The Self-Regulating Nature Of Involuntary Processes

By The Pathwork Guide

Greetings, my dearest friends. May you find blessings through the help, the strength, and the enlightenment that these lectures can give you, once again. This last lecture of the season will be a summary and, at the same time, it will shed light on the next step you need to take -- if not in deed and action, at least in outlook and in understanding where you are going and why you are stuck in certain ways. This lecture rounds up the season behind us and, at the same time, it brings a vague foreknowledge of the steps to be taken in the next season of our work together. Of course, a few of you here have some more steps to take before you can derive the real meaning of this; nevertheless, an attempt to understand, not only with your mind but with your heart, will make a great deal of what is to come on the way of your self-discovery a lot easier for you.

To summarize once again, and perhaps with a different approach, the meaning of self-realization is to bring out into reality all the dormant potentials. It means to integrate the ego with as yet involuntary processes. The ego consists of the outer reasoning faculty and the will faculty. The involuntary processes comprise feelings, intuition, and, what is more, certain manifestations which operate according to the most meaningful and lawful foundations of life. No one who has not approached the threshold of self-realization can grasp the wonder and beauty of this part of creation.

Man's battle lies in the holding on to his ego faculties. This is because he desperately fears the involuntary processes. He fears everything about them, either consciously or unconsciously, or both. He fears the spontaneity of his feelings. He may ignore this fact because he believes that something is a feeling when he merely registers a sensation or a reaction to his surroundings. Something that is not spontaneous and involuntary, something that is directly, rather than indirectly, governable by the ego processes cannot be called a feeling.

Why does man fear the involuntary processes? Why, indeed, does he so often fear them more than practically anything else in life, when the best in life is a result of the involuntary creative processes? Nothing that is really worthwhile, really meaningful, and fulfilling, of lasting value, can ever be a product of ego function, of direct ego control. Why is man so bent to destroy, to dominate, to deny, and to manipulate creative life -- the involuntary processes -- and substitute them with the much less adequate, much less wise, resourceful, and creative ego faculties, which are but separated particles of the Greater Consciousness, operative through the involuntary functions. Before answering this question, let me point out, also for the benefit of some new friends who are here for the first time, that this overexertion of ego control and the denial of the involuntary processes creates a tremendous imbalance in the personality. It creates sickness, or, if one prefers the expression, a neurosis, to a greater or lesser degree, depending on how much the ego controls creative life within. Man proceeds from the premise -- often quite consciously, or at least semi-consciously, not ever completely unconsciously -- that the healthier he is to be, the more control he ought to exert over his involuntary processes. This misconception makes him go off in a direction that is most opposed to inner balance, to the realization of his best potentials, to rich fulfillment of life on all levels of his being, to healthy well-being. If he is to attain all that, he must reverse the direction. The more he is bent to over-control and dominate the inner, involuntary processes, and the more he fears the latter, the more conflicted and unhappy he becomes, and the emptier his life must be. In fact, he becomes but a shallow, lifeless shell, held together by rigid guards he does not ever dare to relinquish. He gets into a vicious circle: the more he presses into the wrong direction, the more he loses himself and his life, the more problematic his life becomes, and the less capable he becomes of coping. Since he believes that this is a result of insufficient ego control, he tries to increase rather than decrease it, thereby getting deeper involved in this vicious circle. The only way to reverse it is, as mentioned, to let go of the rigid vigilance which rules out all inner creative life, and to use the ego faculties in another way, which I will explain shortly.

The involuntary functions, which must be called into play, are operative at all times. Returning to the question now of why man fears the involuntary processes, we have to consider it on two fundamental levels. When he is involved in the vicious circle I mentioned, it is because he bases certain assumptions about life and his relationship to it on false ideas. These false ideas are often unconscious and they form the images we have talked about. These false ideas are often unconscious, deeply lodged in the soul substance, compel man to act upon these premises. Since the premises are false, the ensuing actions and emotions are bound to be destructive and are geared to defend something that does not exist. Hence, the results must be the opposite of what he really wants. In short, he acts against his interests. The soul substance is a powerhouse of energy, of infinitely greater power than man is even remotely aware of. When an individual is driven to act according to these images, the power is used negatively. When man is free from illusion and misconception and is, therefore, in contact with his real self, with a level of cosmic reality, the power that is operative is constructive and positive. This power is so highly charged that anything can be molded with it. It is creative power per se. But it is neutral in the sense that it can only be used, or it can only flow, in the direction which the mind, with its concepts, sets. Thus the power operates automatically. It seems that it happens by itself. The ingrained ideas, no longer actively thought about, work as the motor force of the power, and the ideas becomes elf-perpetuating. They find their outer manifestation in the events the ideas create.

A person who is as yet unaware of what he really believes, and also of life's laws, ignores these connections and thinks that the events have nothing to do with his ideas. He ignores the creative power in himself and that it is set up so that it actually works negatively in him. A path such as ours is aimed at bringing out these unconscious ideas and images. They are really unconscious to begin with. But once you find that you harbor, deep inside of yourself, equations and assumptions that are completely contrary to your conscious reason and intelligence, you begin to perceive that you have instituted, with these assumptions working on the creative life energy, involuntary processes that are destructive. Since the energy caught up in these images works according to the assumptions of the images, the involuntary unconscious process is destructive.

The conscious mind is an instrument of the unconscious perceptions and connections that actually exist, but is only able to translate them hazily. That is, the more a person is conscious of the inner, heretofore unconscious, processes, the more exactly he will understand the "messages" coming through. But when an individual is still driven by unconscious images, and is thus also driven by the negatively operative involuntary processes, he cannot help but fear them. So, on the one level, the fear is explained by the fact that much of his involuntary processes lead him into negative experience due to the presence of unconscious false ideas. He ignores that these forces are dangerous or negative only because they work according to certain of his own ideas. He ignores the fact that once these ideas are challenged and found to be untrue, the same self-operative power can be trusted. Instead, his solution is not to trust any involuntary processes ever and to guard himself against them by a strict vigilance with the use of his ego faculties. Further, he ignores how damaging this "solution" is. In fact, the average person has no idea of what he is doing and why.

The person who follows a path of self-confrontation is bound to discover his ingrained, heretofore unconscious, assumptions about important aspects of living. Gradually he begins to dissolve these images through recognition and through installing truthful ideas in the soul substance. He begins to observe the power of these images, of the energy involved in them, of the automatic, involuntary nature of these energies. Little by little, through this understanding and observation, you can re-create correct assumptions. They will then begin to work constructively for you. You proceed to set off new energy currents which go according to a vaster law. You never need to fear them.

Nevertheless, when this begins to happen, my friends, when images have been found and begun to be dissolved to a certain extent, when self-acceptance and observation bring new understanding and harmony into the inner life, you still, at this point, find yourself afraid of the involuntary processes. And this brings us to the second level of this question. At this juncture you may have arrived at understanding these precepts in theory: that the involuntary processes need not be destructive, that they are only destructive according to your hidden misconceptions. Yet, in actuality you still fear the self-perpetuating involuntary forces. You still believe that you need to guard against them. In order to help you on from this point, where many of my friends now are, the following words can be exactly what you need, provided you work with them. The summary of past material, approached in this particular form, was necessary to lead up to what follows. The next step is this: how can you begin to trust the involuntary processes? How can you be sure that, even after dissolving the false assumptions which formed certain images, the free-flowing energy then available will not lead you into danger and destruction too, once you let go of the sharp ego control? Unless you trust the involuntary processes, the exaggerated ego control cannot be relinquished and you can never convince yourself of the benign nature of these creative forces within you. Productive, creative involuntary processes cannot become operative as long as you do not encourage them, as long as you do not wish them, and give yourself to them. If you do not let go and permit them to happen and get your whole being to want this, you can never experience the proof of the reliability of the involuntary creative processes contained in every human soul. To get to this point certain new considerations have to be made to explain why the involuntary processes can be trusted.

The words I will speak now are designed to open up new understanding in this respect. I realize, and I hope that all of you realize, that it does not suffice to merely hear these words. They need to be taken very seriously by giving them a great deal of attention with your innermost being, with your best intentions and will; by opening yourself completely, by letting go of the defenses that make you so tight and so rejecting of new ideas that seem to threaten you. When ego control is too tight, such words may indeed seem threatening. That which is salvation appears like your undoing. You have fought against this direction all your life. Now you are being told to do the very opposite from what you thought you needed to do. You cannot imagine that it will work.

Even friends who have been engaged in this pathwork for some time, and have indeed made significant progress, do not find it easy to cross the threshold and come to the state of mind that trusts what was hitherto the most threatening of all: life's involuntary processes within yourself. They, too, have to fight against too tight an ego control where reason and will crowd out the involuntary processes.

Now, my friends, the only way these involuntary processes can be trusted is to realize that they are self-regulating, as perfectly and as completely as many of your biological functions which you take for granted and whose self-regulating nature you never even bother to think about. It would not occur to anyone to want to regulate his bloodstream, his nervous system, his heartbeat, the functioning of his liver, or any other inner organ. They do their work perfectly by themselves. It would not occur to you to try to control and govern them by your outer reasoning processes and by your outer will. Would you attempt such a thing, it would only create harm, for the pressure you would exert with the wasted will power, the wasted energy, would eventually affect the good functioning of your body in a negative way. All wasted energy has that effect. This is the background of all physical illness. Which organs are affected depends on their innate resistance to illness, on their inherent health. People are born with some organs that are more resistant to abuse. In spite of consistent bodily abuse, they continue to function for a considerable time. Other organs are much more delicate and begin to give out very soon, when the slightest thing is wrong. To return to this analogy, the attempt to control something that is not amenable to ego control can only create imbalance, pressure, tension, anxiety, and finally manifest negative effects. This applies not only to the body, but to all levels of the personality. When you begin to focus on the fact that you do not have to exert any will power, any pressure, with your ego faculties, in order to have your biological functions work in their own perfect way, you will then be able to see that the same applies to other levels. The same principle of self-regulation exists in nature, in every possible respect. But you have to use your ego so as to nurture and cultivate healthier habits in order to maintain the involuntary, self-regulating processes. This is the ego's task. It has the possibility to take care of the body so as to maintain health. But it would be utter folly on the part of the ego to use direct pressure to control the functions that are not responsive in this direct way, but only in an indirect way, by the choice of habits regarding food, sleep, exercise, etc.

The same relationship, my friends, exists between the ego and the involuntary processes of the emotional life, of the creative functions within, of the direction one's life is to take as a whole. These involuntary processes are just as perfectly, meaningfully regulated, according to lawful procedures, as the biological ones. If the ego does not interfere, self-regulation occurs effortlessly and naturally. Again, the ego has its role to play. Its task is to choose healthful habits regarding the activity of the mind, so as to set the proper direction. Man's mind can nurture brooding thoughts which encourage destructive emotions. Or his mind can choose honesty with the self, it can choose to disclose all previous self-deceptions; it can do away with all the illusions one nurtures about the self and look at oneself truthfully. It can determine to accept oneself where and how one is now and to give up the idealized version of the self that one tries to enforce. These are the healthful habits necessary if the involuntary processes are to be indirectly affected and therefore work in a reliable way. Then their self-regulating nature can reveal itself. The temptation to evade the truth of the self must be as rigorously overcome as the rigor of ego control must be relinquished. This is how balance can be reestablished in the personality.

The cultivation of such healthful mental habits which the ego chooses can be paralleled with the physical level. As the body always responds favorably when it is treated constructively, so does the level where feelings and intuition create conditions and experiences of life. When the ego no longer dominates these involuntary processes, intuition will give a new security and help to cope with life. Thoughts will come from the deepest resources of the solar plexus, rather than the volitional, artificial thought processes that man is used to when over-emphasizing the intellect. He is used to this imbalance without even knowing what he does and what he misses.

When the self-regulating nature is experienced, the involuntary processes integrate with the ego functions. Then, and then only, can life be truly fulfilling and rich. A new freedom exists to receive what comes from within. One is being lived from within, as it were. This is self-realization. And then one can see how these involuntary processes are, in their health, just as trustworthy and as self-regulating as a body functioning in health. An integrated, full life is absolutely impossible if these involuntary faculties are not allowed to be.

How many times do my friends say: "But if I give in, if I let go of ego control, what will happen? My feelings may want something that is destructive or that I disapprove of." And I keep saying to them, again and again, that this is quite possible. Unhealthy desires and negative emotions exist indeed. They are the result of the distortions, the images, the misconceptions, and the misunderstandings of early painful experiences which need not, however, destroy your life just because you have built general concepts around these early experiences. The existence of these desires and emotions does not change merely because you acknowledge what has actually always been there, only you have never admitted it. Only after you have acknowledged the presence of undesirable material -- wishes and emotions -- in you can you begin to experience the likewise ever present, but still more deeply hidden, constructive feelings: the positive power inherent in your deepest nature. Those latter feelings have the self-regulating wisdom built into their very existence, just as the destructive emotions and assumptions become self-regulating in the automatic reflexes they force upon you.

Once you allow the negative material fully into your consciousness, you must soon see the power of constructive material in you. And then you will discover what I also keep mentioning: that man is even more afraid of the positive power in him than he is of all the negative feelings and desires put together. Any one who goes deeply enough in this path of self-confrontation cannot help but find out this truth, no matter how preposterous and illogical it may seem at first hearing.

If you fear the constructive forces in yourself, it is so, again, because you ignore the self-regulating nature of the cosmic flow that any constructive feeling it. To let yourself be carried by it seems risky -- even dangerous. In this particular phase your vague, or perhaps even distinct, fear, once it is conscious at all, is: ""Where will this carry me? Where will I go from here? What will it make me do? I will lose my individuality, I will lose control." The good feelings seem to be even more threatening than the negative ones regarding the loss of control and individuality. Also the fear may exist that the good feelings may be directed to someone who is not worthy of them, who does not reciprocate in kind, who will reject and hurt and take advantage. These may indeed be valid objections, but only as regards the object of affection; never do they justify the denial of the good feelings themselves. For if the choice of the love object is inadequate, it is precisely a result of immaturity, illusion, and lack of awareness of self, hence of others. It is a temporary phase of growth. Growth is stopped when feelings are stopped. If the feeling is allowed to function in the realization that it has to grow into its self-reliable and self-regulating nature, it is then bound to produce the fulfillment that no longer needs to be feared even more than the frustration. The choice of love objects who are unfulfilling and frustrating, or even produce pain, expresses the torn state of the individual's inner direction: he wants the feeling and he does not want it; he desires fulfillment and he fears it. Precisely because of this conflicting state, experience accrues which seems to warrant the fear of letting go of ego control and trusting the flow involuntary processes, of spontaneous feelings. The difficult experience is never a proof that feelings are not trustworthy, but only a proof of conflicting wishes and of ignoring the fact that feelings, intuition, and spontaneous thoughts and inspiration -- creative processes -- undergo their law of growth as any other part of the human organism. When this part of man's nature is fully grown, the self-regulating quality manifests more and more. Then man is self-realized. Then he lives on the level of the real self, where life is all good.

But man fears the total surrender to the involuntary processes, so he cannot find out the perfection of the self-regulating law. As you are now, most of you, you still have the fear of letting go. You fear letting go, although you long for it. You fear and distrust it, although you theoretically understand the truth. You may recognize quite clearly the tightness with which you do not want to let go. If you examine your emotional, irrational motive to still hold back and distrust the flowing, creative life process within, you may come up with the feeling that these processes are chaotic, that only your ego is orderly and safe. This feeling is, again, due to ignorance of the self-regulating nature of the creative life processes. Recognition of this must help you to come again a step nearer to the real life that leads itself from within yourself.

A further help will be to clearly understand that there is a harmful way of letting go, a distorted version of it, just as there is a distorted and harmful version of discipline. Self-realization, the full bringing out of one's best, the integration of the ego functions with the highly creative potentials that are still dormant and involuntary, can only come about through a constant weighing and testing of a relaxed discipline, alternating with a proper letting go. Neither attitude can ever be harmful if the following key is observed: self-revelation, self-confrontation in an utterly truthful way. Nothing dangerous can ever happen, provided all illusions about the self be rigorously given up. This is the perfect way where discipline and letting go bring a harmony that reconciles these two apparently opposite attitudes.

When discipline is being used against letting go because letting go of ego vigilance means the recognition of facts one does not wish to face about the self, facts that contradict cherished illusions about the self, then discipline becomes a rigid confinement of creative processes. The personality becomes stiff, unspontaneous, empty of real feelings, bound to outer rules and regulations, tight and fearful. Discipline is being used against truth, not for truth. This is what makes opposites out of discipline and letting go. By the same token, letting go becomes destructive when it is used in order to evade the truth; when it is a result of self-indulgence, of cuddling a destructive line of least resistance, and maintaining unhealthy attitudes. Then, letting go does lead away from the self and truly becomes as dangerous as the wrong kind of discipline. Both distortions create a heavy defensive wall in the soul substance, for both wish to avoid truth about the self. An inner tension, a rigidity exists that separates the personality from the real self, which has all the vibrant energies and creativeness and wealth of healthy, strong feelings, and enough resiliency to cope with anything. Instead, there is a brittleness and a need to withdraw and a need to be fearfully separate, over-controlled, and rigid.

When the heaviness of the false discipline imposes too much structure, some personalities break. The strain becomes too much. Other personality types choose, as a "way out," evasion through indulgence. Particularly in these times this is a frequent occurrence. It often takes place under the guise and pretense of the real letting go. When looking at the self seems too painful, uncomfortable, or unflattering, and when rigid self-discipline no longer works or when it is rejected to begin with, evasion may finally lead to drug addiction in one person; another may become a derelict. What is first merely a weakness takes on forever greater proportions: it perpetuates itself, until the personality truly loses itself. It seems that it can no longer stop the process. It may even glorify it under various labels and pretexts -- just as the over-disciplined person glorifies his way.

He who is fearfully over-controlled and rigid will use the example of the crass opposite -- the totally weak, self-indulgent person, the derelict, the one who negates all discipline, all responsibility -- as a warning to justify his over-control. He will say: "You see, this is what happens when one does not control himself. I cannot afford to let go, I might end up the same way." On the other hand, the self-indulgent one, who evades self-honesty as much as the over-controlled person, will claim the rightness of his course on the ground of the example of the rigidly-controlled person who has lost contact with life in himself. The self-indulgent "solution" is no more in contact with the real self than the other extreme.

It is so important for everyone of you, my friends, to become very much aware of this seesaw that exists in you. Realize the extremes of the heavily guarded, over-controlled, rigid, unspontaneous, unfeeling, over-watchful person as opposed to the one who is running away from the self by abandoning all discipline. The cohesive factor that makes all danger impossible, that removes all threats, that combines the apparent opposites of discipline and letting go, is the ever renewed will to be truthful with the self, to face whatever the self is; to give one's very best to life -- all one's honesty, integrity, and constructiveness, all one's most sincere and total attention. The more this becomes ingrained, the less there is to fear in letting go and the less one needs to guard against anything. Thus a relaxed, spontaneous being is at one with the cosmic flow of life.

To the degree that fear of the involitional processes of inner life still exists and to the degree they are still distrusted and their self-regulating reality ignored, to that degree self-deception must still exist; a will to be destructive and negative must still exist; a desire to cheat life must still exist. Conversely, to the degree a person cultivates the attitude "I want to look the truth in the face, whatever it is, under all circumstances, at all times, and whatever the momentary difficulty may be," to that degree fear of the good life must vanish. When this truthfulness, this courage, and this humility are practiced, and gradually become second nature, there is nothing to fear and all unfulfillment ceases. By humility I mean to know that you do not know al the answers. Do not always assume, do not say so readily, "it is this or it is that." It is not -- and even if it is, there is more to it than you now know. If you knew it all, you would be in harmony with life, there would be no anguish, no bitterness, no fear, no emptiness. Now, when this truthfulness is cultivated, not just once but every day; when it is taken into consideration that there are many aspects of yourself, deep inside: aspects of your relationship to yourself and others and life which are overlooked; when you extend and expand yourself in a relaxed search for answers coming from inside you; when you use your ego faculties, your will faculties, your discipline to involve your total being in whatever you do in this self-search -- for example, in finding the answers to whatever issue is in question; when you cultivate truthfulness and a total constructive involvement in which you give the best of yourself, your attention, and your honesty; when this discipline is cultivated, then you have nothing to fear of letting go. When you really want to give your best total self to everything you do, you have nothing to fear of the involuntary processes. For then you will convince yourself of the deeply meaningful lawfulness of their self-regulating nature that just takes care of itself. You will be able to flow in the great cosmic stream. You will detect the wonders of life, and the wonder of your innermost self.

Once you focus your attention to it, you will see to what degree you still refuse this honesty, this integrity, and, also, the desire to give your best, positive self to a situation or an aspect of life. In fact, precisely in the areas of unhappiness the will to be negative and destructive, to cheat, to defy, to pretend, not to give but to take, to harbor hostility and self-pity exists. Your discovery of this will facilitate your further progress greatly. You will see that there is a lawfulness involved here that does not make you an innocent victim, that does not make you helpless. The power to create your life is all there, my friends. It is an immense power, once you stop pushing it away with ego control.

When you begin to sense the richness and the treasure locked up in you, in every one of you, my friends, when you bring out this richness, you will begin to live. Only then will you begin to live. This is possible, indeed, for each and every human being who is willing to follow these steps. Find that in you where you not only refuse to give your best, but where you secretly wish to give your worst to living, and you will have a key. You will have a freedom of choice you never possessed before.

****

The words given tonight, provided you truly and deeply feel and work them through, will prove indeed a gate: a threshold through which you can move. You can move into this new life where everything is different and vibrant with joy and meaning, and where fear and emptiness have no more room. You can approach this threshold by understanding this. For this understanding will release more will power in the right direction, more energy, more outlook, a deeper sensing of what life could be, and how it is not only not a theory but a directly available and accessible experience deep within yourself when you re-establish the balance between the involuntary processes and the ego functions.

Be blessed, my friends, be in peace, be in God.

The Guide
by Eva Pierrakos
June 2, 1967

Back