Fear Of Bliss Versus Longing For It

By The Pathwork Guide

Greetings, all my dear friends here, who are blessed indeed. The blessings result from the strength and the love that are generated by the search for truth, and by gathering together for this purpose with an open heart and an open mind. In that way the universal powers can reach you and can get to work within you, and bear their fruits eventually.

Tonight's lecture is dedicated to the theme of the human fear of bliss. Of course, my friends, we have discussed this before in various connections. But as you who are involved in this self-search go deeper within yourselves and discover more of what was heretofore obscure, it becomes necessary to understand more about this topic. Every single human being born in this plane, in this sphere of consciousness, has to some degree this apparently nonsensical fear. And, indeed, it makes no sense. But it nevertheless exists. At the same time there is -- as I often said before -- an inherent longing for man's true birthright, which is a state of supreme bliss, sublime joy, quite indescribable in human language.

No matter how unhappy he is, something in man knows and remembers that this is not the natural way of being. Indeed, if this inner knowledge would not exist, he could accept a state of frustration and lack with much less strain and disturbance. For the very nature of unhappiness is frustration -- the absence of something that should be there. And the very nature of frustration is not being in possession of something other than what one has now. Therefore each unhappiness implicitly holds out the promise or knowledge of an opposite state.

Thus, humanity is ambivalent first of all regarding its basic state of experiencing life. All other ambivalence follows from this, the desire for and the fear of bliss, happiness, joy, pleasure supreme. With some human beings the fear is much less than the desire. These will be relatively and proportionately fulfilled people, whose life is rich, whose state of being is joyful, whose capacity to feel and experience pleasure is deep, whose attitude to life is trustful, positive, and expanding. For these individuals it will be comparatively easy to work on and overcome the remaining blocks, defenses, and fears that shut off further expansion into blissful being. Many human beings, however, fear happiness much more than they desire it. They will be basically unhappy people who must feel that life passes them by, that it is meaningless, empty, hollow, wasteful, that they miss out in some way. Their capacity to experience and feel pleasure is very limited; they are numb, lifeless, and caught in apathy. They are basically distrustful, negative, and withdrawn from life. The resistance to look into the cause of their suffering within themselves is great, and so are their defenses, their blocks, and their fear of expanding into a different state of consciousness and perception of life. They hang on desperately to the very state of their consciousness that is responsible for their complaints against life. This is their main predicament. They are the majority. Finally, there are many individuals whose desire for and fear of happiness is approximately evenly divided. They will find areas in their life in which they experience abundance, expansion, gratification, success, and fulfillment; but there will be other areas in which they experience the opposite. The deeper and the more honestly they would probe, the more it would become apparent that exactly -- as in a mathematical equation -- where they are happy, free, and unafraid, there is fulfillment, and where they are afraid of the best in life, there is unfulfillment. Of course, off hand, everyone is totally unaware of the fact that he does fear what he wants most. The further away the object of the longing, the easier it is to overlook the fear of it. But when it comes closer and man truly questions his deepest reactions, he will find an inner movement that closes up, that shrinks from it. This may be so subtle that it needs close scrutiny to bring it out into the open.

I know that it is extremely difficult to comprehend and to sense this fear of the most longed for, the most cried after state in life to him who is not yet deeply involved with the nature of the human unconscious. To him this sounds truly preposterous and he may first cast such an idea completely aside. However, I say to you that if you go deep enough and probe with honesty and openness your most subtle reactions to fulfillment, to pleasure, to expansion, that wherever there is the slightest risk involved, you are too distrustful to take it and you cringe back, rather staying in the apparently greater safety of gray life. Once you find this, you have made a tremendous step in the direction of selfhood and liberation. For you are then in the incredible awareness of the reality of life: that your attitudes, your hidden thoughts and emotions, and nothing else, create your fate and your state of existence. This discovery has a revolutionary impact on the individual. Not knowing this makes the tension and suffering infinitely greater. Not knowing this one feels a victim of hazard, and this increases fear, insecurity, and distrustfulness, against which one thinks one must defend the self, thereby becoming still further alienated from the center of inner truth and reality. One begins to displace and project the causes on to the outside world, with less and less relief. No matter how true some of the blames one launches against others may be, they never remove the suffering. No matter how much one can bend others to comply with one's desires, this never removes the lack, the emptiness, the flatness one suffers from. As long as you are removed from the cause in you that closes you up against what you consciously wish most, and are most unhappy about not to experience, you must feel that life is futile. You must feel helpless and unable to do what is necessary to remove the pain of non-fulfillment. You must teeter between self-pity and bitterness, between projection onto others and life for your misfortune on the one hand, and distorted self-blame and a sense of not deserving the best of life on the other. Knowing and experiencing your own rejection of pleasure is the beginning to remove this block. Yet, invariably, man fights this truth at first with all his might. It seems that he prefers to remain dependent on outer circumstances, although the acceptance of this great truth of his utter personal freedom is the most joyful of all discoveries along the path, once truly seen, accepted, and understood in its full impact. One then sees indeed that there lies the only way out. The beautiful reality of this independence cannot be conveyed to him who still battles it.

Often, when man senses that somehow there is more to life than he experiences, he puts such thoughts away and adopts a cynical, resigned philosophy of life. But you, my friends, who are here must somehow sense that you can materialize more out of life than you do. Therefore, I say, the first step is to search for your saying No. The more strained, the more compulsive, the more urgent, the more impatient the outer striving for fulfillment is, the more certain you can be that underneath is just as rigid a No as the surface urgent Yes. The surface urge is just as much a hindrance as the inner No, because it consists of fear and distrust, born out of the unconscious knowledge that inwardly the Yes is blocked off. However, I want to make clear that the absence of urgency and strain toward fulfillment does not imply the absence of an unconscious block. This may merely imply a different personality structure; it may mean that the person has given up. When there is a painful, anxious urge, it can relax only when you find your own specific, your personal saying No to what you want most.

I must come back once more to the difficulty of the personality when he is still in the state in which he ignores his own denial of his desires. I mentioned the helplessness before. I mentioned the frictions and constrictions when the blame for the lack is projected onto outside circumstances or other people, the deep entanglements and confusions that this creates. I must particularly stress once more the dependency that this creates. If you ignore your own inner obstructions and believe that others or fate are the case, you cannot help but live in a state of tension and fear in regard to others and life. This brings any number of disturbances and distortions, too numerous to go into now. If you tie this up with practically all I ever said to you about human predicaments, conditions, and the dynamics of the soul, you will see that the determining factor is the awareness of one's own obstructions. You will comprehend the true meaning of self-responsibility.

All the foregoing is not entirely new to my friends who come here regularly. But a brief review was needed in order to connect these facts with the deeper understanding I wish to give you now. Let us try to shed more light on this all-important question of why man says this mysterious No to the fulfillment of his deepest desires, the longing for the most intense bliss imaginable. What makes happiness apparently dangerous or undesirable?

To the extent you reject yourself, to that extent you cannot bear happiness, you cannot sustain feelings of joy, bliss, or pleasure. Reasons for self-rejection are basically two fundamental ones. All self-rejection must fall into either of these two categories or a combination of them. The first is the following: as you already know, there is a very exacting mechanism in you which, regardless of your conscious rationalizations and self-deceptive devices, knows with an inner wisdom exactly where you violate universal laws, where you cheat on life and perhaps try to get more than you wish to give; where you play those little hidden games of deceptions, of dramatization, and of pretenses with others and yourself; where you do not dare to be your real self as you happen to be now; where you do not love but pretend to love, for your own ulterior motives. The key to the universe is real love, not the binding love you so often give forth. Real, genuine love lets free and can accept a No for an answer. False love is like a lasso that wishes to dominate and hold tight. It seems easy to pretend the latter to be the former, but the inner self cannot be deceived. Where is there a lack of generosity in your feelings? Where do you postulate different laws and rules of conduct for others than for yourself? All of these violations go on constantly, inexorably, and unbeknownst to your conscious mind, for you manage to shut out this truth, which is the gravest of all violations. The pretenses are so much worse than the primary violations. The pretenses deny and falsify. It then becomes a double violation, which inevitably leads to the most painful of all mental and emotional states: being in a double bind from which there seems to exist no way out, until this double violation is discovered and abandoned. Let us say you are selfish; or you have a streak of cruelty; or you hate. If you pretend that your selfishness is the healthy version of self-assertion or if you rationalize it; if you feel the cruelty and hate only in secret and act it out indirectly under a facade that seems the opposite, then you, in addition to these violations, become hypocritical. This hypocrisy may not be crass and on the surface, but its subtle nature does not make it less so. If, on the other hand, you courageously and honestly admit to yourself what goes on in you and look at it squarely, the violation is already overcome to a considerable degree. For in accepting the truth about yourself you enter into a general climate of truth. You are on a platform from which the possibility exists to work yourself out of the particular violation. But even while you struggle, seek further and deeper comprehension, meditate for guidance and help so that your feelings may change spontaneously. In these endeavors you are in keeping with universal laws, you accept your present state; you establish inner conditions that are compatible with bliss. If you have the honesty of saying: "I cannot help but feel this way, although I know I do not like it, and I know it is destructive," in that moment you not only are truthful, but you make room for change.

Anything that is contrary to the laws of love and truth must make the organism unprepared to sustain the powerful energy of happiness. For happiness is indeed a powerful energy. It requires more strength than unhappiness. This strength can be acquired by everyone by facing the truth and shedding illusion about the self and life. I shall return to this topic later.

The second reason for self-rejection is imaginary violation, according to illusory standards of perfection. Perfectionistic ideals are, as you know, extremely demanding, rigid, and strict. The adherence to them does not stem from an overdose of morality but implies a violation of real universal laws in itself. For the reasons are always pride, vanity, the need to control others, pretense, living for the sake of appearance and making an impression, and, last but not least, the fear of standing up for one's own ideas, feelings, and opinions. In short, not being true to the self, for one is greedy for admiration and approval by others. I do not need to go into further details on this subject, for we have certainly discussed this enough in the past. It suffices here to realize that whenever you do not accept your humanity, your present limitations, you violate a universal law. In doing so, the "climactic conditions" of the psyche, if I may use this expression, are incompatible with the state of bliss that you long for.

This may all seem very simple, but it is not as simple or easy as it may appear. For the hidden self-rejection and the hidden reasons for it are very obscure when one starts out on such a path. Usually people are only aware of what they pretend to be -- pretend to themselves. If they cannot bear certain emotions, which are locked away, they genuinely believe that whatever they feel and know about themselves is all there is to them. Therefore it is not easy or speedy to find out how you really operate. It requires a new emphasis in a new direction, a new tuning in and becoming aware of your emotional reactions you were so accustomed to glossing over and not paying attention to. The awareness of your violations of universal laws will also reveal, commensurately, the awareness of the rejection of happiness.

It is therefore my advice to all of you (wherever you may be on this path, at the beginning, or perhaps not yet even started on it, or when you have already made substantial progress in your self-discovery): to the degree you feel that there is still something amiss in your life, or when you vaguely feel that you could have more feelings, experience more intensely, proceed specifically in the direction outlined in this lecture. Find what you do not accept in yourself; what you do not like and close your eyes to; find that obscure, hidden, and yet available reaction which wards off pleasure. Cultivate a purposeful willingness to see whatever it may be that still eludes you. And you will experience, step by step, in the discovery of the areas where you push yourself away, that as you consequently cease doing that, you will become better equipped to sustain happiness, to "bear" happy feelings. You will develop this very fine awareness in which you first observe yourself in a very subtle inner soul movement, an inner attitude toward yourself, when something good comes along, that you shrink away from it. As you discover this, you will weaken the rage with which you blame others, circumstances, people, life itself. And this already removes a poisonous atmosphere in your psychic organism that is totally alien to and incompatible with the bliss that is, by right, your inner home. It is therefore one and the same when the individual accepts the truth about himself and accepts happiness. These two "acceptances" are interchangeable, interactive, and interdependent. And a third point, part of this interactive nucleus, making it a triad, is the realization of the powerful creative substance which molds your life as nothing else does. There is nothing hazardous about your life. There is no outside power that determines the extent of your fulfillment, the extent of your fruitful life experience, or the pain, suffering, and frustration you have to bear. It is not even necessarily a case of self-punishment, as it is currently interpreted. The violation of spiritual law within the psychic organism simply creates a climate ill equipped to "endure" blissful, joyous feelings. Also, ignoring the truth, being oblivious of what you are and do and the ramifications of your attitudes, the fact that you are not in possession of the awareness of the power at your disposal that is contained in your mere thinking and feeling process, all this ignorance creates the obstruction. For example, if you do not believe it is possible to be truly happy, then it becomes indeed impossible. So the problem has to be solved in this respect by cultivating this inner knowledge. And this, in turn, is only feasible by losing the fear of self-responsibility and facing the entire truth about who you are at this moment.

Any truth of yourself and the nature of creation results in inner security, trust, fearlessness. Ignorance creates fear. Fear creates an atmosphere of closing and your mind will not use the powerful substance to create more expansion, but rather more tightly shut defenses.

Bliss is a necessity, for bliss is an expansion. You cannot expand and utilize your own inherent potentials unless you are in a state of joyousness. Expansion and bliss belong together, as stagnation and frustration belong together. Expansion is a self-activating process that combines the masculine and feminine principles in perfect harmony. If bliss, and therefore expansion, is feared, then fear of growth and change must also exist. So must there be fear of man's own inherent powers.

I already mentioned at another occasion recently that bliss, pleasure, fulfillment requires the greatest of all strengths. Unhappiness requires much less strength than happiness. This strength can only be generated if the divine powers within the self are actually, deliberately and concisely, stimulated, activated, called upon, to help you in the state of bliss so as to become better equipped to sustain it, to guide you specifically that you do not inadvertently, unconsciously, by dint of the deeply imprinted mechanisms, close up against happiness. This prayer is very necessary, at least as much as seeking contact with the Divine Powers when you are in upheaval and crisis. When unhappy it is important to make a meaningful lesson out of the occasion so as to effect further growth. This requires contact with the innate superior forces. When happy, it is important to become compatible with the Universal Powers and sustain this state. This, too, requires help and guidance. At first, man finds it particularly difficult to even think of this wonderful opportunity to be helped, strengthened, and inspired by contact through meditation. He may already have experienced its effectiveness, its unfailing responses, its unimaginable wisdom, its various solutions. Yet, when involved in deep conflicts, he simply "forgets." But there comes a point when it is no longer difficult to remember utilizing this contact and he becomes more proficient at it in such difficult times. Yet it hardly ever occurs to man to enlist these same powers again and again, at all relevant opportunities, to enlist these same powers within for the expanding activity that takes place in him. For many of my friends who have reached this threshold this is indeed a key.

Now, before turning to your questions, I would like to begin tonight with another topic, directly connected with what I said here, and with which we shall spend much more time in the future. It is the following: every human being has within his psychic and physical organism certain energy centers. I mentioned this fleetingly at some previous occasions, but not yet in detail. The time has come when it is absolutely necessary that, in the approach to yourselves, you become aware of these energy centers. These energy centers are located at various areas in your body, corresponding to body areas. These centers are not actually in your physical body, but are in the so-called subtle body, in an area corresponding to physical glands. Although the functioning of the glandular system is directly dependent on these centers, the centers themselves are not physical organs that can be discovered by x-rays or other physical investigation. They are of psychic reality; their physical reality can be determined by their effect. These energy centers, located in various body areas, have each their own relation to mental attitudes. As the mental attitude changes from ignorance, fear, alienation, distrust, and hostility to an open, trustful, truthful, loving state, these energy centers open up. This is a distinct experience in the body, because the unity between body, mind, and spirit at that point is a very intimate one.

Therefore, our approach at this stage must also be a unitive one, one that includes the total personality. You will learn certain practices that will bring you the awareness of which center opens at what time, and what to do about it, and what is the corresponding mental attitude. This we shall go into in time to come. What I am saying now is merely a foreshadowing of it. You can see easily that there is a connection between the fear of pleasure and the energy centers. For if there is fear, these centers are by necessity cramped and closed, and the life force cannot go through them. While if you inwardly open up for pleasure, joy, happiness on all levels of your being, this open, relaxed attitude of "letting it be" eventually opens these centers, if the degree of openness is sufficiently strong. In addition to the general pathwork of self-awareness, of facing the truth, of establishing contact with the Universal Forces, it will become necessary to become distinctly aware of the existence of these centers by certain practices, and to come to know how to approach activating them.

Are there any questions in connection with this lecture?

QUESTION: Can you say anything else about the centers at this time? Where they are?

ANSWER: There is one center at the base of the spine. There is another in the solar plexus region. There is one center at the front of the throat. There is one at the base of the head, between the back of the neck, but a little further up -- between the neck and the base of the head. There is one between the eyes, and there is one at the very top of the head. These are the basic energy centers. Each is connected with a mental attitude. Each center determines certain mental and emotional ways of being. Each has its own function. The base of the spine center represents all the physical, emotional feelings -- sexuality, partnership love, personal love. The solar plexus center opens the way to the connection and unification with the spiritual wisdom, universal truths -- and the impersonal love feelings connected with this experience. Opening up this center must bring you to the seat of all your feelings, which usually precedes contact with the Divine, at least to a considerable degree. This is as far as I can go now. Needless to say that what I have expressed here is the barest of all abbreviations or summaries. Much more is to come later, in a series of lectures.

QUESTION: Is the physical work going to be connected with breaking through these centers?

ANSWER: Yes, indeed. The physical work has a great deal to do with it, since it specifically deals with blocks in the body. As long as there are blocks in either the body or the psyche or the mentality, the centers cannot possibly open up. But in addition to that there will be other practices later. You see, breaking through these centers can only begin after a certain degree of self-knowledge has been obtained; after certain basic resistances, fears, mental, emotional, and physical blocks have been eliminated. Then this new approach will only begin. Before, it would be quite impossible. And if it is attempted through artificial means, or by mechanical means, it could even be dangerous. It is perfectly safe, however, to open up these centers when the personality is firmly grounded in reality, in love, in a state of fearlessness and undefensiveness. A certain basis of selfhood must be attained in order to energize the self with all the available spiritual energy. The physical work is one aspect of preparation. As we will later approach the energy centers themselves, we will, in addition to the various levels of work we are using now, be concerned with some new approaches. For example, a combination of breathing together with meditation.

QUESTION: Can you comment further on the centers in relation to the movement of the energies? Do they charge, do they discharge?

ANSWER: As I said, I shall comment much more on the topic in the future. Now I shall say this: when the human being is totally self-realized, these centers can function because then the flow is not stopped. Charging and recharging takes in a self-perpetuating, constant inner movement -- just as everything in creation is subject to these same movements and laws. This creates such an immense feeling of bliss that it cannot be described. It is intensest pleasure on all levels -- physically, emotionally, intellectually, spiritually. Most human beings are not ever truly charged by these centers, and if so, only fleetingly, to a relatively small degree -- in very exceptional states in their life. They are usually in a state of cramp, therefore the centers are closed. All misconceptions, fears, negativity create this cramp. It is the task of each incarnated entity to discover the truth of these laws and make them applicable to the self. As self-lying ceases, a relaxation of a much deeper kind than this is usually understood sets in, a flow occurs, an undefendedness takes place that makes the personality "chargeable," if I can use this expression. Another way of trying to convey almost unconveyable facts may be the following: imagine the conscious, functioning personality as an overall center, imagine it like a planet. Then imagine the universal spiritual self as another center, timeless, spaceless, the center of everything that ever lived and ever shall live -- a huge planet, so huge that this same center is the same for everything and everyone. A totally self-realized entity is totally "parallel" to, exposed by, and in orbit with the spiritual center. It is always in its field of vision and influence. The movements of both coordinate completely. But most human beings are almost all the time "off center;" that is, their personality "planet" is not exposed to and in the field of vision of the spiritual one. At times, the former moves slightly towards this field of vision, for the latter is constant, moving within itself, as it were. At times the personality center moves in, at other times out of this field. On this depends the strength, the truth, the love feelings, the aliveness -- or their lack. All this depends, once again, on self-acceptance, truthfulness, positive attitudes -- in short, all you hear from me again and again. The more you tune in awareness, trust, and love to the universal life center, the more this convergence occurs. Total self-realization makes the two one. The personality center is first completely parallel, covered, charged, enlivened by the spiritual one, until it is soaked up by it. This is not annihilation of self, as many falsely believe. For all life is really in the spiritual center which enlivens the rest. Death means a separation from this center, so that its light can no longer shine upon the personality and fill it with its energy.

Let me bless you here, everyone of you, with the great strength that has been generated more and more by many of you, who have indeed come a far way. Rejoice in the knowledge that life is intrinsically the most benign and joyful fact. It is a constant, immutable, unalterable fact that no amount of separation from the spiritual center can deny. Ultimately you must come to this truth. Be God.

The Guide
by Eva Pierrakos
January 31, 1969

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