The question for today, Q’uo, has to do with how a person can really know another self without projecting a portion of one’s own self on what you’re seeing. When do we start seeing more clearly what’s already there?

(Carla channeling)

We are those of the principle known to you as Q’uo, and we greet you in the love and in the light of the one infinite Creator, in Whose service we come to you. It is our great privilege and pleasure to be called to your meeting this day and we thank this circle of seeking for choosing to come together to seek the truth. We are most pleased to share our opinions with you on the interesting question you have asked this day and would ask one thing in return. We would ask that you please engage, respect and use your powers of discrimination, for we are not authorities who wish to impress with our opinion; rather, we are your companions on the road to seeking the infinite One. In order for us to feel free to share our thoughts, we need to know that you will be able to reject those things that we say that do not resonate for you personally. We ask you to keep only those things that do resonate and seem to have a real value to you. With that understood, then, we feel free to share our opinions concerning the question of how one may know another entity without distortion.

The word “distortion” suggests in its derivation that there is a twisting, a pressure of twisting change that is being applied to that which is being distorted and, in that wise, it is perhaps not the clearest possible term. However, we are unable to find one within your language system that is any closer to that which is meant by “distortion.” 1 Indeed, nature is as it is; the creative principle is as it is; the one great original Thought, the Logos, or the Creator is precisely what it is. And yet since that beingness or essence comprises all that is, the creative principle is an immense, or perhaps we should say an infinite, term, disclosing a Being of infinite essence. In the heart of your selfhood, as a person within incarnation, this Godhead principle, this one great original Thought, functions as the self. The way this instrument is fond of putting it in her Christian walk is a quotation from the one known as Joel Goldsmith: “Christ is the ‘I’ of me.” 2 Each entity, then, has the same basic essence. However, this essence is carried within the heart of each cell of the body, within the heart of each thought, within the heart of each true emotion. It is not the whole of that apparent cell in the body or thought or emotion. It is the enlivening principle.

Now, all that is brought into incarnation, in terms of your experiences as a human being in incarnation, is distorted. You and your guidance system, the higher self, have created a kind of clothing for your beingness within incarnation that is what this instrument calls the “personality shell” and what your psychologists have called the ego. Perhaps you have noticed in your own life that when they are born, children do not come into incarnation as a blank slate. Rather, they enter the incarnation with a decided personality, personality shell, or ego structure. Each entity has created a personality shell in order to have the resources necessary for studying and working with some few key incarnation lessons or issues. Each entity within this circle, for instance, has chosen two or three, or in some cases four, incarnational issues. In most cases these were chosen in order to better the point of balance within the energy vehicle that contains many aspects of the overall essence, not only of yourself within incarnation but of yourself outside of incarnation and of the nature of the family relationships that have been your support and your context as a soul through many, many cycles of learning. This is an extended self, and each entity’s extended self eventually connects with all other entities in a living and real bond, so that all are quite literally one within the stream of humanity, shall we say, that is in incarnation and is within the planetary influence, outside of incarnation in the physical sense.

It is apparent, on the consensual reality level, that each entity is a mystery to itself and to others. It is never apparent that all entities have a living, solid, connectivity. It is never obvious that the ties that bind, shall we say, in terms of energy fields and the accommodation of other energy fields by one’s own energy field, are of a unitary nature. From the conscious mind’s standpoint one cannot know the essence of another’s thoughts. One cannot know the true motivations for their actions and so forth. Consequently, entities spend incarnational time not being aware of the present moment, as the one known as G would note, but rather working to improve the information base which they have about other selves close to them in order that they may more accurately predict the thought processes that are being hidden from view by other selves. In some cases the exercises of open communication reduce the anxiety and the sense of confusion that come from not knowing what another entity is thinking. But in most cases, there is little opportunity or realistic chance of creating a perfect communication in which all distortions are balanced and all projections balanced in such a way that they are transparent rather than reflective.

From this standpoint, then, it would seem that it is not possible to know another entity without distortion. But as the one known as V suggested, turning the gaze inward, is the situation any different? Are you not a mystery to yourself? Do you not question your own motives endlessly? Are you not honestly puzzled many times by that which is being felt by the self within? Is there any time in which you are able to say of yourself, “I know myself backwards and forwards. I know what I am capable of and what I can do. I know who I am and why I am here. I know all of it, I have no more questions, I am completely aware.” We salute those within the circle who may feel that they can say absolutely that they know who they are. We find in this instrument’s mind that she is always surprising herself by what her responses are in the moment. Sometimes this entity is happy with those responses and sometimes she judges herself perhaps harshly for those same responses. Whatever her processes of judgment, however, the surprises keep coming because the novelties of new situations, new energies, and new combinations of events create situations which have not been met before. As the response to the novel situation develops, the first person to be surprised by that response is the self before it ever gets out into the world of other selves. The self is learning about the self at all times. Indeed, this process recapitulates the action of the Creator in knowing Itself. If one could see the vast creation of entities who are working their way around this circle of being to the Godhead principle once more, one could see the process of planting the crop of consciousness and reaping the harvest of new experiences, new thoughts, and new learning. This is a process that is attempted by the self within incarnation but always with imperfect results because of the fact that this particular illusion has its finite boundaries and its preset distortions, shall we say, built into the illusion so that were one to become immensely skilled at manipulating the consensus illusion of your reality, one would still be skilled [only] at understanding and using that which is a very tiny part of a larger system, most of which cannot be known within incarnation, but only seen as if by reflection or by the silhouette of light being stopped by an object so that the silhouette of a system may be suggested as on the wall of Plato’s cave. 3 Yet one is not actually able to see into the essence, either of self or the other self.

Nevertheless, in unknowingness, in mystery, the work, the joy, the process of discovering the self continues. And in that process there lie sources of information that are wonderfully rich and abundant. These sources of information begin with the self, continue with interactions with other selves, and are rounded by interactions with a vast panoply of energies within your natural world, within the world of ideas, and within discarnate principles and entities with which the essence of the inner self interacts on the unconscious level. All of these sources of information fall like rain and sun[beams] and all manner of life-giving attributes into the field of self, causing those seeds that have been planted in the personality shell to begin their process of seeking the light, expressing their form and their habit, and developing their characteristic blooms and blossoms of being. Each of you is a very organically, muscularly organized entity. The structure of your deeper mind is as well put together as your skeleton and has as many appropriate functions. It is rather difficult to express to you the complexity of your system as a living being but perhaps it is enough to recall the way the energy body is made, within your density of the yellow-ray body. You have the sub-densities of red through violet within third-density. And each of those sub-densities: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet, contains seven sub-sub-densities so that each chakra, shall we say, in the energy body is a fully integrated system within itself. Then as a system it is further fully integrated as one being. This layering of bodies or states of beingness within the system that is you is infinite, potentially. In most entity’s cases there are perhaps three or four levels of beingness which are plumbed during incarnation. In a circle such as this, with entities that have been doing inner work and spiritual processes for a considerable time, perhaps you begin to penetrate into more and more layers, or levels, of being. Each one has its characteristic environment, experiences and learnings to offer. All of them are colored by the characteristic nature of their place within the energy vehicle.

In this complexity, it is as if you were a world, a globe, or an orb that rotated around the sun of your origins—the one infinite Creator. Within that orbit, then, each of you is as a star, as a live-giving, radiant being. And so as you in your orbit meet others in their orbits, there is a strength and a power to each entity which comes from its orientation within its own orbit. One may observe that some entities have very even orbits and this is expressed within consensual reality by the impression that such an entity is stable or has a characteristic point of view that can be well known. Other entities have more of an eccentric orbit, as though their roundness as an entity were not yet completed and as though there were irregularities which would cause the eccentricities of an unequal orbit. And in your consensual reality, this would appear as entities who do not seem to have very well-integrated personalities, who perhaps are fooling themselves or unable for some reason to come into a comfortable relationship with the self, in an integrated way. Sometimes these entities will appear to be mentally disturbed, as this instrument would say. In other cases it is almost impossible to detect the eccentricity in the inner orbit that has been carefully compensated for within the entity’s outer life. Yet, still, that inner lack of harmony or roundness of the orbit has its fruit in that sense one gets, when attempting to understand the person, that one has not quite “gotten” that person. This is generally due to the fact that such an entity has not been able to “get” her own nature, so that the lack of clarity may well not be that which is a part of the being that you are attempting to understand. In other words, it is often the case when an entity is feeling that there is a lack of clarity in his understanding of another self, that that other self has that precise difficulty with the self and consequently is not capable of offering the self in a non-eccentric way but rather must hold, in somewhat randomized form, the various aspects of the personality shell.

It is a part of the eternal wisdom to assume that what one thinks about another entity speaks more about that person than about the other entity and we feel that this is part of that which the one known as G was attempting to balance when the question was formed. And it is our opinion that this universally accepted bit of wisdom is the truth. The impressions and opinions that each entity forms of another self will always have a significant bending or distortion which is the result of the self picking up those qualities and aspects of another self’s personality shell which speak either well or poorly to the self about the self. Many is the time that this instrument has formed a judgmental opinion of another self only to reflect, at a later and less stressful time, that the reaction which she had was an indication of a part of her own self’s dark side, at which the self did not wish to look. So the other self that is being perceived judgmentally is simply the bearer of the news, if it could be called news, “That is the shadow side of the self and this is what it looks like. Here is a mirror.” This is the other self’s gift to you.

You, meanwhile, are, by your honest and unstudied reactions to that which occurs around you and to the other selves around you, performing the vital and valuable service of mirroring to others, so that they may see themselves in you. It is a part of the endless process of getting to know the greater self which is you, all those with whom you come in contact, all those with whom you never come in contact as far as you know, and those beyond the purview of the planet, such as ourselves. It is a dynamic, infinite and ongoing process. And each creation of the Father, with all of its infinite time and space and process, is just a heartbeat of the infinitely extensive experience of the Godhead principle knowing Itself.

Can one find resources for knowing another without distortion? We believe so. But we couch that with all the foregoing limitations to attempt to indicate the difficulties involved in attempting to understand the system from within the system. It is very difficult, if not impossible, to be clear. However, there are resources available for demystifying and simplifying relationships with other selves and for bringing clear sight to the vision. This work is not concerning the other self, as the one known as V intuited. It is work done within the self. If you consider yourself as a crystal, you may see that some crystals are reflective and others are transparent. The reflective personality is that personality that is not known to itself; the transparent personality is one that is known to itself. This instrument has often said that her goal was to become transparent. And her strategy has been to live as open a life as possible so that others may know all about this instrument, whether it considers those facts good or not good, positive or negative. By opening all parts of the known self to being known by others, this instrument’s hope has been to become that personality shell which may be seen through, so that the love and the light of the infinite Creator are able to penetrate the personality shell and become that selfhood that is chosen as the truth of the self. We see in this instrument’s thoughts that she does not consider that she has done very well with this goal but she continues to work day by day upon being a self better known to herself, a self more freely and unselfconsciously revealed to others. It is as though she were wishing to lose solidity or density of being in order to be clear and transparent and able to be seen through.

This kind of energy, this kind of intention, is very helpful for several reasons. First of all, the energy put into the self is never wasted. It may seem as though it were selfish to take time with the self, to sit with the self, to listen to the self, to go beyond the self and rest in Creator-ness. It is not at all selfish, however, to spend time in these pursuits, for you are improving the characteristics of your energy field in the direction of clarity and balance. Further, work done upon the self is rest taken from work done attempting to control or manipulate other selves. When there is more self-knowledge, there is almost automatically less need to control situations or to manipulate other selves, for the energies of the self are felt to be strong and powerful and there is not a concern that one’s strength and power might be taken away or limited by the narrowness of another entity’s perceived viewpoints. Further, with self-knowledge comes that which we would call kindness or gentleness or humility. There is a softness that comes with self-knowledge so that an entity that is another self, though she perhaps cannot explain why, feels more comfortable and more herself when with you. In this atmosphere, self is able to reveal self to you, in an unthreatened and secure manner and consequently knowledge of self creates an atmosphere in which open communication may be sharpened, heightened, deepened and enhanced.

We encourage time with the self, whether it be walking in the woods or gazing at a candle in the dawning hours or in the meditations that many within this group observe as a daily ritual. These forms of moving within the self and asking, in the silence, for awareness to come are all very helpful in terms of strengthening the energy field of the self and at the same time creating the atmosphere in which energy fields are able to encompass and embrace other energy fields without any sense of threat or judgment. Because of the eccentric orbits, shall we say, the choppy waters of some personality shells, some entities are much more grateful to be around than others, in terms of what is perceived from the energy emanating from that other self. And this cannot be, shall we say, fixed or balanced by the self. However, within that limitation of seeing accurately that which another self is putting out, the more self-aware an entity is, the less distorted will be that channel between self and other self and the more accurately the information from other self to self and vice versa, may flow.

So, in sum it is our feeling that the intention to know the self or another self without distortion is the intention to seek the truth. When the truth is being sought within the self, that intention will communicate to other selves and, as this energy improves within the self, the information stream coming from other selves shall also necessarily improve. It is not a matter of literally figuring someone out, for a person is not a closed system. A person is an evolving part of an evolving Creator. Rather, it is a matter of dwelling within a mystery, of delighting in that which is seen of the mystery, and in telling stories to oneself about oneself, about the experiences of living, in such a way that the self is opened more and more to the amazing amount of information that is falling from the inner planes and from the world about one and from the self to the self at all times.

The intention to know the truth is key. Keep the intention pure and the heart open so that all has the benefit of that great sun which is unconditional love. That shall ripen the fruit of your acquaintanceships like nothing else can. Resting in love, letting unconditional love flow through the being and out into the world, is the best start one could have at seeking the truth of another self.

At this time we would open the meeting to short queries if there be any. Is there a query at this time?

Q’uo, if you could, why is this statement spoken by Ra, true? “There is but one technique for the growing or nurturing of will and faith and that is the focusing of the intention.”

My brother, we are aware of your query. We find that as you ask the question, we have no way of answering it. Is there a way in which you could restate your query?

I’ll give it a shot. If you can’t answer, it’s acceptable. How does the focusing of the attention, which is a practice taken on in meditation, cause an increase in the faith that an entity has and how does that strengthen the will at the same time?

We are those of Q’uo, and are aware of your query, my brother. If you will think of the process of going under hypnotic control, being hypnotized by a hypnotherapist, perhaps you may see that the hypnotic induction to a trance is basically a means of focusing the attention. The hypnotherapist will say, “Listen to my voice, listen only to my voice.” And little by little such a therapist will simply talk an entity down from the scatter-shot conscious awareness of everyday life into a state in which the attention has been focused and concentrated on one point and that point is the interface between the therapist and the self. As the therapist asks questions, in this focused state then the self is able to penetrate the various surface layers of self to move down into that area of self which is less limited by time and space and which therefore has a greater source of knowledge and information than is available in the conscious state.

In just such a way, as a spiritual seeker chooses to focus his attention, the effort put into that focus will create an evolutionary pressure towards the object of that focus. If an entity has chosen well as to the kind of focus on which it chooses to work and its intentions concerning this focus, the work done will necessarily change that entity in ways that automatically will be defining for the self, to the self, that which makes the self tick, that which motivates the self. And that translates into an improvement in the will. As the process itself moves forward and the self is more collected and therefore receiving better information, the nature of that information, which is based on the nature of the intention for that information, creates catalyst in which faith will be tested in a certain way. And with each test, the faith becomes stronger.

So it is not that there is a one-to-one relationship betwixt focusing the attention and increasing the will and faith; rather, the intention to gather one’s self, gather one’s powers, energies and being into an ever more coherent and expressive, crystalline self, will create pressures that will more and more define for the self, to the self, its nature, its motivations, its goals, and its discipline.

May we answer you further my brother?

No, as always, that was excellent, Q’uo. Thank you and thank you, instrument.

We thank you too, my brother. Is there another query at this time?

Q’uo, I will take the mike. I would like to know what the nature is of the right and left ear tones that are inaudible but are heard within?

We are those of Q’uo, and are aware of your query, my brother. The concept of using the pendulum is helpful in this wise, the rotation one way indicating a “yes” answer, the rotation in the opposite way indicating a “no,” or some dynamic which is chosen. In each being’s energy system, there is a natural right/left dynamic. Some entity’s energies are such that the right ear tone indicates a positive and the left ear tone a negative; in others it is the opposite. Consequently the nature of one’s pendulum must be ascertained by the self. However, it is or can be considered to be a system for checking the validity of one’s thoughts. If there is a positive ear tone towards a thought one has thought with some force, then it likely that there is confirmation from what this instrument would call spirit, or what we may call guidance, that such a thought is worthy of thinking about and considering further. If there is a negative tone heard when one is thinking a thought, then there is a suggestion that there may be something distorted about the thought that needs more consideration and musing in order to penetrate that which one is being basically warned about or told to take with a grain of salt, shall we say.

May we answer you further, my brother?

No, that was more thorough than I would have imagined. Thank you very much, Q’uo.Q’uo, if you deem that the instrument is okay, can you speak on a time period on this planet in which a great portion of the population of the continent of Europe died because of an epidemic we call the Bubonic Plague?

We are those of Q’uo, and aware of your query, my brother. We may speak generally concerning this period within your history. The query is very general so we shall simply say that the conditions which brought about this correction in the density of population was one which was brought about by the lifestyle, shall we say, of the entities which occupied your planet at that time. As you gaze back into the reaches of history and prehistory, you may see that there was a gradual increase in the density of population. Whereas before there were people scattered in agrarian lifestyles, with few large cities and those cities being centers for trade and for culture, as the “Christian Era,” so-called, came into what you call your Medieval times, cities began to be developed that were much larger and that had much greater density of population than had previously been seen. However, conditions, in terms of health and sanitation were not equal to the rapidly increasing density of population. There were no sanitary systems for sewage and sewerage; there was no way to keep food from rotting and there was no technology which would surely and safely limit populations of rodents and insects that prey upon the dirt and the offal that such a society begins to put out in more quantity than it can clean up. It was this situation which deepened into a runaway epidemic. In a less densely populated situation such a plague would not have had the ability to run so rampantly through so many entities. In a more urban situation, this became inevitable.

May we answer you in a further way, my brother?

No, thank you, I was trying to grasp the cause for that particular type of horrible suffering, why it needed to be and it seems it was more of a purely physical source rather than a metaphysical basis. So that was very sufficient, Q’uo, thank you.

We thank you, my brother. Is there a final query at this time?

Q’uo, one short one. In the Law of One series [Don Elkins] asks about the one known as FDR and asks if his evolution could be traced for that incarnation and I was wondering, if the person is deemed acceptable by you or removed away enough that you could speak on them, if it is possible, in the future, could we give you an example of an entity and you could give us some kind of brief or general chart or tracing of their growth in their lessons, in a similar fashion?

We are those of Q’uo, and are aware of your query, my brother. We are able to do this within limits, those limits being the conscious nature of channeling that this instrument uses. If this instrument is unaware of an entity, it is likely that we shall not be able to offer particularly valid information. So such questions would be of limited accuracy, my brother. Within those limitations we may be able to discuss entities with you.

May we thank all of you for resting so sweetly within this circle and sharing energy with each other in such an unselfish and beautiful way. It is a great inspiration to us to see entities come together on levels that are deeper than words and deeper than the conscious mind. We thank you for helping to support and enrich each other with your thoughts, your experiences, and your sharing. We thank you for your studies and your seeking, and for all that you are. Each of you is most beloved to us and we appreciate the beauty of each. Thank you so much for sharing this time with us. It has been a great pleasure.

We leave you in the love and in the light of the one infinite Creator in the remainder of your day and your evening. May you find reason to rejoice and give thanks. We leave you in the love and in the light of the one infinite Creator. We are known to you as the principle of Q’uo. Adonai my friends. Adonai.


  1. From Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary: Distortion: from the Latin, distortio, which is from old Latin, distorquere, to turn or twist. It is defined as “the act of distorting, a twisting out of regular shape, a twisting or writhing motion.” 

  2. This basic concept is repeated many times in Joel Goldsmith’s Infinite Way material. Here is a typical expression, from p. 97 of Goldsmith’s Living The Infinite Way (London, George Allen and Unwin Ltd., [c1954]: “One of the first things we have learned in the Infinite Way is, in quietness and meditation, to give up the search for God in the realization that I and the Father are already one… “ 

  3. This discussion is from the website www.philosophypages.com/hy/2h.htm.

    THE ALLEGORY OF THE CAVE

    Plato recognized that the picture of the Divided Line may be difficult for many of us to understand. Although it accurately represents the different levels of reality and corresponding degrees of knowledge, there is a sense in which one cannot appreciate its full significance without first having achieved the highest level. So, for the benefit of those of us who are still learning but would like to grasp what he is talking about, Plato offered a simpler story in which each of the same structural components appears in a way that we can all comprehend at our own level. This is the Allegory of the Cave.

    Suppose that there is a group of human beings who have lived their entire lives trapped in a subterranean chamber lit by a large fire behind them. Chained in place, these cave-dwellers can see nothing but shadows (of their own bodies and of other things) projected on a flat wall in front of them. Some of these people will be content to do no more than notice the play of light and shadow, while the more clever among them will become highly skilled observers of the patterns that most regularly occur. In both cases, however, they cannot truly comprehend what they see, since they are prevented from grasping its true source and nature. (Republic 514a)

    Now suppose that one of these human beings manages to break the chains, climb through the torturous passage to the surface, and escape the cave. With eyes accustomed only to the dim light of the former habitation, this individual will at first be blinded by the brightness of the surface world, able to look only upon the shadows and reflections of the real world. But after some time and effort, the former cave-dweller will become able to appreciate the full variety of the newly-discovered world, looking at trees, mountains, and (eventually) the sun itself.

    Finally, suppose that this escapee returns to the cave, trying to persuade its inhabitants that there is another, better, more real world than the one in which they have so long been content to dwell. They are unlikely to be impressed by the pleas of this extraordinary individual, Plato noted, especially since their former companion, having travelled to the bright surface world, is now inept and clumsy in the dim realm of the cave. Nevertheless, it would have been in the best interest of these residents of the cave to entrust their lives to the one enlightened member of their company, whose acquaintance with other things is a unique qualification for genuine knowledge.

    Plato seriously intended this allegory as a representation of the state of ordinary human existence. We, like the people raised in a cave, are trapped in a world of impermanence and partiality, the realm of sensible objects. Entranced by the particular and immediate experiences these things provide, we are unlikely to appreciate the declarations of philosophers, the few among us who, like the escapee, have made the effort to achieve eternal knowledge of the permanent forms. But, like them, it would serve us best if we were to follow this guidance, discipline our own minds, and seek an accurate understanding of the highest objects of human contemplation.