Group question: Q’uo, today we would like to ask about dealing with the pain of change, particularly on a day-to-day basis in the course of our everyday lives. Why is change itself painful?

(Jim channeling)

I am Q’uo and with this instrument at this time. We are honored to greet each of you in the love and in the light of the One Infinite Creator. We say that we are honored because to join your circle today is truly an honor, for you have shown love and light for each other in such inspiring ways that one does not often see within your third-density illusion. To have a gathering such as this, the spiritual seekers create a great deal of love and light that is seen throughout the galaxy.

We are always asking each present who has asked this group question to consider well what we share as our response. For we share what we feel and have known to be our own spiritual journey, going through your own third density and moving forward into the fourth, the fifth, and the sixth. And the experiences we’ve had there are very much like your own. But if any word or concept does not have that feeling of importance to you at this time, we would ask that you set it aside without a second thought. Use only those that do have meaning for you now. This allows us to speak with more freedom in our response to your question, since we know that you will utilize your own discrimination in hearing what we say.

You are indeed within an illusion, my friends, the illusion created by the veil of forgetting, so that what you plan before this incarnation as lessons that you would learn is not known to you consciously, unless you have been able to go within in meditation or contemplation, or to speak prayers to the One, to discover some feature that keeps repeating itself in your life pattern so that you become cognizant of portion of your life lesson. And that is to move through this third density incarnation in a manner which will eventually allow you to open your hearts in unconditional love for all those around you in a manner that exceeds the tipping points of 51% service to others.

This is the great goal. However, the journey is long, and sometimes it is difficult because you have to go through periods of feeling that you need to do better, do more, do differently; you need to deal with catalyst that is presenting itself for you in a manner that feels like it may be too much. It may be that which you cannot do that is asking you, in order to open the heart more, that you lose some of the energy centers below the heart.

The orange one-to-one relationships that can get adversarial. There can be disharmony and miscommunication of the group. Where the same may happen upon a group level, and the group becomes disintegrated or disheveled in some way that no longer allows it to be functional for this stated purpose. These lower energy centers are the places where you are offered the opportunity to change your perception, to change your response, to change your desires in a way that is able to allow you to be accepting and loving of a situation that is difficult. It is beyond your boundaries of experience and perhaps even what you feel you can do. There is a certain kind of pain, whether it is physical or more likely mental and emotional, and in some cases, also spiritual. This is what you were here to do. This is the process of spiritual evolution. To go through this pain, to go through the change that pain can bring, and it expands your capacity to be more and more in unity with those around you, in unity with your perception of the One Infinite Creator that exists within your being at all times.

This is a path which is purposefully chosen by you before your incarnation so that you can grow more and more fully aware of the One Infinite Creator in all things, in all other entities, and most especially within yourself. For you see, this awareness is that which each subconsciously knows. The conscious seeker of truth knows it, intellectually at least, but may lack that experience of the Creator speaking to one, and letting one know that this is the path that needs to be followed; though it may be a path that leads through darkness and difficulty, confusion, separation—that which one would not logically think would be the way the spiritual path is chosen and followed. For is it not one of joy? Is it not one of unity? Is it not that which gives you the feeling of success?

Yes, my friends, it is all these things and more. And yet, there is a price to pay for change. The pain of change and expanding your concept of your own self, the journey that you are upon, the lessons that you are learning, this is a journey which is most important within your third-density illusion because it is a matter of being and functioning where you open that heart of yours, that connection to the infinite love and light that created the one creation and allows you to express love where many would express anger or fear or resentment.

This allows you to transform yourself to become more than you were. Growth is not easy. It is that which has, what you would call, a price to pay. And yet that paying of the price is the food for growth, the grist for the mill. It is the way that you have chosen before the incarnation to follow the ways of the third-density illusion so that you may move forward at some point in your life experience from one incarnation to another into the fourth density, where there is no veil and where the Choice has been made, where it can be refined, as you move further and further through the octave of experience into the unification with the One Infinite Creator.

Things are much easier there, but growth is much slower. The growth of your third-density illusion is that which has, as we have said, a price to pay, but it is a price well worth it, well worth the effort, the spiritual effort of becoming more than you were, of moving forward on that path into unity with all those around you who are also the Creator.

This is the great work, the great work in consciousness which the Creator learns so much more about Itself because you have experienced what you have experienced in the third-density of illusion of pain, of change, of being, of expanding, of feeling the One in all things, all people, all events, and within yourself as you have changed to become more the Creator than ever before.

At this time, we transfer this contact to the one known as Gary. We are those of Q’uo.

(Gary channeling)

We are those known to you as the principle of Q’uo. And as we blend our energies with this instrument, we wish to visit each of those gathered in this circle of seeking to express our heartfelt gratitude for the authenticity which you bring to this moment. Being yourselves is not something that is taught to you from a young age. If anything, most are often taught to hide their deeper natures, the full spectrum of their thoughts, worse, to repress and judge various aspects of the self as they emerge and are measured against the norms of one’s local community, within the home community, within the school, or community that one absorbs from your media. Thus, a relationship of self-judgment and self-negation is formed whereby the self not only armors but creates one mirage after another [regarding] who it thinks it is and should be, but which is not terribly representative of who and what the self really is. Thus, upon the awakening of the spiritual impulse within the self, be that the fruit of a moment, of an episode, or a chapter, or gradual shift in direction, the self seeks that eternal question of, “Who am I? Who am I really?”

Those gathered in this circle, as is true with many upon your planet, including those who may be reading these words, are engaged in that quest, and are holding that question, whether or not always upon the tongue or at the forefront of the mind. You, my friends, are seeking to know who you are. What you are. What is true and not so true about you. What is your source. And as you gather in these spaces, you are able to practice that cultivated orientation and manner of being that says, “This is who I am discovering myself to be at this time upon the flowing river always forward moving at this juncture. These are the things that are coming up for me, be they things that trouble or things that delight the mind.”

But your attention, which is the direction of your will and which is where you exercise your most power, is in a process of being reclaimed, shall we say, from that to which you, as younger and/or unconscious entities, surrendered and exported the attention to. You are bringing your attention within your conscious focus that you may look upon the material of the day, and as much pain and confusion as it may bring, you, with your harnessed attention, bring a question to the material and catalysts of your life. What is this material revealing about myself to myself? What is the mirror showing me?

My friends, we know how difficult this work is. These questions, though they will, if held consistently, penetrate and illuminate, nonetheless are not a magical formula in themselves for the surfeit of pain—we correct this instrument—the decrease of pain. But much of the work that you do is the work itself. That is to say, the evolution which you experience, the growth that you undergo is in large part this doing of the work. That you have awoken to your native power to use your life experience, that you may engage this quest, and that you turn these gears and apply your spiritual tools and participate in this contemplation is, itself, as your people say, half the battle.

And, my friends, we echo again that gratitude and that honor to be among a circle of peoples upon your planet so engaged daily in this work, and so able to come together and share it with others, with the hearts open to one another, giving and receiving, listening compassionately, without judgment, speaking to and alleviating, and helping to heal that core point of pain and suffering within your hearts: as one member of this circle was speaking previously, the not aloneness. It is that deep foundational sense of being cut-off, separate, alone with and perhaps overwhelmed by your troubles, unloved; seeking and yearning for the nourishment of water but finding oneself perhaps in a desert in modes of deprivation of unmet need.

And it is by coming together in this intentional space, where one is free to say things, such as what one has been experiencing of late, whether in the noon day or in the deep night, and say that this has been a portion of the fullness of my experience, and I trust you fellow travelers with hearing this about myself; and I wish to hear of where your feet have walked upon the path of light. What is it that you see upon the horizon? What is it that keeps you upon the roadside or trapped in the seeming ditch of your own confusions and sufferings?

Much of what you as a peoples need may be found in the company of other open hearts. Much of your planetary dysfunction in connection to the individual dysfunction is this: the sense of aloneness. Not the chosen solitude of one who seeks to go within and to tune out the constant stimulation and bombardment of messages of a disorienting nature, but of the seeming forced aloneness. The loneliness that one carries with them even when surrounded by other people in your various public settings, be [that] at the restaurant or the grocery store. The aloneness one may even feel when among friends or family.

This aloneness, though, is not necessarily sourced in a world which has turned you away or not accepted you fully as you are—though the external landscape does reflect the inner landscape reinforcing and reflecting this message back to the self in various ways—but the source is within. That aloneness is this deep sense that manifests differently for different people, but may look like abandonment or rejection, as if the self knows some dim experience of being held, loved, and cherished, in nurture and safety by the mother in unconditional love, feeling connected, or the father in the same energy.

And then a great and seemingly non-volitional separation occurs when one is out alone, seemingly unnourished in the cold, and told, in one way or another, that the self is insufficient and inadequate, and that certain behaviors must be met; actions must be taken in order to meet the conditions whereby one can receive love and fill that mostly unconscious gap or hole or emptiness within the self.

Thus it is that your peoples chase one dragon after another feeling, as your neuroscientists would see it, the dopamine and other hormones within the body that create the pleasure through modalities that create stimulation and gratification, be they those activities that are more toxic for the mind and body or those that are part or connected to the personal growth, as in the achievement of a goal or objective. Pleasure is felt and more is sought in that direction. The spiritual seeker—we correct this instrument—the non-consciously seeking entity does not consciously understand that what they are seeking is what you may call salvation: the coming into oneness with that from which one had been seemingly cast out and separated and severed, that being the Infinite One.

Your essence, that which you really are, has never and could never separate from the One. It is your nature, your birthright, who you are. Yet, the veil has caused a seeming portion of yourself to be so severed and to be locked, as it were, within a world of dreams and illusions whereby you have become a seemingly freestanding, independent self, disconnected or minimally connected to all.

And in this illusion, a false picture of reality is created where the aliveness of all things, the beauty and the truth, and the intelligence inherent in all things, the infinite nature of yourself and all things is hidden from your sight. And in this darkness, love and light are distorted and distorted further, and distorted again.

It is possible, as you may know through your studies, to perpetuate this illusion somewhat indefinitely—failing to grasp the baton of doing that work in consciousness of knowing and accepting the self, and asking the questions that guide the journey—and instead repeating patterns again and again in a circular, non-upward spiraling, non-learning, non-catalyst-using fashion. And this is a condition which, though confused and unconscious, is nevertheless an operation of the free will, and which sets the self up for continual suffering; however comfortable one may make their home nest in a world which they fear or judge.

However, for the seeker that recognizes that there is a deeper truth available than the narrative of consensus reality within which they had and, to a great degree, continue to swim within, there is pain and suffering as well. The spiritual journey is not a magical amulet which, if held correctly and incanted properly, erases the suffering.

But for the spiritual student, that same suffering then becomes instructive. Not just instructive, but becomes the self’s greatest teacher. For in this suffering are hidden aspects of the self which have been disintegrated, have been judged or unloved, and have been relegated to the unconscious portions of the self such that the self lives a very narrow and illusion-based sense of who they are; the self attaches to those voices that the self had internalized, attaches to those behaviors or beliefs about the self that the self had inadvertently constructed in making and constructing this illusory notion of self.

The suffering and the pain is that forge-born fire which burns away these false or distorted notions of the self so that the deeper layers, and the deeper layers still, and all the way down to the essence may be revealed to the self—revealed and loved, revealed and forgiven—so that those various walls which exist within the landscape of your mind may come down through this melting influence of love, that the self may be reintegrated and made whole and made sacred.

This necessarily involves change. To find that inner paradise which each seeks is a journey of change. Who the self believes the self to be right at this nexus in your illusory time-stream is that which cast you out of that inner paradise.

It is no force of society or external intelligence that keeps you from that which is awaiting within. It is rather your fierce grip upon an attachment to these illusory beliefs about yourself. These beliefs must-needs change. It is possible that this change may happen very peacefully and harmoniously as the self recognizes a deeper, greater, truer way of being and gently glides into that deeper layer letting go of their former attachment. This process can be smooth and made more harmonious and more gentle through that daily discipline of meditation, which we recommend again and again.

For the most part, however, that change happens through that ever-reliable mechanism, and, if understood properly, friend that is the pain and the suffering. When suffering persists, seemingly unabated, continually visiting and even tormenting the self, it can feel quite cruel.

Indeed, my friends, it is quite easy for us to speak to your experience from a distance and not from the firsthand interior lived perspective which you know. And we empathize. For we see how often life seems to bring you to your knees. How you may have thoughts of just how easy it may be to bring it all to an end. Who could carry such a load? Who could be expected to endure so much? Why must it be so hard?

These and other words born of anguish and agony and despair are heard and received by our hearts, and we are called to offer comfort and solace and, we hope, some orienting points of inspiration that you may not be so encumbered and so shackled to this story of suffering, that you may come to recognize that within the seed of each thread of suffering within your life is a means of liberation from suffering, from these limited containers into which the self has seemingly become locked.

But to return to our primary thread, in order to release oneself from these containers, the friction between the self trapped within the limited conceptions of the self and the less limited and even unlimited self, there arises that friction, that sense of dislocation which, when used as a force which motivates the self, can be examined for that which it reveals to the self.

One question that the seeker may ask the self is, “What beliefs are underlying this generation of suffering within myself? What story about who I am, am I holding on to? In what ways am I not allowing love to meet me, to flow into me, to reach every portion of my known self, to move through me and outward to reach and to shine upon others and their pain? In what way am I restricting the wholeness and the fullness that I am? In what way am I not accepting my true feelings and my true thoughts and, as another member of this circle spoke during your round robin portion, those dark and seemingly negative aspects of myself?”

In this suffering, is your teacher. The suffering both brings about change and is precipitated by change. For the self, even in a place of discomfort and pain, becomes habituated to and comfortable with that which it knows. Even though there is deeper nourishment and connection and fulfillment awaiting within, still the self clings as one would a life raft to that which is known because to change is also to die.

To let go of that which one holds true about the self is to experience a death of sorts. Whether it is the death of a single idea: I believe myself as one who liked this activity, but I find, actually, that I was doing this, for instance, to please my parents or to please someone else. Whether it is a death on that scale or the much larger, even more transformative death of the separate self itself, that which, in shorthand, some may call the ego, as that which the one known to this instrument as Eckhart Tolle experienced in a seeming moment.

Change is often to die to the self, and there is a skill, as the spirit matures, within the self that may be cultivated to allow one to more smoothly navigate the turbulent, often storming, sometimes even threatening waters and sky of the changing landscape, where much of that pain is born of resistance to change, even if upon the seeming other side of the change, there is more wholeness.

So the skill, then, is to learn and to practice, and to practice again, and to practice again, surrender and acceptance. This surrender and this acceptance are born of a fundamental trust. A trust in the self, a trust in the universe, a trust that whatever the world may have to say about the nature of life and growth and birth and death, that the self is upon a journey. And in this journey, the self finds oneself in a classroom that is this physical plane that you know of as Earth. And that this journey has a purpose, has a meaning, has a point, has a trajectory.

And the self may lean into this—that the classroom and the journey are not intended to defeat the self, to kill or to disarrange the self, to harm the self even if, as part of the journey, harm, loss, and limitation may be experienced. But rather that this journey is ultimately, we assure you, my friends, working for you; helping you to achieve that which is your heart’s desire and the heart’s desire of all sentient creatures in the universe whatever their path and whatever their point of confusion.

That heart’s desire is to return to that which they seem to have become separated from. That is to seek and to find that which they always have been and forever will be. That which they are right now outside of time and space. That being the One Infinite Creator. That being eternity. That being infinity.

This nature is not something awaiting you at the end of a long road, though from the standpoint of time and space, that seems to be the case to the [incarnational] self’s perspective; but rather, this is the true nature right now. Whether one finds themselves at the start or the conclusion of the third-density experience, whether one is a snail or a blade of grass in the second density, or one is a being beyond your comprehension in the seventh density, your true essence is and always has been the same. You, in truth, are, and have never left, the One. That is your heart’s desire as you chase this more shallow desire and that more shallow distraction.

You seek to return to this wholeness. You seek to be restored. And your being, deep down within, knows this. And you can have this faith, you can connect to this reality, which our humble words can only point to and approximate. The bridge to this reality is certainly supported by contemplation and intellectual study and consideration, but that true leap where this becomes actualized and lived in your life is made by faith and faith alone.

There may be many markers in your life which reflect this eternal reality to you, giving you a glimpse, portal, and window into this, particularly when embodied by an other-self, or when, as you spoke earlier, you are upon the mountaintop and can see and feel and breathe more freely, more widely. But faith does not have its place in certainty, shall we say, and evidence. For the illusion will give you countless opportunities for doubt. And whatever your epiphany and insight upon the mountaintop [in regard to] being seemingly crushed and lost in the valley, wondering if the mountaintop was true, wondering again why you do it at all, it is in the valley that faith has its place.

And we assure you however cramped may be your mental interior, and lost and grief stricken, or angry or torn to bits you may feel, it is possible from within that abyss to find one’s way to faith again because it is a centralization of the will to that which you are, even when in the valley, even when boxed in and seemingly cut off from light, from inspiration, from love, from connection, from others. We remind you, as has been the essence of our message all along, of who and what you are then, too, as you are right now.

Faith is that invisible bridge that links you, that opens the conduit to allow the light. And this act of faith, particularly when strengthened, may have the power to dissipate the shadows completely and allow the vision to be restored. But more often than not, particularly in the depths of the valley, it allows light sufficient to strengthen the heart and strengthen the trust that, as we spoke previously, even this can be not only survived but processed and transmuted into a whole and risen being. “Even this, if I persist, if I can keep my head up, if I can keep moving forward,” or, as the case may be, “if I only rest here for a moment that there is a light upon the other side, that this will all make sense,” shall we say; that there is a purpose, and that you are upon a great journey which you cannot see entirely, and you cannot know completely, but through faith, you can exercise this trust that modifies the darkness.

This is the essence of faith. It is a trusting through that which you cannot see. And the further one goes along the path as the self ripens and become seasoned, the more that one can exercise this trust, having looked back and seeing how many previous cycles one has moved through and yet is still here. And indeed how—and you may hear this refrain echoed from others upon the path, take not our word for it—how the most difficult experiences in your incarnation are those which teach you the most, and those which offer the greatest fruit and reward for the spiritual journey.

It is a skill, my friends, to move through change and to suffer, and there is greater and greater grace available for the one who learns to cultivate and wield their will and faith through this process.

We thank this circle and at this time transfer our contact to the one known as Jim. We are those known to you as the principal of Q’uo.

[Pause]

(Jim channeling)

I am Q’uo, and I am with this instrument once again. We thank the one known as Gary for alerting this instrument to the conscious state. We would ask at this time if there is a query to which we may respond?

I have a question, Q’uo. Thank you for taking my question. Thinking in terms of the unrest on a planetary scale, I feel uncertainty about where we are in meeting this 51% tipping point. And I wonder if you could comment in the light of the current wars, and the greed and the power struggles and suffering, if you could quantify for close, or I don’t know…. I just want to know how you perceive our level of suffering as a planet at this time during this transition.

I’m Q’uo and am aware of your query, my sister. The population of your planet Earth is a population which has moved through many times of the third-density experience upon other planets. There are many that have now begun to feel the awakening of the spiritual journey on a conscious level so that there are many now that are achieving that level of 51% service-to-others that will, if maintained, allow a graduation into what you know of as the fourth density of love and understanding.

However, the great number of entities upon your planet and at this time that are experiencing the separation of oneself from another, whether it be in families, communities, or nations, are those which have not been able to discover this spiritual journey in a conscious sense. This is that kind of journey which is existing, shall we say, in the darkness of the experience, so that the light and love of the One Infinite Creator is no longer aware and is that which no longer is felt.

There is the experience of confusion, of seeming separation, so that there is within this grouping of people the failure to move into the heart to the level necessary for graduation into the fourth density. Therefore, there is a likelihood that most of the entities within your third density will need to find another third-density planet to incarnate upon as they move from this bodily experience and look for the chances to move into the heart once again upon another third density planet.

This is the nature and, because of the types of separation and bellicosity that are rampant upon your planet at this time, these are the times at which—if this population could utilize the catalyst of the separation and bellicosity in the positive sense and turn the attention to the heart within each entity, seeing as each the other self—there could be the graduation then into the fourth density for a greater number of the people of your planet. However, we are afraid that this is something which is not the most likely outcome of the current experience which you have now upon your planet Earth.

Is there another query, my sister?

No, thank you Q’uo. That clarified things. It’s sad news, but it’s a reality. Thank you.

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

[Pause]

I am Q’uo, and as we have apparently exhausted the queries, we shall thank each person here within the circle of seeking for their contributions to the vibrations of unity and love that have been predominant today within this circle. This is one of the most inspiring experiences that we have been able to have in your meetings that have occurred this year. We are so grateful for the feeling of unity, the feeling of purpose, the feeling of sharing the heart, one with another. This is the great journey that each is upon, and we feel honored to have been able to move in some portion with you on that journey this afternoon.

At this time, we shall take our leave of this group and of this instrument. Leaving each in the love and the light and One Infinite Creator. We are known to you as those of Q’uo. Adonai vasu borragus.