Pathwork Additional Material No. 8

January 3, 1960

HELPER LAWS; LAWS IN REGARD TO BEING A HELPER IN THE PATHWORK

1. Devotion, commitment, risking investment without seeking immediate return. Practically this means to give time and effort with little, sometimes no remuneration, until this test is completed. With everyone various spiritual aspects are being tested this way. For instance faith, trust, perseverance, investment of self, giving. Also personal problems manifest in the helper's approach and in his reactions to the session and they must be recognized.

2. Regular meditation and prayer for help in regard to purifying the motives for being a helper. Recognize the ego trip, the power game, or whatever -- but at the same time state that you wish to be motivated primarily by wanting to help others to fulfill their lives.

3. Realize that work with others will always reflect where you are on your own path. It will manifest in material success, as well as in success in the actual work; in the type of workers you attract, in regard to their receptivity etc. To whatever degree you are stuck you will be stuck with similar problems in your workers.

4. Use the life story in order to determine the worker's inner problems. His fulfillment or lack of it is a map, which clearly shows where he is inwardly. This picture may come faster or slower as the case may be. Always wait for the manifestation to appear as a revelation.

5. Beware of super-imposing opinions of your own mind, no matter how logical they may appear. Always keep open; tune in on the inner path of the worker, and allow it to show itself. You can say what you see, but keep it light, consider there may be more to it.

6. Apparent contradiction in which two opposites are true: worker must feel the truth, and also he cannot feel it as long as it is not conscious. The resistance may use the latter, in order to ward off an unpalatable truth -- "I can't feel it, therefore it isn't so." The skill of the helper is needed to convey this fact to the worker so as to prepare him. Perhaps shelve the issue for the moment, until the feeling is opened up by attacking the problem from another side. Explain the fact that he cannot feel what he represses.

7. The spiral movement of the Path may give the appearance of going around in circles and being stuck. This may not be true. It is always necessary to make the same recognitions or sequence of recognitions, over and over again until the circles get smaller and smaller to finally converge at the key point from which the problem can actually be resolved. It is important to convey this to the worker so as to avoid discouragement. Another aspect of this is the rhythm pattern of breakthrough, release, relief, new hope and light and then renewed contraction, self-doubt, doubt about the Path, hopelessness etc. It is also important to prepare the worker and explain that the rhythm changes as the Path progresses. The good periods increase in depth and duration while the negative periods decrease. The only exceptions are deep crises of very strongly resisted material, which may manifest in a different rhythm pattern. For instance, first a longer period of the aforementioned regular rhythm pattern and then a crash crises that brings up heretofore-unexplored material. Time elements vary.

Explain Meditation and the Daily Review. Lectures:

#28 Communication with God-Daily Review.

#36 PRAYER

#182 Process of Meditation

#194 Meditation Its Laws & Various Approaches

8. Meditation changes from phase to phase. It is part of the work in private sessions to find out what to meditate on at any given phase. The session notes are the clue. Also explain the power of thought, working with the meditation lectures. Discuss any problem regarding discipline. Meditation and the Daily Review serve as a tool of learning, concentration and focusing.

9. Gauge worker's habits regarding order, being organized in money and other daily affairs. Make him see the significance and inner meaning of his attitudes.

10. At one point or another (which varies greatly from one worker to another) he will be ready to work on his images and his idealized self-image. If you are prepared you will recognize the message from the workers' path as it manifests. Study carefully, and know the basic aspects of the lectures, for instance the images; misconceptions; subsequent behavior based on the misconception; subsequent result that proves the misconception correct, thereby reinforcing a continuous vicious circle. The pertinent aspects of the idealized self-image (which can be much worse than reality as well as better) are always for show or pretense, as well as getting the result without working for it.

11. Be clear that the private work is divided into the following sometimes alternating, sometimes overlapping aspects:

12. All neurotic problems and distortions always form a vicious circle. It is necessary to find the specific breaking point. As long as there seems no way out, the worker is in defense and the helper is yet unable to see how and where to go. The search must go on in full awareness of this fact. When the way out is clear, the specific vicious circle has been broken. This way out is always, in the last analysis, a question of choice and intentionality. To see no way out always means that the game of helplessness, dependency and victimization is being played. The way out always lies in self-responsibility and volition. As the problem seems insoluble the negative intentionality is still hidden.