Greetings, my dearest friends. May blessings and strength, understanding of truth and the vital flow of universal energy fill and sustain you as you are here hearing these words, and as you take them with you -- perhaps more as an inner effect on your psychic forces than an intellectual memory of the words.
Many of my friends on this intensive path of self-realization have come to a crossroad from where they see the old inner landscape, which is fear. Fear of life, fear of death, fear of pleasure, fear of giving up control, fear of feelings -- fear of being as such. It takes considerable self-confrontation, as you all know, in order to be aware of these fears. They are usually covered up, but they nevertheless exist. Many of my friends have come to the point where, to their surprise and dismay, they suddenly begin to see how they fear all these aspects of life I just mentioned. As awareness of these fears increases, one gradually and automatically also becomes aware of the effects these heretofore unconscious fears have on one's life -- what they make one do, how they make one withdraw from living. One then begins to understand those vague feelings of missing out on life which one usually has without quite knowing why, and one begins to realize how much one misses.
My friends, you do miss out on life itself. You miss the creative process of living by fearing this creative process. And I wish to discuss in this lecture some aspects of these fears, their common denominator, and how to correct an unnecessary condition of fear, frustration, and pain. For even those of you who have not as yet discovered that these fears exist will, sooner or later, discover their existence, especially when you find yourself dynamically growing and moving on a path of development and self-realization. When you thus become aware of how you were hiding from life due to these fears, these words -- retrospectively and retroactively -- will become very helpful. They may create a seed in your psychic forces now, which will come to fruition when the whole of you is ready to see the problem and to resolve it. This is truly the main problem of life.
The nature of all these fears is a misunderstanding of the function of the ego and of the relationship between the ego and the Real Self. This is extremely subtle and difficult to put into words, for, as with all truth of life, so with this truth: it is full of apparent contradictions, which are contradictions only as long as you find yourself involved in a dualistic way of thinking and living. The moment you transcend this dualism, two opposite -- and apparently mutually exclusive -- aspects become equally true. So it is with the ego in relationship to the real self. It is true when one says that the ego's predominance -- its exaggerated strength -- is the greatest hindrance to productive living. And it is equally true when one says that a weak ego is incapable of establishing healthy living. These are not opposites or mutually exclusive facts, my friends.
Before we go into greater detail about this topic, let me first of all stress the fact that man's unhappy condition is due primarily to the ignorance about the existence of what we may also call the real self. Man is vastly ignorant of it. At best, the more enlightened human beings accept its existence as a philosophical precept. But this is completely different from an experience -- a living, dynamic experience -- of its existence. If man were educated with the idea that he contains something deep within himself that is infinitely superior to the ego self, he would be given the opportunity and the chance, by experimentation and exploration, to seek a way of communicating with this nucleus of himself. He would become able to reach his true inner being. This would be his goal.
But since this is not the case, man becomes more and more limited in his concepts and goals in this respect. He ignores the fact that there is anything else alive in him but his ego. Even those of you who have, for years, formed a concept of the real self -- of the creative substance that enlivens every human being -- forget, in the vast majority of your daily lives, that this creative being lives and moves in you, and that you live and move in it. You forget its existence. You do not reach for its wisdom. You stake all your reliance on your limited ego self. You neglect to open yourself for the deeper self's truth and feelings. You go blindly ahead as though there really were nothing else but your conscious mind, your ego self, with its immediately accessible thinking processes and will force. With that attitude you shortchange yourself greatly.
This inevitably has various consequences. The first one is the question of identification. When man identifies himself exclusively with the ego, with the outer conscious self, when his sense of self is predominantly associated with the ego functions, he becomes completely imbalanced and his life becomes emptied of substance and meaning. Since the ego cannot replace, or in any way come near, the resourcefulness of the real self, it is inevitable that such a person -- and this comprises the majority of human beings -- becomes tremendously frightened and insecure. The individual must feel inadequate and his sense of life -- of living, of self -- must become very flat and unenjoyable. Substitute pleasures are then -- often frantically -- looked for, which are hollow and leave him exhausted and dissatisfied. The ego cannot produce deep feelings and a deep flavor of living. Nor can it produce profound and creative wisdom. The ego can only memorize, learn, collect other people's creative knowledge, repeat, and copy. It is equipped to remember, to sort out, to select, to make up the mind, to move toward a certain direction -- outwardly and in inner emphasis and approach. These are its functions. But it is not its function to feel, to deeply experience, and to deeply know -- to be creative. When I say "creative," I do not merely mean artistic creativity. Every simplest act of living can be creative, provided you live activated by the real self. Every act is uncreative when you are cut off from the real self, no matter how much effort you put into it. In fact, the real self is effortless. Wherever it manifests effort exists, but it is always effortless effort. This, too, may appear as a contradiction.
Let us come back to those fundamental human fears I listed before and consider them in the light of this topic. As I said, these fears come into being as a result of being cut off from the Real Self -- in ignorance and in false ideas. Let us begin with the fear of death, since it is this particular fear that casts such a shadow on everyone's life. If man predominantly identifies with his ego, then his fear of death is quite justified, for the ego dies indeed. This may sound like a frightening statement to those who have not yet experienced the truth and reality of their Inner Being. It is frightening precisely for the reason I just mentioned, namely that a sense of being, of existing -- a sense of self -- exists for so many people only by identifying with the ego. This is why no human being who has activated his Real Self and experiences it as a daily reality is ever afraid of death. One feels and knows its immortal nature, one is filled with its eternal quality. It cannot but be a continuum, for this is its inherent nature. This cannot be explained by the logic the ego is used to; such logic is much too limited to comprehend this.
A vicious circle comes into existence when the ego is given undue importance in man's sense of being alive. If one cannot conceive of any other reality of thinking, feeling, and being in oneself but the reality of the ego, then one cannot, of course, experience the higher faculties and the greater reality of the real self. Therefore, hearing that the ego faculties -- which one considers the only real ones -- cease to exist must seem frightening. But for those who have experienced the stark reality of the real self this statement can never be frightening. Because you then know perfectly well how inferior, fleeting, and insufficient the ego is as compared to the reality of the inner eternal being -- which you will experience as eternal whenever you encounter it. Therefore, fear of death must exist when one's sense of self is exclusively attached to the ego self.
I want to add here that an intellectual acceptance of the real self, as I mentioned before, a philosophical precept will not alleviate the fear of death, because it cannot give a sense of reality and true experience of the existence of the real self. It requires more. It requires the actualization of the faculties of the real self. This, as you know, necessitates certain very definite stages of development, which you have to go through. I will say more about this later.
The next fear on the list would be fear of life. You have heard me say innumerable times that he who fears life must fear death, and he who fears death must fear life. Because they are really both the same. This statement can also be truly understood only when one experiences the real self, which reconciles all apparent opposites. Then one sees that life and death are the sunny and the shadow sides -- if I may put it this way -- of a certain manifestation of consciousness. Nothing more nor less.
Now, the fear of life is justified when one's sense of identification is exclusively attached to the ego. For the ego's capacities to cope with life and live productively are extremely limited. In fact, they are downright insufficient and must leave the individual uncertain, insecure, and inadequate. The real self, on the other hand, always has answers, always has solutions, no matter what the problem; it always makes any experience, regardless of how unnecessary and futile it may seem at first, deeply meaningful and a stepping stone toward further expansion; it increases the experience of life and the realization of one's inherent potentials. It therefore has the capacity to render man more alive, more fulfilled, and steadily growing stronger. All this can certainly not be said about the ego. The ego is constantly ensnared and entangled in apparently insoluble situations, problems, and conflicts. The ego is adapted exclusively to the level of duality -- this versus that, right versus wrong, black versus white, good versus bad. As you know, this is an inadequate manner of approaching most of life's problems. Apart from the fact that no truth can be found if one looks at one side as black and the other as white, the dimensions of these problems include many other considerations. The ego is incapable of transcending this level, of bringing into harmony the truth of both sides, as it were. Therefore it cannot find solutions; it is perpetually trapped and anxious. Thus, an ego identification brings fear of life automatically in its wake.
The next on the list might be fear of pleasure. For those whose self-exploration is still not very deep, such a statement may sound absolutely incredible -- just as fear of happiness would. You would then say to yourself: "This has no application to me." But let me tell you that anyone -- to the degree he feels unhappy, unfulfilled, and empty -- fears happiness and pleasure, no matter how much he strains and yearns for it on the conscious level. It must be so, it is the equation that must come out even. Your life demonstrates this fact, for your life is never, never a product of circumstances beyond your control, or of causes which are beyond those you inwardly set in motion. It is always, and always, a product of your own inner consciousness. You know this in theory, as well as in practice -- at least those of you who have made some self-discoveries come more and more to see that, in one way or another, you have created and are continuing to create whatever is amiss. Do not ever forget this.
Now then, fear of pleasure, of happiness, of fulfillment is a reality applicable to all human beings. At first it is only a question of connecting consciously with this fear. The moment you do so, you will then at least understand why your life does not yield what another part of you so ardently wishes. The more the ego cramps up to get what you consciously want, forgetting that it is not the ego alone that can attain it, the less will fulfillment be possible. Yet it is not the conscious ego that necessarily obstructs it, but some other part of your being, which is neither the conscious ego nor the real self. However, the conscious ego is often blindly driven to act in the way that the unconscious fearful, life-refusing part dictates. This is then rationalized and explained away. Even when one pays allegiance only to the active ego self, with its consciousness, even then the ego self is no more than an "obeying agent," whether man knows it or not. The question is only whether the ego follows erroneous destructive drives or whether it is activated by the real self.
Hence, it is absolutely essential that you be open to your own inner reactions which shrink back from happiness and pleasure. In order to understand this in the context of this lecture, I should like to say this: If the individual derives his sense of self only from the ego faculties, then giving up the ego must seem terribly frightening. And right here is where you are caught in an insoluble conflict -- as long as you remain caught in it. Unfoldment and pleasure, delight and creative living, fulfillment and happiness can only exist when the real self is activated, when you do not identify exclusively with the ego, but when you are connected and identified with the real self, with the eternal, creative substance of your Being. This necessitates letting go of the direct ego controls. It requires trust and courage to surrender to an inner movement that is not responsive to the outer thinking and willing faculties. It is easy to ascertain the truth of this statement when you ponder a minute the heightened moments in your life. Whatever was truly pleasurable, inspired, effortless, fearless, creative, and deeply joyful was due precisely to this letting go and being animated by something other than the usual faculties under the direct determination of the outer self. Then happiness is not only possible, but it is a natural byproduct. You cannot be the real self without being happy, and you cannot be happy unless you are integrated with and enlivened by the real self. This is the kind of happiness that knows no fear of ending or being lost, nor does it fear unwelcome byproducts. It is the kind of happiness, as I said elsewhere, that is, at one and the same time, dynamic, stimulating, exciting, vibrantly alive and yet peaceful. There is no longer any split, that comes from separating these concepts and making them mutually exclusive -- which is what the dualistic ego does. In this split way of experiencing life, peacefulness excludes excitement and brings boredom, while excitement excludes peace and brings anxiety and tension. Man is confronted, as in so many other instances, with a choice -- that is no longer necessary when he enters the realm of the unified real self.
How can you embrace fearlessly a state that must dispense with the ego faculties when your sense of being alive comes exclusively from these same ego faculties? This is just where you are trapped. Unless you see your fear of happiness in this light, you will not find your way out of this trap. You will be constantly vacillating. On the one hand you will be terrified of letting go of the ego, and on the other you will be constantly in a state of greater or lesser, more or less conscious hopelessness -- a feeling of missing your life, of missing something essential because that which is necessary in order to alleviate this condition cannot come about as long as you cannot let go of the ego's predominance.
This brings me to the very much related next fear on the list, and that is the fear of letting go. If, again, one's sense of self derives exclusively from the ego, then the personality is unable to let go. Letting go would mean annihilation. But to him who has begun -- here and there, little by little -- to see the truth and reality of the real self, letting go will not only be no danger, but it will be life itself.
Only gradually does man become acclimatized to the new condition, the new climate, the new vibrations, to the new ways of functioning of the real self. But this is certainly not incompatible with living in a body on this earth sphere. Not at all. It merely means the harmonious interaction between the ego and the real self. It means knowing the ego's functions, its limitations, as well as its powers. I shall return to this question.
First of all, I should like to say that whenever one fears the real self, then one must fear life and death, pleasure and fulfillment, happiness and unfoldment, one's feelings, and the creative process itself. Secondly, it is self-evident that feelings cannot be controlled by the ego. Whoever attempts this merely deceives himself. He superimposes and kills the spontaneity and freedom of the real self. This is why feelings can never respond to any "must" issued either by other people or by the self. They come about indirectly and seem to have their own, independent life, their own laws, and their own inner logic and wisdom. Man would do better to explore and understand this law and this wisdom, rather than to deny them and superimpose over them his own puny ego-logic, ego-law, and ego-wisdom. For feelings are an expression of the creative process itself. Anyone knows that this process, too, cannot be forced. It can only be encouraged or discouraged, just as feelings can. Feelings and the creative process are inner movements, which I also termed soul movements. They have their own messages and signs, which cannot be sufficiently heeded if the individual is to effect self-realization and to establish contact with the real self.
Denying the intense ecstasy of this life force, which manifests on all levels of existence, in all facets of living -- in some areas more intensely than in others -- means courting various degrees of death. Embracing this life force means living deathlessly. The denial of the pleasure supreme of life is death. The fact that the ego came into existence means that death came into existence. I cannot go into details about this now, for this would lead us too far afield. It suffices to say that the ego is a split off particle of the vaster consciousness still remaining in all men. Unless this split off part is integrated with its origin, it dies off. Therefore, splitting off and dying are related, just as re-unification and living are related and interdependent. Ego existence, pleasurelessness, and death are directly connected, just as the real self, pleasure supreme, and life are directly connected. Therefore he who fears letting go of the ego, he who fears pleasure -- and denies pleasure because of this fear -- must court death. This is the true meaning of death. It is a denial of the true original life kernel.
All this, my friends, may lead to the misunderstanding that the ego should be dispensed with. Unfortunately, many a spiritual teaching has made this error, and thus brought confusion to its adherents. Nothing could be further from the truthful way than a disregard or neglect of the ego. Doing this would merely lead to the opposite extreme. And always both extremes are equally wrong, damaging, and dangerous.
The person who has throughout a lifetime -- and often during several lifetimes -- over-emphasized his ego, in the mistaken idea that this is not only safety but life itself, becomes tired. He becomes tired because every wrong soul movement -- based on misconceptions -- is exhausting. It makes him cramp up in order to desperately hang on.
Whatever the various false ways of relief from a cramped ego are, they always mean the weakening of the ego. If, on the one hand, the ego is too strong, then it inevitably must be too weak on the other. I put this in practical terms for you who are working on this path: To the extent you are frightened of letting go of ego control -- in the false idea that this makes you lose strength -- to that extent you are unable to assert yourself because you are afraid. The more capable you are of self-surrender -- to your feelings, to the creative process, to the unknown qualities of life itself, to a mate -- the stronger you must be. You will then not fear to make decisions, to make mistakes, and to meet difficulties. You will rely on your own resources, will have the integrity of your own views, will pay the price for selfhood, will assert your rights as you fulfill your obligations freely and willingly -- not out of fear of authority or of the consequences of disapproval. The ego strength of such healthy self-assertion makes self-surrender possible. Conversely, the weakness of an ego that fears self-responsibility makes self-surrender -- and thus pleasure -- impossible. The person who habitually overcharges and exhausts the ego faculties then seeks false relief.
Such false relief can take many forms. One of the more crass forms is insanity -- where the ego is completely disabled. In less crass cases it takes the form of neurotic manifestations, where the ego is unable to use its faculties of strength, selfhood, self-responsibility, etc. Or it can take the form of alcoholism, drug addiction, and all the other artificial ways of obtaining relief from an over-tense ego that is deprived of pleasure because it is too frightened to surrender to the creative process.
It is therefore of primary importance to comprehend what the ego faculties are, how to use them, and where the ego's limitations are. We shall go into greater detail in the future. All I want to say at the moment is this: The ego must know that it is only a servant to the Greater Being within. Its main function is to deliberately seek contact with the Greater Self within. It must know its position. It must know that its strength, its possibility, and its function is to seek contact -- to decide for it, to request the help from the greater self, and to establish contact permanently with it. Moreover, its task is limited. The realization always comes from within, from the real self, but it comes as a response to the ego's wish to comprehend and change falseness, destructiveness, and error. In other words, the ego's task is to formulate the thought, the intent, the desire, the decision. But its limitation is in the execution of the thought, the intent, the desire. After its task of deciding to pay the price of truthfulness, integrity, honesty, effort, and good will is fulfilled, the ego must step aside and allow the real self to come forth with its intuition and inspiration -- that set the pace and direct the individual path.
The ego must, again and again, select, decide, and intend in order to follow this way of development. It must be willing to learn from within and to comprehend the deeper language of the unconscious -- which is at first quite obscure, but which becomes increasingly more obvious. It must learn to interpret the messages of the destructive unconscious, as well as of the still deeper "unconscious" real self -- with all its wonderful creativity and constructiveness. The ego must lend its wholehearted support, its one-pointed effort, its most constructive attitude, and its undivided attention to the inner path. It must know its limitation as to the deep wisdom, the individual rhythm of the path, the timing, and the strength to persevere in difficult times, and it must call upon the unlimited resources of the real self. It must develop a finesse in order to sense the subtle interplay between the increasingly more manifest real self -- so that it may learn when to be strong and assertive and when to step aside in a more passive, listening, and learning attitude. The ego can be likened to "arms," arms that move toward the source of life, and that stop moving when their function is no longer anything else but to receive.
May you all truly profit by this lecture. May you study it deeply, meditate on it. Study it sentence by sentence, and see how it applies to you. Meditate with the wish to make use of it, not only by understanding it theoretically, but by truly seeking that part of yourself that is eternal, that is truly adequate, and that is always in wonderful, ecstatic delight. The price is some effort of overcoming laziness, resistance, and false safety devices.
It also means exploring the conditions which make a connection with the real self possible. The ego self must be compatible with the real self. The real self transcends the flat laws of outer morality -- therefore you must have the courage to be in your own truth, as opposed to paying allegiance to public opinion, to an authority, or to society at large. Such submission only happens out of fear and greed, cowardice and opportunism. Thus outer morality is not necessarily a sign of real, inner morality. However, the real self has extremely exacting standards of real morality, of a far deeper nature than the former kind. One must see where selfishness, cruelty, self-centeredness, greed, and dishonesty exist in the soul -- if only in minute form. Every such particle, no matter how much diluted by genuine goodness, stands in the way -- particularly when it is not recognized, when denied or excused. If you cheat yourself by trying to cheat life, you make yourself incompatible with the laws and powers of your own innermost creative being. So, discover the areas where you cheat. They may be hidden, indeed, but they always exist -- to the extent of unhappiness and discontent, hence, to the extent you are separated from your Real Self. Be in peace, be blessed, be in God.
The Guide
by Eva Pierrakos
December 8, 1967
Copyright 1967, the Center for the Living Force, Inc.