The Soul Substance -- Coping With Demands

By The Pathwork Guide

Greetings, my dearest friends. Welcome, all of you. Blessings for all of you.

I should first like to discuss the healthy soul versus the sick soul from a new aspect, as seen from a spiritual view. This may help my friends toward an increased and deepened understanding for their further development and inner growth.

When a new child enters this earth, then its soul stuff is very malleable, it is very soft. Underneath this soul stuff lie all the potentials -- the talents, the qualities, the tendencies, the characteristics -- and also the unresolved problems. According to these potentials -- the positive as well as the negative -- the entity grows. This malleable, soft substance of the soul is, by its very nature, very impressionable. Therefore, when the child collects impressions during its early years, then the impact of the impressions will be according to the underlying potentials. Where the soul is potentially healthy, and therefore is strong, even negative impressions will not make a deep dent into the soul. The experience is registered and it is dealt with by assimilating it according to its reality significance so that the personality learns from the experience, and therefore grows, regardless of whether it was a happy experience or an unhappy one. Where the underlying potential is positive, then in those areas the underlying soul stuff will be so resilient that a seemingly most detrimental occurrence will bounce off, so to speak. In other words, it will not leave a lasting mark, other than the benefit of increased understanding.

But where the underlying potential is of unresolved problems, then the soul stuff in these areas is so unresilient that the impressions form deep dents, and therefore remain imbedded in the soul substance. When you recollect my explanations about how images are formed, then it will be easier to understand when you visualize what I say here. Such visualizations may be of immeasurable help when one makes an insight into oneself.

When you have retained an impression due to unresilient soul stuff, then your entire mechanism functions according to this impression, way beyond its reality value. The one-time occurrence is generalized, and is thereby falsified. Thus a destructive pattern is set in motion, which one's reason is unable to prevent as long as the impression remains imbedded in the soul stuff and the dent is not alleviated. This happens through the healing activity of the kind of self-finding that you are engaged in.

We speak of flexibility versus rigidity. Flexibility is the result of resilient, elastic, healthy soul substance. When it comes to rigidity, then there exist two different kinds. So far this fact has been disregarded. But now it will be helpful for you to determine their difference. The first kind is based on the following circumstances. When the soul is constantly exposed to these deep impressions that cannot be assimilated -- and which therefore form dents so that the imprints remain imbedded in the soul substance -- then the effect on the personality is heavy. Unfavorable circumstances create suffering way beyond their reality value. Therefore the soul suffers more than it would have to. Even favorable impressions create an exhausting effect. Some of you may have experienced that when you are overly excited about good happenings, then their effect is a disrupting one. You are unable to assimilate the experience. In other words, it hangs on you and it makes you restless. Assimilation and digestion is such a slow process that it takes all of the personality's faculties to cope with it, thus arresting the growth and the functioning of other aspects of the psyche. In other words, in order to deal with one experience that would normally need only a certain amount of strength, of faculties, of attention, and of investment, thereby leaving part of all these forces free to deal with other aspects of living and of being, all of the inner forces are required to serve a comparatively unimportant event. The fact that you are joyful and gratified about the event as such does not change the fact that an unnecessary amount of forces is wasted. This creates an unrest, with the resultant deep effect that blocks the soul. The psychic forces persist in remaining in the experience. This may not be a conscious occurrence, but when you are attentive to your inner reactions, then you are bound to learn that such over-preoccupation does exist. It may manifest in intense thoughts about a relatively unimportant happening; it may manifest in an inability to let go of it in its emotional impact, such as the inability to forgive and forget; but mainly it manifests in the much more subtle procedure of an automatic reaction, one that is not commensurate with the outer occurrence because a one-time experience is falsely applied to a happening of an entirely different nature. In short, something that frightened you once will cause you to be frightened again by an outer event that is really quite dissimilar to the first. But certain factors make you believe that the latter happening is similar to the earlier one. Such automatic reactions, which you have begun to observe and which you begin to understand in yourself, are based on the too-malleable soul stuff that did not grow healthily into resilient elasticity.

Since all this is painful -- either consciously or unconsciously -- and since the effect is bound to be detrimental, the psyche seeks a remedy. Such unconsciously-sought remedies are often more destructive than the original evil (as, for example, with the pseudo solutions). The false remedy in this particular case is an artificial protective wall set up in order to prevent this constant heavy impact, the hurtful dents in the soul substance -- which are experienced as oversensitivity. Such a wall is both hard and brittle. It prevents feeling and experiencing and it causes the one type of rigidity.

The other type of rigidity is caused by the fact that the soul is incapable of assimilating experience, but rather holds on to it. When the indentation upon the soul is so deep that one cannot let go of it, then the result is that preoccupation with the experience excludes important reality factors.

One first sees and then evaluates only that which appears to bother or to disturb, but disregards other factors that are important for understanding the occurrence in its full light. Such a limited outlook, or subjective evaluation, is inevitable if the soul suffers unduly. And such suffering makes a wider and more truthful view quite impossible. This one-sidedness and this inability to perceive differently constitutes the second type of rigidity. The personality can deal only with what he immediately sees and perceives according to the highly over-sensitized area of the too-vulnerable soul substance. Every other aspect either of the situation or of the other person involved is overshadowed. If it were out in the light, then the understanding would be a different one. But this is not possible because one is too preoccupied with the unpleasant effect of the dent upon the soul stuff. If you suffer a physical pain in a certain area of your body, then you are bound to have all your attention focus to this area, thereby disregarding the other areas. It is the same process. What makes this more complicated is the fact that here we are dealing with very subtle and unconscious reactions that can be verified only if and when you become sufficiently attuned to your inner mechanism as a result of extended progress in self-recognition.

To briefly summarize the difference between the two kinds of rigidities. The former dulls feeling and experiencing; the latter colors views and experience to such a degree that the perception of reality is highly limited. That is why it is often the case that the perception of reality is limited. It is also often the case that people have both kinds of rigidities, alternately and simultaneously, one overlapping the other, one caused by the other. But often one is predominant. When this is so, then it is relatively easy to recognize. When the second type is predominant, then it often manifests by harping on details; by seeing only certain facets of others and of situations which may, in themselves, be correct but which are incomplete simply because other factors are overlooked. This may even apply to your attitude towards people and to situations where you are not importantly involved. But you are so conditioned to this way of reacting -- due to the lack of resiliency of your soul substance -- that you cannot function differently, even when you are not personally involved. Such over-malleable soul stuff makes you incapable of adjusting to ever-changing conditions and circumstances. You cannot first see them and then evaluate them, for you are conditioned to react only to the direct imprint made upon your soul substance. This prevents you from being in the constant flow of life, from being in truth, from being in reality. In order to make this possible, your soul stuff has to have the healthy elasticity necessary to quickly assimilate incidents according to their real significance.

Healthy soul substance cannot be created by an act of will. Only the finding and the changing of misconceptions, of pseudo solutions, and of distortions can bring this about. In order to facilitate this process, it is important that the inner perception of both healthy reactions and of unhealthy reactions of the soul substance be seen in this light. And also the recognition of the two kinds of rigidities. If you feel their difference within yourself, then it will be very helpful. They feel different, they have a different flavor, as it were. As indicated earlier, both may exist. The one may be a counter-reaction to the other. Hence, in this work you may first find the brittle wall of rigidity. But do not expect to then find a healthy flexibility beneath. Be prepared to find this other kind of rigidity that at first glance may appear to be the very opposite of rigidity because it is overly-soft in substance. But upon closer inspection, this very softness -- which is devoid of healthy resistance -- cannot let go of the impressions received. Therefore it mulls them over and over. In other words, it is persistently influenced and governed by what should already be obsolete. Thus it becomes rigid. The exaggeration of truth brings untruth in both directions. This holds true for everything, and it has been discussed in many other instances. Here too much resistance -- the brittle pseudo protective wall -- has effects which are similar to those of too little resistance, of the over-malleability of soul stuff.

How can you cope with your life when you are not in reality? How can you be in reality when either of these two kinds of rigidities exists? How can you adapt yourself to the ever-changing flux of life? How can you evaluate objectively? How can you perceive in truth? None of this is possible if your soul substance is so easily indented that an impression of passing importance for you, of minor significance, remains imbedded and continues to dictate your reactions towards future events, thus distorting the relationship between the event and your reactions.

With the foregoing I have shown you a new aspect of factors already known to you. But such increased sight, from a different vantage point, is often a very helpful element in the necessary impact and impetus of the work on the Path.

Let me finish this this topic by briefly describing what a healthy soul looks like, as compared to an unhealthy one, as seen from out view. In the healthy soul the form is rounded, it is very smooth and even. The substance is flexible, it is elastic. It is a mixture of resilience and of healthily resistant softness. This combination produces the ideal conditions to go through life with the capacity for deep experience, while being able to quickly assimilate such an experience, so that new impressions and new experiences are always possible.

By contrast, in the unhealthy soul the form is bumpy, it is uneven in shape, with the bumps hardened, like scabs. The scabbed substance is so malleable that it is sticky and pasty, retaining all the imprints because it lacks the ability to throw them off.

Many of you in the course of your work have glimpsed, even if only vaguely, that all unhealthy reactions are artificial. They are much more difficult to maintain and to follow through than the natural reactions. When such insight comes, be it ever so seldom to begin with, then it is a decisive step in your growth toward your self-realization. For, in that moment, you understand how strenuous the pseudo protections and the pseudo solutions are. And how much more easily, how much more reliably, how much more safely your natural being guides you through life. That is not to be confused with the line of least resistance and giving in to one's destructive instincts. Before you have reached certain levels of inner recognition, such a statement might easily be misinterpreted in such a way. But once these levels have been reached through the steady progress and the ongoing growth that persevering work is bound to eventually bring about, then you will first understand and then experience forever more the certainty of this truth: that pseudo solutions are strenuous and therefore energy consuming, while experiencing the real self is safe and easy. I mention this again because I see a tendency in human nature to overlook the importance of such vague glimpses. Please ponder over them. Look at the first occasion of such an experience so as to attain the full value and the deep significance that they harbor. Such glimpses of health, as compared with the distorted, artificial, strained inner ways of living, are the best way to heal your soul substance.

Once again, it holds true that the awareness of unhealth leads to health, while the unawareness of it, and then covering up this unhealth, leads further away from health.

Now I would like to discuss a different topic, although it is related to and connected with the foregoing, as everything in the human soul is connected and interrelated. In the course of this work, we have often found and discussed your demands. I am now referring mainly to the hidden, unconscious demands that have existed all along without your being aware of them. After sufficient progress, you found their existance and you were often surprised to discover how stringent the demands of others, the demands of yourself, and the demands of life really are. The discovery of their existence often took considerable time and much effort on your part. Often you may have been shocked by how incompatible they were with your conscious concept of yourself. Whoever has not reached the full awareness of his own demands may be well advised to investigate his previous findings in this particular light. In this particular phase you will find that an imbalance exists. On the one hand, you have excessive demands in that you expect more from others than you are willing to give, no matter how much you may cover up this fact by a substitution. On the other hand, you will also find that you may be too modest in your own expectations. In other words, of the demands you make of yourself. This is a logical consequence that occurs automatically within. It is based on the balancing quality of inner law.

But let us consider another aspect of this theme, the demands that are made upon you. How do you react when demands are being made upon you? How do you cope with them? Before going any further, let us be clear that you may not be any more conscious of demands being made upon you than you are conscious of your making demands upon others. The fact that you are unaware of demands made upon you does not eliminate their effect upon you, and your special inner way of dealing with them. You react strongly to such demands, even though you may never know it consciously. The increased awareness that is cultivated on this Path will make you aware of the demands that others make upon you and of your reactions to these demands. It is my advice to my friends who work in this intensive study to devote some attention to this topic and to look at their associations and at their relationships from this particular viewpoint. When you establish this fact -- that you feel a certain demand is being made upon you and you then have a certain reaction to it -- then you can go a step further. I will outline the way, even though these subsequent steps cannot be made before you have clearly established the awareness of your demands upon others and of the demands of others upon you, as well as the awareness of your real reaction to both of them. In order to understand your reactions, it is important to also understand them from the point of view of the first part of this lecture. When your soul substance is too impressionable, when you unduly retain impressions -- in this case, the currents of the demands of others upon you -- when you cannot assimilate healthily, then evaluate, and thereby come to terms with, the effect that others have on you. It is then that their demands have an undue effect upon you. Either you will interpret something as being a demand that is not really a demand -- and therefore an inner defense against it will automatically be triggered off -- or you may have a tendency to be impelled or compelled to give in to the most immature unjustified demands from others because you either feel guilty or because you fear the unwelcome consequences if you do not. In both instances the inevitable result is resentment, defiance, and hostility. None of it may be conscious at that moment. Or the existence of such emotions may not be linked with the fact that you respond in this way to the demands being made upon you. You are -- often unconsciously -- so fearful of demands, or of your compulsion to give in to them, so afraid of what might happen if you do not give in to them, that you set up a defense against them. It is as though an inner alarm rings whenever either an actual demand or an imaginary demand is being made of you. Your guilt and your fear do not permit you to first become aware of this process and then to investigate it with your reasoning faculties. Thus, a blind reaction occurs on your part. This reaction is not so much a reaction against the demands themselves, but against the temptation and the compulsion to give in to them. In other words, against your inability to discriminate. By keeping this hidden, then such discrimination is even less possible. But in addition, your lack of security in yourself makes you unable to differentiate, and therefore to determine. Such security can come only when you establish an integrity that is, somewhere and somehow, impaired. To return once again to the subject of an unelastic soul substance: too great an influenceability creates such an aversion to deal with impacts coming from the outside that all outer influxes are cut off. Thus healthy intercommunication cannot exist.

Your response to the demands of others may frighten you, so that you may then withdraw from all meaningful relationships. When we discuss the fear of involvement, then it is important to realize that such fear exists not only due to the fear of disappointment, with its resulting hurt, but also due to the fear of having to cope with the demands of others.

My friends, it is important to realize that demands are all around you. The more you are involved, then the more demands exist. When you first become aware of them and then you consider them calmly, you will see that in some instances the demands of others are childish, and therefore excessive. In other instances, they are a part of human communication and of human relationship. Therefore, your fright of them and your subsequent refusal is unjustified. This indicates an excessive demand on your own part: wanting the advantage of a close communication without giving in the real sense of the word, although perhaps over-giving on a different level -- thus putting the entire relationship out of balance. Since the other person receives what he really does not inwardly ask for, then his demands become more urgent, while you become more guilty and more resentful.

When this knowledge is not sufficient to make you free to deal with the demands being made upon you, then the key always lies in the fact that you have not recognized where you have an excessive demand -- perhaps in another area, either hidden from sight, or explained away and rationalized. When you cannot cope with the demands of others, then it is not sufficient to establish this fact. It is of equal importance to find where hidden demands of your own exist. When you find this, and you change the unreasonable greed of such childish requests, then you will become perfectly capable of coping satisfactorily with the demands made upon you by other people, thus maintaining good and deep relationships.

And now, my friends, to your questions.

QUESTION: I would like a clear definition of what the soul is. I think it has been done, but if I could have a brief definition, I think it would clarify this lecture.

ANSWER: There are many interpretations of what the soul is, and they may all be quite accurate. If they seem contradictory, then it is because words are limited to describe an inner process that exists on a different dimension from that of human language. Therefore it is easy to become confused with words and verbal explanations. This is the reason that higher dimensions can never be made accessible by verbal learning, but only by inner experience. This becomes possible only when the inner errors and the distortions are dissolved.

Let me explain the soul as we use it here. The soul is the sum total of the inner personality. It is the thinking, the feeling, the concepts, the potentials, the attitudes, the patterns, the characteristics, the temperament, the emotions, the idiosyncracies. In other words, everything that is behind the physical being. It also includes the unresolved problems. But it does not include the cover-up for the unresolved problems: the pseudo solutions and the false defenses. This is not the soul itself. But the particular choice of the pseudo solution is an expression, a manifestation, an indication of the soul behind it.

QUESTION: Then karma is the memory of the soul from former unresolved problems?

ANSWER: I would not say the memory. It is the result of all the previous incarnations. Karma is the effect which the soul has produced.

QUESTION: The sensitivity is carried along?

ANSWER: Of course. The sensitivity, the perception, the ability to experience. All these faculties have scales. One person's sensitivity may be on the lowest note of the keyboard, another person's on the highest. The latter may exist either in the healthy way or in the unhealthy way. Karma is the result of everything up to the present point.

QUESTION: You gave attributes to the soul of a physical, material nature. You gave it roundness and malleability in a physical sort of substance. Is it localized, like any other organ in the body?

ANSWER: No, it is not localized in that sense. It is a body, consisting of matter similar to your earth matter, although not perceivable with your physical organs. It is a subtle body. When I spoke of roundness, it does not mean that it is a round form, like a ball. The surface of the subtle body can have all the attributes I discussed. You might compare it with the consistency of skin and flesh. Only, the surface of the subtle body of the soul has much more variety than the variety of physical skin and flesh. The words are so limited that I realize that they often seem preposterous, but this is the best way of conveying it. For I do wish to give you an idea of what the soul-body may look like.

QUESTION: May I ask about the relationship between the subconscious and the soul?

ANSWER: The soul is the unconscious mind, or at least part of it. Much of what the soul contains is conscious, if you consider what I have said about it. But the unconscious motivations, the unconscious attitudes, the unconscious driving forces, and the unconscious inclinations are also from the soul. Then there are also the deeper regions of the unconscious self which go to the real spiritual being.

QUESTION: We claim that attitudes determine the happenings in our lives. How is it that people with bad motives so often derive all the happiness and success in life? I know of such cases.

ANSWER: I have answered this question in previous sessions, but I may answer it briefly again. In the first place, man's view is very limited and his way of judging is based on his ability to see cause and effect immediately together. When the effect does not immediately follow the cause, then he loses the link, and therefore is unable to see their interrelationship. Thus, if he nevertheless attempts to judge, then his judgment must be faulty. It is often the case that cause and effect are far removed in time. In other words, a human being may experience the effect of a cause from way back, while the new causes he institutes have not yet taken effect, but will do so later. With increasing spiritual development, inner health, and oneness, then cause and effect come closer together. When they are separated in time, then an inner chasm and a division of the soul must exist. The overall development of the soul, its potential for growth at this period regarding particular areas of development, is still limited when cause and effect are removed from one another. Only when the potential is greater than the development are cause and effect closer together.

Moreover, there is still another consideration related to this question. When the motives are split, then the effect is influenced. For example, if a person is still so crude in his spirituality that he has no conscience, then the bad motives will not be interfered with by a non-existent conscience and, therefore, will be unified. Thus the bad motives have an apparently favorable effect. Only later, when the conscience has grown, the retrospective guilt will have an effect and then it will manifest as though punishment came from the outside. When the motives are already split -- in this sense an increase of development as compared with the person who can have destructive motives without an inner conflict -- then the results do not come. One side of the personality has acquired much higher standards than another. And I do not mean superimposed standards from outside, but real inner standards. When such is the case, then destructive motivations will not bring the desired result, even though they may be quite conscious. On the other hand, constructive and good motives, no matter how conscious, will not bring the good results either if they are undermined by unconscious destructive motives. Hence, a very ruthless person may not attain the results of his ruthless aims because an inner voice, that he may be completely unaware of, hinders the impact of his will. His own inner development, still hidden and contradictory to some facets of his being, prohibits an unsplit will. When such is the case, then a conscious determination to be ruthless will have no effect. The soul has already reached a new potential. Similarly, the person who tries very hard to be good, but is unable to cope with his hidden selfishness and cruelty due to repression, is unable to attain the desired positive result. It is always the unaware part of the split motives that hinders the will and, subsequently, the result.

QUESTION: How do you explain the function of drama, myth, fairy tales in the personal development of the human being?

ANSWER: I believe that the foregoing lecture really answers this question. I suppose the questioner means the effect that myth, drama, and fairy tales have upon a human being. Any effect from the outside always depends on its assimilation. In other words, on the impressionability of the soul. Whether fairy tales and myths have a good influence both on a growing person and on the adult person cannot be put into a generalization. It depends on the material and on the interpretation. We can only consider a young child, for when a person is an adult, then it is up to him to utilize and to assimilate an impression. He is no longer dependent on the interpretation provided by others. But a young child is dependent on the interpretation given by the adults who surround him. Such an interpretation may not occur in words, but in the atmosphere that he emanates. The adult's feelings have a much stronger influence than his words. Whatever he really understands will make itself communicated to the child. If an apparently cruel fairy tale or myth is taken literally, then a soul particle that is already afflicted will be influenced negatively, and therefore will be negatively impressed. The healthy soul substance will not react negatively when a fairy tale is misinterpreted. False myths will not have a negative effect either. For not all myth is truthful. Untruthful literature, or other influences, as well as misunderstood and misinterpreted truthful influences, will take effect only where the soul is already afflicted. Where the soul is afflicted, and either truthful interpretations or truthful influxes occur, then the soul is given a chance to assimilate such helpful influences. Whether or not it does so depends on the person.

QUESTION: I should like your differentiation between feelings and emotions.

ANSWER: There is a difference between the two. One way of describing the difference would be to say that a feeling is deeper-rooted and more permanent. By this I do not wish to imply that feelings do not change. I do not mean permanent in time, but in quality, in consistency, in character, in being. A feeling may actually change faster, in time, than an emotion, and yet it is permanent in essence. This is very difficult to explain, and in order to understand, then you would have to perceive this with your inner faculties. An emotion is something that is much more superficial, even though it may be retained longer due to circumstances, as discussed in this lecture. Yet it has a less permanent character, even though it may last longer in time. An emotion comes from superficial conditions in the soul. Reactions and responses, which are based on superimposed modes of coping with life and which do not come from the real person, are emotions. The seal self sends forth feelings. Hence a feeling is something much more substantial. This cannot be evaluated by the apparent worth of the feeling. (look this up)necessarily an emotion. A positive reaction is not necessarily a feeling, while a negative one is not necesarily an emotion.You may have an unpleasant feeling, yet it is based on truth, on reality. An emotion is based on a subjective inner condition. Let me give you an example. Let us suppose that you sense a detrimental, negative quality either in someone else, or in yourself. If this quality is a fact, then you deal with a feeling, even though it may be highly unpleasant. However, you may have the same perception, but you do not sense this fact because you do not merely observe what is, just because you are frightened, suspicious, guilty, resentful because some image or some pseudo solution is at work. In this instance, the same correct perception is an emotion. When you do not push the feeling aside, then you will come to see that you have a valid intuition, be it about yourself or about someone else. When you do not push aside an emotion -- and you should not push aside an emotion, a feeling, or anything else, for that matter -- then you will come to recognize factors within yourself that make you subjective, that make you distorted, that take you away from reality. In short, you will see all the blocks that prohibit feelings and intuition. A feeling is something that reacts to reality, however temporary this respective reality may be, but it exists now.

Let us now examine a favorable or pleasant emotion. Gratified vanity, greed, or pride may produce a pleasant emotion. Or, to go a step further, even a true factor perceived, but utilized subjectively, will produce an emotion, not a feeling. Feelings are based on objectivity, emotions on subjectivity. In both instances they may be either pleasant or unpleasant. In the human language, it is often confused. One speaks of emotional maturity or emotional involvement. One speaks of expressing one's emotions, when feelings are meant just as well. But the words do not matter so much, as long as you understand the essence.

QUESTION: Am I correct in understanding that anything can be either feeling or emotion. Fear, for instance?

ANSWER: Yes. That is right. But, my friends, my advice is this: do not try to label it. That is always a dangerous procedure. If you instantly give it one name, as distinct from another, then you somehow close a door to further understanding. Rather, try to deal with it as it comes up, to see whether or not it is based on objective factors, or on personal, colored, subjective ones.

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May these words help you toward a deeper and broader understanding. My love and my help go to all of you. The blessings and the assistance are accorded to each one of you who has the great courage and dignity, the human dignity, to want to develop, to want to grow, to want to change, to want to face himself in utter candor so as to make this growth possible. The dignity lies in the fact that this endeavor is pursued regardless of the cost of facing negative aspects, and therefore of shattering one's cherished ideas about oneself. When this is done, then the fruits must be yours. If you now tend this beautiful garden by weeding out that which does not belong, then the spiritual help along the way will always be yours. Be in peace, my dearest friends, be in God.

February 1, 1963