About: The arc of our journey home
The purpose of every genuine spiritual path is self-knowing.
Working with the teachings offered by the Pathwork Guide, we begin to understand the journey of our soul. Then we can start to apply these teachings actively in our lives—not just theoretically in our minds—to create authentic, lasting change. That's the way to transform ourselves and the lives we create.
The journey home unfolds in many stages. Here is a simple overview of the path we'll be exploring together. Every human being goes through these 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
Unity
All is one
The Fall
We used our free will to experience the negative aspects of divine qualities. This caused fracturing and inner splits, including the masculine-feminine split.
According to the Guide, this movement away from unity eventually led us into realms of separation traditionally associated with Lucifer, the first being to fall.
The Plan of Salvation
This is the plan that gives us a path for returning to God. At a critical point, one being came to Earth with a mission of making it possible for us to escape Lucifer's dominion, if we choose to.
Incarnation
We each take on a task to heal certain aspects of our negativity, in this lifetime.
We become entangled in duality, which creates the illusion of separation. We think life is "me versus the other." The truth: it is always "me and the other."
Transference
Our main soul split is transferred onto our parents.
Needs Not Met
Children born into duality want 100% perfect, exclusive love and to always have their way. We naturally want only to receive. We have imperfect parents, also struggling in duality, who unavoidably create painful feelings of rejection and frustration in us. These make the child feel inferior.
Images
Due to our limited outlook and understanding as children, we create generalized, mistaken conclusions about others and life, that sink into our unconscious.
Body Blocks
Our resistance to painful feelings creates frozen energetic blocks that are held in the psyche, and which manifest in the body.
Idealized Self-Image
Building on the false, painful belief that we are somehow "less-than," the child begins creating a false version of themselves. This is a strategy designed to compensate for our missing self-esteem and bring love.
Defenses
We fear having the "truth" that we are worthless exposed. This creates shame. We also fear the pain this mistaken belief causes. So we cut off our feelings and adopt a defense strategy— aggression, submission or withdrawal—for staying safe.
Mask
This inauthentic version of ourselves is the mask we unconsciously present to the world. People unconsciously react to our mask, which is painful.
Because it is built on untruth, the mask can never work. Hiding behind our mask is our Lower Self, whose goal is to keep us in separation.
Faults
The Lower Self is made up of three main faults: fear, pride and self-will. We fear our feelings, so we numb ourselves, which is even more painful. We feel less-than, so we try to rise above others, to compensate. With our self-will, we attempt to win.
Negative Pleasure
During childhood, our pleasure principle attaches itself to experiences that contain elements of pain. Later in life, we must re-create that same unpleasant atmosphere to activate our life force—to feel alive.
Negative Intention
Our Lower Self resists giving or giving in, effectively saying no to life. Through our negativity, we resist, rebel, deny and destroy. This slow-moving energy is lazy, and it wants to stay stuck and in separation. It uses the untruth that's now locked into our images to justify this.
The truth: giving and receiving are one whole movement. Meaning, we can't receive if we don't learn to genuinely give.
No-Current
The energetic aspect of all our unconscious negativity is our no-current. It says no to fulfillment, based on untruthful beliefs. It hides behind our conscious yes-current which becomes frantic, yet ineffective.
Our hidden no is always more powerful than our conscious yes because it is buried in our unconscious. As a result, we cannot consciously see it and re-orient it.
It became unconscious due to our refusal to see ourselves in truth. As long as we keep looking away from ourselves—blaming others for our lot in life—it continues to destroy our ability to have what we truly want: connection with ourselves, with others and with God.
Vicious Circles
Due to our hidden negative concepts, we continually re-create negative patterns. These result in pain, hate, shame, guilt and self-punishment.
Purification
We must gradually bring all this into our conscious awareness. We do this by calling on our Higher Self to help us correct our mistaken thinking, release unfelt pain, re-educate the inner child, and realize a new reality based on truth.
Transformation
We activate the greater consciousness within, aligning our will with God's will. We do this by aligning with spiritual laws. For example, we must make an effort and stop trying to cheat life.
We actively, slowly work to surrender our ego and learn to trust our own Higher Self. This is our divine nature—our Godself.
We discover the truth, which is that heaven is within.
Homecoming
In true reality, at the level of our divine center, we are already connected with all that is. It is at the level of our limited ego that we believe we are separate.
As we consciously surrender to God, we experience ourselves—more and more—as one with all that is. We reconnect with true reality.
This is our true home, and our ultimate destiny.
Doing the work of transformation
The first stage of this work involves the clearing away of inner 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 the Pathwork Guide was being channeled through Eva, encounter groups were new. People were often unskilled in how to uncover dark areas within the psyche without acting out harsh negative feelings directly towards others.
A great deal 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 dark aspects out of 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.
Doing this 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.
Therapy versus a spiritual path
The intent of this spiritual path is to work with all areas of the psyche that are negative, destructive or in error. Then we must 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. Many people first seek therapy 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.
This cannot be done sequentially. We need to cultivate regular contact with our spiritual center as best we can from early in our journey. For our ego needs the help that comes from our Higher Self to make transformation possible.
Over time, the ego learns to let go more completely, trusting and allowing the greater forces of the Higher Self to manifest.
As we go along, 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.
Sometimes people believe they are in a growing process—which is a spiral—when in fact they are merely going around in circles.
The difference between a spiral and circle
On the surface, growth and stagnation can appear 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 we might exaggerate one thing and underestimate another, someone detached from our problems can 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 fills us to the depth of our being. We will then know that we are not moving in a stationary circle.
In a similar way, the Guide's teachings are a spiral. They take an important concept and deliberate on it from various different angles.
One might say there are two parallel spiral movements happening. One pursues the disturbance, and the other shows the true picture that complements it.
Rhythms of the work
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—we essentially create a separate self as a means of protection—and we no longer know our 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. 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
What we can expect
In nearly every lecture, the Guide offers a promise as well as a problem or duality, a prayer or meditation, and a way out.
Here are some of the promises of what the Guide says we can expect if we follow these teachings:
We will be less depressed, tiredness will cease, we have strength to go through our difficulties, we will bear our cross in the right way, we will know what our lives are all about, we will enjoy life in spite of difficulties, and we will be vibrantly alive.
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Finding Gold: The Search for our Own Precious Self explores the Guide's teachings about self-knowing in greater depth.
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"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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