Pleasure

QUESTION: Where is the borderline between compulsion and very strong desire?

Growth, development, maturity and the healing of distorted soul forces lie in eliminating the pseudo-solution and replacing it with truth, which is always flexible and knows no rules. It alone can provide true security, although the personality going through the process feels acute insecurity and anxiety when called upon to give up the pseudo-solutions.

Some of you have wondered why at the beginning my talks were of a more spiritual nature, while lately the emphasis has been more psychological. Although you all realize by now that true spiritual development cannot occur without clearing up distorted emotions, your knowledge is still largely theoretical and not yet conducive to a true understanding.

There are two philosophies about life and spiritual reality which seem completely contradictory. One says that the spiritually and emotionally mature person has to learn to accept the difficulties in life. In order to cope with life, people have to accept what they cannot immediately change, what is beyond their direct sphere of influence.

This cosmic movement, permeating everything that is, is a mixture of mobility and relaxation. The key of mobility, combined with relaxation, opens the world. It is the state of being, or the unitive principle of being. Only through misconception does duality, or conflict, come about.

It is not easy to reach an awareness where you can see yourself think, feel, and act destructively; where you are furthermore aware that this causes you misery, and yet are unable and unwilling to give up this way of being. It is a great measure of success, if this word can be used, to be aware of being in this state. But to accomplish the second part of this phase of your evolution, namely the letting go of destructiveness, the nature of destructiveness must be better understood.

The universe is so constituted that each individual creature is capable of being in a constant state of bliss. Bliss is not just a theoretical possibility: it is humanity’s natural state of being. It is the natural law. An individual who is not in a state of bliss is in an unnatural, disturbed condition. It is important for you, my friends, to grasp and appreciate this fact.

In order to become what you truly are, the fundamental prerequisite is fearlessness. Overcoming fear of self is the key. Every kind of fear amounts, in the last analysis, to fear of self; for if there were no fear of your innermost self, you could not possibly fear anything in life. In fact, you could not even fear death.

On your path, you begin to come face to face with your images. That is, you begin to feel how you emotionally react according to them, you experience their reality, you connect with them, as opposed to before, when this was not the case. Certain emotional experiences come out from the depths of your being, but it is just the beginning.

The moment you transcend dualism, two opposite and apparently mutually exclusive aspects become equally true. This applies to the ego in relation to the real self. It is true when one says the ego’s predominance, its exaggerated strength, is the greatest hindrance to productive living. And it is equally true when one says a weak ego is incapable of establishing healthy living.

One of the great difficulties in life is the inevitable downward curve in all growth process. Life is growth, and growth is a continuum of movement that goes in a fluctuating line. Each down brings a new up; each up must bring a new down in order to go up again. There can be no upward movement unless there is first a downward one. Thus, there can be no life unless it has gone through a form of death.

A very deliberate, yet relaxed attempt must be made to feel the underlying causes of the outer results in your life. All sorrow and unhappiness, all emptiness and unfulfillment, all frustration and suffering are caused by being disconnected — as you know and I so often say — from the causes within yourself.

It is, of course, quite true that if people were entirely in harmony with the universal forces, they would not be sick, neurotic, unhappy. But it is equally true that sickness, discontent and disharmony are an indication of health. For it is precisely your real self, your spirit being, which speaks through the unhappiness, sending the conscious ego a message that something should be different.

Every human being has this apparently nonsensical fear to some degree. Even though it makes no sense, it nevertheless exists. Coexisting with your fear is an inherent longing for your true birthright, which is a state of supreme bliss, sublime joy, quite indescribable in human language.

Self-esteem, self-liking, or self-value—whatever you call it—is sorely lacking in every human being who experiences feelings of uncertainty, fear, insecurity, guilt, weakness, doubt, negativity, inadequacy, and inferiority. To the degree these feelings are present, self-esteem is inevitably lacking, only this is not directly recognized. Such ignorance is all the more damaging, for you are then less capable of tackling the problem directly.

In truth, there is essentially no difference between the ultimate spiritual state of bliss and the human potential for it. Only the degree of intensity varies, for no human being is capable of the depth of experience which is possible for an unstructured, highly developed consciousness.

Expansion takes place when a positive, open, committed, honest, loving, giving attitude exists. When the good feelings and thoughts create a corresponding attitude in life, they influence actions, behavior, responses, reactions, emanation and deeds. Such an attitude brings forth desirable experience, fulfillment, pleasure, bliss and abundance in all respects of life wherever this attitude holds true.