The Call Of The Life Stream And The Response To It

By The Pathwork Guide

Greetings, my dearest friends. The blessings given are a strength and a power consisting of the sincerity and wishes and the love of all involved in this venture -- both inside and outside the body.

At the beginning of this new working year I should like, once again, to set up a direction, a sort of blueprint, which, at the same time, constitutes a reformulation of our work and its purpose. Man needs a continual clarification of his concepts and motives: Where is he going and why?

As long as man identifies exclusively with his ego self, and as long as he ignores that there is another aspect of himself, man must be in a painful struggle that tears him apart. He must be in a conflict for which he cannot see a solution, or a way out. This often causes unbearable tension and anxiety. This fundamental mental insecurity, with all its byproducts, can be overshadowed or covered up by all sorts of pursuits. But these pursuits, although in themselves they may be worthy, are illusory as a means of relieving the basic fear and the sense of waste and meaninglessness. Only when man finds the center, deep within himself, which he activates and realizes, does he fulfill his destiny, the reason for his existence. Whatever else he accomplishes serves only, if he so chooses, to make him more aware of his real self, and therefore of the reality of being. Then, and only then, will he find a genuine security and peace, coming from within. In order for this to happen, the hold on the outer ego must be relinquished. In other words, complete reliance on the ego must be given up and the ego used as a tool to activate the universal self, which is slumbering within, not yet quite awake.

Now, my friends, many people know this and pay lip service to it. But to know this as a theory and to live it are two entirely different things. The work on this path is destined to help you accomplish the awakening of a new self you have not consciously experienced before. This path gives you the means to actually bring this about.

Life issues a call, it makes a demand of every living individual. Most people do not sense this call. Only as you become more aware of your own illusion can you, simultaneously, become aware of truth within yourself, and therefore in life. Consequently, you will understand the call of life and what it wants to convey to you in each moment. How do you respond to it? Do you respond with your total being, or do you respond halfheartedly? Or do you desist and resist responding at all and make yourself deaf to the call of life? This is the big question, my friends.

What I say here, simple as it sounds, can become a very important aspect of your concentration, so that you honestly question yourself whether you truly wish to understand the call of life to you and what it requires of you, as well as whether you wholeheartedly are responsive. This call of life is a dynamic movement that can be felt also as a stream of life. This stream of life manifests differently at any given moment to every individual. It is universal, while yet being intensely personal. It is universal in the sense that the values on which the call is based aim exclusively at the awakening of the real self, of absolute reality. It knows no other considerations and it goes about this in a totally unsentimental way. It disregards personal attachments, social considerations, values that aim at other considerations than the one mentioned, as well as personal pain or pleasure. If the awakening of the real self involves what temporarily may seem like destruction, this seeming destruction will turn out to be the ground stone of the real inner life and the tool needed to awaken the inner center. If the awakening brings that which also happens to be most joyful to the individual, the very fact that he lets himself experience the joy proves that he is more attuned to the real self than he may know. But often moralistic, self-defeating attitudes may induce the person to reject that which leads him to his destiny and self-fulfillment just because it brings joy, in the mistaken idea that self-realization must automatically mean deprivation and self-sacrifice. If conditions are based on considerations that do not further the coming into one's real self, sooner or later their destruction is inevitable. If conditions arise out of considerations for the awakening of the real self, then peace, joy, well-being, and intense pleasure must be experienced. This is the stream of life, which is often blocked by man's stubborn blindness.

This call is universal. The attitude necessary to awaken the inner center follows universal values. Truth, love, and beauty are universal aspects of the real life. The isolated ego existence is a general factor, applicable to all men. How this ego blocks the real self is a personal question, but however this may happen, it is a universal fact that transformation of the character is necessary in order to unblock and permit the life stream to flow freely. We shall come back to the subject of transformation a little later.

These universal aspects can be intellectually recognized, but they need not necessarily be felt and experienced. This can only happen when the personal aspect of the life stream is recognized and responded to. Therefore, any path leading to genuine self-realization must be an intensely personal one and must deal with intensely personal problems. Anyone who believes that by imbibing general truth and collecting truthful beliefs he can accomplish the goal deludes himself. He deludes himself for the very reason that he does not want to look at the truth of his being at this moment, but prefers an idealized picture of what he wants to be. This very evasion alienates him more from the goal than does the honest admission that he does not want to look at himself, does not want to permit himself to experience emotions he fears or disapproves of, does not wish to transform his character defects. The actual -- not theoretical -- activation of the real self, with its vibrating life, its limitless abundance, its infinite possibilities for good, its supreme wisdom and joy, happens to the exact degree that man dares to look at the temporary truth of himself, dares to feel what he feels, has the courage to transform himself into a better human being for no other motive than the desire to add and contribute to life, and not for the purpose of making an impression and grasping for approval.

When the immediate barriers to do just that are overcome, then the real self, with all its treasures, will manifest its presence and its reality. One of those barriers is shame of what you are now. This shame makes you set up a wall of secretiveness, behind which you must be lonely. This loneliness may be denied or rationalized -- that is, other circumstances may be blamed. In reality, it is your wish to hide yourself from yourself and from others that keeps you separated. In the deep recesses of your mind you fear that you are different from others, that you are worse, and that this is a shame that cannot be exposed. In this very secret conviction you remain in this particular illusion and you deprive yourself of the benefit of discovering the universality of yourself and your life, with its healing climate for your psyche. Again, this cannot be accomplished by knowing the theory of it, it can be done only when you are actually experienced in those areas where you still happen to hide yourself. This is precisely one of the barriers separating you from the life stream. The loneliness that results from this inner condition of secretiveness cannot be relieved, no matter how favorable the outer circumstances may be. This loneliness can be removed only when you overcome the pride of your shame. This intensely personal work leads to the realization of the universal values that alone can give you the courage to go with the life stream.

The universal self often contradicts the outer rules, which come from the ego self of mankind. Hence, no matter how much an individual rebels against conformism and social laws, he still finds himself within the confines of the ego self, deeply immersed in its struggle and in its duality between comformism and submission, versus rebellion and defiance. True emancipation from the ego, with its outer rules, means neither conforming nor rebelling. It acts upon inner values, which may or may not coincide with the dictates of society. In neither case will the person be damaged. Even if temporary upheaval arises, the person will become more whole. The key is this, and it is not as far away as it may seem: Are you motivated by considerations of love and truth, and do you totally commit yourself to a course of honesty and integrity in this particular issue, regardless of public opinion? Do you let go the fear, the pride, the selfwill of your ego, and strive toward the voice of the divine in you, again regardless of appearance?" This way is always open and, whenever chosen, it must result in emancipation from the ego struggle, with its insoluble pain and anxiety. Answers inevitably follow that resolve the conflicts and bring peace.

The call of life disregards the superficial morality that most people ardently adhere to, or equally ardently fight against. This is the morality that is based on the fear of disapproval, or is alternately fought, shunned because goodness is thought to mean deprivation. The call of life knows no consideration of outer appearance, of shortsighted sentimentality. It surges toward bringing every individual into his birthright. It is concerned solely with this universal value, for all else that matters is contained in it.

Why does man put up such a struggle against fulfilling this destiny, when this destiny brings him nothing but good? Why does he resist hearing the call of his life stream, when it brings him to all that is safe, good, productive, and joyful? This is the tragic battle of man. On the one hand, he is so disturbed by the insecurity of his existence. He senses the waste of his life as long as he pays allegiance exclusively to the outer self, and therefore to outer values coming from outside of him. On the other hand, he does everything in his power to maintain the state in which he is so unhappy. In fact he seeks more and more means to reinforce the ego identification. He looks for still more outer ways, outer activities, outer beliefs, and outer escapes. At times he may succeed only in making himself deaf to the voice from deep within. At other times, he feels the deep unrest, but he refuses to understand it.

He who consciously and deliberately makes the decision and commits himself once and for all to living his life for the primary purpose of activating the real self, he alone can find genuine peace, the deep inner peace that exists even while inner errors still prevent the total realization of self.

Let every one of you here, as well as those who read these words, question yourselves: Why are are you on this Path? What is your aim in life? Do you live just in order to make do the best you can? Do you work on this Path because there are certain symptoms you wish removed that you feel are an unpleasant interference in your life? Certainly, you are free to do so. But realize the deeper meaning of it. For as long as your aim is solely to remove certain effects of your inner misorientation of identifying with your ego because you either ignore or fear the activation of the real self, then other symptoms of this principal disease must appear. Total well-being cannot be accomplished, even if you succeed in removing temporary states of pain and deprivation. There is a vast difference between these two goals. As long as your whole orientation is not geared toward activating the inner center of your real self, you cannot know real safety, peace, and well-being; nor can you make use of the storehouse of potentials within yourself, nor can you experience your freedom to make use of the unlimited funds available in the universe for your benefit. Not being able to do any of this, not being able to be what you can and should be, is an endless pain that you must allow yourself to consciously experience in order to have the incentive to do something about it. On the other hand, the pursuits of the ego, no matter how great the accomplishment, will never give you peace and security, nor the sense of being the best you can be. The ego drive can appear to give you power over others, but it cannot ever give you autonomy and independence, so that sooner or later the illusion of power over others is exposed as illusion.

You are free to merely remove symptoms. I advise all those who seek help, as well as those who are helpers, to define the aim very clearly. What is your aim? How far do you wish to go? What do you wish to accomplish? Do you commit yourself to the whole way? Then visualize the specific symptoms you wish to remove. And any disturbance is but a symptom of the basic ill of exclusive ego identification, no matter what name you give it -- neurosis, sickness, distortion, or unhappiness. Consider what the symptom removal alone means in terms of your future. What can you envisage afterward? Can you envisage that more is possible? Let us discuss this now, my friends. For I believe that anyone who really thinks about it and properly envisages the whole meaning of this important question and who clearly questions himself, without delusion or escape, will make the total response to life, with his total being. Let us discuss this totality of a commitment to the real self.

You have all experienced to some degree, through the means of certain meditations, that the universe contains unlimited good, which is available for you if you open yourself to it. There are times when you vividly experience this truth, and you know, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that the proof of this is neither coincidence nor illusion. You know this to be a fact. When this is so, your entire attitude is clean, free, and relaxed. You are deeply convinced of this truth and you trust it; you feel deeply deserving and do not cringe away from the fulfillment. Hence it comes. Your whole being is in a positive, constructive vibration in which there is no conflict. You do not feel selfish because you wish to experience beauty, nor do you withhold giving the best of yourself.

But then there are also those occasions when it does not work that way. Even though in certain areas of your life you have already experienced such positive manifestations, in other areas you cannot come through. When you try to attain this undifferentiated good with your ego self, it does not work. Where your real self is not activated, the doors to the universe are closed. This is not due to any forbidding authority who decides that you are not worthy of this or that particular fulfillment. It is simply because something within yourself bars the way, and this something has to be found so that you have the possibility of eliminating it. Whatever the obstruction is, it makes you fearful of letting go of the ego, and hence you remain oriented to and centered in the outer ego. This outer ego, since it is split within itself in duality, is incompatible with the unified world of all good. It can only be open for partial good, to which there always exists another, undesirable side. This undesirable side may -- entirely unconsciously on your part -- weaken the wish for the good. Also, that aspect that stands in the way of letting go of the ego is, when fully exposed and understood, always something that impairs integrity and that deforms the character structure. Hence the deep conscience feels undeserving of all good and cringes away from it. That very defect makes the personality unable to cope with the good, even if it believed in its existence.

Only the total self can relate to and unite with the total good. You can test this by trying this experience right now, if you wish. Take any of your problems that you are working on, be it an outer problem in your outer experience, something you wish changed, or be it an inner condition in your inner personality, something you wish to overcome. Meditate, extend yourself, and reach for the total goal. Claim this total goal. How often does it happen that you feel it is impossible to do so? Test it right now. Although you really would want to, still you feel it is impossible. There is some wall that does not let you get through. This wall must never, under any circumstances, be disregarded or glossed over. You must never use pressure of your will to overcome the No of this wall. This will remove you further from your inner, real self and hence from the reality of life, in which all good is available. Instead, you must question the significance of the wall and translate it into coherent meaning. Whether it is doubt in the possibility of having it, or the feeling of wrongness about getting it, or the feeling of not deserving it, or the fear of the demands of life when you do have it, whatever the answer is, this is still not the final answer. Why do these misgivings come up? You must probe further. This reservation within yourself must be linked with a character defect you have not really faced, nor do you wish to face because you do not want to abandon it.

Character transformation is an absolute necessity in order to be able to shed the ego identification; when I say "shed," I do not mean this in the sense of giving it up, but I mean that it can be used as a tool in finding the inner being and allowing the ego to integrate with it. This should be clearly understood. It is possible only when certain character defects have been transformed or if the person is truly willing to do so and is on the way, in all sincerity and without subterfuge. It must be a total commitment, no pretense, no playacting. When this is a total response to life, then the life stream will become discernible, and its wise guidance and meaningfulness will become a reality in your life.

For the longest time we concentrated on finding error, misconception, and defects which are, of course, interdependent. In fact, we always were careful not to judge or moralize with yourself, for such self-moralizing is a hindrance not a help. The time has come now when the difference between moralizing and the desire to transform should be clearly recognized, for I believe that most of you are now in a position to understand this difference with your heart -- and this understanding is what really counts.

Judging, moralizing, and perfectionism, about which I have spoken extensively in the past, occur when values are based on outer standards. Their aim is to please others, to conform with outer standards, to want to impress others. Moralizing always tends to make known to others how right, good, or superior the self is. It always needs to prove something. To whatever extent the moralizing quality exists, it exists on the basis of appearance only, and not because the individual is really concerned with the issue as such. Consideration for the feelings and rights of others or for the liberation of the real self of others or the person in question is usually superficial; deep inside this is not the motive. The motive is appearance, proving something.

The genuine desire for transformation of character defects is not in the least concerned with outer appearance and with what others think. It is exclusively concerned with the transformation itself, regardless of whether others see and admire it or not. The false, damaging, tortured, and hindering moralizing and self-accusation always harbor a deep inner insistence not to change. Hence moralizing is a tortured inner movement. The recognition of the fault involved is unbearably painful only because the person refuses to give it up. Since moralizing refuses to give up a negative trend, it brings more negativity in its wake, notwithstanding its appearance, which seems to convey honesty in seeing the fault and high standards or morality, because one is so unhappy about its presence.

The genuine desire to transform one's defects is never burdened by an unpleasant admission of a defect, no matter what it may be, just because it is a genuine desire to transform. In this desire there is love -- love for the universe -- expressed by the willingness to contribute to one's very being. This lightens the heart, even if one may not be capable of an immediate transformation, because missing links have to be understood. Let this be a yardstick to you, my friends, in the continuation of your pathwork. When a distortion cuts deeply into the soul and makes you hopeless about yourself and the ability to transform the defect, know that on a deeper level of your being you do not wish to give up this very trend. Then find out why not.

When your personality is geared to a positive soul movement, you will feel the effect: there will be no obstruction to a transformation of a defect in character, and consequently no obstruction to the unlimited abundance of good available in the universe for every single individual. Try to perform this inner movement by letting yourself stream out in complete affirmation, instead of the old negation. When this inner movement can be made, when you move toward the world with a relaxed inner attitude of being equally ready to give and to receive, transformation will not seem hazardous. It will seem a wonderful venture. Therefore, when you find yourself stuck in pursuing your desire to reach undifferentiated, unlimited good of the available creative power in the universe within yourself, find out what it is -- not only where you are negative in the expression of your desires but also where you are connected with the persisting negativity. There is a character defect here that is equally difficult to give up. For as long as the corresponding character defect is not seen, the negativity must remain. This negativity excludes unfoldment, self-expression, and fulfillment. It excludes the creative powers within yourself. This could be a key for many of you.

For the longest time we had to be primarily concerned with uncovering the defects and illusions, the "fact" that you are negative and destructive, that you deny and negate. This was of great importance. I do not say that all of my friends have completely succeeded in this. But many of my friends have begun to succeed considerably in this. Now a second major phase can be envisaged, and that is the phase in which you practice extending yourself into the universe. Where you succeed because you are inwardly free, you will see new manifestations in your life as never before. Where you still feel yourself blocked, unable to believe it, unable to follow through, you will find even more deeply-rooted aspects in yourself that you could not bring out before and that you will now recognize as deformations of your character structure without the past danger of closing the door through your damaging moralizing attitude. This will then set the stage for the decision to transform, which, again, can be tested as to its inner sincerity by your meditation on the subject. How deeply do you want this transformation about this or that defect? Where and why do you refuse to transform these defects? The moment you are truly willing to transform, in that moment the door will no longer be closed. You will feel it open into the unlimited universe. You will be able to extend yourself into it and consequently feel worthy and capable of receiving from it. Then no good needs to have a shadowy side.

That is also the time when you will know the real values and will do away with all false morality, based on any consideration other than the unfoldment of the real self. The more you are truly willing to transform defects, the less necessary become the outer, superimposed values, which are often senseless, especially from the point of view of life's call, which requires your total response and commitment.

Now, why is man so afraid of this total commitment to life, of relinquishing ego identification, of the extension of positive manifestations that enrich him? Why does man resist the good and battle to maintain the life of painful struggle and insoluble conflict? Why does he fear the good that liberates him? And why does he put his faith and his stake into the narrow, confined, confining, imprisoning ego aspects of the little outer self and the little outer values? Why is that? There are several ways to answer these questions, depending on the angle. Let us, in the first place, choose the following approach to these questions.

When man doubts a larger reality and does not take a chance on it, he is in a world of duality, as we have discussed previously. As you know, in this world of duality the following conflict exists: "If I am unselfish, then I must suffer. I do not want to suffer. But if I am selfish, then I will be rejected, despised, not loved, left alone. And that is suffering, too." In this struggle man goes back and forth and seeks a solution. The more he believes the truth of these two alternatives to be inevitable, the more he is bound to experience life accordingly. He does not dare to be unselfish; he cannot wholly want to be unselfish, since it means giving up personal fulfillment and happiness. Nor can he fully commit himself to a life of selfishness -- partly due to the ever-present existence of his real self, and partly because he fears the world's opinion. This is the tragedy of the uselessness and senselessness of this struggle. He cannot extricate himself from its meshes as long as he identifies with and entrusts himself to the values, rules, and concepts of ego logic. When he wants to transform, he must want to give up selfishness and the desire to cheat life, himself, and others -- in whatever form. That he cannot wholly risk when it spells personal sacrifice of all he wants. The most painful state is indecision. This holds true on all levels and it is man's fate as long as he has not transcended the ego level of reality. He cannot find reconciliation between fulfillment and unselfishness -- hence he must remain undecided: he must continue to vacillate and be in two different camps at once. If man were totally capable of committing himself to a life of selfishness, he would soon come out of it, because he would then recognize that it leads nowhere, that it does not lead to the salvation he halfheartedly seeks on both sides.

You are all in this struggle, every one of you. Every one of your problems is an expression and a direct outcome of this duality. Look at your problems, go deeply enough into them, and you will see that this is so. You fear the impulses of the larger, wider, wiser self. You cannot want wholeheartedly to commit yourself to it as long as you believe that disadvantage must result from this.

The fact that you can only be capable of reaching toward and receiving the good of the universe when your defects are in the process of being overcome may, at a superficial glance, appear like the concept of reward and punishment. I might say that this concept is a misunderstanding and a distortion of the process I explained. Reward and punishment suppose an outer authority who hands out the deserved effect of the individual's actions and attitudes. Either reward or punishment are often supposed to take place only in a hereafter. What I explain is a mechanism taking place within the personality itself. The innermost self senses the incongruity of reaching for the best when refusing to give the best. Moreover, obtaining the best is a burden one fears when one is not also willing to give the best. Conversely, giving the best is impossible when one associates it with sacrifice and disadvantage to the self. The very existence of a belief in punishment and reward covers up the deep despair that unselfishness brings deprivation, so that one is forced to hold back the total desire to love and to give. Reward-and-punishment concepts, in whatever form they exist, are compensations for the unbearable reality that is perceived in duality.

When the real self is activated, this conflict no longer exists. It is possible to activate the real self in this particular respect when this particular conflict in you is brought out of hiding. In the reality of the inner center, this split no longer exists. You will find that it is equally possible to extend yourself wholeheartedly, to give of yourself, to love, to feel, to be unselfish, to be humble, to relinquish the egocentricity of the frightened child, to have the integrity of allowing others to be free no matter what this means for you, and not to be a loser. Soon the feeling of not necessarily having to be a loser will change into a conviction that being a winner is possible. First, that being a winner is merely possible, later that it is inextricably connected with the decency of the self. This will be so because you are free enough to want both. When the transformation of your defects is taken on, you will like yourself sufficiently to open yourself to all the good that is available. When you begin to succeed in this transformation, you will be strong enough to withstand happiness. You can claim the best when you are in the process of transforming that which makes you dislike yourself, whether or not you are aware of this self-dislike, whether or not you are still in the state of projecting your self-hate onto others. Then you will realize the truth of absolute reality and of your real self: that there is no limitation to expansion. Through this unfoldment, your intuition will become strong and reliable. You will then hear and heed the demand of your personal life stream, and go with it. You will have the courage to go with it, whether or not it seems to conform with outer expectations, rules, and values. As long as you are very determined to follow the inner values, the outer values will cease to be important, either in your own mind or in the outer manifestations of your life. That is, you will no longer fear when your personal course of life does not coincide with the conventions. You will not fear this deviation. Soon outer life will follow suit, and no friction will accrue. The world will fall in with you.

There are two important keys for you here in this lecture, which may be the very point you seek in order to come out of your momentary bottleneck. I recapitulate briefly:

1. What is your aim in life? What is your aim on this path? How far do you wish to go? Do you want to remove only a few symptoms? Or do you wish total self-realization, the activation of an inner center in which all good and salvation from anxiety, insecurity, and confusion exist? If so, are you willing to pay the price of perseverance, of total commitment? The total commitment brings out the total possibility you contain. The unlimited potentials of your innermost being enable you to realize unlimited good.

2. Find the exact point where your positive wishes are blocked, where you feel that you cannot get through. And then question yourself as to what particular character defect does not permit you to abandon a self-destructive, self-denying attitude? State clearly that you wish to find it. Once you see it, there is still time to decide whether or not you want to give it up. If you do not, find out why. That concept is behind the insistence upon holding on to something that violates your integrity and your decency, that holds back the best you have to offer and the best you can be. This must impair your self-respect. It may not be a crass outer manifestation. It may be a hidden little deviation that does not seem to harm anyone, but always does, whether or not you are aware of it.

Next time I shall answer questions. I hope many of you will ask about your personal problems, where you feel stuck and need help. This is always helpful for all present, not only for the one who asks.

This coming work year will be even more fruitful than the past year, which was truly unprecedented among the majority of my friends. This progress, which is vividly experienced by quite a few of you, is in exact proportion to your willingness and openness. There is no mystery about what brings this progress, for this path must work when this willingness and openness exist. And those of you who are not satisfied with your progress, question yourself deeply and sincerely: Where have you held back? Where did you not want to go all the way? Where have you lost the clarity of the aim? And where have you disconnected the aim from where you are personally at this moment because you do not want to expose yourself? Therefore you ignore seeing that you hold back in fear and shame, which are such unnecessary burdens with which you barricade the doors to liberation. Those of you who have progressed and sense the excitement of a new life to come have much more to look forward to, for you will now forevermore fortify the powers. You will be able to enlist and activate them more and more in order to remove the obstacles of your remaining illusions and to orient yourself to that which alone is eternal within yourself, and which is never in conflict and never tortured. You will learn to experience it as a living reality.

Be blessed, receive the strength and the love that stream forth. Be in peace. Be in God.

The Guide
by Eva Pierrakos
September 9, 1966

Back