¶WHO AM I?
Group question: The question this week has to do with the “Who am I?” question that each seeker of truth asks. We are wondering about the incarnational personality as a focus for who each seeker might be. Could you tell us something about the incarnational self, who that self is, and how we can use it as a vehicle for evolution?
(Q’uo, February 19, 1995)
We are those of Q’uo. Greetings in the love and in the light of the One Infinite Creator. We are most pleased to have been called to your group this day. There are also those energies about which you know as those of Hatonn. However, as this instrument ascertained the energies of Hatonn are simply to be placed upon the circle of seeking and, in a very subtle sense, upon that tape recording device which records these words. That carrier wave of meditative quiet and stillness is an helpful one, and those who listen to such a recording as this one may be offered that silent gift.
In addition, we shared a joke with this instrument which caused the challenging process to be a little longer to deal with. We are always hoping that this instrument will not be too earnest about her challenging, so when she asked us if we came in the name of the one known as Jesus we said, “Oh, yes, we stop in the name of Love.” But this instrument would not accept that. However, to our minds the one known as Jesus is the one known as Love, for this entity managed during incarnation to express that energy in its fullness. As always, when speaking with a group, we request that our words be taken with a grain of salt and that the personal discrimination be used. We do indeed thank this group, and deeply, for sharing these moments with us and for allowing us to share with you what humble service we may offer at this time.
The question of self-identity is indeed the signal question of a density devoted to the exploration of self-consciousness. The other experiences gained in first and second density, as powerful and all-encompassing as they have been, are as a simple elementary school class compared to the complexities of self-discovery and self-perception. Being aware of the self simply being is in many ways confusing. There is confusion because of each entity viewing itself through the passing kaleidoscope of circumstance and event about which one spins one’s life’s threads. The child, that young soul whose mind is infinite and eternal but whose body is clumsy and small, must determine what of his body makes him who he is and what not of his body but of the mind or of the emotions. This is most puzzling and the questioning begins for each entity as that soul becomes enough aware of itself within its little world that the focus becomes inward.
Those of young ages are frequently viewed by their parents and teachers as those who do not have native wisdom or the ability to think upon abstractions at the age of pre-school, as this instrument would call the years of four and five. Yet by this age the larger part of your people are philosophers in their own small way, picking up questions of life, death, and being and looking seriously and probingly at them for clues as to identity and that ineffable and indescribable sense of belonging that is yearned for but not entirely felt with those identities which the world sees and passes on to the young self.
Each year, indeed each season which adds to the child’s life its burden of days, yields also a crazy-quilt of perception and misperception and the drifting of memory and thought through those inner seasons which color perception so profoundly, usually without being themselves perceived. The burdens that the child has taken up often become invisible, yet still are burdens carried. They are carried, not within the conscious mind, but stowed safely as in a ship’s hold for the long voyage which shall occur before that self is able or ready to open the cargo doors and work with that burden which has lain patiently awaiting such a visit since the childhood.
These hidden storage areas of the self are hidden for good reason. The self is a living entity in a way which transcends current definitions of life, for there is not the embodiment or the gross manifestation in many forms of vivid life which entities upon your sphere tend to attach life to. The life within, as has been pointed out by this group, moves through incarnations, one upon the next, in a journey unimaginably larger than the journey through incarnation. Yet that journeying and questing self that is infinite and eternal is only taken in full realization and seated or embedded within that infinite self through the processes within incarnation through which the mind comes to be more and more acquainted with the self.
Therefore, sitting down and taking the pen and writing upon paper those things known about the self, and those things logically assumed, and attempting to infer identity in some mental way is not useful, for the self is not built with the logic of the mind. That self which is the deepest self is a distortion of love, and the heart, as it opens, simply becomes more and more able to resonate to the pure emotions which are that unique distortion of love which is each entity. Thusly, one better feels and intuits one’s way towards a deeper understanding of the identity of the self than work with the logic and the mind can ever produce. These are subtle matters. And using words is a clumsy option when working in this area, yet we do not have a choice other than these words, so if you will forgive us and this instrument who must, in a way translate our concepts, we shall continue attempting to throw some light upon this very central subject.
When the entity that each is comes into incarnation it is aware ahead of that time that it will lose its way; it will not remember that way; and it will need to wake up in the life in order to begin that journey of self-discovery. Those such as this circle now present were awakened by the call of that nature which, as each grew, it uncovered with its self. So each has gone through several generations of thought concerning self-identity and has discarded many self-identities, finding them too limited and not enough evocative of self-perceived spiritual advancement or evolution. It is good to have started this searching, this pilgrimage, for as entities seek the light, as they are drawn to love, they are also seeking their identity.
The ideals and philosophical arrangements which work to create a more spiritually aware life experience must hang in mystery and in veiling. There is much that the self would know yet cannot know within incarnation. There is no use in incarnations if the work done within incarnation is over and if the puzzle, shall we say, is completely and perfectly solved for an entity. Then this entity has just transcended third density and will soon depart from this planet and its physical third-density existence. It is a prerequisite, shall we say, of incarnation or the continuance of incarnation that the person be working to discover truth, the truth of self, the truth of love, the truth however that entity describes or phrases it. When school is out the Creator simply allows that entity to move on. So the one sure thing about entities within incarnation upon your planet at this time is that they are imperfectly known to themselves. This, then, being a prerequisite for life as you know it, may be counted a good thing by some, although one would not expect a universal “yes.”
It does, however, seem to most entities somewhat unfair in that the deck is stacked against being able to know the truth that is so hungrily sought. Yet we say to you that the spirit within incarnation that is still seeking is that spirit that has the right to manifest within the illusion those gifts that may help that illusion. No one upon your sphere, native or Wanderer, is fully realized. Each entity is upon that journey and so are we, and for us as larger truths have appeared things have fallen away and new mysteries have appeared. So it has been also for you and so shall it continue to be.
One may gaze at this identity at the level of its programming and see a very mechanical aspect to self-identity. By this we mean that there exists, within the melding made between consciousness and the biocomputer of your brain, those ways of perceiving which have been chosen throughout incarnation so far, which have re-written and distorted the way and the priority with which incoming sense data is received and processed.
Thusly, on one important level, the seeker may find its identity to be an amalgam of those programs which run when the self is presented with sense data. A simplistic example of this would be the cliché which this instrument is aware of concerning the glass of water being half full to the optimist and half empty to the pessimist. By such judgments the self accretes a system for judging incoming perceptions, and it decides and makes choices concerning this incoming data based upon choices previously made which have biased the incoming perceptions before they have arisen to the conscious mind.
So it is very fruitful to move back into inner work, gazing at those things which grab the attention throughout each day and working with that harvest of daily knowledge of self by observing and contemplating what has been observed. Much healing might be done by the entity who goes back into those early experiences which biased the program, discovering those centers of pain, anger, disappointment, or whatever negative complex of emotions caused that crystallization which distorted the programming in the first place. And we encourage those efforts to know the self by working with the memory and with the dreams which may offer memories which have been forgotten. However, it is equally helpful to surrender all knowledge of self as being utterly irrelevant to the self that wishes to become one with the One Infinite Creator, who wishes only to lose itself in that presence, who seeks to tabernacle with the infinite Love that is the One Creator.
Each entity has an identity. Looked at from the highest level each entity is an illusion. And as the densities mount towards the end of an octave those self-realized entities which were so full of emotion in earlier densities and who experienced such ideal states of compassion and wisdom find themselves releasing layer after layer of illusion until in the final gesture of individual personality the self is released into All That There Is by desire. We cannot, at this point in our own learning, imagine what it is like to yearn so for the Infinite One that the personality is completely released, but this does in the end occur, as far as we know.
Theoretically then, if one took no thought at any time and simply stayed comfortable when in incarnation and avoided worry, it might be possible never to be concerned with self-knowledge, simply choosing to love the Creator. No entity has as yet taken this short-cut, however, since the physical senses in any density are such as to give the individual clear subjective proof of existence and self-awareness.
Perhaps the best way to advise a seeker to look at the incarnational personality is to suggest that each allow the self the freedom of semi-permeable boundaries, allow the self to go deeply within, encourage the self to move deftly and deeply within the self as the opportunities come to each. This is not something one can do with a schedule. These moments of clarity come when they will, and we simply urge each to appreciate them and to yield to them when they come, for these are good opportunities to learn. And when the self is not in such a state we encourage each to allow the question to rest. For self-discovery is a process which needs time. It is not something which is grasped in a crystallized and gestalt way, but, rather, lies too deep for such experiences. And as long as the self is allowed its natural freedom to be profound at one mood and shallow at another, to be light one day and heavy another, and so forth, this is the best way to study the self. It is a matter of catching it unawares. One cannot gaze forever at the self with profit. One must look away and become spontaneous.
There is that balance between the work and the rest which fuels and feeds the work, which we would encourage each to keep in mind. The mundane tasks of everyday life may not reveal the self to the self, and certainly one is not what one does. Yet washing the dishes, teaching, or any activity whatsoever may at one moment mean nothing and at another moment reveal profound truth. So the wise seeker is one who is alert to those moments when the present moment ceases being a moment in time and reveals the infinity of depth and width and breadth that is the truth of each present moment. For the present moment is the only one which exists, and all present moments exist simultaneously. Do not be surprised to find realization occurring in the midst of the smallest and most routine chore, for the inner mountaintops of experience are not those which seem high in the outer world but, rather, those which have their being and their altitude deep within the self.
As we said, this is a difficult subject for the truth of personality is a shifting one, yet we honor it greatly. For from it has come all that has been needed by us to evolve to where we are now. And we feel secure in saying that for each entity. This is also tending to be true: that within the everyday and ordinary daily existence lies not one way but many ways to pursue self-discovery. No truth you find of your nature shall ever be complete within incarnation, for there is much material concerning your true natures that lies deeply hidden within the subconscious mind which is not available to the waking, incarnational self.
I am Q’uo, and we shall take this opportunity to express our complete gratitude at having been invited to join your group. We feel that we have been blessed with a great honor and we are always glad to respond to the call of this group, for when we walk with you we are enriched in our own journey as well. We now leave you in the love and in the ineffable light of the One Infinite Creator. Adonai, my friends.
¶NOTES TO OUR READERS
Once again this Easter we are offering our THIS IS THE DAY tape. It is a performance tape and, therefore, not perfectly recorded. It is the story of a small boy and a tree that grow up together and who are transformed by their shared experience. Words and music tell their story.