Pathwork Quotes on Spiritiual Functoin of Relationships

Note:This is channelled info from Eva Pierrakos, back in the 60’s and 70’s. It is generally good stuff, although it improves if you substitute”5 shen relationships” for what she calls “the unconscious”. And ignore the Christian bias, which was a “cover” for the time period (I feel) as channels needed them back then.
But basic thesis is similar to Tao: until you harmonize the male and female within, all your spiritual progress is illusory – Michael
————

Happy Valentine’s Day!

————

THE PATHWORK LECTURES ON RELATIONSHIPS
By David Sunfellow

The Pathwork Lectures of Eva Pierrakos provide the best, most clear and
inspiring material I have ever come across when it comes to the importance
of human relationships — especially male/female relationships. What follows
are quotes from some of my favorite lectures, including Pathwork Lecture 44:
“The Forces of Love, Eros, and Sex”
<http://www.pathwork.org/lectures/P044.PDF>, which presents the best
overview of relationship dynamics and potentials I have ever encountered.

You can find all 258 Pathwork Lectures posted here
<http://www.pathwork.org/lectures.html>. You can find a quick overview of
where the Pathwork Lectures came from and what, exactly, they teach posted
here <http://www.nhne.com/specialreports/srpathwork.html>. And you can find
current information about the Pathwork organization on their website
<http://www.pathwork.org/>.

……………

Life-Changing Insights From The Guide Lectures Of Eva Pierrakos
Taken Mostly from the Book, “Creating Union”

……………

The Purpose Of Life

…………..

“What is life?… Life is relationship, my friends.”

Chapter 1: Relationship, Pg. 3

…

“The whole plan of evolution is about uniting, bringing together individual
consciousness, for only this way can separateness be given up.”

Chapter 1: Relationship, Pg. 3

…

“As long as the soul is separate, loneliness and unhappiness must be its
lot.”

Chapter 3: The Forces of Love, Eros, and Sexuality, Pg. 27

…

“Before you can truly reveal yourself to God, you have to learn to reveal
yourself to another beloved human being.”

Chapter 3: The Forces Of Love, Eros, and Sexuality, Pg. 36-37

…

“Self-fulfillment depends on fulfilling yourself as a man or as a woman.”

Chapter 11: Life, Love and Death, Pg. 118

…

“To stay separate is almost a conscious wish.”

Chapter 3: The Forces Of Love, Eros, and Sexuality, Pg. 34

…………..

How We Stay Separate & How To Connect

…………..

“Every affliction of the psyche prevents relating to others.”

Chapter 1: Relationship, Pg. 3

…

“Relationship represents the greatest challenge for the individual, for it
is only in relationship to others that unresolved problems still existing
within the individual psyche are affected and activated. Many individuals
withdraw from interaction with others, so they can maintain the illusion
that the problems arise from the other person because one feels disturbance
only in his or her presence, and not when by oneself… But contact makes it
difficult to maintain the illusion for any length of time that the inner
self is faultless and harmonious… This is why relationships are
simultaneously a fulfillment, a challenge, and a gauge to one’s inner state.
The friction that arises out of relating with others can be a sharp
instrument of purification and self-recognition if one is inclined to use
it.”

Chapter 4: The Spiritual Significance of Relationship, Pg.44-45

…

“First, removal of the barriers between your conscious and the hidden areas
of your psyche… Second, removal of the barriers between you and your
counterpart… and the third barrier is between you and the cosmic stream.”

Chapter 11: Life, Love and Death, Pg. 119

…

“1. Only you yourself can effect your salvation. It is your responsibility;
2. You cannot possibly do it alone: You need the help of others who share
the journey with you, who may often see what you do not see; 3. Without God,
without the personal assistance of the personal aspect of God (Jesus), the
undertaking is too vast for you to accomplish.”

From Pathwork Guide Lecture 258

…

“…intervals of seclusion are necessary for inner concentration and
self-confrontation. But these periods should always alternate with contact
— and the more intimate such contact is, the more it expresses spiritual
maturity.”

Chapter 4: The Spiritual Significance of Relationship, Pg.45

…

“All imperfection must be courageously accepted and understood before it can
be changed.”

Chapter 10: Attachment of the Life Force to Negative Situations, Pg. 108

…

“The idealized self wants to be perfect, according to its specific demands,
right now! The real self knows this cannot be and does not suffer from this
fact. Of course you are not perfect in your real self. It is a complex of
everything you are at the moment. Of course you have your basic
egocentricity, but if you own up to it, you can cope with it.”

From Pathwork Guide Lecture 83

…

“Duality ceases to exist once you accept yourself as part good and part bad,
as consisting partly of the higher and partly of the lower self. These two
sides will be integrated and live in peace with one another once you accept
yourself with both. And only then can the lower side gradually develop and
grow out of its blindness…. By accepting your lower self you can gradually
overcome it and, as well, the duality between the higher and lower self.”

From Pathwork Guide Lecture 83

…

“You do not have to become perfect; you are perfect, in a sense, when you
can calmly face, acknowledge, and come to terms with your present
imperfection.”

Chapter 11: Life, Love and Death, Pg. 124

…

“Being imperfect should not in itself make you feel guilty. But the hurts
you inflict on others, no matter how unintentionally — out of your
imperfection, blindness, and ignorance — is justified guilt that you should
meet squarely and courageously.”

Chapter 10: Attachment of the Life Force to Negative Situations, Pg. 114

…

“The three possible wrong reactions as you recognize the hurts you have
inflicted on others are: HOPELESSNESS about yourself — the negative,
destructive guilt feelings that make you despair of yourself;
SELF-JUSTIFICATION — the blaming of others for real or imagined wrongs that
‘forced’ you to react that way; and DENIAL — the fearful refusal to look at
imperfection which may not fit into the picture you have of yourself…

“Find the right way: Feel with the person you have hurt, take the justified
guilt upon yourself, wish to become different, desire to give up your fear
of loving. Such an attitude is healthy and constructive.”

Chapter 10: Attachment of the Life Force to Negative Situations, Pg. 115

………………

The All-Pervasive & Self-Defeating Tendency To Blame Others For Our Own
Shortcomings

…………..

“When you avoid looking at some parts of yourself, you cannot help but
project outwardly onto others and into the outside life what is in you.”

Chapter 11: Life, Love and Death, Pg. 122

…

“Difficulties and fears arise to the exact degree that you still project on
others your own problems…”

Chapter 4: The Spiritual Significance of Relationship, Pg.49

…

“If you are alienated from your own unconscious, you must act out what deep
in yourself you know exists within you. You act it out with another person
and affect the unconscious and concealed level of that other person.”

Chapter 5: Mutuality: A Cosmic Principle and Law, Pg.60

…

“The only way you can avoid becoming a victim of blame and guilt projection
is to avoid doing it yourself… Only to the degree that you undefensively
explore and accept your own problematic reactions and distortions,
negativities and destructiveness, can you defuse someone else’s guilt
projection. Only then will you not be drawn into a maze of falseness and
confusion in which uncertainty, defensiveness, and weakness may make you
either retreat or become overaggressive.”

Chapter 4: The Spiritual Significance of Relationship, Pg.49

…

“The more you expose every detail of the disparity between your demands,
your own ungiving intentions and the punishment you mete out when your
demands are not met, the more you clear yourself of guilt. The clearer you
can see the unfairness of what you demand compared to what you give, how
differently you insist on being treated from how you treat others, and
exactly how you choose to punish — always so that you cannot be caught, so
you cannot be made accountable — the quicker you will free yourself of a
burden that causes depression, anxiety, worry, hopelessness, and often
physical illness and material frustration as well.”

Chapter 12: From Unconscious Negative Interaction To Conscious Choice of
Love, Pg. 126-127

…

“One of the most popular ways of punishing others for not responding with
love to your ungivingness is to render them guilty — to build your case in
such a way that they seem to be the cause of your misery. You can convince
yourself quite successfully of this when you choose to see only the result
of your spiteful withholding. You deliberately ignore the fact that you
cannot get the response that you would like from others when your own psyche
is still steeped in a negative, non-giving attitude toward life. Your
negativity says, ‘I will deny the truth and will blame the other for not
giving me all and for not letting me get away with my one-sided demands. And
if he dares to react to this, I will punish him by hating him and by blaming
him even more!'”

Chapter 12: From Unconscious Negative Interaction To Conscious Choice of
Love, Pg. 127

…

“The best gauge to determine whether or not it exists in you (the attitude
to blame and punish others for your own shortcomings) is the state of your
own mind and emotions. If you feel no anxiety and are comfortable with
others, if your life is expanding in a joyous way, and if you regard
occasional difficulties as meaningful stepping stones, then you have already
vastly overcome this poisonous attitude. But you, too, must have had it at
one time and dealt with it by working your way through your pride, your
investment in your pretense, your cowardice.”

Chapter 12: From Unconscious Negative Interaction To Conscious Choice of
Love, Pg. 127

…

“When you admit your ill will, my friends, you perform the most fundamental
act of love… You may give things, money, good deeds, even tenderness and
concern, but they are hollow gifts without setting the other free by honest
admission of your negativity.”

Chapter 12: From Unconscious Negative Interaction To Conscious Choice of
Love, Pg. 127

…

“The guilt caused by your unfair demands, your spite, the withholding of
your love, and the compounded guilt caused by punishing others for your
misery, must erode your strength and your self-expression. It makes you
truly weak. How can you, as long as you continue in this attitude, ever have
faith in yourself, ever believe in your dignity as a free human being? You
may try all sorts of artificial ways to instill self-confidence in yourself,
but it will never work unless you face the secondary guilt and give it up by
admitting it. Then you may even stay, if you so choose, with the primary
guilt — the guilt of not wanting to love — but at least you have assumed
the responsibility.”

Chapter 12: From Unconscious Negative Interaction To Conscious Choice of
Love, Pg. 128

…

“When you end the old pattern of blaming others in order to justify your
unfairness and your unloving demands, you not only unhook yourself from this
double-bind, you also help unhook the other person.”

Chapter 12: From Unconscious Negative Interaction To Conscious Choice of
Love, Pg. 130

…

“When you acknowledge your part, you remove a great deal of confusion, so
that the true picture of how each party contributes to a negative psychic
interaction can emerge.”

Chapter 12: From Unconscious Negative Interaction To Conscious Choice of
Love, Pg. 130

…

“Only when you know your own negativity, truly own up to it, assume
responsibility for it and no longer project it onto others while distorting
reality to be able to do so, will you suddenly gain new insight into other
people, so that even when they do not admit it, you will know what is
happening… As you read your own mind accurately, you cannot help reading
those of others — since in reality it is all one mind. Other people are a
closed book only as long as you hide from your own mind.”

Chapter 12: From Unconscious Negative Interaction To Conscious Choice of
Love, Pg. 132

…

“Whenever you judge someone, whenever you resent his or her faults, please
ask yourself: ‘Don’t I, perhaps in a different way, have a similar fault?
And doesn’t the person whom I judge so harshly have some good qualities that
I lack?’… And if perchance the outcome of this evaluation turns out to be
that your faults are really so much less and your good qualities so much
superior to the other’s, that is all the more reason to cultivate your
tolerance and understanding. If you did so, you would indeed be in a higher
state of development, which means, above all, the obligation to be
understanding and forgiving. If you lack that ability, all your superior
qualities mean nothing!”

Chapter 8: Objectivity and Subjectivity in Relationship, Pg. 86

…

“If you take your ongoing relationships and use them as yardsticks by which
you gauge where your own inner split is and where you stand in your
willingness to accept the negative in you, you will grow into greater
self-acceptance. Simultaneously, your ability to have mutuality will grow in
proportion to your self-acceptance.”

Chapter 5: Mutuality: A Cosmic Principle and Law, Pg.61

…

“If you cannot accept the evil in you, thinking, in effect, ‘I must first be
perfect before I can accept, love, trust, esteem myself,’ you must express
an identical attitude toward the other person. When the reality dawns on you
that he or she is far from perfect, you reject the other person just as you
keep rejecting your own self… This is very unfortunate… This causes a
rift in you that makes mutuality and bliss impossible.”

Chapter 5: Mutuality: A Cosmic Principle and Law, Pg.61-62

…

“On the deeper emotional levels you will see that in many instances the
willingness to accept others as they are is very small. As you slowly
discover your intolerance, your criticalness, you can automatically know
that you do exactly the same with yourself.”

Chapter 5: Mutuality: A Cosmic Principle and Law, Pg.62

……………..

The Purpose & Power Of Male/Female Relationships

…………..

“The most challenging, beautiful, spiritually important and growth-producing
kind of relationship is that between man and woman.”

Chapter 4: The Spiritual Significance of Relationship, Pg.52

…

“One of the main obstacles to overcoming the fear of death is the fear of
letting go of the barriers which separate you from the opposite sex. There
is a very direct connection between these three: Fear of one’s own
unconscious, fear of love with the opposite sex, and fear of death.”

Chapter 11: Life, Love and Death, Pg. 118

…

“…Woman… has invited her enslavement… The stronger the rebellion and
the blaming of the opposite sex, the stronger must also be, within the soul
of that woman, the desire not to govern her own life, not to be responsible,
but to lean on someone else. To the degree she makes unfair and unrealizable
demands, she must resent and blame male authority and play the victim game.

“Similarly, to the degree man does not face his fears, guilts, and
weaknesses, he will play a power game in one form or another and then resent
the woman for exploiting him and overburdening him…

“Man wants the superior position, but resents the price of taking care of a
parasite. Woman wants the advantage of being taken care of, but resents the
price of losing her autonomy. Both play the same game but hesitate to see
how they mutually create this distortion.”

Chapter 12: The New Woman and the New Man, Pg. 162-163

…

“The woman represents the active principle just as much as the man. And the
man represents the receptive principle as much as the woman… No true man
can be a man without incorporating the receptive, or feminine, principle. If
he expresses only the masculine principle, he becomes a caricature of a man.
He is then a bully, a tyrant, an exaggeration, a falsehood.

“By the same token, a woman who expresses only the receptive principle is a
caricature of a woman and is truly an infant who leans on others, who
neglects her autonomy. So to be fully receptive on the feeling level, woman
has to express the active principle every bit as much as man.”

Chapter 14: The New Man and the New Woman, Pg. 167

…

“When a man and a woman stay together in a more enduring and committed
relationship, maintaining and even increasing bliss depends entirely on how
the two relate to one another. Are they aware of the direct relationship
between enduring pleasure and inner growth? Do they use the inevitable
difficulties in the relationship as yardsticks for their own inner
difficulties? Do they communicate in the deepest, most truthful,
self-revealing way, sharing their inner problems, helping each other? The
answers to these questions will determine whether the relationship falters,
dissolves, stagnates — or blossoms.”

Chapter 4: The Spiritual Significance of Relationship, Pg.52

…

“Only by thorough self-honesty and self-facing can relationships be
sustained, can feelings expand and contact blossom in long-term
relationships.”

Chapter 4: The Spiritual Significance of Relationship, Pg.46

…

“The spiritual idea of marriage is to enable the soul to reveal itself and
to be constantly on the search for the other to discover forever new vistas
of the other being. The more this happens, the happier the marriage will be,
the more firmly and safely it will be rooted, and the less it will be in
danger of an unhappy ending. Then it will fulfill its spiritual purpose.”

Chapter 3: The Forces Of Love, Eros, and Sexuality, Pg. 31-32

…………….

The Purpose & Power Of Sex, Sexuality
& Joining With Someone Of The Opposite Sex

…………..

“In former times, sexuality and spirituality were considered antithetical.
It was not known that true spiritual union is a consummate result of union
on all levels of being, including the physical-sexual one. It was not known
that total integration and oneness must bring sexuality into alignment with
spirituality. The realization of your spiritual life is possible only as a
result of total unification on all these other levels, and certainly never
as a result of splitting off any one part from the other. The real meaning
spirituality is oneness and wholeness, and that means it must include all
there is. Satisfying relationships therefore always mirror the degree of the
individual’s inner unification. If you cannot find union with others, then
you are in disunity within yourself!”

Chapter 13: Fusion: The Spiritual Significance of Sexuality, Pg. 152

…

“Q. Certain people believe that they can cut out sex and Eros and the desire
for a partner and live completely for love of humanity. Do you think it is
possible that man or woman can swear off this part of life?

“A. …there is perhaps one person in ten million who may have such a
task… It may be in the karma for a particular soul who is already
developed this far, has gone through the true partnership experience, and
comes for a specific mission. There may also be certain karmic debts which
have to be paid off. In most cases — and here I can safely generalize —
avoidance of partnership is unhealthy. It is an escape. The real reason is
fear of love, fear of life experience, but the fearful renunciation is
rationalized as a sacrifice…

“Examine yourself. Go below the surface layers of your conscious reasoning
and explanations for your attitude in this respect. Try and find out whether
you fear love and disappointment. Isn’t it more comfortable to just live for
yourself and have no difficulties? Isn’t really this what you feel deep
inside and what you want to cover up with other reasons? The great
humanitarian work you want to do may be for a worthy cause indeed, but do
you really think one excludes the other? Wouldn’t it be much more likely
that the great task you have taken upon yourself would be better fulfilled
if you learned personal love too?”

Chapter 3: The Forces Of Love, Eros, and Sexuality, Pg. 38-39

…

“Only in the very rarest cases does the sex force really become
constructively sublimated and make this creative force manifest in other
realms. Real sublimation can never occur when it is motivated by fear and
used as an escape.”

Chapter 3: The Forces Of Love, Eros, and Sexuality, Pg. 41

…

“The more immature the creature, the more sexuality is separated from love,
and therefore the more selfish it is… Only if and when the whole
personality grows and matures harmoniously will sex become integrated with
love.”

Chapter 3: The Forces Of Love, Eros, and Sexuality, Pg. 40

…

“Out of ignorance, humanity has long believed that sex as such is sinful.
Therefore it was kept hidden and this part of the personality could not grow
up… And this, in turn, has led humanity to believe that sexuality is a sin
and that the truly spiritual person must abstain from it. Thus one of those
oft-mentioned vicious circles came into existence.

“Because of the belief that sex was sinful, the instinct could not grow up
and meld with the love force. Consequently, sex in fact is selfish and
loveless, raw and animalistic. If people would realize that… the sex
instinct is as natural and God-given as any other universal force… they
would break this vicious circle and more human beings would let their sex
drives mature and mingle with love…”

Chapter 3: The Forces Of Love, Eros, and Sexuality, Pg. 40

…

“The sexual force is an expression of consciousness reaching for fusion. And
fusion, which you can also call integration, unification, or oneness is the
purpose of Creation. Whatever term we use, the final aim of all split-off
beings is to reunify the individualized, separated aspects of the greater
consciousness with the whole.”

Chapter 13: Fusion: The Spiritual Significance of Sexuality, Pg. 141

…

“The power of sexuality in its most ideal form can convey more fully than
any other human experience what spiritual bliss, oneness, and timelessness
are. In the total sexual experience you break through the confines of time
and separateness to which your unlimited mind has bound you. Such an
experience reminds you of your true existence in the Eternal.”

Chapter 13: Fusion: The Spiritual Significance of Sexuality, Pg. 142

…

“The blissful experience of fusion and the sense of timelessness in the
sexual union depend on the inner unification of the individuals in question,
and therefore on their attitudes on all levels of their being. If the sexual
experience is an expression of the physical, emotional, mental, and
spiritual levels, and if these levels are unified with each other without
any conflict, then the people who express their being on all these levels in
accordance with spiritual law have a sexual experience as complete,
fulfilling, rich, joyous, nourishing, sustaining, furthering and reminiscent
of spiritual reality as any human experience can be.”

Chapter 13: Fusion: The Spiritual Significance of Sexuality, Pg. 142

…

“If attraction exists on the physical level, without other levels entering
into the expression at least to some degree, the ensuing experience will be
disappointing. It can never be more than an infinitesimal and superficial
representation of what the soul really longs for.”

Chapter 13: Fusion: The Spiritual Significance of Sexuality, Pg. 143

…

“Once you realize that sexual fusion is insufficient and uninteresting
unless it includes all the energy bodies in the process of coming together,
your approach to a sexual encounter will become very different. Sexual union
will never be casual or haphazard; you will consider it a holy ritual.”

Chapter 15: The New Marriage, Pg. 180

……………

FUSION ON THE EMOTIONAL LEVEL:

…………..

“On the emotional level, the movement toward fusion must be expressed in a
feeling-exchange… Such an endeavor requires that you temporarily put aside
your ego, your own needs, expectations, and personal preoccupations to make
yourself empty. Then you can let in what is, let in the other person so you
can truly perceive, experience, and feel all the complexities of this other
being.”

Chapter 13: Fusion: The Spiritual Significance of Sexuality, Pg. 144

…

“When you have no stake in maintaining an illusory image of who the other
person ought to be, and then resenting it when he or she is not that, you
will be open and sufficiently empty to let in what is.”

Chapter 13: Fusion: The Spiritual Significance of Sexuality, Pg. 144

…

“The ability to take frustration and pain is essential to giving and
receiving and experiencing bliss… If you are very threatened by and
defended against pain — the pain of not having your way, the pain of being
hurt a little, the pain of having to give up an imaginary or even a real
advantage — you will create a hard wall out of your flowing energy stream.
Nothing can come into you through this wall, nor can anything flow out from
you toward others… You cannot fuse and thus you can have no real
pleasure.”

Chapter 13: Fusion: The Spiritual Significance of Sexuality, Pg. 144

…

“Loving, and therefore the ability to give and receive, depends on one’s
ability to perceive reality with uncluttered vision. This ability, in turn,
depends on how well you can suffer pain in an undefended way that is free
from manipulative interpretations of the pain. Such interpretations only aim
to annul the pain, whereas letting the pain be will make room for a truthful
interpretation of the events which bring the pain about.”

Chapter 13: Fusion: The Spiritual Significance of Sexuality, Pg. 144

…

“The aspect of real love which I refer to as letting the other be means more
than just accepting where and who the other person is at any given moment.
It means having a vision of the total person, including his or her as yet
unrealized potential. Such a vision of the unmanifest in another person is a
great act of love. It has nothing to do with the illusion of manufacturing
another kind of person for the purpose of selfwilled needs.”

Chapter 13: Fusion: The Spiritual Significance of Sexuality, Pg. 144

…

“The fusion you long for can only come about if every feeling you long to
receive, every single aspect of loving, is richly flowing out of you. These
aspects of love include tenderness, warmth, respect, and also the
recognition of the essence of the other with his or her capacity for growth,
change, and goodness. Add to these patience, and giving the other the
benefit of the doubt. Make room for alternative interpretations. Trust, and
give the other room to unfold and to be… Fusion can take place on the
emotional level only when you are fully committed to learn to expand your
own capacity to give these components of perfect love.”

Chapter 13: Fusion: The Spiritual Significance of Sexuality, Pg. 146

…

“In order to fuse emotionally… it is equally necessary to express yourself
truthfully toward the other person, even when this may not be welcome or
desired. Not doing so under the guise of a so-called loving goodness…
is… usually dishonest. For in reality you merely fear unpleasant
consequences and are thus not willing to risk pain, exposure, confrontation,
and the hard work of reintegrating the relationship on both a higher and
more profound level.”

Chapter 13: Fusion: The Spiritual Significance of Sexuality, Pg. 146

…

“The fulfillment and bliss your soul longs for can only be satisfied through
fusion with another consciousness. It depends on your ability to risk, to
confront, to admit your most guarded secret, and as a result to speak up
when the other person puts obstructions in the way. You must also recognize
your own reluctance to express your best feelings when the unexpressed
negativities and hidden games of your partner make this impossible… The
right kind of assertion does not blame the other, and yet it also recognizes
what the other is doing. When you no longer have a stake in blaming, you can
truly speak up.”

Chapter 13: Fusion: The Spiritual Significance of Sexuality, Pg. 147

……………

FUSION ON THE MENTAL LEVEL:

…………..

“Mental fusion exists on the level of the thinking mind. The ability to
exchange the deepest ideas and thoughts and to risk disagreement and
disapproval are basic. Mental fusion can only exist when there is a certain
blend of compatibility. Two compatible partners have to share certain
fundamental ideas about life. They must also be spiritually more or less on
the same plane of development. This does not mean that every small idea must
be shared. That is quite impossible and divergence in some ways is
necessary.”

Chapter 13: Fusion: The Spiritual Significance of Sexuality, Pg. 148

…

“Several qualities are required for reaching mental fusion. One is the need
to grow toward truthful understanding of each other. Another is the humility
to search for, and discard if necessary, the ideas and opinions you both may
hold. You also need humility to let the other and also yourself be right or
wrong. The very act of looking for a deeper way of truth concerning even the
tiniest of issues provides wonderful fuel for growth and helps you to reach
deeper union on the mental level.”

Chapter 13: Fusion: The Spiritual Significance of Sexuality, Pg. 148

…

“Do you avoid any confrontation of ideas because it is simply too
uncomfortable to make waves? Do you agree superficially so as to have peace
because the issue is ‘unimportant’ anyway? Can you perhaps not be bothered
to even deeply think about things that do not directly concern you? Or do
you insist on being ‘right’ merely for its own sake? Is disagreement a way
to find an outlet for the negative feelings and thoughts stored up in you
which you do not choose to deal constructively with?”

Chapter 13: Fusion: The Spiritual Significance of Sexuality, Pg. 148-149

…

“The freedom to have different ideas can be granted only when you are both
anchored in spiritual truth. When spiritual reality if forever the ultimate
aim, you also know that there is only one truth. And this applies every bit
as much to the large vital issues as to the smallest everyday inanities. But
you also know that this one truth has many facets, often including two
apparent opposites that are parts of one whole. With spiritual truth as the
ultimate goal, you will sit lightly in the saddle of opinions, ideas, and
thoughts. This will make it possible to share and exchange them. If you
always aim for inner truth, the spiritual truth, then the little
disagreements or different opinions slowly disappear. First they cease to
matter; then they become integrated or fused in the all-uniting truth of
spirit.”

Chapter 13: Fusion: The Spiritual Significance of Sexuality, Pg. 149

…

“Mental sharing must not be neglected. One often sees relationships with
sexual sharing and, to a degree, emotional sharing, but mental sharing is
strangely neglected… The world of the mind and ideas is an integral part
of total sharing. And it is quite impossible for one person to fuse with
another on one level in a truly satisfying way, while keeping separate on
any of the other levels… For instance, quite often when frustration is
ascribed to sexual incompatibility, the sexual incompatibility may not be a
result of an absence of physical attraction at all. It may be the result of
insufficient fusion on any one of the other levels.”

Chapter 13: Fusion: The Spiritual Significance of Sexuality, Pg. 149

……………….

FUSION ON ALL LEVELS:

…………..

“Spiritual fusion is always a natural result of fusion on the physical,
emotional, and mental levels.”

Chapter 13: Fusion: The Spiritual Significance of Sexuality, Pg. 149-150

…

“Reaching the spiritual self must be one’s primary aim if total fusion is to
exist.”

Chapter 13: Fusion: The Spiritual Significance of Sexuality, Pg. 150

…

“When the fusion takes place on all levels, you not only become one with
your partner, but with God. You realize God in the mate and God in
yourself.”

Chapter 15: The New Marriage, Pg. 179

…………….

Everything About Us Is Revealed In Our Sexuality

“Whatever exists within the human psyche shows up in the sexual experience;
it is impossible to keep anything out. The actual form of the sexual
experience is therefore an infallible indicator of where a person’s psyche
is. It will reveal where a person is liberated and at one with divine law,
where evil and destructive, and where stuck and stagnant because the
destructiveness is hidden and not dealt with.”

Chapter 13: Fusion: The Spiritual Significance of Sexuality, Pg. 150-151

…

“The powerful creative energy inherent in sexual expression creates a
condition where all character attitudes and all aspects of one’s most hidden
nature must manifest… All that information is revealed and is available to
anyone who knows how and where to look for it.”

Chapter 13: Fusion: The Spiritual Significance of Sexuality, Pg. 151

…

“Look at your sexuality in a new way. What does it reveal to you about your
non-sexual nature, about your person, your attitudes, and so on? Where does
your sexuality bring out your problems, and where and how does it reveal
your purified nature?”

Chapter 13: Fusion: The Spiritual Significance of Sexuality, Pg. 152

…

“Your most secret sexual fantasies, if examined in the light of clear truth
for what they really are, will be your liberation.”

Chapter 13: Fusion: The Spiritual Significance of Sexuality, Pg. 157

……………….

Polygamy, Monogamy & Promiscuity

……………….

“Q. I am asking whether polygamy is within the scheme of spiritual law?

“A. No, it certainly is not. And when someone thinks it may be within the
scheme of spiritual development, that is a subterfuge… There is no
richness in revealing oneself to many. In such cases, one either reveals the
same wares all over again to new partners, or… one displays different
facets of one’s personality. The more partners you try to share yourself
with, the less you give to each. This is inevitably so. It cannot be
different.”

Chapter 3: The Forces Of Love, Eros, and Sexuality, Pg. 38

…

“Q. How does friendship between two people fit into this picture?

“A. Friendship is brotherly love. Such friendship can also exist between man
and woman. Eros may want to sneak in, but reason and will can still direct
the way in which the feelings take their course. Discretion, and a healthy
balance between reason, emotion, and will are necessary to prevent the
feelings from going into an improper channel.”

Chapter 3: The Forces Of Love, Eros, and Sexuality, Pg. 41

…

“The cycle had to move from involuntary monogamous commitment — with
concomitant limitations on personal growth for both men and women — to
recognition of the debilitating effects of this state of affairs and a
consequent libertinism and polygamous expression. From there the movement
can now proceed to a new groundedness in real inner freedom and independence
that voluntarily chooses monogamous commitment because it yields infinitely
more fulfillment.”

Chapter 15: The New Marriage, Pg. 175

…

“Advocating the committed relationship is not a moralizing deceit whose
purpose is to deprive you of pleasure. Quite the contrary. The power current
evoked through a fusion between love, respect, passion, and sexuality is
infinitely more ecstatic than any casual fusion could ever be.”

Chapter 15: The New Marriage, Pg. 176

…

“New ways have to be tried… before the soul can reach wisdom and truth.
The freedom to choose independently, to experience sexual and erotic
pleasure, to make mistakes and learn from them, to form different and more
mature relationships as part of the growing process, without condemning less
mature ones, are all necessary to learn the real significance of marriage.”

Chapter 15: The New Marriage, Pg. 177

……………….

The Tendency To Choose Love Partners Who Are Reflections Of Our Parents

……………….

“Because children so seldom receive sufficient mature love and warmth, they
continue to hunger for it throughout their lives unless this lack and hurt
is recognized and properly dealt with. If not, as adults they will go
through life unconsciously crying out for what they missed in childhood.”

Chapter 9: Compulsion To Re-Create and Overcome Childhood Hurts, Pg. 93

…

“The most frequent way of attempting to remedy the situation is in your
choice of love partners. Unconsciously, you will know how to choose in the
partner aspects of the parent who has particularly fallen short in affection
and love that is real and genuine.”

Chapter 9: Compulsion To Re-Create and Overcome Childhood Hurts, Pg. 96

….

“In trying to reproduce the childhood situation, you unconsciously choose a
partner with aspects similar to those of the parent. Yet it is these very
aspects which will make it as impossible to receive the mature love you
rightfully long for now as it was then.”

Chapter 9: Compulsion To Re-Create and Overcome Childhood Hurts, Pg. 97

…

“How can you manage to reexperience the hurts of so long ago? There is only
one way, my friends. Take a current problem. Strip it of all the
superimposed layers of your reactions. The first and most handy layer is
that of rationalization, that of ‘proving’ that others, or situations, are
at fault, not your innermost conflicts which make you adopt the wrong
attitude to the actual problem that confronts you. The next layer might be
anger, resentment, anxiety, frustration. Behind all these reactions you will
find the hurt of not being loved. When you experience the hurt of not being
loved in your current dilemma, it will serve to reawaken the childhood
hurt… Now, reevaluate your present hurt, comparing it with the childhood
hurt. At last you will clearly see how it is one and the same!”

Chapter 9: Compulsion To Re-Create and Overcome Childhood Hurts, Pg. 99

……………..

Choosing a Healthy Partner

……………..

“When you are inwardly ready to relate to another human being… you will
find the appropriate partner with whom this manner of sharing is possible.”

Chapter 4: The Spiritual Significance of Relationship, Pg.53-54

…

“A certain emotional and spiritual maturity has to exist. If this maturity
is present, you will intuitively choose the right partner, one who has, in
essence, the same maturity and readiness to embark on this journey. The
choice of a partner who is unwilling comes out of the hidden fear of
undertaking the journey yourself.”

Chapter 3: The Forces Of Love, Eros, and Sexuality, Pg. 35

…

“Since the limited and blind human consciousness merely gropes in the dark,
very often your attraction to another person is not directed to the actual
person, but rather to an image fabricated in your mind of what the other
person should be in order to fulfill your real or imagined needs. The real
person in this case is often totally ignored and willfully denied. The
desiring person insists on his or her illusion and is angry when the
illusion cannot be made to come true. Usually this is mutual — both parties
seek someone else… and do not know it.”

Chapter 13: Fusion: The Spiritual Significance of Sexuality, Pg. 143

…

“The measure of fulfillment you experience is a good gauge of how much you
seek the real person. The absence of bliss indicates the illusory nature of
the search. It reveals instead the superimposition of another person, such
as a parent figure, over the real person. When your attraction to another is
truly genuine and arises from a real and healthy foundation, it is directed
to that specific person to whom you wish to reveal yourself in a most
intimate and real way, and with whom you wish to be as closely connected as
possible.”

Chapter 13: Fusion: The Spiritual Significance of Sexuality, Pg. 143

…

“If a relationship is dissolved [because it] is more destructive and
pain-producing than constructive and harmonious, it should be done when the
inner problems and mutual interactions are fully recognized by the one who
takes the initiate to dissolve an old tie. This will prevent him or her from
forming a new relationship with similar underlying currents and
interactions. It also means that the decision to sever the connection has
been made because of growth, rather than as a result of spite, fear, or
escape.”

Chapter 4: The Spiritual Significance of Relationship, Pg.49

…

“You may have noticed a pattern… in which an individual must first resolve
career problems in order to resolve partnership problems… When
relationships are formed to act out dependency, parasitism, exploitation of
the other, and/or the need to dominate and enslave, then, for a while, these
individuals have to fend for themselves until a certain minimal autonomy and
independence have been established. Once the creative channel is opened up,
the new freedom can release previously trapped energies, and people can
begin to relate to the opposite sex in an entirely new way.”

Chapter 14: The New Woman and the New Man, Pg. 168

……………..

Obstacles To Real Love

……………..

“Honesty is the most needed and most rare form of love among human beings!”

Chapter 12: From Unconscious Negative Interaction To Conscious Choice of
Love, Pg. 132

…

“The blocks to true fulfillment exist because the infant within the adult
personality still seeks its own mode of fulfillment… it seeks the merely
receptive, in-taking kind of closeness. If the fusion is sought with such
motivations it can never take place. The person who desires such an immature
union lives in a treadmill of perpetual frustration which then seems to
justify his or her caution, withholding, and negativity.”

Chapter 13: Fusion: The Spiritual Significance of Sexuality, Pg. 144

…

“…The infant in you believes that the proof of love is that your every
wish is fulfilled. Therefore, in order to feel loved, you need ‘slaves’ who
surrender to your every desire: “If I am loved, I must be paid homage; then
I possess a subject.” If you believe that this is so — as the infant inside
every human being does — it follows that you must be afraid of loving, for
when you love, you must become the slave!”

Chapter 6: Desire for Unhappiness and Fear of Loving, Pg. 72

…

“You prohibit your capacity to love due to the confused notion that true
love equals submissiveness, and you distrust others because you have an
inordinate demand for being loved and served.”

Chapter 6: Desire for Unhappiness and Fear of Loving, Pg. 72

…

“Wishing for exclusive and limitless love is unrealistic and immature… The
right conclusion would be: ‘The type of love I wanted so far cannot be mine.
But I do have a right to be loved. This can happen provided that I, on my
part, learn to love in the right and mature way.'”

Chapter 7: The Valid Desire To Be Loved, Pg. 77-78

…

“You will realize that is not you who are not good enough to be loved, but
that the artificial mask you laboriously constructed is what is
unacceptable.”

Chapter 7: The Valid Desire To Be Loved, Pg. 79-80

…

The Pathwork Lectures indicate that there are primarily two ways we prevent
others from loving us: Either we construct a false image ourselves that
makes us look more together than we really are (a typical male tendency) or
we construct a false image of ourselves that looks more helpless and needy
than we really are (a typical female tendency). We construct these false
images hoping that others will love us, while others, sensing our false
images are dishonest and illusionary, are compelled to withhold their love.

…

“When you do love someone dear or close to you, do you unspokenly or even
thoughtlessly, demand too much perfection? When you find the affirmative
answer, you will then know that this is not a good and healthy love, neither
to you nor to the loved subject. It is to some measure in your power to help
destroy the harmful masks of others. This you can do not only by destroying
your own and courageously facing up to your real self, but also by trying to
see the other person as he really is and loving him that way and not just a
perfectionized picture of him. Furthermore, realize what your deeper and
hidden reasons are for needing a more perfect love subject than reality
produces. In all probability there is a measure of pride as a covered motive
for this type of love you are bestowing. In addition, there must be a lack
of tolerance and compassion in you, a lack of being able to accept people as
they are. You should be able to love a person, accepting his imperfections,
not having to close your eyes to them. In that way, you will really bestow a
gift on the loved one, for he will then feel free to be himself and not be
forced or burdened in any way.”

From Pathwork Guide Lecture #32

…

“When you persist in being blind to the faults of your loved one, a crisis,
a shake-up, and a painful awakening that will hurt deeply is often
unavoidable. Actually, it is not the other person who will then have
disappointed and hurt you, but your own deliberate blindness.”

Chapter 8: Objectivity and Subjectivity in Relationship, Pg. 88

……………..

True Development

……………..

“…the highest form of human beings. These are people who relate
beautifully; who are deeply involved with others; who are unafraid of
involvement; who have no protective covering against experience and
feeling… they love personally and concretely, regardless of risk.”

Chapter 1: Relationship, Pg. 5

…

“…what constitutes a profound and meaningful relationship… The only true
criterion is how genuine you are, how open and undefended; how willing you
are to feel, to involve and expose yourself and all that really matters to
you. How many people do you know to whom you can express your real sorrows,
needs, worries, longings, wishes?”

Chapter 1: Relationship, Pg. 6

…

“Knowing the state into which you can and must eventually grow, because it
is your innate destiny, is important. Without such a chart, you cannot steer
your ship.

“But there is a subtle yet distinct difference between organically following
this model and attempting forcefully to be what you have not yet become.
Accept that you cannot immediately be the ideal, totally fused individual.
You know that it takes a long time, much experience, many lessons, trials
and errors, untold incarnations, until your soul emerges as a complete
being. You need to know that such a state exists, even if you are still
quite unable to experience it… It should be a reminder of who you
essentially are already and… who you will one day fully become.”

Chapter 15: The New Marriage, Pg. 177

…

“Articulate your longing. This is always the first step toward bringing what
you long for into actuality.”

Chapter 15: The New Marriage, Pg. 169

…

“First, your thinking and your attitudes change; then the feelings follow
suit; then your actions and reactions begin to respond to new spontaneous
impulses. And these, in turn, bring forth new life experiences.”

Pg. 177, The Pathwork of Self-Transformation

………….