The question this afternoon has to do with relationships in general, and in particular, when we find ourselves in a relationship that isn’t exactly to our needs or specifications, how we can accept that portion of the relationship that is other than we would have it be, if it is to be the spouse, or ourselves, or the situations that we find ourselves in, whether they are financial or social or any situation that we would like to change and seems to be unchanging, or perhaps changing too quickly? How can we find within ourselves the acceptance and the support that will help us to help our spouse and to strengthen the relationship so that the relationship and the ideals for which it stands will endure?

(Carla channeling)

We are those of Q’uo, and we greet you in the love and in the light of the one infinite Creator. It is an enormous privilege and blessing to us to be called to your group this day, to be able to share our humble service with you, to offer our opinion in sure knowledge that you shall not take us as authorities, but as companions upon the way of seeking the truth, for we have no authority that you do not also have—just do we have a few steps more along a very dusty path that, as far as we know, has no ending.

It is a joy to speak with companions upon this path, a beauty to us to feel the companionship of your seeking, and to share in your beings as you meditate in one circle of seeking. You ask us this day about that which you know not, that you ask, for you believe you are asking an active social question, a question concerning a relationship. You wish to know how to be better at relationships, at the important central relationship of mates, of dearest friends and companions, of lovers and those who hope together and despair together, and share the deep places of life together. Yet without knowing it, you have asked about yourselves, and how you may achieve that which is yours by nature, but has slipped your mind. That is the balance of a quiet and sure peace, a gently quiet mind that is staid upon faith and confidence in the balance and appropriateness of each occurrence in each present moment of the incarnational experience which you now enjoy at this point in which you call your time and your space.

This little experience of life, my friends, is set about like a gaudy gem, full of brilliance, but quite without the purity of true crystallization. The lives you experience consciously are rhinestones—false and beautiful, part of a complex series of illusions of dreams within dreams. Is the Creator, therefore, the carnival master who delights in fooling His sons and daughters? We do not believe this to be so. We believe that every puzzlement, every confusion, every distortion that is part of the house of mirrors that is a perceived life, is given to you that you may have pain and pleasure in great intensity, so that you may look at the distortions and say to yourself, “What lies behind this distorted mirror? If I had a true mirror, what would this experience be?”

Yet all about you, whether it be sought by science, or mind or feeling, is perceived with significant and persistent distortion. This is not a life experience in which you may depend upon knowing anything at any time with any provable or objective surety. That which you think should be, and that which you think should not be, whether it seems to be about the self, or about the self as seen in other selves, is in actuality misperceived to some degree and in several ordered and hierarchical ways.

This being a large subject, we merely indicate these directions and move back to the heart of the query, for this query about manipulating relationships so that one may be more metaphysically or ethically correct and skillful and free of fear in giving all one can to a relationship, is in actuality a question about the inner balance of an individual with no relationship whatsoever to contact, communication or manipulation with or of another entity.

Let us step back at this time and view one relationship more mysterious than any other, that which has been spoken of by the master known to you as Jesus the Christ, as the relationship of a metaphysical father and son. In the holy work known among your people as the Holy Bible, a question was asked this rabbi or teacher having to do with prayer. “Teach us how to pray, Teacher,” asked those who truly cared to know. And after this teacher gave to those who questioned that which you know—with some distortion—as The Lord’s Prayer, he asked the simple question about the relationship of father and child. If a child asked for something good to eat, would his father give him a poisonous snake to bite in? You see, this teacher had a sense of humor, and asks people to look at things with a light touch. After all, is a father’s relationship to his child so complex? Does a father not simply wish to keep the child alive, to keep it fed, to keep it comfortable if possible and to preserve its life until it can take hold of things for itself?

You have this relationship metaphysically, each of you, with an indwelling and eternal father, if you wish to think of this, shall we say, in [local?] or archaic relationship in terms of that which you know, that which you have experienced within this incarnational time and space. You have been supported, you have survived into mature years physically, yet spiritually you are but children, and spiritually your father wishes also to feed you. Yet, when does a father feed his children? Yes, he does the work, he has the groceries, and is the same father as mother metaphysically is, in the terms of your people’s culture, prepared with a meal, with a feast, with all the food and drink needed for nourishment. But does a father and a mother prepare the table when there is no hunger and no request? And do children always know when they are hungry, if they do not have habits of regular times to ask for food and drink, to expect it, to look for it, to find it and consume it with blessing and thanksgiving and happiness of heart?

We speak to you about prayer, for this is at the heart of any query that has to do with dealing with the mirrors that other selves offer to you. Any—shall we generalize—any question concerning the lower energies—and by this we mean dealing with the self, dealing with any other self, or dealing with groups of other selves—has reference either to being energies that are blocked within the self, energies that are distorted by over-action within the self, or energies that in some way do not find it possible to move into the open and loving heart, that great energy center which is the first energy center capable of unconditional love.

Moving from this center, the first communication is, “Lord, teach me how to pray.” Everyone’s Creator is different. Everyone’s mode and method of prayer and hope and desire is different, often radically different, yet each path is utterly appropriate for the person to whom it is natural and the part that is appropriate to an entity must needs be respected by that entity with an authority that is above all teaching, all outer authority and all discrimination that is not one’s own, for the truth that is yours is not heard, but heard and recognized, somehow remembered. If it is not recognized, if it remains in the head and does not move to the heart with a feeling of recovered memory, it is not your truth, and no matter who says it to you, it is to be laid aside gently and with respect, but with a firmness that allows no stumbling block to enter your path.

So when we say to you that questions about relationships are actually questions about how to seek and to pray, we offer this as opinion, and we ask you to subject this and all opinions to your discrimination. Let us look briefly now, as briefly as we can look—this instrument has just said, with some irony—at the nature of prayer, at the nature of asking.

As it is also said in your holy works, “Seek and you shall find, ask and you shall be answered, knock and it shall be opened to you.” My friends, there is so much more truth in these words that we ask you to be careful what you seek, what you ask and what doors upon which you would knock, for you will learn the answer that fits this particular moment in your seeking, that opens to you the understanding—if we may use that word—that may be available and useful to you at this moment, and this is a heavy responsibility for that which you have become aware of, that seeking that has ended in a desired response, becomes for you a ribbon to wave in a very courtly battle against the dragon that caused you to ask this question. It is something to take up and work with and live with and sit with in silence, not asking, but only listening, allowing the ground about you to become holy ground, allowing these answers of the moment to become part of a metaphysical muscle memory, if you will. Fundamentally, you are asking for a change in consciousness, and this is uncomfortable in the progression which brings about the seating of the change desired, the seating of the information desired, so it becomes part of who you are.

How can you pray? How can you seek? You simply put aside the time—thirty seconds, a minute, five, twenty, there is no time in metaphysical seeking. There is only intent. You seek with the attitude that you are aware that everything in this illusion is mirroring to you, with more or less accuracy, the processes of your own balancing and centering and seeking. You sit and you spend time as you would spend precious, precious money, for you have so little time, my friends. And all that occurs after you sit, after you learn, and as you are undergoing the discomfort of spiritual change, you become aware that all that occurs to you is a reflection of the processes that are occurring as the spiritual child that you are grows, sometimes jerkily and awkwardly and sometimes with unexpected grace and freedom.

Love one another, my friends, for it is the outward expression of being in love with yourself. All that you wish to know, and, indeed, the Creator in all of It’s infinite intelligence, lies in mystery within you, and you shall not know anything. But you shall seek and you shall learn more and more about loving and allowing the being loved to occur as a reflection of an unjustified and utterly appropriate spiritual oneness with the Creator.

Relax into unknowing. Find the faith to seek without ever hoping to know and prove it, and in mid-air you shall find the relationships that are so central to your comfort and peace becoming more and more full of the love that is the special and exquisite freedom of a quiet and faithful mind and heart.

My friends, it has been a great joy to speak with you. We cannot express how much we have enjoyed meeting the one known as M, greeting again the ones known as C and Jim and Carla, and using this instrument. We thank this instrument for making itself available to us and we would close this meeting if the one known as Jim will make itself available at this time through that entity. We leave this instrument in the love and in light and in unity. We are those known to you as Q’uo.

(Jim channeling)

I am Q’uo, and greet each again in love and in light through this instrument. It is our privilege at this time to offer ourselves in the attempt to speak to any further queries which may remain upon the minds of those present. Is there a query with which we may begin?

I have one to start this off. When two people are talking together and both feeling confused and maybe frustrated, what active thing besides going into the silence—which feels passive and like going away from each other—what thing in the moment can two people do to clear and sort of clean the air?

I am Q’uo, and am aware of your query, my sister. It may be that such centering and clarification could be aided by selecting a passage from whatever source of inspirational information is pertinent and has meaning for you that would become a focus for your attention at those times when you seek to bring yourself and your mate to a point of receptivity. Choosing such a passage, whether it be written prose, poetry or perhaps even the song that is played upon your recording device, would be a symbol for the centering that you wish to achieve and could be a triggering device, shall we say, that would give each of you the opportunity to allow your confusion to recede as the waves upon the ocean, and to focus upon the inspirational passage that you would make together at a time when you feel centered and whole and without confusion that causes misdirection and miscommunication at the moments of crisis.

Is there a further query, my sister?

Just one follow-up. I’ve always noticed, as a person sensitive to poetry and to music, that if you think something or if you read something, it has a certain amount of power, but if you, well, I would say vibrate it, if you say it out loud or if you sing it, it has not just more power, but it has a different order of power. Would you say that something that is not just listened to or read together, but is said together or sung together, in addition say, to being heard or looked at, would have that kind of difference in getting into the real heart of both people?

I am Q’uo, and am aware of your query, my sister. This is, of course, possible in just the manner in which you have described it, but is also possible that the confusion of the moment could be of such a degree that participation would be difficult. If this is so, then the listening or more passive participation would provide the easier entry into the reading or the musical passage. If it is possible to actively participate and to read or speak together that which has been chosen for the centering or the focus, then this is also recommended.

Is there another query, my sister?

Just to confirm. Probably, if two people are confused together, they can get a whole lot more out of listening, in general.

I am Q’uo, and this could well be the case. Each situation has unique characteristics, and must be dealt with uniquely. Follow that which feels most appropriate in the moment, my sister.

Golly, Q’uo, you mean I can’t make another rule? Thank you very much.

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

What about if just one person is willing to do the work? Can it still work with that one person, can it still help?

I am Q’uo. We believe that this is so, my sister. As one entity finds the center of love and acceptance, then this energy of love and acceptance is radiated to the other entity and the possibility of calming the storm is increased.

Is there another query, my sister?

One, and then I promise I’m done. Do you feel that if we listen to this or read this and have more questions that this is fertile ground for further examination and questioning?

I am Q’uo, and we believe that if there are further queries upon your part upon this topic, there is fertile ground always. Is there another query, my sister?

No, thank you, Q’uo. Thank you very much. I really appreciate your time and your effort.

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

[Pause]

I am Q’uo, and we would like to take this opportunity to thank each present for inviting our presence in your circle of seeking this day. We are honored to have been invited to join you in seeking clarification for your journeys as you travel together that great road that leads into the mystery of unity and into the experience of the love and the light of the one infinite Creator.

At this time, we shall take our leave of this instrument and this group, leaving each, as always, in that same love and light. We are known to you as those of Q’uo. Adonai, my friends. Adonai.