Pathwork Additional Material No. 3

October 26, 1975

GUIDE SESSION FOR THE WASHINGTON GROUP

Greetings, my beloved friends who are gathered here.

Blessings for every one of you individually and as a group entity.

At previous occasions when I spoke to and welcomed the friends of this path from another city, I made a distinction here. I no longer do so, for indeed the geographical place is not of importance. You are all one body, and I address you as one body, as well as individuals who are components of this one body. You are united in oneness, in a common goal and a common aim.

Anyone joining a path such as this consciously does so to begin with because he feels unsatisfied with his life. He senses, perhaps consciously as well as more even unconsciously, that much more can be experienced in his life, that more can be unblocked. But originally and initially, the conscious motivation for seeking such a path is to increase one's own capacity for joy and fulfillment, to eliminate blocks that stand in the way, and to unblock the dormant potential. And this is as it should be, indeed as it must be. For the consciousness, the common body of the whole, must consist of fulfilled individuals. However, on the road of this development, when you gradually discover that, in fulfilling yourself, new horizons about a community project arise, you are still battling with an apparently ever-present duality on this earth sphere. And in this particular case, the duality seems to be: If I want to fulfill myself, I have to be selfish, I cannot think of the community. Or, if I am interested in and give to the community, then I must deprive myself. This vision is an absolute distortion, and it is important to comprehend this.

Now it is commonly being said from many sources arising at this time of evolution in your earth sphere that the new era that is gradually unfolding brings with it a group consciousness, an extension into group life, and I would like to extend this a little further and make this perhaps even more fundamental, rather than just a new development into group life and new communities with new values. There is more to it than this, my friends. And if you can perhaps view the two communities that are unfolding in the light of what I have to say here, it will help you a great deal to make the bridge and perceive the unity between the individual and the community.

Let us think of community in a larger light, the community of all humanity, of the total population of this earth sphere. It is very obvious that in this time of your history, old values crumble. This has been said many times. They no longer work. Many philosophers and seers have predicted that the crumbling of these old philosophies, this old view of life, this old attitude, these old values, will create cataclysmic events -- natural or unnatural. Now I say this is not so, or if it is so, only to a very limited degree and not more than was perhaps experienced in previous eras, and perhaps even less so. But what does become increasingly clear, and how the crisis of change is manifesting very strongly on the outer level of reality, is a breaking down of the functioning of all manner of existing bodies -- not only the governmental bodies, also the educational bodies, and many, many areas of human life. The economy strikes all of the world, where mankind can no longer make ends meet. There is a disturbance, there is a discrepancy. It is very obvious that the way things are, they cannot work and they must break down. This is how the crisis manifests outwardly.

And what is necessary is not just new approaches that apply collectively to governments, countries, groups of people, city governments, etcetera. What is necessary is that new community life is demonstrated. It can only begin to demonstrate by small nuclei, small groups of people. And in these small groups of people, this in turn depends on every individual that forms part of the group. And it is therefore not coincidental that in the group that started here, for many years there was no community. The individuals had to concentrate very strongly on their own development, and a lot of hard work had to be done before new community life could be commenced, before there was any chance of it succeeding. And even then the constant cleaning-up process is absolutely necessary, before sufficient grounding in the higher self, and sufficient awareness of and connectedness with the lower self, and no more acting out of the lower self can exist. This is a constant battle, as this first community is certainly going through. And as the second community, that you are a nucleus of, will also have to put up with. However, you will not need as much time, and perhaps not even as many difficulties as the first group, because the first is always the pioneer. The first always has to even out the way, and makes it easier for those who follow, who can learn from the mistakes as well as the discoveries and from the unfoldment of those who have preceded and cleaned up the pathway. But difficulties will arise, and they always have to be met, both in the individual and in the group consciousness that comprises whatever individuals are in it.

Now in this particular path you have many different groups, and each group has its own dynamic reality and expresses its own consciousness, and each of these groups is again, like the whole group, consisting of the individuals, and each individual is a cell of that group body. Each of the groups that comprises the whole of the community is another cell in the total body of that community. Now as you create a second such community, gradually the same process will develop. And perhaps later on -- not even perhaps, but gradually other such communities will arise. And I do not mean other spiritual centers, for many of them already exist, but I am now particularly referring to the specific approach of this path, which is the cleansing out of the lower self, the meeting of the lower self, and the utilizing the highly volatile creative energies that are contained in the lower self and channeling them in a positive way. This particular path will and must create further such communities. And as these communities grow and begin to function better and better, this will be the model, a new model for world governments, for conducting humanity's business in every area of life. It will gradually infiltrate. It is not only a question of new philosophical values. That is easy. But it will also mean the practical living of these values, and that is of course a lot more difficult. For man always has to fight against his own sluggishness and against the facile rationalizations that he is tempted to use in order not to see where, in perhaps ever so subtle a way, the process is hindered. Always these rationalizations are apparently harmless and not truly evil, and yet the evil is contained in the poisonous nature of stopping a process and diluting the clean flow of being instrumental for a much larger course. Unless this much larger course is constantly kept in view, you must hinder your personal fulfillment. It cannot be one against the other. It can only be one with the other.

Now I would like to say something more practical, specifically about community life. Everything you need to know personally about your own life, you have ample opportunities: from the lectures, from your personal and group work, and from many, many other occasions you have. This at the moment is truly not the concern, although it is always the concern. And although this may sound like a contradiction, it is not. You will see how the two must be interwoven.

Let us speak first about establishing and sustaining the health of a community. Any community that is established and based on the principles of a certain spiritual process and orientation must follow those principles through and bring them into daily life. Otherwise an imbalance and discrepancy must arise. It is therefore essential that all focus is put on certain fundamental practices that the community follows through together, just as the individual in his or her own unfoldment of the path needs to get through certain fundamental practices if the work is of any value. Just listening, or reading or thinking or talking about it will never suffice. The work needs to be done. For the individual and for the community. The error that such focus and such practice will deprive the individual of his freedom and relaxation and pleasure should really be quite obvious by now. For nothing could be further from the truth. It is not either/or. In fact I say both work and leisure will be infused with infinitely more pleasure when this inner fulfillment is executed. Not only for the individual but for the community, the practical follow-through must occur. Then you can easily see that there is no division of interests between the individual and the community. For as you work together, so do you work each for your own benefit. And for the aim of greater fulfillment, as an individual and simultaneously for the community and of the community.

Now this requires a decision -- the decision that must be made individually and by the group together. "How are we going to keep our interactions conscious? How do we develop as a group together? How do we use the group energy to help ourselves and each other and the process and the task involved here?" Always remember, my friends, as you create a community, it will be a model for the world. And as you see the inevitable difficulties arising that are always the result of the sluggishness of the resistant part of you, you will then comprehend the difficulties of the world governments that you bemoan and complain about. But you can see how you are co-responsible for them, in the very way you conduct yourself, you lend yourself, you give to the society you create here in microcosm. Your whole rebellion against authority becomes an anachronism by now. For you already possess indeed the awareness that there is no authority who does anything to you. And when you truly and honestly view your withholding, your not giving to the world, to life, to creation and to yourself, and to your immediate environment, you must see that whatever you are deprived of and feel deprived of is a direct result of that, if you only choose to see this. Most of the time you choose not to connect with this. You may pay lip service to this principle, but you still emotionally use an old format of rebellion against some authority in order to justify your not giving. And you blind yourself that your not giving to a project, to the world, to a cause does not also mean that in that sense you also cannot give to yourself. And you do not wish to see this.

If you truly were to decide to use the principles of this work in your community life and establish a sound foundation in that way, you would very soon see that this is not taxing, time or energy wise. Quite the contrary is true. You would be more renewed, more energized, more nourished and find more enjoyment and fun in this being together than anything else you can think of, which at the same time is also not excluded. But as your foundation needs to rest in your own pathwork in order to become truly fulfilled, so must community life rest on those same principles that are followed through in action if the community is to function harmoniously. And as the individual can never stop on his path because there is no one-time goal to be accomplished, so can a community never stop doing this work together of inner growth, of confrontation, of sincere search and transformation. Because there is no one-time goal, as I said many, many times. But the effort that is now apparently so laborious will completely disappear. So now it may seem as a terrible chore for you that all your life you have to work on yourself, have to grow. It is not so. The growing will become a natural flow that is relaxed and easy and harmonious and joyful and effortless, even though there is an effort. Again and again, but it is an effortless effort, as I sometimes use this word. It is only at the beginning, when your own sluggishness stands in the way, that the effort is so hard, that it is so necessary to use your own powers to overcome. More and more this will disappear.

Now any community that wishes to establish a beautiful, easy, well-run harmonious life together, has to get together regularly and see specifically not only as far as the individual things are concerned, but how the individuals in the community do not wish to give to it, and thus make an artificial schism between the community and the self. This schism then seems reality, as though you are put in it and the community is either a benign or a hostile parental authority. But you create this image out of your not seeing how you do not wish to contribute to it. And if that is again and again being faced, you will also see how you do not and cannot take what the community has to give to you. For as I said many times, you cannot receive if you cannot give, and vice versa.

So the pathwork together, the giving to each task of the work that is to be done outside as well as the inner work together in establishing a constantly self-purifying collective process, needs to be followed through by self-discipline and by stopping the game in which you resent as if it is imposed upon you from the outside. I invite all of you, my friends, to really think about this, to speak about this together, to plan and to follow through these plans. And to sort out who is truly concerned and believes in a project that is a gradual growth, a cellular growth as all growth must be cellular, from the individuals to smaller groups to larger groups, to a community and more such cells arising. That is the only way the world can change. There is no other way, my friends. That is the way you bring in new values. You know the principles of the New Age Consciousness that I have given you for quite a number of years, and I continue to give you. However, it is now up to you to put them into action. First in microcosm, and that microcosm will grow and grow, until it can unite with the other cells and become one macrocosm. And that is the Christ Consciousness that sweeps from the inner universe into the outer universe. But the individuals must lend themselves as instrumentalities for that.

Those in the world who cannot and will not consciously open themselves to an understanding and a commitment to this world cosmic renewal, must stay outside the process and their development will proceed in different ways. In very, very different ways. In much slower ways. But there will always be times when this must be sorted out. When the commitment must be tested. When giving and activating the theories must come about. When it is no longer a theory but a practical, followed-through reality. And it is up to you to create the arena for this, and to keep in mind through your common meditation that you are all involved in a much larger issue than you can possibly perceive now. This does not infringe upon your personal growth and your personal enjoyment. Quite the contrary. The excitement, the joy, the bliss of this cannot be conveyed in words. Above all it will give you a deep anchoring into your inner being. An anchoring into life itself, into the meaning of life.

All human beings start out with having no meaning to their life. And only as they grow on their path do they begin to perceive, here or there, a flash of meaning that disappears again. Yet, when the times come that I speak about now, when you make the commitment to the larger course with all your active being, then you will truly feel and know your meaning. And that is the most joyful event imaginable. Never again will you falter and doubt, truly.

Your inner self is indeed ready to be realized and enjoyed. Do not allow the habitual patterns of your reactions and thinking to thwart that process. Take your thinking and reacting into your own hands, as it were, and choose to think and react differently, whenever you are tempted to fall back into the old track. Then indeed you begin to open the gateways to your source of all life and of all joy.