Inner Space, Focused Emptiness

By The Pathwork Guide

My beloved friends, you are blessed in body, in soul, and in spirit. Your path is blessed, every step of the way. At times you may doubt this when the going gets rough. But when this is so, it is not because blessings are witheld from you. It is because you encounter parts of your inner landscape that need to be successfully traversed. To traverse difficult inner terrain, it is necessary to understand its meaning for your own being and thus to dissolve the roadblocks that you find in your way.

We have occasionally discussed this inner landscape. I have made mention of the inner space that is the real world. The term inner space is used quite frequently in your world these days, as opposed to outer space. Most human beings think of inner space merely as a symbolic description of a person's state of mind. This is not so. Inner space is a vast reality, it is a real world. It is in fact the real universe, while outer space is merely a mirror image, a reflection of it. This is why the outer reality can never be quite grasped. Life can never be truly understood and experientially absorbed when it is viewed only from the outside. This is why it is so frustrating and often so frightening for so many people.

I can see that it is hard to understand how inner space can be a world in itself -- in fact, the real world. The reason for this difficulty lies in the limited time/space continuum of your three-dimensional reality. Everything you see, everything you touch, and everything you experience is perceived from a certain very limited angle. The mind is focused on, accustomed to, and conditioned to operate in a certain direction, and therefore is incapable, at this juncture, of perceiving life in any other way. But this way of perceiving reality is by no means the only way, or the correct way, or the complete way.

In every spiritual discipline the goal is to perceive life in this other way, the way that goes beyond the outer reflection, the way that focuses on new dimensions to be found in inner space. In some disciplines this goal may be either directly mentioned, or it may never be mentioned as such. But when a certain point of development and purification is reached, then this new vision awakens -- sometimes suddenly, sometimes gradually. Even the suddenness of the vision is an illusion, because it actually is the result of many arduous steps and of many inner battles.

In nuclear science it has been recognized that every atom is a duplication of the outer universe as you know it. This recognition is very meaningful. Perhaps you can imagine that just as time is a variable, dependent on the dimension from which it is experienced, so is space. Just as there really is no objective, fixed time, so there is no objective, fixed space. Your real being can live, can breathe, can move, and can cover vast distances within an atom, according to your measurement. When the spirit withdraws into the inner world, then the relationship to measurement changes, just as the relationship to time changes. This is why you seem to lose contact with and awareness of so-called dead people. They live in the inner reality which for you is as yet only an abstraction. Yet the actual abstraction is the outer space.

In physical death, the spirit -- that which is alive -- withdraws into the inner world and not, as is often erroneously assumed, into heaven. In other words, it does not lift out of the body, it does not float into outer space. If at times an extrasensory perception seems to reveal such a sight, then it is only the mirror image of the inner event.

In the same way, for the longest time a majority of humans have looked for God up in heaven. When Jesus Christ came, He taught that God lives in the inner spaces, and therefore that He must be found there. This is why all meditational practices and exercises focus on inner space.

A long time ago I suggested a meditational exercise in which you do not think, in which you make yourself empty. Those of you who occasionally try this exercise experience how difficult it is to do so. The mind is filled with its own material, and therefore to still it is not an easy undertaking. There are several ways of doing it. Eastern religions usually approach it by long practice and discipline. This, in conjunction with solitude and outer stillness, may eventually produce inner stillness.

Our approach on this path is different. These teachings do not want to take you out of your world. On the contrary, the aim is to be in your world in the best possible way. To understand it, to accept it, and to create in it in the most productive, in the the most constructive way. This can be done only when you fully know and understand yourself and when you traverse the difficult inner spaces which must make you better equipped to function in this three-dimensional reality. Then there is no split between the inner space and the outer spaces. As inner truth reigns, then the perception of outer truth increases. As understanding of the self grows, so does understanding of the world. As you learn to remold that in you which is imperfect, which is faulty, so do you learn to restructure -- to transform -- your outer life. As you learn of your eternal beauty as a divine manifestation, so does your vision of creation expand and therefore you perceive the beauty of the Creator and His creation. As peace within yourself comes to be, so do you become at peace with this world, even when you are surrounded by undesirable experiences. In other words, you do not require outer conditions of absolute seclusion in order to reach inner space. You take the other route, in which you go right through what seems the greatest of obstructions: the imperfections within you and the imperfections around you. You approach them and you deal with them until they lose their fearsome aspect. This is your path.

Focusing on the inner emptiness can be an additional exercise that is helpful, but it must never be the sole approach to self-realization, just as dealing with the outer adverse conditions in your world must never be the sole approach to your own salvation and to the salvation of the world.

Focused emptiness grows, both deliberately and spontaneously, as you remove your inner obstacles. At the early stages, you experience just that: emptiness, nothingness, the void. If your mind can quiet down, then you encounter the void. This is what makes the attempt so frightening. It seems to confirm the suspicion that there is nothing within you, that you are only your outer, mortal self. This is why the mind makes itself so busy and so noisy: in order to blot out the quietness that appears to herald nothingness, the void.

Once again, you need the courage to go through a tunnel of uncertainty. You need to take the risk to allow the great quietude that is at first empty of meaning, devoid of anything that spells life or consciousness.

I believe that most of you have already experienced how the voice of your inner God, of the higher self, sends its inspirations through your mind, not necessarily immediately after a meditation or a prayer, but sometime later, often when you least think of it. It is then that your mind is relaxed enough and sufficiently free of selfwill to allow the inner world to manifest. The same is true in regard to experiencing the inner universe -- the real world.

Focused emptiness will bring you in touch with all the levels of your being. It allows the emergence of what was hidden -- the distortions, the errors, the lower self material, and eventually the reality of your higher self and the vast world of eternal life in which it dwells. There are many stages and many phases for you to go through. The latter stages can take place only when a certain foundation of purification and of integration has taken place. Unfocused emptiness is a lessening of consciousness. Focused emptiness is a heightening of consciousness. The former is a tuning out, a vague wandering of the mind that may lead to mindless emptiness. Sleep and other states of unconsciousness are the final stages. Focused emptiness is extremely concentrated, aware, and fully there.

If you focus on the inner world to the exclusion of your outer world, then you not only create a split, but also a condition in which you forfeit the purpose of your incarnation. How can you fulfill your task, whatever it may be, if you do not utilize your outer world for that purpose? You would not have come into this dimension if it had not been a necessity for you. So you need to make use of it and to always bring outer conditions and inner conditions into a meaningful relationship with one another. You are learning to do this on this path. All your outer experiences are related to your personality: to your various levels of self. Your inner being always creates your outer conditions, a truth that you soon learn to recognize on this path. If relating the outer to the inner is not a constant way of life, then the imbalance must create unfavorable conditions. You can see how sometimes in your world a person who does a lot of good works outwardly loses his way just as easily as those who never give others a thought. Perhaps even more, since the latter category is more balanced. The outer good intent and the good works must have an inner focus in order to avoid a disharmonious condition and a dangerous split.

Focused emptiness brings you eventually to the light of the Eternal. Maybe we can categorize certain basic stages, even if somewhat oversimplified. In reality these stages often overlap and do not come neatly in the succession outlined here for the purpose of clarification.

1) You experience the noise and the busyness of the mind.

2) As you succeed in quieting this noise, then you encounter emptiness, nothingness, the void.

3) Recognitions about the self, connections between some aspects of the self and outer experiences become clear. New understanding -- and with it heretofore unrecognized levels of lower self material -- appears. This stage is really a ray of divine guidance and not merely an experience of the lower self. Recognition of the lower self is always a manifestation of higher self guidance.

4) Direct manifestation of higher self messages, of what you call the opening of your channel. You receive advice, encouragement, words intended to give you courage and faith. In this phase divine guidance still operates primarily through your mind. It is not necessarily a total -- both emotional and spiritual -- experience. The manifestation may excite you and gladden you, but this reaction is a result of the knowledge that your mind has absorbed because it has found it to be convincing.

5) In this stage a direct total -- spiritual and emotional -- experience occurs. Your whole being is filled with the Holy Spirit. Now you know, not indirectly -- through your mind -- but directly, through all of your being. Knowing through the mind is really always an indirect knowledge. It is a relayed knowledge. The human mind is the instrument necessary for man to function on this level of consciousness. Direct knowledge is different.

This phase has many subdivisions, many stages within itself. There are limitless possibilities in which the real world can be experienced. One is simply total knowing, which affects every fiber of your being and every level of your consciousness. An experience of the real world can also occur through visions of other dimensions. But such visions are never merely things that one sees. They are always a total experience that affects the total person.

In the real world, as opposed to your fragmented world, every sense perception is total. Seeing is never only seeing; it is simultaneously hearing, tasting, feeling, smelling, and many other perceptions that you know nothing about on your level of being. In this fifth stage, seeing, hearing, perceiving, feeling, and knowing are always inclusive. They encompass every capacity that God that has created. And you can hardly imagine the richness, the variety, and the limitless possibilities of these capacities.

Focused emptiness is the ideal state to be filled by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the whole world of God in all its splendor, in its indescribable magnificence. Its richness cannot possibly be conveyed in human language. There is no way of describing what exists when fear, doubt, distrust -- and therefore suffering, death, and evil -- are overcome. Focused emptiness is therefore nothing but a threshold to a fullness that exists only in the world of spirit.

The practice of focused emptiness must never be undertaken in an attitude of immediate expectations. In fact, it is necessary to have no expectations whatsoever. For expectations are a tension, and tension prevents the necessary state of total -- inner and outer -- relaxation. Also, expectations are unrealistic, for it may take many incarnations of development before a human being can come anywhere near these experiences. So to have any expectations will cause disappointments which, in turn, set off a chain reaction of further negative emotions, such as doubt, fear, and discouragement.

I am talking about this topic because I want to prepare you for an important practice within meditation. I have discussed this in the past in connection with the various ways of meditation, particularly in regard to impressing and expressing. Many of your meditations have dealt with impressing, and should continue to do so. This aspect of expressing is a cleansing of the mind and serves to make the mind into a constructive tool. Then the tool becomes a creative agent.

The aspect of expressing has begun to manifest to some degree with those whose channels are open, perhaps only occasionally. But you need to know that there are further stages, further phases, and further possibilities and you should approach them with patience, with awe, and with humility. You should understand that these experiences will open up the vast inner spaces in which many worlds, many universes, many spheres exist. There are endless plains, mountains, and seas of incredible beauty. You should know that these inner spaces are not abstractions or symbolic expressions; they are much more real and accessible than your outer, objectified world that you believe to be the only reality. Inner space is based on different measurements, on a different relativity between time/space/movement and measurement. Even a vague and hazy consideration of this concept on your part will change your outlook and will create a new approach to your further work on this path.

You need not spend hours practicing focused emptiness. Such is not the purpose. But you may attempt it to some degree every time you pray and meditate. In other words, after you use your mind to impress your soul substance and to align it with the divine intent, with God's will.

Your primary aim is still reaching autonomy, in its fullest sense and meaning. You, as a group, have made progress, but there is still a lot to be accomplished. Everything depends on this basic prerequisite. Your ability to respect yourself; your ability to respect your values; your capacity for loving; your capacity for finding the fulfillment you yearn for; your fulfilling the spiritual task you have entered this earth for; your experience of the living God within you and around you; your ability to be a true leader; your ability to be a follower; and last, but not least, your ability to let go of the mind and to find the inner space which is your real home, and which alone can convey eternal life to you and thus remove all fears from you forever. You cannot surrender to the will of God unless you are in full possession of yourself. Nor can you first find and then be yourself unless your surrender to Him is unconditional.

Since this is such a fundamental necessity, then we need to spend some time on discussing this topic, although I have said much about it in the past. But I see that there is still much resistance to reaching this all-important state of autonomous selfhood. You still crave an authority figure who will take over when your life becomes hazarduous, when your inevitable mistakes force you to pay the price for them, when your unavoidable imperfections create conditions that you need first to explore, second to experience, and third to fully understand on all levels of your being. You still crave a perfect life. In other words, one in which none of that is necessary. You still delude yourself that it is possible to avoid making mistakes, and therefore to avoid paying the price for them. This illusion is all the more dangerous because it is subtle, and therefore can be easily glossed over and denied. The manifestation of this delusion can be rationalized, hence it can be denied.

When you are unsure about yourself, when you are confused about yourself, when you are confused about your environment, and when you are confused about about the events around you, then see each one of these as a sure sign that you are still suffering from this delusion. As a result, you deliberately avoid growing into full selfhood. When you rebel against authority figures, then take it as a sure sign that you are still craving the right authority, the super person who takes over the vicissitudes of life, and thus protects you from experiencing your reality.

When autonomy exists, then there is no need for rebellion against authority. When autonomous selfhood exists, then there is no confusion. There exists a clear perception of what is true and what is false. Therefore, there can be both agreement and disagreement without either rebellion or fearful submission. The road to this clarity and to this ability to discriminate depends on the willingness to search, to question, to probe, to be open, to explore. Such a course requires patience, rather than quick, ready-made answers regarding any specific issue in your life. But the childish, dependent person abhors the patient way of probing and finding out, for this means labor. The childish, dependent person wants quick and easy answers. Therefore, he tends to jump to conclusions. When mistakes are feared, then those quick conclusions cannot be questioned, and so a stiff insistence often bars the way to clarity and to truth. Hence confusion, which breeds commensurately confusing experiences. If the connection to the way in which this experience has been created is lacking, then life appears too difficult and unfair. Then a perfect authority is demanded to put things right.

The more strident your protestations for independence are, then the more suspect they are. The more you need to prove that you are a free agent, and therefore neither influenced nor influenceable, then the more likely it is that you abhor real autonomy. In other words, you do not wish to take or to accept full responsibility for your life, for your experiences, and for your decisions. The greater the rebellion against those authority figures in your life whom you accuse of denying your selfhood, then the more do you secretly resent them for not living up to your demands.

What exactly are these demands? They are the demand that you be prevented from making any mistakes; the demand that you be prevented from having to pay any price; the demand that you be prevented from going through any of the consequences for your errors, for your distortions, for your negativities, for your unwise decisions. You want an infallible key handed to you that equips you with this kind of magic, while you still remain "free." This freedom means to be able to do whatever you want, whether or not it is desirable for your real self or for others. You do not want to experience any frustration or to discipline yourself when that is necessary. When these goals remain unreachable, then you resent and blame the authority figures, often accusing them exactly of the opposite of what you really expect from them. To be specific, you blame them for infringing upon your so-called "freedom" when limits are being set forth. You refuse to see that these limits are the limits of reality, of life's laws, and you then, perhaps unconsciously, deliberately create a specific confusion in which these limitations and these boundaries are being distorted as if they implied your enslavement.

I ask all of you to explore this aspect in you. See if you can find to what degree it may still exist in you. Also, ask yourself some deeply probing questions. Are you really willing to assume full self-responsibility, with all that this implies? Are you fully reconciled to the fact that you are still imperfect, and therefore that you are unable to avoid making mistakes? Are you truly willing to pay the price for them? The more willing you are to do so, the lower this price will be. The price will turn out to be a stepping stone, a threshold, a necessary lesson.

The strength to do this can come only from surrendering to the will of God. Only then can you truly stand in the middle of life as it unfolds around you, never fleeing it, never denying it, never using spirituality as a means to escape from it.

All your dualistic confusions will dissolve when your surrender to God is genuine and when your willingness to be your autonomous self is being followed through. Then you will no no longer be confused about individuality versus community; you will no longer be confused about self-surrender versus selfhood and real independence. True selfhood creates a social being who is not at odds with his surroundings. On the contrary, this kind of person is intimately connected with others and always contributes to them. The truly autonomous person can be a strong leader as well as a willing follower, because his vision is clear and his selfhood is centered in divine reality.

If you go through every lecture I have given you for this season, then you will discover a note of another dimension that has not been touched upon previously. I have opened new vistas for you, even if you may not yet be capable of taking direct steps toward attaining these states. But your knowledge of their reality is important for you at this point. What prevents you most from going through these doors is exactly the problem of still avoiding full self-responsibility, autonomy, or accountability. Your freedom is directly dependent on that. Your ability to let go in strength rather than in weakness depends on that.

Autonomy, or its lack, is always a question of degree. Many of you are perfectly able to stand in life as far as earning your livelihood is concerned. You may do this in a healthy and productive way that you therefore mainly enjoy. In this area you may also be realistic and accept the fact that there are always going to be aspects of difficulty, of boredom, of strife. You also lend your best to those times of difficulty and you generally give of yourself to your work. This is precisely why you are successful and why you enjoy your work. But there may be other areas -- more subtle, and therefore less easily noticeable -- in which you still want to depend on others, and therefore you do not want to be your own self. It is up to you to explore these areas. The tell-tale sign is how you feel about the authority figures in your life. How can you distinguish between those whom you can trust and those who are not to be trusted? Where do your feelings go? It is often the case that your feelings may tend precisely toward those who are not to be trusted, while you view with suspicion those who encourage your autonomy, and who therefore deserve your trust.

If you cannot trust yourself, then you can never know who is trustworthy. And you cannot trust yourself if you do not know which part of you deserves to be trusted. Often you want to insist that the part in you that is most childish, that is most destructive, and that is most shortsighted is the self that is autonomous. You want to believe that what feels to be the line of least resistance and what is momentarily most pleasurable is tantamount to your autonomy. This may be so occasionally, but by no means always. You can trust yourself only if you have learned to listen to that true inner authority that is capable of saying No to your momentary pleasure, because that defeats you in the long run.

True maturity -- which includes health and selfhood -- is the prerequisite for a healthy life, for a fully lived life, and for a satisfying life. It forms the underpinning of spiritual self-realization. Without this inner state of maturity spirituality must always bend into some distortion sooner or later, no matter how well-intentioned the person may be when he started out.

But you cannot reach this state of health and autonomy by psychological means alone. Your psychologists have the right idea in mind and strive toward this goal in their approach to their patients. But unless one learns that there are several inner voices to listen to; unless choices are being made as to which voice to trust and which ones to reject; and unless these voices are being explored, then the goal will forever remain elusive and will remain a beautiful theory. In fact, the voice of the higher self is often the weakest at the beginning. Hence it needs to be listened to more than the loud clamoring of the part of you which never wants to tolerate any frustration.

My beloved friends, only a community that consists of autonomous people is independent, safe, and creative. In the New Age everything tends in that direction. Your entire society can be transformed to the degree that more and more individuals develop and reach emotional maturity, mental maturity, and spiritual maturity. When all of society -- as an overall attitude -- represents values that express this state of autonomous selfhood, then even those who come from the lowest spheres, either with a destructive intent or with spiritual ignorance, will not be capable of wreaking havoc on your earth. Their influence will dissolve like snow in the sun. This is not so now because too many individuals hanker for authority figures who allow everything and who forbid nothing. In other words, who hanker for false prophets who promise to take away all the hardships of living.

Deep, intense, realistic contact with the Christ in an extended way is possible only when true autonomy exists in the human personality. Otherwise the road is blocked, the experience is inaccessible, the voices are confusing. The total surrender to God becomes confusing. The desire to surrender to a false authority who permits all and who sets no limits to the line of least resistance -- in other words, who never imposes any frustrations, who offers this kind of utopia -- also creates an inner fear in those who in their inner being know of such a false surrender. The weaker ones will surrender to the false prophets, as the Bible says. The slightly stronger ones -- who are still partially in this unfinished state, but who partially strive for real autonomy -- fear surrender in all forms. What they really fear and distrust is their desire for the false prophet who promises what he should never promise. These promises may not be made in so many words, but they are implicit in their messages, and they always somehow reach the consciousness of those who are most vulnerable due to their unwillingness to take charge of their own life.

No matter how much you may be willing to surrender to the will of God -- and therefore to His guidance in whatever form it may be given to you -- the resistance to do so cannot be overcome unless you establish your full selfhood in all areas of your being.

From the evolutionary point of view, the spirit can penetrate matter to the degree that spiritual truth, spiritual law, and spiritual health are being established. The individual's self-responsibility is the key to this. When the self becomes stronger, then more of life can penetrate matter. In other words, more of the spirit can be born in the flesh. You will see that as you grow in stature through gaining selfhood, more of your real being will be born into your physical manifestation. For example, a talent may come to the fore of which you had known nothing before. A new wisdom will suddenly manifest. You will have a new understanding. You will have a new capacity to feel. You will have a new capacity to love. A hitherto unsensed strength will unfold from within you. All these are manifestations of the real you that lives in the inner space -- in the real world. As you make room for these aspects of your real being, then they will push into the life of matter. Thus, you will fulfill your part in the evolutionary scheme. These attitudes do not grow from the outside. In other words, they are not being added on to you. They are a result of your outer being, of your manifest being making room for the inner being, which as yet is unmanifest. This happens by the growing process. In other words, by the hard work that you undertake on this path. After a certain point in your development, it can be helped along by focusing on your inner emptiness, until you discover that the emptiness is an illusion. It is a fullness, it is a rich world of glory. You can receive all you need from this inner source and then you can translate it into your outer experience.

Christ has come many times in many forms throughout the ages, as different Enlightened Ones. But He has never come as fully, as completely, and as freely as He did in Jesus. You can see that here, too, it is a question of degree. In other words, of how much of the spirit can flow through into matter, of how unobstructed matter has become so that the maximum of the spirit -- of life, of consciousness -- can manifest as matter. There will come a point in the evolution when this sphere that you inhabit now will yield so much that matter will have become completely spiritualized. In other words, matter will no longer be an obstruction to the spirit. The void will be totally filled with life.

By approaching the void without fear, you remove an obstruction to life. Focusing on the inner space means approaching what appears as emptiness. Through this void you will reach the fullness of the spirit, and the totality of life in its pure, unobstructed form. This stuff of life contains all the possibilities of expression, of manifestation. The joy of experiencing this reality is greater than any other joy you can conceive of. In this joy is your oneness with the Creator, where you and He are one.

My friends, nothing in your personality, no aspect of it, is insignificant in terms of creation and of your evolution. There is no such thing as a merely psychological aspect. Every attitude, every way of thinking, every way of feeling, every way of being, and every way of reacting reflects directly on your participation in the greater scheme of things. By knowing this you may find it easier to give greater value to your life, greater value to your pathwork, greater value to your endeavors. Then you will learn to unify an arbitrary duality -- spiritual concerns versus worldly concerns.

Make room for unobstructed life, for unencumbered spirit. Let it fill every part of your being, so that you will finally know who you really are. You are all blessed, my very dearest ones.

December 13, 1978