Questions And Answers

By The Pathwork Guide

Beloved friends! Blessings of divine strength, of healing, of beauty, and of love are given to all of you. We are happy to come forth again and to help you on a deep and vital level to absorb what we can give you, so as to open all your inner faculties in order to perceive reality and thus to be enriched by it.

QUESTION: (Alex) I don't understand the saying in the Bible about turning the other cheek when you are slapped.

ANSWER: It really has the same meaning as "do not resist evil." Again, I want to emphasize not to confuse this with passive endurance when it may be appropriate to stand up and fight for what is right. Turn the other cheek merely means to use your powers of differentiation so as to judge when fighting back may be the perpetuation of aggression and further involvement into evil with no purpose and no chance of dissolving the negative interaction. Perhaps we can say that positive assertion can happen fruitfully only when you are truly filled with one single motive: to further the will of God; to express the Christ in you; to expose yourself; and to stand up for the truth without personal gain in any way or on any level. When you fight, then you must fight for -- for the truth, for justice, for a good cause -- rather than against -- for example, against someone who has angered you. When you are motivated by the cause of God rather than by your selfwill and your pride, then you will feel strong and secure, and therefore not inhibited by guilt.

Turn the other cheeck means, in a different terminology, to let go of your self-righteous case and to look into yourself so as to see where you may possibly be contributing to the negative interaction. In other words, where you are perhaps provoking the aggressive action of your opponent. It is a habit that you must practice over and over again. You must learn to give up the temptation to stubbornly stand for a self-righteous position that can be always rationalized by a total concentration on the other person's wrong. Sometimes these wrongs actually do exist; at other times they exist only in your wishful thinking, in your distortions, in your wish not to take responsibility for your lower self. Fighting with such an attitude is indeed damaging, and therefore perpetuates evil.

On this Path you learn that the victim is often just as responsible as the perpetrator. And what a liberation this is! Only when you live this injunction will you find secure self-esteem and genuine strength to fight when it is desirable and when it is necessary. The shackles that you now so often feel when you know in your mind that fighting would be inappropriate is exactly the result of fighting in the wrong way: of insisting on your self-righteous position without looking into yourself.

QUESTION: (Eva) Science claims that the computer is the next stage in evolution. I recently heard a panel of scientists discussing that the growth of the human brain has stopped and is therefore projected outwardly by creating a new kind of genius. The genius, knowledge, learning, and experience of several people can be combined into one computer and thereby make the knowledge of the computer infinitely superior to the best brain. The scientists went on to explain that in some strange way the computer becomes eventually endowed with a will of its own. Various ramifications were discussed about this possibility, that now seems more than a mere possibility. My question is: how does this trend connect with spiritual evolution as you talk about it in your lectures and teachings?

ANSWER: Let us first discuss how this trend came about. For many millennia the human brain played the smallest part in man's attempt to survive. He was mainly driven by and motivated by instinctual forces. Only fairly recently has the brain been brought into the foreground and has created the civilizations and the cultures that followed primitive man. In recent times the over-emphasis on the brain, as if it were the only important and valid organ of man, has created an absurdity, and that is the robot-man. The robot-man is indeed the outpicturing of the intellect brought to an absurdity. This absurdity, which is a sad caricature of man at best and a danger at worst, can help man to wake up and to take further genuine steps in his evolution: first to find and then to develop his faculties beyond the intellect and also beyond the primitive instincts. For the most part, these faculties are now all involuntary. They are the divine will, the divine inner voice, the feeling of love, the vision of cosmic truth, the feeling of serving a larger purpose. When man seeks these new faculties and he devotes his efforts to uncovering and contacting these aspects hidden deep within himself, then they will become directly accessible to him, and hence voluntary. Just as in any scientific experiment, man must start with an entirely open mind. It is a willingness to investigate, and to spend time, energy, and effort even if results remain elusive for a long time. Man has this desirable, open, and seeking attitude in many respects already, but he still channels his entire effort into the areas of intellect and outer mechanical manifestations. If man chooses to direct the same open attitude and the same concerted effort to exploring his own inner world, then a new man will indeed emerge. The new man does not need a larger cortex. The cortex he has is sufficiently large and harmonious and has divine-like existence. But what is not yet sufficiently developed, and therefore requires all of man's attention in the times to come, are the inner faculties I mentioned before. There exist realms of consciousness that so far are unrecognized by science and by the general public. Evolution must continue in that direction.

QUESTION: (Blythe Patel) I want to understand and feel more deeply what it really means to surrender. What is the nature of surrender? Is it possible for the "I" to surrender at all or is it an attitude or a quality as if the ego is silenced and just the Being becomes receptive? And I do not really know who God is and therefore how can I ask for guidance in the direction of surrender? To whom? To what? Is just the very attitude of surrender enough? And can I surrender to a concept, to an idea of what I think God might be, or must I not experience God initially before moving toward surrender? Saying "I surrender totally to the will of God" feels like a tremendous statement implying an impossible death of the ego. Am I incorrect in this thinking?

ANSWER: Surrender means giving over. It means giving in and flowing with what is beyond personal ego control. The basic surrender must always be to God, to the Christ Who is the most humanized aspect of God, and therefore nearest to His human children. If surrender to God is the primary attitude, then true strength and true integrity either must be released or will be restored, contrary to the common misunderstanding which believes exactly the opposite. I explained this at length in the last lecture. If surrender to God, which is a natural movement, is denied by the personality, then a false surrender may ensue -- to false gods. In other words, to substitute powers. As a result, justified fears will further deny, and hence displace, the real surrender to God.

If surrender to God and to His will exists in all aspects of life, then a balance of a proper surrender in all areas is automatically established. For instance, surrendering to loving and to feeling for special people in your life will be a free-flowing movement that is healthy, organic, never unnecessarily restrained or restricted, yet never going overboard, thereby creating blindness and giving up both autonomy and self-responsibility. Healthy surrender to a leader, to a teacher, or to a mate must always preserve one's inner truth. In practical terms this may mean a differing of opinions and of directions. If the leader, the teacher, the authority, or the mate should deviate from the will of God, then your following this person would constitute a self-betrayal: a betrayal of your truth, and the betrayal of truth itself. This wonderful balance can exist only if surrender to God is total, deep, and sincere. Then you can give your heart totally to another human being. In other words, you can surrender all your feelings to him or her, you can recognize his or her authority in certain areas where you require leadership; but, above all, their authority can only rest on the authority of God. The wisdom to know how to follow and how to yield, and when not to follow and not to yield, comes solely from the basic surrender to God.

The "I" can indeed surrender totally, but only to God. Only by surrendering to God will it become subsequently stronger and more integrated with the Divine Self. If the "I" attempts to surrender to any false god, then it will truly lose itself in a sick egolessness. You know that the ego must exist in order to manage this world into which you have incarnated yourself. But there is a big difference between a healthy ego and a sick ego, between healthy egolessness and sick egolessness.

You ask for help because you do not know who God is. You will begin to sense His palpable Presence only when you truly want to find Him. Do you really want to find Him? Or do you perhaps wish to maintain a quarrel with life and a separate position in which no demands and no responsibilities can be made on you? If you really want to know God, then you must want to do so and you must pray that you may sense His magnificence. All you need to do is to look around you and see the marvel of creation in all living things,

Naturally, if you do not know God, then you cannot surrender to God, and if you do not surrender to God, then surrender to others is practically impossible. But perhaps you can surrender partially by listening with an inner ear to what appears most likely to be true wisdom; by following suggestions and directions in order to help you to remove all the obstructions that separate you from God. You are indeed incorrect in your statement that a total surrender to God implies "an impossible death of the ego." As I said, the contrary is true.

QUESTION: (Joan Watkins) In respect to the attendance to the Guide lectures and the Q & As, why is there so much resistance to keeping the regulations, such as paying admission and making sure your name is marked, and how does this reistance affect the Path as an entity?

ANSWER: This resistance reflects the most childish and destructive attitude in the individuals who act this way, or who perhaps feel this way without necessarily acting it out. It reflects the child, who considers the authorities of this Path enemies who exploit him or her. This vague feeling, that is rarely made articulate and clear in the consciousness, exists as a projection of exactly that intent on the part of the person. The individual wants an all-giving parental figure who makes no demands and who gives all. When such a parental figure fails to materialize, then resentments, hostility, and rage ensue.

All these feelings are semi-conscious. I do not say totally unconscious, for that is no longer so in most of you who work on this Path. With only a little effort on your part, it should not be too difficult to ascertain these irrational attitudes, demands, projections, and distortions. I suggest that this be taken up in your private sessions, that all of you question yourselves as to what extent you too harbor such attitudes.

This general acting out in this area can perhaps be explained best in the following way. In most other areas of involvement on this Path such acting out would soon be discovered and confronted. So the personality seeks an outlet where the chances are that he or she will go undiscovered. This seems to happen here, where there are crowds, where no helpers officiate, and where the hope reigns that these authorities can be duped and manipulated and acted out against without reprisal. It is good that you ask this question and that this be brought out into the light for discussion.

I want to add here that the childish wish for a pseudo benign authority -- namely one who gives all and makes no demands, one who manipulates the world so that your acts have no consequences -- is the displacement of the soul's yearning for the real God, Who does indeed give all abundance, all peace, all fulfillment, and all happiness, but Who also considers you adults with divine powers and qualities. When you deny these qualities, and hence you deny your giving, then you will be so empty that your wish to receive will be unfulfillable, and therefore inexhaustible. Therefore, it will create a hopelessness that you then unwittingly project on creation, on God, and on whatever authority you have to deal with in your life.