We can liken the spiritual journey of a soul to the transformation of water. What began as a vapor gradually turned to the solid denseness of ice—not from some random act of fate but due to our own choices. Over time, we began to long for another way of being, and so we have begun the long journey back to the oneness. We no longer want to experience ourselves as separate snowflakes.
When we begin to thaw, the water of our being is cloudy and still frozen in many places. Even as we believe ourselves to be victims of a senseless unfair universe, we begin to learn the truth about how we constantly defend ourselves and unknowingly bring about our current life circumstances. We can make new choices and the water will begin to clear.
Bit by bit, we come out of the trance we have been in. We begin to see cause and effect, and to take responsibility for the state of our lives. Gradually, our lives transform. The water warms and begins to evaporate. We once again can sense our essential nature and eternal connectedness with all that is.
For life and spiritual laws are exquisitely designed to bring us back home.
Working with the teachings offered by the Pathwork Guide, we begin to understand the spiritual journey of our soul and to apply these teachings actively in our lives—not just theoretically in our minds—to make authentic, positive changes that transform us and the lives we create.
Here is an overview of the many steps and stages we will be exploring, that every human being goes through in our journey back to the oneness, which is both our origin and our destination. In fact, being in a state of unity is our God-given birthright.
Key Aspects of the Spiritual Journey
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Unity
All is one
The Fall
Use our free will to experience negative aspects of divine qualities; Descent into dark spheres caused masculine-feminine split along with inner splits and fractures in psyche.
The Plan of Salvation
The plan that gives us a path for escaping the darkness and returning to God, if we choose; Now we can save ourselves.
~Incarnation~
We take on a task to heal a certain aspect of our negativity in this lifetime.
Transference
Main soul split is transferred onto parents.
Mask Self: Defenses
Shame
Outer layer of our mask that wants to hide our inner distortions from ourselves and others.
Idealized Self-Image
Mask of perfection is designed to compensate for missing self-esteem and bring love: “If I am perfect, then I will be loved.
Defenses
We choose a strategy for avoiding pain and getting our way: Aggression, Submission or Withdrawal.
Little-L Lower Self: “I can’t”
Needs Not Met
Child wants 100% perfect, exclusive love and to always have its way; Due to the nature of reality, this results in feelings of rejection and frustration, which make the child feel inferior.
Images
Wrong conclusions about self, others and life are generalized and go into the unconscious.
Blocks
Resistance to painful feelings creates frozen blocks of energy and consciousness, which are held in the psyche and show up in the body.
Big-L Lower Self: “I won’t”
Inner Critic
Internalized voice of parents becomes cruel to self.
Faults
Lower Self uses various faulty ways to overcome its fear of humiliation (fear) and feelings of inferiority (pride); It wants to win and won’t let others off the hook (self-will).
Negative Pleasure
Pleasure current has gotten attached to pain during childhood; Life force is later activated through destructiveness.
Negative Intention
Lower Self resists giving or giving in; Uses Images to justify this; Stays stuck and therefore stays in separation.
No-Current
Hidden faulty belief says No to fulfillment, making Yes-current frantic and ineffective.
Vicious Circles
Negative patterns are continually recreated, resulting in pain, hate, shame, guilt and self-punishment.
Higher Self: “I can’t do it alone”
~Purification~
We must bring all this into conscious awareness; Call on God to help correct wrong thinking, release unfelt pain, re-educate the inner child, and visualize a new reality based on truth; We must find our hidden No to life and transform it.
~Transformation~
Activate the greater consciousness within.
Unity
Continually, consciously surrender to God; Experience self as one with all.
The first stage of this work is the clearing of obstacles. The Guide calls this the purification process. As we go through life, we need to learn to slow down and recognize when we are in an emotional reaction. It is always best if we can take the responsibility to do our own work of self-knowing before we react in a way that leaves us with more to clean up.
In the 1950s, 60s and 70s, when Eva was channeling the Guide, encounter groups were new. So people were often unskilled in how to uncover dark areas within the psyche without acting out harsh negative feelings directly towards others. A lot of re-wounding happened. Today, we know that it is possible to access these feelings without acting them out.
We do this by talking openly with a qualified person—a therapist or spiritual healer—which brings things out from hiding. Opening up to another is an act of humility, and in that moment, we do not want to appear more perfect than we are. That brings a relief our spirit has cried for, even if the person does not give us a single piece of advice. This is the same benefit people get from confession in certain religions or from what’s called a “fifth step” in Alcoholics Anonymous.
The intent of this spiritual path is to work with all areas of the psyche that are negative, destructive or in error, and to activate the greater consciousness within. So it must then deal with issues that today are often also dealt with in therapy. The difference is in the intention. Therapy is typically sought to address a specific aspect of life that is not going well.
A spiritual path is a lifelong journey of self-searching in which everything becomes fodder for discovering what is hidden in the psyche. People who are struggling with active addiction, depression, borderline tendencies or similar issues should seek appropriate qualified assistance before embarking on a spiritual path such as this.
The second stage of this work is the transformation in which we continually activate the greater universal consciousness. We need to discover that there is an inexhaustible fountain of strength and inspiration within. As you can see, this cannot be done sequentially. We need to cultivate regular contact with our spiritual center as best we can from early in our journey, so that the ego learns to let go and activate the greater forces of the Higher Self.
Over time, we also need to be willing to let go of our life stories. The past is only important because it caused us to develop these unproductive ways that are responsible for our present pain. We want to go all the way through our issues to reach full resolution and avoid getting mired in recycling old wounds.
On the surface, growth and stagnation can seem similar because they both move in circles. So sometimes people believe they are in a growing process—which is a spiral—when in fact they are merely going around in circles. Undirected self-confrontation often leads to this. Where you might exaggerate one thing and underestimate another, someone detached from your problems may see things in the right light.
On the other hand, those who are truly in a growth process may feel temporarily discouraged, believing they are going around in circles. This cannot be avoided. We need to make the same recognitions on deeper and deeper levels of a spiral until we converge on the key point from which the problem can be resolved.
At that point, we may be given a test by the Spirit World. It can be very helpful to remember this to avoid falling into feelings of despair. But whenever the transition to the next circle is made, the reality of it will fill you to the depth of your being. You will then know that you are not moving in a stationary circle.
In a similar way, the Guide’s teachings are a spiral, taking an important concept and deliberating on it from various different angles. One might say there are two parallel spiral movements: one pursues the disturbance, and the other shows the true picture that complements it.
There are also rhythms to the work that may look like this: breakthrough, release, relief, new hope and light, contraction, self-doubt, doubt about this path, hopelessness. Know that over time, the good periods increase in depth and duration, and the negative periods will decrease.
The rhythms of expansion, restriction and stasis are impacted by the big and little splits that occur when our misconceptions form, and that adhere to our soul substance. This may cause self-alienation—as you may essentially create a separate self as a means of protection—and to not know your own rhythm.
“Again and again you search in vain for the real you, the core of your being. You are confused because you take the superimpositions to be the real you, simply because you have become so used to them. You may have discovered their destructiveness, their artificiality, but you are as yet still unable to dispense with them. For you have not yet gained the sense, awareness, and experience of the real you. You ask yourself, “Who am I? Where is my real self?”
“I attempt to guide you to the core of your nature from various angles, through various approaches. I can help you, but you have to do the work of recognizing, of facing, of changing. In short, it is your struggle. If you want to become happy, to lead a fruitful, rich life, you have to be whole, undivided. And this can be only if you are your real self. It is logical and reasonable that the struggle and the effort have to be yours, if you wish to realize yourself.
“The state of self-alienation — that of not being one’s real self — is so predominant that its symptoms are not conspicuous. You miss noticing them because they are so general that you assume them to be ‘normal’.”
– Pathwork Lecture #95
In nearly every lecture, the Guide offers a promise as well as a problem or duality, a way out, and a prayer or meditation. In general, here are some of the promises of what the Guide says we can expect if we follow these teachings. We will be less depressed and tiredness will cease. We will have strength to go through our difficulties, and we will bear our cross in the right way. Also, we will know what our lives are all about. And we will enjoy life in spite of difficulties, and we will be vibrantly alive.
Finding Gold: The Search for our Own Precious Self explores the Guide’s teachings about self-knowing in greater depth.
“If you demand of your life—and therefore of any path you contemplate entering—to bypass feeling your anxiety and your pain, to avoid owning up to your dishonesties, your cheating, your spitefulness, your games, and your more or less subtle pretenses, then it might be better for you not to start on this path.
“But if you expect a real effort and are prepared to embark on the journey into yourself to find, acknowledge and bring out whatever is in you, if you summon all your inner truthfulness and commitment for the journey, if you find the courage and humility not to appear other than you are even in your own eyes, then you have indeed every right to expect that this path will help you realize your full life, and fulfill your longing in every conceivable way. This is a realistic hope. You will increasingly know it to be so.”
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