Open Lecture May 15: Lecture #170: Fear of Bliss Versus Longing for It

Conscious creation — How we can manifest our deepest desires
 

The Ottawa Pathwork community is offering a series of free lecture discussions focused on how we can manifest our deepest desires by:

• Understanding the power of our thoughts, feelings, and attitudes
• Making the link between cause and effect
• Finding our hidden ‘No’
• Calling in spiritual support

This year, Pathwork Ottawa is offering a seven-module series to support you in harnessing the potential of Conscious Creation.
 
We’ve all heard how the unconscious realm holds more power to influence our lives than the conscious mind. Conscious creation requires making contact with the unconscious and learning how to work with what we find there.  Pathwork offers concepts, tools, and practices to connect with the unconscious material that may be thwarting your growth and your legitimate longings and desires.

Every human being has to some degree the apparently nonsensical fear of bliss. At the same time, we long for our true birthright, which is a state of supreme bliss, sublime joy.

So – why do we say this mysterious ‘no’ to the fulfillment of our deepest desires? What makes happiness apparently dangerous or undesirable?

“To the extent you reject yourself, to that extent you cannot bear happiness,
you cannot sustain feelings of joy, bliss, or pleasure.” (L170)

According to Lecture #170, the reason is self-rejection, which occurs for two reasons. Both of these reasons have to do with the violation of universal spiritual laws:

• We reject ourselves because our inner self knows exactly where we violate spiritual laws by cheating on life and maybe trying to get more than we wish to give.
• We also reject ourselves because we believe that we are violating illusory standards of perfection. These standards are extremely demanding, rigid, and strict, and in believing that we need to adhere to them, we violate universal spiritual laws because we do not accept our humanity nor our present limitations.

Now – what does the violation of spiritual laws have to do with fear of bliss?

The lecture tells us that “Anything that is contrary to the laws of love and truth must make the organism unprepared to sustain the powerful energy of happiness.”

So, how can we increase our tolerance for bliss? We can do this by finding what we don’t accept in ourselves; what we don’t like and close our eyes to. We also need to cultivate a purposeful willingness to see whatever it may be that still eludes us. As we do this, we will become better equipped to bear happy feelings.

FACILITATOR

Natalie Morisset, a longtime Pathworker in her fourth and final year of
Pathwork Ottawa’s Helpership Development Program