54 QUESTION: My question concerns the concept of sin in sex, as pointed out in the Catholic religion, in the postulate of overcoming, or the conquest of sex. This is also postulated in some of the oriental religions.
ANSWER: The sexual impulse in the infantile and immature personality is entirely self-centered and egotistical. It is separated from the love force and the erotic force which include the other being, not as a necessary instrument to be used, but as a goal for unity.
You all know that selfishness, self-centeredness, is contrary to divine law. Since humanity on the whole, even today – and much more so in former times – was and is emotionally undeveloped, and since in many civilizations mass images came into existence as a result of the immaturity that said sex is sinful, the sexual drive was kept hidden. Nothing hidden can mature.
As you know, it works the same way with your personal images which are the result of wrong childish conclusions: they remain that way because they are kept hidden in the subconscious and are thus paralyzed in your soul. Since the immature and primitive personality experiences the sex impulse in an entirely selfish and separated way, it is “sinful,” if you want to choose this word.
Because of this, people are afraid to face their sexuality consciously so that it can mature with the rest of the personality. Hence they cannot integrate sexuality with love feelings. This creates a vicious circle. The more the existence of sexuality is suppressed by the concept of its sinfulness, the less can it mature and integrate with love. Whenever it manifests, the person feels guilty and ashamed, trying, erroneously, to tear out the sex force.
True, in the way the immature person experiences sex, it is harmful, because of its self-centeredness and separateness from love. But the remedy does not lie in tearing out a natural force that cannot be eliminated no matter how hard you may try; it lies in mature growth into integration with love.
No force, no principle as such, can ever be evil or sinful in itself. It always depends on whether it is egocentric, separated and loveless because of emotional immaturity, or whether it finds union and integrates with love and the life force. This applies to all forces, all emotions, all principles, and everything in existence. Once humanity will have understood this – and today you are beginning to – religious teachings will no longer hold that sex as such is sinful.
Of course, lacking deeper knowledge, religions had to assert the sinfulness of sex because the raw and often dangerous and quite destructive sex force manifested in the wrong way in many individuals. Observing this, they came to the wrong conclusion and chose the wrong remedy. The opposite extreme is always the wrong remedy and much nearer the extreme one wants to avoid.
The right alternative is to recognize the sex force as a living reality that cannot be torn out without grave harm to the human personality – if such an attempt succeeds at all – and to give it proper direction by recognizing its deeper meaning. It is not more correct to say that sex is good or bad, right or wrong, than to say electricity is good or bad, right or wrong. It depends entirely on what you make of it, how you use and direct it.
Many people understand this today. But I am afraid very few people understand it emotionally as well as intellectually. When you come into the deeper levels of your subconscious, you will find that your feelings seldom agree with your intellectual knowledge on this subject. Why not?
Because as a child you kept the infantile sex drive hidden. You were often made to feel how bad you were in this respect, and therefore the concept developed within that sex was sinful. Your unconscious wrong conclusions, plus your guilt and fear, caused your sexuality to remain almost as infantile as when you were a child.
QA141 QUESTION: I have a question about something I read in the papers recently. I thought you might give some psychic explanation of them. A biologist has related sex and death. And to illustrate this point, he said that man has an excessive interest in sex as well as procreation, and thereby did not live eternally, physically speaking. Whereas such animals as the amoeba, who subdivide themselves, actually live on.
Then he went on to describe the life of some animals where sex is actually the termination of their life – such as in the praying mantis and where the female eats the partner. There were some other examples where some animals at the procreation stage lose their intestines and thereby die. And he thought that man is constantly involved with his soma, or the sex aspect, and he has come away from the part which does recreate, and which is constantly being reborn. I just was struck by this.
ANSWER: Yes. Well, you may remember that not long ago in one of the lectures, and again in a more recent lecture, I stressed the particular correlation between man’s fear of death and man’s fear of total abandonment, which, of course, is most pronounced in sex.
Now, this scientist, as far as I can judge from your words – and this is generally true in many other aspects – perceived the truth, but comes to it in the opposite way, in the sense that there are many, many human beings – the majority of human beings – who confuse cause and effect, who often see the effect as cause and vice versa.
Perhaps I can best explain it in this way. The real correlation on a spiritual and realistic level is the following: the typical existence is a result of fear, error and alienation from the core of the real being. And the real being is a state of being. The real being is eternally in union.
When this state is interrupted, discontinued or disturbed, separateness ensues. The separateness is a result of man believing it is a safer state when he is separate. He identifies his sense of individuality with this outer ego. Therefore he stresses all that which appears as safe to him – which actually is separating and alienating and disturbing of the real being – which is eternal life.
That is the very nature of physical matter – he’s already born in this state, he’s already a result of this state. Unconsciously, he will always strive toward the state of union, towards the relief from the confining ego, to his real being.
Now, as I indicated many times in all the teachings you have received from me in these years, when this happens in confusion, destructiveness ensues. This state of being, when it is attempted, indeed becomes dangerous because it is fraught with destructive feelings, with cruelty, with disturbance, with separateness.
Then the ego is a safeguard. So it is man’s job, man’s aim, to find his way back into the right balance – which can only happen when he frees himself from destructiveness, from misconception – so that his ego must become healthy and strong in order to relinquish it.
Now, all these physical states in low states of life – the praying mantis and such animals – these are the very crude expressions of the combination between pleasure and destructiveness, pleasure and danger, pleasure and annihilation. Man’s deepest psychic fears are that when he gives himself to pleasure – to union – he will be destroyed.
This is a psychologically established fact that is also metaphysical and important to understand. For this fear can only recede when man discovers precisely what his destructiveness is and relinquishes it, and entrusts himself to the constructive forces.
Eternal life indeed is only possible when man is capable of relinquishing destructiveness, of loosening his ego, and of entrusting himself to higher forces within himself and around himself. This is the very Pathwork we are working on.
The act of dying in a healthy and well-integrated individual is of the highest pleasure. Now this, my friends, may almost sound paradoxical to you, because you are geared to constantly associate it with pain and suffering, partly because many human beings are so indoctrinated with it and are therefore in such a state of fear that they cannot truly enjoy the wonderful act of giving up the little ego.
As in the highest ecstasy of a union of the sexes, which also appears like pain and suffering, so it is with the act of dying if it is not obstructed by fear. It is the same in the sexual act of union, provided it is combined with love and trust. In a relaxed state, the ecstasy is supreme. If it is divided from love and trust, if it is indoctrinated and filled with cruelty and fear, it becomes as fearsome, as frightening, as the act of dying.
So the similarity between the two is, of course, a striking one, when one looks a bit deeper. If man is eternally preoccupied with these two subjects, there is no coincidence about it, because these are the two highest longings. When I say two, it is really only a matter of speech, for they are indeed, in a sense, one and the same – one and the same rapture and delight, one and the same fright, according to the state of mind of the individual.
The same act, the same incident, the same event, the same occurrence, whatever it may be – and you have heard me say it many times, my friends – is never determined by the act or the occurrence or the incident itself. What it is entirely depends on the attitude and the concepts and the state of mind, the state of psyche, and the emotions that accompany the reaction the individual has to it.
So what is the highest rapture for one, is the most frightening experience for the other. If it is painful, it is only so due to ignorance and fear. But its real nature is delight, rapture, ecstasy, safety, beauty, peace; and man constantly cramps up against this in minor forms as well as in the highest form.
When man no longer obstructs this state of being – which does not mean egolessness in the sense of having no individuality – then he will no longer need to go through the hardships of this Earth life, which again I repeat, does not mean no existence. It means more intensified existence in the best possible way.
QUESTION: Some people have never cared about sex. Would facing death be harder for them or can they separate it?
ANSWER: In the real sense, in the positive sense, there must be a correlation. But on a more superficial and distorted level, what may then occur, and often does occur, is something of the sort that was asked the other day here where one of our friends had this recognition: that she keeps to the negative so as not to be afraid of death.
If you reverse that, when people’s life is empty and fearful, death may then – and they believe it is the end of existence – be almost a relief, at least temporarily. So then, in that sense, to embrace death as an escape from living on this limited level, it may not work as a parallel but may work as an opposition or contradiction. But in the deepest level of reality, there must be one.
For where there is a totally positive approach to one, it must have a totally positive approach to the other. Therefore, the straightening out of one’s fear or one’s rejection of life, or one’s escape from life, is so essential in the final analysis for all beings, for all is one then.
Love is one with sex. Death is one with life. There’s no longer any difference. Individuality is one with giving up of ego. Self-determination becomes one with giving up of self-will. All that seems like contradiction on the level you still move on, then is no longer a contradiction. In that sense, it must be one.
150 QUESTION: I want to ask about a strange and frightening experience I had lately. When I feel particularly liberated after certain clarifications and register a surging feeling of the life force in me during meditation, I have the sensation as though my genitals were lifted off me. I feel a new hope, but at the same time there is fear contained in this new hope. What can you tell me about this?
ANSWER: This experience is an expression of greater progress than you can perhaps appreciate at this moment. As a result of the great understanding and truth you have gained and certain changes in your inner being, you have released life power that was hitherto paralyzed.
This induces the hope, where before you felt hopeless, that you might someday experience aliveness and pleasure and exhilaration. At the same time, all this has brought into the open a misconception lodged deeply in your psyche: if you give vent to the live energy in your body, you might be endangered, particularly by the loss of your genitals.
This misconception occurs frequently, which does not alter its real threat to you. The child in you is governed by this misconception, and it is responsible for many of your difficulties. Finding the source of the misconception within yourself – not as a psychological theory, but as a personal conviction – will eventually enable you to see that it is false.
When you fear the hope that opens to you, it is because you still believe in the threat. Your misconception is that the hope of new life simultaneously contains danger. Your conflict seems to be: “Should I stay the way I am and become lonelier and more separated, or shall I take action and perhaps perish?”
This is the state in which you inwardly find yourself. It can be resolved only when you truly understand that the misconception is a misconception. Then the pain will vanish, for the pain results from the misconception and the ensuing conflict.
159 QUESTION: I have a personal question which might very well pertain to this topic. It includes two things that I would like you to comment on. First, I have been in a highly energized state lately, which seems to be related to my job. It has prevented me from sleep and forced me to resort again to taking tranquilizers. Second, I will see a person very soon whom I have been close to in the past. I am extremely frightened and ambivalent about this person, and feel that I can’t remain in control when in this person’s presence. I think the sexual terror I have is very strong in this situation.
ANSWER: Yes, this indeed pertains very much to the topic of this lecture [Lecture #159 Life Manifestations Reflects Dualistic Illusion]. Both of these facets are connected with one another – they are interdependent. Your highly energized state is a direct result of displacing the natural sexual force. It has no way of finding expression in pleasure, which is what it is meant to do.
The deprivation of pleasure renders you ill to some degree. The fact that you forbid yourself, on all levels, the intense pleasure you are meant to experience – out of false fears and ideas – creates an energy you cannot properly assimilate. There must be a perpetual turnover of energy in a healthily functioning person. This cannot take place when the destiny of the pleasure current is willfully and artificially stopped.
Pleasure comes about when the stream of energy is followed. It leads to loving, giving and receiving, uniting, opening up to the forces of life. It leads to the innermost self with all its powers, as well as to another person with whom one shares these delights. When this is followed through, the human system functions well. Every energy unit has its own metabolism, its own rhythm or turnover.
The fright of meeting this person is due to the energy of the pleasure principle in you being strongly activated. Thus your misconception that union with the other sex – and the pleasures of this union – are bad and dangerous comes to the surface more directly. This is good, for it permits you to look at it, to see it in action, to see its power within your consciousness, and to convince yourself how preposterous this fear is. That experience can be made into a further stepping stone of growth for you if you understand what happens to you.
Even in your work situation, the problem is essentially the same. This is a new experience for you. It is a good experience in that it shows you have mastered a handicap. It shows you are coping successfully with reality to a much greater degree than ever before. It shows you can take and accept certain aspects of life you had never been willing to take and accept before.
You not only do good work as such, but you have overcome blocks and difficulties within yourself. Only a short time ago they seemed insurmountable. Your personal strength and goodwill have led you to this growth, which must be experienced as pleasurable. Finding out one’s strength, resources, abilities, resiliency, and any asset you can name, is pleasure.
It could be experienced as a knowledge of one’s infinite possibilities for good, as shrugging off an unnecessary confining straightjacket. Yet you deny yourself this pleasure – the pleasure of your own accomplishment – as you deny yourself all pleasure. It is as though there were a film between you and experience – a thick, glazed film, like a plastic wall. This wall separates you from the ability to be touched by experience. This does not apply only to you, of course.
Growth means, among other aspects, the gradual thinning and eventual dissolution of this film, so that you experience directly. The meaning of this is profound, for as long as you shrink back from direct, naked experience, you must be in trouble with yourself. You must be weak, dependent, afraid and, above all, deprived.
The more one sheds misconceptions and wakes up to life, the thinner this film becomes, and the more directly one experiences life. The thicker the film is, the more aware you should become of, “Here I am, behind a transparent glazed wall, and through it, outside, I see experience, but it does not touch me.”
Whenever experience does touch you, you shrink back from it in fright. The fright is caused by a wrong conclusion. Experience of pleasure, as well as of unpleasure, cannot ever harm you, unless you believe it will harm you. The harm comes exclusively from defending yourself against experience, by closing yourself up.
The anxiety you experience is exclusively a result of fearing pleasure, as well as unpleasure – fearing to be touched by experience and therefore building a defensive wall against it. In order to come out of this state, you have to recognize that your unconscious is not yet as willing as your conscious mind. Accept this for the moment, for this is the prerequisite for influencing it.
Deal with your resisting unconscious in an intelligent way. Speak to it in a relaxed manner. Say to it, “I am wrong in fearing experience. Nothing bad can happen to me if I have pleasure, or if I am hurt or disappointed. These are illusory fears. I do want the resiliency that is essentially mine. I do call upon powers deeper within me than the false fears and ideas. I no longer wish to reject experience. My fear of so-called good or bad happenings is based on illusion.” Thus you will learn, little by little, to let yourself experience whatever comes your way. Let it come to you – do not ward it off.
QA165 QUESTION: What is the relationship of my emotional and sexual fulfillment as a woman to my spiritual life?
ANSWER: The relationship of that in every human being is most, most directly connected. For truly, man cannot fulfill himself spiritually unless he fulfills himself as a man, and she as a woman. For there is no stronger way of experiencing the truth of love, unless one becomes undefended toward the most intimate and direct relationships of all.
Spiritual fulfillment – the connection between emotional, sexual and spiritual fulfillment – is a very, very direct one. Not only is it not mutually exclusive as so many religions want to believe – and this belief is a result of fear of those feelings and seeking spirituality away from the body and the feelings – but in reality, it is not only connected and similar, it is really one and the same. It is one and the same.
The same reactions and attitudes can be ascertained in human beings toward both these realms. He who is unafraid in the emotional and feeling and sexual and body area – because he can let go and be moved by something other than his ego – is also capable of letting go and allowing himself to be moved by the spiritual forces within himself.
He who is afraid of the one must be fully afraid of the other. For the same inner attitude exists toward both the ability to let go of the ego, and the ability to be moved by a power other than the ego.
QA174 QUESTION: I’ve been very emotional in my sexuality lately, and that has prevented me from fully experiencing pleasure. Could you please comment on this and what is subconsciously behind it?
ANSWER: Fear. Fear and inner conflict, a split consciousness. Regarding this split consciousness, it is like saying, “On the one hand, I want it very desperately, while on the other hand, I fear it. On the other hand, I’m guilty about it, and I do not want it.” This is not only as a result of a specific situation. It is a very deep, inner situation, an inner conflict that exists per se, and which is responsible for creating a situation that seems to warrant the split desire: the fear and guilt, on the one hand, the desire on the other.
As usual, man puts the cart before the horse. He believes what is actually the result of an inner situation is the cause of his disturbed emotions. It is the situation that is the result of inner blocks and a half-heartedness about fully committing oneself to feelings, to pleasure, to love. And as a person is on this Path, it is in the very nature of his growth process that he must experience the opening up still in a disturbing and difficult way.
He can only reverse the path away from pleasure and love towards it, and this cannot come in one direct step. It only goes indirectly. Such a person must re-experience on a conscious level the conflict. He must not be deluded that his emotions are only due to the situation. The situation is due to the conflict. And by that understanding, the conflict can be resolved.
QA247 QUESTION: Every time I reach a certain level of self inquiry about my feelings about my mother, I hit a blank wall that has proven until now impenetrable. I do not seem to be able, or to want, to make certain connections between my mother, my sexuality, and the woman’s sexuality, which has reflected strongly in the relationships I’ve been involved with, both in the past and in the present. My Helpers insist these connections are indispensable if I’m going to resolve the old issues with my mother and be free to relate to the woman in my present, adult life. Recently in my session, my Helper postulated that the narcolepsy was put on my path as a necessary step to help me confront the sexuality issue which I might otherwise have skipped. This somehow feels right, yet, I lack many connections still. Can you help?
ANSWER: My friend, I want to tell you that what prevents you from allowing yourself all your feelings of love and sexuality for the woman, without your ego control, is more complicated than your feelings toward your mother.
There is, for example, a tremendous fear in you that if you are angry with your father, rather than your mother, you will lose his protection and will be threatened with the wrath of someone so much stronger than you, or your mother. This is partially the reason why many of your feelings of fear and hate are displaced onto the woman – mother – who is somehow less dangerous.
Then there is another element here. A particularly strong identification with your father, coupled with the typical partiality of the child – either father is right and therefore good, or mother is, which must make one of them bad – makes it expedient to distrust and blame the woman. Your identification with the father then carries it over into your life. If the woman cannot be trusted and is somehow your enemy, then you are exonerated and never have to face your own guilt toward her.
So within your soul you are in a perpetual state of division, of artificial either/or, which creates a battle in you. This battle exhausts you, which partially accounts for the spells of tuning out of the world around you. It is your psyche saying, “I cannot cope with all that.” Falling asleep is also a means to not face the dilemma that is very painful for you. Of course, every symptom and negative manifestation can always be used as a medicine, as a way shower.
Connected with all that is a very strong sense of guilt for any wrong doing. If you or your loved ones are wrong, it seems irretrievably catastrophic to you. A sense of acceptance of the human incomplete state is lacking. And above all, you need the inner vision that change and purification are always available and are actually your inescapable destiny.
This sense of guilt makes any recognition of your negativity, of your lower self, almost unbearable. And it is also the cause of having to choose between father and mother and keeping the one clean who is more important for your security as a child. Now, as a man, if the woman is lovable, you see yourself automatically as unacceptable and you lose all your ground under your feet.
This is why you cannot reconcile yourself to fully loving her. The dilemma of the child in regard to your parents is now carried over into your own life, in which you are as your father, the woman as your mother.
Part of these truths you may have seen and recognized along your path, but you have never truly taken these discoveries inside and fully permitted yourself to see their total ramifications and significance. What you need to do is to see it fully, on all levels, and to spend energy and time to “feel it through,” as it were.
Feel it as it was when you were a child. Feel it now. Synchronize the two. When you no longer resist feeling this dilemma, you will become aware of the artificiality of it and will be liberated. You will be able to truly perceive both parents as human beings who are both right and wrong and can be respected, partially agreed with, and partially disagreed with.
When you can then apply this to you and the woman you love, you will be free of this burden that prevents you from expanding into lovingness and a real relationship. It will simultaneously liberate you from excessive guilt and transform the guilt into a constructive motor force for transformation.
Pray for this approach and follow it through as much as possible, and I can promise you without a doubt that you will be set free. Love and blessings are given you anew now to fortify you on your further path, a path that is so blessed.