The Text - Section 173
173. BASIC ATTITUDES AND PRACTICES TO OPEN THE CENTERS - RIGHT ATTITUDE TOWARD FRUSTRATION
Greetings, my friends. May my words reach your deepest understanding and become a
blessing for your road in this life. This lecture continues the preceding one, in which I started to talk
about the significance of the life energy centers. These centers are physically invisible but
nevertheless distinct areas in the human life-system. The opening of the centers creates a full
capacity for living and feeling. Their closed state is responsible for unhappiness, negativity and lack
of feelings. How closed the centers are determines exactly the degree of living in unreality and
therefore in a state of strife and numbness. Joyful, fruitful, meaningful living implies a
commensurate degree of openness of the centers.
Many spiritual philosophies discuss these centers and give practices that foster awareness of
them and help to open them. Usually these practices are more or less mechanical, such as
concentration and breathing exercises. As I have indicated before, if you put more emphasis on
such exercises than on your underlying attitudes -- your current attitudes, not those that would exist
in a perfect person -- these exercises at best bring few results, and those are only momentary. At
worst, they can be harmful in effecting an opening in an individual who is not in harmony with
spiritual reality. If you are not strong and independent -- self-responsible in the deepest sense -- the
power of the energy flowing into the system is too much to bear. This is why our main emphasis is
always on the general development and growth, for in that way you cannot go wrong. Our
predominant approach in the pathwork must be to confront the true state of your feelings and
concepts, then to eliminate the false ideas, which create fear and other negative emotions as well as
the fear of feelings themselves. This is the absolutely fundamental approach, but once you have
practiced a certain degree of self-confrontation without clinging to the old patterns of self-delusion
and illusion, and therefore have attained a certain degree of liberation and self-realization, additional
methods may be used.
In the last lecture I spoke about two aspects: what determines the functioning of the centers
of energy generally, and the specific functioning of each center. In tonight's lecture, we shall discuss
the third aspect: the practices and attitudes that help to open the centers. I want to emphasize once
more, however, that it may not be possible quite yet for many of you to effect a real opening. This
should not discourage you. When you are inwardly ready, you will know, and the opening will come
naturally. In the meantime, even the apparently unsuccessful attempt will have an indirect value and
benefit: It will loosen up some hardened psychic substance; it may make contact with the greater
wisdom in you more accessible; it may facilitate your capacity to concentrate and meditate; and it will
increase your general awareness of yourself and others. All of this is a precondition for effecting a
more profound loosening up and a new awareness.
So, even if you cannot immediately follow or understand my suggestions, it does not matter.
Many times the topics I have discussed were fully comprehended and used only much later. But
even the fleeting intellectual understanding may indirectly help to make the deeper perception more
quickly accessible. When you relate in a natural, spontaneous, organic way to the topics under
discussion, it is because something in you has worked its way toward this state of mind. Many
things determine the natural organic process of this path. After the first hurdles have been
overcome, the path becomes a self-perpetuating reality, producing its own needs and messages, if
you are attuned to it. Thus, I cannot possibly foresee when you will be able to apply, truly and
lovingly, what I say here. But you certainly can use some of it in your own way, which you will find
by trying and through meditation. Some of my words you will certainly be able to assimilate, no
matter where you find yourself at present on your individual path.
As you will see, the practices I suggest are never merely mechanical. They always have a direct
relationship to your own attitudes and to your innermost concept of yourself and of life, and to the
feelings, thinking processes and actions that your attitudes and inner concepts generate. Thus a
meaningful and safe procedure will be established.
When the centers are open, the person is completely -- inwardly and outwardly -- in a relaxed
state in which there is no cramp. Let us examine what the words "inwardly and outwardly" mean.
These words may easily be taken for granted and glossed over. It is extremely important, my
friends, that you understand them precisely. I have mentioned in other contexts that every function
and organ in the personality exists in the physical body as well as in the invisible body, which is the
model after which the former is fashioned. I will skip an elucidation of the fact that several such
subtle bodies exist. For this discussion, the terms "inwardly and outwardly" are sufficient. There
exists an inner and an outer consciousness, which is not as crassly definable as the conscious and the
unconscious mind. There is an inner knowing and there is an outer knowing -- the former not
necessarily being unconscious at all. There is an inner faculty of sensing, and there is an outer one.
There is an inner reasoning process, and there is an outer one. Thus you have inner functioning and
outer functioning, which can best be explained by the voluntary and the involuntary physical
responses. Much of your physical functioning occurs on a voluntary basis. Your directly accessible
brain can send forth commands that make other areas of your body respond. You decide to move
your hand, to get up, to move your legs in this or that direction, to utter a sound with your vocal
cords -- or not to do any of these things. These functions are determined by your outer direct will.
Then there is an inner functioning that cannot be influenced directly by your will: the heartbeat, the
bloodstream, the digestive system. But they, as well as all other inner functioning, can be influenced
indirectly.
In quite the same way there are states of outer and inner relaxation. As you become more
attuned to yourself -- your thinking processes, your emotional responses, and your body state -- you
will be able to distinguish and experience quite distinctly both layers of reality. Awareness always
begins with the outer layer, of which humans are not naturally aware. In fact, you must pay
attention to it for a considerable time before you become capable of ascertaining in a clear-cut,
concise way what you consciously think, feel, and experience. Usually all this is so vague and
muddled, so habitually glossed over, that if you are asked what you think or feel right now, you must
usually confess that you do not know. It is the same way with your body state, unless you happen to
find yourself in an unusually strong state of either pain or pleasure. Your states of tension have
become such second nature that you are no longer aware that your outer musculature is tense in one
area or another. This is quite similar to the mental and emotional levels: You have become so
accustomed to thinking in a certain way, to feeling specific emotions, that you cannot imagine
anything else and are unable even to discern what you think or feel. A good part of any self-
development therefore always consists of increasing your sense of self -- what you think, feel, and
experience on all levels.
After you have attained awareness of the outer thinking, feeling, and physical states, the inner
awareness begins to grow. Your faculties have now been trained in a new direction of attentiveness,
of "listening in," as it were. So it is no longer quite so difficult.
When you start with muscle tension in the outer body, it is necessary first to feel, be aware of,
the tension, in order to subsequently relax it voluntarily. This parallels mental and emotional
functioning: There, too, it is necessary first to know that you feel and think a certain thing in order
to change it, if the thought is untrue and the feeling destructive. To the degree you have attained
outer awareness and are therefore in a position to change certain reactions and functioning, the
inner areas of functioning become automatically more accessible.
For the purpose of opening the centers a relaxed state is necessary on all levels. Relaxation
does not mean inactivity, paralysis, being slumped in unmoving unaliveness. Quite the contrary:
only in a relaxed state can live energy surge through the system. It is therefore one of the more
important aspects of practice to observe your state of tension on all levels. Once outer relaxation
has become your usual state, your awareness of inner knots and tight cramps will follow quite
naturally. You will suddenly detect what you have never felt before: that although your outer body
feels well, coordinated, without pains or tensions, there are inner "lumps." They are not painful, but
you feel that they exist. You will know that they have always been there, only you have not noticed
them.
Concentration exercises to observe your state of tension in order to relax it are therefore
extremely useful. Once your outer body has attained the relaxation, feeling healthy and vital, and
you therefore gain awareness of inner body blocks, you will know how it would be if these blocks
were dissolved. You cannot directly will them to dissolve, for you are now dealing with the
involuntary inner functioning, which can no more be directly controlled on the physical level than
you can will yourself to feel differently in this instant. You can announce to yourself that you would
like to feel different, because your present feelings are based on false ideas and are destructive for
you and feel unpleasant. You can search for more understanding so that you can indirectly influence
these destructive feelings, until one day you suddenly react in a new way when you least expect it,
quite spontaneously. It is the same way with the inner body blocks.
Perhaps the best way to express how you first experience the inner body blocks is to say that it
feels as if there were static, congested areas in your body. This awareness is always of the greatest
importance. Once the blocks give way, you will feel a pleasurable energy and delight flowing
through your entire being. You will first sense and know that this state exists underneath the tense
areas, even before you actually experience it. Your inner knowing will tell you this.
Knowing of the two states -- the temporary blockage you find in yourself now and the flowing
energy that is potentially yours -- brings you considerably nearer your own potential for being and
experiencing. Once again, the same holds true on the mental and emotional levels. When you
become very quiet and listen into yourself, you will find an emotional tension and cramp; you will
see how your mind is either overagitated or sluggish -- additional manifestations of underlying
tension that has become too unpleasant to bear. Only after you are aware of the tension is it
possible to deal with it in a constructive way -- not before.
Quiet self-observation helps you to accomplish this. Such quiet focusing will make you aware
of your abnormal state. Let us be clear, by the way, that the overwhelming majority of people live in
an abnormal state: their state is not a realization of the human being's natural potential. You will
also become aware of the natural, normal state that also exists in you "behind" the unnatural state.
The open, free and natural state that does justice to you and your capacity to experience life is not
something you must laboriously attain because you are not now in possession of it. It already exists,
only you can feel it no more than you could at first feel the cramps and tensions.
This very distinct focusing on yourself is not in the least selfish or self-centered. In fact, it
increases your perception and understanding of others and gives you a greater capacity to relate to
others. For your relatedness with others can exist only in exact proportion to your relatedness with
yourself, which includes the awareness and understanding of your own reactions and states on all
levels of your being.
You have begun to experience the presence of a greater reality and intelligence within you, as a
result of your development and growth and after having deliberately set out to activate it. This
contact becomes forever more real. Its guidance is the most reliable and wisest imaginable. Its
voice becomes forever more distinct and discernible. A few of you have begun to experience this
contact, at least occasionally. You have learned certain approaches in meditation that facilitate this
contact. The difficulty is not that the greater intelligence is not always imminently available. The
difficulty is that you forget to use it, or resist doing so. But however that may be, those of you who
know it as more than a theory have perhaps come to think of it as being somewhere in the region of
your solar plexus. This is so, because, as outlined last time, the center in the solar plexus region is
the channel of communication with the inner wisdom of cosmic truth. But this does not mean that
cosmic truth is located in the solar plexus.
Your inner wisdom provides down-to-earth answers when you contact it. It gives workable,
realistic solutions and inspirations that neither deny your basic dignity as a human being, nor
sentimentally coddle you and let you get away with the specialness that your immature desires want
to arrogate to yourself. Such answers are the reason why you resist contacting your inner wisdom.
For this divine wisdom makes you completely self-responsible, which you erroneously consider a
disadvantage, overlooking the fact that only in self-responsibility can you truly live and move and
vibrate in joy and delight. Only then will you be secure, for your dependency on others is what
creates so much fear in you. It is this fear that creates the tensions. It is this fear that, based on
utterly wrong assumptions, induces you to forgo contact with divine wisdom, claiming that you
cannot, rather than admitting that you will not utilize it. This hurdle must be overcome under all
circumstances if you want at all to open up your life centers and let the living force surge through
your entire being.
This question must be confronted again and again. Every disturbance offers the best
opportunity, for if you value the truth of the moment, the truth of the problem, more than anything
else, and state this, letting go of all other considerations, the truth will make itself known to you, and
you will know that you are indeed both human in your present fallibility and divine in your
underlying potential. To understand the layers of consciousness of which you are an expression, it is
necessary to conceive of the inner and outer "brains" as one and the same organ. It is only that the
outer brain has forgotten its true nature and has lost the contact with the inner. Your conscious
willing intelligence must reestablish this connectedness, without which there can be no fruitful,
joyful living.
Now, where is the inner, universal consciousness? The more primitive a person is, the more
alienated he or she feels from it. Thus, in primitive religion, humans believe the universal
consciousness resides outside as a distinct personality, far away "in heaven." A much more
advanced state is the realization that God is within. Yet in this concept the universal consciousness
is still personalized and localized. It is now supposed to reside in a special area within the solar
plexus. This view is no more true than the notion that your ignorant, destructive unconscious
resides in a special area within you, even though it may often seem as though the "messages" come
out through this center in the solar plexus -- which is, perhaps, no more than a mouth that conveys.
You would not say that the mouth that speaks the words is the person, would you? Well, it is the
same here. So, consciousness -- separated and individual as well as cosmic and universal -- resides
neither in the brain nor in the solar plexus. Where does it reside, then? It is quite important for you
to glimpse the answer, which is all you can do at first.
Consciousness resides in every cell, in every molecule, in every atom, in every tiny fraction of
living matter. Every one of these infinitesimal units of consciousness functions with exactly the
same immutable lawfulness as the human personality does. The relationship of every cell-
consciousness to the human being is the same as the human being's relationship to humanity.
To the degree that the personality is in a state of what we call self-realization, or of universal
truth, the individual particles of consciousness accept truth and abandon misconceptions and error.
Every sick part of your body is a misconception. The body itself, which consists of "dieable"
matter, is a result of long-term errors of perception. Conversely, to the extent the whole organism
knows truth, the little units will eventually adopt it and will know their origin and connect with the
universal wisdom and life that is inherent in every particle of existence, no matter how separated at
the moment. Hence, more and more, life must replace death, health must replace sickness, joy must
replace suffering, security must replace fear. The ultimate truth of divine law and wisdom always
exists "underneath" or "behind" the erring individual, the erring cells and molecules, the erring
atoms, and every particle of mind-matter.
As you can perceive in your growing self-awareness, your inner blocks of tension and cramp
only cover another state in which you are free and flowing and joyful; you begin to see that behind
every sick particle of yours exists its healthy original state. Sickness is a product of the error of your
cells, atoms, or other smallest particles. But these errors do not happen arbitrarily or independently
of your whole personality. Your wrong ideas, false fears, and unnecessary defenses create the
tension and the error in the smaller life matter. Again, every state of emotional strife consists of
subtle, invisible life matter being in error. This error was created by the individual and must be
eradicated by the individual.
To the degree that you are capable of the kind of self-observation that recognizes both the
sick state and the healthy and joyful one that already exists underneath, you move from one sphere
of consciousness and existence into another. The pathwork must bring you to this. Much of what
we have done in the past concerned paying attention to all the errors that create negative feelings
and destructive actions. You know already from so much that you have worked out that every state
of fear creates tension and is a result of error. Every state of hostility is a result of error and creates
other negative feelings, thus again tension. When you are tense, for whatever reason, you must be in
error because you must be in fear. And every slightest tension closes the centers.
Every exercise -- physical or otherwise -- every meditation, every self-examination and self-
confrontation, should always aim to eliminate false concepts and illusion, and the unworkable
pseudosolutions and behavior patterns they generate. Ever since we started together on this path, I
have asked you again and again: What are the misconceptions that make you close up against life,
that make you adopt unproductive and often even destructive attitudes? Tension must always be
related to error. In all your approaches and practices, whatever they are, observe this erroneous
state and keep it in mind. Look at yourself from this point of view. Wherever you feel a congestion
-- be it a painful state in your emotions or body, or merely a neutral state in which you know that
something hardened in you prevents you from living fully -- set out to find the underlying error.
The error may have gone into your physical functioning, so that it tenses up as a conditioned reflex.
The error may now sit in the tiniest particles of consciousness, but this is always a result of an
overall idea that can be traced and unearthed by you. You may simply try to connect the physical
responses to your inner erroneous state. This effort will prove extremely enlightening and liberating.
It is one necessary condition for opening up the life and energy centers.
Fear of frustration is an important example of error creating tension and negative emotions.
What human being is not, to begin with, afraid of frustration? This fear must be overcome, for it is
an error in itself. The state of frustration always implies something that makes you want to fight
unnecessarily against the frustration. This forces you to remain in a state of mind that says, "I must
not have this in order to avoid that," or "I must have that in order to avoid this bad thing." These
musts are fear-tension currents. To the degree that you are fixated on this either/or duality, you are
in error and tension. Since life cannot flow into you in this state, you must rid yourself of the error.
That is, you must first crystallize it out of your vague thinking and feeling processes.
Frustration is not dangerous or disastrous. Heed and recognize this, my friends. Observe
your reactions to frustration. How do you react to anything undesirable that comes your way?
Many people gravitate toward metaphysical and spiritual teachings for precisely the wrong reasons.
That is, they hear that true self-fulfillment means the end of frustration. Now, although this is true,
you cannot ever end your frustration by fearing it and thus cramping up against it. You have to
learn first to accept it without exaggerating its impact on you, without feeling threatened by it. As
long as you want to attain the ultimate unitive state because you want to skip the stages that lead
there, you have not understood the basic principle of unity versus duality. You can transcend duality
only when neither of two alternatives unduly intensifies your functioning. Frustration will cease to
exist exactly to the extent that it no longer upsets you. You will find a new realm of reality in which
your are fulfilled only when you accept in a realistic and constructive way that frustration is an
integral part of the present reality. The childish desire for omnipotence which bans frustration
cannot actualize the human being's divine powers where true omnipotence ultimately lies. True
omnipotence comes not from need, desperation, greed, pride and self-will, but from having met and
successfully overcome the illusions behind them.
We can roughly indicate an individual's development from the point of view of his or her
attitude toward frustration by observing the following stages:
1)The most childish and therefore troubled state is one in which frustration appears to be
disaster. Hence fear and tension; hence closed life centers; hence unhappiness and unproductivity in
every respect.
2)The state of emotional maturity that accepts not having what one wants while using one's
best faculties to eventually overcome or diminish the frustration. The mature person accepts this
level of reality for what it is, knowing that limitations are present reality and that therefore
frustration must also exist. This attitude holds true for the self and is also applied to others.
3)Once a person with this mature attitude has learned to encounter and deal with frustration,
she or he can reach the ultimate state where every alternative or possibility in life contains an equal
amount of potential for unfoldment, therefore pleasure. It does not have to be merely this one way.
Serenity and joy, which come when the constantly open centers through which the energy of the
universe flows freely have the power to create and recreate circumstances, to fashion them. This
shaping of circumstances is not done by magic, by exerting power and control over others so that
they do one's will. It results from the person's enhanced faculties and resources, through which
forever greater possibilities for happiness manifest.
Thus, a very important facet of self-observation is to focus on your real attitude toward any
kind of frustration. It will give you a good gauge of your state of fear-tension. If you can then
verbalize the fear, you will have made an important inroad. You will also see that by tensing up
against frustration you cause much more frustration for yourself, for the very tension is a denial of
life as it now comes to you. Never, never could any condition outside you create anywhere near as
much frustration as you inflict upon yourself by tensing up against it. The flow of your feelings,
your life force, is the ultimate source of all fulfillment, without which no outer occurrence can truly
be meaningful. Only when your life force flows freely can fulfillment with others also come in a
truly deep way, without rendering you helplessly dependent on anyone else. Thus you avoid a great
deal of fear and possible hostility. When you turn off your life centers because of your defensive
fear of frustration, you perpetually frustrate yourself. A great deal of hopelessness is rooted in such
self-frustration.
Now let me give you two specific meditation exercises for opening your centers. The first I
described in a recent answer to a question, but I shall briefly repeat it.
Sit down in a very relaxed way, in the posture of this instrument. Do not slump down, yet sit
without tension, completely contained within yourself, without stiffness. The spine should be
straight, not needing to lean against the backrest of the chair but held up by its own balance. Close
your eyes and feel every part of your outer body. Relax it deliberately. Then try and see what
happens when you do not think. Do not force yourself not to think, for this would only make you
tense. Rather attempt it in the spirit of "I would like not to think, but I know that I am not capable
of doing so without some involuntary thinking processes taking place almost all the time. Therefore
I shall calmly observe my thinking processes, to what extent they penetrate my mind without my
being able to control them." In that fashion, in unpushing, unresisting observation, you will
eventually succeed, for perhaps a fraction of a minute, in not thinking. You will in that moment be
so still, so untense, yet so poised and "there" with your attention and awareness, that the agitated
mind processes will be calmed down. This state is not at all an unaware rambling and drowsing. It
is extremely alert and awake, a sharp concentration without the least bit of tension. You will then
find yourself seeing the thinking process as it wants to rush in on you. You will feel as if you were
standing on the threshold of an apparent nothingness or void. Do this in an unintense way. Give it
a minute or two -- perhaps before or after the meditation that you use for self-discovery or
reorientation of your negativity. Breathe calmly but distinctly through your abdomen. Feel your
lower stomach rhythmically lift up and down, in as calm and regular fashion as you can. Every
inhalation and exhalation should express a harmonious mind attitude of the most positive nature,
until gradually the volitional mind ceases to work and merely observes the involuntary mind.
This exercise will help you calm the busy, agitated mind. Therefore the center at the solar
plexus will open. Through this exercise, a channel to this center will begin to loosen up and finally
open. Thus an inner connection to your higher wisdom will be established. You will not get a
direct, immediately noticeable result, but by doing this practice as unintensely and calmly as possible,
you will suddenly find yourself poised on the brink of an apparent void. This is the beginning of a
new opening, which you will experience only retroactively and indirectly, as though it happened
quite independently of these practices.
The other practice I suggest is very much related to the topic of this lecture -- the observation
of outer and inner body blocks. Sit down in the same way. In this exercise you may also lie down
flat. Again relax and tune in to your body. Let every part of the outer functioning deliberately relax.
Then you will find tense areas of which you have not bee particularly aware before. See to what
extent you can deliberately loosen them and where this is not possible. This will show you whether
the area belongs to the outer or inner system. Once you can clearly distinguish the area and feel the
block, or the lump, or the congestion, question the meaning of it. Connect it to the mind and the
feelings that create it. What is the fear that creates this tension? Ask yourself: What is the direct
relationship between the specific body tension and fear? Send the thought into these cells, which
have their own consciousness. "What is the misconception behind the tension?" Answers will
come to you. You will probably first notice the outer blocks only. But the more you progress, the
greater the awareness of the inner reality becomes. You will then use the same approach on that
level -- only it will be easier then.
By connecting more and more with your own system and becoming aware of states you have
never paid attention to, you not only will recognize body tension, but will do the same in the area of
mind and feelings. There, too, a fluid, loose state gives pleasure, aliveness, constantly flowing
currents of pleasure and energy, as opposed to the block that hardens and prohibits the flow. The
block can be distinctly felt when you pay attention to it.
The oneness of the feeling with the mind and the body will become more closely knit and
firmly established. The mind carries the misconception; the feeling responds to it by negative,
destructive emotions; and the body expresses all this with contraction, tension, stiffness, rigidity --
which are also behind the flaccidity of unhealthy forms of apparent relaxation. Once you can bring
these three levels of functioning together to where the disturbance exists, you will come to the next
stage of dissolving it. I will help you when the time comes.
I leave you with blessings for every single one of you here. Do not believe that this is an
empty word. It carries a strength that can become an incentive and a door opener for you, should
you so desire. Be in peace, be what you are, loving yourself as you are, no matter how fallible at the
moment. For then you will truly be God.