Please talk about accepting and not judging the self, concepts of what we think we should do, and how this is involved in fear. How do we accept ourselves and avoid the “shoulds”?
Aaron
I am Aaron. I greet you each with my love in the beauty of this new day.
“I should” is a voice of fear. I would like to explain that further. We spoke of this last night: the ways in which the “I should,” that sense of perfectionism, comes from a yearning toward the ideal; but it also may come from fear. When it comes from fear there is a sense of pushing the self, forcing the self, rather than allowing the self to express its own radiance. It is rather like bringing in a flower, a soft bud, and brutally pulling the petals open, as if one could force it to blossom in that way. But it cannot be forced. It must be allowed by leaving it in the nurturing sunshine of one’s love.
Yesterday Barbara was reading some material by Ram Dass in one of your record albums. In it he tells the story of how he met with a Buddhist teacher who suggested that they do a meditation together, expanding outward. After a few minutes the teacher said to him, “You’re still trying.” And Ram Dass said, “Yes, I’m still trying to expand outward.” The teacher said, “Don’t try to expand outward, just expand outward.” Do you see the difference? By trying, you create the conditions where it becomes very difficult to allow. This does not mean that no effort is required, but the effort is that which flows through the being in perfect harmony rather than the effort that comes from a distortion of self-will.
There is a piece of writing by the third Zen patriarch which speaks of quieting the mind. He notes that in your effort to become quiet, you simply generate more activity. I am sure this is clear to all of you. The question then becomes, “How does one quiet the mind, or move beyond the dualistic, conceptual mind to reach that state of total merging with the Eternal?” Why not allow it? Why have any “I should”s? You do not need to achieve or attain anything. There is nothing to attain. You are already there. What you are doing is allowing the perfect flow of energy through you until you come to that understanding of the knowledge that you are already there. You must begin to understand that you are not moving yourself from “this” to “that,” but simply knowing that you have always been “that” and can be nothing else.
You have heard me say many times that love and fear cannot coexist at the point where you understand fully that you have always been “that”—even though sometimes you act as if you were not—in that place there is total harmony with all that is. When you are trying to become “that,” there is disharmony and there is a state of fear. We spoke last night of the correlation between fear and separation, and why one outgrows that pattern. The first occurrence is a state that recognizes self-awareness, and out of that self-awareness comes the fear that there is something that one is not, something to be attained; and out of that fear arises a stronger sense of separation. Can you see that as long as there is something to be attained, the being feels some fear as to whether or not it is good enough, worthy enough of attaining that? But when the being fully trusts that it already is all that it has ever been and ever will be, then it allows that fragile bud to open so that the full beauty of the flower becomes visible.
Allow me to speak a bit more specifically here. It’s fine to speak of knowing intellectually that you are “that,” but how does one keep that faith that allows one to move beyond fear? You are always in connection with the Divine. Several months ago Barbara was singing a song many times, early in the morning. The words were, “Seems like such a long time, Holy Spirit, waiting, since I’ve drawn your breath in, silent and all-pervading.” As she sang that song over and over, she began to have that deep understanding that the breath of the Holy Spirit is always present, that the Creator is always present, that it is she that chooses to draw that breath in or not to draw that breath in. Then she understood how fear had separated her from choosing of affirmation of holiness.
To make such a choice, to fully affirm that oneness, is a responsibility. At times you feel you are not ready to commit yourself quite that far, and in fact you’re not because you are here to learn; and in a sense that fear, first learned by the infant, is a part of your learning. There is nothing wrong with fear. Yes, it does seem to prevent you in some ways from fully reaching your potential; but that is a bit of an illusion. If you did not choose that fear as a catalyst, it would not be there. Fear is just fear. Can it be met with kindness? So, as you are able to turn around and relate more lovingly to that fear, you move yourself further on this path, reducing what I have called the specks or shadows from the self so that that self becomes more transparent and is more nearly ready to reach into higher levels of light.
In essence, what I am suggesting here is that you learn to trust that when fear arises, that’s okay, that you don’t need to flee from that fear but just to greet it with an openheartedness that says, “Oh, here’s fear,” and relate lovingly to fear, allowing it to bring whatever lessons it brings.
As with last night, there is much more that I could say here, but would prefer to have Q’uo speak first and let us pass this back and forth. That is all.
Q’uo
I am Q’uo. I greet you in love, light and delight in the infinite Creator. We are most privileged to be called to your group once more, and are enabled and ennobled by the sharing of our fallible opinions with the beautiful one known as Aaron.
Fear and the “shoulds”: Where do these “shoulds” first occur? The voice of “should” is learned before the small entity has gained enough experience to count as irrelevant all suggestions that do not fall upon the heart with the feeling of truth and love. Thusly, the original voice of fear does not take into account the nature of the self or of how the self might relate to these parental and authoritarian instructions toward behavior and values.
At some point within the incarnation, most entities realize that these voices of “should” are a relic of childhood teachings. These teachings are generally intended to benefit the child and create for it a knowledge of how to move through the intricate rituals of social behavior with the lubrication of appropriate, kindly thoughts, words and actions. Thusly, the “shoulds” are valuable in dealing skillfully with the societal group at large. It is within the self and the self’s perception of the self that the “shoulds” become less than benign.
The voices of childhood come without volition of the self; however, the internalized voices of childhood, even though forgiven and no longer valid upon the outer, manifested entity’s self, may well be internalized and become the voice that seems to the self as the voice of the self. Here we may see the ultimate separation of self from self. The self needs to be aware of its inner voices and to heal, by forgiveness and acceptance, those voices of the ultimate critic which gaze upon the self’s manifested works with a jaundiced eye, an eye for not what is right with this picture but what is wrong with this picture. This is a form of self-torture, a denigration of the self which is done quite innocently. To become mature one does need to see those things within the self which are not innocent or authentic but rather judgmental and full of complex argumentation.
The amount of complexity experienced by the self is a good gauge of the authenticity of the self. Authentic selfhood is simple, pure and full; not reaching, not grasping, but content to do the best one can, as one can, however one can, and where one can. These voices, then, that denigrate the self judgmentally need to be recognized, accepted, named and then forgiven. Yet how shall one forgive? The psychology, if you will, of redemption is the choosing of a perfect symbol which then is able to forgive the self because its very nature is love, which always accepts any gift that is given.
It is no error that the one you know as Jesus was born into a mystical Jewish tradition. This tradition is chock-full of “shoulds.” It is into this milieu that the one known as Jesus chose its incarnation in order that it, a fully literate Jewish scholar, created the firm concept of constant redemption. How greatly does the Jewish tradition emphasize the positive value of fear. Concepts of kosher, of living ethically and humanely, flood the Hebrew personality. Thusly, when the one known as Jesus said, “Your sins are forgiven you,” he was speaking out of a background quite full of “shoulds” and judgment. Thusly, you may see that if the one known as Jesus could gaze at iniquity and instantaneously forgive it, then how indeed can one fail to forgive the self?
This method of becoming aware of redemption is roundabout and makes use of the illusion of separation. The Jesus that forgives is easier to hear as an other self speaking from a great distance of time than if Jesus the Christ were considered to be within the self, a part of the self, and ultimately the self. So, although all religions and spiritual systems of faith have much to recommend them in terms of finding allegories between their experiences and one’s own, one must at last meet the self upon the plane of inner awareness. Then when “shoulds” and guilt arise, one may experience redemption, not only from an imagined other self but in a hearty, earthy and substantive way as part of the process of love, which includes love itself and therefore a lack of judgment. As the one known as Aaron said, each must bloom in its own time, ripen according to its own rhythms.
Yet entities usually do not perceive themselves as either virtuous and godly seed or beautiful blossom. It seems to the self that the self is anything but that beautiful seed which grows and blooms as one sees flowers and living trees express. This creates an instant bias towards judgment. How can one learn to experience the self as beautiful, as godly, as perfect? We would let this question linger in the air as we allow the thread of this message to be elaborated by the one known as Aaron. We briefly leave you in love and light. We are those of Q’uo.
Aaron
I am Aaron. I would like to address the question of the fear of moving beyond one’s perceived limits, how one perceives those limits in the first place, and how it presents one with a choice: to let go and proceed, or to hold on to the perceived safety of shore, to the delusion of limits.
We start with the reality that you are unlimited and that within the illusion you perceive yourself as limited. While it is incidental to my main direction, I would point out that the perception of the self as limited is not an accident, but is a gift to help you to understand that you are unlimited. If there is never a sense of being limited but only the full understanding of the reality of your limitlessness, there would not be any inspiration or provocation for growth. So you hold up that ideal and want nothing more than to reach that ideal, noting the standards of your own behavior as well as the ways that you manifest in your life.
Because you are human you constantly fall short of the ideal, and yet you constantly ask yourself to let go of that edge on to which you were you holding and strike out again to cross the sea of truth. It is a very courageous act, and yet you rarely give yourself notice of the courage. You perceive the fear that asks you to hold back and you miss the beautiful bravery and love exhibited each time you take a new step. Does a child learn to walk with a parent who says, “Don’t take another step, you’ll fall!”—or with a parent who applauds each new step and picks that child up and takes away the hurt from the inevitable fall? How can you learn to pick yourselves up in this way? I believe this is the question Q’uo raised at the end of the preceding talk. Can you learn to cherish that self who so bravely tries again and again? Know that in this physical manifestation you cannot reach that perfection toward which the self yearns and finally come to an acceptance that reaching that perfection is not necessary. Rather, the yearning is a tool to build the strength and faith so that one begins to understand one’s inner perfection.
When you make a choice, and it turns out to be an unskillful choice and brings harm to another because there was fear or anger or greed as part of that choice, there is that in the being that declines responsibility for that choice, that says, “I couldn’t help it.” But as you evolve to the point that all in this group today have reached, you have learned that you are always responsible. Can you see how difficult this is? You used to be able to make your choices in a less judgmental way, though they were less skillful, and there was more anger and blame. But now you truly know that you are responsible; it feels like a burden and not a joy. The question, then, becomes how to make that sense of responsibility appear as it really is, a joy and a gift, so that even your unskillful choices can be met with love and not self-denigration.
This is where we come back to what I spoke of earlier, about allowing rather than forcing. When you come to a place of choice and understand the responsibility for making a skillful choice, and yet at times don’t see the fear or greed or anger until it is too late, that distorts that choice so that another feels pain from it. When you come to that place and there is a sense of fear, of, “What if I make the wrong choice?”—that fear shuts out the flow of energy, shuts out the flow of knowledge within the spirit. When you can come to that place with a prayer, opening yourself to all the love coming from within the self and coming to the self from without, then the voices of fear or anger or greed are heard as voiceless echoes. Then there is a joyousness about that responsibility because you see that it is leading you into being a mature being, into blossoming into the light.
Q’uo spoke of the separation of self from self. All of you, at one time or another, fail to notice the positivity within the self, the generosity, the patience and loving-kindness; all of those beautiful qualities which are part of this beautiful being that you are. Then you judge yourself and focus on all of the qualities that you judge as negative: the impatience, the anger, the greed. I would suggest that two practices may be helpful for you. One is to begin to notice more and more carefully all those times when you are loving and patient and kind, to begin to allow this beautiful self to move into the sunshine of its own love. This is not pride. It is reality. Also, it is useful, when one perceives oneself as love and will not allow that this is so, to ask why you will not allow it. Why does one pay attention only to those qualities that are perceived as negative? One must then begin to see that there is something in the self that wants to cling to those qualities that are felt as negative, even while it begins to move on into the light. There is a yearning for that light and for the full knowing of oneness, and yet there is that within the self which feels unworthy. In the book with which I think most of you are familiar, called Dark Night of the Soul, St. John of the Cross suggests that the soul feels itself to be unworthy of God and yet yearns toward connection with God. And although it feels itself to be unworthy, the force of its love is what gives it the courage to seek that connection.
How can you allow the force of your love to come to the forefront of your awareness so that it can lead you into the full knowledge of all that you are and always have been, to lead you past that fear that calls the self unworthy? You are both. As long as you are human, you are not intended to be perfect. What you perceive as limitations are not limitations at all, but merely the teaching tools offered by this density. You do not have to get rid of fear or anger or greed. All you need to do is to allow what beauty is there to flourish and bloom. And the fear and anger and greed will fall away, because the knowledge that was gained from them is no longer needed.
The most important tool here is awareness: knowing always what is being felt; and if anger or greed are being felt, touching those, not with judgment but with an acceptance that allows the being not to need to act on those emotions. It is not the emotions themselves that are a problem. You don’t harm another by feeling greed. You harm another by taking what belongs to another.
How much more lovingly can you begin to respond to all these forces within yourself? As you do that, the need for them will pass. It is as if you were swimming across a river and there were 100 floats to hold on to. Moving across the river, you swim to one of them and grab hold to keep you afloat. And yet as you look, you say, “They mar the beauty of this scene. I don’t want them.” But in one aspect of you, you know that if you get rid of them and your swimming ability is not yet refined enough, you will drown. So you leave them there, noticing that they mar the beauty, but also that they are useful until you have perfected your swimming so you do not need them anymore. At that time, they will simply drift away.
I believe that Q’uo has something to say here and would like to pass this to my brother/sister at this time. That is all.
Q’uo
I am Q’uo, and greet each again in love and light.
We are attempting to offer tools and resources to the third-density entity for working toward the state of allowing and accepting. A great resource for doing work in consciousness is creative visualization. The closer the visualization comes to resonating with the timbre of memory, the better the chance that it will aid the entity at deep levels of emotion, those levels of emotion which contain true wisdom. Such a visualization about the loving self might be such as this: Within you lies the small child which is attempting to do well, and [which] perceives the self constantly through the awkwardness of childhood as failing to be adequate to its own requests of the self. Picture, then, the loving self; and you are indeed all very loving entities as the nurturing parent. Would the parent within you turn to a child and scold it when it has acted in self-perceived error, or would the loving parent take the child into the cradle of its arms and place the child’s head where it can again hear the heartbeat of the womb?
The child is afraid of the vampire which it has seen in a movie, and so it wakes to nightmare. The parent moves swiftly to the child’s side and offers it a sense of proportion. It does not make fun of the child for having the nightmare. It is aware that each entity has its nightmares, its fears; but when the child is cradled upon the breast of the nurturing parent, it quickly becomes comforted as the parent says, “This was a true nightmare. There are truly portions of consciousness which are terrifying. That is the way that that is. But that is only a small portion of you, my child, my beloved one.” As the parents rock and nurture this baby child, the feelings of safety, of security, and of being loved slowly and gently allow the child to accept its own vampire and to find that it is not so scary after all; that vampires, too, fall under love and care of the nurturing parent. Thus, one may invite into the self that vampire, realizing at last that although the vampire is a part of the self (and any other image is equally acceptable here), it is not the totality of the self. Thus, may your own lovingness be shined as the light that it is into the darkness of that child which is fearful.
When this inner child becomes stronger, it is, as children are, willful. Thusly, it is well for the visualization of the nurturing parent cradling the child to become more organic, more within a flowing process. The child, newly strong now, is willful. The loving parent is wise to advise the child to be silent, to let not the outer expression of new realizations become important.
It is not at all important that others know the insights one has gained, for these insights are fragile, just as the infant is fragile. They must be treasured and protected as they grow stronger. When the child is willful, the loving self gently reminds the child within that it may remember all the many times that willfulness has not been a skillful choice of attitude; for in willing from within the conscious mind, there is an ignoring of the greater will of the Higher Self which is lost in the Creator so that self and Creator are truly one. These tantrums of will may be gentled and healed by that nurturing parent until the child sees clearly that its will is likely not to have a very intelligent or spacious perspective.
It is not that it is incorrect to will or to use the faculty of will, but rather, that such will must be seen as sacramental so that one is aware when one uses the will, sees that volition for the choice it truly is, and surrenders that short-sighted will of self in the mundane sense, utterly and completely, moment by moment, to the will which speaks from a vast perspective of thousands of years, shall we say.
It is written in your holy works that the yoke of Christ, or the yoke of Christ Consciousness and acting according to that level of thinking, is easy, the burden is light. This may be examined as a deep truth. One within incarnation always carries baggage, always has something strapped upon its back to carry. For in finity, which the body expresses perfectly, there is always perceived effort; that is, effort perceived as effort by the self. It is the work of faith to enable that small child that is nurtured by the loving parent within to present to that child’s eyes a view of an whole and unified process. It has learned that it can use its will; and if treated gently and with respect, it shall learn to choose that will which is most well informed, which has the spacious perspective. In this way of service, one approaches such a light burden, such an easy yoke, that one becomes free. In surrendering a small volition, one is able to hear, at last, the volitions of love itself.
Thus, one who does the will of the infinite Creator is simply listening more skillfully to the voices within. One of the many conversations one has endlessly with the self is a conversation with that Self which is the Creator. How splendid and glorious it is that that which is of the dust of the earth yet may speak with the Deity and be heard, and then hear also what the will of that Deity is. Then one is free to do the best one can, single-mindedly and with a full and generous heart.
One aspect of the self is well encouraged by the nurturing parent; that is, the sense of humor. One may perceive oneself without humor and thus become heavier and heavier with the weight of solemnity. Yet does not any play, even a tragedy, have its moment of heartfelt release and catharsis?
And how much of life may be seen by the self as the soap opera or the cartoon? This is not to denigrate the importance of the self or of service, but to allow the sense of humor to strip outer experiences of fearfulness. When one may undress the object of fear and see it, however allegorically, in its boxer shorts—preferably those sprinkled lavishly with hearts, frogs, or golf clubs—one then sees the vulnerability of that object of fear. It is only strong when it is dressed majestically. Thusly, in not accepting a solemn and heavy view of the present moment, one is allowing a sense of proportion, an ever-growing spaciousness of attitude. Humor is the beginning, in many ways, of full acceptance of self, which eventually very nearly silences the voice of fear within.
We would at this time move into the contributions of the one known as Aaron. We leave this instrument in love and light. We are those known to you as the principle, Q’uo.
Aaron
I am Aaron. It is a joy and delight to work in this way, with Q’uo and me stimulating each other through our ideas, and also with the sharings of each of your thoughts which you have sent to us. I wish to thank Q’uo especially for reminding me of the importance of humor and must stress my strong agreement with what Q’uo has said—that with humor comes the beginnings of acceptance. There is much more that could be said here; and yet in the interests of this session not becoming heavy, I would simply like to open myself to your questions rather than speaking on with my own thoughts. That is all.
Carla
How may one help another to begin to perceive this process? It is easier to work with the self, by far, than to create useful and persuasive inspiration for another seeker, which has its own journey, its own priorities, and its own keys. Perhaps in essence I am asking how one can serve as inspiration while completely observing free will.
Aaron
I am Aaron. In serving another in this way there are two factors of key importance. One is that you can only learn for yourself. You can open the door for another, but you cannot push him through. To attempt to do so is a violence against that being. Thus, if you see another’s misunderstanding, you may gently and lovingly point out that misunderstanding while assuring the being that it has your full acceptance and love, whether it accepts that misunderstanding or not. That is fully its choice. You are concerned that even to state that the misunderstanding is seen could be a violence. It depends how you phrase it. If you say, “You’re wrong. Look at this!” and reach out to shake another to make him understand, that’s a violence. If you simply say, “We have a different perception of this, and I see it differently. Are you willing and interested to hear how I see it?”—and if that being then says, “No,” of course that’s it; and if that being says, “Yes, how do you see it?” then you can share the way you see it, and then it is his choice to select helpful thoughts and leave the rest behind. So that is one way you may be of service.
And the other and more important help is through the example of the self. Mistakes are corrected through constant work on oneself; and a deeper level of honesty with the self develops so that one becomes a shining example. But be ever mindful that this self that one offers as an example is also imperfect, that there will be errors. There will be unskillful choices. The example, then, is not to be perfect but to accept the imperfections in the self and in other selves with love.
Here I would like to stop, unless there is further specific question upon what I have said, and offer Q’uo the chance to speak.
Q’uo
I am Q’uo. We greet each in love and light once more and suggest that this be the final portion of this working, as this amount of material is sufficient for one, shall we say, meal for the heart and spirit to digest. We would not be heavy on the dumplings when offering you the good protein of thoughtful insight.
We would simply ask the self how powerful it thinks it truly is? The concept of being able to infringe upon free will by an opinion is deeply narcissistic, deeply aggrandizing the mundane self’s power. Once again, there is the shadow of control, of fear. Why would this instrument be afraid of speaking honestly with its opinion or offering itself as channel for the opinion of one whose opinion the instrument values? Can this instrument or any other leap tall buildings at a single bound? Can this instrument or any other single-handedly destroy or create, or add height to the body or length to the life? Where is this notion of powerfulness?
You see, the true power is always in the Creator. Thus, as one stills that narcissistic concern, one allows oneself to become transparent; one becomes as that city upon the hill in your holy works, shining for all to see.
The very natural human tendency is to listen to a needy person, to accept that person’s expression and then to say, “Yes, I respect that, but… “ In that little word there lies the shadow of fear, of separation. Rather, can one not be humble enough to allow this entity to express and express until it is done?
And if it does not ask the opinion, or ask the opinion of an entity which one is channeling through one’s instrument, that is perfectly all right. There need be no “Yes, but… “ type communication. It is only if that other self invites either one’s own opinion or the opinion of the contact that one may offer the opinion in a very righteous and feeling manner.
When one hears the question mark, one knows that the seeker’s heart is ripe and ready for the picking, for the aid. When each hears itself say, “Yes, but… “ to one who is vulnerable and needy, one may simply observe the fear of that, the fear for another being as foolish, and fear for the self. Thus, one is free to ignore. Nearly perfect expression of a life lived in faith with no “buts” but only a loving awareness of the flowing of all that is necessary to learn, moving to each one, through each one, and sweeping into infinity—that is the true nature of consciousness as an Infinite Intelligence.
Allow yourself to stop being a bubble and to become the ocean. Allow yourself the luxury of being asked before speaking, and of feeling no responsibility for those who do not ask questions. The skillful help one may give the entity who does not ask questions, but is suffering, is simply to allow the overwhelming compassion within and send, out of fullness of Self, that loving and healing energy of acceptance of that other self just as it is, with all of its self-perceived imperfections. This acceptance is as much a catalyst for another, although it is not aware of that, as is the verbal acceptance. Entities prefer verbal acceptance because they do not understand the depth of their own perceptive abilities. Honor this simple holding of another in compassion, acceptance and forgiveness. And honor, above all, that same attitude toward the one named self, that everlasting child within which is bound to make unskillful choices again and again.
We embrace you all, as does the one known as Aaron. It is indeed a privilege and a great deal of fun for us to dance together with these concepts. We delight in each other as one flowing stream. How beautiful is this service, and how grateful we both are to the dedication and love which allows this calling to come to us. We thank each as we participate in the great work which ever goes on, the work of learning to cease the striving, to still forever the child’s fears. We leave you in the love and in the light of the one infinite Creator and recede from your consciousness at this time. We are those of Q’uo. Adonai. Adonai.