiate and recognize the two kinds—even though you may have seldom, or never, encountered the true one—your resistance against authority will automatically diminish. And after such recognition, you will not mind half as much the existence of the distorted and weak brother of the true authority and law that is your protection as much as anyone else’s. You will no longer feel that authority, as such, is an enemy force.
The knowledge of all this will help you build the proper concept in yourself—and this will enable you to sense the wrong kind without minding it, because you will now understand the motivations and be able to sympathize. You will recognize that currents similar to your own prevail in the “enemy”—they just manifest differently. This process means raising one’s consciousness. You will then also recognize the necessity for law and order, and therefore for authority whose task it is to uphold it. The fact that the manifestation of the ideal principle cannot exist on earth yet will not confuse you any longer. The ideal, wise, good and understanding authority will remain a goal to be attained. You will understand that even the imperfect form of authority, as it manifests on earth, is necessary. In short, your rebellion will diminish to the extent you gain insight and understanding, to the extent you understand why you have reacted so adversely to certain subtle manifestations of the wrong kind of authority in the past.
Furthermore, you will become increasingly aware of the meaning of divine authority that manifests also in some human beings who have reached a certain degree of development in this respect. You will then learn not to react automatically against anyone or anything just because you may feel that it represents authority. Unless you focus your attention on this whole problem, even if the right kind should happen to come your way, you would not be in a position to feel and perceive the difference, because your intuition is dulled by blind and rigid reaction and revolt. But when you think about it in this way, you may find that perhaps a few times in your life you have met someone who is very good and very wise and very kind, without being perfect in all ways, and who is, therefore, an authority—not necessarily on any particular subject, this is not what I mean at all—but a person of authority, as such. If you observe, in retrospect, the emanation coming from such a person, you will sense that the attitude of that person was different from the attitude of the law-upholder who is motivated by weakness and fear.
As I said before, the vicious circle, when it goes on and on with a person who is not developed spiritually, may lead to criminal acts—and these have to be stopped, of course. How many criminals commit crimes not for the sake of the crime nor for the “advantages” the crime may bring. The deep, underlying root is rather the opposition to either the real or the imagined “goody-goodyness” of the law-upholder. When people are that far in this vicious circle, they can no longer recognize the true and right kind of authority, even if they should come across it. They will blindly react without inner discrimination, because they have no concept that a difference exists. That is why it is so important to gain the right concept by thinking this through.
Once you fully realize that there are two different kinds of authority—the self-righteous kind and the higher kind that is with you—you will be able to divorce yourself from the generalization that one automatically has to react against any authority. This healthy reasoning process will, among other things, strengthen your power to discriminate in a very subtle way—not intellectually, but intuitively.
Now, as far as the other category is concerned, if you find out that you tend to be more on the side of the law-upholder, my advice is this, my friends: think back to your childhood and find the times when you revolted. When you search with this aim, you will sooner or later discover and actually remember—perhaps only as a vague feeling, but nevertheless remember—just when you decided to turn around and become one with what appeared to you the stronger force, the authority as you perceived it. True, good motives are surely also contained in these inner decisions, but also weak ones. And it is your task to find the latter too, and become aware of them. When you come to this point, you will have made great progress on the road to self-understanding, on the way to becoming yourself.
Then, when you seek further, you will also understand the reaction others have toward you. The self-righteous severity that sometimes takes hold of you—quite unconsciously and hidden—toward a brother or sister who strictly belongs to the other kind, will lessen. Your reaction will change in the measure you recognize the weak and fearful motives of your own law-upholding tendency. Thus you will make an act of strength out of an act of weakness. You will remain on the side of the law, of course, as you should—the outer, as well as the inner law—but with a different attitude, with a different flavor, with a different motive. That is the important thing.
You will realize that just because you are on the side of authority, on the side of the law, you are doubly responsible in your obligation not to reject the side opposed to the law, but to pull the person out of his or her brand of error with your understanding. You can do this only if you understand yourself first and by sympathizing with the law-breaker—which does not mean to be in favor of the rebellion and of actions resulting from the rebellion.
Why do you think that the man Jesus brought so much censure upon himself? Human authority censured him because he associated with the lowly, with common criminals and prostitutes. And all those lowly people felt this quality of understanding within him. Against Jesus they did not rebel, because they felt not only his true goodness, but also his understanding of the reasons why they were what they were. They felt he did not judge, they felt he went with them, in spite of the fact that he was, of course, opposed to their acts and wrong attitudes. He could even laugh with them, and also laugh at the wrong and pompous kind of authority that is so proud of its law and its letter. His is the kind of authority you should strive for, my friends. Go with the other person who revolts in some subtle way you may only sense—while you also, subtly and unknowingly reacted in the wrong way. This the other also sensed vaguely. Understand his attitude by understanding your own, laugh with him, build common ground with him. Do not set yourself up as a judge, although you may do so quite unconsciously. This balance is very, very subtle, my friends, and it has to be found and solved in your innermost soul.
By no means does that imply that the law-breaker should go unpunished. That is not the point. When he becomes dangerous to the welfare of others, he has to learn a lesson. But if that happens, it is partly because the wrong kind of authority has prevailed too long, and has driven the law-breaker deeper into ignorance and darkness, instead of lifting him out of it. You see, my dear ones, all the miseries on this earth, the real problems such as criminality, war, injustices of any kind, disease, and other serious problems, are the result of faults of long standing. When we spirits are asked what is the remedy for this or that situation—be it general or personal—the answer cannot be given so easily. For a whole chain reaction has to be followed through, and often in an unpleasant way, until you get to the roots of the problem. All severe problems are due to some raging, vicious circle that has to be crystallized out and understood in order to find these roots. The final and last link of the whole chain reaction—the one that manifests outwardly, while the previous links are hidden from sight—has to be helped, certainly. But this treatment will always be a painful one, particularly if the inner root is not sought while the outer remedy is applied of necessity. So, for instance, war is certainly tragic, but it is in certain instances a last resort, that is even necessary, because humanity has neglected to look for the inner roots of the problems.
So it is with everything else. Common criminals have to be prevented from continuing their deeds by law-enforcing institutions that are, perforce, themselves imperfect. Again, the solution has to be found earlier so that this final and drastic result of the chain reaction can be avoided. In all these vicious circles all are involved, not only the law-breaker, not only the apparent wrongdoer. In order to build a world in which vicious circles are prevented or broken before they come to the last and unfortunate outer manifestation, you can furnish the cornerstones by examining your own reactions and understanding in what way you have contributed or are contributing by your own unconscious emotional reactions to set an avalanche rolling. In this way, you and many others can help prevent the entire chain reaction.
What I said to you here is of more significance and importance than you may realize offhand. I know that it is not only extremely difficult to squeeze these very subtle concepts into human language, but also that it will take quite a bit of effort and searching on your part to begin to understand the inner and deeper meaning, and to see the wider effect of this whole question.
Are there any questions in connection with this subject?
QUESTION: Isn’t the only person who is a real authority, in the final analysis, the one to whom God speaks?
ANSWER: Of course! That goes without saying. God is the only authority. But that is not the point of this lecture. No one of you is so far developed that God can manifest through you at all times. It happens with all of you occasionally, but only where you are unblocked and flexible. Otherwise the voice of God cannot penetrate through the maze. There are too many layers of imperfection, of fear, of insecurity, of self-will to have God manifest in all instances. Besides, in tonight’s lecture I did not deal with the question of accepting God’s authority versus human authority. The question is to find out your attitude toward authority as such. Your childhood reactions still color your present reactions without your being aware of it, no matter how much you may strive to find out God’s will. It may even have colored your attitude toward God without your being aware of this at all. This message did not deal with the question of asking the advice or the opinion of other people. That also is a subject, and indirectly it is related to the problem I have discussed tonight. But this is merely a detail of the basic question and attitude. The first step is to consider the attitude of a person to the concept of human authority as such, in whatever form it may present itself. Do you understand what I mean? [Yes]
QUESTION: May I ask, is it necessarily so with everybody that one of the two trends is predominant?
ANSWER: No. I said that in some cases there may be a fifty-fifty mixture, more or less. In most cases one is a little more dominant. In some cases one is really predominant. But in many cases there is a mixture. In these cases it will be very useful and interesting to find out when, at what opportunities, in what instances and situations, or with what types of people one trend is predominant and when the other. That will also furnish clues of utmost importance in your self-search. There will be patterns of behavior to recognize.
QUESTION: Is there a special way to go about rectifying or balancing the extreme?
ANSWER: Well, I already gave some indications of that. The first step is to find out which type an individual is and, if both, at what opportunities one facet predominates and why. It will take some time to learn to observe and recognize your daily reactions, as well as going back to your childhood, but once this practice is established, you can take the next step, which is to clarify your thoughts. It is always the same procedure: you start by recognizing every instance where you react emotionally in an erroneous way. All the image-conclusions, for instance, are such recognitions. In your daily self-observation, realize that you cannot change an emotional reaction merely by having recently recognized its faulty premise. Emotions cannot be controlled that way. I have said that often. But you can change them by constant observation, by comparing the wrong reactions with the right concept that has to be formed mentally, by meditating on it in the way I taught you in this lecture. You can expand your meditation and pray in your own words, asking God to help you to become aware of the right concept, even if only intellectually at first. If you then compare your wrong reactions with the right concept without deceiving yourself “that you have already integrated the right concept at the feeling level”—seeing how your emotions still deviate from the right concept, then this process will gradually change your emotions. In this way you will slowly rectify the wrong emotions. You lead them from the wrong channel into the right one by this process of development and purification. [Thank you.]
QUESTION: Isn’t self-will the main hidden current in the case of the law-breaker and fear in the case of the law-upholder?
ANSWER: Yes, this is certainly true. These would be the predominant factors in each case. And pride also plays a role, in both instances, only used in different ways.
Now I will retire into my world again, but I will leave you, my dear ones, with a very strong blessing, with a heavenly light that shines upon each one of you. Do not despair when you are sad and discouraged, there is no reason. For life is eternal, and you are building your eternal abode in this your life, on the path you are so courageously taking. In that house you will be able to live in eternal happiness, without any woe, without any sorrow, without any parting, ever! So go in peace, my dear ones, be blessed in body, soul and spirit. Be in God!
Greetings. I bring you blessings in the name of God. Blessed is this hour, my dearest friends.
In the Bible it is said that you should not create an image of God. Most people believe this statement means that you should not draw a picture or make a statue of God. But this is by no means the entire sense. If you think about this statement a little more deeply, you will come to the conclusion that this could not be all that is implied in this commandment. You must now perceive that this refers to the inner image. You are still so involved in your own wrong conclusions and your irrational impressions that you are bound to have an inner image about God, as well as on all other subjects that are most important in your life.
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.
Children experience all kinds of authority. When they are prohibited from doing what they enjoy most, they experience authority as hostile. When parental authority indulges a child, authority will be felt as benign. When there is a predominance of one kind of authority in childhood, the reaction to that will become the unconscious attitude toward God. In many instances, however, children experience a mixture of both. Then the combination of these two kinds of authority will form their image about God. To the degree a child experiences fear and frustration, to that same degree will fear and frustration unconsciously be felt toward God. God is then believed to be punishing and severe, often even an unfair and unjust force that one has to contend with. I know, my friends, that you do not think so consciously. But in the pathwork you are asked to find the emotional reactions that do not correspond at all to your conscious concepts. The less the unconscious concept coincides with the conscious one, the greater is the shock when one realizes the discrepancy.
Practically everything the child enjoys most is forbidden. Whatever gives most pleasure is prohibited, usually for the child’s own welfare; this the child cannot understand. Parents may also prohibit pleasure out of ignorance and fear. Thus it is impressed on the child’s mind that for everything most pleasurable in the world one is subject to punishment from God — the highest and sternest authority.
In addition, you are bound to encounter human injustice in the course of your life, in childhood as well as in adulthood. If these injustices are perpetrated by people who stand for authority — and are, therefore, unconsciously associated with God — your unconscious belief in God’s severe injustice is strengthened. Such experiences also intensify your fear of God. All this forms an image which makes, if properly analyzed, a monster out of God. This god, living in your unconscious mind, is really more of a Satan.
You yourself have to find out in your work or yourself how much of this holds true for you personally. Is your soul impregnated with similar wrong concepts? If and when a growing human being becomes conscious of such an impression, he or she often does not understand that this concept of God is false and that God is not what is experienced in the psyche. Then the person turns away from God altogether, wanting no part of the monster discovered hovering in his or her mind. This, by the way, is often the true reason for someone’s atheism. The turning away is just as erroneous as the opposite extreme of fearing a god who is severe, unjust, pious, self-righteous and cruel. The person who unconsciously maintains the distorted God-image rightly fears this deity and resorts to cajoling for favors. Here you have a good example of the two opposite extremes, both of which lack truth to an equal extent.
Now let us examine the case in which a child experiences benign authority to a greater extent than fear and frustration. Let us assume that overindulging and doting parents fulfill the child’s every whim. They do not instill a sense of responsibility in the child so he or she can get away with practically anything. The God-image resulting from such a condition is, at first glance, closer to a true concept of God — forgiving, “good,” loving, indulgent. This causes the personality to unconsciously think that one can get away with anything in the eyes of God, can cheat life, and avoid self-responsibility. To begin with, such a child will know much less fear. But since life cannot be cheated, one’s own life-plan cannot be cheated, this wrong attitude will produce conflicts, and therefore fear will be generated by a chain reaction of wrong thinking, feeling, and action. An inner confusion will arise, since life as it is in reality does not correspond to the unconscious image and concept of an indulgent God.
Many subdivisions and combinations of these two main categories can exist in the same soul. The image does not only depend on the particular kind of predominant authority experienced in childhood, but also on the characteristics the entity has brought into this life. The more the entity has developed in former incarnations in this area, the less will the environment influence the psyche.
Other factors also play a role. For instance, when hostile authority in the person of a domineering parent is the predominant factor, the atmosphere in the child’s home is filled with fear of this parent. The other parent may be doting and permissive. Although this influence is outwardly weaker, it may have a much stronger inner impression on the soul, and the resulting image may reflect that. The same holds true in the opposite case. Although severity, injustice and fear may have manifested as the weaker elements during childhood, the impression on the individual soul may be much stronger, thereby creating a more powerful image.
In most cases, both currents can be found. How, in what way, and why, what the attitude to the individual parent or parent-substitute was and is — all has to be found out and investigated in the image-work. But do keep in mind, my friends, that both alternatives are to be looked for, even if one appears stronger to begin with. The pampering and indulgent God-image is not simply added to the monster-image, but is often a reaction to and compensation for the false concept. The personality may grapple between these two concepts, unconsciously trying to find out which is right, never winning the battle because both concepts are false. In every child’s life both kinds of authority are experienced, no matter how much stronger one manifests. You may have one indulgent and one stern parent. Or you may even have two indulgent parents, but a severe teacher instills fear in you and has a greater influence on your inner growth than you realize. Or it may be another relative or a sibling. It is never just one kind of authority.
It is very important, my friends, to find out what your God-image is. This image is basic and determines all other attitudes, images and patterns throughout your life. You should all examine this attitude that may be deeply hidden within yourself. Do not be deceived by your conscious convictions. Rather try to examine and analyze your emotional reactions to authority, to your parents, to your fears and expectations. Out of these reactions you will gradually discover what you feel about God rather than what you think. Your God-image reflects the whole scale between the two opposite poles, from hopelessness and despair — believing that the universe is unjust — to self-indulgence, rejection of self-responsibility, and the expectation that God will indulge and pamper you.
Now the question arises how to dissolve such an image. How do you dissolve any image? First you have to become fully conscious of the wrong concept. That is not as easily or quickly accomplished as it might seem. Although you may be aware of the image to some degree, you by no means recognize all its implications, effects and influences on your personality. You may not have recognized its significance on all levels of your being. This must always be the first step. You may often be aware of an image — but you may not even be aware that it is false. Even in your intellectual perception you are partly convinced that the image-conclusion is correct. As long as this is so you cannot free yourself from the enslaving chains of the false belief. So the second step is to set your intellectual ideas straight. It is most important to understand that the proper formation of an intellectual concept should never be superimposed on the still-lingering emotional false concept. This would only cause suppression. On the other hand, you should not allow wrong conclusions and images, rising to the surface due to the work you have done so far, make you believe that they are true. In a subtle way, this is sometimes the case. Realize that the hitherto suppressed wrong concepts and ideas have to evolve clearly into consciousness; nurse the awareness of them in your surface consciousness, but realize that they are false. Formulate the right concept. Then these two should be compared. You need constantly check how much you still deviate emotionally from the right intellectual concept.
Do this quietly, without inner haste or anger at yourself that your emotions do not follow your thinking as quickly as you would like: Realize that your emotions need time to adjust, while doing everything in your power to give them the opportunity to grow. This is best accomplished by constant observation and comparison of the wrong and the right concept. Observe also your resistance to change and growth. The lower self of the human personality is very shrewd. Be wise to it.
As I have said, some concepts are easy to formulate. They are obvious. It merely requires a little thinking through. The resisting emotions do not care whether the proper concept is obvious or not. In either case they will find ways and means of trying to avoid a change of inner attitude. But as far as your intellectual understanding is concerned, you must differentiate between two kinds of concepts: those that are obvious if you think about them and those requiring development from inside — inner enlightenment that has to be earned in order to formulate the proper concept, even in your intellect, to begin with. Prayer for recognition is important. When you pray, observe how sincerely you desire the answer. You may dutifully pray for the recognition of your misconceptions, but inside there is a resisting block that you can feel if you look for it. Then, at least, you know that you yourself obstruct light and freedom, not God. Then you can begin arguing with that part in yourself that persists in being childish and unreasonable.
As far as the proper concept of God is concerned, this is certainly one of the most difficult awarenesses to come by — because it is the most precious! Whatever your image is in this respect, this is where you have to begin. If you are convinced of injustice, so that you cannot see even factually that this conviction is wrong, the remedy is in finding in your own life how you have caused happenings that seem entirely unjust. The better you understand the magnetic force of images and the powerful strength of all psychological and unconscious currents, the better will you understand and experience the truth of these teachings, the deeper will you be convinced that there is no injustice. Find the cause and effect of your inner and outer actions.
Humans like to concentrate unduly on the apparent injustice that has happened to them. They focus on how wrong others are. This should and can be recognized. But try to find your part. If you make half the effort you usually make when finding other’s faults to recognizing your own, you will see the connection of your own law of cause and effect. This alone will set you free, will show you that there is no injustice. You will see that it is not God, nor the fates, nor an unjust world order where you have to suffer the consequences of other people’s shortcomings, but your ignorance, your fear, your pride, your egotism that directly or indirectly caused that which seemed, so far, to come your way without your attracting it. Find that hidden link and you will come to see truth. You will realize that you are not ever a prey to circumstances and other people’s imperfections, but really the master of your fate. You will deeply understand, not only in theory but in practice, that everything happening to you is a direct or indirect result of your attitudes, deeds, thoughts and emotions. As far as the latter are concerned, they are most powerful of all — and this is constantly overlooked, even by my friends who have learned, and at times experienced, this truth. Your own unconscious affects the unconscious of the other person. This truth is perhaps most relevant to the discovery of how you call forth all happenings in your life, good or bad, favorable or unfavorable.
Once you experience this, you can dissolve your God-image, whether you fear God because you believe in injustice and are afraid of being the prey of circumstances over which you have no control, or whether you reject self-responsibility and expect an indulgent, pampering god to fix your life, make decisions for you, take self-inflicted hardships from you. The realization of how you cause the effects of your life will dissolve either God-image. This is one of the main breaking-points.
One of your handicaps is your guilt feeling, or rather your wrong attitude toward guilt. To understand that, it might be advisable to reread my lecture on the subject of justified and unjustified guilt-feelings and the proper attitude toward shortcomings. If your faults depress you so deeply that you are afraid to face them, then this wrong attitude has to be worked on first, because it hinders you in coming out of your own vicious circle. The guiltier you feel about possible wrongs you may have to face, the more do you escape reality and thereby inflict harm on your soul. The proper and constructive attitude toward your own shortcomings is the key to the dissolution of this — and all other — vicious circles you may be caught in. Understand that none of your faults are committed out of malice; or because you wish evil on other people. All faults, every kind of selfishness, is nothing but a misunderstanding and a wrong conclusion in itself. Your fear often makes you so paralyzed that your faculties cannot function properly. As a result, errors in judgment, action and reaction on your part bring effects into your life which you no longer connect with the origin of your fear. As long as you shy away from facing your erroneous reactions, because of a faulty attitude toward your shortcomings, you cannot find the breaking-point, which alone will bring you the recognition that you are not a victim; that you have power over your life; that you are free; and that the laws of God are infinitely good, wise, loving and safe! God’s laws do not make a puppet out of you, they make you wholly free and independent.
In order to help you find the proper concept of God, I will try to speak about Him. But remember that all words can, at best, be only a small point to start with in cultivating your own inner recognition. Words are always insufficient. How much more so when it concerns God Who is unexplainable, Who is all things, Who cannot be limited into words. How can your perception and capacity to understand suffice to sense the greatness of the Creator? Every smallest inner deviation and obstruction is a hindrance to understanding. We have to be concerned with the elimination of these hindrances, step by step, stone by stone, for only then will you glimpse the light and sense the infinite bliss.
One hindrance is that, despite the teachings you have received from various sources, you still unconsciously think about God as a person who acts, chooses, decides, disposes arbitrarily and at will. On top of this you superimpose the idea that all this must be just. But even though you include the word “justice,” this idea is false. For God is. His laws are made once and for all and work automatically. Emotionally, you are somehow bound to a wrong concept, and it stands in your way. As long as it is present, the real and true concept cannot fill your being.
God is, among so many other things, life and life force. Think of this life force as you think of an electric current, endowed with supreme intelligence. This “electric current” is there, in you, around you, outside of yourself. It is up to you how you use it. You can use electricity for constructive purposes, even for healing; or you can use it to kill. That does not make the electric current good or bad. You make it good or bad. This power current is one important aspect of God where it touches you most. This may lead you to think that God is entirely impersonal and therefore to be feared even more. It may contradict the idea of His infinite love. Neither is true. God, being all, is personal as well if He chooses to be, but His personal aspect has no bearing on the question we are now discussing and on one of the most important aspects of your personal life. His love is not only personal in God-manifest, but also in His laws, in the being of the laws. The apparently impersonal love of the laws that are — understand what is implied in the words that are! — shows clearly in the fact that they are made in such a way as to lead you ultimately into light and bliss, no matter how much you deviate from them. The more you deviate from the, the more you approach them through the misery the deviation inflicts. This misery will cause you to turn around at one point or another. Some sooner, some later, but all must finally come to the point where they realize that they themselves determine their misery or bliss. This is the love in the law, as is the fact that deviation from it is the very medicine to cure the pain caused by the deviation and, therefore, brings you closer to the aim. The love of the law — and therefore of God — is also contained in the fact that God lets you deviate if you wish; that you are made in His likeness, meaning that you are completely free to choose as you wish. You are not forced to live in bliss and light. You can if you wish. All this means the love of God. It is not easy to understand, but those of you who have difficulty in understanding will one day see the truth of these words.
When you have difficulty in understanding the justice of the universe and the self-responsibility in your own life, do not think of God as “He” — although, of course, God can manifest as a person too, since He can do anything and is everything. Rather think of God as the Great Creative Power at your disposal. Therefore, it is not God who is unjust, as your subconscious may believe, but it is your wrong use of the powerful current at your disposal. If you start from this premise and meditate on it, and if from now on you seek to find where and how you have ignorantly abused the power current in you, God will answer you. This I can promise. If you sincerely search for the answer, and if you have the courage to face it without the wrong kind of guilt feelings — and you should all be able to do that by now — you will come to understand cause and effect in your life; you will come to understand what led you to believe — perhaps unconsciously, but all the more powerfully — that God’s world is cruel and unjust, a world in which you have no chance, in which you have to be afraid and hopeless, a universe where God’s grace comes to a few chosen ones, but you are excluded. Only understanding the law of cause and effect can free you of this fallacious view of God that distorts your soul and your life.
I know, you do not think all that. But many of you feel it deeply hidden in your subconscious. Try to find that part in you where you do feel that way, regardless of your simultaneously sincere love for God. Find out whether you fear God more than you love Him. If you do, you can be sure this image of God exists in you and you are living in distortion and illusion since all images are just that. Enumerate the injustices of your own life, but do not examine the lives of others, or general conditions, for there you cannot find the answer. Then try to find where you have abused the power current and connect these instances with the injustices you complain about. If you cannot do so right away, I will help you, and further work will show the connections quite clearly, provided you truly desire the answers. You have no idea what this discovery will mean to you. The greater the resistance to it at first, the greater the victory. You have no inkling how free it will make you, how safe and secure. You will fully understand the marvel of the creation of these laws that let you, with the power current of life, do as you please in creating your own life. This will give you confidence and the deep, absolute knowledge that you have nothing to fear.
There is a type of personality so negative in this respect — though perhaps only subconsciously — that he or she is deeply convinced of the futility of one’s own life, and that the available life force can work only in a negative way. This may sound like a paradox, my friends, but it is not. Life force is energy. And in a personality problem of this type, the energy is used only negatively. That means, for instance, that the person becomes most alive in negative situations — in situations of fight, unrest, quarrel, and disharmony of any kind. Then something vibrates inwardly. Yet, when everything goes smoothly, although a part of the personality may enjoy it — usually the conscious side — another part feels deflated and lifeless. This indicates that the distortion about God has progressed to a considerable degree. To a smaller degree most people have this reaction, at least occasionally. Examine whether you feel more alive in a negative situation and more dead in a quiet one. Your reactions will have a connection with your God-image.
Are there any questions regarding this subject?
QUESTION: Could you give us some examples of abuse of the life force?
ANSWER: The abuse of the power current of your life force consists of all actions, thoughts, attitudes and emotions that deviate from divine truth, that are self-directed, motivated in a spirit of separateness. Separateness of soul, briefly, comes about when people withdraw inwardly and put an invisible wall around their soul in the mistaken idea that it gives them safety. For instance, people’s fears of life and love, of reality, of self-responsibility all lead to separateness. What this actually means is that the person considers him or herself different from others. The bridge to brotherhood is broken. This may happen in all sorts of reactions that are not always obvious. Each human fault contributes to separateness and is of itself a wrong conclusion; therefore a falsity, an illusion; therefore away from truth. If you analyze each fault, you will find that it exists because it is thought to be protective and advantageous. In truth it is not. For nothing can be to your advantage that is to the disadvantage of another person. This is separateness — and separateness is the illusion of the world of manifestation. Does that answer your question? [Yes, thank you.]
QUESTION: In connection with our work, the word detachment has come up. Would I be correct in stating that detachment is just another way of expressing separateness?
ANSWER: Not necessarily. When it comes to words, their meaning can often be subtle and confusing. As you all know from your work, a word can mean one thing to one person and something else to another. A word designates an idea, and you all know that each true idea can be distorted into an untruth by taking it to an extreme that must be wrong. This distortion usually happens quite deliberately, although unconsciously. One seeks to find justification for the problem in one’s soul by going to the extreme of a right idea. This has been the trouble with all great religious teachings throughout the ages. Detachment undergoes a similar fate. People who are afraid of life and love often escape into the distorted idea of detachment. But this should not make you forget the real meaning, the right sense of it.
The true sense of detachment is to be detached from one’s own ego-centeredness. Thereby the person obtains a certain objectivity, which is detachment. It means that you consider your own hurt vanities, advantages, goals no differently from those of other people. You know how difficult this is to attain, even to a small degree. It cannot be attained by escaping life and its hurts, as some people want to believe, by misinterpreting spiritual ideas. Quite the contrary. Only by facing life’s hurts in the right spirit, by not being so involved with your self that you see nothing else, will you come to the point of healthy detachment and objectivity. Being human, it is understandable that you fear life and love, but you cannot force fear away through the wrong kind of practice of detachment. You can reach true detachment only by degrees.
QUESTION: I think this question was asked in connection with a discussion we had. Can you tell me whether I see it right? It seems that we involve ourselves in all kinds of emotions in a negative way, so I do not want to be involved any more before I learn detachment. Once I have learned that, I would like to be involved because then I can do so in a constructive way.
ANSWER: Unfortunately, it does not always work out this way. It would be extremely comfortable and pleasant — many people try it but they cannot succeed — to avoid the disappointments of life in that way. As I often said in the past: you cannot get around it, you have to go through it. As long as you fear the hurts, you do not become detached from them. Because the fear is worse than that which you fear. That always holds true. Therefore, one has to try and find the right middle way between these wrong extremes.
At one extreme is the person who plunges headlong into every negative situation. Various psychological factors may be responsible for it — self-punishment or a form of aggressiveness toward others, punishing them by one’s own unhappiness — and many other factors. These are the people who always become involved in a negative and destructive way. At the other extreme is separateness, the attitude that makes one believe one can go through life avoiding its negative aspects. If you are so much afraid of hurts that you force strict measures on yourself to avoid them, you can never rise above them, and therefore you can never attain the right kind of detachment. In order to rise above anything, you have to go through it, so that you lose the fear of it. This has to be done in the right spirit — neither in a masochistic, self-destroying attitude, nor in an attitude of fear and a sick kind of self-love. So the right middle way has to be found in this respect as well as in all others. This is always the difficulty. The right middle way is, briefly speaking, that life brings all sorts of experiences; that it can only bring you experiences your own soul calls forth; that you do not avoid happiness because you are afraid of unhappiness; that you do not avoid positive involvement because you are afraid of negative involvement.
All negative experiences should make you stronger. If they weaken you, it is not the negative experience that is the cause of your weakening, but your attitude to the experience. This does not exclude a certain caution. It does not mean to rush into things without thinking through; without using one’s intuition; without trying to really and truly see the situation, the other person, and everything that is part of the issue. Many times seeing is avoided because one wishes to have the other person fit to one’s own need; or one wishes the situation to do so, and therefore one does not dare to look. This right middle way demands a certain objectivity. But do not forget, you can only become objective about the world and the situation around you to the degree that you succeed in being truly objective about yourself.
QUESTIONER: I am not afraid of being hurt, but I would like to learn to stand back a little.
ANSWER: That is all right. You see, my answer is not only given to you personally. It is of general interest. It is so easy to misunderstand and nurture the sick state in a personality. As far as you yourself are concerned, you have to find this right middle way by testing yourself constantly. Whatever your extreme was so far, it might be wise to temporarily lean a little more in the other direction. You should be aware that this is also extreme, but it will have to be that way for a while until you can reach the right balance. In this discussion you both have the right idea, but each of you has to find the proper balance in yourselves by realizing toward which one of these two extremes you are inclined to lean.
QUESTION: What would be the connection, similarities, and differences between anti-life force and the abuse of the life force?
ANSWER: The abuse of the life force is the anti-life force. It brings anti-life force in its wake. It is merely a distortion. They are not two separate forces. It is one current.
QUESTION: May I bring up the subject of lying. What is the spiritual point of view about “white lies” — lies in order to protect a higher cause or prevent hurts?
ANSWER: My answer cannot and must not be given on an outer level. Many teachers and teachings remain on the outer level, on the level of conduct. On this level the answer could never be conclusive. In fact, it could be dangerous. On the outer level, rules are made that become rigid and dead. And you cannot make one rule. There are so many possibilities, and each possibility is different. So my answer may, at first, seem unclear and, perhaps, even a little ambiguous. It will not be as satisfactory as if I could pronounce one rule and conduct for all alternatives. The only true answer is on the inner level, and it is this:
You will always know what to do and what the right course is — whether it concerns this subject or any other — if you have learned honesty with yourself to the maximum degree you are capable of. That, in itself, is a long process. Only in yourself do you find the truth that will then govern your proper outer conduct. If you are honest with yourself, you will be able to judge whether your dilemma is based entirely on selfless motives — another person’s hurt, a higher cause or whatever — or whether these valid motives may also hide a selfish one. You will know how to evaluate it. The mere discovery and knowledge of the possible hidden selfish motive will show you what course to take. About this, no generalization can be made. The discovery of the selfish motive will show you that the outer selfless ones are no longer valid. In other instances, you will consider the outer selfless motives in spite of the fact that you have discovered selfish motives; you will see that although there is an advantage for yourself in considering others, this is still to the good all around. Only you will not deceive yourself any longer. Even the good course would be harmful to you if you were unaware of your own truth. Again and again I have to say, the right conduct we are all searching for does not lie in the action itself, it lies in the self-awareness and honesty. That is the key to all conflicts, be it lying or anything else.
QUESTIONER: Does that mean in essence the change from “thou must not” to “thou canst not”?
ANSWER: That would be included in it; all right conduct is always done freely. But it is not exactly what I said here. What I discussed is the importance of realizing possible hidden motives which may be selfish, while the outer conscious motive may be unselfish.
QUESTION: This question was asked by someone who is absent. What is the connection between the interplay on the human plane of action and reaction and God’s will, the higher self will, free will, and self-will?
ANSWER: The higher self will is God’s will. There is no difference. Since it is free, free will may either be God’s will or self-will. Even self-will may correspond to God’s will, only the motive varies. In other words, the goal may be right. God’s will is relaxed, patient, unconcerned with one’s ego. God’s will is flexible, while self-will may want to attain the same results but is rigid, impatient, self-concerned.
The interaction — action and reaction between people — is a much more complicated problem. I suspect that the underlying question was — perhaps not entirely consciously — whether one is dependent on what another person creates with his own free will. In other words: “If my neighbor chooses with his free will to commit a wrong, and I am affected by it, how do I come by it? How do I deserve it? Am I or am I not a victim of the arbitrary choice of my fellow-creature’s free will or self-will?” The deeply hidden fear of dependence on other people’s actions and motives is a very important problem of humanity, which colors one’s attitude to life. I realize it is very difficult for you to grasp and understand that you are never, never dependent on another person, even if it seems that way. That is the illusion of the world of manifestation. The teachings and the path I show you must prove to you forever more that it is you yourself who inflict difficulties, conflicts and hurts on you, no matter how much the other person may be at fault. If you are free of images, illusions, wrong conclusions and wrong concepts, the wrong deeds of others can never affect you. You will then learn to adjust to the world. Happy or unhappy incidents in your life, favorable or unfavorable happenings, will have exactly the same effect on you. Of course, you are not that far yet. But by slow degrees you approach it. And some of my friends, be it only for a short instant, have already experienced this great truth, although afterward it may evaporate again. Once experienced, it is easier to recapture the knowledge and then you can build on it.
If what I just said is not entirely clear, you can ask me to clarify it in the next session. Think about it in the meantime.
My dearest friends, may the words I gave you tonight bring light into your soul, into your life. Let them fill your heart. Let them be an instrument to liberate you from illusions, my dearest friends. I bless each one of you, individually and as a whole. God’s world is a wonderful world, and there is only reason to rejoice on whatever plane you live, whatever illusions or hardships you temporarily endure. Let them be a medicine for you, and grow strong and happy with whatever comes your way. Be blessed. Be in peace. Be in God!
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