The Text - Section 68
68. SUPPRESSION OF POSITIVE AND CREATIVE TENDENCIES - THOUGHT PROCESSES
Greetings, my dearest friends. I bring you divine blessings. Blessed is this hour.
I promised that tonight's discussion would approach the human personality from a slightly
different angle, and this is only fitting for the last lecture of the season. Let us consider tonight's talk
not only as the end of the past term, but also as a preface to the work to be done in the new working
season.
In the past, I discussed first certain general facts about the universe, the creation, and the part
played in it by the human entity. This brought out the importance of personal development and
purification. The second phase of my lectures dealt with the obstructions in the human soul due to
conscious or unconscious misconceptions, wrong conclusions, deviations -- in short, the images
which cause conflict and unhappiness. We focused on the healing of the sick part of the human
soul. Such healing occurs when the personality learns to face errors, faults, and selfishness -- which
are for the most part suppressed. Only when these flaws come to the surface and you understand
that they are based on erroneous assumptions, can the truthful concepts be gradually implanted in
the psyche. Therefore our work until now dealt mainly with facing the repressed negative aspects of
the human personality.
But this phase is by no means all that is necessary to unfold and develop the personality to its
maximum capacity. The human being suppresses not only negative aspects, but positive and
creative tendencies in the soul as well. Our aim is not only to heal the sick part of the soul, but also
to encourage the growth and unfoldment of that in you which is striving for fulfillment, which ought
to be expressed but is not allowed to be. It is evident that destructive tendencies, based on wrong
conclusions in the unconscious, prohibit the unfolding of constructive and creative tendencies in
you. Therefore, we shall certainly go on treating the deviations in you as we have done so far. The
introduction of a new approach does not mean that the past approach will now be discarded. Quite
the contrary, it will often be necessary to continue searching and finding these destructive images in
all their aspects and variations. I do not think any of you believe that this part of the work is over.
We will, however, add a new approach in searching for the suppression of positive and creative
tendencies as they clamor for the expression of your individuality in a manner that does not
necessarily correspond to the ideas of your environment.
You may think it makes no sense to suppress positive aspects since only the negative is
unpleasant to face and therefore only that needs to be suppressed. But this is not so. Just as
frequently as you suppress the more unpleasant, you also suppress the most creative, the most
constructive aspects in you, those that would lead you to personal growth as befits your individual
personality.
You will come to see how often you discourage the best in you, not only due to wrong
motivations, but also because it is, or seems to be, discouraged by your environment. The last
lecture about the shame of the higher self is a very general and universal introduction to this subject.
We gradually prepared you for the phase to come with that lecture. But apart from such universal
conditions, there are many very personal, individual suppressions that have nothing to do with good
or bad, right or wrong. What may be wrong for another person, may be the very thing for you. But
you do not know it. You think you have to do, think, feel, act and express in a way generally
prescribed by your environment.
One of the most common diseases of humanity is a tendency to generalize and standardize,
which has more far-reaching effects than you realize. It also affects your own psyche by suppressing
your personal unfoldment, creativity, and expression. This may manifest in leading a particular way
of life not of your choice, because your environment seems to disapprove of your way. In reality,
there is not only nothing wrong with your way, but it may be just what your soul needs most to
attain its maximum growth. In your present way of life you may be suppressing the talent or activity
that would afford your soul the maximum development. This may apply to a seemingly
unimportant detail, but what is apparently insignificant may be the most important for you. For
your whole personality is influenced by many seemingly unimportant details. By now, you may no
longer be aware of what it is that you do not dare to want or to do. By freeing yourself of your
deviations with all their negative motives, you will be able to bring the suppressed positive
tendencies to the surface and view them in the proper light, just as you have learned to do with the
suppressed negative traits.
Apart from these individual and very personal suppressions of your most creative forces, there
are others which are universal, such as outlined in the lecture about the shame of the higher self.
Another of these, to be found in every soul, is the suppression of spiritual unfoldment. This may no
longer apply to you outwardly, but you may still find aspects of it within the depths of your being. If
you deny yourself the expression of your spiritual nature, you damage yourself just as much as when
you suppress any other manifestation of the life force. Although you may now give yourself the
right to express your spiritual nature, you may certainly not have done so in the past; it will be
important to learn why. It will also be important to find how much defiance and rebellion you
needed to do that for which you should not need either defiance or rebellion; how much fear and
shame still lingers in you about this facet of your personality, especially toward certain people. You
may already surmise that the connection between the suppression of the negative and the positive
aspects is often quite strong. Your dependency on public opinion and approval applies, therefore,
not only to your faults, your selfishness, and your destructiveness, which causes you to form images
in your unconscious mind, but it also causes you to forfeit the best part of your nature. And the
latter makes you suffer just as much as the former.
When I speak of the urge for the expression of your spiritual nature, organized religion is
seldom the answer, especially not in your time. But even in former times, organized religion could
accomplish but little. Like most human institutions, it was affected by the human tendency to
generalize and standardize, to make rules and dogmas supposed to be valid for all beings. Although
general rules do hold true for certain crass modes of conduct relating to crime and the upholding of
social laws for the good of the community, one's personal spirituality is an eminently private affair.
The maximum growth of one human being may be based on entirely different spiritual factors and
ways of life and expression than the maximum growth of another person. Organized religion does
not take this into account. Nor do the various modern substitutes for religion. The only way a
human being can learn to express this important side of his or her nature is by such work as we are
doing, in the course of which you recognize what causes you to suppress your individuality with all
its manifestations.
The expression of your own divine nature cannot be fitted into standard rules, regulations,
and dogmas, no matter how ethical they may be. They can only show right outer conduct, and
never right inner conduct. In former times, the human being's spiritual nature was often hindered
by the general rules of a creed. In modern times, this spiritual nature is hindered by new dogmas,
such as the materialistic philosophy of life. Whenever the individual bends to the rules of society at
the cost of suppressing his or her individual spiritual unfoldment, the soul begins to suffer and lose
direction.
When you are born into life, you carry within yourself your individual life plan. In order to
fulfill it, your psyche clamors demandingly that you proceed in a certain direction. When you deny
the inner call, be it for the reason of deviations, images, wrong conclusions, or because you believe
the right thing to do is what is proclaimed by your environment, the consequences are that the
maximum growth of your personality is gravely thwarted.
Just as people often ignore the difference between love and sentimental weakness, love and
masochistic dependency -- and thus distance themselves from real love -- so do they ignore the
difference between true, individual spirituality and the escape into a pseudo-religion out of weak
motivations. This lack of discrimination has serious consequences for the human personality.
The lack of awareness as to where your innermost self wants to lead you, and why your outer
self does not listen to its voice, is just as much cause for personality disturbances as the suppression
of the negative aspects. In the work ahead we will approach this facet of your personality. This
additional approach is of supreme importance. It will also be more joyful, because it is not always
pleasant to face your faults, your childish selfishness, and your various misconceptions. The work
becomes a liberation only after full understanding, but until such time, your unconscious resistances
often impair your joy in your self-work. You may experience a certain sadness when discovering
that you did not heed the inner voice that would have brought you the fulfillment you did not
consider right, but it is also true that despite your wanting the right goal and having pure motives,
your negative tendencies played a role in your not listening to the voice of the innermost self. A
certain amount of such resistance might also persist in this phase of the work. But on the whole, it
will certainly be easier to search for suppressed positive tendencies which you now know deserve
full right of expression. You will find that what you vaguely felt was wrong and had to be concealed
is part of the best in you, or it will bring you to your best: your individual fulfillment in the highest
spiritual and emotional sense. You will be able to embrace in joyful recognition even what you may
have felt guilty about. It will lead you a step closer to being the person you are meant to be.
To unfold the human personality in its entirety it is also necessary to approach its
development from yet another angle. For a long time we were preoccupied with the emotional side
of your nature. Again I say, the introduction of a new approach does not mean lessening of one's
efforts in the old direction. You are all fully aware by now of the importance of the discovery of
your unconscious emotions. However, we shall now begin also to pay attention to the thought
process, as an additional help yielding other benefits for the unfoldment of the personality.
Although there is no clear-cut borderline between these two aspects of the human personality,
which often interplay, a difference actually does exist.
Understanding the thought process leads to mastery over your self, just as the psychological
work does, from another side. If you are governed by your emotions, conscious or unconscious,
you lose control over your self and over your life. The same applies to your thought process. If you
become master over your thoughts, you become master over your mind, and so you have mastery of
your life. By mastery, I certainly do not mean a discipline that suppresses anything, negative or
positive, in you. This concept is, unfortunately, often misunderstood and mistakenly practiced. We
will have to be careful not to fall into the same error. Thought control can be mastered without
rigidity and suppression. On the contrary, properly done it will bring into awareness what needs to
come to the surface. Many current movements teach thought-control by suppression. As I have
often said, this is not necessary and is actually very damaging. Your emotions must be allowed to
come to the fore so that you can observe and evaluate them.
The understanding and control of the thought process is a very important aspect of
personality growth. Without it, full expression of your very best is impossible. I shall attempt to
teach this to you in detail next season. In the meantime I will give you something to think about, so
that you can prepare yourself during the summer.
The first step, as always, is the recognition of what is amiss. Recognize your uncontrolled
thoughts, their power over you, their significance, as well as their lack of significance.
Thought process also occurs on different levels. Broadly speaking, we can distinguish
between foreground thoughts and background thoughts. Both have many subdivisions and many
layers. By proper observation and concentration, you will gradually learn to become aware of these
various layers -- and this will be very beneficial for you in more ways than one.
Foreground thought is voluntary, background thought is involuntary. What I now tell you,
you will experience as being true, if you learn proper self-observation. Foreground, that is, voluntary
thought, is always clear-cut and concise as long as it remains in the foreground and does not slide
unnoticed into background thought. If you want to think something -- whether constructive or
unconstructive -- as long as you follow it through, it is foreground thought. When you become calm
and observe your thought process, you will soon begin to notice the importance of background
thoughts. Background thought comes unbidden; it is disorganized and mainly unconstructive.
You will also notice that background thought material consists mainly of the following:
(1) Symptoms of disturbed emotions and inner conflicts that never express the conflict itself.
They might bring the nucleus of the conflict to the fore, if the symptoms are analyzed and properly
understood. In order to do that, the vague, unvolitional background thoughts have to be made into
foreground thoughts.
(2) You reexperience events, conversations, or impressions in snatches and fragments. If
these do not belong in the first category, they are completely without significance. Your mind has
registered certain impressions and it repeats them automatically like the rolling of wheels. As long as
these thoughts remain in the background and you harbor them without full awareness, you cannot
distinguish what is important in them and what is utter waste. Repetition of impressions may not
only be important because it is indicative of a symptom of conflict; it may also be important because
a constructive impression may add something to your life, to your person, to your inner self. Only
when these impressions and thoughts are consciously observed can you derive such a benefit. In
other words, you must make foreground thoughts out of background thoughts. The stereotyped
repetitious thoughts that go on in your mind so much of the time are really waste matter to be
eliminated.
(3) Wishful thinking. There are a few subdivisions in this category. You may reexperience a
conversation, going over how it might have been, how it should have been, what you should have
said instead of what you did say, or you build a daydream of what you wish to happen in the future,
which is vague, unrealistic, elusive and unconnected to your real desires, and doesn't take account of
the obstacles within your soul. Such thoughts are entirely wasteful, if they are not made into
foreground thoughts and evaluated.
Such wishful thinking, as well as fragments of impressions and automatic repetitions make up,
in the main, the material of the unbidden background thoughts. Coming and going, they are not
consecutive. They interrupt your voluntary thoughts and are unconstructive as long as they
overpower your volition and keep you from taking the reins into your hands through learning to
control your thought-world. Thought control increases awareness and raises consciousness. Instead
of forbidding yourself to think, do the opposite: transfer background thought material into
conscious foreground thought. First learn to evaluate the content of the vague background
thoughts, and if you find that they are insignificant, learn to discard them. This process will bring
forth additional material about your unconscious conflicts and teach you to control your mind in a
healthy and constructive way.
Moreover, this practice will release a great deal of strength in you which was formerly used up
by background thoughts. You have no idea how much mental and emotional -- and eventually
physical -- strength they consume.
Some exercise and concentration is necessary to learn first the observation and, later, the
control of your thought process. The exercises need not be strenuous, nor will they have to take up
much time. Some regular effort is necessary, however.
To become master over your thought process by learning to make foreground thoughts from
background thoughts and to ascertain their importance, you will not only release a great inner
strength, but you will raise your consciousness and increase your awareness in a general way. You
will become more and more aware of yourself -- the inner situation, as well as your entire person and
life -- and more aware and observant of others around you; of life, of nature, of things. You will be
capable of concentrating on those thoughts and occupations that you elect to, undisturbed by the
wasteful, fluctuating thought material that has no importance, and serves only to decrease your
awareness of self and to interfere with your concentrated attention on your task.
Unvolitional background thoughts make you the governed instead of the governor. Not only
do your emotional and psychic disturbances cause lack of control over your life, but you are prey to
your unvolitional background thoughts. There is, of course, a connection between the two, which
we shall examine later.
Unvolitional background thoughts constantly disturb and interrupt you. Even if they have
significance, you derive no benefit from them as long as you do not learn to transform them into
foreground thoughts, as long as you are not actually aware of them. They overpower you whenever
you are not deeply interested in an activity. Background thoughts are weak, insofar as you are
unaware of them. But they are strong in that they are often much more powerful than the
apparently stronger foreground thoughts. By learning to observe your thought process, you will
discover how often these "weaker" background thoughts take hold of you on the sly, so to speak.
At first you are utterly unaware that you were drawn away from thinking what you wanted to think
about. All of a sudden you find yourself involved in background thought material that you can only
now begin to evaluate. When you say that your mind is wandering, you hardly realize the
significance of this statement and the effect such "wanderings" have.
The background thoughts are what makes concentration so hard and thus are responsible for
your difficulty in focusing your attention on one particular thing. It is due to them that so much
time, strength, and effort is wasted. If your time, strength, and effort are not utilized in constructive
thoughts or occupation, your mind should be allowed to relax. The best form of relaxation is
attained when the mind is given a chance to be quite calm. Background thought material makes this
impossible. It disperses the mind in many directions and therefore exhausts it without your knowing
it.
This disorder and disorganization is universal but for a few exceptions. And, unfortunately, in
these exceptions people have learned to control their thought process at the expense of emotional
awareness, so that the benefit is cancelled out. It will be our aim to combine the two factors, so that
one is helped by the other rather than hindered.
The aim of the pathwork is not only to make the sick part of human nature strong, free, and
healthy; we are interested in the unfoldment and development of the entire personality. Thus, in the
coming season we will be concerned with three major approaches:
(1) Continuation of finding and dissolving your images, wrong conclusions, and deviations.
(2) Finding your suppressed creative forces, directions, and activities and unfolding your
nature as it was meant to function in your own particular way.
(3) Understanding of, and gradually learning to control the thought process.
These three approaches will interact and overlap in many respects. To find how they link up
and connect is part of the work and is of utmost importance.
I should like to suggest an exercise for you to start with this summer in preparation for our
later work together. Sit down twice a day for five minutes, not more, any time you wish. Choose a
time and a place when and where you know you will be undisturbed and do not have to fear
interruptions. Sit down comfortably. Do not lie down. Become very calm. Relax completely,
without trying to exert any force, strain, or pressure. Begin to follow the abdominal movements of
your breath when you breathe very quietly: up and down, up and down. Or, if you prefer, imagine a
point between your eyes -- whichever is easier for you. Be prepared for your mind soon to be
disturbed by unvolitional background thoughts. Expect them, observe them quietly. If they are not
of pressing importance for you now -- indicating a disturbance in your psyche -- discard them
quietly, without getting impatient with yourself. Resume the task of following the abdominal
movements of your breath or of concentrating on the imaginary point between your eyes, all the
time aware of what the background thoughts really are when they do come. It suffices to observe
them as they appear in order to become conscious of the mechanism of thought process. You will
then become aware that you are the victim of these thoughts. This awareness will bring you nearer
to the goal. At the beginning it will seem impossible to think of nothing but your breath
movements. Uninvited thought fragments will constantly rush in. Most of the time, they will be so
powerful as to make you unaware that you do indulge in them. You will notice them only after a
while. Whenever you do, try to recollect what your thoughts made you think of. Say to yourself: "I
was thinking of this or that," whatever it may have been. This in itself is a means to become more
aware of yourself. You may then either go on with your concentration and defer to analyze the
thought materials until after, or you may do so right away, if you feel the urge, and resume the
concentration exercise another time.
If you faithfully persevere, you will eventually get to the point when you will become a
watcher of your thoughts. You will stand guard, so to speak, at the threshold of your thinking
process. You will begin to sense what calmness really means. Your thoughts and emotions will
stand still, be it only for a moment. As you go on, you will learn to extend this moment. The longer
you can do it, the more you will feel rested after such periods. Many other benefits will befall you.
You will also get accustomed to watching your background thoughts during the day, during certain
activities which do not demand your entire attention. More and more self-awareness will come to
you on all levels.
When you do this exercise, approach it in a very relaxed frame of mind, and at the same time
try to use your calm inner will. Most important of all is not to feel frustrated when you do not
succeed, when you find yourself involved in unbidden background thoughts. Rather, use the
experience as a means to understand what I am trying to explain. Such an approach will be most
beneficial. It will open vistas to you and will get you eventually to what we are after. If at one time
or another you find it impossible to concentrate in this manner because your thoughts always come
back to something particular, that is a sign that this something ought to be investigated, that it
contains a seed of one of your conflicts. If such is the case, you will not be able to become calm
until you have found some clarification. Remember, calmness is indispensable for this exercise!
Even minor success in this exercise will bring marked improvement in many ways. In
addition to the benefits I outlined before, in addition to the power to discriminate between your
foreground and background thoughts, you will derive further benefits, such as a general power of
discrimination; increased inner and outer vitality; better memory; clearer and stronger thoughts; and,
last but not least, the increased ability to make your inner will function. Your inner will is necessary
to follow through and learn what we are discussing here. In turn, your inner will is bound to
function better to the extent you learn concentration. You will learn the ability to direct your
thought process and attain calmness of mind as the background thoughts decrease.
Awareness and control of background thoughts, the understanding of the whole thinking
procedure with its various levels, is much more important than you now realize. It is a mistake to
separate this approach from the conflicts of your psyche. They are intimately connected, which
becomes apparent when both approaches are followed through properly.
Background thought material appears to us in the spirit world in a very specific form. It is
fluid substance, but fluid in a negative sense. A kind of thick, hazy, stubborn mass, it is very difficult
to dissolve. It is sometimes easier to dissolve an outright rigidity because a rigidity can be grasped.
A negative fluidity is slippery like a gelatinous substance or mercury.
When you progress a little in this exercise and succeed in being a watcher, visualize a compass
needle. The compass needle represents your thought movements. Watch the needle sway back and
forth. The more background thoughts come, dispersing your attention in all directions because you
do not control them, the more the needle will sway from one direction to the other. The more you
succeed in becoming calm inwardly and focusing your thoughts on what you desire, the more will
this needle remain still, poised, restful and controlled -- not controlled by any strenuous discipline or
outer willpower, but by your relaxed summoning of your calm inner will. The more detachedly you
observe the involuntary thought process, the more you will succeed in staying above it.
It would be very beneficial, my friends, if during the summer months you tried to prepare
yourselves a little for the coming phases in our work together. Try to follow my advice and do this
exercise. Also try to think about your past desires from the point of view I introduced tonight,
whether or not it was something important or an apparently insignificant detail about your way of
life. Did you desist at the time from following through with a positive, creative impulse because, as
you are now seriously convinced, it was wrong for you? If it was not, did you desist out of fear or
out of dependency on others' approval? Or was the wish based on unhealthy motives in the first
place? Was there underneath the unhealthy motives a very healthy one you could not see because of
your vague awareness and your guilt about the existence of the unhealthy motives? Would you have
had the courage to follow through with your desire if the unhealthy motives had been absent?
Would you then have stood your ground and been true to your personality? Can you discover that
the original desire disappears or weakens with the absence of the unhealthy motives? You can try to
formulate and answer these and similar questions. As always, the most difficult part is the
beginning. What you have to find first need not be an apparent, important part of your life, such as
choice of profession or main activity. It may be something "small" and subtle, not easily discovered
because of its apparent insignificance, but just as important to find, since it is invariably a part of the
whole. Its discovery must lead to something vital in your inner and outer life.
Doing this, and trying to feel the difference between volitional and unvolitional thought
processes, you can very well prepare for our work in the fall.
Now, are there any questions?
QUESTION: In my work so far, I discovered that one of my wishes was not followed
through due to fear. I have resigned myself to this. But if I now approach the same question with
the new viewpoint, I cannot imagine this as a joyous experience. It will be painful all over again.
ANSWER: Not necessarily. As I said before, often the inner motives overlap and interplay.
You will have to establish first whether you desired this goal because of unhealthy motives, or
whether the unhealthy motives merely covered the form of self-expression best fitted for your
individual personality. In either case, working this through need not be painful if the approach is
right. Even if you should find that the fulfillment of this goal would have been right for you, it is
still the negative aspect of your soul that stood in the way. Hence, in this respect, nothing changes
from the approach we have used so far. It will be more or less painful. On the other hand, a
discovery of suppression of healthy outlets -- which is always based on fear and dependency anyway
-- may show you a new road which might be extremely satisfactory and fulfilling.
In many instances, what one wants is not what one really wants but what one thinks one
wants. When this is the case, it is always due to unhealthy tendencies and reactions.
When you face your lower nature, your deviations and the phantom world of your illusions, so
that you can change it all into true concepts, it feels certainly more painful than facing something
you have suppressed because you thought erroneously that you must be guilty and ashamed of it.
That you did suppress it so is, of course, due to negative motivations. However, you will experience
a great joy and liberation now in releasing something vitally creative in you, leading you to the
fulfillment of your individual personality.
My dearest friends, let me give you very special blessings tonight. A very wonderful divine
strength is around you. Open your heart and your soul and your inner will so that you can receive it.
Let it envelop you, let it penetrate you, let it work for you and with you so that this strength may
help you to unfold the best, the most creative that you, as an individual, can be. Thus you will make
the best of your personality and of all that still lies covered, dormant, but is waiting to be let out. Let
this divine strength help you to remove the obstacles in you so that your divine spirit may truly
unfold and manifest.
With this, my dearest friends, I withdraw, but I will always be near you. Go on your way in
divine peace, in the joy that all of you are divine creatures and contain within yourselves so much
that is truly wonderful and that is clamoring for manifestation. Be in peace, my dearest ones, be in
God!