The Text - Section 47
47. THE WALL WITHIN
Greetings in the name of the Lord. Blessings for all of you, my dear friends. Blessed is this
hour.
Every human being desires to strive for perfection, for the ability to love, and for true
goodness, for light and truth. The desire lives in the divine spark of every being, but in its pure state
it does not always penetrate all the layers of imperfection that surround the spark. We see it as
though the sun were shining through dirty glass and the rays coming out on the other side took on
hazy shades.
But, dear friends, quite apart from this higher-self desire, the desire for perfection comes also
from the lower self. This is so with all people who have realized that selfishness and self-serving
aims do not bring many desirable results. If you were to serve only the aims of your essential lower
self you would certainly not be loved and admired. Therefore, the desire for goodness is also selfish.
Understand this and recognize within yourself that the desire for goodness does not necessarily and
exclusively come from your higher self. This is a confusing problem for many human beings. You
can gain clarity only if you become aware of your emotions, desires, and motives. Then you can
separate the pure motive from the selfish one. This confusion is so strong at times that many
people become uncertain whether to follow the desire for goodness, particularly after discovering
the selfish motives. You should certainly continue to aim for the right and good within yourself and
in your actions, but you should also be clear as to what extent your desire is colored by selfishness.
This conflict is often not yet conscious. You are aware that you do want the good, the true, and the
beautiful, but there is also a voice within that asks quite clearly, "Is it really pure goodness, pure
unselfishness if I do such and such?" You become confused and uncertain about your own good
motives.
Only the very blind, those human beings who are still spiritual infants, seek selfish ends and
believe that their selfishness will serve their purpose. Whoever has outgrown spiritual infancy
knows very well that serving one's own ends often brings greater disadvantage than resisting such
selfish impulses. At this level, the entity has outgrown the most primitive stage, but has not yet
reached the stage where the desire for selfishness has been emotionally outgrown. This is the stage
most of you find yourselves in, and it is this very struggle that we are concerned with.
The first step is always to recognize the meaning of your various desires, motives, and feelings.
From there on, the path becomes easier. Recognize where your desire for goodness comes from
your divine spark and where it does not. Once you have gained clarity, you will have not only made
a further step in self-knowledge, but the recognition -- even though by no means flattering or
comfortable -- will give you added peace of mind. The moment you fully accept the idea that
selfishness still has a larger place in you than you were ready to admit before, and are willing to let
go of wanting to be more perfect than you presently are, you have begun to face yourself in the true
sense of the word. Coming off your high horse is healthy; and health, emotional or otherwise, must
have a very good effect on you. Truth is always healthy and soothing when one has made up one's
inner mind not to fight against it anymore.
As the human being develops spiritually and matures emotionally, self-knowledge continues
on ever deeper levels. On the most superficial level of development, "good" is done outwardly but
one harbors selfish and evil thoughts quite consciously and knowingly. When confronted with such
a situation there are two forms of behavior. On this path one tries in a spirit of true understanding
and humility to accept oneself as one is at the moment, and also to accept one's inability to change
as yet. One has the courage to admit to oneself that perfection is still far away, in spite of the outer
good deeds one performs mainly in order to conform and to gain admiration. The other alternative
is to rationalize, justify, and self-righteously "explain" harboring such evil or unkind desires, while
seeking self-justification in the shortcomings of others. This you would call hypocrisy. Many people
fall into this category.
This type of behavior is so crass and elementary that we do not have to bother with it. The
case becomes infinitely more difficult when the same hypocrisy becomes subtler and more deeply
buried. Good desires are superimposed on selfish ones, which are suppressed and relegated to the
unconscious. This is partly due to the sincere strivings of the higher self and partly to the selfish
ends of the lower self. Here begin the human conflicts that render a soul sick and weak. We are
concerned, for there is no human being to whom this does not apply in one way or another.
The more you keep the selfish motives suppressed, the more confusion and disorder are
created within you. A basic misunderstanding exists here: you realize that the first category, the
most primitive form of hypocrisy, is distasteful, therefore you suppress your true emotions, because
of the wrong conclusion that there is no alternative. You make yourself unaware of the existence of
wrong desires because you think that otherwise you would have to be like those hypocrites whom
you do not admire for their attitude. You ignore the third alternative which is the only healthy one.
This approach leads to the perfection you strive for: facing and admitting the wrong desires without
giving in to them, and yet without suppressing their existence. The beginning is always the most
difficult, and that is the sorting out of your emotions, finding their meaning, facing all that you have
looked away from.
The more you learn self-honesty, the deeper can the truth penetrate into the core of the soul.
But it takes a lot of doing before the core is reached. Wherever the conscious emotions, opinions,
thoughts, conclusions, and desires are separated from those which are unconscious, we can see a
wall in the human soul. You all know that thoughts and feelings create forms of subtle matter which
are of a substance every bit as real as your material substance. So this wall is a reality and, alas, often
a greater reality than your matter. For your matter is much easier to destroy than some of these
walls. This side of the wall is what you face and know. Behind the wall you store all that which is
unpleasant to face. You store not only your faults and weaknesses, but also all things that confuse
and frighten you. Due to an unconscious wrong conclusion, you continue to fear all that is locked
behind the wall and prevent yourself from facing it.
Now what is the spiritual substance of this wall, my friends? For spiritual substance is not a
material that you use because you choose it as when you build a form in your material world. You
make your choice of material according to taste and necessity, but the material has nothing to do
with you. Spiritual substance, on the other hand, is the product of your thinking, feeling, and being,
and it is formed from them.
You cannot use something you have not got. And you have only that which you are. The
substance of your inner wall is partly your goodwill that is ineffective because of wrong conclusions
and ignorance. Do not forget that the purpose of the wall is to keep the negative in hiding, and one
of the motives of this desire is actually misapplied goodwill. But it consists also of cowardice, pride,
self-will, and impatience. Your impatience mounts because in your ignorance you think and wish to
attain perfection more expeditiously by simply erecting this wall and locking up what would take
much more time and effort to eliminate. You are too impatient and also too lazy to really tackle
what lies behind the wall. All these trends are the building materials of the wall in your soul.
As one progresses on the path of self-knowledge and perfection, one slowly begins to take out
certain trends and attitudes from behind the wall and transpose them into consciousness. All of you
know the process by which this is done. It is the work I advocate and teach. In this process, the
wall recedes. The more comes out from behind the wall, the fewer trends remain locked in. This is
good work, and it needs to go on and on. But, my friends, this wall must one day disintegrate if you
want to be whole and truly healthy. As long as you retain any part of the wall within yourself, no
matter how much you have succeeded in making it recede, you are not yet whole. You do not
function as God meant you to function. Therefore, your aim has to be to destroy the wall
altogether. In most cases, this cannot be done at once and if it is hastily attempted, people can
suffer breakdowns and all sorts of other complications. In many cases it is advisable to make the
wall recede and to gradually lift out what is behind it. Thus the wall not only recedes, but if properly
done, the substance itself weakens. Otherwise, one may succeed in taking out certain things and
pushing the wall a little into the background, but there it will remain in full force -- perhaps even
getting stronger. I will explain in a moment how this could happen and how to ward off the danger.
Let me emphasize again how important it is to be aware of the necessity of one day destroying
your wall. This can and should happen without unduly shaking up the personality. Your spiritual
rebirth can occur only after the wall has disappeared. Then your soul stands naked in front of your
Maker, in front of yourself. For you have to become that naked, that empty so that divine substance
can fill you and take root within yourself. As long as your rigid wall remains, however weak,
however pushed back it may be, the divine substance is ineffective to the degree of the strength of
the wall. In other words, the stronger the wall, the weaker the effect of the divine substance that is
waiting to penetrate and fill you.
So, my dear friends, all of you who work on this path so successfully, visualize this wall within
yourselves. You can find it in meditation, you will sense it by observing your reactions, and you will
then know where the wall stands. After locating it, it will be much easier for you to finally succeed
in eliminating it altogether.
And now I shall speak about a danger you must guard against. It is the hazard of getting off
to a good start in extricating some hidden trends from behind the wall but strengthening the wall
unconsciously by employing halfway measures. When and how does this happen? It happens when
a true thought, teaching, philosophy or recognition serves as a camouflage behind which you
continue to hide. This happens so frequently, my friends. No truth is exempt from this fate. Many
people search for truth; and truth can come to you through many channels. But no matter how
sincere the search is, almost everyone wants to resist facing certain things within. The two
contradictory desires can coexist; one searches for the truth, and one can use these truths to
reinforce the wall. So you can hide your faults, emotional conflicts, fears, and negative trends
behind a truth. In its crass and superficial version this misuse of truth is easy to recognize. You
recognize it in any fanatic, in anyone who adheres rigidly to dogma, in whatever religion. Such a
person may commit all sorts of wrongs, have all sorts of wrong reactions, while he propounds the
religious truth of his choosing.
But do not forget that, in principle, the same thing goes on in almost every human being, only
in a much more subtle way. And if you become sensitive, if you raise your intuition, you will hear
and notice this pattern very well when one of your brothers or sisters falls into it. You will object to
it, yet you will ignore that you do the same thing, only you use another truth as a shield. This may
be a religious, spiritual, metaphysical truth, a philosophical truth; it may be pure ethics and morals,
without any religious implications; it may be psychology, or psychoanalysis. Many theories, terms,
and expressions that you use are true and as such are good. But the moment they are used in that
way, they are abused and they therefore lose their validity. They become dead, rigid, and
meaningless. No truth is exempt from this fate if you are not watchful, if you do not look out for
this tendency in yourself. The very teachings I give you can be abused in the same way. It is never
done on purpose, of course, but unknowingly.
For instance, when you use certain terms and do not feel their true meaning anymore, then the
time has come to check yourself to see whether or not you have fallen unconsciously into this trap.
You may even hide behind a true recognition about yourself, let us say an image, a wrong
conclusion, or certain faults you have found. You may hide behind that, you may use that as the
outer facade of your wall. It is as though something in you said, "I go that far, not further. I am
willing to admit such and such now, but not more. The admission of certain faults and inner
negativities will pacify those who help me to reach the core of my being. No one can say then that I
am unwilling. But what really bothers me, I will not voluntarily expose. I have found a good way to
be able to go on hiding."
Perhaps all this sounds strange to you and you may still not grasp what I mean. Let me try to
make it a little clearer. Let us assume you have started on this path with good faith and goodwill and
you have progressed well. You have made certain major recognitions. You have passed the stage
when your resistance to face yourself manifested in finding excuses and rationalizations for not
going on such a path, in spite of your search for it. Thus you have broken the first resistance and
pushed the wall considerably into the background, allowing certain information to filter through. At
this point you are well launched on the path itself, while previously you were only struggling to get
on it. But do not imagine that then all resistance is overcome for good. For as long as you maintain
the wall, resistance is inevitable, and only the form and manifestation of the resistance will be
different. While before you had all sorts of doubts, misgivings, excuses, and pretexts about entering
this path, you now work and discover, but still with some reservations. And in order to justify this
reservation, you now take the findings you have made so far and build them up. You may even let
them grow to disproportionate significance to prevent yourself from penetrating deeper. You use
the same words again and again until they become rigid and no longer carry the living life-force.
Any truth must do just that. If it no longer does, if the words have become automatic, then the time
has come to examine yourself from this point of view and find your wall again. Once you are aware
of it, you can wage a healthy battle with your ignorance and resistance.
Only you yourself can find out when and how you are hiding behind your wall, and what truth
you are misusing. Only by examining your feelings, by listening into your emotions can you get the
answer. The fact that you have overcome the initial resistance and won your first victory is, in most
cases at least, a milestone indicating that you will not leave this path again. But this does not mean
that other resistances do not lie in wait, that other victories do not have to be won. Although you
may never leave this path, you may get stuck at a certain point and go around in circles without
penetrating deeper. This happens when truth and true findings are used as hideouts.
The unconscious is congenitally opposed to giving up its subterfuges. It considers coming out
into the open a grave danger. It is ignorant and draws utterly erroneous conclusions in this respect,
as in many others. Therefore it is opposed to let the wall crumble and concocts all sorts of ruses to
prevent you from working in this direction, no matter how good your intentions may be. This
should be a warning for you to show you what the danger point may be at this time, in what
direction to look within yourselves, so as to gain further victories and penetrate deeper into your
souls. Now you will know from what angle to approach yourselves to avoid stagnation. Is this
clear, my friends?
Think well about what I have said. I pointed out a hidden danger, a subtle danger. If you are
truly desirous of making the wall crumble, to become empty and naked in your soul, then you will
feel quite clearly where and in exactly what way your own wall exists. It is always easier to notice it
in the other person, but one is utterly unaware about it in oneself. You may hide behind a different
truth, behind a different recognition, yet you also may hide just as much as the other person. Take
your intent into your prayers, my friends. Ask God to help you first to see the wall and then give
you the courage and the humility to break it down.
And now, before we turn to your questions, I should like to tell you that a plan has
materialized for a second smaller group to be formed, similar to the first so-called inner circle. We
would recommend this very much. In such common group work you can accomplish much. You
can help one another. Everyone of you who is working in image-finding teams should get into
additional group work where you can discuss your problems, difficulties, and successes. At the same
time, it will help many to form a bond. We encourage and we bless this undertaking.
And now, my dear friends, I am ready for your questions.
QUESTION: Are currents, as you use the expression psychologically, used by the
unconscious or conscious mind as an instrument? In other words, is the unconscious or conscious
mind an instrument, or are they connected or identical?
ANSWER: We cannot say it is either way. A current is actually a result of your feelings, your
thoughts, emotions, attitudes. It is the sum total of your conscious and unconscious trends and
traits. It is that which governs you and brings your life and that which happens to you into certain
channels.
Let us take the current of self-will. It is there. You use it, whether consciously or
unconsciously makes no difference. The using of the self-will generates a current, and the current
has an effect. The current of self-will is not the self-will itself. It is the self-will at work. Self-will
could be dormant, it could be unused. Then the current would be weak, or so hidden in its effects
that the personality would never know what causes the effects. But if it is used, even in the
unconscious, even if it does not manifest as such, even if it manifests in a very roundabout and
hidden way, the manifestation of it is caused by the current. Imagine it as something like electricity.
Certain conditions are necessary to produce electric current. It is exactly the same thing. The
electric current is a result of the conditions that can bring it forth. Is that clear?
QUESTION: But the conscious or unconscious mind then would be an instrument or
storehouse?
ANSWER: Well, a storehouse is not the same as an instrument. It is the mind that produces
it, the unconscious or the conscious mind. You can say that it is the personality, made up of the
conscious and the unconscious mind, that produces it. Therefore it is not the instrument. An
instrument is something passive. But the mind actively produces currents.
QUESTION: Where does a "must" end and a duty start? How do you distinguish between
the two?
ANSWER: The "must" or the compulsion is always a result of untruthful, mixed, and
confused motives. Duty is something entirely voluntary. If you fulfill a duty without compulsion,
you do so because you decided it. It may be something that life seems to force upon you. But once
you recognize that you cannot live life entirely as you would choose, that life brings situations and
predicaments which one has to accept, whether one likes them or not, the healthy attitude is to say
yes to life as it is. Then you voluntarily accept a duty. If you do not accept it emotionally and do the
duty because you have no other choice, you are acting under a compulsion, against your will, and
then it is a "must." I have taught you, for instance, that life's imperfections have to be accepted in
that spirit. This includes also things that become your duty. He who constantly rebels against these
imperfect conditions even though the rebellion may be quite unconscious, acts against his will, like a
child who is forced to obey. The mature attitude is the free one. This real kind of freedom does not
mean that one can always do exactly as one pleases, but that one accepts the necessary with a willing
spirit, with an inward "yes." In other words, the borderline is in the very fine distinction between
saying yes to an imposed or inevitable duty, or struggling against it and being forced to accept it
against one's will. The difference lies in your attitude.
QUESTION: What is the connection and the difference between the aura of a person and his
present sphere -- or the soul picture?
ANSWER: These are entirely different things. One has nothing to do with the other. The
sphere is built up by the person's deeds, thoughts, attitudes and feelings. It does not change quickly,
because change in the personality cannot come about quickly. Therefore, the sphere is more static
and will remain until the personality changes. It is the product of one's life and will afterward
become the entity's spiritual home.
The aura is the emanation of the personality and has nothing directly to do with what you
build. Perhaps we can best explain it this way: The sphere is the result of your activity. The activity
may also be an unconscious one. It is the activity of your soul. The aura is the product of your
passive state. It is the product of that in you which is the state of being. It is what you are, not what
you do. That is the best way I can explain it. I have no other words. And as far as manifestation is
concerned, the difference is strong. A clairvoyant can see a person's aura, that which emanates from
the subtle bodies and penetrates the physical body. It reflects, in fluctuating colors, various moods,
diseases of body and soul, the basic character type that you are. The spiritual sphere you build with
your activity can be seen by very few clairvoyants, unless they are given such sight with our help for
a specific purpose. It is something that not every human being carries about. I cannot express it in
any other way. I know it is difficult to understand, but you will have to make the best of my words.
QUESTION: In connection with your lecture on authority, could you give any further advice
to a person who finds that with a particular form of authority he is unconsciously a law-upholder,
but consciously he is a definite law-breaker to the point of acute resentment, dislike, and intolerance
toward this particular authority?
ANSWER: I will gladly answer this question. Once the recognition has been made that
unconsciously one is a law-upholder, while one rebels consciously, particularly against a certain form
of authority, the foundation for change is laid. Without this recognition, nothing can be changed.
The next step is what I say again and again: Observe your reactions in your everyday life from this
viewpoint: "What do I feel? How would I want to be? Why do I react this way? What lies behind
this reaction? What are the emotions that drive me to react in one instance like this and in exactly
the opposite way in the other? Why am I once a law-upholder and once a law-breaker?
When you finally succeed in answering these questions by learning to make your emotions
conscious and articulate, you will understand deeper layers of your being that are responsible for the
reactions you have recently discovered. But they are not yet the final answers. They only lead to
them.
Make constant and detached observations of your daily reactions. Find your attitude toward
them, and learn from them to find what lies behind them. This in itself is already a curing agent to a
large degree. Furthermore, by doing all this without haste, without tension, but with steady
perseverance, you will see all the wrong conclusions that are connected with such attitudes. The
important thing is then to think these conclusions through, to see why and how they are wrong, and
what the right conclusion would be. Cultivate this process of questioning and observe how the
emotions -- which work slower than the brain mechanism -- still adhere to their old patterns. Then
these emotions will begin to change gradually, at first almost imperceptibly. This is the only way, my
friends.
In this connection, I would like to mention something I have recently said in a private session
because I deem it important enough for all of you.
Authority is not only that which emotionally represents the enemy, the restricting forces that
prohibit your doing what you wish. Authority can also be represented for you personally by the very
people you love most, because you are dependent on them. Most of you go through this in
childhood. After childhood this situation may repeat itself for the adult in a somewhat different
version.
You love your parents, and yet they are your authority. The conflict came into existence
because you loved them. You may wonder how to solve the problem which is that you cannot help
feeling dependent on the one you love, and therefore this person becomes your authority. The
answer to this question is: Examine your love and find the right middle path. One extreme is the
inability to give up the self and therefore the inability to love at all; also too strong a fear and self-
will, which prevent you from letting go of the self. The other extreme is an overdependency that
arises from the tendency to let go too much in the wrong direction. Wherever such lack of balance
exists, other unhealthy and harmful currents prevail, and the balance has to be established by
becoming aware of the problem and looking at it squarely until you recognize either of these two
wrong extremes. The more frequent tendency is to not give up the self at all. Look at it again and
again. Merely acknowledge it, and pray for guidance and recognition. Then, gradually, your
emotions will find the right middle way.
The person for whom the loved one becomes the authority because of an overdependency
will learn that though in a healthy and true love one does give oneself up entirely, but one retains the
self in a new way that does not keep the personality unfree and dependent. You must get yourself
back renewed and freer than ever by letting go of yourself entirely. The fear of giving up the self is a
very common failing, it is a frequent cause of sickness. But there are also cases where the opposite
extreme exists. Yet the opposites are now more similar and nearer to one another than you may
think. The true giving up will choose the right way and the right circumstances where no abuse is
ever possible, where the other's maturity meets one's own maturity. The immature person will
blindly choose the object that may take advantage of the giving up the self. And the fear of this
creates the extreme of prohibiting the self from giving itself up at all. Maturity is conscious
understanding, which, in turn, raises the intuitive powers that will make the right choice where no
one takes undue advantage.
QUESTION: How does the spirit world judge a person who is searching for truth, yet
escapes from himself and chooses the easy way out?
ANSWER: That depends entirely on the development of the person in question. The same is
not expected of everyone. There are people who merely try to live right and to not commit crimes,
who live an average, decent life. For them this is the most that can be expected. It requires all of
their effort to do just that. It is all they are capable of in this incarnation. Such a person finds more
fulfillment than one who goes on the path only half-heartedly and stops midway. The latter may not
be doing his or her best.
You human beings are always inclined to judge everyone alike. We cannot do so because
everyone is of a different spiritual age. Everyone has reached a different stage of development in
different respects of his or her personality. There are different basic factors to be considered. The
characteristics, the strengths, and the tasks are different, according to former incarnations. If, for
instance, someone capable of searching and facing the self gives up because of laziness, pride, or for
whatever reasons that follow the line of least resistance, the result must be felt by the entity.
We in the spirit world do not judge in a moralizing way; we do not punish. All that is wrong.
There is no such thing. You punish yourself. If you go against your own plan, if you do not do
what you set out to do when you came into this life, you draw circumstance toward you that will
finally corner you and this is for your own good. You can observe this with some people. Life
corners them, not because God punishes them, but because they have set certain forms in motion
that oppose their life plan. When the life plan is violated, the life plan itself begins to work so as to
bring about fulfillment. If the choice of the personality is directed against it, the life plan must work
differently than if the person had adhered to it. But the result must always be the same.
The experiences and the time element will certainly be different. But the end result must be
the same. For the life plan works to establish balance and harmony. The more ignorantly the
personality works against the balance and harmony, the more disharmonious the process of
establishing balance and harmony must be, but come it must in the end. Such is the healing force of
nature. The same healing force works in the elements, in the body, as well as in the soul. Whenever
something seeks to bring the universal forces out of balance, the healing forces of nature step in to
bring back the balance. But this very balancing out may often seem like an upheaval. In the soul,
when you go against your plan, exactly the same kind of outbreak takes place as in a thunderstorm
or an earthquake. But in the end the balance is reestablished. For nothing else can make you see
and reconsider the direction you have taken except the apparent upheavals of your own making that
are the medicine of nature.
For a long time you may delude yourself into believing that all the mishaps in your life are due
to injustice, to malice, and to the faults of others. But there is a limit as to how long you can go on
believing that. Eventually the situation must arise when you are cornered in your own errors, when
you are confronted with the undeniable fact that you yourself have produced the misery, and that
will wake you up and make you change your course. That is the way we view it. We know this
benevolent healing law as it simply exists in the universe. And when we see a human being we know
at once by the forms in the soul, by the pictures within, whether he or she is going entirely according
to the soul's plan, or partly so, deviating a little bit but not enough to lose course entirely, or whether
entirely away from his or her own road and thus producing and slowly building up the conditions
that finally appear like tragedy but that are nothing but the creation of nature's healing forces.
My dearest friends, I am allowed to bring blessings to all of you and to your dear ones, here
on earth as well as in the spirit world: blessings of healing, blessings of love, strength and courage.
Go on this path, my dear ones. And those of you who have not yet found the way, pray that God
show you His will and His truth which is the only truth. Open yourself to be receptive for this truth
only. Go in peace, my dearest ones, receive our love which envelops every one of you. And if you
send out your inner feelers, you will all know that you are not alone. Be in God!