Aquarius workshop

The illusory fear of love

“To live in the comparative reality accessible to you as long as you are an incarnated human
being depends on your maturity, mental as well as emotional. Maturity, in turn, depends on your
capacity and willingness to love. The more the personality is afraid of love, unwilling and thus
incapable of loving, the more he lives in unreality, or illusion.”
Quote from Pathwork Lecture 71: Reality and Illusion

The greatest force in the universe is love. Love is pleasure and pleasure is love. In contact with this love force we are in truth and unity and we feel safe. If we hold back the love force, positive feelings turn into negative emotions. Without this love force we feel poor, separated and fearful because we live in untruth and lovelessness. Deep inside everyone has a resistance to love. Upon further investigation we will come to the important discovery that this resistance is caused by fear of love. We can internally observe the following contradiction: on the one hand we fear love, of giving and receiving equally and on the other hand we yearn for love. That fear believes that love is dangerous, that other people are enemies and we should not love them to be safe. This fearful attitude distorts the love force and makes us unhappy.

The transition from egocentricity (me versus the other) to love (unity in connection) is a critical period in the development of a human being. It is a period of emotional growth that can be subject to crisis, because the ego lives under the illusion that expansion of the ego means destruction of its identity. Fear of love underlies this illusion. To the extent that we resists this growth into maturity due to ignorance, this period will be painful and cause conflict. As we welcome this period, the new way of life will offer challenges and also fulfilling experiences. Then we feel lovingly carried by the life force, which can only carry us if we move in a relaxed manner.

In the inner reality, our natural state of Being, the love force flows effortlessly and gracefully. Love is everything that promotes connection, unity, expansion and harmony and expresses the divine and benign universe. In the areas of life where we are emotionally mature and live in inner reality, we are free from fear of love. The other person then feels our respectful attitude, the freedom to be themselves and the freedom to love us or not. In this workshop we will explore with a loving curiosity three themes of the Pathwork Lectures regarding the illusory fear of love.

1st theme: Inner contradiction causes conflict

The anxious child demands love and hides that demand under the need for approval and appreciation. And the greater the fear of giving and receiving love, the greater the request for love. We unconsciously force others to love us, but forced love is not real love. There is an inner contradiction, where on the one hand we demand to be loved and on the other hand we are not prepared to give love ourselves. This contradiction is the cause of many conflicts and the immature ego therefore does not live in reality.

“The more one is afraid to love, the greater the desire to be loved will become. The greater this discrepancy, the more is the personality torn in this conflict as well as in many others arising from this basic problem. The first and perhaps hardest step is to become aware that this very deep problem does exist. When this is found, the most difficult part of the battle is accomplished. For then it will be relatively easy to see how unrealistic the imbalance is, how unfair is this request for something that one is not willing to give oneself. The desire to be loved is legitimate only if one is prepared oneself to give as much as he asks. This is reality.” (Quote from Pathwork Lecture 71)

2nd theme: Facing immaturity

Even though we are now physically mature, part of us is mentally and emotionally immature. This immature part, the irrational inner child, translates the healthy desire to give and receive love into the unhealthy desire to request love. The inner child only wants to receive love from others without the risk of being hurt again and is trapped in the vicious cycle of emotional dependency. It imperatively demands that despite unreasonableness and selfishness, everyone should love him unconditionally and exclusively and that every wish should be fulfilled instantly. We still have a childish dualistic attitude towards love: fear of love and the forcing demand for love. This struggle between the desire for love and the fear of love is the most fundamental human conflict.

“Immaturity is fear to love, on the one hand, and an inordinate demand to being loved, on the other. Immaturity is nonacceptance of reality because reality is not always perfect or pleasant. Immaturity exaggerates this imperfection so much that you close your eyes to it, thereby inviting many further conflicts. Therefore immaturity causes a crippled intuition, a crippled creativity.” (Quote from Pathwork Lecture 72)

3rd theme: Letting go of the illusory fear of love

Illusions cause confusion and incorrect perception of reality and thus negative emotions such as fear, hostility, separation, self-pity, ambivalence and desire for revenge. The illusory fear of love hurts others as well as ourselves. It is precisely the illusory fear of loving and being hurt by that experience that creates all conflicts and problems. Therefore, our task, in connection with the true self, is to let go of the illusory fear of love so that we are able to create constructively. If we are in truth and perceive reality purely, then there is no illusory fear of love.

“If it is true that life is benign, liberating, and giving to man, if it is for rather than against man, love is not only not dangerous, it is the only way possible to exist in peace and harmony with the existing factors of the universe. So it is absolutely necessary, my friends, that you connect the fear to love with your negative conception and expectation of life, on the one side, and the freedom from fear to love with a positive, benign concept and expectation of life on the other.” (Quote from Pathwork Lecture 146)

The workshop lasts 1,5 hours. We will start with a short relaxation meditation. This will be followed by an introduction then there will be an opportunity to discuss your experiences on this subject and to ask questions.

The last part of the workshop consists of a guided meditation and the sharing of received inspirations.

The free workshop will be held on Saturday at PST 8.00-9.30, EST 11.00-12.30, GMT 16.00-17.30, CET 17.00-18.30.

After you have registered for the free workshop (s.hontele@hetnet.nl), you will receive a zoom link.