What determines what entity is channeled through an instrument, and should everybody channel?

(Carla channeling)

I am Q’uo. I greet you, my friends, in the light of the one infinite Creator. I greet you upon a night which is most luminous. The candles of hope, thanksgiving and compassion are lit by so many who know not the good they do at this season which you are experiencing at this time.

You ask what people should and should not channel, and we say to you, first of all, that all of you are channels; all of you are instruments for good, for ill, or—most tragically—for nothing, neither good nor ill. As each of you engages his or her heart in communing with the great mystery which you call Christmas, so each of you channels that which cannot be found within the mind or the body in so much concentration except when the heart is awakened to a higher and purer caring for the situation of the self or the situation of those about you and for the great puzzle which all face—the precise situation which lies twixt self and Creator.

In this general sense there is no one who is not a channel; there is no life which is not primarily a channeled existence. By this we mean that each of you carries within the self deep and unconscious forces neither to the good nor to the evil as much as to the deepening of experience. The more times in which the student may recognize the depth of the present moment, just so shall that soul channel more and more in a biased fashion, in an engaged fashion, in an enabling fashion for service to all and for love of the infinite Creator.

For what is channeling, my friends? Many think of it, especially the vocal channeling, as a kind of letter left perhaps upon one of your telephone answering devices, telling interesting things which have happened in your past or your present or your future. Of oneself it is difficult to truly grapple with the questions of the heart, the heart being the closest connection to the spirit. Therefore, we affirm that all are and should be, in a general sense, channels for the one infinite Creator, for each of you is co-Creator, with that face of mystery which created your life as the open book with the blank pages. And as you are created in this image, the image of the open blank book, so by your living, your polarized thinking and your channeling, more and more you begin to fill the book of your life. Your penmanship matters not, the exquisite outcome of an hoped-for event matters not, for it is as has been mentioned earlier the task of the instrument only to attempt to channel a life lived in love and peaceableness. Sometimes these attempts are taken by the conscious self and made hard and brittle, so that in the name of good the self is broken as a piece of toast.

Thus, to each of you who is indeed the channel of his or her own living, we suggest a persistent, faithfully followed daily meditation, a meditation which does not have to be time-consuming, rather, a meditation which is just the perfect length for you for that day and for that moment. The purpose of meditation is to open up the heart portion of the mind, for the analytical portion of the mind carries you through most of your culture’s activities, but the mind-heart has within it a deeper way, a more centered truth, a more balanced bias, and in the end a bias which moves more and more closely to that bias which you wish at the end of your incarnation to offer the Creator as your life gift.

A life is a solid, sometimes bulky, present to offer to the infinite One, yet each laugh, each smile, each encouragement to one who needed it, each hard truth to one who needed it, each and every effort that has been made is as the wrapping and the decorating and the wonderful ribbons about that solid, caring present to the Creator that is a channeled life.

Allow yourself to be conscious as much as possible that there is within you a channel to spirit, to the higher self, to the Self of all that there is. This contact shall never fade away, for as you desire you shall receive. Oftentimes you shall not receive that which you requested, for your higher self knows that which in the end will bring the understanding, the compassion, and the balance.

We began this way deliberately, somewhat off the main thrust of the query, because the question of channeling is so general due to the vocabulary lacks within your culture for an activity which is called channeling, as each channels the self each and every moment of the incarnation.

We turn now to the channeling which was intended to be queried about, and that query is, “Should everyone be a channel? How do channels and instruments contact each other? And is that in all cases a good idea?”

Let us look at the life of a poet or a musician. Many poets have written what this instrument would offer as, “Roses are red, violets are blue.” These channeled thoughts are modest and pleasant, yet they shall not make the poet a man of renown. So it is with the music. What this instrument would call “Chopsticks” can be taught, and thus any entity can play the instrument of the piano. Yet is this, after all, a decisively important kind of channeling to be shared with others? It may well help the entity, but we submit to you that the equivalent of chopsticks on the piano, when placed in the context of spiritually-oriented channeling, it may suggest that not everyone, perhaps not even most, need to seriously consider a life lived as a [vocal] channel.

There is no entity so lost to desires of helpfulness that this cannot eventually learn to channel the love and the light of the infinite Creator. However, there is a certain temperament which finds its reward in being used as a vocal channel. A person with such a temperament is willing to undergo difficulties, misunderstandings, inconvenience and all the minor difficulties that a time-consuming activity causes. And this is where we begin to make the distinction between those who channel the equivalent of a simple tune upon the piano and those who wish to study the instrument of the self. The study required for being an instrument is a careful, persistent, dogged and light-hearted gaze at the life as it is lived from day to day, from week to week, from year to year.

As in any spiritually-oriented service, the honor of being a channel grows in direct proportion to the responsibility of living that which is channeled. The Creator is a fair and perhaps distant observer when an individual is making a dedication to a life of being able to channel. The vocal channel thus has not only the discipline, the ABC’s, to learn about contact, how to govern contact and so forth, it also must gaze at the daily behavior which may be commented upon by that very entity’s channeling of a higher and more informed source. This concept of a life lived in a certain way has in your culture been associated almost entirely with those who choose to wear clothing which is different from others which proclaims a religious status or importance. Those of you who speak with our thoughts mingling with yours are those who travel completely incognito. We do not wish to impress anyone with our reality. We do not wish to reveal the proof, the evidence, the material which would sway those who find the idea of vocal channeling either sacrilegious or unscientific.

Perhaps you can see by now that we are attempting to say that those who do not wish to take upon themselves the responsibility of attempting to live as they have learned are far better off attempting to be of service to the infinite Creator, which is within all beings, by any one of a number of ways of channeling cheerfulness and helpfulness to those who are needy. Many there are who need food, blankets, clothing and shelter, for upon your weary world there is the winter of the body, and the body becomes cold, and the most beautiful words shall not warm the bones of such a body, but rather the simpler channeling of hospitality and faith, warm places for saddened, wearied bodies.

We shall tell you how we came to speak to this instrument. We are those who listen to a certain vibration of request. We have found that vibration often within this group, and so we are most fortunate that we are called to this group by means of this group’s desire to seek and know as much as possible about the true nature of beingness. We waited for this group to become one, to lose the self-consciousness, to join in a circle of light which by now, my friends, is visible for a large number of your kilometers, like a bubble, below the earth, above the earth, and all about you. This light you have created, and within that creation you have placed a call, and we who do not have telephone answering machines like this instrument does, we answer that call—and that right gladly.

For it is a great service to us that you ask the question that we may in our humble way attempt to answer. And may we say, as always, that we cannot state anything which is infallible. We are pilgrims along the same path as are you. We have stumbled over the stones which now confront you, and are stumbling now over different stones, and we in turn are helped by those beyond us. When all of us achieve the complete channeling which is the impersonal life, then it will be that this creation shall gather itself together in Oneness, in sleep, in timelessness, until once again the Creator bursts out with a new creation, and all the consciousnesses begin again upon a new level to learn new lessons, and to express to the Creator within each other the nature of holiness, compassion and love.

When a student presents itself to one who teaches the channeling, it is often very helpful that the one who wishes to channel has done significant amounts of thinking upon the true nature of the self. Even if you have passed the test of agreeing to amend your life to meet as best as you can the challenges of channeling, it is not always possible to so live. Yet those who wish to make vocal channeling their service have a certain frame of mind, a certain series of biases. This to us is not a problem. We welcome the difference between channel and channel. We welcome the diversity of ways in which the one great original Thought of creation is expressed, for ours is a most simple story, and we welcome each entity’s ability to express our concepts in a slightly new and somewhat different way. For you, my friends, as channels are fishers of men, as your holy work describes it. You shine not only for the Creator, and not only for the Creator within the self, but primarily for those about you. You do not know how many lives you may reach, you do not know what smile or soft word shall lift up the heart of one who is very low. You do not know until it is over when a home truth must be told, so that baggage may be dropped that was no longer useful, leaving you free for your next experience.

It is our desire not [just] to make more vocal channels, but to make each aware of the channeling he or she is already doing. The conscious mind is so very small a part of your minds, dear children. When you feel you are thinking especially well, it is as if you were saying, “I am using two percent of my mental capacity,” for, my friends, this is approximately the amount of your entire self which is used for logical thinking. The great and enormous depth, beauty, truth and a kind of terribleness which is the connection with deeply impersonal sources, all of these things are by far the greater extent of the mind which is yours at this moment within the incarnation, doing no other work, sitting at this circle and listening.

You are channels. You all should be channels. The call to be a vocal channel is a call to a religiously or spiritually-oriented life. There are things which one must turn one’s back upon if one wishes to remain a positively-oriented channel, open for undistorted information giving. It is not well when all in a society decide to be priests, my children. Thus, if you find other ways of channeling [than vocal channeling] which are better [for you], then we urge you, by all means, to realize what kind of channel that you are, and be that wonderful, loving, compassionate self that this particular type channeling may bring

A weaver channels the beauty of the cloth. One who works with people channels a love and acceptance, a true listening ear for the entities around it. There are so many examples of the channeling which all may do—the cooking, the washing, the smiling at the sun, the enjoyment of water, all the excitement of daily life, all the little things which are like flowers in a bowl in unexpected corners of your daily life. You channel your daily life. We ask you to do it lovingly and honorably, honoring yourself and honoring that which this instrument would call the Christ consciousness in each and every face that you see.

Finally, with mixed emotion, which may indeed make this part of our message difficult, we urge that those who hear these words not assume by any means that vocal channeling is that which they are prepared to do. The entities which have begun as excellent vocal channels and have later disintegrated their contact are many, far too many. And although each entity shall be healed and disappointment shall cease, yet still, by following not the heart within, but the ambition without, they have condemned themselves to much disappointment. If you are to be a vocal channel, may we say that you shall not be able to resist that search, that practice, and the ponderings that intensive channeling meditations bring to one.

We urge each to listen to each channel with an open mind and gaze not at the mythology or story which surrounds the messages, but rather the messages themselves. We have purposely refrained from describing ourselves in any physical way because we would not wish to begin, in those whom we serve, some idealization of us as teachers, something that has a face and a name, something that will bear responsibility for them. My friends, each of you is upon your own stage in your own creation with your own audience, and no matter how many people there are in that theater, all of those entities are yourself.

There are few who are so oriented that they may gaze daily and lovingly at the many errors and peccadilloes of the human self. Therefore, in those who truly wish and are capable of being vocal channels, it is important that those entities judge not the temporary or ephemeral thoughts, feelings and conclusions, but rather with a good heart and a real sense of commitment move forward day by day, meditation by meditation, honing, refining and humbling the self that it may be a vocal instrument which is harmless but helpful.

Many contacts there are of entities which use light not for service to others, but for those messages which involve personal power over others and service to self. Thus, the first and greatest suggestion that we may make to all who channel the self in everyday life as well as all who seek a vocation as vocal channel, is that the self be regarded in some way so that as the days move forward, the more and more positive ways of reacting to difficult…

[Side one of tape ends.]

(Carla channeling)

…situations may become more smooth, more comfortable, less threatening, and more open.

The successful channel, whether vocal or otherwise, is one whose heart is happy, one whose wings are spread, yet one who is not impatient for the song to sing or the winds to take wing. It is up to each to decide in what way service lies. Many there are upon your planet who sit, shall we say, at the top of a great watchtower, gazing upon infinity and bearing the sadness and futility of apparent human existence, and with that open and terrible gaze, that pitiless eye, seeing the perfection, the beauty, and the harmony of that great plan wherein self shall meet self until all selves have met and merged and again we are One, the one Creator, the one original Thought which is love, not love as you and I know it in a personal sense, but the love that builds and explodes the very stars themselves.

This instrument informs us that we have once again spoken perhaps at too great a length, and we would like to apologize. As you know, we have great difficulty with the sense of passing time, as we are offering to this instrument a—we search for an adjective within this instrument’s vocabulary—in perhaps, we shall say, a spontaneous way. It is time for us to leave this instrument that the questions which are on the minds of those here might be responded to. Please feel free to ask questions, for this, you see, is our service to you, and as we teach and supposedly you learn, my children, it is the other way around. You teach courage, curiosity, bravery and sweetness, and we learn time and time again that in your very difficult third-density illusion your spirit is there, joyful, uninhibited, strong and eternal. How we glow with the joy of our comradeship with you. How we admire your ability to gaze at a never-ending maze of shadow within shadow within shadow until the distortions are so deep that it is by faith alone that any perception of wholeness can be had. We thank you for these gifts and only hope that our words give you something about which to ponder. We would at this time transfer this contact to the one known as Jim. I am Q’uo.

(Jim channeling)

I am Q’uo, and greet each again in love and light through this instrument. It is our privilege at this time to offer ourselves in the attempt to speak to any queries which may yet remain upon the minds of those present. Again, we would remind each that we offer but that which is our opinion. We offer it joyfully, but not infallibly. We are your brothers and sisters who seek to serve. May we begin with a query?

I have always thought that people who wanted to learn to channel, if it was just curiosity it still was helpful to them as long as they didn’t go beyond a certain point. And you didn’t cover that, and I just wondered if that is a thought that you confirm?

I am Q’uo, and we are not averse to attempting the exercising and utilization of an instrument which has only the goal of satisfying personal curiosity, for in that way do we also serve in a manner which hopefully is instructive to the one with the curiosity. It is oftentimes a lesson well learned for one to practice an art long enough to discover that it is not the life’s vocation.

May we speak further, my sister?

Not on that question, no thank you.

I am Q’uo, and we thank you, my sister. Is there another query?

Q’uo, there are times when I am questioned about something, in class, that I really do not know the answer [to] in my mind. I don’t know that I have ever touched upon the subject even. And yet it seems that my mouth will open and I will give an answer. The answer seems very acceptable and something that even I need to study, but I have wondered, I have felt that I was fraud, perhaps making it up or filling in, but there would be the answer. Am I to understand that this could be definitely channeling?

I am Q’uo, and, indeed, each conversation and activity which an entity partakes within is a channeling from some portion of the Creator, for are not all the Creator? Therefore, it is not surprising that each entity in the daily experience will utilize resources within the conscious and often within the subconscious mind as means by which an activity will be undertaken and a conversation will be initiated. There are many rooms to the mind of each entity. Many of these rooms contain information which will wait long before being utilized, yet there is a time and a season for the utilization of far more than is normally utilized by the conscious mind. As one seeks in a wholehearted fashion to be of service to others by the life and the various portions of interaction with others within a life experience, there is created within the entity a bridge, shall we say, or a channel which connects the conscious mind with other portions of the conscious and subconscious mind according to the nature of the information sought and the degree of desire which activates the seeking and searching within the self in order than another might be served.

Thus, each of you, my friends, cultivates this channel or pathway each day of your existence, and as you begin to ponder more and more the mystery of beingness, of the creation, of your purpose within it, of the direction in which you wish to travel, you begin to access the deeper rooms within the mind which contain information that shall be of use in this continuing journey and unfolding of the deeper levels of your being.

May we speak in any further fashion, my sister?

Thank you. That answered very well.

I am Q’uo, and we thank you, my sister. Is there another query?

Well, I’ve got one. I was getting some contact from someone named Amira earlier. It passed the challenge three times, but in the past twenty years, I guess, I’ve seen at least four, maybe six different names that are supposed to be Jesus, and Amira is one of them. And I just wonder, if it is really Jesus, why does this entity have to use so many different aliases? Or is it Jesus at all?

I am Q’uo, and with this query we find that we must tread carefully in order that we not infringe upon the free will of some present, for the entity known to you as Jesus of Nazareth is one which is held in great esteem by many, and has in various ways been drawn to those who seek to serve in this entity’s name, as are all entities of an unseen nature who seek to be of service to others. The one known as Jesus responds to a vibratory call which is congruent with its own. However, in some cases those who call, even with this vibration, are not able to recognize a response that others may easily recognize. Thus, as in the case with any contact through the use of a vocal channel or instrument, a name or sound vibration is given which is acceptable and recognizable by the one serving as instrument and those within the supporting group, for the naming is a phenomenon which is not utilized to a great extent beyond the illusion which you now inhabit, for the naming is that which divides one thing from another and beyond your illusion much there is that no longer partakes in such division. For the eyeshot perspective is greater, and the identification of self with all about one within the creation is that which is pursued and recognized and experienced. Thus, the naming, for the most part, is in order that those within your illusion serving as instruments might more easily recognize the nature of the source of information transmitted through it.

However, along with the preceding, we must also state that there are always those entities both within your illusion and beyond it who would seek to misdirect the attention of many who would revere and cherish information from sources such as the one known as Jesus, and who in this desire to misdirect and confuse would utilize both this entity’s name as known to your peoples and other forms or offices given to this entity. Thus, there is confusion, and each seeker of truth is advised to proceed carefully, using discrimination from within to determine the value of information from without.

May we speak in any further fashion, my sister?

No, thank you.

I am Q’uo, and we thank you once again, my sister. Is there another query?

[Pause]

I am Q’uo, and as it appears that we have for the moment exhausted the queries, we shall take this opportunity to thank each for inviting our presence and for having the patience to listen to our discourse, which is oftentimes somewhat lengthy in your terms. We appreciate greatly the opportunity to offer that which we have found of use in our own journey of seeking to you who travel that same journey. We look forward to each opportunity, and shall be with each in your meditations when requested in order that the meditation might be enhanced.

At this time we shall take our leave of the this group, again with gratitude to each, leaving each, as always, in the love and in the light of the one infinite Creator. We are known to you as those of Q’uo. Adonai, my friends. My friends, adonai.

[Carla channels a vocal melody.]

(Carla channeling)

I am Amira. I greet you in the love, the light, and the life of the Father. How plunged you are into the mystery of day and night, good and evil. How clear are the eyes of those who search out my face in every situation. Yet, we would not ask you to search out a physical face, for the physical face of the Son of Man is beside you, is looking at you from the mirror, is your stranger, your friend, your child. I and others have come to comfort you, to leave the comfort of love behind. May you release the discomfort of worldly doubt and turn and return to those glories of the Father which enter by eye or mouth or thought or death. You who come with me, you who share my steps, you shall share them all. May your journey be transfigured by the joy of your countenance, as with perfect faith you reach at last that place from which there are no more steps, no more false divisions, that place where you begin to feel yourself falling, falling and falling, more and more deeper and deeper into an unmeasured and eternal sea of creative, divine love. I reach out my wounded hands to bless and sanctify the wounds you bear, that they too may be marks of past courage, never scars of pain. I leave you in the full sun, the glorious light and infinite love of the Father. Farewell and peace.

[Melodic chanting.]

A-mi-ra. A-mi-ra. A-mi-ra. A-mi-ra. A-mi-ra. A-mi-ra.