April 3, 1988

(Carla channeling)

Q’uo

I am Q’uo. I greet you in the love and in the light of the one infinite Creator. It is a great privilege to be called to your group to answer your query about suffering. As we revel in your company and the loveliness of your meditation, we revel also in the extreme beauty which surrounds and permeates your domicile at this time, for we are able in consciousness to share with those within the domicile their impressions of the burgeoning blooming of the countryside, the singing of your birds and all the beautiful colorations of sky and land and water that create such ineffable beauty, that great manifestation of the bounty and the ever-living quality of life which, though in winter it may seem gone, resurrects from the winter earth each springtide into new freedom to seek the light in the humble way of plant, animal and element.

You wish to know what the cause of suffering may be, whether it may be due to a lack of perception of oneness, what its cause is, and what its cure.

We are minded to discuss a suffering life that all within your culture are aware exists, that of a teacher, master and Christ known to you as Jesus of Nazareth. When we examine the life pattern of this individual we see an entity thrown apart, even within childhood, suffering the loneliness and lack of companionship which accompanies the unusual and serious student in the small child’s body, for by the age of what you call your teens, the one known as Jesus was very learned, speaking as a rabbi would, knowledgeably of much literature, much memorization, much insight. This lonely entity walked in his curiosity into many places, always the stranger, seeking information, seeking guidance, seeking understanding, and suffering always the loneliness of the stranger.

When the time had come to make the final dedication of the life’s work the one known as Jesus was aware of this great and momentous necessity. There had been clear communication within this entity with that which this entity called “I AM.” The ministry, the one known as Jesus knew in advance, would be difficult and would end in the physical death of his body.

Why did this instrument of the one infinite Creator accept this suffering with no strife or struggle, no contentional argument? This is what we would explore.

There is much of what is called truth which is indeed not truth, but a multiplicity of ever-shifting truths which function in what you may call a social way, in order to slide one through the incarnation with the least possible friction. There is another truth, an absolute and unchanging truth, a mysterious, puzzling, ever-calling truth which any within your illusion cannot see but only know through the experience of love.

Love is the great one original Thought. It cannot be bought; it cannot be manipulated; and it cannot be killed. It may become obvious that we are not speaking of romantic love, which is prey to all these difficulties. We are not speaking of the love of friendship or any other definition of love which may be put into words. Indeed, could we find an unique word which would express the beautiful, terrible love which created all that there is, we would use it. Yet this concept lies so far within the area of the deep mind its reality can only be reached through the non-words which may be called “faith.” This love is single, and within it are all things, all entities, thoughts, artifacts, seeming objects and each and every energy within the infinity of creation. Each of you is love. This is your reality, your absoluteness, your unchangeable nature, your truth.

Suffering lies not upon this level but upon the level, for the most part, of half-seen truths, truths that are relative to the situations and conditions of your society and culture. We realize that there are those who experience suffering in physical ways: pain, hunger, sickness and death, that process which is so feared among your peoples. By far, however, the greatest amount of suffering among your peoples is due to the ingestion and acceptance of cultural and social truths—and in this we include theology of all kinds—as standards against which to measure the self.

This instrument, for example, experiences continual pain to one degree or another. The instrument’s suffering, however, is far more emotional than physical, for this entity suffers in wonderment that she cannot fulfill her own expectations of what her service, her energy, and her life should contain.

Are you then suffering emotionally, each to whom we speak? We assert that this suffering is paramount.

Let us gaze at the panoply of emotional suffering. Within most of your culture, to have a skin color at variance with the fleshtone which you call, to our puzzlement, white, is to suffer from the narrow-mindedness and the prejudice of those not of your race. And whether each race knows it or not, each suffers from prejudice, and this prejudice becomes a suffering. Each who is born homosexual within your culture is denied the consolation of your cultural institution’s regularizing relationships. Further, there are many, many cultural obsessions which form a rejecting net of discrimination, and so in the name of truth suffering is perpetrated. There are those who in their mated relationships, experiencing in the mate much love, find that in the passage of time, the mate has turned to other energies, other entities, other positions in time and space. The separation creates suffering, not because the separation is real, but because there is a loss of love perceived

My children, we could weep at the suffering caused in the name of truth. And as we go back within your planet’s history, we see and ask you to see with us, how each time and age and culture created its own bigotry, narrow-mindedness and distortion of harmony and unity, marking each person out in some way as unacceptable. And because all of the culture expresses much the same bias, the entity experiencing incarnation at any cultural moment will find that it is suffering because it cannot be that which the culture and the society have declared appropriate.

May we say that those whose spiritual orientation is rigid, by their judging of others in a harsh and overt manner, create much suffering in the name of the very teacher, the one known as Jesus, who moved into this vibration to call those who suffered, those who were mocked and despised. This entity was not interested in the righteous, those who knew the truth of the culture, and we specifically in this term, culture, include organized religion, as this instrument calls it, for these judgments carry an enormous, though specious weight among your peoples. Ah, we weep for you. Yours is a planet of sorrow, even upon the joyous day of Easter.

We move now to the contemplation of unity. We move out of the realm of the relative to the absolute, and we ask you to follow us. We ask you to release the opinions of the world, to release the dictates of what is expected, and especially in those suffering spiritually from teachings that do not show them the face of I AM, to release those harsh theological strictures which, though most helpful for some, have not been helpful for you, but have instead caused tremendous guilt and suffering. We ask you to turn from opinion, all opinion, and most especially your own, because this is Easter, because the energy of this planet at this moment is most light and full of life. We would ask you to experience directly the promise of which Easter is the symbol, the promise of the infinity of I AM.

When one moves away from, “I want, I feel, I think, I like, I dislike,” and so forth, one is left empty, and may perhaps feel that the comfortable structure that houses one’s ethics and principles have been left behind also. It is a naked feeling. It is a difficult feeling to achieve, for one who has not carefully examined the huge weight of opinion and accepted authority in one’s life has no idea of the percentage of the active portion of the conscious mind which is involved in processing catalyst using these distortions rather than experiencing catalyst with an open heart, an open mind, and a knowledge of the self’s true identity.

My children, it is difficult, we know, to deal with the intricate and wonderfully made illusion which begins with your very body and its electrical field, and continues with that which the organs of the body may perceive, all those things about one, all those thoughts spoken to one and by one, all the infinite details of a daily life. How much of the time is spent in the consciousness of I AM?

Thus, before we speak upon the purpose of suffering, we wish with steady hand and firm heart to present to you the concept that the truths which are relative and cultural must needs be examined carefully and analyzed closely, so that one may see to the best of one’s ability what one’s own selfhood truly feels and thinks about that which the culture demands of one. This includes everything from the choice of career to the intricacies of relationships. So much of your communication is distorted by each entity’s attempt, conscious or unconscious, to manipulate one’s environment in such a way that one is positioned in a satisfactory angle to one’s culture, one’s acquaintances, and oneself.

Cultures change. The self changes. These truths are relative. Those rules regarding behavior, for the most part, need constant reexamination, for that which has been true for you at one time, will of necessity change and transform as you change and transform. We do not wish to suggest that it is necessary to change any thought or action. We only ask those who are suffering because they are homosexual, divorced, addicted or any other calamity need not think of themselves lost to Oneness, for all of these things are taking place within an illusion which is designed for a certain purpose. This certain purpose is absolute, and within the absolute purpose of spiritual evolution towards love, suffering is an absolute necessity.

Now, not all those within the creation find the necessity to experience suffering. Many are the entities which have been created never to leave the Logos, never to leave love, never to leave the absolute, but always to experience and be the I AM which is love. Each bloom which breaks forth its tender shoots through the softening winter earth is expressing absolute ecstasy, absolute joy, and this joy is fragrant and beautiful, and may be perceived by all.

The one known as Jesus the Christ noted that his kingdom was not of this world. Think you then that he meant the kingdom of the world of flowers and birds, spirits and beauty? May we hasten to give our opinion, fallible though it may be, that this was never this entity’s intent. This entity had been courted as the hoped-for and earthly king of a specific people in a specific region. These people had a truth which was theological, and therefore relative, made of opinion. This opinion was that this entity could lead a revolution, topple a government, and reign as the kings of Judah and Israel of old, a Jewish king for a Jewish nation. This entity wished none of the limitations of relativity. He wished to be limited in no way, for this entity focused always upon the absolute, and in his converse, he turned as much to his Father, Abba ¹, as he did to any friend or student.

“My kingdom is not of this world,” he said. Not, we say, the world of experience, the world of opinion, the world of cultural demands, the world of theological limitations. When this instrument of the Father came at last to face that man which could spare the entity, the one known as Jesus made no defense. His judge was puzzled, for he saw the suffering which had occurred and the suffering which was to come which was prepared for the one known as Jesus, and could not understand why this humble teacher would not defend himself. Finally, in desperation, this entity simply asked, “Are you king of the Jews?”

Jesus the Christ, eyes calm, spoke clearly. “You say that I am so,” said he. “Yet for one purpose came I unto this world, to bear witness to the truth.”

His judge was immediately fascinated. “What is truth?” he asked. Jesus the Christ only gazed into Pontius Pilate’s eyes, and Pontius Pilate saw the I AM of Love.

What is truth, my children? In seeking for this answer, the greatest spiritual suffering may be experienced, for as we have said, truth is most often sought in the culture and in religious theology. And in this we include, to some extent, our own work with this instrument, not excepting ourselves from the world of opinion, but consciously accepting that we who use words can never be, but only express, thus offering a manifestation which is but the shadow of our being, our I AM. Truths and Truth, the relative and the absolute. There is a Truth, there is an absolute, and thus there is an end to suffering. That Truth lies in the kingdom which the one known as Jesus the Christ stated was not of this world, not of this world of opinion.

We ask you to gaze within. We ask…

[Side one of tape ends.]

…[you to gaze] upon that which lies behind that which we are saying, our consciousness. All of you are suffering within the confines of a prison. It is the prison of your limitations. Your fingers stop and the air begins, your feet stop and the ground begins. There are separations of space between you and all other beings. There is the curtain behind the eyes of those with whom you wish to communicate which limits harmony. You are, to this extent, dead in a very real sense, and we want you to enter into the consciousness of life.

We want you to experience I AM. As you rest, speak that word, “I AM,” and find something come to life deep within. I AM. This is the kingdom of which Jesus the Christ spoke. For the essence of being, the essence, I AM is that which we have called divine love. It is not only that which loves all that there is; it is all that there is. It is not that through any agency you may become an associate of Christhood; it is that all of you shall eventually perceive the self as Christ. Or to put it another way, that one day, if we may use inaccurate terms, you shall be all Christ, all absolute, pure being. Rest in this consciousness for a moment, and experience life.

Where is truth? Truth is in the absolutes that shine through the relative. Truth is in the smile, the laughter and joy, the moments of kinship, the body’s intimate ecstasy in the making of physical love, the spontaneous reaction of deep compassion. And in the end, truth in an absolute sense may, to the disciplined mind and heart, become the companion that walks beside you, through whose eyes you may see anew the whole and unified life lived in love. That which is suffering is that against which the entity seeking to know love for the Creator, love for the self, and service to others may push against, may use, not as the stumbling block, but as the starting block. For each difficulty which causes suffering is that which has been arranged that some distortion concerning the essence of love within your understanding may be examined, thought about further, and perhaps revised somewhat.

Without the challenges, the suffering, the problems, there would be a heedless, naive and unschooled joy, the second-density joy of those small creatures you call animals, which frolic and play, hunt and kill with no sense of anything but wholeness. This is a wonderful experience, yet for those within your density, it is not an altogether instructive experience, not an experience designed in the end to move one along in the spiritual evolution.

Each challenge gives one the chance to turn to I AM, to Beingness, and ask that infinite intelligence which is love, “What is the absolute principle which illuminates this situation?” Absolute love may be hidden for long periods of time, and the questing process, the experience of pain and separation, may go on for a seemingly infinite period of time. Your peoples attempt to avoid, cover over, and patch up these situations to alleviate discomfort, without seeing the spiritual opportunity for new understanding in the light of that which is absolute.

We ask each to remember the experience of true living consciousness, and then in faith to turn to the self and bless each wound, each limitation, each pain, and each circumstance that causes suffering, for suffering is the sacrament, the food of spiritual evolution. May you rejoice in your troubles even as you suffer. May you roll the stone away from the tomb of your limited acceptance of damaging thoughts. May each look you take be fresh, and may you live in love, and so love each other with a passion and a zeal that blesses each with whom you come in contact. You need say nothing. The I AM in you, that Kingdom of Heaven, of which Jesus the Christ spoke, lies deep within you, for you are all that there is. It is simply the illusion which keeps you from that ultimate knowledge. By faith, in the love you have observed in whatever limited form, may you enter into that life which is love.

We will be with you in meditation if you so desire company, and we shall share that unlimited, absolute love as we are given it to channel from the kingdom within ourselves, which is the kingdom within you, the kingdom of love.

We would leave this instrument at this time with many, many thanks for this question and for your call to us. We humbly accept the limitations and distortions that language causes, and ask that each be aware that anything which is spoken is not the truth, but must be subject to your own discrimination, for we speak to the limited mind. It is each seeker’s occupation to bring that which speaks deep into that kingdom, that from that kingdom there may issue the hallelujahs of angels, the shouts of infinite joy which herald the incredible, energetic, peaceful feeling of infinite love which may carry you into and through each suffering moment and sanctify and bless each experience.

We hope that you do not accept suffering as something which must be done so that in the next incarnation, stage of experience, or density you shall be rewarded. Instead, in all humility, know that your heaven lies waiting within you, just as your hell waits to embrace you. Your life experience is a matter of choices. Shall you follow truths, or shall you more and more attempt to experience your own true being, your own inner I AM, and thus prepare the meeting ground, the holy ground whereon you may see the face of your God, your Christ, your Love, your peace, your light, your life?

We would now transfer this contact to the instrument known as Jim. I am known to you as Q’uo.

(Jim channeling)

I am Q’uo, and greet each again in love and light through this instrument. At this time we would offer ourselves in the attempt to speak to any further queries which may yet remain upon the minds. May we speak to a query at this time?

Questioner

I have no query, but I am thankful for the information that I received tonight.

Q’uo

I am Q’uo, and, my brother, we are most thankful for your query, and honor the sincere desire that has prompted this query. Is there another query at this time?

Carla

I have one. It’s been on my mind all week because last week something happened to me that happens frequently.

My suffering is largely at this point physical, I just have pain. And you’re absolutely right—I think you said that the suffering doesn’t come from just the pain as much as what you think about the pain. I’ve had this trip laid on me by myself and by numerous people through the years, and every time I bring it up again, it hurts the same, and that is that people tell me that I am creating and responsible for my own illness. This I accept, but further, that illness is a kind of blockage or imbalance due to things that I am holding in myself, which if I would let them go, I would automatically be healed.

I suppose like a lot of people who have been disabled, I would like to think that there is something more to it than that, that there is some higher purpose for my suffering. Or I suppose most of all, that if I don’t get well there isn’t cause for guilt, which I feel a lot of every time I go through this process. And I know this all lies within the realm of human opinion, but I must admit I do believe I am responsible for my illness. I just don’t feel the necessity of focusing my entire life upon getting rid of the illness because I find so much value in the life that the illness has caused me. Could you speak to my feelings about where I have put the emphasis in my life, that I have taken off the responsibility for making myself well, and put it on other things, and I feel guilty about that? Could you speak to that?

Q’uo

I am Q’uo, and am aware of your query, my sister. It is true that each entity is responsible for that which occurs within the life pattern, for each entity has taken the primary role in designing that pattern of life experience which shall serve as the lessons teaching further aspects of love and service. Yet most of the responsibility has been taken by a portion of the self which is far more informed than is that smaller self which experiences the incarnation. Thus, that smaller self often feels isolated and abandoned or too powerless to be able to affect forces within its life pattern which have control and impact upon that life pattern.

Before incarnation this greater portion of the self looks with careful eye to see what within the entire being contains that which is yet to be fulfilled, that which yet remains to be exercised as an avenue for offering the self to the Creator and for allowing the Creator to know through that offering greater portions of its own being. Thus, before each incarnation does this greater self look most carefully to see where there might be an increase in the learning and offering of the lessons of love, of wisdom, and of unity to all those which might come in contact with this self.

As these determinations are made, they [are] set into motion in what you might see as a program that unfolds step after step, with each succeeding step building upon that which has been firmly laid in the experience of the entity. Thus, the completion of one level of understanding and the offering of this understanding as a service to others will spark the next level of experience. These programs of experience are often, most often indeed, hidden within the symbolic framework of the life pattern and are largely unrecognized by each entity as the life pattern unfolds. Thus, it seems to [an] entity within the incarnation that the experiences happen to it and are beyond its control, when indeed the experiences have been chosen by it for specific purposes.

There are, for many entities, lessons and opportunities to serve which are of such a primarily profound nature that what will be seen within the incarnation as extraordinary means are then employed to allow this extraordinary offering and lesson to occur as desired.

In some cases that condition which is known as disease, illness, tragedy and suffering of one kind or another is seen as the most effective tool for generating within the depths of the being those responses which are desired, much as the grain of sand, within that creature which you call the oyster, creates the irritation that is the source of that pearl which eventually forms within this creature. So does the suffering and disease then offer to such an entity with this intense desire the pearl of great price, shall we say, which may teach those lessons which would not be available without such an extraordinary effort being made. Thus, many experience the suffering and limitation of disease which does not yield to healer of any kind, though many should offer their services in heartfelt sympathy and compassion and desire to alleviate the suffering and remove the limitation.

However, those healers and, indeed, entities of any nature which are more familiar with the wider scope of the life pattern and purpose will see in such an instance that purpose for the disease or limitation which lies beyond that normally associated to such. Such an entity or healer will begin to look into those areas which examine the opportunities offered by such a disease or limitation and will, instead of continuing the fruitless effort to remove the disease or limitation, begin to counsel the entity with this disease or limitation in the ways of seeing where doors are opened rather than shut by such a pattern of experience. For within your illusion, all that is central to the accomplishing of the preincarnatively chosen purposes for the incarnation is hidden from the sight of the outer eye, and must be sought in the careful and prayerful attitude of one which looks beneath the surface of things and beyond the scope of the outward seeing eye.

Thus, my sister, in your particular case it is well known to your conscious mind that you have chosen the limitations which you experience for a specific purpose. Indeed, there are more than one purpose for these limitations, and it has come to your attention frequently and in the distance of your past that you have been able to focus upon your inward journey far more effectively because your outward journeying has been limited in many ways. Thus, by this limiting, you have been able to penetrate the outer shell of the life pattern and tap more easily into those deeper truths which nourish the soul and inspire through such nourishment the efforts of others.

That you experience a kind of guilt for having this condition and having it be unresponsive to the healing efforts of any is understandable when seen within the limits of the illusion and the sincere good intentions of those who offer their services as healers.

Yet each entity in any life experience must at some time begin to look beyond the general principles which it finds are helpful to view the life experience through, and then must begin to make individual application of the deeper principles which apply to each situation, for though are all indeed a portion of one great Thought of love, each portion and entity which expresses that love in the life pattern does so in a manner which is unique to that entity. And those general principles which may give a surface description of many entities at one time, yet do each entity an injustice if there is no further examination of the individual life pattern and expression that is manifested in each life pattern.

Thus, my sister, we would counsel you more in the area of removing your own feelings of guilt, rather than in redoubling your efforts to find healing release from these limitations which have served your purposes well.

May we speak in any further fashion, my sister?

Carla

No, I think that’s really complete. Thank you very much. That’s all the questions I have.

Q’uo

I am Q’uo, and we thank you, my sister. And if there are no further queries this evening, we will at this time…

Carla

I do have a request. Is that permissible?

Q’uo

I am Q’uo. Yes, my sister.

Carla

The request is that you be with us, and all helpful entities be alerted to be with us, as we speak to the people who may ask us questions on the radio program that we’re about to do, that we will be aided in the thoughts which come into our minds and the way in which we answer questions, for we wish to speak of eternal truths, not human opinion.

Q’uo

I am Q’uo, and it is our honor, as always, to join you there and to lend our light in whatever manner is possible.

Carla

Thank you.

Q’uo

At this time we shall again thank each for enlightening our presence and for offering us the gifts of your desire to know more of that which each of us seeks, the way of the great truth of love and unity which binds and moves all through the great creation of the one Creator. At this time we shall take our leave of this instrument and this group, leaving each in the love and in the light of the one infinite Creator. We are known to you as those of Q’uo. Adonai, my friends. Adonai.

(Carla channeling)

Nona

I am Nona. I greet you, as this instrument requests, in the name of Jesus the Christ, this instrument’s expression of the one infinite Creator. We greet each in the mystery. Healing has been asked for, and to that entity, though not present, we through this instrument would express healing. We finish speaking with thanksgiving, in love, in light, in unity.

[Healing melodic tones channeled by Carla.]