The Text - Section 140
140. CONFLICT OF POSITIVE VERSUS NEGATIVE ORIENTED PLEASURE AS THE ORIGIN OF PAIN
Greetings, my dearest friends. Blessings, again, for each and every one of you, for every step,
for every effort you undertake on your road to liberation.
In this lecture I will bring together much that we discussed recently. You will easily see the
connections. But first, as a preface, let us take a look at the meaning of pain and its real cause. Pain
is the result of conflict. It occurs when two opposite directions exist in a personality. The direction
of the universal creative forces is toward light, life, growth, unfoldment, affirmation, beauty, love,
inclusion, union, pleasure supreme. Whenever this direction is counteracted by another, a
disturbance is created. It is not the disturbance itself that creates the pain, but the imbalance and a
special sort of tension caused by the opposite direction. This is what causes the suffering. It is very
important to understand this, my friends, in order to follow the rest of this lecture.
The principle I explain here holds true on all levels. It is indeed ascertainable on the physical
level. The physical system, like all other systems or planes, also strives toward wholeness and health.
When a disturbing force pulls in an opposite direction, the pull of the two directions creates the
pain. You can tell that this is what actually causes the pain because when the struggle is given up
and the individual lets go and gives in to the pain, the pain stops. Many people have verified the
truth of this principle. The moment that the struggle between two opposite pulls is relinquished and
the existence of the negative direction is accepted, pain must cease.
When the disturbance is fought against ineffectively, and the personality wants health, it
negates that it also wants non-health. Since the striving for non-health is repressed and ignored, the
struggle toward health becomes all the more tense. That is the origin of pain. If the personality
were conscious of wanting non-health as well as health, the struggle would cease instantly, for the
former wish cannot be maintained; only the latter can. It is the unconsciousness that creates a gap
between cause and effect. The cause is the negative wish; the effect, the disturbance in the system.
The two pulls continue and pain comes into being.
But when this process is fully understood, and the temporary, still unavoidable consequences
of the negative wish are accepted, one can let oneself go into this now existing pain, and the pain
must cease. This is not necessarily a destructive way of embracing pain, or a masochistic, self-
punishing element that in itself harbors and perpetuates a negative wish. It is a full acceptance of
what is -- with that, pain ceases. It is the principle, for instance, of painless birth. It is the principle
of non-struggle. It is the principle that Jesus Christ explained when he said, "resist not evil."
When the struggle is too fierce on all levels, death sets in. Death may also be a result of
having given up the struggle. This applies to the physical plane, of course. Therefore, physical pain
ceases when tension ceases -- and this happens in death.
On the mental and emotional planes, something similar exists. When the struggle is fully
understood and accepted as a temporary manifestation, as an effect -- accepted as such without
finality, and yet with awareness of the rightness of these consequences -- the mental or emotional
pain ceases. This does not happen when the negative is wanted, for as we have seen, this wanting
merely creates the new direction, contrary to the original, positive one. Nor does this happen by
forfeiting the affirmative principle, but by understanding the now. Then mental and emotional pain
cease, just as physical pain ceases when the opposite pull is abandoned. All this is verifiable and has
been verified the world over. All of you who are on a path of self-realization have, at least
occasionally, experienced this.
On the spiritual plane, my friends, it is different. For the spiritual plane is the cause, while all
other planes or spheres of consciousness are effects. The spiritual plane is the origin of the positive
direction. It does not, and cannot, contain a negative direction. The negative direction creates, and
is created by, various attitudes incompatible with the origin of all life. The spiritual plane is unity
itself, therefore conflict, opposing directions and, consequently, pain are unthinkable and illogical
there.
People who are free from conflict and pain must be in unity. They can be in total unity only
when they follow the unbroken line of the positive direction of their life forces. If it were possible
for an individual to fully want the negative, pain too would cease. But this is not possible, for the
real self is attuned to the real world of absolute constructiveness. This is the final reality, so it is
nonsensical to even imagine that anyone could be in unity about any negative aim. Life, in its
essential and profound character, cannot ever be negatively oriented. Negative orientation cannot
be anything but a distortion. Since underneath the distortion the real continues to exist, it sends
forth its effects, regardless of the overlays of distortion and the strength of the momentarily existing
negative orientation. Since the human being and life are one, nobody can ever be fully negative.
Whenever there is some negation in one's makeup, tension and conflict must exist, and so must
pain. The negative direction is opposed to life, and nonlife cannot ever be totally desired or even
envisaged as being free of conflict, for it makes no sense.
It is very important to understand, my friends, that the negative can be desired only by one
part of the personality, never by the whole of it. There will always be another part of the psyche that
violently objects to the negative desire, so that pain must result. On the physical as well as the
emotional and mental levels, it is possible temporarily to accept the negative as a passing stage, in the
understanding that it is the effect of an inadvertent cause and a mere momentary disturbance. In
this understanding and acceptance one ceases the struggle. One accepts the negative without finality
and with an objective, non-indulgent attitude. But on the spiritual plane, which comprises the total
being, total life, the origin of all, this is impossible. The total being cannot ever totally want the
negative.
Pain and suffering are always the result of the pull on the personality by two tendencies which
are the life and the anti-life directions. They can also be called the direction of love and the
direction of hate, isolation and fear, or the positive and negative directions. The outer layers of
personality must suffer as long as unity is not achieved. Unity exists exclusively in the full reality of
the cosmic creative principle. It is exceedingly important, my friends, to understand what I am
saying here, for this understanding must open new doors.
A number of my friends have crossed a major threshold on their path in the discovery and
awareness of where they themselves desire the negative. Now this is an exceedingly important new
phase. It makes all the difference for an individual to be or not to be aware of his negative desires.
There are, of course, degrees of awareness. It is possible to be aware of them casually and fleetingly.
It is possible to have gained one important insight into their existence but to dilute this awareness.
The more the awareness of a deliberate desire for the negative exists, the more you will be in control
of yourself, of life, and the less you will feel victimized, helpless, and weak.
When an entity is not aware of its deliberate desire for the negative, the suffering must be
infinitely greater than any suffering or pain that can ensue when one is aware of having wanted it
oneself. Lack of such awareness must create a psychic climate in which the individual feels singled
out as a victim. It is inevitable to feel helpless when one lacks the awareness that the effect was self-
created. Separation between cause and effect in one's consciousness must create confusion, doubt,
and hopelessness. The moment awareness of the negative desire has been attained through the
painstaking struggle of this work, you at least know, my friends, what causes your outer difficulties
and unwelcome situations. Even before you are capable of giving up the negative desires, because
you do not yet understand the reason for their existence, merely knowing that you have created the
undesirable manifestations in your life will render you a freer person.
Those of you who have made these initial inroads to awareness of the negative desires must
be careful to extend this awareness and to link it with the unwelcome manifestations in your life.
This essential step must not be overlooked. For it is indeed possible to be aware, to some extent at
least, of a negative desire and nevertheless ignore that this negative desire is the immediate cause of
any number of manifestations in your life that you strenuously struggle against. And that is exactly
your pain. You struggle against something that you have yourself induced, and continue to induce,
while, at the same time, there must always be the pull toward the light, toward wholeness, toward
loving, inclusion and constructiveness, toward beauty and unfoldment. Your denial of the direction
toward wholeness and your oblivion of this denial -- not knowing that you want two opposing
things at the same time -- confuses and pains you. What is required for an entity to reach this
awareness can easily be understood.
Those of you who have caught the first glimpses of your negative desires have gained a new
strength and a new hope. For whenever this awareness is alive, you see, at first as a principle and as a
possibility, how your life can be when you no longer have the negative desires, even though you do
not yet know why and how you insist on the negative desires and why you harbor them in the first
place. But merely knowing that you have them and, subsequently, connecting them with the
unwelcome results must give you new hope and a new outlook.
Those friends who have not yet gained this awareness should try their very best to find their
negative desires. On the surface the majority of people cannot imagine how they might harbor
destructive desires. Even some friends who have been on this path for a long time may as yet be
unable to feel their destructive direction. Meditate and truly want to find what is in you. This is
even more difficult when a person busily denies those aspects in life that leave something to be
desired, and does not want to face missing something, suffering from something. This kind of
denial of what you really feel and miss makes it impossible ever to bring real fulfillment into your
life. This denial still exists in a few of my friends who have been doing this work for a considerable
time.
So ask yourself, "Do I have, do I experience, everything to the maximum of my potential?
What disturbs me possibly more than I admit?" That would be the first question, a pertinent
question for those whose tendency is to escape from their unfulfillments, to deny them, to gloss
over them and falsify their situation. And then, of course, there are those people who are only too
keenly aware of their suffering and of what they miss, but they are disconnected in themselves from
the mechanism that wishes the negative result.
The work on this path continues with becoming aware of deliberate negative desires, or of the
avoidance of positive results, which amounts to the same thing. It is, as you can see, an essential
milestone on your whole road of evolution. It constitutes the difference between feeling like a
helpless straw in the wind, a little forgotten tool in a vast universe, and feeling one's self to be self-
governing, autonomous. The principle of cycles or circles -- whether benign or vicious -- is always
the principle of self-perpetuation. Autonomy is positively self-perpetuating, set in motion by reality
consciousness.
Again, this can be ascertained on your path. When you come to a certain degree of insight
into your psyche, you see how the positive and negative attitudes are self-perpetuating. Take, for
example, any healthy, positive attitude. When you are outgoing, constructive, open, inclusive, all
things go easily. You do not have to work hard at them. They perpetuate themselves. You do not
even have to spend energy on any deliberate kind of meditation. By themselves, your positive
thoughts, attitudes, and feelings create more positive thoughts, attitudes, and feelings. These, in turn,
create fulfillment, productiveness, peace, and dynamism. The principle is exactly the same in
negative situations. The self-perpetuating forces, in this instance, can be changed only by this
deliberate process which sets something new in motion. Such pathwork process accomplishes just
this.
It is further important for you to understand and visualize that the spheres of consciousness
operate exactly according to the directions that we have discussed. In other words, to simplify a bit
for the sake of discussion, there is the positive principle and direction. This is the sphere of reality,
the sphere in which there is unlimited self-perpetuation in whatever respect consciousness is aware
of the existence of such wholeness and inexhaustible abundance. Incidentally, I want to interject
here that the principle of self-perpetuation which I have explained on a spiritual level exists in
identical form on a scientific plane. This principle can be found in chemistry, in physics, in
practically every field of science. It should therefore be easier to accept than if it were a
phenomenon that had not already been found in human material realms.
The personality level that wants the negative and pursues that direction creates a new world,
or psychic sphere, covering the original positive one. Images and forms -- the product of attitudes,
thoughts and feelings -- create this negative world. There are many variations, degrees, and
possibilities, according to the strength of the negative desires, the awareness of both positive and
negative desires, and the balance between the two. You may gain an inkling of this by comparing
your own change in awareness with your previous unconscious denial of positive experience, or even
your direct desire for the negative. You will see that this difference constitutes another sphere of
consciousness, a different world, with its own distinct flavor and atmosphere.
The physical, material world you live in manifests the positive, the negative, and presents a
combination of the two. All these exist in and outside of you -- in timelessness and spacelessness.
You can and must reach these worlds within your psyche by becoming acutely aware of them. They
are a product of your own self-expressions, of your various spheres of consciousness. You must go
through them, layer by layer, within yourself. Where you are relatively free from negative desires, it
will be fairly simple and easy to grasp, to feel, to experience the world of truth, where all good exists
and is self-perpetuating. Therefore there is no need for struggle, for doubt, for fear, or for
deprivation. In these areas you will find that you fearlessly open your heart to the positive, dynamic
experience, which moves eternally toward further unfoldment, greater happiness, more inclusion.
You do not stop this movement with your fearful mind, holding it in check and bringing it to a
standstill. These spheres are there; they not only exist deep in your psyche where you can sense the
eternal life of all existence, but they manifest in your outer life. To become aware of them is also
useful, so you can compare them properly.
And then, of course, there is always the main problem, the area in your psyche where the fear
of the positive, hence its negation, exists. Consequently, deprivation and suffering manifest in your
outer life. You must fully experience this sphere within your consciousness so you can transcend it
by transforming yourself. You must live it through, not by denying it or struggling away from it, but
by seeing and accepting it, learning to understand its nature. This is what is meant by going through
it. When it is affirmed and ascertained as a temporary reality, only then can the underlying world of
self-perpetuating good be reached, where you no longer have to reach and grasp and want, but know
that it is already yours, even before you have attained it.
Whenever you are separated from others, from your fellow creatures, you must be in the
negative world, in a self-perpetuating negativity that you sow through your destructive wishes. You
must therefore suffer because you deny and ignore the full significance of the thus evolving struggle.
The struggle varies from individual to individual, and with a given individual from phase to phase,
and even at times from hour to hour, because at different times different directions come up. They
alternate in predominance at any given moment. At one time one direction is more on the surface
and the other more submerged; at other times they change.
So there must always be in you an unceasing struggle in which one side strives toward
wholeness and union with your fellow creatures in many different ways, toward love and
understanding, toward consideration, toward giving and receiving. But always there is still this other
side that negates and denies the former direction, that fears and resists it. Therefore a particular pain
exists, and the greater the denial, the greater the pain. Do not forget that it is impossible to
completely want isolation, withdrawal, and separation. If it were possible to fully want this and be
wholly reconciled to its results, there would be no pain. But it is not possible totally to ever want
this. One can only want it to a large degree. And therefore, the larger the percentage, the stronger
the pull in the opposite direction from health and union -- hence the fiercer the pain.
The pain is aggravated by the struggle that sets in with the other person. For do not forget,
my friends, that it is painful enough that you want and do not want, alternately, to relate and love on
the one hand, and to hate, reject, and withdraw on the other. It becomes infinitely more
complicated when this conflict is multiplied by a second individual into whose parameters you enter,
and who wages a similar fight within.
Both the positive and negative directions are attached to the pleasure principle. It is this
attachment that makes it so difficult to give up the negative direction and change. The positively
and negatively oriented pleasure principle tears you apart. It inflicts pain on you by itself, but it does
not exist in you alone. It also exists in those with whom you are involved in this conflict, and about
whom you cannot decide whether or not to love or to reject them. If they were perfectly in balance
and free from such an inner division, they would surely be unaffected by your struggle. Their
harmony with the universal forces and the high degree of awareness would protect them from
negativity and the resulting tension between the positive and negative pulls. If it were possible, for
the sake of argument, that such an evolved being could enter into a relationship with an ordinary
person who is racked by this fight, the latter would still be in pain because of his or her own
division. But how much more complicated it becomes when the other person is in a similar
position, for then the struggle is not twofold, but a compounded fourfold one. Imagine the many
mathematical possibilities that arise from such a situation, with all their psychological consequences
of misunderstanding, misjudgment, and hurt, which, in turn, create further negativity.
Let us imagine two people, A and B. A momentarily expresses the positive direction toward
union. B is frightened of it and therefore withdraws and rejects A. Consequently, A again becomes
convinced that the healthy soul movement toward union was risky and painful and so reverts to the
negative and the denial. Since this is so painful, the negative pleasure principle attaches itself to it,
making the pain more bearable. A will then revel in the negative situation. In the meantime, the
pain of isolation in B becomes unbearable, and B ventures out while A is in a dark hole. Now, this
goes on and on, sometimes in crass opposition, although sometimes there is a fleeting meeting. At
times A's positive direction meets B's negative one; at other times they are reversed; at still other
times, both negative currents are out, both withdraw or antagonize one another. At still other times,
both temporarily venture into the positive, but since the negative principle still exists in them, the
positive position is only tentative, so uncertain, so fearful, so divided, so defensive and apprehensive
that these negative emotions about the positive direction produce negative results sooner or later.
These are then attributed to the positive venture, rather than to the problematic emotions about it.
It is inevitable that the negative direction must again take over after such periods of mutual
positiveness, until the negative, destructive, and denying side is fully understood and eliminated.
The negative, the denying and destructive direction would not be as fierce and as difficult to
overcome if the pleasure principle were not attached to it. You then come into the position of not
wanting to part from the precarious pleasure you derive from indulging in destructive feelings and
attitudes. This may evolve subtly, insidiously, and inadvertently when an individual starts out with
the healthy and constructive direction.
Let us take the following example, which might prove useful for all of you. Suppose, on your
road toward self-realization, you gain strength and self-confidence. Where you felt uncertainty and
guilt as you experienced friction with another person, you now experience a new inner calm,
certainty in yourself, and a strength and resilience you never knew existed. In the old way, you
might have responded submissively to assuage your guilt, or with hostile aggression to assuage your
self-contempt for your uncertainty. Whatever you did, however you responded with your negativity
and self-doubt, you were attached to the negatively oriented pleasure principle. You enjoyed your
woes. Now, you have progressed. You experience yourself in a new way. Instead of choosing the
nagging self-doubt, you gain insight into why the other person behaves that way. For the moment
this objective understanding sets you free, makes you strong, gives you more objective insight into
yourself and into the other person. In other words, the self-perpetuating principle of insight and
understanding has been set in motion.
But then the still existing, because not yet fully recognized, negative pleasure principle attaches
itself to your understanding of the other person's negativity. You begin to talk yourself into dwelling
more and more on that person's faults and blindnesses, and you inadvertently begin to enjoy this.
You do not immediately distinguish between the two different kinds of joy. The first comes when
you see with detachment what exists in the other, and this sets you free; the second appears when
you pleasurably indulge in the other's wrongness, and this blinds you. What you first noticed in the
other you build up until the old negative pleasure principle has reappeared in a new guise. This is
where you lose your harmony and freedom because you again indulge in the negative pleasure
principle. This is an example of how insidiously this can happen whenever the old roots still exist
unobserved.
Here, my friends, the continuation of the path becomes clearer and more concisely defined.
You have the immediate tools to set out and discover what I explained here. Now, are there any
questions?
QUESTION: It seems this whole lecture was for me. Whenever I come to see the pain and
hurt in another person, I immediately bring out the negative, the hostility and rage, and I am blinded
by these negative feelings. I cannot see anything positive or understand the struggle in the other
person. Although I pray and want to let go, I am still "sitting in the hole."
ANSWER: Are you aware that while you indulge in the negativity you enjoy doing it?
QUESTION: Yes, I am.
ANSWER: The next step would have to be a very simple one, my dearest friend. Issue and
express the thought, "I want to give up the negative. I want my pleasure to be attached to a positive
situation. I want to be constructive. I want to give my attention to this situation and be governed
by the most constructive forces." Do this in a relaxed and light way, enlisting the subliminal force
within yourself to help you do it. Do not try to do it by sheer outer power, for with that outer
power you cannot succeed. Your outer mind can only issue such a constructive intent, and with that
it sets up a positive movement, which then begets a positive self-perpetuating cycle. If you are not
yet willing to do this, the work must proceed very simply and easily. Where and why do you believe
that wanting the negative is safer for you than wanting the positive? You hinder yourself from
wanting the positive. If you cannot stop this process, there must still be reasons you have not
understood, and they must be unearthed.
QUESTION: Irrationally, I fear that I may be taken advantage of and lose my integrity. I
have a slight feeling that this is not true, but I can't see exactly how.
ANSWER: In the first place, you must truly want to see that this is possibly a wrong
conclusion. The feeling of helplessness or powerlessness is again the self-perpetuating principle at
work in that you have given up self-government when you allowed yourself to be taken over by the
negative force. Therefore it does not occur to you that you have the possibility of governing
yourself.
For instance, the moment you say, "I decide that I do not want to be in negativity or hang on
to misconceptions, such as these," in that moment you take command. Then, further, if you say and
mean, "I do not have to be a slave to decisions that do not come from me because I am
constructive. What I want is up to me." You will then experience that the more constructive your
desires are, the freer you become and the easier it will be to determine independently what you will
or will not do. Others will not be able to impose their will on you, hence your integrity will be
preserved and increased in exact proportion to your active desire to be constructive and to give up
the pleasure that is attached to a negative situation.
What has weakened you was that you lost awareness of your negative desires. You had
repressed, denied, and hidden them, having superimposed false positive ones. Hence you lost touch
with yourself. Had you been aware of the negative desires, you would not have been able to let
them grow so strong. But even if you had done that, you would not have become helpless and
powerless. In reality, your weakness and helplessness is never due to the stronger will of the others.
It exists because you are swept away by the self-perpetuating force of your negative desires, which
you have consciously ignored until now. This lack of control makes you unable to imagine how to
take command.
Now, you, with your conscience and your spirit, cannot take command consciously to fulfill
your negative desires. This can happen only with positive desires. When you issue such positive
desires, you will become stronger, more self-governing and less helpless -- and therefore no one
could take advantage of you, because your free decisions to take action will be made in absolute
consciousness of what you are doing, and why.
It is because of the gnawing guilt -- inevitable when negative desires exist whether or not one
is aware of them -- that you allow yourself to be taken advantage of. The guilt makes you go
overboard in complying with the demands of others. It is exactly because of the negative direction
of your desires that you do allow yourself to be taken advantage of; that you are uncertain, uneasy,
and weak about any of your rights -- only because of that! Were you free from the destructive
desires, you would not feel guilty, hence you would not need to atone. And you could very easily,
kindly, and without any defensiveness -- when it is the right thing and when you really want it -- say
no, and not give in to demands being made upon you.
So, the reality is exactly the opposite of what you think: positivity will set you free to have
integrity, to defend and assert your rights, while negation and destructiveness must weaken you and
make you defenseless. When it is as yet impossible to issue the desire to be constructive and
positive, assert that this is where you are. See yourself being in the negation and destructiveness and
set out to find what further undetected cause slumbers behind this resistance. Arrayed behind it
there may be more fears of a deeper nature still needing to be unearthed.
QUESTION: I usually concentrate too much on studying the negative aspects, centered on
the father image. I have asked myself lately if by doing so I have been hiding something that is
deeper in me and that I don't want to look at. I concentrate on this mixture of a father image and a
concept of maleness. I think I miss the main point by analyzing too much of this.
ANSWER: There is in you a feeling that you do not want to assume the male role. Have you
become aware of this feeling?
QUESTION: No.
ANSWER: Well, this is it. Awareness of it will come, first, maybe indirectly, by deducing
certain manifestations, and subsequently by bringing out the emotions. Consciously, there is the
great desire in you to be a strong man. You even go overboard and exaggerate this image of
masculinity. This overcompensation would not exist if you were deeply ready to assume the male
role, if you would not refuse it. There is this fear that you may be inadequate to fulfill this role; there
is the fear that demands will be made upon you when you assume it. Also, there is in you a
spitefulness toward life, toward society, with which you say no. There is an envy in you of the
feminine sex, for on that level, they seem to have it easier. You resent the effort required of you to
fill in this conscious male image. You believe that this is what you should do, and you resent that it
seems to be expected of you. Maybe you expect it of yourself. Nevertheless, this is what you think
you ought to do and be -- and you resent it. It is important that you find the exact opposite of the
conscious striving, meaning the passive resistance against your male role. You fear it, deny it, do not
want it, and spitefully refuse it. When you become aware of that, you will have found the point I
have just discussed. Then you will be aware of your main negative desires concerning your identity
as a man.
QUESTIONER: Yes, I went over this point last year, but I have completely overlooked it
lately.
ANSWER: This is what happens so often: a finding is made and it is then shelved, as though
this would suffice. It is not by any means changed or eliminated. In fact, you have only scratched
the bare surface. It is often necessary that one work on other aspects for a while before one can
return to the fundamental problem.
Be blessed, every one of you. Receive this warm stream of love that is all around you and
transcends every one of you. Open yourself. For this love is truth, and this truth is life. And this
life is yours for the asking. The courageous steps all of you undertake here have a meaning. They
are not senseless, they are not useless, my dearest ones. May you always know this. Every
admission of something negative that exists in you contributes more toward the universal process of
wholeness than any other thing imaginable. So proceed this way. Be blessed. Be in peace. Be in
God!