Pathwork Lecture 207: The Spiritual Symbolism and Significance of Sexuality

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Pathwork Guide Lecture No. 207
1996 Edition
January 12, 1973

Greetings and blessings for every one of you.

Every human manifestation, whether it is natural, instinctual, or man-made, has a deep spiritual significance. All human experience is always symbolic of a wider, deeper, and fuller meaning.

Tonight’s lecture will deal with the spiritual meaning of sexuality. In one of the early lectures, I discussed three aspects of the one great universal, creative energy: the erotic, the sexual, and the love force. All three are really aspects of the same force. They only appear as distinctly different within the narrow realm of the ego. I will use the term “sexuality” to represent the total creative force and will discuss its purpose and its spiritual meaning as manifested in the human realm. How sexuality manifests varies according to the development of each human being. We shall discuss the principle of sexuality in the totally self-realized individual, in the average person, and in those who are perhaps still on a very low level of spiritual development and therefore severely blocked and split.

The sexual force is an expression of consciousness reaching for fusion. You all know that fusion, which you can also call integration, unification, or oneness is the purpose of Creation. Whatever term you use, the final aim of all split-off beings is to reunify the individualized, separated aspects of the greater consciousness with the whole. The split-off aspects are integrally connected to a great force that motivates individuals to strive toward unification. The pull of this force is irresistible: it exists in all organisms — even in inanimate ones, where human intelligence and perception cannot yet observe it.

The power of sexuality in its most ideal form can convey more fully than any other human experience what spiritual bliss, oneness, and timelessness are. In the total sexual experience you break through the confines of time and separateness to which your limited mind has bound you. Through such an experience, you are reminded of your true existence in the eternal.

The blissful experience of fusion and the sense of timelessness in the sexual union depend on the unification of the individuals in question, and therefore on their attitudes on all levels of their being. If the sexual experience is an expression of the physical, emotional, mental and spiritual levels, and if these levels are unified with each other without any conflict, then the people who express their being on all these levels in accordance with spiritual law have a sexual experience as complete, fulfilling, rich, joyous, nourishing, sustaining, furthering and reminiscent of spiritual reality as any human experience can be. Then in that blissful experience of total union the fulfillment transcends personal satisfaction and enrichment. In this way these individuals are also fulfilling a task in the universe. This may seem strange, for the human brain is used to equating task and fulfillment with something arduous, difficult, or even unpleasant. In reality, the more complete the joy, pleasure, bliss, and ecstasy, the more creative power is added to the universal reservoir. Each such experience is like a new star lighting up somewhere in Creation, and becoming yet another torch in the darkness of the void that is destined to be filled.

What is the meaning of the sexual experience on the physical level? What does the urge to physically unite signify? The usual answers, such as the perpetuation of the race or the need for pleasure, are only partial answers and rather superficial at that. When two human beings are attracted to each other, we might say that they yearn to know each other, to reveal themselves to each other, to let themselves be known and found, and to find the true being of the other person. By revealing yourself to another being, your own true being can enter the full dimension of that other person’s self who is also seeking to know you. This mutual desire which is energized by an involuntary force creates an electrifying blissful feeling and longing.

If this attraction exists merely on the physical level, without the other levels entering into the expression at least to some degree, the ensuing experience will be disappointing, and will leave a lot to be desired. It can never be more than the most infinitesimal and superficial representation of what the soul really longs for but is too blind to understand and to pursue. The pursuing of full union with another soul requires a purification and unification process such as your path.

Since the limited and blind human consciousness merely gropes in the dark, very often your attraction to another person is not directed to the actual person, but rather to an image fabricated in your mind of what the other person should be in order to fulfill your real or imagined needs. The real person is often totally ignored and willfully denied. The desiring person insists on his or her illusion and is angry when the illusion cannot be made to come true. Usually this is mutual — both parties seek someone else, as it were, and do not know it. The measure of fulfillment you experience is a good gauge of how much you seek the real person. The absence of bliss indicates the illusory nature of the search, it reveals instead the willful superimposition of another person, such as a parent figure, over the real person. When your attraction to another is truly genuine and arises from a real and healthy foundation, you will find it is directed to that specific person to whom you wish to reveal yourself in a most intimate and real way, and with whom you wish to be as closely connected as possible.

The longing for close connection never ceases in the human soul, but it takes different forms in an infant and in an adult. For an infant, closeness is an entirely passive experience: the child takes in, receives, soaks up nourishment and affection as a merely receptive organism, thus illustrating the universal feminine principle. The mother in this case is the giver, and in that capacity the truly feminine woman expresses her masculine principle. For the adult, closeness can be successfully consummated only when the experience is mutual — when both participants actively reach out, give, sustain, nurture, receive, and take in. This organic self-regulating, spontaneous rhythm cannot be determined by the mind. It is the involuntary expression of a lawful process, so exacting, intricate, and meaningful that to convey it to your human scope of understanding is impossible.

As you all know, blocks to true fulfillment exist because the infant within the adult personality still seeks its own mode of fulfillment. It seeks a nurturing parent rather than the specific other person, and it seeks the merely receptive, in-taking kind of closeness. The fusion thus aspired to can never take place. Hence, the person lives in a treadmill of perpetual frustration which then seems to justify his or her caution, withholding, and negativity. The movement toward closeness is split off and a counter-movement is instituted which causes a short-circuit in the system. This short-circuit is then experienced as an involuntary block, inhibition, and deadness.

On the emotional level, the movement toward fusion must be expressed in a feeling-exchange. What does feeling-exchange mean in adult, realistic terms? Feeling-exchange, or the emotional level of sexuality, is determined by love in its real sense with all its many aspects and manifestations. You use the word love very freely, but only too often there is no meaning attached to the word when it is pronounced, or even worse, the word love is used as a label behind which are hidden very different feelings such as ego-needs and negative aims. People use each other in the most exploitative way and call this love. What is the vivid, living experience behind the stereotyped label? The experience of love is primarily the attempt to perceive the multiple reality of the other person. Such an endeavor requires that you temporarily put aside your ego, your own needs, expectations, and personal preoccupations to make yourself empty. Then you can let in what is, let in the other person so you can truly perceive, experience, and feel all the complexities of this other being. What more fascinating experience could there be? When you have no stake in maintaining an illusory image of who the other person ought to be, and then resenting it when he or she is not that, you will be open and sufficiently empty to let in what is. This is one way of expressing love. From that solid basis a feeling-exchange can be built.

If you perceive in reality, you are free enough of your selfwill, your pride, and your fears to be sufficiently ready to deal with what is. You will be able to handle even pain and frustration if necessary, so that reality which is ultimately bliss can come to you. The ability to take frustration and pain are essential to giving and receiving and experiencing bliss. On the other hand, if you are very threatened by and defended against pain — the pain of not having your way, the pain of being hurt a little, the pain of having to give up an imaginary or even a real advantage — you will create a hard wall out of your flowing energy stream. Nothing can come into you through this wall, nor can anything flow out from you toward others. You are isolated in the self-created prison of your defense against pain and unpleasantness. You become numb and cannot live fully. You cannot fuse and thus you can have no pleasure.

Loving, and therefore the ability to give and receive, depends on one’s ability to perceive reality with uncluttered vision. This ability, in turn, depends on how well you can suffer pain in an undefended way that is free from manipulative interpretations of the pain. Such interpretations only aim to annul the pain, whereas letting the pain be will make room for a truthful interpretation of the events which bring the pain about.

The aspect of real love which I refer to as letting the other be means more than just accepting where and who the other person is at any given moment. It means having a vision of the total person, including his or her as yet unrealized potential. Such a vision of the unmanifest in another person is a great act of love. It has nothing to do with the illusion of manufacturing another kind of person for the purpose of self-willed needs. If you can give that freedom “to be who you are” to the person you love, you can exchange trust. You thus gain the freedom to assert your own right to be, which you can then do without defiance and without playing your negative games. This real self-assertion stems from the guilt-free state that follows the truly giving attitude. If you can say “yes” to wholeheartedly giving, you can also say “no.” If you truly give, you can also assert your inner right to receive — and that is not to be confused with childish, neurotic demands.

Not giving feelings makes mutual exchange impossible. Since in reality giving and receiving are one, you cannot give to others without also giving to yourself. Conversely, by withholding from others, you inevitably withhold from yourself. You then blame the consequent deprivation on the other person because you are still clinging to the illusion that giving and receiving are two separate acts. The fusion you long for can only come about if every feeling you long to receive, every single aspect of loving, is richly flowing out of you. These aspects of love include tenderness, warmth, respect, and also the recognition of the essence of the other with his or her capacity for growth, change, and goodness. Add to these patience, and giving the other the benefit of the doubt. Make room for alternative interpretations. Trust, and give the other room to unfold and to be. You also yearn passionately to be given these aspects of perfect love. Fusion can take place on the emotional level only when you are fully committed to learn to expand your own capacity to give these components of perfect love.

But in order to fuse emotionally — and therefore totally — it is equally necessary to express yourself truthfully toward the other person, even when this may not be welcome or desired. Not doing so under the guise of a so-called loving goodness and taking it in silence is sentimental and usually dishonest. For in reality you merely fear the unpleasant consequences and are thus not willing to risk pain, exposure, confrontation, and the hard work of reintegrating the relationship on both a higher and more profound level. This can only be done healthily without guilt when you have dealt with and eliminated your own cruelty. As long as any cruelty exists in you, you will never be able to tell the truth to others without hurting them, because the hidden motive to hurt others so pervades your energies and affects your actions and words that it paralyzes your courage to speak up and confront a situation that requires improvement.

How then can an unhampered giving of love be reinstituted and increased? It is possible that you are free from cruelty and can speak up in a totally constructive way, and still the other person is hurt — maybe because he or she insists on never being criticized or frustrated. But if you can deal with the hurt that arises in you from this reaction, you can truly risk this event and battle it through so that an open exchange of feelings can be made possible. You will find that the more you act out of your sincere intention to love and feel more deeply, the more fruitful the outcome will be when you risk offending your partner. Conversely, when you “speak the truth” because you need to hurt but do not wish to admit it, the outcome must be undesirable. Your guilt for this hidden motivation will be a shield standing between you and the truth and between you and the other person.

The fulfillment and bliss your soul longs for can only be satisfied through fusion with another consciousness. It depends on your ability to risk, to confront, to admit your most guarded secret, and as a result to speak up when the other person puts obstructions in the way. You must also recognize your own limitation to express your best feelings when the unexpressed negativities and hidden games of your partner make this impossible. The positive assertion I speak of here is entirely different from making a blaming demand, which truly puts the responsibility on the other person. The kind of assertion I refer to here does not blame the other, and yet it also recognizes what the other is doing. When you no longer have a stake in blaming, you can truly speak up. You are no longer too blind to fully see the emotional involvement in your negative exchange. As long as you can only perceive this negative exchange indirectly, your struggle must be painful and you will not experience peace from recognizing your partner’s role in the exchange. But when your recognition of your partner’s negative contribution stems from the clear vision you could only gain as a result of self-confrontation and deep honesty, then you will risk, and the temporary pain will not diminish you.

In order to fuse emotionally, honest exchange at the risk of occasional crises is necessary. This honest exchange is totally dependent on the individual’s self-honesty and goodwill to abandon dishonest, hurtful, and destructive patterns. If you are hampered, inhibited, and afraid, you also inhibit the mutual scope and depth of the bliss that arises from fusion. In that case, you have to ask yourselves where this fear has its origin in both of you. And since you can only be responsible for yourself, ask especially where the fear originates in you. Where is the cruelty in you that makes you afraid of saying what you see? Where does your blindness toward yourself inevitably blind you toward the other person, so that you are unsure and defensive about what you see — and consequently militant and hostile. Again, emotional fusion can exist only to the degree that the prerequisites I discussed here are fulfilled.

Mental fusion exists on the level of the thinking mind. The ability to exchange the deepest ideas and thoughts and to risk disagreement and disapproval are basic. Mental fusion can only exist when there is a certain blend of compatibility. Two compatible partners have to share certain fundamental ideas about life. They must also be spiritually more or less on the same plane of development. This does not mean that every small idea must be shared. That is quite impossible and divergence in some ways is necessary. It is both a result of the variety within human beings and also a necessary help for each one’s further development. Several qualities are required for reaching mental fusion. One is the need to grow toward truthful understanding of each other, another is the humility to search for, and discard if necessary, the ideas and opinions you both may hold. You also need the humility to let the other and also yourself be right or wrong. The very act of looking for a deeper way of truth concerning even the tiniest issues provides wonderful fuel for growth and helps you to reach deeper union on the mental level. The attitudes you bring to bear on the points of difference and the ways you approach them are important. Do you avoid any confrontation of ideas because it is simply too uncomfortable to make waves? Do you agree superficially so as to have peace because the issue is “unimportant” anyway? Can you perhaps not be bothered to even deeply think about things that do not directly concern you? Or do you insist on being “right” merely for its own sake? Is disagreement a way to find an outlet for the negative feelings and thoughts stored up in you which you do not choose to deal with constructively?

The freedom to have different ideas can be granted only when you are both anchored in spiritual truth and when you aim in that direction. When spiritual reality is forever the ultimate aim, you also know that there is only one truth. And this applies every bit as much to the large vital issues as to the smallest everyday inanities. But you also know that this one truth has many facets, often including two apparent opposites that are parts of one whole. With spiritual truth as the ultimate goal, you will sit lightly in the saddle of opinions, ideas, and thoughts. This will make it possible to share and exchange them. If you always aim for the inner truth, the spiritual truth, then the little disagreements or different opinions slowly disappear. First they cease to matter; then they become integrated or fused in the all-uniting truth of spirit.

Mental sharing must not be neglected. One often sees relationships with sexual sharing and, to a degree, emotional sharing, but mental sharing is strangely neglected in a world that stresses the importance of the intellect, ideas, and the mind so much. Yet people live next to each other day in and day out, depriving themselves and each other of the joys of mental fusion. They do not mentally expose their innermost beings, ideas, beliefs, dreams, aspirations, feelings, fears, goals, yearnings, insecurities, and hopes. The world of the mind and ideas is an integral part of total sharing. And it is quite impossible for one person to fuse with another on one level in a truly satisfying way, while keeping separate on any of the other levels and thus not staying in tune with the natural movement toward fusion. For instance, quite often when frustration is ascribed to sexual incompatibility, the sexual incompatibility may not be a result of an absence of physical attraction at all. It may be the result of insufficient fusion on any one or all of the other levels.

Spiritual fusion is always a natural result of fusion on the physical, emotional, and mental levels. Fusion existing on these three levels means that the parties involved must be highly developed spiritual beings, actively working on and involved in a spiritual path. They must be sufficiently awake to consciously and deliberately seek spiritual truth. Reaching the spiritual self must be one’s primary aim if total fusion is to exist. It is therefore true that the fulfillment and bliss that every created being longs for is possible to the degree that a person’s spiritual development has advanced and still continues to advance. Such a state is maintained to the degree that the partners are in movement, and to the degree that destructiveness has made room for constructive, outgoing, positive attitudes and behavior. All too often human beings are stuck and have no intention to move out of their stagnation. They are then surprised when their yearning for oneness remains unfulfilled, and they blame others, circumstances, and life for it.

All matters of life must finally be related to the spiritual self and to spiritual reality. All disputes can truly be resolved and conciliated only in the spiritual self which is one in all created beings. When two human beings fuse with the feeling that there is a spiritual world within both of them where they can discover their oneness, then spiritual union takes place. The tremendous creative power of the sexual force generated through union on all levels has self-perpetuating life with both positive and negative aspects. Participating in this life, the partners striving for union set something in motion that takes on its own momentum like a stream which the human personality has to learn to follow.

Whatever exists within the human psyche shows up in the sexual experience; it is impossible to keep anything out. The manner of the sexual experience is therefore an infallible indicator of where a person’s psyche is. It will reveal where a person is liberated and at one with divine law, where evil and destructive, and where stuck and stagnant because the destructiveness is hidden and not dealt with. Hidden facets become magnetized and energized by the sexual current, thereby determining its direction. When this direction is negative and therefore shamefully denied, both the person’s development and the vitality of the life force are hindered. The powerful creative energy inherent in sexual expression creates a condition where all character attitudes and all aspects of one’s most hidden nature must manifest. Unfortunately, human beings are extremely blind to this. Even the most advanced psychology is oblivious to the fact that the way in which sexuality manifests — not necessarily in action, but in inclination — reveals one’s whole character with all one’s attitudes, personality and ego trends, problems and impurities, as well as one’s already purified beauty. All that information is revealed and available to anyone who knows how and where to look for it. All too often sexual attitudes are dealt with in a glib way by simply judging them as healthy or neurotic, or morally right or wrong. There is also a defiant refusal to recognize the keys contained in them. In such cases these manifestations are separated from the rest of the person as if such inclinations were purely a matter of taste, or inborn traits such as being born with blue eyes or brown. Labels are so often supposed to take care of the matter. Often the spiritual message of the inner reality is completely overlooked, no matter how clearly and loudly it speaks through a person’s sexual inclinations, whether allowed to manifest or denied and repressed. If character defects deform one’s sexual drive into cruel, destructive fantasies, to act them out is just as unnecessary as to act out other destructive feelings. The same is true for any murderous feelings you own up to on your path; they don’t need to be acted out in order for you to be able to face, understand, accept, and deal with them and to recognize their inner meaning.

It is precisely because sexual energy is so powerful that every small, apparently insignificant attitude existing in the human personality reappears symbolically in one’s sexual expression. The way sexuality expresses itself in an individual mirrors those inner aspects which the person desperately needs to be aware of. My friends, it is a question of learning to use this knowledge. Look at your sexuality in a new way. What does it reveal to you about your non-sexual nature, about your person, your attitudes, and so on? Where does your sexuality expose your problems, and where and how does it reveal your purified nature?

When you and your partner are not fusing at one of the four levels we discussed, then that must be apparent in your life. Let us say that your attractions, needs, and desires are strong on the physical level. Let us assume you are ready to expose yourself on that level and seek fusion there. But let us also assume that on the emotional and/or the mental level this is not at all the case. There you wish to keep separate and do not wish either to give, or to risk, or to constantly integrate each level on a yet higher plane. The physical level will then not only become severely restricted, but the nature of your sexual drive must, in one form or another, reveal the emotional and mental attitudes you may keep hidden. You may have no notion that these attitudes reappear in a sexualized form, infused and magnetized by the sexual force.

If the negativities of the psychic system are denied consciousness, the sexual experience must be blocked, flat, unsatisfactory, mechanical and, in more severe instances, even totally paralyzed. If this denial is removed, the sexual inclination may show up character tendencies such as finding pleasure in being cruel. There are many variations and details that cannot possibly be generalized. For example, if both the guilt and the ensuing self-punishment are denied and repressed, they may show up in a sexual inclination to be hurt, humiliated, or rejected. There are innumerable possibilities and meanings. Each sexual fantasy must be reawakened and allowed to be, so that it can be understood. This is the only way to bring stagnant sexual energy back into a flowing state, even if it first means living out the fantasies, either in your mind or in a playful way within an intimate and established relationship.

Often the deviated sexual expression is quite conscious and is indulged in and enjoyed to whatever degree it is possible to do so in this hampered way. However, such sexual expression is not connected to its deeper meaning — the person simply assumes, “this is the way I am,” and is unwilling to give up this pleasure, convinced that this is the only way he or she can have pleasure. This is totally untrue; the pleasure that would become available if the negative characteristic were recognized is incomparably higher in intensity and quality, and nothing has to be given up for it. In order to change, one first allows oneself to make the connections between the recognized negative trait, and the non-sexual aspects of one’s being. From there, a natural transformation in the direction of the sexual current will organically take place.

You who have been working on this path for some time have already confronted some of your negativities. Can you believe that these negativities do not express themselves in your sexuality? Can you, even for an instant, assume that your negativities do not manifest in your sexual attitudes and therefore do not influence your capacity for fulfillment, fusion, and bliss? That would indeed be foolish. So perhaps this could be a new way for you to approach your task of seeing what specific negativities cause what specific manifestations. To some extent you have made these connections, but not anywhere near the extent of what is available for you to discover and use in this way. This will be an extremely exciting undertaking for you, one that will yield many keys. The more specific you can be, the more revealing and enlivening your insights and your understanding about yourself will be.

You all know that making the connections between cause and effect is an important aspect of personal development and self-confrontation. The greatest pain and dissonance in the human personality exists not only because of the split between the levels of the personality, but also between cause and effect. Nothing is more painful than suffering an effect whose cause you ignore.

For most human beings it is still inconceivable to combine sexuality with spirituality. This concept is bound to change soon; the spiritual influxes of today have already wrought the beginning of a new era. In former times, sexuality and spirituality were considered antithetical. It was not known that true spiritual union is a consummate result of union on all levels of being, including the physical-sexual one. It was not known that total integration and oneness must bring sexuality into alignment with spirituality. The realization of your spiritual life is possible only as a result of total unification on all these other levels, and certainly never as a result of splitting off any one part from the other. The real meaning of spirituality is oneness and wholeness, and that means it must include all there is. Satisfying relationships with others therefore always mirror the degree of the individual’s inner unification. If you cannot find union with others, you are in disunity within yourself.

The difficulty human beings have in unifying spirituality and sexuality, even in a concept, is due precisely to what I explained before — namely, the fact that hidden evil manifests in and through the sexual expression. This is why for centuries spiritual teachings have postulated that sexuality is a hindrance to spiritual development. At an earlier time in history, there was a reason for such postulates. They were not all that wrong at that time. Early humanity’s less developed state made people act out their brutality and bestiality through their sexuality. Consciousness and conscience, the influx of the spirit, existed to a much lesser degree then. Everything was acted out with impunity and in self-righteousness. The stronger ones had the rights and needed no excuses. The ability for restraint and discipline was practically non-existent. The capacity for empathy with others was extremely weak and rare. In such a world the powerful drives had to be restrained in order to make any influx of the spirit possible. This explains the long eras when spiritual exercises were used to restrain natural instincts. On the one hand, spiritual development proceeded, on the other, it also constrained humanity’s natural drives, and this was temporarily necessary. Only now, as humanity enters a new spiritual era of unfoldment, are human beings strong enough to look at their hidden instincts and to purify them without danger of acting them out. Yet, even today hardly anyone knows the fine line between safe, honest expression and admission of negative material, and destructive acting out. You on this path are indeed pioneers in learning the all-important art of making this distinction. Only in this way can you unify your total person, purify all aspects of yourself, and safely bring out the sexual drive in whatever way it now manifests. The current predominance of stagnation, low vitality, and frequent sexual problems are a result of hemming in your negative life force because you could not deal with it safely. You are now learning a new and marvelous method of freeing your instincts for the purpose of purifying and revitalizing your life.

If the energy of the life force is concentrated in unrecognized and unfaced evil, then the energy itself is feared and a state of stagnation becomes preferred as the lesser evil. This numbness may be regretted and the yearning therefore may become unbearable, but the inner person is still too puzzled and fearful to do otherwise. The evil is denied and the personality may then try to force the sexual drive artificially with very unsatisfactory results. The person may resort to artificial stimulants, and then sexuality becomes even more split off from the rest of the personality. The split among the levels creates further short-circuits.

The dissonance among the various levels may manifest in perhaps the following way. The emotional level expresses, “I do not want to love” which indicates denied hate. The mental level might say, “I ought to love, and if I do not, I am bad and have no pleasure. So I must force myself to love.” Another mental level may simultaneously say, “I have no use for you; you are bad,” as an excuse and explanation for not loving. The physical-sexual level may say, “I want to possess you to have my pleasure.” In such a predicament, sexuality is either annulled, or it functions in what is referred to as perversion — pleasure in giving pain, pleasure in denying the self and the other. Hating, selfish, cruel sex always produces guilt which is then dismissed and rationalized as coming from a puritanical and unenlightened attitude. But guilt still prevails, in spite of all “enlightenment.” Where is the origin of such a guilt? Surely guilt begins in the concealed hatred and brutality that manifests covertly in sexual expressions, whether or not one admits to having these feelings. If one’s desires to put down others, to be self-serving, or to be exploitative and unmindful of others are not dealt with directly, they pollute holy sexuality. And sexuality is indeed holy. When sexuality is used in the service of ego aggrandizement and lust for power, it cannot help but produce “inexplicable” guilt, or guilt that is explained away with people’s backgrounds and with early influences.

Nothing is as dangerous as using a powerful spiritual energy in a destructive, inverted way, whether in actual fact or in thought and attitude only. When killing and hating are embedded in sexuality, sexuality becomes vicious and antagonistic to spirituality. This is why people acted out for millennia the most bestial drives in sexuality, thus giving rise to the belief that sexuality was in itself bestial. Only now is it possible for human beings to take every conceivable evil, face it, and not act upon it. Today there is a conscience in people that makes them quite aware when they are vicious. This awareness is not always on the surface, for people usually try to avoid what they know, but it nevertheless exists within the psyche. Therefore there is a reluctance to give in to the sexual drive, for it brings out one’s denied negativities, one’s evil, and destructiveness.

If you use this key, in the spirit of the pathwork, to allow yourself to see and admit the truth, you will not only gain deeper insight into yourself, make new connections, and purify yourself more, but you will activate the sexual power that was so elusive for you before. You thus will free your sexuality and simultaneously integrate it with your spiritual self — without untimely, compulsive forcing, but in a natural process. You will free the sexual energy from the negative involvement. The awareness of where you are caught in a negative sexual expression must be combined with the full understanding of the meaning of this hookup. You must account for the negative expression of your sexuality. How does it reveal your selfishness, your cruelty, your lovelessness, your greed?

Deal with this, my friends. The more you do this, the less blocked you will find yourself to be, the more spontaneous the inner movement will become, the more revitalized will you be by the experience of fusion, and the more your involuntary forces will function. But you must first take the risk of allowing the involuntary forces to reveal the deepest aspects of your evil which you are otherwise unable to discover. Your most secret sexual fantasies, if examined in the clear light of truth for what they really are, will be your liberation. No truth is ever too much to bear. No truth, if perceived with a sense of realism, can ever diminish your spirit and your true self. Thus you become alive and awaken from your deadness. You will free yourself from your fears.

Before ending this lecture, I want to say just one more thing in connection with this topic. The masculine and feminine principles in the universe express themselves in every creative act. How do they express themselves between and within the two partners? The masculine principle expresses the outgoing movement of reaching, giving, acting, initiating, asserting. The feminine principle expresses the receptive movement of taking in and nurturing. In distortion and negativity the masculine principle manifests as hostile aggressions, hitting rather than giving and reaching. The feminine principle in distortion turns from loving receptivity and nurturing to grasping, grabbing, stealing, holding tight, catching, and taking without letting go. These principles manifest in every living act. Both principles, in harmony and distortion, exist in both men and women. They can easily be detected with a minimum of self-observation. They are manifest as soul movements that may or may not also manifest as physical acts.

These movements exist in absolutely everything that could ever be created or could ever be. They are integral manifestations in Creation. Once you ascertain the manner in which both principles express themselves in you, it is easily possible to connect these expressions with your mental, emotional, and physical levels. Allow yourself this vision. Satisfying fusion between a man and a woman is possible only to the degree that both principles work in harmony within both partners, and thus complement each other in the act of fusion. If there is no harmonious interplay within your own psychic system of the masculine and feminine principles, if there is distortion and imbalance there, then this must inevitably also manifest in your choice of partner and in the way you conduct the relationship.

Harmonious fusion builds up to a point of total fusion. Total fusion is the total fulfillment which the two movements find in their culmination. This is again a universal phenomenon to be found in every creative act, whether this be the creation of a planetary system, the creation of a simple object, or the unifying of two loving mates. This point of fusion which you may call orgasm is the total fulfillment; the aim has been accomplished in spirit to the degree that this fusion is now possible for the striving entities in whatever creative act. This creative experience can take place only to the degree that negativities and egotistical defenses are being abandoned, and the involuntary movement is accepted, welcomed, and followed. The creative experience will continue to expand until total union with the whole takes place. Then the entity stays at the point of fusion in unending spiritual bliss. But as long as the universe has not found its completion by filling the void with spiritual light, orgasm in creation can only be temporary. Hence the parts find themselves separate again and continue their striving forever more, until one is all and all is one, until there is no more darkness and only spiritual light, truth, and beauty prevail.

If all of you could really know that you have an inexhaustible treasure of security, of love, and of light in you! The only thing that blocks you off from it is your thinking, your not knowing, your not wanting to feel, to know, and to consider this truth. Make use of this truth.

My friends, I assume there must be many questions about this topic. I suggest that we treat them in the next question and answer session. At this particular point, the energy is very beautiful, very strong, and very vital. Let yourselves be moved by it. Let the spirit move you into a freer expression and work with this energy now.

I leave you with this golden flow of energy and the feeling that has been elicited in most of you. Be blessed in the truth of life that is available at all times, in the truth of love, in the love of truth, and in the peace of spiritual reality.

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To my teacher Marieke Mars who taught me self-honesty. To my courageous and loving pathwork helper Dottie Titus.

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fear truth experience feelings love God consciousness reality negativity spirituality soul pain spiritual_paths mind attitudes emotions power destructiveness movement ego energy pleasure awareness personality development lower_self divine desires change guilt childhood create conscious spirits thoughts spiritual_laws fulfillment spirit_world death happiness unconscious problems positivity earth give growth images pathwork spirit understand pride evil creation body life_force higher_self exercises cause_and_effect needs parents time prayer center duality reactions New_Age freedom sex life contact beliefs universe individuality control relationships expression meditation discipline values motives doubt reincarnation Jesus_Christ women inner_child wish faults will confusion spheres strength men illusion struggle activity shame faith maturity demands idealized_self self-image self-will authority acceptance hurt selfishness real_self frustration resistance meaning connections soul_substance receive knowledge responsibility conclusions bliss life_task Christ mass_images free_will trust observe lectures know denial intellect pretense decisions conscience perception birth Lucifer salvation religion reason marriage light identification courage laws rebellion words union humanity long receptiveness surrender misconceptions mask let_go vicious_circles communication instinct concentration no-current tension commitment fantasy involuntary_processes opinions secrets contraction expansion difficulties punishment evolution space divine_substance obedience emptiness male female passivity darkness self-responsibility grace inner_will conflicts self-confidence anger suffer groups nature cruelty pulse_of_life unity energy_centers chakras openness negative_intentionality order spiral exposure self-respect universal_self affirmations visualization laziness background_thoughts foreground_thoughts daydreams wishful_thinking superstition appearance_values being_values inferiority assumptions obligations danger defensiveness superimposed_conscience divine_conscience compulsive_conscience universal_spirit divine_spark vacuum self-awareness dimensions rigidity tradition Christianity Judaism automatism reflexes education mediums masculine feminine purification fall subtle_body God_image self-love spirit_language approval unhappiness outer_will fight forcing_current success isolation think self-discipline self-preservation criticism peace relinquish defenses sin self-alienation sadness psyche crisis yes-current intelligence effort chain_reactions perfection opposites error envy existence organism life_substance impress avoidance channel now blame fusion abundance psychic_nuclear_points Christmas leadership eternal_life admit Dottie Titus harm self-knowledge lightforces daily_review immaturity tendencies egoism ideas dependence karma Eastern_Spirituality Western_Spirituality atheism transcendence centeredness attention constructiveness world_weariness war ambition positive_thinking forms ecstasy sacrifice psychology life_plan dignity shock eros guardian_angels inner_wall blindness Eva_Pierrakos homosexuality bondage cosmic_principles static_principle restriction self-importance rulership utopia sickness betrayal weakness rejection progress prove rituals intuition subconscious transition motivations impatience exaggeration myth cooperation serenity defeat safety pseudo_solutions universal_life self-pity Tower_of_Babel false_religion true_religion rules gratification repression compassion inner_split alternatives neurosis unfulfillment imperfection perfectionism joy self-rejection masochism sloth lust gluttony depression blessings restitution hope habits security determination displacement substitution respect unknown moralize intensity self-realization universal_power childishness inner_self numbness relaxation inner_control outer_control closeness vulnerability negative_desires magnetic_fields destruction character transformation false_feelings human_nature unpleasure blocks cosmic_pull self-liking regulate flow spontaneity impulses anxiety universal_consciousness guidance health unselfishness forgive abandonment aliveness self-esteem traits dislike disunity unification interaction fate mutuality stagnation negation terror tricks cosmic_feeling force_fields disorder exchange moods devil greatness richness distortions divine_voice service group_consciousness hate self-forgiveness balance imbalance distrust omnipotence immortality pessimism manifestation self-hate boundaries abuse government political_systems lose inertia acts christians jews injustice justice deficit heal privacy win inner_space autonomy positive_aggression community
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abandonment abundance abuse acceptance activity acts admit affirmations aliveness alternatives ambition anger anxiety appearance_values approval assumptions atheism attention attitudes authority automatism autonomy avoidance awareness background_thoughts balance being_values beliefs betrayal birth blame blessings blindness bliss blocks body bondage boundaries cause_and_effect center centeredness chain_reactions chakras change channel character childhood childishness Christ Christianity christians Christmas closeness commitment communication community compassion compulsive_conscience concentration conclusions conflicts confusion connections conscience conscious consciousness constructiveness contact contraction control cooperation cosmic_feeling cosmic_principles cosmic_pull courage create creation crisis criticism cruelty daily_review danger darkness daydreams death decisions defeat defenses defensiveness deficit demands denial dependence depression desires destruction destructiveness determination development devil difficulties dignity dimensions discipline dislike disorder displacement distortions distrust disunity divine divine_conscience divine_spark divine_substance divine_voice Dottie Titus doubt duality earth Eastern_Spirituality ecstasy education effort ego egoism emotions emptiness energy energy_centers envy eros error eternal_life Eva_Pierrakos evil evolution exaggeration exchange exercises existence expansion experience exposure expression faith fall false_feelings false_religion fantasy fate faults fear feelings female feminine fight flow force_fields forcing_current foreground_thoughts forgive forms freedom free_will frustration fulfillment fusion give gluttony God God_image government grace gratification greatness groups group_consciousness growth guardian_angels guidance guilt habits happiness harm hate heal health higher_self homosexuality hope humanity human_nature hurt idealized_self ideas identification illusion images imbalance immaturity immortality impatience imperfection impress impulses individuality inertia inferiority injustice inner_child inner_control inner_self inner_space inner_split inner_wall inner_will instinct intellect intelligence intensity interaction intuition involuntary_processes isolation Jesus_Christ jews joy Judaism justice karma know knowledge laws laziness leadership lectures let_go life life_force life_plan life_substance life_task light lightforces long lose love lower_self Lucifer lust magnetic_fields male manifestation marriage masculine mask masochism mass_images maturity meaning meditation mediums men mind misconceptions moods moralize motivations motives movement mutuality myth nature needs negation negative_desires negative_intentionality negativity neurosis New_Age no-current now numbness obedience obligations observe omnipotence openness opinions opposites order organism outer_control outer_will pain parents passivity pathwork peace perception perfection perfectionism personality pessimism pleasure political_systems positive_aggression positive_thinking positivity power prayer pretense pride privacy problems progress prove pseudo_solutions psyche psychic_nuclear_points psychology pulse_of_life punishment purification reactions reality real_self reason rebellion receive receptiveness reflexes regulate reincarnation rejection relationships relaxation religion relinquish repression resistance respect responsibility restitution restriction richness rigidity rituals rulership rules sacrifice sadness safety salvation secrets security self-alienation self-awareness self-confidence self-discipline self-esteem self-forgiveness self-hate self-image self-importance self-knowledge self-liking self-love self-pity self-preservation self-realization self-rejection self-respect self-responsibility self-will selfishness serenity service sex shame shock sickness sin sloth soul soul_substance space spheres spiral spirit spirits spirituality spiritual_laws spiritual_paths spirit_language spirit_world spontaneity stagnation static_principle strength struggle subconscious substitution subtle_body success suffer superimposed_conscience superstition surrender tendencies tension terror think thoughts time Tower_of_Babel tradition traits transcendence transformation transition tricks true_religion trust truth unconscious understand unfulfillment unhappiness unification union unity universal_consciousness universal_life universal_power universal_self universal_spirit universe unknown unpleasure unselfishness utopia vacuum values vicious_circles visualization vulnerability war weakness Western_Spirituality will win wish wishful_thinking women words world_weariness yes-current
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