From lecture 153, THE SELF-REGULATING NATURE OF INVOLUNTARY PROCESSES:

To summarize once again, and perhaps with a different approach, the meaning of self-realization: self-realization means to bring out into reality all dormant potentials. It means to integrate the ego with as yet involuntary processes. The ego consists of the outer reasoning faculty and the will faculty. The involuntary processes comprise feelings, intuition and, what is more, certain manifestations which operate according to the most meaningful and lawful foundations of life.

The involuntary functions, which must be called into play, are operative at all times. Returning to the question why humans fear the involuntary processes, we have to consider it on two fundamental levels. When people are involved in the vicious circle, it is because they base certain assumptions about life and their relationship to it on false ideas. These false ideas are often unconscious and form the images we have talked about. The misconceptions, deeply lodged in the soul substance, compel people to act upon these premises. Since the premises are false, the ensuing actions and emotions are bound to be destructive and are geared to defend something that does not exist. Hence, the results must be opposite from what people really want. In short, they act against their interests.

The soul substance is a powerhouse of energy, of infinitely greater power than you are even remotely aware of. When an individual is driven to act according to the images, the power is used negatively. When you are free from illusion and misconceptions — and therefore, in contact with your real self, with a level of cosmic reality — the power that is operative is constructive and positive. This power is so highly charged that anything can be molded with it. It is the creative force itself. But it is neutral in the sense that it can only be used, or flow, in the direction which the mind, with its concepts, sets. Thus the power operates automatically. It seems as if it happens by itself. In this way the ingrained ideas work as the motor force of the power, and the ideas become self-perpetuating. They find their outer manifestation in the events the ideas create.

People who are as yet unaware of what they really believe, and also unaware of life’s laws, ignore these connections and think events have nothing to do with their ideas. They ignore the creative power in themselves and the fact that it is set up so that it actually works negatively. Such a path as ours is aimed at bringing out the unconscious ideas and images. They are really unconscious to begin with. But once you find that you harbor deep inside yourself equations and assumptions completely contrary to your conscious reasons and intelligence, you begin to perceive that you have instituted, through the erroneous assumptions influencing the creative life energy, involuntary processes that are destructive. Since the energy caught up in the images works according to the assumptions of the images, the involuntary, unconscious process is destructive.

The conscious mind is an instrument of the unconscious perceptions and connections that actually exist, but is only able to translate them hazily. The more a person becomes conscious of the inner, heretofore unconscious processes, the more exactly will he or she understand the “messages” coming through. When an individual is still driven by unconscious images — thus also driven by the negatively operative involuntary processes — he or she cannot help but fear them. So, on one level, fear is explained by the fact that much of your involuntary processes lead you into negative experience, due to the presence of unconscious false ideas. You fear the self-perpetuating, involuntary forces. You are not able to explain why. You ignore that these forces are only dangerous or negative because they work according to your own ideas. You ignore that once the ideas are challenged and found to be untrue, the same self-operative power can be trusted. Instead, your solution is to never trust any involuntary processes and to guard yourself against them by strict vigilance, using your ego-faculties. Furthermore, you ignore how damaging this “solution” is. In fact, the average person has no idea what they are doing and why.

People who follow a path of self-confrontation are bound to discover their ingrained, heretofore unconscious assumptions about important aspects of living. Gradually they begin to dissolve the images through recognition and through installing truthful ideas into the soul substance. They begin to observe the power of the images, the energy involved in them, the automatic, involuntary nature of these energies. Little by little, through understanding and observation, you can reestablish the correct assumptions. They will then begin to work constructively for you. You proceed to set off new energy currents which work according to a vaster law. You never need to fear them.