Hi, everyone. This is Gary Bean, the entity who is welcoming you to the L/L Research podcast, In the Now, Episode #28. L/L Research is a nonprofit organization dedicated to freely sharing spiritually-oriented information and fostering community, and towards this end has two websites: the archive website, LLResearch.org; and the community website, Bring4th.org. During each episode, those of us at L/L Research form a panel to consider questions from spiritual seekers. Our panel consists of Jim McCarty, husband to the late Carla Rueckert, scribe for the Ra contact, and president of L/L Research, along with Austin Bridges and myself, who are working hard to keep the mission of L/L Research alive and well; each of us a devoted seeker and student of the Law of One. We intend this podcast to be a platform of discussion as we consider questions from spiritual seekers that often challenge us to articulate our own perspective. Our replies to these questions are not final and authoritative; instead they are generally subjective interpretations stemming from our own studies and life experiences. We always ask each who listens to exercise their own discernment and listen for their own resonance in determining what is true for them. If you would like to submit a question for this show, please do so; our humble podcast relies on your questions. You may either send an email to or go to LLResearch.org/podcast for further instructions. Again, I am Gary and we are embarking on our 28th episode of L/L Research’s weekly podcast, In the Now. Austin Bridges and Jim McCarty, are you with us?

With you and ready.

Aye, aye, Captain.

All right. Everybody is on board and we will launch into Erna’s question. And before I do that, Jim, I had forgotten to mention that Erna’s question was large enough that it could be broken up. So, we’ll focus on the first half of it, reply, and then dig into the second part of her question. So, Erna writes:

Light attracts darkness, so the more light you create the more darkness you will attract, as happened with the Ra contact. If I remember correctly, Carla described the contact as a blinding cynosure, which was immediately noticed by the dark forces. The thought of this sometimes disturbs me, because the more light I create, the more darkness I will attract. I think somewhere in the Ra material Ra mentioned that if you cannot deal with the darkness that is attracted, stand further from the light, because the closer you are to the light, the more prominent the shadow that is cast. I guess my question is basically this: If you are far along the positive path, must you ready yourself for severe trial and tribulation, if not possible attempts by the loyal opposition to be removed from this incarnation? Maybe I’m just chicken shit, but my fear of evil is very paralyzing for me. I am still unable to gaze upon evil with love, which is the only way to counter the evil.

And she closes by saying, ‘Lastly, thank you, Jim, for telling us that you love us at the end of every podcast; it makes me feel much better, as it always did when Carla used to do it!’ So, Jim, what do you think about Erna’s question?

Well, I think in general the individual seeker doesn’t have to worry so much about the type of psychic greetings that we did during the Ra contact because there were three of us who were working very hard to be of service to others. That was our stated intention, and that was Ra’s intention as well. Each individual entity that is a seeker of truth is also attempting to be of service, and the farther along the path you go, the more service you can perhaps be. But it’s still not the type of service that a group can provide. So, I don’t think that most people have to worry about that type of a psychic greeting. However, I think there is a type of a point of view that is helpful to develop, and that is that we’re all eternal beings. There’s really nothing done to us on this earth that will affect us beyond this life. Everything can be balanced in another life. While you’re seeking on your path and trying to be of service to others, don’t worry about what could happen. Just do your thing; seek as you seek.

Everybody here is attempting to learn certain lessons, and we’re all doing the best we can at that. Entities that seem to be evil, there really aren’t that many around. Evil is pretty hard to accomplish. So, what you’re seeing when you’re seeing somebody that seems like they’re doing something that’s negative or evil, you’re seeing a basically good person that’s confused. And people really aren’t a danger to you; they’re not a threat to you. Entities really don’t hover about waiting for you to make some sort of mistake. I would say: clear your mind of all the problems that you associate with psychic greetings and just go about your way of seeking in whatever way feels best to you, and attempt to see everyone and everything as the Creator. If you do that, then you’re basically providing yourself with a shield of light. You are the type of being that can’t be fooled. You know that when you’re dealing with anyone or anything, you’re dealing with the Creator, and with that type of a point of view then, you are providing yourself with your own protection. So, that would be my basic suggestion; just do what you’re doing and stay positive.

Thank you, Jim. Austin, what are your thoughts?

I like that perspective. And to add a little bit to what Jim was saying about the circumstances of the Ra contact itself, from what I understand, that sort of working is a highly magical working, as Ra might describe it, and it’s not something that’s typically done by people who aren’t trained adepts. And the group was able to protect themselves based on the love and the harmony that they had. But this isn’t the type of situation that most seekers are going to find themselves in. And it was the nature of the work that attracted the type of attention that it did. I don’t think that typical day-to-day spiritual seekers who just want to be as open and loving, and as in service as possible, are going to attract nearly the same type of attention as they got during the contact. And on top of that, I think there is a particular type of attention that is attracted through channeling. When you’re opening yourself up as a window to other realms, especially the outer realms that aren’t on earth, it kind of sends a signal to anything that may wish to speak through you or might be interested in that sort of open window. And that type of attention, I don’t think, is typical of something that most seekers would attract.

But I do understand Erna’s worry, as I think that there might be some sort of attention. Ra talks about, in particular, Wanderers being targets for psychic greetings and stuff like that. So, there might be a little bit of attention — some psychic greeting — that comes along with spiritual seeking. But I think that this— You don’t need to worry about it so much, and you can take this perspective: that the psychic greeting you are receiving can actually be helpful in a way. Ra talks about how psychic greeting is really only an energizing of already present distortions. So if we acknowledge that, and we look at the psychic greeting as sort of a highlighting of distortions that we’re not typically aware of, then that can be used as a helpful guide for pointing out little inconsistencies or things [that] are unconscious to us.

I also think that some people might mistake just regular, sort of, spiritual seeking disharmony that arises from within, as psychic greeting, too. Because as we set ourselves on the path of self-discovery— But there are some things we are really kind of pushing down and trying to ignore. They might come up in sort of turbulent ways and this might seem like we might be being attacked in some way. But in reality, it’s just our own psyches and our own bodies — our own higher self, even — trying to get our attention, saying, “Look at this. This is something you’re ignoring; it’s something for you to process,” and it’s not necessarily an attack from an outer force. So I don’t think that we need to worry as much as Erna is talking about worrying, and that these things can actually be useful for us on our path from a certain point of view.

Good caveat. My reply incorporates both of the very salient and excellent points you guys made. Mine starts with a basic thesis statement that the activities of the service-to-self polarity are not the problem. The mindset of worry and fear and concern is the problem. The so-called evil or darkness is not the problem; the fear within you is. And I would restart— I would start, rather, by reminding you of where Jim was going, and that is what the actual situation is. Everything you see, everywhere you go, everything you do — indeed, every entity you meet — it all is the one Creator. You are in a field of the one Creator; and you are, Erna, the one Creator. This is you, right now. And this is true, too, of the loyal opposition, and darkness, and suffering, and all things which we might slot under the category heading of “bad.” Now, you mentioned knowledge of this truth in your question, but judging by the thrust of your question, your mind, it seems, is captured by the fear. You’re having difficulty with that. So my reply is to meditate on the oneness of all things, on the Creator within all things. And then when you really begin seeing things from that standpoint, you can see that everything that happens to you, or around you, or within you is an opportunity for learning and for growth and for service, for realization.

So, what are those of the negative polarity offering you? They are offering you an opportunity. On the surface it might seem to be working against you, but with the right orientation and attitude, it is ultimately working for you. They are giving you the chance to develop your will and your faith, to redouble your efforts to serve others, and to test your ability to really practice unconditional love at times when it’s not easy. Another way to say that is that darkness offers you catalyst. Catalyst catalyzes growth, but only insofar as it’s used. If it’s not used, you can become unconscious and not present, and react with conditioned patterns of fear. You will become small, and constrict your energy, and reinforce the fiction that you are separate from all that there is. You will give away your native power to the fear. Or, if you use the catalyst— rather, you can use the catalyst by steadfastly facing that which you fear, Erna, looking at it, accepting it. See through it. See what a phantom the fear is. Don’t run from it. Don’t hide from it. Don’t try to force it away or rationalize it away. Just look at it. Be with your fear. Sit with it. Know that it is a phenomenon arising within you, and that you are much greater than fear. That fear has power over you only insofar as you fear, or hide from it, or run from it. Fear itself is only a problem if it’s treated as one, and made into a boogeyman that has some kind of power over you.

So, there may indeed be trial and tribulation upon your path — upon all positive seekers’ paths — at different moments. There’s also a lot of joy and good times on the positive seeker’s path. Keep that in mind, too. [Regarding] the Ra contact, specifically, I agree one hundred percent with what Austin said about it being anomalous, essentially, and not something that you or most positive seekers will encounter. But blinding cynosure, though it may have been, the three in that group loved one another and had a really good time. Don eventually, of course, slipped into mental illness, but prior to that point the three enjoyed themselves. And as Jim describes it now, they felt that they were on the mountaintop.

So, back to what I was saying. There may indeed be trial and tribulation, but what’s most important is the mindset with which you approach trial and tribulation. With the proper attitude, those trials become opportunity; tribulation becomes opportunity; loss becomes opportunity; limitation becomes opportunity. And the fire of trial and tribulation will burn away only that which is illusory within you. And it’s painful only insofar as you are identified with the illusory parts of you. So it’s a gift, in a sense, in that— not even in a sense; it is a gift from the ultimate perspective because it’s revealing who you really are. It’s stripping away the illusion, the fiction, to reveal what Erna really is underneath. So, to the extent you can, release attachments and just leap into midair and trust that all is well; and whatever the outcome, the Creator’s will is being served. You are positioning yourself to move as smoothly and effectively through trial and tribulation as possible. So, meditate on the Creator. Meditate on what this reality actually is, and what you’re actually doing here, and what you actually are. Remember: Ra said (and the mystics agree) each seeker will receive that which they need.

Remember: if you are experiencing something, you are receiving it because you need it and you are capable of successfully processing that catalyst. And remember that catalyst is self-generated. The trials and tribulations come only from yourself. Other-selves are only proximate causes or triggers. So in the end, I would reply with the counsel to trust. I’ve got a Q’uo topic on fear, but I have talked at great length, so I’ll table that for now. Before we move on to the second part of Erna’s question, do you, Jim or Austin, have any thoughts to offer?

Just one last one. I think one of the most important things that Ra said is all is well and all will be well. It can be no other way in a creation of unity.

The second part of Erna’s question says:

What can one do to be able to look upon any manifestation of evil with love? There is no shortage in the news of serial killers, rapists, dictators, etc., and I find it very disturbing. And it definitely doesn’t conjure up feelings of love inside of me — more like nightmares at night. I do realize that the more you are able to acknowledge and assimilate the darkness within yourself, the more you will be able to gaze upon darkness elsewhere with love — when you realize “I am that too.” But I mostly refer to people’s selfishness in the workplace or self-righteousness, that kind of petty darkness. I am unable to do it with severe evil, like brutal rapes and killings and dictatorships — things that are really evil to me. What to do with this dilemma aside from standing further from the light? And what exactly does standing further from the light mean in a practical sense: Doing things that would depolarize you so that you create less light? That was a little tongue in cheek, but what does standing further from the light mean in a practical sense?

I guess there are actually two questions in there from Erna. But how about we see what Austin’s got in store for you, Erna.

Well, one teaching that’s really stuck with me on my spiritual path (this is sort of responding to the first one), is what can we do to look on any manifestation of evil with love when we can’t seem to conjure love. Honestly, I don’t think it is that unusual, and I don’t think it would be normal for any positive spiritual seeker to see things in the news, like brutal rapes and killings and dictatorships, and just smile and say, ‘Oh, that’s great.’ I don’t think that that is really the point of all this, but finding that love is a slightly different thing. And one thing that has stuck with me on my spiritual path is something that I heard Ken Wilber talk about. I think Ken Wilber’s probably my most referenced topic besides Ra on this show, but he was talking exactly about this topic: How exactly do we love something when love just doesn’t seem to be there? And he said very simply, ‘Let Jesus love them.’ And this was sort of eschewed to a Christian background, obviously, to people who have a relationship with Jesus in that certain way. But the sentiment can be expanded to whatever you view as sort of the paragon of love. It may be a person, or a thing, or a teaching that you feel is just the ultimate, unconditional love. And to a person that has Jesus as this sort of paragon, they can identify— Let me back up a little bit. To Jesus, there should be nothing that escapes his love, including the types of evil that Erna’s talking about.

So in this case, if someone finds that they are unable to find love within themselves for something they’re perceiving, they can rest some knowing that there is some ideal — a paragon of love — that they very strongly believe in, in which these things can be loved. Then it’s an act of sort of building a relationship with Jesus or whoever or whatever that paragon of love is to you, allowing yourself to slowly realize that you are one with that paragon itself. You possess the same consciousness. You are the same creator. And the love that they feel for those things is the same love that you feel for anything. And it can be applied to those situations, but there is just something inside of you that seems to not let you get to that point. But this isn’t necessarily an instant thing. I think it’s something that has to be done over a period of time, or even a lifetime. And even if you don’t quite make it to that point, I wouldn’t stress about it. I think the act of simply attempting to find love is a very spiritually powerful statement.

So essentially, the idea is to allow what your idea of a paragon of love is, to love those things that you can’t seem to find love within yourself, and slowly rise up to meet that paragon where they are. Don’t try to force yourself to do it, but allow it to be a process. And if you don’t make it, then don’t judge yourself too harshly. When Ra talks about the idea of the moment containing love, and that being the lesson or goal of this density, they use the words “to seek” and “attempt” and you notice that they don’t necessarily talk about finding it. To choose to have faith that there can be love and attempt to seek it, even if it seems like you failed, I think is still a great act of love and faith. And I have a little bit for Erna’s next question, but I’ll pass it over to Jim to see what he has to say.

Well, I would suggest that you kind of step back a little bit, Erna, and look at the incarnation from a larger point of view. See that this planet is a third-density planet that has an illusion. The illusion is that things are real here. What is actually happening is that this is a laboratory; this is a place where we learn. We learn the lessons we planned pre-incarnatively. And sometimes the way we learn those lessons look in this third-density to be rather difficult and maybe even tragic. For example, Carla’s mom and dad responded to her great intelligence by giving her constructive criticism and expecting much more out of her as a young child than they would of a person with lesser intelligence. She was seven years old when she started taking care of her brothers. She was ten years old when she was cooking for the family. But they didn’t give her support; they gave her constructive criticism to try to make her even better because she had the intelligence and capacity to do that. What it did, though, was make her feel that she was worthless, and after a while she felt like she just couldn’t make it. And she had a near-death experience where she learned that she had programmed this before the life, that if she wanted to try another life and have two lessons and two lives with these lessons, spread them out, make them easier, she could do that. But she didn’t want to have another childhood, so she came back.

So she learned the lesson of how to give without expectation of return by being with parents who criticized her for doing a really well-done job. Later on in her life she developed difficulties with the physical vehicle, had to have surgeries, and had to have a lot of things done for her that she couldn’t have done herself because she was incapacitated. That seems like a very unfortunate situation, but it balanced the original lesson of learning to give without expectations of return by allowing her then to balance it with learning to accept the love offerings of others, which had a requirement that she feel worthy of love offerings. And that was a lesson she needed to learn: how to feel worthy, to work on her indigo ray. So, those two situations would seem to a person ‘Oh, that’s unfortunate; that shouldn’t be that way,’ but they were that way for a reason because they were an illusion. They were an illusion of difficulty that provided an opportunity to learn, and most of what happens in this third-density illusion is exactly that. People help each other out by playing certain roles in each other’s lives. The roles may not always seem to be positive in this illusion, but in the ultimate reality beyond this illusion, they are quite helpful. So I would say: Take a little larger point of view. Step back a bit and see that maybe there can be some really good things come out of difficult circumstances. Gary?

Thanks so much, Jim. My reply is kind of a recapitulation of yours in a bit, and I wanted to note that Austin’s mention of how Ra talks about the seeking of love and the attempt to seek, or to see love, is really what’s important. It’s the intention to want to do that. The results will come as they will. So, my thought on this question (and actually I’ll take a step back and preface again that this question is probably one of the most frequent I’ve seen in our history of doing the podcast and the Blog Talk Radio before): How do you love the unlovable? How, especially in this particular world with so much brutality and ugliness and darkness, how do you love that? How do you keep your heart open and forgive?— And we’ve found different ways to try to reply to that question. Just please do know these dynamics are very personal and intimate dynamics in our own lives, too. We have a sense of what happens on this planet on a daily basis and it’s grist for the mill for us, as well, and it’s a process. So today’s iteration, in my mind, is that serial killers, and rapists, and dictators — there are those types of people who do those types of things — and those things are terrible by our relative measure of things. I personally would prefer a planet absent of the vicious extremes to which the human heart can so readily go. But, however distorted or malfunctioning or just downright evil another self may be (this is where I get into where Jim was headed), [it] is a role that they are playing upon a stage. It is a costume that they wear over their true identity. And like nearly everyone here, they forget that they are playing a role. You forget that you are playing a role. I forget. And we all become hypnotized by the passion and the play of the third-density stage.

So, with that in mind, how do you love those who harm others? My practice, and what I would recommend, is to see beneath or behind their actions. Look not at the role itself, but look at who they really are underneath. And you may begin to see that they are you. All is you. All is the one Creator. Whether that’s the petty darkness, as you called it, of self-righteousness or the really large-scale evil of the dictator — whatever that person is doing — that is their outer role and it’s not ultimately who they are. What they’re doing has consequence, of course, both for you and for themselves. But it’s still not seeing as deeply as you can see, which is so I don’t intend to ignore their outer role or their decisions or their distortions, but just to go deeper and connect with the truth of the matter. And then let that truth inform your perceptions of their wrongdoings. See beneath the costume and then reassess. See what your reaction is and you can always go deeper. I’ve read and listened to a multitude of mystics, and they describe infinity and love as bottomless, as endless. There’s no depth that you reach where you say, ’Ah-ha, this is [it]. I’ve reached the finality. This is the bottom of it.’ It keeps going and going. So you can always go deeper, and if you’re having the reaction that you’re having, that is highlighting your catalyst and your work and you can go deeper. You can see more deeply, and the most central and focused way to do that, [that] I’m aware of, is to see the Creator, to see over and over, to see that wrong-doer as the Creator. So before we try to tackle your other question about what it means — standing further apart from the light — do you, Bridges or McCarty, have anything further to offer?

Not on that one. Thanks.

No. There was a Q’uote I was trying to find from one of the recent Q’uo channelings, but I can’t seem to find it. But I know that the session is the [one on] November 21, 2015, which talks about this a little bit. So if you’re curious about this topic and want to see what Q’uo has to say about it, you can find that in our archives.

So just to reiterate briefly, Erna was asking what exactly does standing further from the light mean in a practical sense. So I’ll go first; mine is quick. So far as I’m aware, [in] standing [further from the light], you’re going to intentionally say, ‘I want to stand further from the light and not be in it.’ One way would be, in say, the case of the Ra contact— One way would be to say, ‘All right, we’re not going to contact Ra any longer; thus, we will get out of that strong light.’ But for the general seeker, I would think that would translate into meaning not following your highest and best, and not listening to your heart and kind of turning your back on yourself, in a way. Because to follow your highest and best necessarily means that you will stand closer and closer in the light. How about Jim, what have you got?

Well, yes, whatever practices you’ve been practicing for traveling your spiritual path, then maybe you wouldn’t meditate; you wouldn’t read as much in spiritual literature; maybe you wouldn’t go down and volunteer at the soup kitchen. Whatever you’ve been doing to polarize more positively, then you would not do.

Yes, my response is basically the same. It could be something like stop attempting to find the love, and stop attempting to grow your awareness; stop having faith that the moment actually does contain love. I think, in a more practical sense, something that Erna might find more useful than just stopping the path of seeking is to give yourself a break. And if you come across something that you really can’t seem to grasp and it really just traumatizes you, then there is really no shame in kind of trying to remove yourself from being aware of it until you have more balance and find yourself at a more steady state, and really feel like you have a strong grasp on the love within you. And then try to approach it again.

Yes, I think that’s a really helpful thing to say just because a seeker— Say somebody listens to us and they’re in a state of fear or great anxiety, trepidation, and they say, ‘Well, this is just fear. I can overcome it. I can see through it.’ And they’re just a tangle of confusion and difficulty, and anxiety is ratcheting up and the pressure is ratcheting up. Sometimes it’s helpful just to step back; set it aside as best you can. Take a break and nurture yourself, and not try to force yourself through it, and see it from the highest perspective that you’re capable of seeing.

Umm-hmm.

I was going to … we’re at over thirty minutes— So I’d found a Q’uote that stuck in my head for a long time that I was going to read to close out this session, and then turn it over to Jim so he could wish everybody well. But before I do that, do you guys have any further thoughts?

Not I.

Nope, not from me.

All right. Actually, if you’ll— If you don’t mind Erna, I have a short Ra quote that I’ll read that we’ve quoted multiple times in the past, and then I’ll go into the Q’uote. Altogether both are four paragraphs. So, in 95.24, Ra says:

The seeker which has purely chosen the service-to-others path shall certainly not have a variant apparent incarnational experience. There is no outward shelter in your illusion from the gusts, flurries, and blizzards of quick and cruel catalyst. However, to the pure, all that is encountered speaks of the love and the light of the One Infinite Creator. The cruelest blow is seen with an ambiance of challenges offered and opportunities to come. Thusly, the great pitch of light is held high above such an one so that all interpretation may be seen to be protected by light.

And then, from January 27, 1991, Q’uo says:

The fear is an entity which is a kind of quality. Only by choice can it be attached to any object. It is a modifier of objects as your adjectives are modifiers of words. As nouns are distorted by their qualifying elements, adjectives, adverbs, dependent clauses, so is your consciousness disturbed by fear, when it has been attached to an object …Examine any situation which seems without possible options for the feeling tones of fear, whether they be angry fear, frustrated fear, terrified fear, or the fairly purely perceived fear of helplessness and powerlessness. Lack of control is the basis for reaching out and pulling into the life experience this quality of fear. It is a simple choice. When fear is felt, and after it is recognized that the self is not fixed, and it does not have to fix fear to any object, it then is aware that it may proceed further, and gaze at the object of fear to find a positivity or affirmative quality which may be seen to be that which love offers in that same object of attention. You cannot blink when you gaze at the object which is causing you fear, because it is up to you to choose how you shall respect this object. Shall you respect it by fearing it, by bowing before it, by accommodating yourself to it regardless of the cost? Or shall you relate to this in love, offering it the respect of compassion, and, in many cases, the appreciation of, and respect for, opportunities that may seem very, very challenging?

Jim, would you like to close us out?

Yes, we’d like to thank everybody who’s sent us questions. Especially today, Erna, we’d like to thank you. We’d like to thank everybody for taking the time to listen to us. If you have any thoughts or questions you’d like to share with us, we’d appreciate it a lot. We appreciate your love and want you to know we love you all very much, and as we help love each other, we help bring each other home. You all have a good week.

You’ve been listening to L/L Research’s weekly podcast, In the Now. If you’ve enjoyed the show, please visit our websites: L/L Research.org and Bring4th.org. Thanks so much for listening, and a special thank you to those who submitted questions. If you would like to send us a question before the next show, please read the instructions on our page at LLResearch.org/podcast. New episodes are published to the archive website every Wednesday at 1:00 p.m. Eastern. Have a wonderful week and we’ll talk with you then.

Thanks to Mary A. for transcribing this episode, and Nancye G. for editing!