148 QUESTION: It seems to me that when I do something I don’t like, which is meant to invite anger or guilt or jealousy, that I have someone else whom I hold responsible for my being the way I am. Is this a valid observation and what should I do about it?
ANSWER: Even if some of the blame put on the other person’s doorstep is partially justified – and this is usually the case with sane human beings – there must be something in you that you ignore and that bothers you, for otherwise there could be no problem or disharmonious feeling in you. It would be relatively easy to accept the other person’s shortcomings or failings.
Otherwise you would not be involved in situations which must affect the self negatively. The very existence of such disturbances points to unknown elements which must be ascertained in order to eliminate destructive feelings. Hence this anger is essentially directed against the self.
You may be angry because you are angry and you cannot accept this emotion in yourself. You may become angry because whatever angers you in the other person may exist in a slightly different form in yourself and you cannot accept that. In short, the question must be asked, “What is it in me that has produced this situation? How am I a co-producer of this situation? In what way do I contribute to it?”
Again, the dualistic concept of life hinders and confuses you. If one attempts to solve such a problem in an attitude of finding either the one or the other person at fault, no solution exists. Neither of the two alternatives satisfies, for it must be either off the mark or based on a superficial evaluation.
True enlightenment can only come when the unconscious interaction of one’s inner problem affecting the other person’s inner problem is seen as interacting vicious circles. When you truly realize that the situation must be a co-production, then you can begin to make serious headway in the right direction.
The second thing is that you often cannot find the answer because you look for the cause in a limited or moralizing way. The way you may contribute to the situation may be altogether different from what you feel defensive about. For example, you might try to exonerate yourself because you sense a badness in yourself.
Actually your contribution may not be anything bad or mean at all. It may be rather that you underestimate your values, your rights, your entire person. You may be weak, submissive, not assertive enough and thus encourage a negative situation in a very different way from that which you vaguely defend against in yourself.
Such weakness is always a result of some disturbance of the psyche on a deep level and cannot help but create negativity and destructiveness. The way to eliminate the weakness is not by forcing the destructive feelings away. This cannot succeed. One must work on a very deep level with these problems.
Often weakness is confused with goodness, and strength with ruthlessness or selfishness. When caught in these confusions, you do not find the way to resolve the problem and find the clear truth.
Therefore, I suggest the following meditation that reaches deep into the self: “I do want to see where I possibly violate some spiritual law, where I am wrong in the usual sense of the word, but I would also like to know where I am weak and confused and therefore where negative emotions come into existence. Where is it that I am perhaps not aware of my true values, and because of this lack of awareness, I fight in the wrong way? I would like to see these elements and straighten them out. I want to see all sides.”
The different sides usually interact; they are not unconnected elements. Lack of self-assertion on one level may induce an angry over-assertion on the surface. When the meditation is directed into such channels, new vision may come – vision that was hitherto blocked.
QA193 QUESTION: In a certain way, I believe in this universal intelligence, but on a deeper level, I’m afraid of it or I won’t use it. I have a tremendous amount of resistance. {Yes, that’s right} And in spite of the fact that it has worked for me – I mean I know it’s a reality, it’s not a foreign thing – I still resist it. How can I get in touch with it?
ANSWER: The key here is that before you can really want to get in touch with it, you have to really want to face your hate and rage. This is not new. I know that because you have discussed it – you know it. And your Helper has, and I have said it to you before in answers. This is where your resistance lies and this is what you have to really deal with – to face that.
You do not want to give up the hate and would rather stay with the indirect expression of it where you can blame and build cases. Your pleasure principle is hooked on this. It is almost as though your inner being – I do not mean the real self, the divine self now, but your inner personality – believes that if you give that up, then you have no more pleasure. And that is where you get your relief and your release and your satisfaction.
You need to see this clearly and again and again and again acknowledge, “I want to hate and not be open and clear about my hate and rather build a case and accuse – this is what gives me the pleasure and I do not want to give this up.” If you admit this often enough and express this irrational level, little by little you can come to the next step, which is taking the great commitment to wanting, first, to give this up.
But if you would try to do this now, the resistance would be too great, because first the admission has to be clearer. You are still evading a little bit this admission. “Yes,” you will say, “I know there must be anger in me and so on.” But then you let it go at that and you do not really see the significance of this.
It is more than just anger. It is more, even, than just rage. It is not clear-cut rage, for which you assume responsibility. What you are hooked on is to stay in blaming and accusing and building cases. That is why you are resistant to use the divine self, because that is a discrepancy that is mutually exclusive.
If you admit hate, it is not exclusive. You can fully ascertain your hate and your destructiveness if it is straightforward and still be totally capable of experiencing, acknowledging, requesting the manifestation of the divine self – because it is honest and straight. But when you hide it by blame and accusing, you are alienated; you are in a state that is mutually exclusive to the manifestation of the divine self. That difference has to become very clear.
You see, when you admit your direct hate and spite, for example, you are in truth and you are therefore nearer to your divine nature. But when you have to hide it by putting it on others, you are not in truth. And therefore you are much further removed from the divine center than when you truly hate and know it – without acting it out, I mean, but know it. Do you know what I mean?
QUESTION: Yes, when you say know it, to first of all be aware of it honestly, and second of all to work it out in a nondestructive type of situation. Express it that way.
ANSWER: Yes, that is right. You need to fully see how the ego is hooked on this game, and that this is another ego aspect that makes it impossible for you to come to your eternal being. Because anything that is foreign to the eternal divine being must create a wall between the ego consciousness and the divine eternal being. It may manifest as a conscious resistance to get in touch with it, or it may manifest as an inability to even believe in it or feel it or sense it. It will remain, at best, a theory that means very little. If you can do that, the blocks will be removed.