Abe: Are you making the best use of your Life?

Abraham , Tarrytown, NY - 10/18/98

Everything is about life. The only question that, if we were standing in your physical shoes, we would ask ourselves is, "In this moment, am I making the best use of my life?" In other words, "As the idea of my mother comes, am I choosing the most uplifting thought about her? As I focus upon my mate, am I choosing the most uplifting thought? As I focus upon my physical body, am I choosing the most uplifting thought?"

And most of you are not. Most of you are choosing the loudest thought. Most of you are choosing the most present or the most obvious.

When the question is, "Am I making the best use of this moment, am I choosing the thought that is of the highest vibration -- which is the same thing to say as "Am I choosing the thought that feels the best?" Then you cannot help but live out your experience in the way that you have intended.

You Cannot Bargain with Vibration

Abraham, San Rafael, CA, 7-22-07

Most of you stand in this place of defending why you need or want something better. You say, as if you were pleading to your mother—you did that when you were little: I NEED it! I REALLY NEED it!

“Mother, I really WANT this.” “Well, we all want things, son. You don’t get what you want.” Many mothers say that, misguided beings that they are. “You don’t get what you want.” “Well, I NEED it.” “Oh, well that’s different. How badly do you need it?” “I will DIE if I don’t have it.”

As you plead your neediest cases, that’s when Congress puts the money there. That’s when your mother gives up the goods. That’s when people who are weary of your complaining, cave in and say, “Alright TAKE the car!”

But we’re wanting you to understand that even though humans may cave in to your negative demands or pleading, the Universe never, EVER gives you what you want, when you’re beating the drum of what you don’t want. Everytime you are justifying how much you NEED something, you are vibrationally preventing yourself from having what you want. You cannot offer the frequency of NEED, and DESIRE, at the same time. You cannot be a vibrational match to what you want, and its absence, at the same time.

Pathwork: The Forces of Love, Eros, Sex

Blogger Note: This post is an anomaly - neither Seth, nor Abraham, but material from a woman named Eva Pierrakos called The Pathwork. The style is more formal and "religious" than more current teachings, but I hope the reader will bear with that because the information is valuable.  I have broken it into a few extra paragraphs for easier online readability.

Pathwork Guide, Lecture No. 44 (link accesses .pdf file), 01/15/59

THE FORCES OF LOVE, EROS, AND SEX

Tonight I would like to discuss three particular forces in the universe. These are the love force, as it manifests between the sexes, the erotic force, and the sex force. These are three distinctly different principles, or forces, that manifest on each plane in a different way—from the highest to the lowest. Humanity has always confused these three principles. In fact, it is often ignored that these three separate forces exist and what the differences are. There is so much confusion about this among human beings that it will be quite useful for my friends to hear once how it is in reality.

The sex force is the creative force on any level of existence. In the highest spheres, the same sex force creates spiritual life, spiritual ideas, spiritual concepts and principles as it also does on your earth sphere. But in the lower planes, the pure and unspiritualized sex force creates life as it manifests on that particular sphere, or, let us say, the outer shell or vehicle of the entity destined to live in this sphere.

The erotic force is one of the most potent forces in existence, and it has a great amount of momentum and impact. It is supposed to be the bridge between sex and love, yet it rarely is. In a spiritually highly developed person, the erotic force is used to carry, so to speak, the entity from the erotic experience—which in itself is of short duration—into the permanent state of pure love. The strong momentum of the erotic force alone carries the soul just so far and not further. It is bound to dissolve if the personality does not know how to learn to love, if he or she does not cultivate all the qualities and requirements necessary for true love. Then, and then only, the spark of the erotic force will constantly remain alive. Alone, without love, it cannot. It burns itself out. And this, of course, is the trouble with marriage. Since most people are incapable of pure love, they are also incapable of the ideal marriage.

Eros seems in many ways similar to love. It brings forth impulses in a human being that he would not have otherwise, impulses of unselfishness and affection he might have been incapable of before. This is why eros is so very often confused with love. But it is equally often confused with the pure sex instinct, which also manifests as a great urge.

I would like to show you, my friends, what the spiritual meaning and purpose of the erotic force is, particularly as far as humanity is concerned. Without eros, many people would never experience the great feeling and beauty that is contained in pure love. They would never get the taste of it, and their yearning for love would remain deeply covered in their soul. Their fear of love would constantly remain the stronger urge. 

Eros is the nearest thing to love the undeveloped spirit can experience. It lifts the soul out of her sluggishness, out of mere contentment and vegetation. It causes the soul to surge up, to go out of itself. When this force comes upon the most undeveloped person, he will become able to surpass himself. Even a criminal will feel temporarily, at least towards that one person, a goodness he has never known. The utterly selfish person will, while this feeling lasts, have unselfish impulses. The lazy person will get out of his inertia. The routine-bound person will naturally and without great effort get rid of his static habits, and so on and so forth.  This erotic force will lift the person out of his separateness, be it only for a short time. And this gives the soul a foretaste of unity and teaches the fearful psyche the longing for it; that is, this longing becomes more conscious after the erotic experience. The stronger one has experienced it, the less contentment the soul will find in the pseudosecurity of separateness. During the experience of eros, an otherwise thoroughly self-centered person may even be able to commit a sacrifice. 

So you see, my friends, eros enables the personality to do many things that he is disinclined to do otherwise, things that are closely linked with love. It is easy to see why eros is so often confused with love. Why then is it different from love? Because love is a permanent state in the soul. Love can only exist if, through development and purification, the basis for it is prepared. Love does not come and go at random. But eros does. Eros hits with a sudden force, finding the person often unawares and even unwilling to go through this experience. And only if the soul is prepared to love, has built the foundations for it, will eros be the bridge to that particular form of love as it manifests between the sexes.

Thus you can see how important the erotic force is. Many a human being would never be lifted out of himself, would never see beyond himself, would never be ready for a more conscious search for the breaking down of his own wall of separation unless the erotic force would not “hit” him and get him out of the rut. The erotic experience puts the seed into the soul so that it longs for unity. And unity is the great aim in the plan, for as long as the soul is separate, loneliness and unhappiness must be the result of it. 

The erotic experience enables the personality to long for union with at least one other being. In the heights of the spirit world, union happens with all beings—and thus with God. Therefore, on the earth sphere, the erotic force is a propelling power in itself, regardless of whether or not it is understood in its real meaning, and regardless of the fact that it is often misused and enjoyed while it lasts for its own sake but not utilized to cultivate love in the soul. Then, of course, it peters out. But nevertheless, the effect will inevitably remain in the soul.

Eros suddenly comes to man in certain stages of his life, even to those who are afraid of the apparent risk of the adventure out of their separateness. He who is afraid of his emotions and afraid of life as such will often do anything in his power (subconsciously and ignorantly) to avoid the great experience of unity. Although this fear exists in many, many human beings, there are few, indeed, where there is not some opening in the soul where eros cannot effect it inadvertently. With the fearful soul who resists this life experience, this is good medicine regardless of the fact that sorrow and loss may follow this experience due to other psychological factors too varied to enumerate now. 

However, there are also those who are overemotional, and although they may know other fears of life, they are not afraid of this experience. In fact, the beauty of it is a great temptation to them, and therefore they hunt greedily for it. They look for one subject after another. They are emotionally too ignorant to understand the deep meaning of eros; they are unwilling to learn pure love; they simply use the erotic force for their pleasure; and once it has worn out, they hunt elsewhere. 

This is abuse and cannot remain without effect either. This type of personality will have to make up for this abuse (ignorant as it may have been), just as the overfearful coward will have to make up for trying to cheat life by hiding from it and thus withholding from the soul a valuable medicine if used properly. As I said, with most people of this category, there is a vulnerable point somewhere in the soul through which eros can come in. But there are also a few who have built such a tight wall of fear and pride around their soul that they truly avoid this part of the life experience and so cheat their own development in a certain way. 

This fear might exist because in a former life unhappiness resulted out of this life experience, or perhaps because the soul has greedily abused the beauty of it without building it into love. In both cases, the personality may have resolved to be more careful. If this resolve is too rigid and stringent, the opposite extreme results. In the next incarnation, circumstances will be chosen in such a way that a balance will set in until the soul reaches the harmonious state where no more extreme exists. This applies to all aspects of the personality, thus also regarding this particular subject. In order to approach this harmony, at least to some extent, the proper balance between reason, emotion, and will has to be achieved in the personality.

The erotic experience will often mingle with the sexual urge, but it does not always have to be that way. These three forces—love, eros, and sex—often appear completely separately, while sometimes two mingle. Let us say eros and sex; or eros and love, as much as the soul is capable of; or sex and a semblance of love, again as far as the capacity reaches. Only in the ideal case do all three forces mingle harmoniously.

The pure sex force is utterly selfish. Where sex exists without eros and without love, it is referred to as “animalistic.” Pure sex exists in all living creatures: animals, plants, and minerals. Eros begins with the stage of development where the soul is incarnated as a human being. And pure love is to be found in the higher spiritual realms. This does not mean that the former two do not exist anymore with the higher developed being, but rather that all three blend in harmoniously and are refined, becoming less and less selfish. Nor does this mean that a human being cannot try to attempt this harmonious blend of all three forces.

In rare cases, eros without sex and love exists too, at least for a limited time. It is what is referred to as “platonic love.” But usually, sooner or later, at least with the somewhat healthy person, eros and sex mingle. The sex force, instead of being suppressed, is taken up, so to speak, by the erotic force, and both flow in one current. The more these three forces remain separate, the unhealthier the personality is.

Another possibility, particularly in relationships of long standing, is the combination of a certain kind of love (it cannot be perfect unless all three forces blend together, but let us say the nearest thing to it) and sex, but without eros. There is a certain amount of affection, companionship, fondness, mutual respect, and a sex relationship that is crudely sexual without the erotic spark that has evaporated some time ago. When eros is missing, the sex relationship must eventually suffer. 

Now this is the problem with most marriages, my friends. And there is hardly a human being who is not puzzled by this question of what to do to maintain that spark in a relationship that seems to evaporate the more habit and knowledge of one another sets in. You may not have thought of it in exactly the terms I am using, thinking of three distinct forces; yet you know and sense that something goes out of a marriage that was present at the beginning, this certain spark that is actually eros. You find yourself in a vicious circle and thus think that marriage is a hopeless proposition. No, my friends, it is not, even if you cannot as yet attain the ideal stage.

But let me now tell you about the ideal partnership love between two people. I said already that all three forces have to be represented. With love, you do not seem to have much difficulty, for in most cases one would not marry if there did not exist at least the willingness to love. I will not discuss at this point the extreme cases when a person makes an immature choice. I am discussing the case where the choice is a mature one, and yet one cannot get over the pitfall of time and habit because elusive eros has disappeared. With sex it is the same. The sex force is present in most healthy human beings and may only begin to fade, particularly with women, when eros has left. Men may then seek eros elsewhere. For the sexual relationship must eventually suffer if eros is not maintained. 

And how can you keep eros? That is the big question, my dear ones. And this question I will attempt to answer now. Eros can only be maintained if it is used as a bridge to true partnership in love in its highest sense. And how this is done, we will discuss now. Let us first see what is the main element in the erotic force. When you analyze it, you will find that it is the adventure, the search for the knowledge of the other soul. This desire lives in every created spirit. This inherent life force must bring the entity finally out of separation. Eros strengthens the curiosity to find the other being. As long as there is something new to find in the other soul and as long as you reveal yourself, eros will live. The moment you believe you have found all there is to find and have revealed all there is to reveal, or all you are willing to reveal, eros will leave. It is as simple as that with eros. But where your great error comes in is that you believe there is a limit to the revealing of any soul, yours or another’s. When a certain point of revealing is reached, usually a quite superficial one, one is under the impression this is all there is to it, and one settles down to a placid life without further searching. This far, eros carries you with his strong impact. But after this point is reached, your further will to search the unlimited depths of the other person and voluntarily reveal and share of your own inward search within yourself determines the fact that you have used eros as a bridge to love—which is always determined by your will to learn how to love. 

And in that way, you will maintain the spark of eros contained in your love. Only in this way you will continue to find the other and let yourself be found. There is no limit, for the soul is endless and eternal; a whole lifetime would not suffice to know it. There can never be a point at any time when you know the other soul entirely, nor when you are known entirely. The soul is alive, and nothing that is alive remains static. It changes constantly. It has the possibility to reveal even deeper layers that exist already, apart from any change. The soul is in constant change and movement, as anything spiritual is by its very nature. Spirit means life and life means change. Since soul is spirit, the soul can never be known utterly. If man had the wisdom, he would realize that and make of marriage this marvelous journey of adventure it is supposed to be, forever finding new vistas instead of simply being carried as far as the first momentum of eros. You should use this potent momentum of eros as the propelling force it is to begin with, finding with it and from it the urge to go on further “on your own steam,” so to speak. Then you have brought eros into true love in marriage.

For anyone interested, the rest of lectures, including 44, can be found here.

Abe: Is your Mother's depression messing up your vibe?

Abraham, 8/17/02 West Los Angeles, CA

Guest: Hi, Abraham. I wanna ask you about responsibility. My mother, who I have a complicated relationship with, is massively unhappy. Ummm, I keep trying to do things to make her happy, to find ways to guide her to happiness.

Abe: Well, let us ask you a question because this is at the heart of everything. When you think about your mother, what is the most active, dominant vibration within you? “My mother is an unhappy woman? My mother is a happy woman?”

Guest: Unhappy.

Abe: And so you, from that vibration, can offer no guidance to anything else. Because what’s happened is, she’s won. She has presented herself in a way that you’ve observed until you’ve learned your vibration about her, from her. And now you’re reflecting it back to her. And so that’s the part of her that you get to keep rendezvousing with.

And so now, let’s play the game of asking the other questions. When I think about my mother, I see her as more unhappy or more happy?

Guest: More unhappy.

Abe: It’s my job to change the vibration of my mother? It’s not my job to change the vibration of my mother?

Guest: See, that’s where I get, it gets sticky for me.

Abe: It’s my job to change the vibration of my mother? It’s not my job to change the vibration of my mother? Just answer it.

We’re not saying one is right and one is wrong. We just want you to say which. It’s my job to change the vibration of my mother. It’s not my job to change the vibration of my mother.

Guest: I think it’s not my job. But I think the right answer is, that it is my job.

Abe: My mother’s vibration is unchangeable? My mother’s vibration is changeable?

Guest: It’s changeable.

Abe: That was a trap. (Laughter)

Guest: And I fell in it?

Abe: You did, because

Guest: Because I can’t change it?

Abe: Because - well. Because you don’t believe that her vibration is changeable. But you do believe it’s your job to change it.

(Audience - “Oh”) So you’re in this

Guest: You’re good, you know. (Laughter)

Abe: So you’re in this impossible place

Guest: Yea.

Abe: ...you see. And so, which of those do you think would be the easiest outlet for you? In other words, you’re in a jam, you can’t get out. Where is the path of least resistance? It’s not my job to change my mother’s vibration? Or, my mother’s vibration is changeable? [You] can take any way out. Which is the easiest one?

Guest: (Pause)

Abe: Not my job.

Guest: Not my job.

Abe: It’s not my job to change my mother’s vibration. Now let’s go back to more general statements. My life is mostly really good?

Guest: My life is mostly

Abe: Ooooooo, it is

Guest: really good,

Abe: isn’t it?

Guest: really good.

Abe: There are so many things that I can think about that bring me to a good feeling place. And on the occasional moment that I focus upon her, I can take it. Now let’s, let’s start here.

Guest: Yes.

Abe: My mother and her sadness are such a big part of my life, that it’s sucking the life out of me. Or my mother and her problems are not a big part of my life. And I can deal with it when I need to.

Guest: Yea.

Abe: SO STOP BEATING UP ON YOURSELF THAT THERE’S A PIECE OF LIFE EXPERIENCE THAT YOU CAN’T CONTROL - AND YOU CAN’T CHANGE. And say, “Hmmm, maybe I should practice a little unconditional love.” And we’re not talking about unconditional love for your mother. We’re talking about letting yourself off the hook.

Guest: Okay.

Abe: We’re talking about wanting so much to feel good, that you say, “It has to be alright for my mother to be like that. I have to allow my mother to have the experiences that she is having. AND I HAVE TO FIND MY HAPPINESS ANYWHERE I CAN GET IT. And maybe I’ll find some with thoughts about her and maybe I won’t. But for right now, I’m not gonna think about that. I’m not gonna think about that.

Abraham on Deflecting Catty Judgments

Abraham, Boulder, CO 06-11-05

Questioner has fear of being judged.

A: Well, that’s a valid fear, because they will judge you.

Q. Right.

A. And so if that bothers you then..because people are going to observe you and they can only see you through their framework and so many people would feel better if you would comply to what they think they need you to do so that they will feel better... but you sort of got to get over that...(laughter)

Q: And how do I get over it? (laughter) ...

Q. I know when you do have a thought that you don’t feel good about...

A. Such as...

Q. Such as walking into a store in a new city and you’re afraid that people are looking at you and judging you and then I go in and I say, "Well, no, God’s within you, you are God, there is nothing wrong with you." Is that just putting a bandaid on it?

A. Well, the reason it feels to you like you are putting a bandaid on it is that’s not solving the situation for you and here’s why:

So let’s say that for whatever reason you have been fostered in an environment where you were trained to care deeply about what other people thought and you’re not alone in that because most people need to control your behavior so that they can feel good, it happened in your home, it happens in the school system, it happens in the traffic. IOW there are so many things around you where they expect your behavioral compliance or they won’t feel so good and they’ll punish you because they want to feel good. IOW that’s sort of the way your physical world has come round to...

So lets say that for whatever reason in whatever way it happened to you, you are very sensitive to the opinions of others and you walk into an environment like you said and you feel them looking at you and disapproving and you think I don’t like this feeling. I should jump into the bright-eyed bushy-tailed fluffy...

I should love them. (laughter)

But you’re very far from that vibration and so when someone is looking at you, looking you over and you can see disapproval in their face, what is the first knee jerk reaction that comes from you, most of you, maybe not you? Don’t you wanna say... "Who are you?" Don’t you wanna say..."You wear those shoes and you’ve got the nerve to look at me?" Don’t you wanna say..."Who combed your hair today?" Doesn’t just a little feeling of revenge sort of bubble up like a life-giving breath of fresh air?

Now you and a lot of other people may not let yourself go there because you’ve been trained to believe that you should have love in your heart and you should not condemn them just because they are condemning you, but we wanna say to you that you can’t jump from being condemned and taking it hard all the way into love and sunshine and joy. You can’t do it; the frequencies are too far apart and we think that the knee-jerk response of revenge or anger is an approved vibration for you and what we feel from you and from so many who are sensitive and who want to be uplifters is that many of you have disallowed yourself the stepping stones along the way_on_the_way_ to your love and appreciation of everyone.

It’s sort of like... Jerry and Esther wanting to go from Phoenix to San Diego and finding themselves in Yuma and being so discouraged that they are not yet in san diego that they get disoriented and turn around and go back to phoenix.

So they go...(quickly)

phoenix yuma
phoenix yuma
phoenix yuma
phoenix yuma
phoenix yuma

and in time they say (dramatically and with angst), "We’ll neeeeever get to San Diegoooo. We must not be woooorthy of san diego. We must have done something in a past life that prevents us from getting to gooooo to san diego. There must be something in YUMA that is a higher puuuuurpose fooor us. God must want us to be in yuma. We must have done something really bad in a past life and karma tells us that _yuma_is_ our_ place_. (Huge audience laughter).

And we say, you come up with a lot of really funny things to explain why you don’t just line up with what you want, you see. So our message to you is you don’t line up all at once; you line up gradually.

Abraham, Boulder Workshop, CO 06-11-05

Abe: Forgiveness Redefined

Abraham, Albuquerque, New Mexico, 09/2002

We have to say to you that forgiveness doesn’t fit in very well with the art of allowing, because you’ve got to dig up what you’re forgiving. The strange thing about forgiveness - it doesn’t have to be this way, but it often is - is that, when you hear people talking about forgiveness they’re usually talking about what they’re forgiving. ‘Oh yeah, it’s a terrible thing she did to me. [with mock anger...] But I forgive her.’ [laughter] And what happens is anything that you give your attention to activates in your vibration. So if something has hurt you, and you are working to forgive it, you are activating.

Forgiveness is almost exactly the same, in fact would we say it is exactly the same, as saying ‘I’m going to deactivate this thing that hurt me’. And we would say the reason that it doesn’t go very far and the reason that people struggle so hard with the idea of forgiveness is because they keep digging up the stuff they don’t want and keeping it active in their vibration so that they have a stream of people they have to forgive. They forgave their mother for what she did and kept it alive and then they had to forgive this lover and this lover and this lover and this lover. And every day it’s an eternal quest to forgive. And we say why not just let it go and activate something that doesn’t need forgiving.

Any person is like a microcosm of the Universe. They have within them things that you adore and things that you would rather not see.  And if you are forgiving some of the stuff you don’t want to see you are keeping it active so it becomes a bigger part of the personality that that person is giving to you. But if you ignore that by activating the things that you appreciate, oh that’s a whole other thing.

So we would give forgiveness a new definition. We would say the ultimate way of forgiving is really forgetting. And the ultimate way of forgetting really is by remembering something you want to remember.

Seth: Disapproval of Self Hinders

Seth, Book Five of the Personal Sessions, pages 203-204:

Now: Right now, self-disapproval is involved. You disapprove of yourself because you feel poorly—and because you do not approve of the basic feelings that are behind the difficulty. (an upset stomach for Rob)

You do not approve of yourself because you think you should be making money “on your own.” You do not approve of yourself because you think you should be a better artist, or a better writer—but in any case, you do not let yourself appreciate the self that you are.

When you realize this, then you disapprove of yourself for not being wise enough to understand. Behind this is still the idea that self-disapproval is somehow valuable—it will somehow make you better.

[snip]

Try to be more compassionate toward yourself and your feelings. Do not judge your feelings. The disapproval causes you to bury them. Out in the open, you can handle them easily.

Ideas have changed also since your (childhood), when those ideas were instilled in you. The feelings become exaggerated, and prevent you from accepting the quite valid feelings of your own worth. Approve of yourself as you are, now. Avoid thoughts of regret. Doors of all kinds will open when you take away that restraining mental habit.

(Pause.) "Peace."