PROCESS OF MEDITATION

Key Extracts from Lecture 182

© The Pathwork® Foundation 1999

As long as your self-will is stronger than your desire to put God in first place, until such time, you will never have certainty. God will not be a reality for you, no matter how much you speak and think and pray and meditate. He will be something vaguely abstract and not the living reality in your everyday life. And therefore I say to you truly: be ready to sacrifice for the sake of God even if there is still a corner of unbelief within you. And if you are truly ready, truly prepared to also accept that which you like least, provided it is God's will, you will have overstepped the most important borderline on your spiritual path in your entire spiritual development, because up to that point, everything is but theory or preparation for that great dividing mark on your road upwards, for that great step ahead. It represents a step into the unknown. Let go, my dear ones! Of course, God is unknown as yet to you. But trust in Him even if you cannot see, even if you do not like one alternative in case it should prove His will. Trust Him that He knows better. That is all I am asking you to do.

So there should be no one who has heard or read these words who should not go within himself and ask, ‘Where is there something in my life that God may wish to change?’ And then prepare yourself for this battle. Take your time with it. Do not do it hastily or superficially. Do not deceive yourself by doing it halfheartedly and then claim that you did not receive an answer. For you will not receive one if you have not done it wholeheartedly. Do not try to talk yourself into the conviction that something must be God's will because you want it so. Really put down all your cards before God. Make yourself empty. Be ready to give up. And if it takes weeks or months, it does not matter. But this should be your aim now. And if you cannot do so because something in you still does not want to, it will be much better if you acknowledge that, too, to yourself. For it will be much more harmful if you try to evade this issue. It is better to say, ‘I am not ready now.’ Then you will go on in other ways, in other slow stages, and perhaps in a year you will be far enough. But do not give up with some pretext because you still shy away from this complete surrender to God.