The Text - Section 219
219. CHRISTMAS MESSAGE -- MESSAGE TO THE CHILDREN
Since no lecture was given in March 1974, subscribers received instead excerpts from two
lectures given in December 1973 at the Center -- one on Christmas Eve, and the other on the
occasion of the inauguration of the "Hangout," a large room for the children, in which they could
play, work, listen to music and be by themselves.
I. CHRISTMAS MESSAGE
After giving his blessings, the Guide said:
Every one of you here is able, at this point, to create your life anew, to set a new direction
from within. Much of this is already happening to many of you, as you are well aware, and more can
happen. At this time, in your realm of consciousness, you celebrate a symbolic event. You celebrate
the Christ-consciousness, or the divine consciousness deep within your own being. Most human
beings live a lifetime -- nay, many lifetimes -- without ever knowing that there is something within
that surpasses the ordinary consciousness. This extraordinary consciousness, the sublime
consciousness, must be awakened within the course of the evolutionary journey of each entity.
Here, on this path, you are learning to eliminate the obstructions and the obstacles. At this
particular time, when the birth of the Christ consciousness is celebrated, we shall talk about the
event as it begins to take place. Of course, my dearest friends, you do know that this does not
happen at once. It happens gradually, again and again. It occurs, is lost, recurs, and so on. Perhaps
you can see the tree that you light as a symbol: many, many candles have to be lit and be aflame
within you to bring the total consciousness to its eternal glow on the outer level of your manifest
existence. Each recognition, each insight, each honest admission, each shedding of a partial mask,
each breaking through of a defense, each step of courage and honesty where you take responsibility
for your negativity, is a lighting of yet another candle. You bring light into your soul by bringing
truth into your darkness.
But as long as you project your darkness outward, in order not to face your own shadows, you
cannot light the candles. The great lighting of the whole "tree" -- the tree of life -- is an ongoing
process. And the more candles are lit, the greater the joyousness and the glory become. With great
joy we observe how much more of this glory and this joy you, my dearest friends, are now being
able to activate and to stand!
These are not empty words, my friends. You who work on this path know how arduous it is
to take the emphasis away from the outside and turn it on yourself: to change from blaming and
resenting to seeing your own hatred, your own enviousness, your own greed and your fear of
recognizing it.
Now let us specifically talk about the need for self-acceptance. Again and again you lose sight
of its importance and you get stuck in your self-hate, which then makes you put the blame on
someone or something else. This is the danger. The more you hate yourself, the more you put your
hatred onto others, because self-acceptance seems too final a judgment, too self-annihilating. And
the more you project it outward, the more you lose your grip on truth and reality and the more you
hate yourself. Can you, at this time of commemorating the birth of your eternal Christ child within,
commit yourself to accepting every part of you? In this message I want to convey to you that there
is nothing whatever that need be rejected, nothing whatever you cannot accept and forgive. The
only thing that is truly destructive and makes you lose your bearing is not accepting and forgiving
and therefore acting out.
In every negative quality a positive one is embedded. I said this often, but mostly only in
general terms. The negative traits are nothing but distortions of positive divine expressions.
Perhaps you can all begin, at this particular time, to take the mental step to opening yourself to the
possibility that there is love and understanding where you now hate and judge. In your hatred you
are in darkness. In your denial of the hatred you are in a much bleaker darkness, much further away
from the light. You then become hopeless because you no longer know where you are. But step by
step you find your way back. You admit your hatred, and it is no longer quite so dark. You light a
candle with this truthful admission. And as you accept the infantile egocentricity within you, you
light another candle. For by accepting it, you will come to know that the infant can grow. Only in
the acceptance of the infantile egocentricity can you find the birth of the Christ within, of the eternal
consciousness that contains all there is. True strength, true creativity, true love, true security, all
these are candles that spring aglow from your honesty, your courage, your truthfulness, and from the
faith you cultivate, little by little, that makes you overcome your fear to go all the way with yourself,
to go through the fear and keep the possibility open that there is no abyss. There are only tunnels,
many tunnels, to go through. Going through tunnels brings more light, until finally, as in the
symbol of the Christmas tree, the lights converge into one point. In that one point is All -- all there
ever need be. It is the creative nucleus from which you can create life, circumstances, love and rich
fulfillment. When you no longer turn away from the darkness within you, realistic hope will grow
where now there seems to be no hope.
Much of this is already happening with you, my friends, and these words are given as
encouragement to continue on your beautiful path. Perhaps, at this opportunity, it will be very
helpful if we work on particular traits and aspects that you present to me, so that I will show their
positive, beautiful essence. In that way you will learn that there is nothing in you that is in itself
rejectable and unacceptable. There is only distortion. No matter how negative, destructive, evil,
dark, bad something may be, it is but a distortion of something beautiful. Even you, my friends,
who have been working on this path for some time and profoundly so, forget this truth, or do not
know how to apply it. You cannot quite make the specific connection. For that purpose it will be
very beneficial if you present me with some traits in which you can see only the distorted, bad
manifestation and not the original, beautiful essence. In understanding the specific, positive, original
components, you will find new strength and impetus to go through the smaller and bigger tunnels
on your path and light more candles.
QUESTION: I judge others all the time. What is the positive original component in that?
ANSWER: Apart from the obvious projection of your very harsh judgment against yourself
that you do not wish to acknowledge to the extent it exists, the original positive quality in being
judgmental is a great capacity to distinguish, to differentiate. It is the power to recognize, to be one-
pointedly aware. If you use this ability creatively and constructively, it is obviously a wonderful asset
without which a person would be incomplete. So, you see, nothing as such must be "thrown out,"
destroyed, negated. It must be transmuted. You all notice on this path that the more honestly and
constructively you see the truth in yourself, the keener your perception of others become, but in a
very different way from the judgmental attitude you mentioned. Use this asset on yourself and
others, but not with the kind of hostility and negation you now practice still too often. The truth
must prevail with forgiveness and understanding, with a readiness to understand deeper connections
so as not to judge in an ultimate and rejecting way. Transform negative judgement into recognition.
QUESTION: What is this trait I have in which nothing can ever get to me. There is a
defiance and a spite...
ANSWER: Defiance, spite, stubbornness, rigidity are all derivatives of the same blockage.
Their positive, original seed is the quality of being centered within, being firm, self-assertive,
standing your own ground, being secure in your own self, rather than being constantly swayed and
influenced by others and thus losing autonomy. My friends, it is very important that you recognize
the positive origin behind the distortion, but, at the same time, beware of using this knowledge in
order to justify, whitewash and thus perpetuate the distorted version of it. Use this knowledge, so
that you do not reject and eject the whole thing. The purpose of this explanation is to teach you
that there is nothing in you that is not originally divine. Learn that nothing must be denied and
ejected. But the differentiation must be made between its original and its distorted version.
QUESTION: I have a very strong lack of faith and do not want to believe in God.
ANSWER: This is a distortion of the healthy, realistic attitude regarding self-responsibility
and self-dependence, of knowing that there is no authority that will do it for you. It is a distortion
of the truth that you are a self-responsible agent, which, in reality, is not, of course, in opposition to
the deeper, wiser Godself the ego must surrender to. It is this divine self that alone can bring about
true selfhood, autonomy, independence. You have a stake in your lack of faith and in remaining
with the distortion. Whatever the nature of this stake, it must be unearthed. For whenever you
have a stake in not wanting to know the truth, you shut out the light.
One of the most important aspects to learn on your path is the ability to open all doors. You
should be aware that you deliberately wish to keep the doors closed. Always assume that you may
be mistaken, your view may be wrong, the truth may be different. After you are willing to let go of
your defensiveness for the sake of truth, after you let go of the tightness and fearfulness of your
opinion, you will find out whether you happened to be right about the issue in the first place. If it
then turns out to be true, you will come back to the same knowledge, but in a very different way. I
am not only speaking about the particular question you asked me, for God indeed exists. I speak
generally about the tightness of holding on to a belief that is so often totally mistaken and distorted.
Nothing makes you as unhappy as your own untruthful belief.
QUESTION: What is the positive aspect of a fearful, anxious state?
ANSWER: Fear, in general, is a distortion of caution, an awareness of something,
somewhere, being amiss. Specifically, in the human state, anxiety is always a sign of repression.
Such a state is a gauge for you that tells you that there is something you do not wish to see and that
makes you anxious. So anxiety is really not even a distortion of something positive; it is positive, in
the sense that it is a signpost pointing to where you wish to remain ignorant about yourself.
Whenever you are in anxiety, know this clearly, for it is the truth. Set out with full commitment to
the truth to find out what your denial is specifically. Go into deep meditation, preferably in the
presence and with the help of friends. Throw it all in, let go of everything that you hold on to. Let
the energy of the meditation of your friends also help you and then work it out together. You will
find it and thus light new candles. That choice always exists. Denial of the truth of the matter is
what creates anxiety. This may apply to many things.
QUESTION: I have a stake in being rebellious, in going against authority and even against
what I know to be the truth. What could possibly be positive in the origin of this destructiveness?
ANSWER: The original aspect, before distortion sets in, is a spirit of courage and
independence, a fighting spirit against submission to conformity. Only in its distorted version does
it become a blindly driven, senseless destructiveness.
QUESTION: What is the positive origin in my tendency to avoid taking responsibility for my
life, my tendency to avoid?
ANSWER: In its original, divine manifestation it is the quality of letting go and letting flow,
of not letting the ego-control take over and blot out the eternal flow of being, of not being cramped
and tight and overactive with the ego forces. It connotes giving in and surrendering to the flow of
being.
It is important that the knowledge I give you here should not be used to avoid facing what is
actually negative and destructive. Do not blindly apply it to distortions of distortions of distortions
and make a game of it. I give you this knowledge to perceive that there is nothing bad in itself
except what defense and error create temporarily.
QUESTION: What is the positive origin of playing the victim game?
ANSWER: The distortion is self-exoneration at the expense of making others guilty, whose
victim you profess to be. The truth is the longing for the perfect state you contain in your nucleus,
which is not a fixed perfectionism, but the ever moving, changing perfection of the innermost soul.
QUESTION: What is behind the defense and compulsion of telling jokes?
ANSWER: Life in the universe is joyous, pleasurable, it is light-hearted, it is humor. Humor
is a significant divine aspect. There cannot be beauty and love without humor.
QUESTION: Competitiveness? Self-centeredness, wanting to be the center of attention?
ANSWER: Self-centeredness is a direct distortion of seeking your inner center. If you are
centered within your divine self, then vanity and egotism stop. Vanity and egotism exist if the search
for the divine nucleus is applied to the separated ego. Ambitiousness and competitiveness are a
distortion of the inner movement to create the best that you can be. But, again, when put into the
service of the separated ego, it becomes an endeavor that sets oneself into opposition to another
self. In reality, on the divine level of inner truth this does not exist. All can be their best without
interfering with one another. In its original it is, "How can I be my potential best?" In its distortion
it manifests as, "How can I be better than others?"
QUESTION: Abuse of power, of a position of authority?
ANSWER: Distortion of true leadership. True leadership is taking responsibility, paying the
price for leadership. Distortion of it wants the glory of it, the advantages, in a selfish, vain way.
QUESTION: I can't imagine anything positive in the tendency to remove yourself, being
"cool," pretending to be different?
ANSWER: The divine original aspect is self-containment, self-sufficiency, impartiality,
serenity. In every healthy life there must exist a harmonious balance between sharing intimately with
others in a dynamic exchange, and being in solitude so as to refuel from within. They must coexist
in utter emotional comfort. When one is lacking, the other must also be lacking, until balance is
reestablished. If you are frightened by intimate contact, you will seek seclusion, which will then be
something lonely and maudlin, rather than the beautiful version in its original state, which is a time
of refueling, a time of going into yourself, of making contact with your inner being, of communing
with your inner and outer nature. Then the fruits of this self-containment can be given out again.
That would be the right balance.
December 24, 1973
II. GUIDE SESSION AT THE INAUGURATION OF THE CHILDREN'S ROOM
Greetings, my dearest young friends. With great joy do I speak to you this evening. I shall try
to give you what you need and to make myself understood. This is not easy, for I usually speak in a
very different way from the human language you are accustomed to. So words are not easy to
formulate. To explain things is difficult even to adults. But it is particularly difficult when I speak to
you. However, I shall try my best. If you do not understand, you can always ask what I mean. And
sometimes the understanding will come only much later. This, too, happens to grown-ups. Most
grown-ups do not immediately understand what I say, my young friends. They cannot always do
that because the inner understanding is blocked. But understanding often comes much later. So be
patient. Keep it in reserve, so to speak, if you cannot really comprehend what I say.
Now, before answering your questions, I would like to tell you a few things that may be
helpful.
You are all extremely fortunate in growing up with truth, with understandings that most
people do not have. Let me put a few of these basic truths in simple words for you to remember.
In the first place, my young friends, if you can believe that much more exists than you can see,
you will make room in yourself for a lot of wisdom. And many things that are confusing for people
will cease to be confusing to you as you grow a little older. For you must know, adults are as
confused as you are. The confusion often arises because you believe only in what you can see and
touch and that is a very short-sighted view. The more you can consider the possibility that things
you cannot see and touch are often much more real than those you can see and touch, you will gain
a new understanding of life.
Another thing I would like to tell you to help you is that no injustice exists, even if it seems
that way. Do not waste your time in complaining about injustice. If someone else seems to get
more than you, wait before making the final judgment that this is so. Allow yourself to consider that
there may be things you cannot see, that you may have other things that those whom you envy do
not have, and that there is a long chain of circumstances that is as yet invisible to you that makes
what appears an injustice quite just. At the same time it is also important to believe that those who
seem to have more not only do not have more, but they are not any more lovable or loved than you
are. Allow yourself to know that you are very lovable to God. And God is within you. Within
every one of you. You may not know this now because you are so busy with your outer mind. But
there is something within that you will find, that you will know, that you will hear, and that is the
most valuable thing you can find in life.
Perhaps these words will be written down for you so that you can remember them. And
when you forget them, which will happen again and again, you can always come back to them and
remember. That will make a lot of light for you in your life.
Now, before answering your questions, my very dearest friends, I would also say to you, I
know that this occasion is to bless this place, this room, in which you can experience a lot of joy and
fun and also a lot of learning, although this will not necessarily be school learning. You know there
is another learning. Let us call it life learning. Life learning is even more important than school
learning. Life learning is what the path can teach you. You can apply this as you are together here
in this room, where you can have joyful times, but also times of life learning.
For example, you older children can gain the freedom you so much wish to have, you so much
envy grown-up people for. You can gain more and more of that when you take responsibility. Now
this is a word you may not know what to do with. But little by little you can learn what this means.
It means looking out for your younger friends and helping them, giving them understanding, instead
of hitting back when they seem to do something that angers you. You can try to put yourself in the
place of the younger ones and in that way you can take responsibility. You can be patient rather
than impatient. That is taking responsibility. You can give rather than demand, and that is taking
responsibility. And then there is yet another way of taking responsibility. Instead of saying, "You
are wrong and I am right," "You are bad and I am good," which you seem to say many times when
you have misunderstandings and when you quarrel, you can question: "Maybe there is something in
me that is not so right." That is taking responsibility. And you can both look together for what is
right and what is not so right in each of you. By doing that you create a wonderful thing. You take
responsibility. And this responsibility will give you privileges and freedom that you will very much
enjoy.
Study these words and think about them and put them little by little into action. And if others
do not seem to love and appreciate you, that is not necessarily the truth. A harsh word does not
mean you are not loved. The important thing is that you know you are lovable even if you are
naughty, even if you are sometimes wrong. And you must be wrong sometimes, for all human
beings are, and you are human beings too, are you not?
Now, my friends, I am ready for your questions.
QUESTION: I find it very difficult to relate to people my own age. I can relate to older or
younger people, but never to my own age.
ANSWER: Yes. This is mostly because you are afraid, and because you are afraid you set up
a wall between you and them. You make yourself critical of them and then you must feel that they
are critical of you. In your mind they seem to have power over you, because they can criticize you,
they can reject you, and in that way you see them as much more powerful than you see yourself.
And in reality those others may be just as afraid of your judgment and your criticalness as you are of
theirs. And they endow you with as much power as you endow them with power in your own mind.
Now perhaps you can begin to question. First of all, you have to be aware of how afraid you are of
their judgments. Are you aware of that?
QUESTION: I think so, but I'm not sure.
ANSWER: Now maybe you can set out to observe yourself more closely in this respect, and
as you see your fear of their judgment, you can go to the next step and see how you judge them.
Are you aware of judging others?
QUESTION: Yes.
ANSWER: Well, that is the measure of your fear. And perhaps you can begin to see your
peer group as being just as afraid and unsure as you are. They may respond to a kind word as you
might respond to a kind word. In doing so you will eliminate the fear that separates you.
QUESTION: Well, I'm really afraid that my father's going to object to my name being
changed to Solomon. I'm really scared that he is going to say no.
ANSWER: Well, my dearest friend D., I say to you, you need not fear anything. Whether
your name will be changed or not, you need not fear. You are safe and secure, and this does not
depend on the name. It is very, very probable that sooner or later the name will be changed. But
you put too much importance on that. Perhaps in your private sessions you can see what a lot of
your fears really are, and they have nothing to do with the name. Can you understand what I'm
saying?
QUESTION: Yes.
ANSWER: It is very important that you see that your fears are illusions. But in order to really
believe that your fears are illusions and you do not have to fear anything, that you are protected and
guided and loved, you have to see what these fears are and work them through with your helper. If
you like to, you can even work in an adult group with the help of the adult friends you have here.
For they are your friends and they can help you. And it depends on you whether you accept that
help or not. You, all my younger friends, have the right to ask for help. Do not set a wall between
you and the grown-up world. There is no wall unless you make one. And then with that help you
can lose your fears more and more. Do you understand that?
QUESTION: Yes, thank you.
QUESTION: Well, I worry a lot, mostly about problems I don't even have to worry about.
And I'd like your help to get over this problem.
ANSWER: Yes. Well, your worrying about problems that are not problems is perhaps also a
way for you, similar to D., that you look away from what you really feel and what really disturbs you
and then you create something else instead. So I say to you too, with the help that you have, you
can truly find what your real fears are. These fears are all a result of something you misunderstand
somewhere. All adults have such misunderstandings. Again, this is not peculiarly so because you
are children. Some of you children are very, very developed spirits. But you still have
misunderstandings. You have been helped in this lifetime and guided to this particular path in your
very young years so that you can free yourself of the fears -- fears that come only from
misunderstandings. Maybe you can always remember that your fears are misunderstandings, false
beliefs. And you, too, can ask your adult friends to help you find what the misunderstandings are.
With their help you can find out that you do not need to fear something that is painful, or
something that is at the moment not the way you want it. It is not bad when that happens. Often
you think it is bad. But it is not really bad. Do you understand?
QUESTION: I think so. Thank you.
QUESTION: Sometimes I feel very sloppy, and I want everything to be very messy, like
things thrown around where I live. And sometimes I feel like I want everything to be very nice.
Why do I want things to be sloppy and messy?
ANSWER: Well, I would say perhaps because you are angry and do not know that you are
angry. Is that possible? Maybe it would be very helpful for you if you feel you want to be
disorderly, sloppy as you say, to ask yourself, "Am I angry? What am I angry about?" It is so much
better to know what you really feel than to not know what you feel. Then it comes about and
around in a different way and then you become confused. It is very important to avoid this
confusion and the pathwork can help you to avoid such confusion by teaching you to know when
you are angry.
Perhaps I can say a few words to all of you about anger. So much of the anger you have, and
therefore also of the fear, is because you do not always get what you want right away. Now it is very
important, for your happiness and your contentment, and for your living without fear, that you
understand exactly what I mean by this. Not having what you want is not a terrible thing. You can
perhaps allow in your mind that it is okay not to get what you want. Maybe you can tell yourself
that, yes, it would be nice to have it now, but maybe I can have what I want in a different way, at a
different time. The only way you can truly be free is if you do not insist on other things and other
people in the same fearful way you do now. You can really learn that, even while you are as young
as you are.
You can begin to learn that you can question the necessity to have it right now, even though
having it might be pleasant. And you can perhaps also have the faith that the loving God in you
wants you to be happy and will make you happy if you learn these lessons and stop thinking that you
will not be happy if you do not have it every way you want it, immediately. So much of your anger
and much of your fear is because of that misunderstanding, that you think you cannot be happy
unless you have your way at once. Your disorderliness or your desire to be disorderly is because you
are angry. And you are angry because you do not always get your way. Do you see that?
QUESTION: Yes.
QUESTION: A lot of times you said that such and such is childish. I want to know what
you mean by that.
ANSWER: Let us make a distinction between childish and childlike. Childlike is beautiful,
and no adult can be truly joyful and creative and happy unless they preserve also their childlikeness.
Childlikeness means the capacity to be joyous and adventurous and to find out the excitement of
new things, to be fresh and to question and to learn and not to have a set mind in which one thinks
one knows everything. That is being childlike and that is an invaluable quality that you should truly
nurture in you.
By childish I mean immature. Immaturity is the misunderstanding, the ignorance of the very
young who have to learn and see what life is all about. It is perhaps the quality I just described, the
inability to accept frustration, which is childish or immature. It is the false belief that if you do not
have what you want immediately, you will perish, or something very bad will happen, or you can
never be happy again. That is childish. So is the inability to take discipline. That is childish in the
sense that a person who is unable to take discipline is governed by a false understanding, and this is
very different from the childlike quality that is so valuable. Do you see what I mean?
QUESTION: I want to know, when I grow up will there still be a Center? I'm really worried
about it.
ANSWER: There will always be a center. That center is primarily within you and then you
will always find the outer center. But this particular Center will indeed be much more than it is now.
For this is only a beginning. And it will become more and more beautiful, more and more alive,
more and more joyous, as all of you make this Center grow, including you, my younger friends, who
will, when you grow up, be the center of, the responsible people of, this Center.
QUESTION: I'd like to ask if you could help me understand why I'm so afraid of being
considered a child.
ANSWER: Maybe you are afraid because you think it is bad or inferior or dumb to be a child.
But that is not so at all. Is it possible that you are afraid of that? And that you also believe that as a
child you are helpless, that you are dependent, and you do not trust some of the grownups to
depend on? All that may be part of it. And maybe you can pray inside of you that you can trust that
God in you will guide you right. And you do not have to fear any age because whatever the age is, it
is right and good. Every age has its own particular beauty and advantage.
QUESTION: (an adult question): So many children are afraid of things like monsters
coming out of the closet at night. Could you perhaps help with this?
ANSWER: I would like to answer this in the following way. Perhaps there are two parts to
this answer. If you are very excited by monsters and there is an excitement and interest in them, like
reading about them, then you will also create a fear of them. And the other part of the answer is:
Perhaps if you are very angry and you have hate in you and you think you are so bad because you
hate, then you create the idea of a monster. And if you can really say, "Yes, I hate and it is due to a
misunderstanding, and I will work that through, I will work with my hate," then the fear of monsters
will go away. You will not be so fascinated by these spooky things.
And now I would like to say to all of you, my younger friends, that this is a very meaningful
meeting. And whenever you want it, you can have another session with me. You can ask more
questions and ask me for help, either in the form of a session particularly for you, or when you come
to general sessions, which are as much for you as for the grownups. You have as much right to this
help as anyone else. I want you to know that.