QA249 QUESTION: The law has always been our friend. Traditionally, it has helped us face the truth on many levels. For example, years ago the law encouraged contributions from each of us, and discouraged relying on heavy donors inside or outside the Pathwork. In the process, many of us found a new sense of responsibility, and at the same time, a deeper connection with our growing group consciousness.
Today, the law is encouraging the Center to take a more active role in determining what services, what kind of giving, is most needed from our growing faculty members. And what price or salary should be paid for that work. Many of us welcome this confrontation as another step toward deeper surrender and service, and perhaps also to more specific focus on our individual and collective tasks. Others of us worry about possible abuse and fear so-called centralization, which implies a loss of individuality and of the individual incentive, which has played such a large role in our building and expansion. Could you please comment on these changes we are about to undertake?
ANSWER: The entire development of every individual within your community manifests in the rhythm and growth of the group entity. There is an intrinsic correlation between the individual and the group entity. I outlined this in a lecture. It manifests in many issues concerning your community, creating necessary changes, where this is organic, or remaining with the same process for the time being, where this is organic.
In order to answer your question most comprehensibly, I need to apparently digress for a moment. In the individual’s maturing process, he goes through certain major stages in a specific area. The first major stage comes when he or she gives up dependency and grows into self-responsibility, independence, self-assertion, accountability.
In all changes within the growth process, the personality is always ambivalent. One part strives for and requires this new stage. The personality longs for the new freedom that comes from self-responsibility and independence, in all its manifestations. He or she resents any attempt on the part of those who carried responsibility before – parents – who do not let go and will not cut the bondage. Much of the rebellion you all experience on your path is due to this striving – the need of the personality to reach a more adult stage in which full self-responsibility can be assumed.
However, there is another part of the personality that resists this change, sometimes as much as the longing and striving for selfhood and adulthood. In this part of the soul, the next organic step is feared. It is confused with being abandoned and unloved, with having no care and help. It is dreaded, as if this next step meant utter loneliness and aloneness.
In this misunderstanding and confusion, a deep struggle of the soul goes on between two contradictory needs and directions. Every transition in the growth process is earmarked by similar conflict that needs to be sorted out and understood, so that inner blocks can be removed and the two directions unified.
There are, of course, also outer obstructions, such as a strong pull on the part of parents who, due to their own unresolved misconceptions and problems, fear the letting go. They suffer also from the false idea that letting go and allowing the child to grow up into self-responsibility means the cutting of all love ties, of deep and true communication and healthy interdependence.
Neither the child nor the parent can as yet visualize that true independence leads to true interdependence; that only when one has attained autonomy, with all that this implies, on all levels, can nurturing love, giving and receiving help, fulfilling companionship, exist. To the degree that this is understood – by both parent and child – the struggle will be eliminated and a oneness of direction will become possible.
Often, the parent who holds on, connects with and activates that part of the growing entity that resists the process of self-actualization. The unconscious part of the parent says, “You need me. You cannot fend for yourself. I cannot live without you being dependent on me. I am dependent on your dependency. If you leave me, you are guilty.” The growing person’s resistant self will pick up this inner voice. It will become like a sticky fly paper that prohibits the struggle to be organically resolved.
But whether or not this problematic message on the part of parents exists and is being delivered into the soul of the growing entity, the latter has to make his own way and let go of it. If the parents are themselves free and can let go, the resisting part of the entity, that part that wishes to remain an infant, will interpret the encouragement of the parents as indifference and resent an apparent lovelessness.
But when the healthy striving for selfhood wins, the obstructing aspect of parental holding on will easily be overcome and guiltlessly refuted. On the other hand, the stronger the resistance on the part of the growing entity – which is often quite delayed in life – the stronger is the rebellion toward the parents – or transferred authority figures.
One would think the opposite were true – that the resistance would welcome an authority figure who takes over. This would only be true if there were no ambivalence. As it is, the part that resists growing up and assuming self-responsibility obviously renders the authority responsible for the lack of autonomy.
This is briefly the struggle of the first phase of a universal growth process that we, on this Path, have been dealing with constantly during all these years. If you look back on the work you have been doing – with yourself and also your friends who have gone and are going through similar conflicts – you will see that this is a common denominator that has significantly colored and permeated all your other problems.
You can gauge your growth exactly in this way: to what extent have you assumed self-responsibility and given up infantile dependency? Financially, this manifests in becoming productive and self-sustaining. Those who could not find their own sustenance through their own output, suddenly or gradually find themselves in situations in which they can adequately and, for the most part, joyfully provide for themselves.
Emotionally and psychologically, blame for unhappiness and problems is no longer shifted onto past or present authority figures. To the degree authentic self-responsibility evolves, rebellion, the inner cry for freedom, and the blame for its lack, are eliminated.
On the path toward this inner evolvement, the pendulum must at times swing into a temporarily one-sided position. As long as this is not so extreme that real damage accrues, and as long as it is clearly understood that this is a temporary manifestation that leads eventually into a new state, it is quite all right and, as said, even necessary.
Hence a temporary selfishness may exist as a means to overcome the past symbiosis, a selfishness that grew from need and dependency. A false and exaggerated show of independence may be the tool for the soul to test out a new state of selfhood. When this new state is already basically attained and the soul is ready for a further state of growth – but the personality has become accustomed to this exaggerated state of independence – it is then that the higher self chafes and sends messages to the consciousness of the personality.
It is similar between the first and second state. When the personality obstructs the direction between autonomy and self-responsibility, the higher self sends messages to the consciousness. These messages always convey that the total person is now ready for a new, as yet untried, way of being in the world.
To the degree this message is heeded, harmony will exist in the movement toward evolution. To the degree the message is denied through stubborn blindness, conflict and crisis, pain and difficulties will arise. The misunderstanding often exists that leaving behind this almost militant self-assertive state means going backwards into a dependent symbiotic state. But this is not so at all, of course.
Quite the contrary is true, as I will explain. Yet even without such explanations, the entity will experience the truth within by opening himself trustfully to a new way of being that includes self-responsibility, self-dependency and self-assertion, growing into something more.
What is this more? Many of you, my friends, have grown sufficiently to make room for this “something more.” Some of you are still within the struggle of the moving from the first stage into the second, but a considerable number of you are truly ready for the third stage, even some of you who unfortunately still resist this new stage and do not allow the organic movement to guide you into it. This manifests in inner and outer conflict and crisis.
I say to those of you who find themselves in this category: question yourself about your fears to give up your individuality and your rights, when you move on to a further stage. By articulating this belief, you will have a chance to challenge it and to make room for the truth.
It is inconceivable that whatever this further stage is, it should demand of you to give up what you have so laboriously learned. In other words, this further stage can only add something on, not take something away that is valid.
Now let us see what this next stage really means. From total dependency on being nurtured and sustained, you have moved into self-nurturing and self-sustaining. In the process of this, you have severed the bondage of dependency. Now, the next step is to move from self-nurturing to nurturing others.
On an individual scale, this manifests in parenthood. But there is a much larger scale involved with those who are spiritually ready and mature and essentially equipped to undertake a planetary task. Their emancipation from selfishness must manifest in creating new models for world government, new methods of handling society – that is, the living together of human beings who need to share material and spiritual riches, that are always available for mankind.
When the soul is ready to emancipate from symbiotic dependency on another organism into self-dependency, but resists the movement, the outcome is a distortion, an absurdity, a sickness. This is at total variance with the infant that is organically not yet ready for another state. The same principle exists for the next state.
He who is just ready for the newly gained state of looking out for himself, rather than expecting others to do this for him, is in harmony with his inner universe when he is doing just that. When he becomes ready for the next state but resists it, his attitudes become ugly distortions and sick manifestations that are often quite absurd.
So, my dearest friends, you must learn to evaluate according to the total picture and not apply one and the same measurement for all beings. We are now discussing those among you who are ready for the next stage, but resist it. And this brings us back to the question I have been asked here.
You may recall that in my lecture about the individual and the group entity I touched upon this very issue [Lecture #227 Change From Outer to Inner Laws in the New Age]. The development of the many individuals of a group entity determines the development of the group entity. So what was right for the group entity Pathwork at one time becomes obsolete and destructive at a later period.
To be more specific, for quite a while, most of you had to taste newly acquired self-dependency – again on many levels. On the material level, this was reflected by a situation in which every Helper determined his own income and was truly just out for himself, even while often also filled with the desire to serve and give and help.
As long as this state was organic, because this is where most individuals were on their Path, it was reflected in the group entity’s rules, laws, and dispositions. It was harmonious with the rest of the environment – that is, outer law. Now a new state is approaching in which the movement of the development curve needs to be followed and trusted, rather than obstructed and resisted. If this is not being done, unnecessary problems must arise.
Now I will be more specific how this next stage of nurturing and giving will particularly manifest in context with your question. The entity Pathwork has nurtured the individuals a great deal. It has nurtured them when they first come as infants, with encouragement, support, and the glad tidings of God’s total goodness and eternal presence within. It has nurtured with all the necessary help that takes a different form at the very beginning than it takes later when the individual moves into the second state of self-dependency.
The entity Pathwork has then helped by encouraging a positive selfishness and self-assertion. To those who have chosen to become Helpers themselves, the Pathwork has given all the help in order to help. It has not only supplied training and given most marvelous tools, but it has given the individual Helpers the Workers without which they could not execute their skill or make a living.
It is true that many Helpers have begun to give to the community, to the entity Pathwork, but on the whole, there is as yet a lack of consciousness in respect to being part of a larger scheme. Those who would resist the movement you speak about still consider their lives as only belonging to themselves. In this attitude, they not only forget what they are receiving from the spiritual realms coming through this particular Pathwork, but they also consider all that exists around them as tools to be self-serving.
Let me say a few words about the new state of being part of a larger scheme – of the new consciousness that can nurture others, give to others in the Christ spirit of serving a universal task. Before doing so, in order to clarify the three stages mankind traverses in this respect, let us put it as simply and concisely as possible. 1. Being nurtured and sustained; 2. Self-nurturing and self-sustaining; 3. Giving nurturing and sustenance.
In regard to a certain degree of spiritual maturation, this last stage means something very specific. It means the realization that giving out is a further self-enrichment that by far transcends the self-enrichment stemming from the second state of self-nurturing. This is in total opposition to the inner fear that giving out will impoverish the self.
Christ demonstrated this principle in symbolic terms through his life and death. By sacrificing, even his very life, he was resurrected in eternity. In smallest measures, every individual must experience this inexorable truth. By going through the illusory death of giving oneself out, a new enrichment follows suit.
Try to apply this to the issue here of rearranging the structure of Helpership, fees, salary and thereby nurturing the larger cause and giving service. By becoming part of this larger body, you will experience the fallacy of your fear that this means giving up your individuality, your personal rights and advantages.
On the contrary, you must infallibly experience a new enrichment by this giving out and becoming part of a larger organism that could never have come to you in the second state. Only the autonomous person, he who has found self-nurturing and self-sustenance in the course of his evolution, can become an integral part of a larger organism.
Never is this possible with the person who may seek this state in the misunderstanding that by such a merging he will further the first state of being nurtured without any giving out of himself. It often happens that being part of a larger organism indeed destroys individuality and self-responsibility. But this is the distorted version. As you know, the Forces of Darkness can distort anything divine.
I have often said that your community will be a model for the new society that combines heretofore irreconcilable dualities: the individual versus the group entity; self-nurturing versus service and giving out. It is thus that political systems that are – in your present state of Earth consciousness – opposites, will also find their oneness: socialism vs. capitalism.
The new model of society must combine a full individuality that is part of the group entity. There is no leveling off and false equality in this new model. He who works better and more, who has put in more training and gained more experience, and has given more to his development, will certainly not be put on the same level as the one who starts out or who has unduly resisted his own process.
It is right for now that a new modality needs to be found and built, perhaps as so often, through trial and error. I will not tell you how to handle the practical details. You will find the right answers for now. Later new answers will come. But you need to be open for a new modality, and to meet your fears and misconceptions squarely, rather than explaining them away with rationalizations, thereby denying them.
You will then encounter a truly new mathematics in which your sharing yourself and the fruits of your remunerations will create infinitely more enrichment – also worldly material ones – than your present system gives you. By the same token, your individuality will be enhanced, your autonomy more securely anchored in reality and more authentic, as you embrace becoming part of a larger organism.
This is the only way your personal development, and therefore the development of all of mankind, must proceed. This is yet another aspect of salvation. For human society – that is, people getting along with one another and sharing all of God’s gifts – can survive only when this third state is being realized.
It is not something new. It already exists in spiritual realms and is the potential for humankind to be realized, waiting to be unfolded as the logical, organic next step in the evolution of consciousness. So, my friends, what is at stake is much more than simply instituting a new system, whatever the practical reasons may be. It is a deeper issue that could only be answered meaningfully in this way.
And now it may be very helpful if you discuss together your visions of this new modality and share it with your friends, and thus help those who are as yet in darkness in this particular area. The world of God blesses you deeply, the Christ spirit envelops you in every fiber of your being.
