¶OLD AND NEW MYTHOLOGIES
(Q’uo, April 30, 1989)
I am Q’uo. I greet you in the love and in the light of the One Infinite Creator. The Creator’s blessing and ours be upon you, and our thanks and gratitude to you for the honor of being called to your group this evening to discuss the question of old and new mythologies, and, perhaps most importantly, the dealing with the young ones among you in the face of the teacher/parent’s having found that the older and settled mythologies are not acceptable. This is a large subject, and we shall do no more this evening than scratch the surface. However, we would like to give you some ideas, reminding you always that we are prone to error, as any which is not whole and entirely within the Creator. As long as we have an identity of our own, there will be biases, and we ask always that you remember to discriminate carefully, and to keep those truths that seem helpful, to keep those inspirations that seem to be truth that you remember and recognize for the first time, and if something jars or is unhelpful, lay it aside and move ahead. That is part of what creating a personal myth consists in.
Now let us lay some groundwork. First of all, the words mythology and religion should be far more interchangeable than they are. The difficulty is that in myth there is no judgment between one myth and another, whereas in religion, those of one religion square off with hostility against those religions which in some way contradict it. Thus we prefer to talk of all paths of spirituality as personal myths, including classical paths such as the path of mystical Christianity, the path of literal Christianity, the path of mystical Buddhism, the path of literal Buddhism and so forth.
Realize that the essence of myth is to move the seeking entity, by its own faith and its desire to know the truth, over a kind of rainbow bridge, a magical covenantal span that links time and eternity, that which is known and that which is a mystery. Those who dwell in that which is known have a deadness inside them, though they live and their hearts beat. Those that dwell from time to time in eternity have a livingness that only crossing that span into eternity may offer. Certainly there are those who naturally and unaffectedly spend each moment in the present moment. These are, for the most part, the young souls which parent/teachers are responsible for aiding in their growth and nurturing in the agony of constant change as growth occurs.
Therefore, we do not wish to engage in judgment betwixt settled world religions, except to describe how they create the rainbow bridge to eternity. Within the Oriental religions, the consciousness is considered to be spiritual, and that which is honored is the continuation of living eternity: father to child, to its child, to its child, and so forth. This mythological path is a path of ethic and wisdom. It is somewhat passive and unsuited to the Western, shall we say, mentality, as this instrument would put it.
That which you may call Buddhist is a group of paths covering exercise, breathing, work and worship. It is perhaps the most passive of the paths that are traditional in that the goal is to cleanse the self of preferences so that one may see clearly and be unmoved by the illusion. This is a path of wisdom. The Muslim and the Jewish religions are those which have the God which acts for and against entities on a sometimes apparently capricious basis. This is a religion of ethic and one is taught to do certain things which shall span the rainbow bridge to eternity.
The many kinds of Christian religion are to some extent the more active of the world religions in that there is a strong ethic implied, an ethic of excellence, purity and good behavior, yet also an ethic which states quite clearly that by no means shall action bring one to paradise, to eternity, over the bridge. In this particular spiritual system it is acknowledged that there must be the bridge in place that by faith can be crossed. The Occidental part of the world finds this ethical and mythical system in its activity more suited culturally, and indeed, though all the so-called world religions have much to offer, it is probable that the parable of the channeling of Jesus the Christ, being part and parcel of the culture in which each present dances, is perhaps the most accessible and the most useable.
Now we speak of Christianity, Buddhism, Shintoism, and so forth as if they were singular. This is not so. Each of these religious systems has one thing in common, arid that is a call to mysticism, a call to a life in faith. That faith is what makes the bridge between time and eternity firm. Faith is fed by desire. Thus the beginning of the creation of the personal myth is a burning, passionate, consuming desire to know the truth, the truth of who you are, of that which you are constructed, of your relationships to eternity and imperishability. Consciousness is malleable. It is plastic. And you are either at the helm of your consciousness or being dragged along by it, having lost the reins. Therefore, when deciding to create a personal mythology it is well first to grasp the reins of desire and discipline and passion, to hone and whet the edge of the need to know, the desire to understand. If you seek the Creator, your path will come to you.
Now if one looks at any of the world religions, and we shall concentrate, since we are speaking to those of Western culture, on Christianity, one may see that the images, the parables, the myth of the life of Jesus the Christ itself, has very little objective referent to the time in which you now experience this illusion. It does not fire the imagination to think of the images and the stories which Christianity has to offer. The younger one is, the more true this is, simply because the parental generation may well not have offered the child the experience of organized religion, and the child, therefore, may not have a clear image of that for which it hungers, for at any age a spirit will hunger and thirst for spiritual food. Thus in relation to the children we would suggest very strongly that if the parents do not engage in traditional church-going it is well if there be an altar or holy place, small as it may be, within the dwelling or close to the dwelling that may be dry from the weather and accessible in all temperatures so that one may go there and meditate each day. When children see how seriously the parents desire to know the truth, when they see dailiness and discipline in seeking, they will, by osmosis and acting like the parents, imitate and grow to feel that place within themselves that hungers for heavenly food.
In short, what we are saying is, what you use to make the bridge should be a product of your desire. That which you can have imperishable faith in will come to you. Accept nothing that does not feel solid, and if it does feel solid no longer, leave it behind and move onward, for truth recedes infinitely in front of the pilgrim, remaining always a mystery and allowing one more and more, as one grows more and more mature and aged, to see the great depth, breadth and height of the spiritual path, the amount of glory and strength in service to others, the amount of joy and peace in dwelling in love and light with those who also seek. To have companions along the way is most important.
There are other reasons for the rejection of ancient myths than that of their being irrelevant to that which is occurring at this time upon your planet; that is, few people, for instance, breed sheep; therefore the thought of the one known as Jesus as shepherd is difficult to manage, and the leaving of the ninety-nine for the one that is lost nothing more than a cosmic joke. Those of you in the west have experience of heightened technology. Science has mistakenly assumed that it is separate from spirituality. This is a fatal flaw within science, and it shall be corrected. Although within your particular life experience it may not yet be evident, science and spirituality are one.
Knowledge has nothing to do with faith. Dogma and doctrine are deadly enemies of faith. To live a life in faith is simply to say, “I have faith that I am a survivor, that I am held in the gentle arms of a kindly Creator, that that which is happening to me right now is what is supposed to be happening to me right now. Those who wish to polarize towards to service to others add upon that faith by attempting to listen carefully to others, that they may know how best to serve; not how to please, but how to serve. The materialism within your culture and the work ethic within your culture both mitigate strongly against an appropriate attitude towards creating a personal myth. For though it is well to have good ethics and good moral behavior, the bridge to eternity is made almost entirely of the deep and intuitive portions of the mind, the feelings, the emotions and the inspiration.
We ask each of you honestly, What inspires each? We see confusion in your minds at this question, except for this instrument who has chosen its own personal mythology as mystical Christianity. Thus we say to you, concentrate upon this creation. Begin to know who you are by processes which may be described easily: that of keeping the diary, that of keeping the dream diary, that of moving back in mind to painful experiences in the past and working with them until there is balance and forgiveness.
You see, without the bridge to eternity each entity is stuck fast in the mire of time and space. Things will go on and on, a road that never ends. This is an unreal picture of reality but a true picture of the illusion in which you find yourself at this time. The key to forming a personal mythology, then, is to discover that which you may have faith in; that is, not belief, but simple faith. It often works best, for those who are new to the concept of being, to act as though one had faith in a kindly Creator and a redeeming Creator, and therefore to be able to forgive yourself and others simply by the strength of your faith. It is not faith in anything or anyone, perhaps, but merely a faith in the general kindliness of the One Infinite Creator and of your own preference to serve others, to polarize towards the positive, rather than to serve the self and control others, to move along a negative path.
How does one create a personal myth? It begins, as most things do, with the process of coming to know the self well, coming to feel the yearnings, the frustrations, the strong and the weak points of the self. Coming to find out what the self really desires, then honing that desire, sharpening that desire and becoming passionate in the desire to know the truth of the Infinite One and your relationship to the Infinite Creator.
When you have determined that which creates the bridge to eternity for you, we urge you to cross that bridge as often as possible. The ideal which was shown by many Christed entities is to live in such a way that the entire life experience becomes a channeling, a parable of the journey to infinity, of the ridding of oneself of the dross of perishability and the winning through of the understanding that your consciousness, more and more refined, polarized and uplifted is indeed imperishable and is your true self. The more time one spends having crossed the rainbow bridge into eternity while in the physical body, the more one is able to offer in consolation, in forgiveness, in peace-making. For to one who has faith, there is no problem too great to solve, and that which is unsolvable is acceptable. Each day and night is its own entity, appreciated for itself, experienced for itself and action done for love out of faith. This is the life in faith.
Some entities require a very simple myth of a personal nature, and those with the so-called New Age movement demonstrate the simplistic nature of the path to infinity. It is, however, a path which is difficult to remain upon, for the nature of the illusion is to challenge and test the growing entity again and again. Those who feel that there is naught but love and light may be most distressed and confused by that which happens in the life experience which may be called traumatic or devastating. The impulse is to remove the faith and replace it with anger. Avoid such impulses, for the Creator is not simplistic. The Creator and you, together, have designed quite carefully the kind of lessons of love that you are to attempt to study within this life experience. To study them as a materialistic entity who lives and dies is perhaps all too often to remain asleep to the possibilities of challenge.
To face each trouble, difficulty and challenge with confident faith and quiet sureness in that bridge is to distance oneself from time and space, and, with that longer point of view, to gaze upon experience and choose the reaction which the hero would have. For this is the essence of myth. The hero, whether it be the Christ known as Jesus, the Christ known as Buddha, the Christ known as Lao Tsu or the Christ known as Zoroaster, makes very little difference if one is mystical in one’s faith and non-literal. The great difficulty with all settled religious systems is that they have become combative, materialistic and an artifact of the world and the culture in which you live. Many are the priests in all faiths that attempt with every fiber of the being to retrieve the parables, the mythology, the story which initially sparked the spiritual movement. However, divisive elements, competitive elements within the nature of humankind create an ever onward going of series of schism, splits, disagreements and steps backwards from unity into discord. Thus, many choose not to frequent the established spiritual system of myth for public worship. There is, however, an instinctive need for group worship. There is a need to cone together as the children of the Infinite Creator to worship, to offer praise and thanks and to ask for blessings. Thus, there are meetings such as these, and many other of the so-called New Age type which aid the seeker in the creation of his/her own story. The personal myth is that of the hero or the heroine who must go on a very difficult and challenging journey. During this journey, this entity will lose everything which it has, but by the aid of the Infinite Creator, in one form or another, that which has been lost miraculously revivifies and becomes imperishable. This is the basic parable or story of the hero.
Let us look at the compelling myth of the Holy Grail. It has perhaps seized the imagination of mystics in a more direct way than any spiritual system, for it involves entities in a myth which is adventurous. The hero must go forth alone. It must pass impossible tests. It must bring back that which is unavailable, seemingly, and it must do it for the love of the Infinite Creator. It is, of course, in the journey itself that the transformation of the hero occurs. When the hero returns this entity, then, becomes the teacher, able to speak in parables and stories and anecdotes that may make sense to those about one.
What is your story? Have you conceived of yourself as a hero or a heroine? Have you learned to love the self and realized the consciousness of the self as blessed and holy and to become able to hollow the self of those things which are materialistic, greedy, grasping and worldly? The hero must lose a great deal of emotional and mental baggage, must unlearn the biases of pain and suffering found in childhood experiences and adult experiences as well, so that the life is self-forgiven, the self is seen as consciousness, which in essence is holy. By sending oneself upon the metaphysical journey of the pilgrim one sets out for the Holy Grail, the impossible dream. One has nothing but faith, whether the personal myth combines well with traditional spiritual systems or whether the personal myth has been created by the self, the entity needs to see itself as a true hero, one who wishes to serve, to sacrifice and to learn. With the heart open, with the intellect disciplined, the traveler begins to learn to feel the natural feelings of consciousness.
The feeling we hope most to encourage you in is the emotion of worship or thanksgiving or praise. For the Infinite Creator, the Imperishable One, is indeed Head of all, Source of all and Omega to all. You are all, indeed, a portion of the Infinite Creator. And when your personal myth, your personal journey has been enough refined (and we are not at that state yet, at all) you shall one day gather that consciousness in its purity, having burned away all the dross of illusion, and move once again into the uncreated love of the One Infinite Creator.
To sum, we encourage you to do two things: Firstly, to realize the central importance of living a life which points towards imperishability on a daily basis. In this way shall the pilgrim slowly discover its power, its strength and its service. Secondly, we wish to encourage each parent to allow the children to see an active worship period on a daily basis in the home, for those who do not attend the traditional places of worship. And for those who do attend the traditional places of worship, let there be the daily practice of that particular form of worship within the home environment. In either case, the young spirit shall, by identifying with the father and mother which seem like the Creator to the young spirit, then have the feeling of the presence of the One Infinite Creator firmly in the subconscious of childhood for the entire life experience. This is a great, great gift to give your children. It demands discipline upon the part of parents, for it is difficult to do anything upon a daily basis. We are aware of your work ethic. We are aware of your busyness. We ask that you make the time to worship each day, standing upon the holy ground that is beneath your feet wherever you stand, for within yourself there is holiness.
Encourage yourself in your pilgrimage, and love one another. And although you need not believe in Jesus Christ or Buddha Christ or whomever, we ask that you have a consciousness of faith and live a life of faith to create that which you were born to be-a living string in the plangent tonality of infinite love.
We are glad to be with you in your daily meditations or spiritual observances. You have only mentally to ask and we will be there silently, attempting to aid in deepening the meditation or increasing the intensity of the spiritual experience. We thank this instrument. We are most grateful for being invited to join your circle of seeking this evening. We have been most heartened by this query, which we feel has struck close to the heart for the purpose of the incarnation and the means by which the purpose shall be discovered and enacted by each seeker of truth. We have enjoyed sharing our opinions, and we do remind each that we have shared opinions. We do not wish our words to be taken too seriously, shall we say, if they do not sound a note of harmony within. We shall look, as you would say, forward to those times in your future during which we shall again have the opportunity to blend our vibrations with yours and to walk more closely on that path which you now find yourselves upon, that path which leads ever onward and ever homeward. We are those of Q’uo, and we leave each at this time in the love and in the light of the One Infinite Creator. Adonai, my friends. Adonai.
¶HOPE AND FAITH
(Hatonn, March 30, 1986)
I am Hatonn and I greet you also in the love and in the light of our Infinite Creator. It is a great privilege to be with you this evening and to share our humble thoughts with you. As you know, no matter what our subject may be, we are speaking of some aspect of a life lived in love and we would choose this evening to speak to you of the art of hope.
It is easy to confuse hope with faith. Yet faith is blind; faith does not have eyes that see, nor does it need them. Faith is an inner sureness and is an invaluable ally to the spiritual seeker. In no way would we discourage any from the cultivation of the faculty of faith for it is one of the great tools of learning available to you upon the spiritual path. Yet there are situations in which a focused vision has its place and is far more effective than blind faith. That faculty is hope. Hope is the development of faith upon a specific area of intent or interest so that there is a vision which is developed which affirms all that is best in a situation, all that is requisite in an outcome. Hope is that which, while the eagle soars, gazes towards its prey. Faith is that which causes the eagle to leap into the air. The eagle has wings, yet it does not cogitate upon its flying. It hopes for its prey and in its inner eye sees it long before the outer vision finds that which it seeks.
It is well to refine your inner vision for that faculty of hope is a means whereby one may use one’s deeper intuitions to envision that which is sought. This does not say that one attempts to predetermine an outcome. It is, rather, to say that through hope one may perceive a situation in such a way that the good can be seen and the rest can be seen to fall away, just as in the eagle’s eye all that which is not the prey is seen but is not registered as important. Hope has a way of clearing the mind, of strengthening inner vision, of pulling the cobwebs out of situations, of focusing that incredible strength within each of you which is will.
Do you think that you know what you desire? Is that desire intangible? Then sharpen that faculty of hope until within you, you can almost taste and feel and see that which is hoped for. Then allow faith to set you winging upon the air and open your inner eyes wide as you fly. Sharpen that within you that hopes, for hope is a valuable tool and never more valuable than when it seems unlikely that that for which you hope shall appear. Sad indeed is the soul which is hopeless, for faith alone cannot turn the mind to the goal of love. Faith has no direction but is a faculty which strengthens the spirit so that it may go forth and seek. Hope is the result of having found a direction in which to point the faithful self. We hope for you that which you hope for yourselves. And for ourselves, we hope we have been of service and further we hope that we may continue to be of service to you.
We do not ask you to hope for a wonderful, trouble-free, careless existence, although for some this is part of the environment in which lessons of love are learned. In your density it is to be expected, by the very nature of the lessons that you have set yourself to learn, that there will be confusions and difficulties. To put an end to these confusions is to limit your ability to learn the lessons you came to absorb into your very being. And yet we hope with you that you may penetrate the outer shell of experience and aim unerringly for the transformations which lie just the other side of understanding.
How we appreciate being able to speak with you. We ask as always that you remember that we like you are hopeful seekers, our feet dusty upon the path, and our knowledge incomplete. Yet we serve the same Creator and we hope with the same beauty of seeking and purity of desire that lies within each of you. We leave you upon the path-your feet dusty, your bodies perhaps tired and yet your goal always in your mind’s eye. We are known to you as those of Hatonn and we leave you upon that path, yet we are with you and shall be with you in hope, in love and in joy. In the love and in the light of our Infinite Creator, we say to you, adonai. Adonai. Vasu. Borragus.
¶NOTES TO OUR READERS
We did not receive sufficient donations to print the BOOK OF DAYS, so we have returned all donations for that project. Our thanks to each one who did donate. We hope to try again at some future time to finance the publishing of that book.
On a irregular basis we are considering offering a week-long workshop in the area of self-therapy which is part of practicing a personal mythology. If you are interested in attending such a workshop, send us your name and address, and we’ll send you more information concerning it plus notify you of future dates for workshops on a first-come, first-served basis.
We happily welcomed Kim Howard to our staff September 9, 1989. Her heart and hands are much appreciated.