The Individual And Humanity

By The Pathwork Guide

Greetings, my dearest friends. God bless everyone of you, blessed be your path, your development, and your continuous growth as individuals. Most of my friends who have pursued this path for some time and who have truly desired to understand their most hidden problems, again and again experience phases of relief and of enlightenment when they encounter within themselves unquestionable factors which finally explain discontent, unfulfillment, tension, frustration, and other hindrances to full living. This deep insight, which comes as a result of relentless self-confrontation, truly sets you free. It liberates you from confinement and compulsion, and enables you to freely choose your inner and outer course of life and being. Change becomes possible only when it is a free choice. This, in turn, is possible only when deep understanding has been attained. Many of you have already experienced the joy and freedom of being able to cope with aspects of life you could not cope with previously.

At the beginning, when deep and thorough understanding is still lacking or only partial, these periods are short-lived. They are alternated by periods of confusion and depression. But the more these dark phases are mastered by the will to understand their inner significance, and by not shirking to overcome the resistance to do so, the negative periods will be less frequent, as well as of shorter duration, and the phases of liberation, peace, and joyfulness will become longer. The more you realize that each negative phase contains a special lesson, that each disturbing happening harbors a knowledge you desperately need in order to find yourself and live the full and satisfying life you are destined to live, the easier will it become to make disturbances and crises productive experiences of short duration. All this is not new. I have often discussed it, but it is only too easily forgotten by those who have not experienced often enough the blessing of working themselves out of unpleasant moods or irritations and depressions, rather than waiting for life to remove the outer provocation.

There are certain unalterable laws of growth and development which apply to all living organisms in the universe. They are identical in principle and procedure for the physical, the mental, and the spiritual organism. They apply to the macrocosm and the microcosm. They apply to the one-celled life organism, to the individual human entity, as well as to humanity as a whole. There are many life organisms man cannot possibly see, understand, or evaluate. Therefore he cannot compare the growth processes of these organisms with his own. But a comparison can be made between the individual laws and processes of growth and those of humanity as a whole. Sufficient historical data exists to confirm this extended view, if you apply your present knowledge with the help of this lecture. This will give you a greater understanding and a wider vision of the relationship between the individual and the totality of all individuals. It will enable you to visualize that humanity as a whole is an entity, governed by the same laws as the individual, which is a part of this bigger body -- mankind. There are aspects within the individual that he does not fully understand and therefore cannot control, thereby destroying union, peace, and integration of the personality. The same applies to mankind.

The same relationship exists between this totality of one human being and his cells, particles of his being, which undergo identical laws of living and growing. This concept is perhaps possible to sense to a considerable degree at this time when it is known that every atom is a replica of the universe. But full understanding of this factor can come only when the individual extends his range of consciousness to a wider dimension. For the moment it suffices to attempt an overall comparison between the individual human being and humanity as a whole.

Let us begin with infanthood. An infant lacks consciousness of its ego. There is no self-consciousness, no sense of self. All a baby experiences is sense impressions -- pleasure and pain. Its reactions to both are strong. It obviously rejoices when pleasure is given and it obviously objects when pleasure is withheld, or when it experiences any degree of pain. Frustration of pleasure or infliction of pain causes violent anger. The infant knows nothing beyond this. There is no reason, no sense of proportion, no concept that his pleasure may mean pain for another. There is no logic and no sense of responsibility. The infant is completely isolated in the pursuit of his own sense pleasure or sense pain. Even pain and pleasure, this limited range of experience, do not exist on emotional, intellectual, and spiritual levels. The infant is not only entirely a physical creature, but also utterly self-centered.

In any form of immaturity the same condition exists. When an adult explores the recesses of his psyche and when he finds the undeveloped problematic areas, he must encounter this identical infant living within himself. It is subdued by other parts of his personality which have grown up, which know better; but while this selfish, self-centered, and limited infant dwells within, his whole personality must always be conflicted by the infant within. The infant can only grow if it is allowed to manifest in the person's consciousness, if it is no longer suppressed. Hence, it cannot be said that infantile traits cease to exist when a person becomes an adult. It is only a question of degree.

To the degree that this infantile attitude toward the world exists, the person is dependent. An infant is, as you well know, utterly dependent. Concomitantly, the so-called neurotic, conflicted, immature person is emotionally dependent. You all know, and constantly experience, how your inner problems and conflicts rob you of freedom, selfhood, self-sufficiency, and independence. And many of you begin to experience the meaning of gaining true independence through giving up childish, limited self-centeredness. Hence, self-centeredness and dependency are interconnected. You cannot have the one without the other. Many an inner conflict rages just because of this interconnection. Man struggles against the dependency that he, simultaneously, insists upon as a result of his infantile self-centeredness and subjectivity in outlook.

As a person matures, he develops a sense of self. The more aware of himself he becomes, paradoxical as this may seem, the more concerned with others must he become. Just think of this great spiritual truth, my friends: lack of selfhood means self-centeredness. Full selfhood means concern for others, fairness in evaluating advantages and disadvantages of others and self. It does not mean annihilation of self for the sake of others in a distorted sense of martyrdom -- which is always a "remedy" for inherent and hidden selfishness and self-centeredness. But it does imply a sense of fairness in which one is capable of foregoing an advantage if it creates undue pain or unfair disadvantage for another. So, on one side of the scale, we have the infant who has no ego, no sense of selfhood, no awareness of himself beyond the pleasure-pain principle. This results in a social sense, responsibility, concern for, understanding of, and feeling with others so that this person forms a harmonious whole with others around him in mutuality of purpose and interest. He is free and independent. Do not confuse this with omnipotence. He does not rule, nor is he ruled. Instead, a healthy interdependence exists between himself and his fellow creatures.

In order for this growth process to take place, the infant must develop his mind, his intellect, his reason, as well as his emotional nature. When all of them mature in harmony, growth takes place on all levels and the individuality is integrated. But, as you know only too well, this is rarely the case. Part of the development lags behind, which is responsible for crisis in the life of the person.

The identical process is at work with humanity as a whole. Primitive man can be likened to the infant. I do not have to repeat the words, but you can safely apply all that has been said about the infant to primitive man. History will bear me out. Primitive man lived much more secluded; but even within his own circle of immediate family, his growing became a necessity, for otherwise he could not survive. Thus, he was forced to develop some mental processes, which immediately reduced his selfish primitive drives and made him more responsible for others and less self-centered. He thus began to form a society for the sake of which he functioned, often with much effort to overcome the infantile drives to destroy what stood in the way of his immediate gratification. Up to this day, there are always those who act according to these infantile drives and whose sense of responsibility for others is lacking. But, on the whole, present society and civilization derives from these first attempts of primitive man to find a mode of survival by taming his primitive and self-centered instincts.

If the child were self-sufficient and independent while still possessing his self-centered drives, you may just about imagine what would happen. He would rule over all those who are weaker and would destroy them. Therefore his weakness and resulting dependency are a necessity and a protection. Concomitantly, for a long time man was governed by the law of strength and power. He who gained the power ruled over others for his own pursuit of pleasure. Again, the spiritual forces of balance set a halt to it. Whenever he became too abusive, too irresponsible, and selfish, he would be removed from power by those who were not different from himself, but little by little power could only be gained by offering the ruled ones something for themselves. Hence, responsibility and concern for others developed first as a necessity, for without it power and advantages could not be gained, and later -- only in very few individuals did it develop earlier -- as a true inner development and conviction.

A child will hit a smaller child because it wants the latter's possessions. To an infinitely greater degree the identical tendency existed in former times as it does today.

Primitive man was also much more helpless and dependent than man is today. He had fewer means of controlling the elements and certain forces of nature. He had fewer means at his disposal to defend himself against the injustice and brute force of other people. There was no civil law protecting him. There was no code of ethics which ostracized an offender of decency. Therefore he fluctuated between ruling and being ruled.

His general, overall development was such that his life was a question of who ruled whom, who was stronger and therefore better equipped to pursue his selfish drives at the expense of others. This limitation and ignorance -- just as the infant's -- made man dependent. The more he manifested his brute force in the absence of mental and emotional development, the weaker he became. His God concept was one of being ruled, so was his sense of government; and so the individual lived accordingly. He ruled the weaker ones and let himself be ruled by the stronger ones. He may have violently resented the stronger ones, but he could not help obeying, while, simultaneously, even needing the stronger ones to rule him.

When the child leaves infanthood behind and enters childhood proper, it has to learn consideration of others and the curbing of its selfish instincts. The feelings may be lacking but, at least by gesture, the child learns to get along with others. History, too, came to a point when mankind became more aware of the needs of others. Here, too, it was first a question of self-preservation rather than a matter of inner feelings. The transition from utter self-centeredness to concern for others is a crucial period in the development of an entity, whether this entity be an individual human being or mankind as a whole.

Each transition in growth, in small and big instances, is always fraught with crisis. Hence, mankind went through many crises -- the crises of growth. Let us look at transitional periods of growth in the individual from the point of view of crisis. When the child is being born, it is not only crisis for the mother, but even more so for the little entity. I said in a different context that birth is a traumatic shock for the baby. When the infant is weaned from the mother's breast, it is crisis. Each phase is a step toward further independence, going into the world, away from seclusion. When the child starts school, it is, again, a step into the world, toward selfhood, away from seclusion. Again, it represents crisis. The child begins to learn responsibility the first time it is, to some extent, away from the complete shelter and protection of the parents. Again, it is crisis.

To the degree that such growing periods are resisted and fought against, they will be painful and present conflict and disharmony. To the degree that they are embraced, the new way of life will become desirable and will offer new vistas, experience, and challenge.

The physical system also undergoes crisis in growth. A teething baby experiences pain. Puberty is psychologically a painful process. It is, again, a step toward individuation.

This path is the best demonstration of this law of growth. In fact, my introductory words to this lecture demonstrate this on the level of man's psyche. You all know that the more you hold on to destructive patterns, and you resist to even understand their mechanism, the more painful do these old, obsolete patterns finally become. Conversely, the more willing you are to be in the growth process by your inner determination to understand and change, the more exciting and rich, the more meaningful and fulfilling does life become. In the latter alternative, the crisis is short-lived. It lasts only until you summon the strength to overcome the resistance. But if you give in to the blind, faulty reasoning of resistance, crisis is dragged out, gradually becoming more acute until it can no longer be borne, thus forcing you, as it were, to take yourself in hand and discard worn out, incorrect concepts, and blind, childish seclusion which can no longer work for the adult you now are.

Mankind has now left behind infanthood and childhood. It is just about coming through adolescence. Mankind is not yet a mature, adult entity. Now, if you compare the individual period of adolescence with mankind's present development, you will see that this is where mankind is today. This will prove helpful and it will widen your understanding.

As there are many individuals who grow adult but not mature, because their body has grown while their psyche limps behind, so it is with the world. The average individual who grows into adulthood may have a number of aspects which are quite mature, responsible, concerned, free, and independent, while he harbors his problem areas in which the selfish, demanding child reigns. The world, your earth sphere, is the same. There are groups, countries, nationalities, religions, sects, sections, geographically and ideologically, with different outlooks and attitudes. They can be likened to the different aspects of an individual. On this path, you have discovered how you must lack inner peace due to split aims, mutually exclusive drives, and contradictory concepts. You now know how the human personality lacks integration, wholeness, and union due to unconscious divisions. In the course of your self-exploration, you find areas within you which completely contradict your conscious convictions. Emotional reactions either contradict conscious views, or are split within themselves. When these contradictions and splits are found, it is easy to see why a person is disturbed, why he is at war with himself.

This is exactly what happens to humanity on this planet earth. It, too, is divided within itself. Its organism, which in perfection could and will function harmoniously, in union with itself, must be at war with itself as long as it is divided within by unrealistic concepts, wrong conclusions, self-centered and infantile pursuits, limited outlooks, lack of concern, subjectivity, and unfairness due to blind, isolating tendencies. If two nations have opposite aims, it is as unrealistic and senseless as the opposite aims man finds within his unconscious. It is just as destructive and wasteful.

Mankind is about to leave the adolescent stage. This does not necessarily mean that its whole organism is unified, any more than the average adult is unified. But this nearing a mature state, generally, will nevertheless be felt on earth, in spite of the remnants of immature trends in the psyche of mankind. There will be many aspects in the "entity mankind," perhaps comparable to the conscious concepts the individual has gained through good education, good influences, and intellectual truth he has absorbed. Certain factions within the human sphere, and their aims, will be representative of this maturity, while other factions, and their aims, will represent the entity's unconscious infantile, erroneous, short-lived, and destructive elements. But the more humanity grows, the less confused it will be about what is constructive and what is destructive. Its discrimination will improve. In the past, while in the child and young adolescent stage, it was often difficult for mankind to discriminate between truth and falsehood, between what is constructive and what is destructive. Crass injustice and cruelty could often parade as the righteous cause, while the truly meaningful and mature solutions for mankind's problems were too often discarded as wrong. The child's mind lacks the power of independent thinking, of discriminating, and it shirks the labor of even making an attempt to do so.

As the individual grows capable of dissolving his destructive, childish trends through his reason, his power to understand, so will mankind. Hence, mankind is now on the threshold of greater maturity and is therefore in a state of crisis. As everyone on the Path experiences periods of darkness before the dawn, so does humanity -- over and over again. Adolescence is a particularly painful and trying period because the individual leaves the accustomed and safe period of childhood behind, without possessing as yet the necessary equipment to be an adult. Thus, approximately the last hundred or two hundred years were especially marked by a similar adolescent crisis. Do you think that this world you live in would have wars, upheavals, crime, starvation, and all sorts of other difficulties if humanity's organism would not be similarly split and partly operating on unconsciously false premises, just as you, as an individual, do? It could not be otherwise.

You still see life too much as a separate factor from yourself. This is why I draw this parallel, which is not symbolic or arbitrary. It is, in actuality, that the human body, soul, and spirit are identical with the body, soul, and spirit of humanity as a whole. Contemplation of this factor will not only help you to better understand the world you live in, but will deepen your own self-understanding. The identical processes are involved in all organisms. One apparently single cell also consists of many aspects. It, too, becomes sick if it is split. The many aspects in one cell are a replica of the bigger organism it forms a part of, as the individual forms a part of the larger body, mankind.

True individuation occurs when man reaches access to his inner brain, his inner will, his inner conscience. This occurs when the outer, conscious, semi-conscious, and superficial levels of the unconscious are thoroughly explored and understood. The moment a person has penetrated the layers of consciousness that cover his real self, his real conscience, by profound understanding and truthful evaluation, to that degree and in that particular respect will he reach the inner reality of the situation. This is a profoundly elevating, peaceful, and joyful experience, but it requires the labor of stringent honesty with oneself. A few of my friends have already experienced this phenomenon. After thorough self-confrontation and exploration of a problem in which they were involved, the inner will functions better; their inner brain, so to speak, located in the solar plexus, gives them the most enlightening guidance, wisdom, understanding, and creative outlets; their inner conscience conveys the truth without the burden of destructive guilt feelings, showing a way to truly absolve oneself from committed wrongs. The freer man is of inner, unresolved problems, of misconceptions, the more accurately will these inner faculties function. The more an individual is in touch with these inner faculties, the more reliable must his inner guidance be; the more constructively will man live his life; the greater understanding will he gain about himself, about his disturbances, about his inter-relationship with others, about the world as a whole. In short, the more he goes deep within himself, the better capable does he become to go out into the world and have fruitful contact and union with others. Conversely, the more he lives on the outer fringes of his consciousness, on the superficial level of manifestation, the more withdrawn he must be from the world -- the less part of it.

Man is not capable of taking this inner direction as a child, and hardly even as an adolescent. In adolescence, he could, with proper guidance and education, begin to channel his forces in the right direction, but it is still a greater effort than it would be for an adult. Mankind, too, has to learn to direct the solution of its problems by looking inward, behind the effect, into the inner causes. So far, collective problems are usually not resolved in this manner. Politics, economics, even religion, man approaches life and its problems on the outer, superficial level of manifestation, and therefore cannot find true solutions. But since mankind is approaching maturity, it, too, will learn to develop its inner conscience, its inner will, its inner thinking processes.

You, who are in this group, diligently working on this path, have you not experienced, time and time again, how fruitless it is to try to solve a problem, either within yourself or with others, by being concerned with the outer factors alone? Either the solution is a very short-lived one, only to manifest stronger than ever in a different guise later, or you become more negatively involved and confused than ever, running around in circles. But when you make the effort to look behind the appearance, behind the outer manifestation, when you truly face the issues you encounter there, although it may at first seem difficult and unpleasant, it soon shows that the situation is not hopeless at all, that there is a wonderful, realistic way out in which none of the involved people are dependent on circumstances beyond their own control. When the world spirit begins to operate that way, all existing problems will genuinely find a solution. Permanent peace on this earth can exist only if the overall maturity of mankind has reached this avenue of resolving problems. Then the means of brute force will be dispensed with because man can rely on reason and fairness, rather than on power. But in order to make this possible, each nation, each government, each group will have to probe itself for its own shortcomings, rather than blame the other, regardless of how much appearance may lend an easy hand for such rationalizations. By the same token, the growing selfhood of humanity will also enable it to assert its rights, to be aware of its values, without guilt. It will not weaken when false accusations are being made. It is the identical process as with the growing selfhood of the individual.

The more each one of you pursues this path in the manner you are doing, being forever more determined to overcome resistance to facing the truth in yourself, the more do you contribute to the whole of mankind's reaching this phase when problems can really be resolved by adequate means, not by temporary, shallow ones.

You may ponder over the question of what will happen to mankind when it has truly matured in all its aspects. This question is, of course, only a principle, for it will take millions and millions of years before this complete individuation of the world spirit is reached, if after all the span of time of humanity's existence it is only now about to leave adolescence. So it is not an immediate consideration. But it nevertheless poses itself as a question in order to understand certain spiritual laws in connection with man's fate on this earth planet. You may also wonder why it must necessarily take all that time. The answer to this question is that there are too many individual souls involved. For the totality of mankind to reach maturity, all individual parts of it have to do so, just as your personality remains conflicted until each aspect of your being is integrated with aspects that have already reached maturity. This integration must be a willing, free choice, not a compulsive one. Too often man tries to force himself by blind compulsion, while certain emotional reactions rebel. This does not mean individuation and wholeness. If the world spirit were truly mature, forcing still immature aspects of itself into submission would contradict the freedom of spiritual reality. However, it is a fact that the more overall humanity reaches maturity, the faster will those limping behind progress. The general atmosphere and influence will be conducive to faster development. Again, this can be likened to the individual who finds the pathwork and self-confrontation easier as more of his major problems have been faced and resolved. Therefore, the time element cannot be fixed. Rules cannot be made about the amount of time that each period will take. Hence, the period of infanthood may be relatively much longer than growth periods of adulthood. The time element cannot be compared to the fixed time that a physical organism takes to grow from one state into the next.

Now, as to the question of the fate of mankind as a whole after its full maturity has been reached, again let us compare it with the individual. An individual entity is bound to this earth sphere until it has reached maturity. It comes back again and again. The more it develops its inner faculties, thereby relating more and better to others, the higher its consciousness is raised. A highly developed human being begins to perceive a new dimension which is already outside the human sphere. As this evolutionary process continues, the individual's emanations become finer and finer. His matter becomes more subtle, dissolving the harsh, coarse matter, as you know it. Almost imperceptibly, as evolution grows, the individual creates a new kind of body matter, soul matter, thus being drawn into a different world. Such individuals are no longer drawn into this sphere; their subtle emanations and subtle matter pull them into a corresponding environment. This is not, as is often said, a change from one geographical abode to another, but a change in spiritual and psychological outlook, a different state of being. As the world spirit, as a totality, reaches this state, it, too, will undergo an identical change. This earth sphere itself will become finer, its matter more and more subtle, its vibration faster due to its correspondingly higher degree of consciousness.

At this time of the year, indicating a new phase, a new segment of time, this lecture will offer you a better overall view and will give you much food for thought which will be useful not only for general speculation, but will prove helpful for your most personal problems in your pathwork, in your life. In the discussion we are going to have on this lecture, it may be fruitful if you think of your personal problems and how they run parallel to world history, to the development of mankind as a whole. If we receive such examples from some participants, this may prove of great value, my friends.

Are there any questions now?

QUESTION: You mentioned millions of years to come in order to complete the cycle. In what way can infancy and childhood be counted from our vantage point? Also in millions of years?

ANSWER: Of course. Just think of how long the earth and humanity is known to exist.

QUESTION: How do you account for the rise and fall of civilizations and races if you generalize now the stages of adolescence? They rose and they died?

ANSWER: Part of the answer is that some of the souls in these civilizations have already completed their development in this specific sphere. Others come again in different civilizations and races for the completion of their evolution. It is not necessary to come back into the same environment. Another part of the answer is a comparison with the individual. Let us assume a young person adopts a new way of life, an attitude to life and to others, in which he wishes to cope with his personal and the world's difficulties. This attempt may combine a number of facets, constructive and destructive, realistic and unrealistic ones. For a while, he appears to get by with this solution, but as he grows older and circumstances change, the solution no longer works. So he discards it in order to adopt a new way of life, perhaps still distorted, so that, at a still later period, it has to be discarded again. Hence, civilizations which have risen and fallen may often be likened to the young person's outer or inner pseudo solutions, ways of life which combine conflicting elements in himself and in the world.

QUESTION: Could you explain the role of Egypt. I can see the theory of pseudo solutions where Greece and other cultures are concerned, but with Egypt something has been lost, where there seems to have been an inner knowledge.

ANSWER: Nothing real can ever be lost. It may perhaps appear to be lost because of not associating it with Egypt, but that does not mean it is lost to the world. It is just as in the individual, who is bound to retain constructive facets of an attempt to resolve his problems, even if the whole nucleus does not work out. When he preserves the constructive element, he does not recall, each time, that at a particular period he combined a temporary way of life that proved unsatisfactory with this specific constructive trend. Truth is not invented by one individual or by one civilization. It is. It exists, to be used by the created beings. It cannot be extinguished.

My dearest friends, specifically at this time of year receive very special blessings for your continued development and self-realization. This time indicates one of those crises I have spoken about. The spirit Jesus Christ acted out visibly one of those crucial periods of change. This marked history between childhood and adolescence. It may seem disproportionate that so much more time from infanthood to adolescence, and again from childhood to adolescence elapsed, while only two thousand years have gone by and mankind is now on the threshold of maturity. But I repeat that these phases of growth cannot be measured in fixed states, as with the physical organism. Besides, as I have also said, the individual, too, may be more or less adult and mature, while he continues to harbor very immature and destructive elements. The fact that mankind is on the verge of entering maturity as a whole is bound to bring a great deal of betterment in this world, but it does not do away with its destructive aspects.

There is significance in the fact that I chose for this night this particular topic. The advent of the spirit of Jesus Christ indicated the very upheaval of the human organism, the turmoil it goes through when a child reaches puberty. At such periods, he discovers a great deal of idealism. Young people are full of strength and ideals and, at the same time, they have violent, rebellious, and cruel impulses. This is exactly the stage mankind underwent at this period.

With this thought in mind, go your way in peace. Keep the inner light burning so that further growth, further individuation within each one of you, can proceed, thus enabling you to reach out and contact others in their true inner state. You will become more independent, more free, more responsible, less isolated. Our love, our blessings go to all of you. Be blessed. Be in God.


The Guide
by Eva Pierrakos
December 13, 1963

Copyright 1963, the Center for the Living Force, Inc.

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