Identification and Intentionality: Identification with the Spiritual Self to Overcome Negative Intentionality

By The Pathwork Guide

Blessings and greetings for everyone of you here. Let the power of spirit enliven you, live, and manifest through you. Only then will you be in the real world and will your life have meaning. Every step of the way that you make in this direction generates new energy. You, my friends, who are truly involved in and committed to this work on the path, with all that goes with it, have gradually found out what this newly activated energy means. You experience it in ever greater measure in your personal life in a variety of manifestations. You, who truly want to find out who you are and prepare to make the sacrifice of giving up old destructive patterns of thinking and reacting, find out what an incomparable treasure you discover in yourself, so that the word "sacrifice" becomes indeed ludicrous. For you give up nothing for everything.

In the last few months a powerful new energy has been generated by the efforts of each individual, as well as by the group as a whole. You have set in motion something that is indeed greater than the human life you know. This has become noticeable to all who want to see and perceive. It would require a deliberate insistence to blind oneself not to be aware of remarkable progress in you: new movement in your inner and outer lives; renewal of feelings and depth of new experience; you all have become much more keenly aware of yourself and consequently life begins to open up more and more. Similarly, this same new influx is certainly apparent in the life of the group: in the dynamics and in the feeling experiences; in the honesty of feelings and the more intimate relating among each other. What is more, the spiritual force is now so great, as a result of your efforts and progress, that even the most skeptical among you begin to see that their skepticism is, in itself, an adopted defense. At this point, the validity of this pathwork is no longer a theory, or a philosophy. It has become a reality and an experience that can no longer be questioned.

As you become more perceptive and attuned, as a result of your growing development, you know that the reality of spirit is much more real than the things you touch and see. The energy being generated becomes self-perpetuating. This is noticeable, again, in your personal lives, as well as in your common undertakings. Of course, even with the greatest of progress you still have to deal with defenses, yet to be dissolved negativities, resistances, distortions, and darkness. Hence we must plow ahead in our work, so as to make available more spiritual strength for the purpose of eliminating more and more of the negative aspects in your personality: more unreality, more masks. As usual, in order to do so, these aspects must first be fully acknowledged and accepted, for such is the indispensable prerequisite to giving them up. It is impossible to let go of something you do not know you have or express.

Once again, I should like to find the common denominator of where most of you are at this time. Needless to say that this applies only to those who truly follow the path in all ways, with all aspects of the available help. It will immediately become apparent that right now you find yourself at a crucial point, which I will discuss tonight. Some of you may already have made some steps to pass this point. Others may still struggle to verify this point of self-awareness, but will sense that they are on the threshold. But most of my friends are exactly at the point I shall now discuss.

This common point is the awareness of your previously concealed but now conscious negative intentionality. This awareness was not accessible only a short time ago. You may have accepted the theory that you, too, have a lower self, that you have faults and character defects. You even faced any number of them and dealt with them honestly and constructively. But this is not the same as the negative intentionality, although there exists, of course, a connection between the latter and the character defects, the images, the misconceptions, and the destructive feelings.

We have discussed for many years the fact that whatever man fears, he unconsciously wants, and that whatever he experiences, he also unconsciously wants. This entire pathwork is based on this truth, this fact of life. Here and there, you have verified aspects in you, in the course of these years, which proved this fact. But it is only recently that so many of you are truly face to face with a basic negating attitude toward life. It is an attitude that expresses not to want to give, to love, to contribute, to reach out, to receive, to live well and fruitfully. This may sound preposterous to the conscious mind that wishes nothing more than any and all fulfillments imaginable. But there is this other part of the soul, in a hidden corner of the psyche, that says just the opposite. It wants to hate, to be spiteful, to withhold -- even if this causes suffering and deprivation.

The realization of this part of the soul is, of course, of paramount importance. It need not be the overwhelming part of the self. In fact, it suffices that a relatively small part of the consciousness is locked in this negation, while a much more substantial part of the self strives for the opposite. But no matter how "small" in relationship to the liberated, positive aspects of self, the former holds a magnetic power over the life of the individual by virtue of it not being recognized, by dint of the lack of awareness that exists in regard to it.

When full awareness of this negative intentionality surfaces, it dawns on you what a grip this devastating attitude has on you. In spite of your knowing how destructive it is and how senseless, you still find yourself "unable," that is, unwilling, to abandon this attitude. A great effort in overcoming resistance is necessary before you can accept this, at first, shocking realization about your life. As a matter of fact, much of the resistance you encounter in yourself and your companions is based precisely on not wanting to see the existence within of such senseless destruction and negation.

But when you finally see it, it is a blessing. You can then deal with this negation of life. You have, of course, already done so to a considerable extent. There are a number of "reasons" for negativity, if we may call them that, of which you are already quite conscious. Nevertheless, you still cannot move from this point. Yet the mere fact that you know that it is you who wants isolation, loneliness, lovelessness, hate, and spite, and not some fate that innocently befalls you, represents a major key through which the next link in the chain of progression and evolution can be established.

At this point in our work together it would be useful to make a clear distinction between negativity and negative intentionality. Negativity comprises too wide a term. It also includes faults, hostility, distorted reality, envy, hate, fear, pride, anger, or whatever. But when we speak of negative intentionality, the words take on a different meaning. It is expressly the intention to hold on to the state of negating of life and self. The mere word intention connotes that the self is in charge; makes a deliberate choice, intends to do, act, be. Even when you own up to the worst destructive, cruel, brutal attitudes, there is always an implication that you cannot help being the way you are. When you ferret out your negative intentionality, you can no longer deceive yourself that negativity "happens" to you. You must, sooner or later, come to terms with the fact that your life is the result of your choices. And choice implies the possibility to adopt another attitude. In other words, you truly discover, on a deep level, that you are free. Even your narrow confines are the result of a freely chosen course you follow, and will continue to follow until you choose to change this course.

To the conscious mind such negative intentions may appear unthinkable, but whoever hears or reads these words and has not verified them should rest assured that negative intentionality indeed exists. To deal with this extensively and profoundly takes considerable struggle, effort, patience, and inner overcoming of resistance. I do not talk about a vague hint of a recognition here or there, that is then left to itself. In fact, truly dealing with the negative intentionality is a major crisis in a person's life and signifies a basic transition. It is not something that he can easily come by.

Let us now look at certain fundamental stages and progressions in regard to this transition. A person starts out on such a path without any awareness of his stubborn negative intentions. As I said before, if he were to be confronted with this fact, he could not believe it, let alone feel and observe it in himself. He may be aware of some faults and destructive attitudes, of some neurotic behavior and feelings, but this, as I cannot sufficiently emphasize, is not at all the same as awareness of negative intentionality.

When the pathwork progresses well and he gains deeper and more honest insight into himself, the person accepts more of his good as well as of his painful feelings. He gains strength and objectivity. By the renewed commitment to facing the truth in himself, and thus activating the purest of spiritual energies, over and over again, he finally comes to discover his intentional negation of all the good things in life. He will find that the more frustrated he feels for not attaining what he so ardently desires, the greater his negative intention inside and the less inclined he is to deal with it. This correlation is extremely important. The same applies to doubts: the more the person fears that what he wants will not materialize, the less faith he has in his life, and the less connected he is with his own negative will.

That the self deliberately chooses a course of denial, spite, and hate, even at the price of suffering, is tremendously difficult to admit. But once this is done, the door opens to freedom, even before one is actually ready to step through this door. Even before the self is ready to make a new choice, the mere availability of another road, another approach to life and to investing one's energies and resources, brings realistic hope -- not false hope.

You pin so much on false hopes, my friends, so much. You actually invest the best of yourself into neurotic solutions based on unrealizable hopes, on sheer illusion. But there exists a real, a realistic and a realizable hope; a hope that is not bound to wind up in disappointments and disillusionments. A hope that slowly but surely grows into manifest reality and fact: fulfillment of self, realization of the best contained in you, and therefore accessibility to what life has to offer. Just think of what life has to offer, of all the potentialities. They are endless and they are yours for the asking.

However, we must be clear that important as it is to discover the existence of the negative intentionality in you, that does not mean the same as giving it up. You who have arrived at this point have found this only to be too true. It is possible to fully recognize and admit negativity and yet not be at all ready and willing to let go of it. This is not necessarily true of all recognitions and insights. Sometimes it happens that realization of a destructive or distorted attitude automatically eliminates it. But this is not always true. With this particular aspect, it becomes evident again and again in everybody's work that in spite of knowing how senseless and destructive negative intentionality is more than just recognizing it is required to be able to change the mind, the will, and the intention.

Of course, we have already gone into many of the reasons and motives, beliefs and misconceptions why this is so. We have worked on many of them. There is the fear of the unknown; fear of being hurt and humiliated; fear of and refusal to experience pain -- past and present. A negative attitude is thus a defense against real feelings. The holding on to negative will direction is also due to a refusal to assume responsibility in life; to deal with "unideal" circumstances; it is an inner insistence to "force" the "bad parents" to become "good parents," as if one's own misery were a weapon. This misery is then actually used as such. Negative intentionality is also a means to punish life (the bad parents). All of these feelings, reactions, and attitudes have been amply explored, verified, and worked through. Yet many of you still insist on holding on. Why?

We have worked on the origin of this negation. It is often the only way a child has to preserve its selfhood. If the inner resistance is not maintained, the personality feels threatened: the child equates giving up the resistance with capitulation of his individuality. This, too, is recognized by most of you, and you are aware of the inappropriateness of transporting a once valid position into the present, when it is no longer valid but downright destructive.

It may seem almost inconceivable to him who has not yet made this self-discovery that one can admit to a downright senseless, wasteful attitude that does nothing but bring undesirable results, and yet insist on maintaining it.

Why does this apparently senseless refusal exist, even though you know it only causes you and others pain; that it makes you miss out on living fully and in joy; that it causes severe guilt and self-punishment? A powerful reason must exist that obviously goes beyond any of the aforementioned causes -- true as they are in themselves. Many of my friends are stuck at this particular point. They need help to get beyond it.

What truly prevents you from saying, "I do not want to hate, I want to love. I do not want to withhold any longer, but want to give the best of myself to life. I do not need my spitefulness and truly desire to give it up. I want to reach out and give to life and receive equally the best life has to offer?" This lecture hopefully will help you further to understand this resistance.

In order to deal with this bottleneck, the question of identification has to be focused on. What part of yourself do you identify with? Such identification is not something the conscious ego chooses. It is much rather something that, once again, must be discovered by your observing mind. In what way are you identified with what part of your being?

For example, if you exclusively identify with the ego -- the conscious, willing, acting part of the person -- it is automatically impossible to bring about a change that is not within the province of the ego to bring about. Inner change, of the deepest attitudes and feelings of an individual, cannot be brought about by the very limited functions of the ego. One must, obviously, be identified with a deeper, wider, and more effective aspect of the self in order to believe in the possibility of change at all. As I mentioned elsewhere and in a different context, this change comes about by the ego committing itself to wanting the change, by trusting in the processes of the involuntary spiritual self to bring it about. If there is no identification with the spiritual self, obviously such trust and positive expectation, free from pressure, cannot exist. And if it does not exist, the person cannot even want it, for the conviction of failure would drive home the powerlessness of the ego in too unpleasant a way. Thus it is preferable for the limited ego to say, "I do not want" than to say, "I cannot."

On a superficial level the exact opposite situation exists: the "I won't" is denied with an "I can't." On a deeper and more subtle level, it is reversed, simply because the ego does not want to admit its limitations, and yet the self has not found the way to identify with the spirit.

Identification, like everything else, can exist in a most positive and constructive way, and it can exist in a most negative, obstructive, and destructive way. The difference between these is not determined by whether you identify with one or the other of the various personality aspects -- as if one would be good, the other bad. Any identification with any aspect of yourself can be desirable, healthy, and fruitful, or the opposite. Let us see how this is.

You might think, for instance, how can it be destructive to identify with the higher self? Or, conversely, how could it be desirable to identify with the lower self? I say it can be either.

If you identify with the higher self, your spirit, without truly being aware of the lower self, the mask self, your defenses, your dishonest devices, and your negative intentionality, then identification with the higher self becomes an escape and an illusion. This is not at all fruitful. Neither is it ever a real experience under these circumstances. It is much more like paying lip service to and having a mental belief in a philosophy. It is all very well when you know that you are a divine manifestation; that you have potentially limitless power at your disposal -- power to change yourself and your life; that you are the spirit of the universe manifest. This is true. And yet it is a half-truth when this kind of identification overlooks the part that needs your scrutiny and candid attention.

By the same token, identification with your lower self can be desirable or undesirable. Perhaps we can best put it this way: if you identify with your lower (or your mask) self, it is one thing; if you identity it, it is another. When you are identified with the lower self, you believe that this is all there is to you. When you identify it, you observe it, admit it, tackle it, but you do not believe that this is all there is to you. If it were, you could not identify, observe, evaluate, analyze, and change it. For that part of you which is doing all this watching is certainly more in charge, has more power, is more active and real than the part that is being observed, evaluated, changed, etc. The moment you identify something -- good, bad, or indifferent -- the identifier is more you than what is being identified. The observer is more real and in charge than the observed.

There is a vast difference between identifying and being identified with. When the mask and lower selves, the negative intentionality, and the dishonest games are being identified, real feelings can be felt and honestly experienced. Pain need no longer be denied. This is so because the energy that is no longer being invested into denying what is will bring you what is. And when you can truly feel your feelings, you can then identify with the spiritual self. The lower self should be identified, the spiritual self identified with. The ego makes the identification, but gives itself up voluntarily so that it is integrated into the spiritual self.

When giving up negative intentionality, the person experiences himself already as something more than his lower self that should be dissolved. That is, its energies are being dissolved in their present form and being reconverted, altered, and channeled in a new and better way. But when the senseless refusal to give up negative will exists, it is so because the person is completely and totally identified with this aspect of the self. This is so regardless of the developed aspects of the self where this may not hold true at all. In other words, this is not a total condition; it is not true that either the person is being entirely identified with the lower self or not at all. It is invariably a combination: some aspects of the self are free, and there a deep spiritual identification may be sensed. At the same time, the as yet unidentified lower self aspects, the as yet unfelt feelings create, in part, a fearful submersion into the lower self, which the self believes to be its only reality. Also, at the same time, a third identification with the ego as the only valid, reliable function can exist, too. This is the way people are split -- also in regard to identification.

When a secret, albeit partial, identification with the lower self exists, giving it up is like self-annihilation. To that part of the self that is destructive, cruel, hateful, and spiteful this seems the real self. The other seems unreal -- perhaps even phony. This seems true especially when an actual phony veneer is used to cover up the reality of the lower self. Giving up hate, spite, and negative intentions seems like giving up one's very being. That apparent self-annihilation cannot be risked, even if the promise beckons you that joy and fulfillment accrue from this sacrifice. At best, this joy, if at all, appears to exist for someone else than the familiar you. What good does joy, fulfillment, pleasure, self-respect, and abundance do if they are to be experienced by someone other than you? This is the unarticulated feeling or climate.

This is the most difficult part to overcome. Or, perhaps, I should correct this and state that it is the second most difficult part. The first is to make the initial commitment to find out the truth about yourself. This includes the mental observation and admission of your real thoughts and feelings; the experiencing of all feelings; and owning up to them on all levels. The second is, how are you going to extricate yourself from your identification with your lower self?

When the self experiences itself as real only in the lower self (to whatever degree this may hold true), it cannot give itself up. The refusal to do so is the misplaced will to will. You live in the illusion that beyond your most negative aspects nothing else exists -- of you, that is. You feel real and energized only when the negativity and destructiveness manifests, no matter how much the environment curtails it and forces you to experience this energy only inside of yourself. The outer deadness and numbness seem the result of having "given up" the evil. But it has not been given up at all. Nor do you have to do so. The same energy will be reconverted and need no longer be denied.

My friends, let this sink in: your resistance to giving up what you hate most in yourself, what you know is most hateful, is due to a false identification.

At this point many of you are puzzled about yourselves. You do not understand why you do not want to budge from this extremely uncomfortable and undesirable inner position. You know that there is a beautiful world waiting outside. And if you deny this fact, that, too, is a means to justify your position: if it does not exist anyway, if all is dismal anyway, then there is nothing so strange about your state. So you often make yourself believe in a terrible, senseless universe. Or, if this is not so, your belief in the good and beautiful universe cannot be brought to bear on the negative intentionality.

The way you are bound and frozen into this position of resistance to give up the negative intentionality is not only obstinate and spiteful. That would be too stupid. But the obstinacy and spitefulness harden your position, so that your fear of annihilation in giving up the lower self increases in strength, and a negative self-perpetuation is set in motion. You then live in this small, self-enclosed world, in which the worst of you seems your reality.

How are you going to find your way out of this? The first thing to do would be to question yourself: is this really all you are? Is it true that your reality ceases to exist when you give up the negative intention and will? Is this you all there is to you? The mere fact that you raise these questions honestly will already open a door. Even before answers will come -- and eventually pour forth -- the fact that these questions are raised will permit you to come to the second stage in this progression. From there on it will not be quite so difficult to find a voice in you that answers in a new way that is beyond the limited scope of the lower self, which you used to protect so jealously.

Reach out with tentative questions, questions asked with good will and good faith. This is the very first step to find your way out of your prison and unnecessary suffering. When you do this, you are no longer identified with the lower self that knows nothing but these confined walls, that derives its identity, or reality, from being negative. Instead, you come to the point when you can identify it and be its observer. The observer then becomes a first extension of the familiar self-experience.

Let us assume, for example, that you have grown accustomed to experience yourself as haughty, cold, and contemptuous. Giving up this attitude seems like dying. But dying into what? Your true self, where your real feelings, and hence your real being, are. If you are willing to feel your feelings, regardless of their nature, you will know who you are. If you are not, you must remain that hard, stiffened, limited "self." Here lies your choice.

It cannot be claimed that when you give up your negative intentionality you will instantly experience universal bliss -- or even earthly bliss. You will experience your real feelings, some of them quite painful. But the pain will be so much easier to bear than the position you maintain. And in its flowing nature it will carry you into new and better states, like the river of life itself.

The commitment must always be to the self -- what it really feels and thinks and is. If commitment to the self is the aim, then you cannot realize anything else but yourself. You will experience new depths and scopes of feelings. You will welcome the pain, for it is real and flowing. It is moving and so totally yourself.

The first answers you will receive to your questions may not even come from the deeper, spiritual self as yet. You may not experience magical revelations, visions, and mystical inspirations. The first answers may come from your conscious mind. Your ability to formulate new possibilities and answers, and to use knowledge of truth that is already integrated into your consciousness, will feel safe and very real. At the same time, it will give you a new key to use the equipment at your disposal in other ways than in the old groove.

Such thoughts may take into consideration that trying out a positive intentionality could be interesting and desirable for you. You could play at first with forming new thoughts, weighing new possibilities and alternatives in the way you set your thinking apparatus. This is an exciting endeavor and one that does not, in principle, oblige you to a course. It merely means giving a new scope to a very set mind. You can always exert your right to go back where you were, you are never coerced by life or anyone else. It is always your choice. This knowledge will make less final the apparent "risk" to try out a new thought direction. Just investigate how it feels to set a positive intentionality in motion. As you avail yourself of this new freedom, you bridge another gap toward a greater expansion of the self. Little by little, you can become calm, listening into yourself, and perceiving the ever-present, ongoing voice of truth and God. This will increase in intensity and frequency, until you realize that you are everything that exists. There is nothing you are not, my friends. This may sound very far off, but it is not as far away from you as it may now seem.

Can you try, someone of you here, after the lecture, to take this step? Maybe you can meditate together, as you did previously, and help each other. Maybe several can make this step to some degree. This step must be repeated many times, like the initial commitment to finding the truth inside of you. But every little step liberates more energy and makes the successive steps easier. I will give the force now to those who request it and make their commitment where they wish help. Afterwards you can, all of you, generate tremendous spiritual energy by your meditation and commitment. He who comes forth regarding the step I explained after the lecture is over will not only help himself, but others too, who are stranded at the same juncture. Those who make a commitment and ask for the force also take such a step. This, too, helps everyone who is truly open in mind and feeling -- or, at least, wants this openness to occur gradually.

He who makes himself available to new possibilities in concept, perception, and inner attitude will experience the richness of the universe, the richness of his innermost being. New action streams forth from that, as well as new outer experience. He who stays confined within his old possibilities only must stay in an unsatisfactory condition, no matter how developed he may be, perhaps, relative to others. There is no standing still. If you stand still, you confine yourself. Only when you expand forever more can you truly become yourself.

A beautiful golden force wants to work its way through the clouds. The clouds disperse more and more. To whatever degree you take a step toward merely wanting it, the clouds become thinner. To whatever degree you hide behind negation and doubt, which are the strongest defenses against coming out of your hold, the golden sun and force cannot come through. But it is there. Do not believe that you have to become a different person. You become the best that you already are. When you become it, you will recognize it, you will experience its familiarity, and you will feel how safe it is, how much you it is. It is the best of you. You do not betray your reality, you do not become something that you need to be ashamed of. Try to believe this. Those who are here, let go a little. Let the light come into you and accept that reality is not at all dismal. It is indeed a beautiful reality. The universe is full of love. Truth is love and love is truth. The freedom of your own spirit will be found in truth and love. Be blessed, all of you.

****

(What followed cannot be described. It was an extremely moving experience. Strong energy was generated, which propelled a few of our friends to take this step. This led to deep feelings and crying, but we helped each other with affection and love in a deep and genuine way. The whole group was lifted up into a new and freer, liberated state. Unfortunately, such experiences cannot be conveyed in words. But at least we want our friends who were not present to know what is happening.)

The Guide
by Eva Pierrakos
November 19, 1971

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