When we only have a vague awareness of our negativity, dimly sensing the hurt that we are inflicting on others, we end up hooking others who have their own unconscious conflicts. We go on to blame and punish them for our own lack of love, using their shortcomings as our excuse. Then we build cases against them.
Building a case against another is always a clear indication that we are in our Lower Self. But when we admit our negative intentionality, we set the other free and perform the most fundamental act of love. Honesty, in fact, is the most rare form of love among people.
Without honesty, we stay stuck in the illusion that we are separate, that it’s “me versus the other” instead of “me and the other,” and that we need to maintain a strategy to win. Whether we admit our negativity directly to the person or to a healer or therapist who is not personally involved, it is still an act of love toward the universe.
Being imperfect is the human condition. Yet it can be quite humbling to look at parts of ourselves that aren’t very pretty. So this journey is not about claiming moral high ground. In fact, the Lower Self doesn’t respond well to a moralizing attitude.
Spiritual laws have been created with God’s grace so that each choice that takes us away from God eventually causes pain. Pain then becomes the medicine as well as the roadmap that helps us find our way back home.
The Guide says humans think that pain is the worst thing in the world. But we’re wrong. The worst thing is being numb. Amazing acts of cruelty can be perpetrated when one is numb.
We each have myriad ways that we distract ourselves from knowing and feeling what is really going on inside. We are semi-aware of the belief that the worst in us is who we really are. And we believe we are alone in our misery and pain. At some point, we realize it’s time to stop running.
Learn more in Doing the Work: Healing Our Body, Mind & Spirit by Getting to Know the Self.
It is a spiritual law that we can’t cheat life. So if we have spent our lives avoiding the feeling of pain, we are—sooner or later—going to have to face that music. The good news is that the pain we fear feeling is not nearly as bad as our fear of it. In other words, the fear of the pain is infinitely worse than the pain itself.
It is also a spiritual law that we can’t skip steps. This means that there is no spiritual bypass that will allow us to transcend the work of painstakingly discovering what we really think and believe.
“What you are thinking and believing is the cause of all that is.”
– Byron Katie
It is actually a deeply freeing realization to discover that we are responsible—in some way we may not yet understand—for our pain. Once we take responsibility, that means there is a way out. It is possible to set ourselves free.
This work we do to see ourselves and others as we really are builds self-respect. This also leads to a real tolerance and real acceptance of others. This is not a “mask of tolerance” based on not seeing another. Rather, it comes when a person clearly sees another’s faults or differences and does not love or respect them any less because of them.
Learn more in Bones, Chapter 19: The Giant Misunderstanding About Freedom and Self-Responsibility.
Spiritual Laws*
Law of Brotherhood | “To be able to open your heart to another brings spiritual help that you could not receive by yourself.”
– Pathwork Lecture #26
Law of Cause and Effect | “Every act has its consequences.”
– Pathwork Lecture #245
Law of Justice | “Love your brother as yourself.”
– Pathwork Lecture #30
Law of Karma (Law of Cause and Effect over many Lifetimes) | “Every entity is always given a chance to solve his problems, conflicts and disharmonies in the easiest circumstances possible.”
– Pathwork Lecture #38
Law of Living in Truth | “To face life’s reality means to face yourself as you are, with all your imperfections. Embrace life whole-heartedly, without fear, without self-pity or being afraid of being hurt. Say to yourself, ‘In order to become what I would like to be, I must first, without fear of shame or vanity, face what is in me.’ ”
– Pathwork Lecture #25
Law of Paying the Price | “There is a price to be paid for everything. He who tries to avoid this will finally pay much dearer.”
– Pathwork Lecture #25
Law of Self-Responsibility | “You create your own reality.”
– Pathwork Lecture #40
Spiritual Concepts*
Concept of Abundance | “We possess all the powers, faculties and resources to create and bring about what we wish for. It is only our misconceptions and fear of happiness which prevent us from having it.”
– Pathwork Lecture #157
Concept of Awareness | “You cannot purify—eliminate a problem—if you don’t first become aware of it.”
– Pathwork Lecture #41
Concept of Free Will | “Every individual has complete free will. God has created perfect laws and perfect conditions that his children have the opportunity to follow freely or not.”
– Pathwork Lecture #18
Concept of Growth | “The only thing that gives meaning to life is to continuously grow.”
– Pathwork Lecture #89
Concept of Harmony | “A human being living in complete and utter harmony with the life force would not die. Wherever the life force has not been violated, happiness, complete harmony and peace would be yours.”
– Pathwork Lecture #48
Concept of Sacrifice | “You have to give up what you want to gain.”
– Pathwork Lecture #17
Concept of Self-Acceptance | “You do not have to be perfect in order to respect yourself. All you have to do is to have a realistic attitude about your imperfections and to adopt a constructive attitude about them.”
– Pathwork Lecture #31
*Compiled by Matthew Connors, Kirtee Faye, Michael Morgan, Mef Ford and Peter Sampson in 1978.
Learn more in Spiritual Laws: Hard & Fast Logic for Forging Ahead.
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