The Text - Section 50
50. THE VICIOUS CIRCLE
Greetings, my dearest friends. God bless this gathering, God bless all of you.
Tonight I shall discuss one of the vicious circles that is very common among human beings.
To some degree it operates in every human soul. Most of the time it lives in the subconscious,
although some parts of this circle may be conscious. It is important in this work that you follow the
circle until you uncover it in its entirety, for otherwise you cannot dissolve it. My words are not
addressed so much to your conscious mind, to your intellect, but to the level of your emotions
where this vicious circle exists.
Even if you are aware of some parts of the vicious circle, use these words to search for all the
other parts you are still unaware of. Perhaps there are a few among you who are utterly unaware of
any part of this circle. In that case and to begin with, these words will guide you to make at least one
part conscious. This will not be so difficult because many of your symptoms will easily show you
that, though unconscious, the circle very much lives within you. Still, do not interpret these words
to mean that you consciously think and react according to the vicious circle; realize that it is hidden.
It will be up to you to make the chain reaction conscious in your work on this path of self-finding
and self-development. Becoming conscious of these hidden currents will give you freedom and
victory.
Most of my friends realize that an illogical way of thinking, feeling, and reacting exists in every
personality, even though consciously you may know a better logic. Everything in the unconscious is
primitive, ignorant, and very often illogical, although it does follow a certain limited logic of its own.
The vicious circle that is my subject tonight begins in childhood, where all images are formed.
The child is helpless; it needs to be taken care of; it cannot stand on its own two feet; it cannot make
mature decisions; it cannot be independent of weak and selfish motives -- and therefore must
depend on other human beings to a certain degree. Hence the child is incapable of unselfish love.
The mature adult grows into it provided the whole personality matures harmoniously and provided
that none of the childish reactions remain hidden in the unconscious. If they do, only part of the
personality will grow while another part -- and a very important one at that -- will remain immature.
There are very few adults who are as mature emotionally as they are intellectually.
The child desires to be loved; in fact, it needs to be loved. If an adult existed who was able to
give a semblance of divine love, the conflict we are discussing here would not arise. But even in this
case, the inner problems of an entity would never be solved. For nothing can really be solved by
what another person can or cannot do! That is why life on this imperfect and unpurified planet is
necessary for every soul who is not yet pure.
The child comes in contact with more or less imperfect surroundings that bring its inner
problems to the fore. Because of the lack of divine love, the child in its ignorance craves an
exclusive love that is neither divine nor humanly possible. The love it wants is selfish; it does not
want to share love with others, with brothers or sisters or even with the other parent. The child is
often unconsciously jealous of both parents. Yet, if the parents do not love each other, the child
suffers even more. So the first conflict arises from two opposite desires. On the one hand the child
wants the love of each parent exclusively; on the other, it suffers if the parents do not love each
other. Since the love-capacity of any parent is imperfect, the child misunderstands that, despite the
imperfection, most parents are still fully capable of loving more than one person. The child feels
excluded and rejected if the parent also loves others, however. In short, the exclusive love the child
craves can never be gratified. Furthermore, whenever the child is prohibited from having its way,
that serves as an additional "proof" to the child that it is not sufficiently loved.
This frustration causes the child to feel rejected, which, in turn, causes hatred, resentment,
hostility, and aggression. This is the second part of the vicious circle. The need for love that cannot
be gratified causes hatred and hostility toward the very people one loves most. Generally speaking,
this is the second conflict of the growing human being. If the child hated someone it did not love at
the same time, if it loved in its own way and did not desire love in return, this conflict could not
arise. The very fact that hatred exists for the very person one loves dearly creates an important
conflict in the human psyche. It is self-evident that the child feels ashamed of these negative
emotions, and therefore it puts this conflict into the subconscious where it festers. The hatred
causes guilt because the child is taught early that it is bad, wrong, and sinful to hate, particularly
one's parents whom one is supposed to love and honor. It is this guilt, living on and on in the
subconscious, which in the adult personality causes all sorts of inner and outer conflicts. Moreover,
people are unaware of the roots of these conflicts until they decide to find out what is hidden in
their subconscious.
The guilt has a further, and again inevitable, reaction. Feeling guilty, the unconscious says, "I
desire to be punished." Thus a fear of punishment arises in the soul, which again is almost always
completely unconscious. However, the manifestations can be found in various symptoms, which, if
followed through, will finally lead to the chain reactions I will describe next.
With the fear of punishment a further reaction sets in. Whenever you are happy and enjoy
pleasure, in spite of this being a natural longing, you feel you do not deserve it. The guilt of hating
those it loves most, convinces the child that it is undeserving of anything good, joyful, or
pleasurable. The child feels that if it were ever to become happy, the punishment, which seems
inevitable, would be that much greater. Therefore the child unconsciously avoids happiness,
thinking to atone in this way and thus to avoid even greater punishment. The avoidance creates
situations and patterns that always seem to destroy everything most dearly wished for in life.
It is this fear of happiness that leads a person to all sorts of unhealthy reactions, symptoms,
endeavors, manipulations of emotions, and even to actions which indirectly create patterns that
appear as if they happened involuntarily, without the personality being responsible for them at all.
Thus a further conflict comes into existence. On the one hand, the personality is yearning for
happiness and fulfillment, on the other, a fear of happiness prohibits the fulfillment. Although the
desire for happiness can never be eradicated, yet, due to this deeply hidden guilt feeling, the stronger
one desires happiness, the guiltier one feels. Many personal as well as mass images are gathered
along the way, all helping to fortify this chain reaction.
Now, the fear of being punished and the fear of not deserving happiness create a further and
more complicated reaction. The unconscious mind thinks, "I am afraid to be punished by others,
although I know I deserve it. It is much worse to be punished by others, for then I am really at the
mercy of others, be it people, be it the fates, be it God, be it life itself. But perhaps if I punished
myself I could at least avoid the humiliation, the helplessness, and the degradation of being punished
by forces outside myself." These basic conflicts of love and hatred, of guilt and fear of punishment
exist in every human personality, only the degree varies. The compulsive desire for self-punishment
due to wrong and ignorant conclusions exists in every human being to some degree.
Thus the personality inflicts punishment on itself. This may happen in various ways, either by
physical disease that the psyche produces, or by various mishaps, difficulties, failures, or conflicts in
any area of life. In each case the area affected depends on the personal image the child has formed
and carried around during this lifetime until it is found and eventually dissolved. Thus, if an image
exists regarding profession and career, for instance, it will be fortified by the inherent desire for self-
punishment; difficulties in this respect will constantly arise in the person's life. Or, if an image
connected to love and marital life exists, the same pattern will hold true there.
Hence, if and when you do not succeed in a conscious and legitimate desire, and looking at
your life you find the pattern that the fulfillment of the conscious desire was constantly frustrated, as
though you had nothing to do with it, as though an unkind fate had happened to you, you can be
sure that not only does an image and a wrong conclusion exist within you, but that, in addition, the
need for self-punishment is also present.
A further chain reaction in this vicious circle is the personality's split in its desire currents.
The original split between love and hate, which started the vicious circle, causes further splits, as you
can see quite clearly by now. One of the conflicting feelings is the need for self-punishment, yet, on
the other hand, the desire not to be punished coexists with it. Thus a hidden part argues, "Perhaps I
can get around it. Perhaps I can atone in another way for my great guilt of hating." The imaginary
atonement amounts to a kind of bargaining. One does so by setting such a high standard for oneself
that it is impossible to live up to it in reality. This little inner voice argues, "If I am so perfect, if I
have no faults and no weakness, if I am the best in everything I undertake, then I can make good for
my past hatred and resentment." And since the little voice was at one point repressed into the
unconscious, it did not die; it is still alive in the present.
You get over something only if you can air it out. That is why the same old hatred still lingers
on in you. That is also why you constantly feel guilty. If it were really a matter of the past, you
would not feel this acute guilt all the time, even though the guilt is not conscious. You think that by
being so perfect you can avoid punishment. In this way a second conscience is being created. In
reality only one conscience does exist: it is the higher self, which is eternal and indestructible; it is
each human being's divine spark. Do not confuse this conscience with the second conscience that
has been artificially created out of compulsion to atone for a supposed sin, or even for a real failing.
Neither imaginary sins nor real failings can be atoned for by the artificial and over-demanding
conscience; in reality no one needs to be punished. As you all know by now, the way to eliminate
real failings is very different and much more constructive. If and when you finally differentiate
between these two kinds of conscience, you will have taken a great step forward.
The good and pure divine conscience is, of course, concerned with your progress, with your
spiritual development, and with the fulfillment of your personal task in life. It is also concerned with
your personal law. When I say personal law, this should not be misunderstood. It does not mean
the kind of behavior that self-willed, primitive, undeveloped or antisocial people display. It does not
mean living in a fortress of separation, sometimes by one's own law of selfishness. Such people
disregard not only the law of their government, but also divine law. The personal law I refer to is
part of divine law; it always remains within the framework of the divine and never contradicts it.
Yet every child of God is different in development as well as in character and temperament. Each
person has different qualities and shortcomings. Therefore, every human being needs something
different for each life, and often something different for each period within the same life. What
applies to one person does not necessarily apply to others.
Divine law is wide and very flexible. It knows none of the rigidities and generalizations of the
human misinterpretations of divine law. Such misinterpretations may close in some individuals.
They feel acutely what is expected of them and what they consciously think is right oppresses them.
Perhaps their selfish instincts are still so strong that their real and divine conscience has that effect,
but perhaps it is leading them according to their personal life plan.
So perhaps your surroundings lead you to do something that in itself is right and yet that may
not be the right thing for you. On the other hand what your real conscience wants you to do may at
first appear contrary to the ethical and moral law of your environment. Though this may sound
strange to you, yet when you think more deeply it is not so strange. Your divine conscience will
never be at variance with divine ethics and morals. So if you have the courage and independence to
think through what the outer morals are, you will find that in many cases they may conform with the
divine law, while in some they may not. Sometimes the outer morals are rigid and senseless. By
adhering to them, you may inflict more harm on others and yourself than by following your own
personal divine law.
Divine law is always determined first and foremost by whether it hurts others. There may be
situations in your life when it is inevitable to hurt others; these situations arise from your former
ignorance. In such instances you must deliberate and weigh carefully, asking God for enlightenment
about which decision will bring less hurt all around. As you hear the voice of your divine
conscience, it will give you peace and freedom. Let me emphasize again: your personal law and plan
can never be immoral or unethical in reality. At times it may appear to be so according to human
rigid standards, which always have the tendency to go by the letter and not according to the deep
meaning. Rigid standards of humanity must often by their very nature be ungodly and compulsive
in the same sense as your second, artificial conscience. For what lives in the individual always lives
in humanity as a whole. Only by deeply feeling into yourself and only by complete self-honesty --
which you must have learned to some degree -- can you grasp the meaning of the true and real
conscience that will guide you right if you do not let the voice of the second compulsive conscience
overrule the real conscience.
When your real conscience speaks to you, you will be liberated, my friends, regardless of
whether your decision turns out to be what your emotions desire for the moment. Here is the
difficulty: there are no rules. At one time your real and divine conscience may tell you to do what is
unflattering, uncomfortable, and against your selfish desires. Then your hope that your inner voice
warning against your selfish desire may be your compulsive conscience is unjustified. At times the
right way may be what both your real and your compulsive conscience are saying -- only the motives
may be different. At other times, your real conscience directs you toward the very thing you desire
most, but you have no courage to obey it because your compulsive conscience speaks too loudly.
This voice says, "I am too guilty. I must not be happy. I do not deserve it." But when the voice of
your divine conscience speaks to you, you must feel liberated; you must feel in complete harmony
with yourself and with the world, whatever the decision, whatever the outcome, whatever the
difficulties may be. Very few people can penetrate to the voice of the divine conscience at all times
and be conscious of it. They are constantly whipped by the slave driver of their compulsive
conscience, which has come into existence by the chain reactions I mentioned earlier.
The compulsive second conscience makes demands that are impossible to fulfill. Each time
you fail to live up to these standards, you feel disproportionately dejected. With each failure to
satisfy the compulsive conscience, you feel more strongly that you cannot avoid punishment. You
feel the need for punishment even more than before you invented this second conscience. You say
to yourself, "If I am not even capable of being as good and as perfect as I should be with most
people, then how can I be perfect with those I hate? Therefore I know how much I deserve to be
punished and despised." The bargaining you wanted to do did not work out. It could never work
out. So the price you pay for the second conscience is high -- so much higher than the price
everyone must pay to live life healthily!
What happens when you cannot attain these goals? Inevitably the result must be a feeling of
inadequacy and inferiority. Since you do not know that the standards of your compulsive
conscience are irrational, unreal, and impossible to realize, and since you believe, behind your wall of
separation, that others can succeed while you alone do not, you feel completely isolated and
ashamed, with your guilty secret of not only hating, but also of being unable to be good and pure.
You may say, "It is right and good to become perfect." You may say, "Does not the divine
conscience wish this perfection too?" Certainly it does. I said before that at times the divine and
the compulsive conscience may strive for the same thing. In the first place, though, the way it is
achieved differs in each case. The divine conscience knows you cannot be perfect yet; it wants to
show you step by step how to attain perfection by degrees, by accepting yourself as you are now
without guilt and fear. The compulsive conscience does not know anything of the kind; it has to be
perfect now. Furthermore, the motives of these two voices vary. The divine conscience has time; it
desires its ultimate goal for the purpose of loving better; it knows that the perfection of divine truth
is the only way to give love and happiness and to become happy and be loved.
The second conscience is motivated by weakness and fear. It bargains; it wants to avoid
something that may or may not be good, healthy, and deserved -- it depends how you look at so-
called punishment. It is too proud to realize that you simply cannot be perfect yet. It is also too
proud to let you accept yourself as you are now. You must therefore feel inferior because you are
not able to live up to your high standards. All inferiority feelings in human nature can be reduced to
this common denominator. As long as this fact is not felt and experienced, you cannot shed
inferiority feelings. You have to uncover the whole vicious circle and see its lack of reason; you
have to live through the emotions that led you to create it. Only then will you dissolve this chain
reaction point by point and create new concepts within your emotional self.
Whatever rationalizations you use to explain your inferiority feelings, they are never the real
cause. Others may indeed be more successful in one way or another, but this by itself could never
make you feel inferior. Without your artificially high standards, you would not feel the need to be
better than or at least as good as others in every realm of your life. You could accept with
equanimity that others are better or do better in some areas of life while you have advantages that
others may lack. You would not have to be as intelligent, as successful, as beautiful as other people
are. This never is the real reason for your feelings of inadequacy and inferiority! This truth is borne
out by the fact that you see the most brilliant, most successful, most beautiful people often having
worse inferiority feelings than others who are less brilliant, less successful, or less beautiful.
This inadequacy and inferiority serve to further close the great vicious circle. Again, your
unconscious little voice argues, "I have failed. I know I am inferior, but perhaps, if I could just
receive a great amount of love and respect and admiration from others this would feel like the same
gratification which I originally yearned for and which was withheld from me back then, thereby
forcing me into the position of hating and creating this entire circle. The admiration and respect
from others would also be the proof that I was justified, for it is possible to receive now what my
parents have denied me. But it will also show that I am not as worthless as I suspect when I fail to
live up to the standards of my compulsive conscience."
Naturally, these thoughts are never reasoned out consciously; yet this is the way emotions
argue below the surface. So the circle closes where it started, and the need to be loved and admired
becomes much more compulsive than it originally was. All the various points of these chain
reactions make the need much stronger. Besides, there always exists a suspicion that the hate was
unjustified -- which it was, but in a different sense. The personality unconsciously feels that if such
love does exist at all, then the child was right, and your parents, or whoever else it was who did not
give it to you, were wrong. Thus the craving for love becomes more and more strained and tense
with weak, unhealthy, and completely immature motives. Since this need can never be fulfilled --
and the more this becomes apparent, the greater the guilt becomes -- all ensuing points in the
vicious circle become worse and worse as life goes on, always creating more problems and conflicts.
Only when you desire love in a healthy and mature way which does not cover sick motives, and only
when you are willing to love to the same degree as you desire to be loved, thereby taking the "risk of
life," will love be forthcoming.
Remember that the sick personality in which this vicious circle is strong can never take that
risk as long as it continues to desire immature childish love. As long as it cannot risk anything for
love, it does not know how to love maturely. The child is not supposed to take that risk; yet the
adult is. The inner child has only the immature desire and craving for love, and wants to be loved
and cherished, cared for and admired even by people the individual has no intention to love in
return. And with those people who may have the intention to love in return, to some degree, the
proportion between their willingness to give and their compulsive need to receive is very uneven.
Because of this basic unfairness, such a scheme cannot work. For, divine law is always just and fair.
You never receive more than you invest. When you invest freely, without weak and compulsive
motives, you may not get the love back immediately from the same source you invested it in, yet
eventually it must flow back to you, this time in a benign circle. What you give out will flow back,
provided you do not give in weakness, with a motive of proving something. If the motives for the
limited love you give are unconsciously based on the great vicious circle, you can never receive love
in return, even if by chance you come across a person who would basically be capable to love more
maturely than it is possible in the environment you usually attract by your hidden currents. Let us
suppose, for argument's sake, that all your needs in receiving love could be gratified while you invest
only a minimum of emotion. Even then your need could never be gratified. This is because of the
simple reason that your inner suffering needs a different answer. The love you crave in the mistaken
idea that it will set you right is not the answer. In other words, you look for a remedy that is no
remedy for your sickness, so your hunger for love will remain, never to be stilled. It is like a
bottomless well. Thus the circle closes.
It is your work on this path to find this circle within yourself, to experience it, particularly as
to where, how, and in respect to whom it lives within you. All this has to become a personal
experience before you can really dissolve it. If you let this circle be only an intellectual knowing,
without emotionally reliving it, the knowledge will not help you. To repeat: if you cannot identify
the various points of the vicious circle in your emotions, the existence of the chain reaction will just
be another piece of theoretical knowledge you have absorbed, entirely separated from your
emotions. Therefore, once you find this circle in your personal work you can break it, but only after
realizing where the wrong premises are. You will have to see that as a child you were justified in
having certain feelings, attitudes, needs and incapacities which are now obsolete. You also have to
learn to be tolerant with your negative emotions. You have to understand them. You have to
discover where you deviate in your emotional tendencies, requirements, and desires from you
conscious knowledge. You may know perfectly well, and even preach, that you have to give love
and not be so concerned with receiving. But all of you, in your emotions, still deviate from such
intellectual knowledge. The discrepancy has to be made fully conscious before you can hope to
break the circle. Only after you have realized and fully absorbed all that, and after you have thought
about the irrationality of certain hitherto hidden emotions, will they begin to change, slowly,
gradually, when you do not expect them to change the very moment you understand their lack of
reason. Giving them leeway, and realizing that they are habit-bound will do it. If you discover their
wrong trends again and again, long after you have initially understood their childishness, then, and
then only, will these emotions slowly begin to mature. So far you have not realized that your
emotions have often claimed that you wanted to receive more than you were willing to give. They
also insisted that you be loved exclusively. And you still live -- unconsciously -- with the wrong
conclusion that if a dear one loves someone else, he or she necessarily loves you that much less. All
this is immature and based on entirely wrong conclusions. Only by lifting these emotional reactions
into consciousness can you realize this. Then you will become aware, point by point, of the great
vicious circle. After the emotions have come to the surface, you will be able to think them through,
considering how and why they are wrong. When you face them -- their ignorance, selfishness, and
immaturity -- without being ashamed, and apply your conscious knowledge to them, catching
yourself whenever you fall back into old, bad emotional habits, your subconscious will gradually
reveal more and more wrong conclusions. Each act of recognition will help you further to break
your personal vicious circle. Thus you will become free and independent.
The human soul contains all the wisdom, all the truth deep down. But all the wrong
conclusions cover it up. By making them conscious and then working them through point by point,
you will finally reach the goal of unfolding your inner voice of wisdom that guides you according to
the divine conscience, according to your personal plan. When the divine laws -- general as well as
personal -- are violated in your inner and outer reactions, your divine conscience leads you
inexorably in such a way as to restore order and balance in your life. Situations will occur that seem
like punishment, while they are actually the remedy to set you on the right track. Wherever and
whenever you deviate, the balance must be reestablished, so that through your difficulties you will
finally get to the point where you change your inner direction. You will change, not necessarily in
your outer and conscious actions, but in your unconscious childish requirements and aims.
So, my dear friends, work through this vicious circle and experience how it is active in your
personal life.
Are there any questions?
QUESTION: What happens to a child whose hatred and hostility breaks out in the open?
Would such a child still have a guilt feeling?
ANSWER: Outer manifestations often occur in children. Whenever a child has a so-called
temper tantrum, these emotions do break out into the open. But invariably the child is scolded and
learns how "bad" this is. That fortifies the need to keep the true meaning of such tantrums hidden.
And even if hatred is at times entirely conscious, later it is often suppressed. Then the same
tantrums may continue inwardly in the adult with no age limit, and cease only when the vicious circle
is made conscious. Some people may develop a sickness which will be a form of childish temper
tantrum, or they may simply make life difficult for those around them. By their unhappiness such
people constantly inflict hardship on others with the aim of forcing their will and their compulsive
childish need to receive the child's utopia of perfect love and care. This may happen to various
degrees. Sometimes it is very obvious, at other times it is much more subtle and hidden. What
people say when they indulge in such behavior is, "I am unhappy, you see. You have to take care of
me. You have to love me." That is a temper tantrum without the outer manifestation of the child.
The mere fact that the hostility may at times break out in the open during childhood does not
necessarily mean that it might not be suppressed later.
QUESTION: Would you be kind enough to tell us the difference between soul and spirit?
ANSWER: You have not only a physical body, but several subtle bodies. Each subtle body
represents a certain aspect of the human personality. The higher your development, the more of
these subtle bodies dissolve, until finally the only original spirit body remains.
The various subtle bodies differ in degree of density. The densest is the human form, the
physical body, at least from your sphere upwards. There are lower spheres before the cycle of
incarnations begins, where matter is even denser than yours. It is so dense that you cannot see and
touch it. As far as you are concerned, what is unseeable and untouchable would all fall into the same
category of "subtle matter." Actually it is not so. There is matter that is so dense that you, with your
physical perception, can no more see it than you can see real subtle matter, subtler than your own.
You could walk through it just as a spirit who is not incarnated can walk through your matter. But
on your plane of perception, the densest matter is physical matter. For each life on earth you need
this physical matter, but you shed it after each earth life. You also shed, soon after the so-called
physical death, another body of matter subtler than the physical one. Then the soul-body or the
feeling-body remains. In this body are all your emotions, impressions, attitudes and trends, in other
words, your true, inner personality. As development continues to the highest degree, the soul-body
-- as well as all other bodies -- dissolves, and only the spirit, the original being, remains. The spirit is
the indestructible, the eternal, which lives in you, containing the divine conscience I have spoken
about tonight. It contains all the wisdom, all the truth, and all the love, but it is covered up by these
many layers.
QUESTIONER: Thank you very much.
QUESTION: When a person is sleeping, does the soul stay with the body or does it leave
temporarily for revitalization?
ANSWER: It leaves temporarily. There are various subtle bodies that leave the physical body
in different states of unconsciousness. Usually in sleep the feeling-body is removed from the
physical body, sometimes more, sometimes less. It produces the pictures that you translate into
symbols in a dream. If the feeling-body remained during sleep in the physical body, sleep would not
be profound; it would be disturbed sleep. But during deep sleep your feeling-body or soul is out of
the physical body. That is the physical rest. The feeling-body can expand nearer or farther. Is that
clear?
QUESTION: Yes. Does one have to be sound asleep for relaxation or does a light sleep
suffice?
ANSWER: The sounder the sleep, the more relaxation. You know that when you wake up.
When you had a sound sleep, you will feel much more refreshed than when you had a light sleep.
The sounder the sleep, the more removed is the feeling-body from your physical body.
QUESTIONER: I have known some people who can relax for ten minutes and be
thoroughly refreshed.
ANSWER: If the sleep is profound enough, a ten-minute sleep will give you more rest than a
whole night of fitful and disturbed sleep, when, because of your tensions, your feeling-body cannot
leave completely.
QUESTIONER: Thank you.
QUESTION: Another spirit told me once that it is good to have a very long prayer and
meditation. After some years this became very much a habit. Some time ago, when I asked you
about it, you said that this may not be good because there is a rigidity and a habit in such prayer and
that we should try to unlearn what we did at that time. I was wondering why was it that we were
told by a supposedly developed spirit to fall into this habit-pattern?
ANSWER: When a person first comes to a spiritual path of development and is not used to
prayer or concentration at all, such meditation is a good discipline. It is favorable to learn
concentration through prayer and meditation, since your thoughts go through a certain cleansing
process and you build a certain consciousness. You learn to cultivate unselfish thoughts. Your
thoughts are elevated in prayer, thus clearing the way for a later stage of your development. So the
power to concentrate can be combined with cultivating constructive and unselfish thoughts, as in
prayer. Certainly, concentration could be learned in connection with any subject, but it is better to
learn it in this way than in mundane matters. So you see, both the cleansing of the thought process
as it happens in prayer, and concentration is necessary on this path. Both could be learned
separately, but it is just as well to combine them. Once the discipline is learned, one has to guard
against the routine of prayer which makes it rigid and devoid of aliveness.
Different activities and attitudes apply to different phases of one's development. Once you
have reached a certain point, it would be harmful in many respects to remain in a rigid routine. If
your prayer does not vibrate any more, it is better to have short prayers that change according to
your needs at any stage of your present development, also paying attention to your present
difficulties and inner obstacles. The power of concentration you have learned can then be used for
the purpose of self-finding in all the work you do on this path. That is much more productive than
rattling off in one's mind the same thing over and over again. Children in first grade learn
something different than what they learn later.
Be blessed every one of you, all who are here, all my friends who read these words, all your
dear ones, and your family and friends. Take these blessings with you, let them strengthen your
courage and your willpower on the path of self-finding. This is the only liberation possible,
liberation from all your wrong conclusions, liberation from your compulsive high standards which
make you feel guilty and undeserving of what God wants you to have: happiness, light, love. Be in
peace, my dear friends. Be in the Lord.