“If what caused a negative experience is not elicited into the foreground of consciousness, it can never be given a chance to transform itself.

“In this case it is fear that perhaps the world is an arbitrary, chaotic, senseless place without rhyme and reason; that there is no God, no eternal life, no eternal soul, no meaning to the experiences man encounters. As you so well know from previous discoveries on your path, your attitude may be totally different on one level of your personality from that on another level. This certainly applies to faith in God and His creation, and, as part of that, to faith in the meaning and purpose of all that comes to pass in your lives in an endless, ongoing chain of being, of consciousness.

“It is the ultimate aim of self-realization to establish the truth of God, of eternal life, of the benign meaning of everything in every crevice of consciousness. This process is the very reason for incarnation and purification. What do you think purification is all about? It is not just to become ‘good.’ Being ‘good’ in and by itself is almost a meaningless phrase. The deeper you go in your work of fulfilling yourself, the more you become aware of goodness often being a matter of different approaches and values, of the mores of a particular culture. Sometimes what is considered ‘bad’ by a certain society may be of the highest value on deeper levels of reality — and vice versa, of course. Absolute good can be found only on the most profound levels of truth through the mundane and personal ‘little truths’ often so difficult to face. The greatest truth of God’s reality and immediacy brings you to the ultimate good that is beyond all question and doubt.

“The path I have the privilege to bring to you and help you on prepares you for this process. Little by little you deal first with the personal, individual violations of integrity and truth, level by level. The more open you are to this process and consequently the more you recognize and the more you loosen up your defenses so that a state of open flow is established, the easier it becomes to lift out the existential fear that grips all mankind. This is the common denominator that unites all human beings on the deepest level. When this deepest of all doubts and fears existing in all human beings is individually and personally being dealt with, then a new phase in the total process can begin.

“It is very different to be clearly aware of this fear and doubt and, for a while, live with it and deal with it again and again than to be in the previous state when these doubts and fears were covered up and consequently manifested indirectly. To know, feel, experience, and suffer these doubts and fears is the first step on this vital new phase in your evolution. Your longing for eternal life must be totally conscious. This is by no means so, as a general rule. Usually this longing is suppressed and repressed. It then becomes transformed into subsidiary longings such as longing for health, for happiness, for abundance, for avoiding physical death as long as possible.

“Obviously every one of these longings is most legitimate. You should by no means infer from my words that these longings are wrong and immature and that you should attempt to eliminate them. Quite the contrary is true. These longings are most legitimate. However, there is an enormous difference between seeing these longings as the original ones and seeing them as natural by-products of a genuinely basic state of soul that could exist, is meant to exist, and that the personality first unconsciously and finally consciously longs for.

“When this longing is unfulfilled, in a part of the total personality the separation between the created being and the Christ still exists. This separation exists not only between the individual (to the extent he or she is still in this darkness) and the Christ, but also within the personality. The personality is split. One part is in the light of knowing — and there the longing is fulfilled. The other part is still in darkness, therefore in fear, doubt, suffering; for this part, the longing is unfulfilled.

“But when this latter part is not even conscious, it creates commensurate painful experiences. For experience is constantly being created as an ongoing process from the consciousness, attitudes, thoughts, beliefs, and feelings of the person. How painful it is when the result of these inner creative agents is so separated from what created the experiences that the person is under the illusion that the experience comes to him without rhyme or reason. This is the most painful state of consciousness. It leads to the assumption that the universe is one of chaos and meaningless arbitrariness.

“When a human being dies in that state of darkness, the disruption of conscious connection will temporarily create the impression of nonexistence in the life outside the physical body. That is, the personality aspects that are in light and true knowledge will experience life after death accordingly, while the personality aspects that live in the darkness of unconscious fear and doubt will be unconscious after separation from the body. Through this process, the illusion is perpetrated that physical death is an extinction of consciousness. The aspects that have not yet awakened are then incorporated into the reincarnating personality and carried with it, to be dealt with when the total personality is ready on its evolutionary journey.

“When this separated, fearful, doubting part remains unconscious, the longing for eternal life is also unconscious. As the fears, doubts, and terrors manifest indirectly as if the manifestation had nothing to do with the specific fears, doubts, and terrors of nonexistence, so does the longing for eternal life manifest indirectly. It manifests in various ways. The longing may manifest in conscious subsidiary but legitimate longings such as those I mentioned before. Or the longing may manifest in displaced longings — longings for false, unreal fulfillments. The longing may also manifest in compulsive drives. Whatever it may be, it is important to make conscious the underlying, real longing for eternal life.

“All this will make it clear that there is a direct connection between the dark corner of fear, doubt, terror, and the longing. To the degree these fears, doubts, and terrors are unconscious, the longing is unconscious. To the degree they are conscious, the longing is conscious. And to the degree they are conscious, the first step toward transforming the level of fears, doubts, terrors into faith, knowledge of truth, security, and peace can be undertaken systematically, meaningfully, and intelligently. And obviously this in itself is the process by which the longing is being fulfilled.

“As it required courage, integrity, openness, good will, positive intentionality, and utter commitment to the truth to get to know yourself, to face the lower self, and thereby begin to transform it, so does it require exactly the same courage, integrity, openness, good will, positive intentionality, and utter commitment to the truth to face, live through, and transform the deep, universal, existential fears, doubts, and terrors.

“Let us now deal with two further points in this connection. The first is a vision or concept about the state of fulfillment of this longing which alone eliminates the fears and terrors, and stills all doubt. Without even a vague idea that such a state exists, it is impossible to be conscious of your longing for it. Nor can you visualize it. And that brings me to the second point which is, how you should work on establishing awareness of the dark level of doubt and fear, and awareness of the longing; and, further, how should you work on directly establishing the state in which this basic longing is fulfilled and from which all other fulfillments naturally derive.

“So let me first describe the fulfilled state. Let us be quite clear that we are here not discussing any outer state of fulfillment. Health, abundance, success, a sense of self-worth, emotional fulfillment in love with a mate, all these are desired by all human beings. Yet even if or when they do exist, they mean nothing without the inner state. This inner state of fulfilled longing is most difficult to describe in words. Once again we meet the already familiar obstruction of squeezing a cosmic state or concept into the narrow confines of human language which is geared to three-dimensional concepts. Nevertheless, I shall attempt to give you a vision or description of this state so that you can further attempt to grasp and sense it in order to eventually make it your own.

“This state has been variously described in mystical and spiritual literature and has been given various names such as nirvana, satori, cosmic consciousness, etc. But I am not interested to find a name. Let us rather see what this state — that is of course a deep union with and awareness of God — means in your personal experience.

“In the first place I would say that in this state there is no fear. A sense of being utterly safe and at home in the world permeates your whole being; a sense of security about life, yourself, all things, that might perhaps also be described as ‘being cozy’ with life. Life fits you like a glove.

“It is impossible to attain this sense of safety and of living in security and without fear unless you first ascertain that there is fear in you. For that is not obvious or self-understood, as I explained before. The fear is often submerged, covered up, or displaced onto substitute levels and manifestations. Once the deep existential fear is conscious, you can then sense the longing for another state in which there is nothing to fear — not in wishful thinking, not in escaping, but in the deep, most realistic, experiential knowledge that you are held by God, that you live in a creation in which there is absolutely nothing to fear.

“There is a vibrancy in this state of safety that bears no resemblance to a false faith. It is not superimposed in order to avoid facing the underlying fear. In this vibrancy there is a most realistic attitude toward all things in life. Through this sense of belonging in the world, true joyousness exists, a joyousness combined with the peace which surpasses all understanding, an excitement and fascination with life and its manifold possibilities of meaningful experiences.

“Part of the safety and peace I mention here is a deep knowledge and perception of the meaning of life and experience. A deep meaning is being sensed in your own existence from the largest issues to the most mundane and seemingly insignificant ones. The more you become aware in you of the fear of chaos and meaninglessness, the more this state of emotion can be replaced by an experience of meaning and significance. And the more this is the case, the greater the sense of security becomes.

“Shall we simply say that this signifies the experience of the presence of God in your life? Surely He has always been present, only you did not know it. Your mind could not perceive the immediacy of Him and the meaning He is bringing into your events and experiences, into the sequences of your days and into what they contain. The experience of the reality of Christ colors all you see, touch, hear, and feel. A glow of joy and peace is attached to your own being and to your surroundings. The joyous excitement, the peaceful fascination with living and with all that is created in a continuum of creation is the most desirable state imaginable. Whether he knows it or not, man wants nothing more than this state.

“I could try to describe this state with more words, but I find it difficult to do so. You need to listen with your innermost potential to understand in order to glean what is meant here. It is usually assumed that these higher states of consciousness, whatever name may be given to them according to cultures and eras, are removed from this world; that having them means living in another world. But this is far from being so. The true and genuine state of union with the Christ means being deeply anchored in this life of matter. It is far more correct to state that the higher spiritual states I attempted to describe here are brought into the world of matter, the matter-mind and the matter-body, so that they are being penetrated by the great light of eternal life, peace, and joy. It is most certainly not a separation from the matter which you are meant to imbue with the spirit to whatever extent you can.

“In this state you sense the unification of all opposites. You no longer need to battle them. So, for example, you know your own power to create, to resolve, to recreate, to heal in full autonomy. Simultaneously you know the necessity to be in a state of divine grace without which you cannot accomplish anything. You feel the compatibility and union of these two ways of being, in fact, the interconnectedness and interdependence of these two states.

“When the great longing is being fulfilled, connections are discovered that give life a most exciting and safe new face. All the fragmentation that is the result of being split off from God is mended, and this new wholeness increasingly permeates your person. Your own possibilities become a new playground for living. Knowing your infinite ability to bend with life, you can ‘snuggle in with it sweetly,’ as it were. In this soft, yielding, life-accepting, life-affirming attitude, your own strength grows effectively, powerfully, and yet so softly. Conversely, your softness can manifest in strong assertion and determination. But what a subtle and yet distinct difference there is between the brittle, stubborn, rebellious strength (that is nothing but concealed weakness) and the real strength that comes from being true to God’s will!

“Knowing that life is unending, ongoing, eternal, and infinite does not necessarily mean that God reveals an exact blueprint to you of how you are going to feel, think, sense, experience, and be when you leave your present body behind. The sense of your eternal existence, of the impossibility of ceasing to be, may come in a deep inner knowing, without an actual sight or sound experience.

“Thinking of your desires and your surface longings, your emphasis in prayer may be on outer needs such as health, emotional, and vocational fulfillment, and so on. Even the fulfillment of your spiritual task in itself cannot fulfill the longing we are discussing here. All outer fulfillment can be, and often is, a direct by-product of the great, deep, universal longing for the state of consciousness in which there is no fear, in which there is the realization of God’s immediate presence in you, now and always.

“This leads us to the second point: what should be your activity or attitude so as to attain this state? First I wish to repeat that you need to look at your feelings, moods, and various mental states in a new light. You will, for instance, find that many moods or states you have interpreted to mean one thing, have yet a deeper and more profound meaning in the light of the topic of this lecture. A restlessness, a discontent, a vague feeling of insecurity may all be rooted in psychological problems on levels you need indeed to explore and resolve. But in addition to these psychological origins and explanations, there is the repressed great existential longing as is the fear of nonexistence and meaninglessness that result directly from the unfulfillment of the longing.

“So it is essential that you now uncover a yet deeper level of your being that lies beyond the mask and the lower self, beyond the psychological and emotional problems, beyond the images and mental misconceptions. All of these are the result of the great existential longing and the fear that it can never be fulfilled. On your evolutionary path, you need to trace your steps back through the outer mazes, level by level, as you have learned to do. Only then can the discovery of the fear and the longing be a real experience rather than a theoretical understanding.

“Once you experience the fear and the longing, do not push it away and assuage it busily with substitute problems, pains, and fears. Have the courage to fully experience the pain of the fear and the longing. Do not wait for the deeply hidden fear and longing to manifest in outer experience that forces you to turn inward in this direction. Unfortunately, most human beings do not heed the signs even then. They may go on and on during a succession of incarnations, carrying these manifestations with them as karmic ballast. But the point must come when the soul awakens to the meaning of these manifestations and experiences and uses them as pointing arrows, as the red threads leading to the source.

“You are in illusion when you shirk full experience of the pain of this fear and longing. When you fully savor the experience of it, you dissolve it little by little. Yes, it is necessary to go through these approaches and experiences many, many times again and again, with patience, perseverance, and wisdom. The wisdom to comprehend that the highest, most desirable, most unified state of consciousness, the ultimate of all fulfillment that includes and encompasses and transcends all other desirable states and attainments, cannot come quickly, cheaply, easily. By this, I mean that your total focus, commitment, devotion must be generated and activated by your active mind and will. Your total goal in life must be to find the reality of the living God as immediate experience. Not as theoretical speculation and a luxury of belief, but as living reality in your inner and outer life.

“You may have started the pathwork because you were merely unhappy and vaguely or specifically unfulfilled. You may even have consciously sought spiritual meaning to life. But none of you started out being aware of this longing, of the pain and fear of not being able to fulfill it because you were too afraid to consciously deal with it. Perhaps you are not quite ready yet to deal with it, perhaps you still need more specific purification work on other levels of your outer personality. But you may begin to contemplate this aspect in you and pray for direct guidance to deal with it further.

“There may have been short spans of time in which you experienced temporarily a state of ultimate fulfillment in mind and being similar to the one I described. If this is so, it will be helpful to connect with it retrospectively and coordinate it with the meaning I am giving to it in this lecture. These short periods of elation, vibrant peace and security, excitement, fascination, profound joyousness, and intense aliveness can then serve as the vision you need in order to motivate yourself with more vigor. But even if you cannot ever remember such a state or if you experienced only lesser aspects of it, some deep inner knowing in you is fully aware of this as yet unrealized potential. And you can tap this knowledge.

“You can, without a doubt, with some effort and focus, experience the fear and the longing. These feelings may perhaps at first be vague, but as you allow them to rise to the surface, you will know their exact meaning as I have described it in this lecture. And as you experience the fear of a fragmented, meaningless, disconnected world in which you exist without rhyme or reason, in which you can cease to exist at any time, in which you hang isolated over an abyss without an all-loving Creator and Creative Principle that gives sense to all things, you will also discover that you intensely long for this all-loving Creator, for a world in which you and all that exists has a purpose and a benign meaning. Do not push this fear and longing away any longer, neither by false reassurances without first knowing the fear and longing; nor by the false cynicism of accepting a mean, godless world; nor by simply displacing the fear and longing into more superficial, even though in themselves quite legitimate, fears and longings. Have the courage and commitment to go deeply through these most essential aspects of your being. Repeat it, feel the feelings of pain, fear, and longing most specifically. Pray in the simplest and most humble way for Christ’s intervention to help you attain the state that religion often calls salvation. Be wise and humble enough to know that you may attain an inkling of this new state for a short while, only to lose it again, so that your battle and search be repeated again and again, never ceasing the inner effort, never relinquishing this new goal.

“Doubt is, of course, part and parcel of the state of separation. Meet the doubt as you meet the fear and the longing for not being in doubt and fear. But make it an honest doubt in which you give the state you long for at least as much possibility as the state you fear exists. Question yourself: could there be a state of doubt, fear, pain, and unfulfilled longing if there would not also exist on some other level of consciousness a state of total certainty, joy, and utter fulfillment of all longing?

“We are now dealing with the most central of all issues of human life that every single religion has taken up in its own way. Salvation is a very real concept, by no means a religious fanatic’s whim. The terminology may possibly offend you because you unnecessarily associate it with a religion you have outgrown. But this does not alter the fact that your soul cries for salvation in the sense of this lecture. As long as all of your soul and mind, your total thinking, knowing, feeling, and being has not experienced the living, eternal God as immediate presence; your soul is, at least in part, in a state of painful separation and darkness, in the fear of not knowing the reality of God, not knowing the continuum of your own life, no matter what you believe consciously.

“Ask Jesus Christ to give you a hand. He is there, always with you, always loving you. But you cannot always sense it; your state of separation still prevents you. So be patient and surge on with this greatest of all surges of the human soul. In your terms, this particular journey may seem long; all else you have done so far was preliminary work. But according to the great clock of eternal ‘time,’ it is but a minute, a second.

“It is your task to surge forward deeply into the world of matter, filling the void with divine life. In this process, particles of your consciousness have temporarily separated themselves and lost their knowing, eternal, and inevitable connectedness with the All-Consciousness. You need to reestablish this connection by the process I now describe, and put all your heart, soul, mind, and will in this undertaking, for this alone will make all else you do, all your tasks, your duties, your fulfillments, your pleasures, deeply meaningful and joyous. It will lend to all else a new glow, a glow you longed for but did not know you missed, did not know you knew.” (PL #243)