Contact With The Life Force

By The Pathwork Guide

Greetings, my dearest, dearest friends. Blessings for all of you, present and absent. Blessed are your further efforts on this Path, now and in the time to come.

This past working year was one of the most crucial on your path for most of my friends, individually and for this group as a whole. Many of you are keenly aware of this fact. Some of you may sense it vaguely and others may still have to come to this point, perhaps in the next working season when they will experience this crucial, most significant transformation within themselves. If you will continue in the next year as you have worked until now, then the promise is great. Some of you reading this will no longer feel that these are merely words, but will know that this is so. So may the coming weeks during the summer be for all of you a time of consolidation of the past work and a time of preparation for the future phase of the work on your inner path of liberation.

In this lecture I should like to discuss, once again, the life force. Each time I treat a topic that we discussed previously, it is done on a deeper level and it is then possible to give you more material because you are better able first to absorb it and then to utilize it. Thus it has a more immediate meaning for you. What I said then about this topic was for you a beautiful theory. Today many of you are able to see that this is not merely a theory, a far-away philosophical principle. It is a key with which life can be lived, in the real sense of the word.

Let us recapitulate certain facets of the life force. The life force is profoundly intelligent. Its intelligence is always available, it is always present. The life force is applicable not only for the great and important issues, as man may be inclined to believe. This super intelligence does deign to express itself on supposedly small, unimportant issues, provided one makes use of it. It knows no important or unimportant issues. In other words, it knows no big or small issues. It pervades all when it is allowed to do so. One of its most striking aspects is that there is no conflict contained in it. The small, limited human mind is often confronted with alternatives in which something is good on the one hand, but bad on the other; favorable for one person, but unfavorable for another. When such is the case, then man is not in truth. Therefore, he is separated from that aspect of the life force which can let him partake of its vast intelligence through which the right result knows no ifs and no buts, knows no disadvantages in any way or for anyone concerned. It is deeply right from any possible point of view. It leaves no trace of doubt or uneasy feelings. It leaves man with the peaceful knowledge that all is well, thereby increasing his security in himself and in life.

This vast intelligence is available for every one of your smallest cares and your smallest concerns. It is forever ready to respond, provided you choose to request its service. It never pushes itself onto you, but it is there, ready, at your disposal. In other words, it is up to you to be in contact with it. All it needs is your awareness of its existence and your desire to make use of it. You have to formulate your questions and your aims concisely. When these are hazy and vague -- in other words, when you are lost in a fog of confusion -- then the life force cannot penetrate you. Consequently, you cannot partake of it. What is necessary is a twofold approach. First you have to make the effort necessary to have an exact awareness of and then a clear formulation of your problems, of your confusions, and of your split motivations. Then you have to reach out for the life force and request its help. The Pathwork is specifically preparing you for this.

Even when man believes in this principle, he is often under the wrong impression that first he has to reach a certain stage in his development -- in other words, that he has to shed his conflicts and have a great deal of spiritual knowledge -- before he can be in contact with the life force. He thinks that this may be next year or the day after tomorrow. He believes that when that day comes, then it will befall him like a gift from heaven that he has finally earned. This concept is all wrong. Man does not have to be perfect in order to be tuned into the life force. It can be right now, provided he clears up the confusion of his present feelings, of his present thoughts, and of his present moods. He does not even have to clear up his confused concepts. All he needs to do is first to realize that he is confused and then to reach out in thought and in desire for this vaster intelligence to help him further. This can be right now, provided he approaches himself in this fashion.

Another significant facet of the life force is its immediacy, the Now. If you live in the Now, then you are in tune with the life force. This Now may be confusion, it may be depression, or it may be stagnation. These negative feelings have to be fully faced, without the slightest evasion, and their existence has to be formulated. At the same time, it is important to assert that you know that that the presence in you of such feelings indicates error and lack of truth. Affirm that you wish for the truth to manifest within you. When you do all this, then the negative feelings will dissolve and the truth will begin to enter.

To be in tune with the life force is the same as being in contact with God, which is the same as living in the Now. This can be the case only when you are in contact with yourself. For yourself and the immediate Now are one -- yourself at this moment, which may be different from yourself in the next moment. For unlike what you may believe, you are not a flat, one-dimensional creature, but rather dynamic and multi-dimensional. You consist of many possibilities and of infinite changes of outlook, of attitude, of feeling, of thoughts. All of these are the result of the various combinations of your component parts. Therefore, your Now is never the same. Man's tendency to petrify a pleasant result, because this seems an easy solution for an apparently insecure future, makes him falsify the truth. It makes him hold back.

The more aware you become of all the hitherto hidden levels of your being, the more you are in contact with yourself, and therefore the more you are in possession of yourself. Hence, you are better capable of living in the Now, for then there is no longer a need to run away from your Now. Consequently, you are more in contact with the life force. By being in contact with yourself, you gain a greater understanding of the inner causes and the outer effects in your personal life, and therefore as a principle applying to all of life. The better this is understood, the more security is gained, and the more you are in control of your fate -- in the real sense of the word. Then you know that you are safe and that you are never dependent on something beyond your capacities. The vibrant feeling of being alive, in stimulating peacefulness, fills you even while you still experience your negative mood -- be it anxiety, depression, lifelessness, or whatever else it may be. Though your seeking the truth of the Now, then asserting the unreality of this Now, and then requesting the greater truth of the life force, you will find that it is as though two levels of your being begin to meet and to make themselves aware. Little by little, you become acutely aware of the reasons for your negative moods. More and more you will remember that both the answer and the explanation exist in you. You assert this fact, while requesting understanding and help to correct your errors and your false concepts. In other words, you do not have to wait for tomorrow when this will be done for you, but you can do it yourself now by letting the infinite intelligence into yourself. The slightest trace of guilt that you are still not farther developed or that you should not have such negative feelings will cause you to struggle away from the Now. Struggling away from the Now makes impossible the contact with oneself, and therefore the contact with God. The attitude of acknowledging the fact that you must be in illusion at this moment incorporates many qualities and soul movements which are necessary for being in tune with the life force. It means to stop struggling away. It means humility. It means proper self-evaluation. It means the appropriate kind of fighting against illusion, rather than fighting illusion with illusion. This cannot work. In the way I suggest, you fight illusion with reality, even if your present reality is illusion. The clear acknowledgment of this fact is reality, while the denial of your illusion is further illusion.

The work of self-confrontation gradually leads to this attitude. If you then make the additional step of actively asserting your desire for the eternal presence of the life force -- with its much greater wisdom -- to take over, then you can not be helpless and lost ever again. The vibrant life force will flow through you, not in rare moments, but more and more as your steady companion. It will be your way of living and your way of being. You and the life force will be one, as one inseparable factor.

The beauty of creation is that reality is happiness. This happiness is easy. In other words, there is no struggle about it. The tragedy of man is that he struggles so hard against happiness by fearing the truth, and therefore by holding on to his misconceptions. When we talk about the liberation which is a result of the path -- about shedding the shackles that keep you enchained -- what possibly could be the meaning of these words if you think about them deeply? If truth and reality would be more difficult -- as you are unconsciously convinced of -- if it were true, for instance, that self-responsibility and adulthood were more difficult than the position of a child that you so ferociously defend, then breaking through on this path and coming into your own would never be felt as a joyful liberation. Instead, it would be felt as coming into a prison, where you encounter more hardship than before. If man's resistance -- his No-currents -- existed in order to prevent something unwelcome and disagreeable, then they would be understandable and justified. But the tragedy is that he often struggles with all his might against that which only makes his life easier, happier, more agreeable, and safer. He acts inwardly as though the opposite were true, as though the pathwork expects him to undertake a venture in which he might perish. And he can be pried loose from his resistances only with the greatest of difficulties. This is the sad irony. He is so blind that what is actually his advantage seems like a disaster, and what is really his disaster seems like safety and seems to be to his advantage. If divine truth and divine reality were not good, happy, and advantageous from any conceivable point of view, then many of my friends would not have experienced liberation and ease following a breakthrough, following the overcoming of a resistance. This fact is important to contemplate, because it is the proof that there is nothing to fear in God's World, in letting one's own organic development proceed without an artificial halt. Most of you have made sufficient progress to know that what you leave behind was unnecessary hardship and the growth which you move toward, or the new way of life that you adopt, is much easier than what you had tightly held on to before.

When you are aware of a resistance and you can pinpoint it as to its exact misconceptions and confusion, then you have already won because you have the tools. You can safely trust these tools to work from past experience. Once you know that you are confused, then you can meet this confusion. This is living in the Now. But when the confusion is not conscious -- when it can be denied and when unpleasant feelings can be ascribed to other factors, having nothing to do with you -- then the illusion is so great because you do not even know your own illusion. Hence, you can do nothing to eliminate it. It is then that you fight against the happier, easier, fuller life, and you hold on to an unnecessary hardship. Man's unconscious conclusions claim that it is to his disadvantage to grow and to his advantage to remain statically in the status quo. This senseless falsity causes untold pain. Without the prevalence of this fundamental misunderstanding about life, then so much suffering would be avoided. Man would be vibrantly alive in the immediate Now. When this is so, then there is a peace and at the same time a vibrancy. There is stimulation while being in serenity.

The basic struggle against truth results in split concepts. In this particular case man often conceives of life as being stimulating, but he feels that he must pay for this stimulation by giving up his peace of mind. In other words, he believes that if he wants peace and serenity, then he he must sacrifice the dynamic, stimulating life. He feels that he must stagnate and be secluded. These false alternatives lead to a false choice, for whatever is chosen is based on wrong assumptions. The conviction of having to make do without a facet of life that every individual is meant to enjoy, either peace or vibrancy and interest, will -- through your behavior, through your emanation, through your implicit and explicit attitudes -- bring you an unnecessary deprivation of either the one or the other facet of the life force. In this conviction, he conditions himself in such a way that when he is stimulated, then he will register anxiety and when he is in peace, then he will be bored. The moment he is aware of the fact that he in in error -- in other words, that it does not have to be that way and that it is that way only because of his previous wrong convictions -- then he fully faces the Now, his Now. He may then find further aspects responsible for this wrong conclusion that cuts him off from his life force. When he realizes that in truth the life force combines two apparent incompatibles -- and as he he begins to reach out for the possibility that he may partake of both favorable aspects -- then he will begin to experience the truth that all good is possible for man, provided he allows himself to experience it, and provided he does away with his false limitations.

Many similar misunderstandings exist which unnecessarily keep man away from the blissful, enlivening, peaceful penetration of the life force -- apart from man's personal images and their misconceptions. Often the great spiritual truths in particular seem contradictory. When he formulates such confusions, then he has already overcome them because he has brought forth his desire to find clarity by acknowledging his present confusion. Clarification is on the way and it will soon fill his being. But only too often man is unaware of such dormant, smoldering, festering confusions and apparent contradictions. The purpose of these lectures is to make you aware that such apparent contradictions may exist in you.

Now let us discuss a few of these apparent contradictions which stand in your way, which prevent you from being in contact with the life force, and therefore from happiness. A deep misunderstanding and confusion for many has to do with the fact that all truth teachings postulate that man's free will is responsible for his fate. Many religions and philosophies may word this fact differently, but it all amounts to the same. Psychology also talks about the necessity for self-government and the necessity for self-responsibility. At the same time, spiritual teachings also postulate that man cannot succeed with his small self alone, with his little mind alone. In other words, that he requires the vaster intelligence to guide him. This seems to be a contradiction, but only as long as pertinent underlying problem areas remain hidden, unrecognized, and therefore unchanged. As long as man struggles against standing on his own feet, then he will cling to an authority outside of himself and he will rely on an externalized God to take the place of a benign parent. Therefore, he must reject the need for self-responsibility. Concomitantly, as long as he needs such an authority, then he must be disappointed, and he must subsequently rebel against it. In this rebellion he often rejects the idea that a vaster Intelligence than his own can guide him and can enlighten him. He fears giving up his small selfwill and giving up his selfishness, thereby not entrusting himself to the vaster power at his disposal. It is these inner deviations, these insistences on a childish way of life, these ignorances, and these misconceptions which create the aforementioned contradiction. The moment you give up a revelant misconception and the resistance resulting from it, then two apparent contradictions unify into one whole truth. By shouldering self-responsibility; by realizing that you, and you alone, are the maker of your fate; and by understanding both the causes and the effects of your life, you actively seek enlightenment through the greater intelligence that exists within yourself. You put the little mind aside -- not blindly but seeingly -- in order to let the bigger mind manifest. This does not mean absolving yourself from self-responsibility. Rather, you are responsible for opening the door. But not for an outer deity, for another person, as it were, who is supposed to take the burden of adulthood away from you, but for the vaster self, which forms an integral part of your own psychic personality. The latter is kept from manifesting itself as long as unawareness and confusion exist. But to the degree that awareness dawns, to that degree the vaster self begins to fill the consciousness with its truth and with its power, until the integration is complete. Then there are no longer different levels of functioning. Then mature self-responsibility and entrusting oneself to God -- asking for His help and for His way -- become one and the same. In the lack of awareness it seems as though one must not wish to govern oneself in order to let God govern one's life. But in awareness you know that self-government and accountability for one's actions, for one's thoughts, and for one's feelings are a prerequisite for the greater intelligence to manifest. But the little selfwill often stands in the way of mature self-responsibility. Therefore, it must be given up in order to assume proper self-government. It is the same with God's will and the same with self-government. The latter does not mean selfwill. When the small, greedy, childish, selfish selfwill is given up, then self-government and entrusting oneself to the Cosmic Intelligence become interdependent, instead of being mutually exclusive. But self-responsibility and self-government do not mean an arrogant overestimation of the little self. In fact, gradually the larger self takes over altogether. This is the integration that we speak of on this path. But if God is looked for as a substitute for mature self-responsibility and for accountability, then contact with the life force is impossible. When you wish an outer authority to substitute for you, then all your mental faculties are paralyzed. That is, the faculties of the smaller mind that has to take the first step in order to contact the bigger mind. It is the smaller mind, with its immediate outer will, that must be set in motion in order to open the inner will and then to reach the larger intelligence. As your split concepts begin to mend through your greater understanding, then it is the little outer determination that gives the initial momentum to open the door and then to become part of the vast limitless power that gradually enables you to truly master life.

Another such apparent contradiction is the fact that spiritual truth teachings postulate that man is supposed to be happy. In other words, that it is God's will for man to live in joy. At the same time, he is taught on a path such as this that God must not be used in order to strengthen the childish desire for magic; that God must not be sought in order to encourage the equally childish greed to have everything that one wants when one wants it; that God must not be sought in order to indulge in the wishful thinking of the child, which is incapable of giving up its desire for utopia. Why do we take such pains on this path to grow out of this childish state when, in the same breath, I tell you that God wants man's happiness? Is this not a contradiction? This greedy child wants happiness, too. The great power of the life force is supposed to make all things possible. Is all this not in contradiction to the aim of this path, which reiterates the necessity to give up the desire for magic? Whether or not you have consciously formulated such confusions, they often exist. Therefore, it is important to draw them to the surface and then to straighten them out. So let us consider why it is true that man must be free of the childish desire for magic and that he must be able to accept the self-produced misery, instead of cringing from it. And why it is equally true that man has every right and every possibility for happiness. You see, the desire for magic signifies the wish to avoid the consequences of one's actions; it denies self-responsibility -- hence liberation and true mastery over one's fate. Therefore, the bliss of being in the life force is not possible. The greed of having to have one's own way demands happiness for the sake of avoiding the imagined annihilation of one's images and misconceptions. These fears are founded on false ideas. Man has to realize that these ideas are false. He must learn that he does not perish when thus or that happens. His misery is never caused by the feared event itself, but only and exclusively by his attitude. As long as he is attached to the wrong idea that an outer event -- be it a rejection, criticism, a loss, or whatever -- can cause his suffering, then he is in illusion. Therefore, a seeming contradiction will split a concept. When he realizes that his fears are unfounded, then he will see that the threat is not the event itself but his attitude to the event. When he learns to give up and let go of his tight currents, then he can truly combine giving up his selfwill -- his compulsion for gratification -- with being fully aware of his inherent right to be happy. Then he will calmly strive toward fulfillment on all levels and in every respect of his life.

Before we go on with the lecture, is there any question at this point. Is all I said clear?

QUESTION: If something terrible happens, let's say death to a near person, how can unhappiness not be there?

ANSWER: Here lies an important misunderstanding. Because you feel that you should not to be unhappy, then you struggle away from the Now. Therefore, you escape from yourself. As a result, you run away from contact with the life force. The problem is either that greedy, selfwilled child that demands the fulfillment of all its desires, that demands gratification for every wish, fearing the opposite; or it is the false idea that a spiritually evolved person should be so far developed as never to be unhappy, never to be puzzled, etc. Often, it is a combination of these two aspects, for the misunderstood spirituality is a product of the greedy, fearful, weak, dependent child. The less the person is willing to lose -- to give up if need be -- then the weaker he gets, the more dependent on circumstances outside his control, and the more insistent on such and such having to happen from outside so as to prevent his own undoing -- as he falsely believes. Therefore, the struggle against the Now produces greater misery than the event itself. If none of these unhealthy aspects existed, then the pain would be lived through and grown out of. The more you learn to do this at the moment, then the sooner the apparent opposites will meld. Therefore, the full living of the painful moment will simultaneously become bliss. Then one reaches beyond the illusion of the opposites. On the other hand, if you quietly acknowledge, "I am unhappy now. But I know that in this unhappiness I am not in truth," then you first enter into a state of peace. Yes, you are unhappy at the moment because of this loss or because of that disturbance. Nevertheless, a peace comes into you by fully acknowledging the feeling of the moment and then making the assertion that some of these feelings are the outcome of illusion, although you are as yet unable to change your illusion. Your desire to change from illusion into truth, while acknowledging all the negative feelings -- which are the outcome of your illusion -- will make you stop running and struggling, fighting against what is. Hence a deep peace will fill you. Then a new understanding will gradually dawn on you from deep recesses that become accessible by your desire to tap divine truth -- the life force in you. The more peace and vital new insight fill you, the more do unhappiness and happiness become one. Because you cease struggling against the Now, you are in the Now. In this approach you gradually experience the fact that it is your attitude to an event that causes either your happiness or your unhappiness. In other words, it is never the event itself. This discovery liberates you and it induces strength and security. It puts you in contact with the life force.

QUESTION (Question cannot be understood in the recording)

ANSWER: This indicates the same fundamental misunderstanding, so frequent in the human psyche, that unhappiness is a virtue. In this case, I advise the following meditation: "My happiness cannot possibly detract from the other person. On the contrary. However, my unhappiness does add to theirs." This will help you to develop a strong, full yes-current for your happiness. This is one of the wonderful truths about the life force, often so difficult for man to understand. He often believes himself confronted with alternatives, or choices, where one thing is good and another is bad; where one person is benefitted and another is damaged. When you are caught in such a predicament, then you may be sure that you are entangled in a wrong concept. When you are in truth, then there is no such thing that a decision is good on the one hand and bad on the other. It must be good all around, for everyone concerned. That is the rightness of divine truth, it is the wonder and the beauty of it. When you comprehend this and you find yourself confronted with decisions, but you cannot see how to arrive at this all-around rightness merely with your human mind, then you may request this truth. Put your small mind aside and let the larger intelligence enter. Open yourself to it. Assert this. "As long as I can see a disadvantage, harm, or destructiveness in my decisions -- either for me or for the other person -- then I know that I am in distortion. I wish to be in possession of the divine truth, where I know that the decision is right and harmonious for all. I wish to be able to feel this deeply. Since I cannot see this yet, then I know that I am in untruth." In this way you know your Now, you do not run from it, you fully face your Now, while, at the same time, calmly wishing to be enlightened. The combination of facing the Now without struggle against yourself and desiring the greater truth will make it possible for the life force to fill you with its vision, with its wisdom, and with its strength.

Now let me ask you a question. Apart from what I have already said on the subject, does anyone here have any idea why it is really no contradiction that it is man's birthright to be happy, while he must be able to accept an unhappy Now, he must relinquish selfwill and greed?

PARTICIPANT: It is often that man does not know what is good for him. What he wants with his little mind may not be what he would really want if he were more developed (Further comments are not audible).

THE GUIDE: Yes, that is true. Any other ideas?

ANOTHER PARTICIPANT: I think we often can't get the fulfillment right now. We are impatient and would want it immediately.

COMMENT: I think the Now has nothing to do with it.

(Further remarks from participants cannot be heard due to the cooling system)

THE GUIDE: The desires of the smaller self and the desires of the larger self may be different at times, but not necessarily. Often they both wish the same thing. Therefore, what the smaller self desires is not necessarily wrong. The question is the how. The little self is under the illusion that it must perish if its will is not fulfilled. This image creates fear and other negative emotions. It is these negative emotions and these destructive attitudes -- which are due to the false idea of having to perish when unfulfilled -- that make the expression of the little self wrong, not the nature of the wish itself. On the other hand, if the real self issues forth a wish, then it expresses itself without fear because non-fulfillment will not seem to annihilate it. Consequently, further negative emotions will not be created.

I underline all you said, my friends. In addition, I would like to say this. The apparent contradiction is that man has to be able to give up what he wants to gain. In this ability to give up lies the soul movement that is essential in order to be in contact with the life force. This soul movement is of crucial importance. In it lies the truth that it is not the event -- in this case the fulfillment of a wish -- that can bring you happiness. In the relaxed giving up lie all the emotions which are a byproduct of the truth. In the disharmonious soul movement contact with the life force is impossible. The soul movements are always a result of your attitudes. Sometimes one merely needs to concentrate on the attitudes and then harmonious soul movements follow automatically. At other times, it is useful on the path to observe the soul movements themselves and to approach them from two directions simultaneously. All false ideas create disharmonious emotions. Then the latter create tense, harsh, rigid soul movements. Conversely, truthful concepts create relaxed, warm, positive feelings, and therefore flexible, harmonious, rhythmic, organic soul movements. For example, the fear that the non-fulfillment of a wish is annihilation creates a Must. When there is a Must, then it is contrary to the slow, harmonious waves of the life stream, of the life force.

When you now look back on the work on this path, on the lectures and on your development, then you will see that it was all painstakingly built up to lead to this point -- the mending of split concepts through the proper soul movements, or vice versa. Then this enables you to be in possession of the immeasurable wisdom, of the energy, and of the peace of the life force.

To be in harmony when outside circumstances work according to your wishes is not really being in harmony, because then you are dependent on those circumstances which are beyond your control. Even if it works well for you now, you must be in a deep -- possibly unrecognized -- fear that it may not always be that way. But when you realize that you have within you all the resources you need in order to live in dignity and in self-respect -- and therefore that you are not wholly dependent on any event outside yourself -- then you are truly in harmony. Then you have come into your own. Then you can begin to make use of your birthright and you can begin to control your fate in the true sense of the word. Then all the available abundance of the universe will be open to you. It will give you all the fulfillments that now you cannot even dream about, surpassing even the greediest selfwill of the childish self.

This is why pride, fear, selfwill, greed, and childish dependency -- the refusal to stand on one's own feet -- produce soul movements which must run counter to one's self-interest. The conditions produced by these soul movements are such that they increase the fear of non-fulfillment -- of not getting what you want -- because then man believes that it is the outer event and not his attitude that produces the misery.

Being in contact with the life force is possible even while you are still in error, in illusion, provided you are aware of the latter, provided you assert this fact, and provided you then express your desire for contact with the life force. Then you will be helped to eliminate the obstructions and you will taste the vibrant, dynamic life force. Every pore and every cell of your physical organism and of your emotional organism will be filled with this stimulating and peaceful experience. You will taste real security. You will look forward to every moment. You will know joy through fearlessness. You do not have to wait for perfection in order to experience this, provided you can approach the imperfect, limited self in the truth of the moment. Thus you will eliminate the imperfections much more effectively than by struggling against them.

Working this out in a more personal, specific way with each one of you is the program to follow on the path now. Once again, merely reading the words will not be enough. They may sound like a complicated theory. But with the help of your personal sessions it will be possible to learn. Step by step, you will all learn to come into full possession of the meaning of these words, and thus to be more and more in the vibrant truth of contact with the life force, of contact with your real self, of contact with God. Most of you are now ready to learn the technique of fully living in the Now. In order to do so, it is necessary to be aware of the many levels of emotional reactions. As long as so many unconscious -- or half conscious -- reactions remain hidden, then man is oblivious of the various realities of his being. All that he experiences as real are the most shallow, superficial, material, outer levels -- the peripheral effects. He is so far away from the core of himself, so unaware of what he really feels and of what he really thinks that he cannot live in the Now. But sufficient progress has been made in the group as a whole by most of you, and sufficient awareness has been gained of the reality of the inner levels that the Now can be looked for, and therefore seen. Hence the soul movements can be adjusted. Therefore, contact with the life force is possible. For some it may still take a little time until they get to this point.

Now, are there are questions?

QUESTION: If you want something very badly, but there is fear, pride, selfwill, then it is a counter-current and you can't get it?

ANSWER: I would put it this way. When a no-current -- a resistance -- exists, then it means that there must be a false concept behind it, otherwise there could not be a no-current. At the same time, the false concept creates fear, pride, and selfwill. But what I discussed before goes even beyond that. Instead of pushing against a specific no-current, assert its presence instead. Then assert the fact that this specific resistance is based on false ideas. Then assert that you wish to be helped to understand all the facets that lead to this state. Do all this without pushing frantically against it. This is living in the Now. It is the only effective approach to an inner disturbance and to a disharmony. It is one that puts you immediately in touch with your real self. In other words, with the life force in you.

QUESTION: How should we think of God?

ANSWER: I cannot possibly go into this answer now, at least not extensively. All I should like to say is this. Do not think of God as a person in human form. Think of this tremendous power that continuously creates life in a purposeful way. Look around and open your eyes. In all the branches of science you find aspects of the Universal Intelligence and Power. In all the manifestations of nature you find God. In the complex physical, mental, and emotional organisms of the human creature lies the proof of this Intelligence and Power. God is not a disciplinarian. God is beyond good or bad. Man often cannot conceive of God -- seeing the existing strife -- because the only way he can think of God is in human terms. Before he can come to a wider understanding, man first has to give up the false image of God as a small disciplinarian that he wants and fears at the same time, that he wants to act as a substitute for a parent, and that he wants because he is too afraid of tackling life by himself. Before a true God experience can occur, man must learn to stand on his own feet. Therefore, he needs to shelve his search for God for a while. If you are not certain, then do not declare "there is a God," due to false guilt and to the misunderstandings of human relations. But do not declare "there is not a God" because your outlook is still blurred by your hopelessness and by your confusion with life and with yourself. At such a time it is healthy to say "I do not know yet." But without guilt and yet without defiance. And as you find yourself -- and this is always the way the path must start -- as you find your true self, then the rest is given unto you. It comes by itself. It is a natural understanding that comes when you learn what you need to know about yourself in order to live successfully. Finding God cannot be done by discussing theories on an intellectual level. Keep the problem shelved, my friends. Keep yourself open and find yourself first. This is all that matters. For then you will come into the true outlook that comes from inside -- from your personal experience -- rather than by blindly accepting postulates and dogmas that one takes on out of fear, out of obedience, out of wishful thinking, out of the desire for a reward, and out of dependency -- which is the result of man's rejection of self-responsibility. The wishful thinking has to go, the childish greed has to be given up, and all the attitudes which make man cling to the false God image have to be changed before a true God experience is possible. Every vestige of escapism must disappear before a genuine God experience is possible. Then this is built on a rock.

I bless each and every one of you. Rejoice in the knowledge that the reality of yourself brings you into a harmonious relationship with life. This gradually becomes a proven fact in your everyday life, not a hope in a vague future. Go on in this search of facing yourself in utter truthfulness. For, when you do that, then everything else is given onto you. Be blessed, all of you. Be in peace. Be in God.

June 26, 1964