Is there any value to the seeker in studying, in reading, in trying to apply everything that’s been learned consciously day-to-day in the daily life, or can you get just as far in spiritual illusion by being a “nice guy” and living an ordinary life?

(Carla channeling)

I am Q’uo. We greet you in the love and in the light of the one infinite Creator. The one known as Latwii also lends their vibrations to our own as we join your meditation. However, we are happy to answer your call for information on the subject of the acceleration of spiritual growth by various means within incarnational experience. We shall attempt at this particular meeting to restrain ourselves from our usual length of speaking and to function in a more conservatively informational manner while expressing ourselves carefully and to the best of our opinion. As always, we wish to express that this is a fallible opinion, and not to be taken as an opinion which carries the authority of one who knows, rather than one who seeks, and hopes to grasp.

The difficulties of accelerating the spiritual growth are numerous, and it is possible without conscious acceleration of spiritual growth for some entities among your peoples successfully to complete the course offered, to complete the lessons learned, and to complete that which is needed for that particular entity to polarize sufficiently, in service to others or service to self, that it need not form any relationship with [inaudible] various tools and resources of the meditator.

[Pause]

I am Q’uo, and greet you again in love and light. We apologize for the delay, but this instrument had lost her, what she calls, microphone, and was adjusting it.

Within these entities, the maturity of many incarnations is compellingly enough remembered that there are no resources necessary to encourage the entity to be true to the self, to always seek and express the true nature of the self to the best of its own ability and to treat each other person with honor, dignity and compassion, even at the expense of a sacrifice to oneself. These entities are necessarily rare among your peoples, that is to say, “necessarily” because yours is a third-density planet, and when one has learned all the lessons which may be learned within your density and therefore has no more need of catalyst, the question then becomes, “What purpose has that entity’s incarnation?” “Why did that person choose to come into incarnation?” and “What polarity does that entity expect to gain or what goal achieve within its higher self aspect during the incarnation?” This is another subject, and we leave it, for the main query is, “Must one go through ritual, reading, contemplation, meditation and prayer, and all the exercises, resources and tools of a spiritual student in order to accelerate the spiritual growth?”

Let us observe one who has a worldly ambition. This entity perhaps begins with saving the funds from a salaried position to open the store, begin the business, buy the real estate, or in some way begin to attempt the building up of treasure, power and what may be called a mundane kingdom. This entity who is ambitious for worldly goods and power must exercise much discipline in order to achieve its goals. It must do this over a period of time, and after a period of time, if the effort has been well made, it is rewarded by worldly goods and worldly power. There are those among your peoples with just such ambition, just such goals and these entities realize not that they are as much a practicing spiritual or religious seeker as one who approaches the infinite Creator from another level, for that which an entity considers its ambitions bent toward is that which is that entity’s true spirituality or religion. We would look for less emotionally-laden words, but do not find such words in this instrument’s vocabulary.

Similarly, the piano player which wishes to play extremely well and perform for the concert audience must spend many years in doing apparently meaningless exercises which give the pupil of the piano a deep subconscious knowledge of the instrument, which allows the entity to express and manifest through this instrument far more harmony and euphony than can be expressed by one which has the lesser hours of practice, the lesser ambition, the lesser devotion to the muse of music.

One may consider such worldly ambitions as this to be a kind of idol or icon, that which is worshipped, but that which does not bring one to eternity, unless the personality of the entity is such that happiness and exaltation of spirit, when all goes well within the ambition, gives one a feeling of worship and offers one the opportunity to offer daily thanks and praise to the Creator which has made each entity. This obeisance to the Creator, however, is not often found among those which are worshippers of the money, the science, or the muse of one kind or another. That which artists and mystics have in common—and we wish at this point to give credit to this instrument’s own reading, for we are using this instrument’s reading as a good example of what we mean…

We must pause. I am Q’uo.

[Pause]

I am Q’uo. We greet you in love and light, and shall continue.

That which the artist and the spiritual seeker have in common is the lack of an icon held in space and time. Rather, the true artist and the true spiritual seeker or mystic is fascinated by the mystery of the present moment, and seeks in that moment, in each and every moment, the face of that mystery, the face that shall not be known, the ineffable face of the one Creator, the face of love. Because this entire concept of what we might call Creatorship or Godhood is completely beyond the resources of any of your languages, we can only speak in ways which may be poetically satisfactory in inspiration concerning the one great original Thought of love and the importance to the spiritual seeker of using those resources which seem helpful to the seeker, that is, not all seekers need the same rituals, aids, resources and tools. For one entity, the silent meditation may be that which is truly needed. For another entity, a long period of reading and study and intellectual growth may be needed, for that entity may well be all faith and no awareness of the environment.

In order to communicate about eternity to those living temporal lives, it is well to place the self within eternity, within the tabernacle of the Father—to use a phrase from your holy works—as often as is physically possible, and certainly upon a daily basis. Others will need the inspirational reading and the discussion with the self or with others of the contents of that reading. Contemplation of a reading, which we may suggest might be read aloud, is also very helpful. There are also objects which may be taken into the mind for a visual meditation when the mind is having difficulty in quieting. The word “love,” or any other single word or phrase which moves one’s attention to the center of one’s being, sometimes called a mantra, is indeed helpful, as is any visual symbol, such as the rose or the cross, to one whose spiritual resources include those symbols.

The entity which has a good deal of maturity coming into the incarnation may indeed choose or never be aware of the choice of serving others or serving the self. However, instinctively, such naturals, may we call them, those who remember, do not need that which is to move them to an harvestable level. If they are at this incarnational moment prepared to walk the steps of light and move into the fourth density, then they have only to enjoy the pain and joy of this illusion you call third-density life. The probable future of such entities is the graduation and the moving onward to create the fourth-density social memory complex of what you call Earth, or Terra.

None of those to whom we speak is able at this time to reflect that he or she is free of the need to accelerate the spiritual growth at this time. When those of the road or the way who seek to express eternity within the prism of the earthly vessel make that conscious decision, the corollary to that decision is an action, for that which remains within the mind alone has no meaning unless it is followed up with the well-intentioned attempt to manifest that which is understood.

It is often the temptation of those who seek their very most deepest desire to pull back from the… We must pause, for this instrument knows not this word… maelstrom which shall ensue. Once the accelerated pace of meditation, contemplation, reading and analysis has taken place, changes then begin to take place which seem to the seeking entity to be brought about specifically by the desire to lead the more simple, the more peaceful, and the more joyous life.

Yet, indeed, it is a false assumption that those who progress more quickly along the spiritual path shall find “the crooked places made straight,” to use this instrument’s knowledge of your holy work called the Bible, and “the rough places plain.” Instead, the mountains are higher, scaling them is more difficult, and the plunges into that which is the opposite of the mountaintop experience are all too frequent.

When one accelerates one’s process of learning, one is also accelerating one’s process of changing. One begins to die, losing this and that part of the self which is no longer true about the self, but merely that which has been kept and not thrown away. Much like old clothes stowed in boxes in the attic, gathering dust, there is not use to them, but the room that they take up in the memory, the biases and subconscious reasons for peculiar actions which the conscious self does not approve of are due to this extra baggage.

The more time one spends in the presence of the Creator, any minute, three minutes, or five minutes during the day, and especially one concentrated time of at least fifteen or twenty minutes in silent meditation, listening for the Creator’s will and the will of your higher self, for you is inestimable aid, an armor of light, shall we say, that moves about that body which is the inexhaustible spirit in a protective way, so that though the body and the mind and the emotions may ache from the metaphysical muscle sprains of increased metaphysical activity, yet there is no lasting injury. It is merely a matter of reducing a necessary discipline to that which is pleasant, manageable and able to be done on a daily basis.

Each entity has a different need for ritual and worship. Therefore, we do not recommend the same experience for each entity, but recommend that each entity seek without stopping, until each entity has found that in which the entity feels unity with the Creator, a worship of the Creator, an adoration and oneness with the Creator, and above all, complete and utter union with the Creator.

For this instrument, the Christian bias creates joy and manifests in much fruit. This is not a path which appeals to all. For others, the search is the same, however, as it was for this instrument, the search for caring, for something in which one has faith. It is an article of faith not to give up this search until a path has been forged by the self or found by the self which may be expressed in a daily manner and which contains the discipline necessary to hollow out those free will portions of the self which have removed themselves from the mind, body and spirit of the self and have become willful without a reason.

It is the moving from willfulness to willingness to surrender, from the taking and controlling to the use of the will to control the self, that one may in some small way assist one’s own fullness of effort along one’s chosen path. Whatever the way the path and the seeking lies for an entity, the entity must indeed undertake the sorrow and the sacrifice of discipline, a disciplining of the self to worship, to contemplate, and to listen to the wisdom of those who have written in the past.

Yes, one is responsible for these things, and one is responsible to them, for what one knows and has learned in the head must then be grounded in the heart. For this reason, the reading and the contemplation and the discussion need to be followed by the listening, that one may hear that voice which speaks within.

That principle of love which stands ready for the seeker to open the door, the key to that door, behind which wisdom and compassion lie, is meditation. If no book is read, if no symbol is imaged, if there is nothing in the worship but the most devout silence, yet still this vehicle alone may be all that is needed for the entity to have that larger point of view which enables the entity to see each situation in terms of compassion and love, rather than feeling in any way personally unworthy or in any other way inadequate.

The beginning of spiritual maturity is the acceptance at last that one is forgiven. Those who follow various of the well-known religious sets of belief use various symbols for the principle of redemption or forgiveness. The one known as Jesus is perhaps the best example. However, as each self is made up of that which is the Christ consciousness and that which is the free will consciousness, there is only to be needed a simple recollection by a very complex entity within the illusion. So many, many illusions must be stripped away before one can see clearly one’s true nature and begin to wish to become the consciousness of love and not the consciousness of variousness or free will. Both characteristics are part and parcel of each entity, yet those which attempt to be of service to self, which are not aware of their doing so, but instead are happily ignorant of any decision that needs to be made between service to self and service to others, shall not be troubled until it is their time to be troubled with such simple choices as face each who has awakened to his path.

As you awaken, so you find more and more that without the constant centering, the accelerated changes, the accelerated sensitivity, the accelerated gentleness of spirit, the accelerated compassion and vulnerability, will be such that there will be a considerable degree of pain, emotional for the most part, upon the part of any seeker. The more the seeker seeks, the more the seeker may expect to suffer.

And why, may you ask, should one then try to polarize, to seek to serve others, and to seek to love the self and the one infinite Creator? We suggest that in the same way that those may observe that the tide will come in and will go out, you may consider that you have crawled as metaphysical animals from the sea of deeper consciousness, and lie parched with spiritual thirst upon the shore of an inexhaustible ocean, fertile with archetypical images and a larger point of view. And so, movement by movement, you attempt to move at last back into the water of nourishing, fulfilling, deeper consciousness. As you do so, you shall become more polarized in service towards others, you shall begin to feel the true worthiness of that which is you, the true perfection which you wish to arrive at in your conscious knowledge of yourself, and above all, your goal is to forgive the self of each and every iniquity, as this instrument would call it.

That which is called the karma is not inevitable, but rather that which may be stopped by self-forgiveness. In this state of self-forgiveness, one may see all others as forgiven, regardless of their behavior or appearance at any particular moment.

In short, yes, it is necessary for almost all to work in a conscious manner upon the spiritual life in order that that which is so obvious and in front of the face, that which is the illusion of time and space, may be made transparent and the veil metaphysically lifted, so that faith becomes more important than words, and eternity more important than the mundane days and nights of an incarnational experience.

We ask you to take yourselves seriously in your seeking, and yet at the same time to retain that light touch which is part of the essence of self-forgiveness. All entities are programmed to go through difficulties and challenges. Meditation may help each more and more to respond in creative and loving ways to situations, rather than reacting in a blind and uncontrolled way. The straitjacket of emotional programming is difficult to unravel, and there may need to be the help of one to which one may speak which can give the true reflection, the clear image, that which the personal eye is too close to see. But we must tell you that you truly do need to work at the meditation and at the living of a certain kind of life, a life that is not what this instrument would call “goody goody,” but rather a life of deep caring, lasting compassion, and a love that comes not from the heart, but through the heart, from the Creator.

We would at this time like to 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. At this time it is our honor to offer ourselves in the attempt to speak to any further queries which those present may have for us. If there is a further query, may we take it at this time?

Yeah, I have a doozy. It’s something that I prefer not to channel, and the question is, and you can refuse it if you like, please understand. I have had many people ask me how to teach, if I could teach them how to work with their guides alone. Now, I have some idea of how to introduce them to their guides. I know about the protection by swirling the red and violet together and then the white light together, but there is something within me that says that I need to learn more before I let even this much loose upon people that I will not be teaching further. Could you comment? Is it possible, and if so, how, to teach this?

I am Q’uo. We shall do our best to respond through this instrument. It is our opinion, my sister, and please remember that it is opinion, that those who serve as guides for those upon your planetary sphere, and any within your third-density illusion, will make themselves known to such entities as the opportunities present themselves and as the time is appropriate. Many of your…

[Side one of tape ends.]

(Jim channeling)

I am Q’uo, and greet each again in love and light. The means of communication through each entity which is in need of such communication varies according to the situation. This instrument, for example, has had its own means of communication that was quite obvious as the spoken word at one point within its evolutionary process. This was the only time in which this entity was communicated with in this manner by those that may call themselves or be called guides. Other means of communication, perhaps the book appearing upon the shelf at the appropriate time, or the person with the needed information making a similar appearance at the appropriate time, or the inspirational dream or thought which seems to appear quite vividly or dramatically within the life pattern, are means by which those you would call guides have done and do their work within your illusion.

To attempt to form or shape or control that contact is oftentimes an effort in confusion for the seeker, for it at once declares that there is at this time no contact with a messenger’s existence which is ongoing, and declares that the seeker will fashion of its own will and effort the means by which this contact shall be established. These assumptions, in our opinion, my sister, are erroneous, and will simply cause additional confusion within the seeker, for there is at all times the nurturing assistance for all seekers from those called guides, and this assistance is given in the manner which is the most appropriate, given the seeker and the opportunity.

Thus, to attempt to aid those which would desire to seek an understandable contact with their guides, understandable in their own terms, is an effort which has significant attendant difficulties. Thus, it is not an effort which we can wholeheartedly recommend, for it is one which makes presumptuous assumptions, shall we say.

Is there another query?

Not presumptuous assumptions—what you’re trying to say is that the assumption would be that there’s no problem, and that that person should just go ahead, and that that’s sufficient protection, and that sometimes that’s not true. That’s basically what you’re saying, yes?

I am Q’uo, and these are correct observations, my sister. In addition to others.

Okay. Now, as to the nature of the guides and also all that stuff, I have long thought that, like you and every other thing that comes through positive service-to-others type channels, this is some part of the principle of love, which as a Christian, I would term the Holy Spirit or the Comforter, and I figure that the guides and so forth are a more personal vibration of that same Comforter. Are these assumptions correct? I believe them to be so from questions I’ve asked you before, but I just want to make sure.

I am Q’uo, and though the difficulty in describing the nature of the guides is significant, it may be stated with a reasonable degree of accuracy that those who offer themselves in the service of a guide or teacher offer themselves from the point of view of that quality which you have called love, and are able to stand somewhat closer, shall we say, in their own life pattern to this quality, or we may even describe it as an office or level of vibratory beingness, and, standing closer to this quality, may then share some of its essence in one manner or another with those who they have placed themselves in custodianship over, shall we say.

Is there another query, my sister?

I’ll have to read that answer. I don’t exactly understand that one. Yeah, I had a half-baked one, but when I didn’t understand that last thing, it kind of flew out of my mind. I really feel that there ought to be some way that is harmless of sharing with people the experience of not feeling alone inside, because all too often the person who needs the most to feel at peace is, for some reason at least, psychologically isolated to some extent in some way. And it seems to weigh heavy on the seeker who is alone. Is there any way other than introducing the person to their guides that I as a teacher of channeling can safely teach entities that experience in a way that they can do it by themselves?

[Pause]

I am Q’uo. We waited for some time in order that this instrument might reach a more comfortable depth of concentration. In our opinion, there is no way in which the seeker may experience a connection with those entities that you have called guides that is able to satisfy the mundane mind with the proper degree of safety, shall we say…

So the best thing I can do, then, is to channel and collaborate in some sort of inspirational talk?

We will attempt to complete the previous response. The transmission is somewhat slow at this time. The feeling of isolation that is so significantly a part of each seeker’s journey is oftentimes an invitation, or shall we say, an initiation for the inner strengthening that is necessary in order that the seeker be able to welcome and enjoy a greater portion of the light energy and be able to reflect it in a responsible manner in the life pattern.

There is oftentimes the need for what you have called the desert experience, in order that the finest qualities of the being be enhanced and refined by the trials of the isolation and the testing of the resolve to exercise the will and the faith that are the rod and staff of the seeker. The conscious mind, in such instances, which asks for the assurance in an understandable manner that the self is not alone or that the experience has such and such a purpose, are oftentimes the crying in the wilderness which must be accepted, but if the initiation and the testing is to be successfully completed, must be endured rather than catered to, shall we say.

The process of the evolution of mind, body and spirit within your illusion, your illusion having such great mystery, is one which is, as the progress is accelerated, oftentimes difficult in nature. But, as we are aware that those in this group have heard it said, the happiness and the contentment are not the goals. The enhancing of the quality of compassion and the offering of its fruits are more to the heart of the purpose, from our point of view. Thus, there is much of difficulty that must simply be endured, and must be allowed to work its unseen function over a period of what you would call time, in order that the deeper qualities of the being which will survive such storms and tempests might be reinforced, and, indeed, brought to the fore in order that the evolutionary progress of the seeker will find its greatest expression within the life pattern.

Is there another query at this time, my sister?

No. I think I can say that about the best thing I can do with a big group like that is to lead some kind of an inspiring meditation and just lead them that far. Thanks a lot. It’s what I needed to know.

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

Not from me, thank you. Thanks so much.

No, thank you.

And we thank each for inviting our presence, and we hope that we have been able to utilize each instrument well enough that the heart of our message has found its mark within your hearts, as well. Let that which does not strike to the heart of your concerns fall away. We shall at this time take our leave of this group, 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. Adonai.