I would like to know how to draw anger out of my son and reestablish a calm relationship with him. There is a lot of pent-up anger and it comes out in inappropriate behaviors. He is a very sensitive, bright child. He never felt that he fit in anywhere. He has never felt like he belonged anyplace that he’s been. He’s never been able to adapt to just functioning in the everyday world. He tends to be off in his own world quite a bit, and he can’t reconcile the two and it comes out in anger which is expressed physically and that type of thing.

With greetings and love to you all, I am Aaron. It is indeed a blessing and a gift to be invited to join you tonight and speak to your heartfelt concerns. Before we go any further, I want to make sure that Barbara is being heard above the computer hum, especially by Carla.

[Pause]

This question of working with anger in another, of helping another truly in any way, is a difficult one. You love your son and don’t want to see him in pain. Each of you wants so much for your children, and yet each of you can only learn for yourself.

You cannot learn for him. It becomes useful to begin to differentiate where you hope to learn for yourself through your son’s anger and where it becomes a matter of wanting to take away his anger because it is painful to you.

I am going to start here with something that you all know; but sometimes it is very hard to accept, especially when the one involved is one you love. You cannot take away another’s pain. You cannot deprive them of the experience of that pain, nor can you know why they have moved into such experience. That knowing is for the wisdom of their own soul. You can create the learning situations and the loving and accepting environment that will allow that which is not angry in your son to flourish. You can nurture all that is not angry within him, but only he can work with his own anger. I don’t mean that to sound hopeless. There is much that you can do. I only want to point out here that to try to take away his anger is a form of violence to him. You say he has always been very sensitive. He, in his wisdom, has created certain situations in his life, including choosing you to be his father so that he might work with that which most needs to be healed within the spirit.

First, try to separate your discomfort at his anger, knowing that that is work that needs to be done not on him but on you. In short, if he needs to be angry, can you simple let him be angry? Can you reach that place in yourself where he feels from you only complete acceptance, that there’s not that within him that is unacceptable to you? This may help him more than anything else you can give him, because surely he already judges his own anger; and if he finds that unacceptable to you, it will increase the depth with which it is unacceptable to him.

How well do you accept your own anger? This is another way that you can teach him. I seem to be saying this a lot this weekend. There is nothing wrong with anger; there is nothing bad about the emotion of anger. It’s just a feeling. When you use that anger as a reason to act in an unskillful way toward another, then you have a problem. Then you are creating disharmony and adhering karma. But the emotion of anger is simply the emotion of anger. It’s not the anger that’s a problem, but your relationship to the anger. Moving into yourself, then, are you totally loving and accepting when anger arises, not needing to get rid of it or do anything with it but just to watch it? So many of you feel that anger must either be suppressed or acted upon, but there is this third choice, just to observe it: “Here comes anger… I wonder how long it will stay… there it goes… “

One of the things that all of you are here to learn is to approach—not to attain but to approach—non-judgmental and unconditional love for yourself and what you perceive as other selves. As long as there is that within you which feels unacceptable, then you judge the same to be unacceptable in others. I am not denying that anger causes you pain or that your son’s anger causes him pain. But he will need to work with that pain on his own. So, the best gift you can give him is first to begin to look closer into your own anger and to reach a point where you truly can accept your own anger. Then you can begin to accept his anger, so that when he is angry he still feels love from you. In this way, he can begin to let that anger drop away, to be honest with himself about it, and to understand it more clearly.

The second gift that you can give him is to nurture all those qualities that are beautiful in him and help him to nurture that in himself. How much has his anger or sensitivity made him see himself as different and feel himself to be unworthy? While assuring him that neither his anger nor anything in him is unworthy, can you also nurture what is beautiful in him, including that sensitivity you spoke of, letting yourself feel how much you cherish that in him so that he may begin to cherish it in himself?

There is one more issue here that needs to be looked at. Why does a being choose to incarnate into a situation where he will feel different in any way, where he will become angry? Why does he choose to subject himself to those catalysts? It would seem to me that it is likely that you both have this issue of self-acceptance. Sometimes one needs the catalyst of anger in order to be challenged to look at one’s feelings more deeply, to uncover the love, and to nurture that.

There is a story told about a spiritual teacher named Gurdjieff. This Gurdjieff had a spiritual community in France; and living in that community was a man that was intensely disliked by all, including himself. He was slovenly in his personal habits. He was rude and abusive to others. He did not do his share of the work. Finally, feeling the dislike that surrounded him, he packed up and left. Gurdjieff went after him and begged him to come back. The man said, “No,” at which point Gurdjieff offered to pay him to come back. The people in the community were aghast. They said, “How can you bring him back?” Gurdjieff said to them, “He is the yeast for the bread. How can you learn about compassion and forgiveness when you live here in a community of such perfect harmony—beyond this one man—that you have nothing to be compassionate about, nothing to forgive? You need him to help you learn compassion.”

One who chooses to incarnate into a situation where one lives with anger is choosing that situation to prod oneself, one might say, to learn a deeper level of forgiveness and compassion. Of course, one starts with the self, finding acceptance for that anger in the self so that one may not judge that in others, but may love that, and all aspects of all beings. How does one love another’s anger? It is not the anger that one is loving, it is the spirit of the being itself, which is pure and holy and beautiful. The being is not its anger nor its greed nor its fear. And yet you constantly create this duality, and so much of your work is to move beyond that.

There is one more specific thing I want to say about your son. Please remember that each being is always exactly where it needs to be, regardless of surface appearances. For a parent with a child, this idea takes a high level of trust. You can open doors for him, but you cannot push him through those doors. You can do nothing with his anger but to love him and to love yourself. As you create that doorway through your own power of love, when he is ready he will walk through it.

There is a great deal more that could be said on this subject of anger and the specific question about the son. We prefer to end this teaching and allow Q’uo to speak, and listen to your further questions about this. That is all.

I am Q’uo. We greet you in the love and in the light of the one infinite Creator through this instrument, with thankfulness that you have called us and the one known as Aaron to offer our opinions. Take what each feels is his own truth and please leave the rest behind.

The communications of a spiritual nature which promise that the result of spiritual seeking shall be a simplified, comfortable and easy existence are promising the direct opposite of that which is the inevitable outcome of living the life as a spiritual seeker that is eager to accelerate the rate of spiritual evolution. This situation is one good example of this truth. Spiritual awareness often brings pain, for one is now responsible for an enlarged grasp of the nature of illusory catalyst and its purpose. The more one accelerates this pace of learning, the more one is responsible for creating a way of living in faith that is the equal of the concepts which have enlightened one.

One such concept is the spiritual truth that all are one, and that within each one there is all of the universe of possibilities of attitudes and biases. Thusly, when one experiences another’s anger, one is, in truth, in terms of one’s spiritual growth, gazing at the self. What one has not come to forgive in one’s self, one feels far more keenly when the mirrors of intimate family members and friends express in any way. The son’s anger then becomes a mirror held ruthlessly and clearly up to the face of the parent. The parent, in assuming that the child is separated from the self, is cheating the self of the valuable, accurate mirroring of the self to the self through the catalyst of another.

Let us gaze at anger towards the self, for this is truly the spiritual situation. Has this seeker allowed an awareness of its own anger to ripen and mature until it can look at that anger it feels without judgment? If all entities possess in potentiation all qualities, should it surprise one when a seemingly negative quality appears in the mirror? Must you turn away from the mirror because it is too painful to see the self which is that behavior and painful experience of the other self? The best teacher of accepting the negative aspect of the self is the drawing of the attention, as the one known as Aaron has so rightly said, to those many times when one is experiencing, either in one’s own mirror of self to self or in the mirror held up by another to the self, all the loving, compassionate, helpful and wise portions of the self. The beginning of the healing of self-judgment is the awareness that the mirror does not always show the negative or negatively perceived aspects of consciousness.

Intellectually it is easy to say we are each all things; we contain all that there is. But much circumnavigation and rationalization is practiced by most spiritual seekers in order to avoid gazing into the mirror when it shows that which is perceived as negative qualities which the self, of course, shares, as it contains all things and all qualities. Thusly, the focus is upon the healing of the self; and that healing begins not with the head-to-head confrontation of self with the disappointment in the self but simply of the self. Sit with the self. Watch what arises and departs within the mind, within the heart. Watch each transaction to discover, not how to change the self but simply [how] to identify the self more clearly within the self. For until the spiritual seeker accepts itself as it perceives itself—that is, in a state of considerable error—it cannot gaze in compassion at the mirrors which reflect that self to the self.

The injunction to “Know thyself” 1 is primary and fundamental to a life lived in faith. Again, we emphasize that as the student of spiritual principles moves further in assimilating material, the responsibility for living the spiritual principles involved in that material becomes ever more challenging. The critical observer-self seems biased toward noting not what is right but what is lacking and by this unhappy habit, many have come to the conclusion that they are unworthy and incapable of becoming that which they wish to be. This is not so. The road does not end. It is, however, occasionally very bumpy and stony. Yet the pilgrim, when it is rested, moves on as best it can, clambering over debris and stony paths with the eye always upon this precise moment, this particular resonance of infinity as it intersects with the life-stream, perceived within the illusion as linear.

Always, infinity is at the behest of one which chooses to remember the infinite Creator and the love the entity has experienced from this great source of love. Thusly, in healing the self-judgment, the parent is then able to express itself as an healed and whole entity, and is thus able to give whatever it may find possible to give out of a fullness of heart, a total and 360-degree acceptance of the self, knowing that the self is indeed all things, positive and negative, as is perceived within the illusion. When this healing is complete, then the entity may simply sit with this anger from another and see it as a catalyst which has done its job already.

There is eventually no self-perceived need to assign any quality to the other self, for that quality has clearly been seen within the self and forgiven within the self. It is in this acceptance and rest that the child may come to believe that it is possible to be miserable and yet to be hopeful, for the child knows well the parent and knows well the parent’s version of this same negative trait, as perceived within the illusion. When the parent authentically establishes an healed awareness of self, when it is capable of saying, “Just as I am, just this much is perfect in a way I do not understand but perceive by faith alone,” then compassion flows from that womb which is the true heart, which is ever pregnant with the fullness of love and ever propagating itself in seeds of fullness out of fullness that may rain upon those about it. Thus, in finding the peace and acceptance of the self, one finds the acceptance of the unquiet mirror offered by another self.

[Pause while the tape is turned over.]

I am Q’uo. We continue. When one is able fully to accept that self, one then becomes the healer who has healed the self first and is willing simply to act as catalyst, as the light upon the hill which gleams forth hope to those who are mired in pain.

So much between parent and child is a learning for the child based upon simple imitation. When two spirits with the same sort of areas of perceived weakness are parent and child, it may clearly be seen that each is the teacher of each. Thus, in allowing the self to heal, one by definition has allowed the entire creation to heal.

What is concern but a kind of fear, fear lest that loved one not be happy? We ask you, can any entity create happiness either for the self or for another? The answer, as far as we know, is that happiness is like a visitor that never stays long. It brings its gifts, it holds in its embrace the self, it shares in rejoicing and love; and quickly, perhaps before the self has even grasped the source of this happiness, the weather of the emotions becomes cloudy and the happiness is gone, leaving the self, perhaps, to brood overmuch on loss of happiness.

What baggage creates anger? What is it that is picked up and held and cherished that creates the anger of the self? Perhaps we may suggest that anger, at base, is anger at the lack of complete acceptance of the self. Thusly, to work upon one’s own anger, it is well to perceive the benefits of not striving to become anything, not trying to advance, but simply trying to allow an awareness of the full nature of the self, to be held in the gentle arms of that nurturing portion of the self. Once one’s own inner child, which is often angry because of lack of control, has been clearly perceived, then the attempts of a young soul—that is, young within this incarnation—to control the environment in order to make the self heard or in some way more secure can be accepted as the spiritual process it truly is.

Each of you sees the self, unless one is careful, as a solid object; that is, a solidified being which is such and such a way. However, the present moment insists that there is no solidity of being or of the qualities of being, either positive or negative, but rather that the present moment flows from present moment to present moment to present moment. To see oneself in process, and that the process is ongoing in far more large terms than one incarnation, is to allow oneself the perception of the enormous malleability and plasticity of the self in process: The Creator is not done with any. None is finished. All are in process. Let this sink into the heart [so] that it feels less and less judgment; and when it experiences judgment, it accepts that judgment also as a portion of the self. When all is seen clearly, choices may be made more skillfully. Once the element of fear is removed, the loving heart is content to offer itself without condition and without over-concern for the pain of a beloved other self.

Is there at this time a following query?

Both you and Aaron seem to have anticipated the further queries that I would have had. I thank you for your words, and hopefully I can begin further work upon myself. Thank you.

I am Q’uo. We thank you, my brother. We would at this time allow the vibration of the channeling to move to the one known as Aaron for any further question. We leave this instrument, briefly, in love and light. I am Q’uo.

I have just a short question. Most was answered by the previous channeling. My question is, in my life I am looking for love, for someone to be with and share my life with. I realize that I have to accept myself, and there are many things about myself that make me angry and that I cannot accept. I realize that I have to do this first. My question is, While I attempt to accept myself, am I being counterproductive in even attempting to find this love outside of myself?

I am Aaron. I understand your question. It is never inappropriate for the heart to seek what it desires. Yet I believe the confusion here comes from not being certain what is desired. There is that part of you which finds itself to be lovable and loving, and wishes to share that love with another self. The fact that you have not yet been able to do that speaks to the fact that there is also that within the spirit that pushes away that intimacy. In short, when you think that you want something and yet hold yourself back from that, you must ask why.

I see a number of possibilities here, and would ask you to choose what seems most appropriate to yourself and discard what doesn’t fit. One possibility is that while such intimacy is desired, there is also that in yourself which feels unworthy and is afraid to open itself so closely to another for fear that another would recognize that unworthiness. I spoke of this earlier today to a friend, saying that within each being there is what I call the what-if-someone-found-out? space. You see yourself as a loving being. You have work to do, yes, but [are] still a loving being, a spiritual seeker, and a good and caring person. And yet within the self there are so many emotions, so many forces that you can’t accept, that each of you cannot accept. You are each like an iceberg with what is acceptable being that small bit that shows above the surface and so much buried that you have not been able to accept. As you progress on your path and become mature and responsible and more highly evolved, you become harder with yourself. When there is anger, rage, greed, jealousy, or fear, there is a strong “I shouldn’t”; but you can’t keep this separate from the self.

Q’uo and I have been speaking about fear and how it arises, and the point was made that the newborn infant experiences fear because its needs are not met. No matter how attentive the parents, there are times when that infant’s needs are not met, and it knows that it cannot care for them itself. Q’uo pointed out that there is terror there.

One must then accept that fear and other emotions are meant to be, in some way, part of your experience, that one does experience emotions, and that these emotions are here to teach you. When you are incarnate in a physical form, you have both an emotional and a physical body which the being who goes beyond the astral plane does not possess. These are your tools for learning. This physical manifestation, this form, and the emotions are part of the complete being in this human form. You are never going to free yourself of emotion. It’s impossible while you are a human. And it is not the emotion that’s a problem, but how you relate to it. You see that rage or greed or whatever it may be, relate to it with hate, and say, “This doesn’t fit with the being I want to see myself as or the self-concept that I want to impart to others. What if someone finds out?” I do not know to what degree this is true for you, but for many it becomes a strong factor in keeping them apart from a closeness with others, even when they long for that closeness. I would suggest that it would be worth exploring.

Another factor, that often enters into one’s ambiguity as to whether there will be or there will not be a close relationship, is the learning about separation and oneness. So many beings incarnate on this earth to experience the strong sense of separation. It is a gift to teach you. When you feel the pain of that illusion of separateness, eventually it becomes painful enough that you must truly probe and study and investigate it. Then and only then do you begin to look at reality, which is that you are not and have never been separate. The sense of separation is painful; so are the heavy emotions that we just discussed.

I am not implying that your learning must be painful. Pain doesn’t teach you anything. Pain is, if Carla will excuse a bad pun, a pain in the neck. But pain screams, “Pay attention!” and paying attention teaches you. When you can learn to pay attention without pain, you will need far less pain to learn. When you can pay attention to the ways in which you feel separate and move past that wall of pain and anger that enhances the sense of separation, finding acceptance and forgiveness for all of that in yourself which has created the illusion of separation, then you will no longer need that illusion.

There is one further thing I would say here. So often you seem to hear two voices within you. One, that comes from the heart, is a voice of love, and one, that we would call the voice of the brain or of reason, is often a voice of fear. You have one voice within you that asks you to trust yourself and trust others, to allow yourself to open, to cherish that beautiful self within as a bud, bringing it into the sunlight of your love. And then there is the voice of fear, and it says, “Well I have work to do on myself. Maybe I’m not ready for a relationship.” Do you see the excuses there? Can you see the avoidance? There is always work to do on oneself, no matter how evolved you become. You are never complete but always in progress. Do you wait for perfection? Can you begin to see that it is the voice of fear that suggests that you wait and to ask yourself with some compassion, “What am I afraid of? What is this fear?”—not to track it down analytically as it grows out of this or that event of childhood, but to begin to see all the anger and lack of self-acceptance behind it and to relate to that with love and compassion?

It is so hard to have compassion for yourselves. Each of you here would respond with great love if someone else had told you your own story. But to yourselves you turn only judgment and contempt. It is not that you need to become more lovable before someone will be interested in you enough to have a relationship with you. It is not that you need to become more lovable, to have enough to offer to another so that it seems right to offer yourself; rather, it is that you need to love yourself enough and to trust.

Know that when you open and trust there may be pain. At times, the trust will not be met with the same level of love and trust. Begin to take everything in your life as a learning experience, to know that being alone and lonely is teaching you something, opening yourself and allowing yourself to be vulnerable to another is teaching you something. Finding a deep and loving relationship with another will teach you something. What is it that you need to learn? It is so hard to let go of the edge of one’s current perceived illusory limitations and strike out across the vast sea of consciousness, letting go of the shore, of the safety of that shallow and safe beach, to move into deeper water, not knowing where one is going. Indeed, one often feels like those early explorers who wondered if the world was flat and if they would fall over the edge. That story appeals to many because of the depth it holds in one’s own unconscious mind. How difficult to let go of the edge and proceed with faith and courage that one is always where one needs to be, and that the next learning offered, whether it is of loneliness of or love, is exactly what one needs. If one is able to accept that love that is offered and to move beyond the fears a bit, not getting rid of the fear but allowing it to fall away as it is no longer needed, then one finds that a world of love is offered.

I feel that you have specific questions about what I’ve said, but I would prefer to let Q’uo speak now; and if those questions are not answered in what my brother/sister says, we would be glad to return to them. That is all.

I am Q’uo. To continue this thought, we would bring the attention back to a fundamental concept regarding the nature and purpose of the third-density incarnational experience. Earlier this instrument was singing a phrase from your holy works, “for he is like a refiner’s fire.” 2 In this pioneer density, it is not expected that all the slag and dross of self shall be purified. It is expected, rather, that in the darkness of unknowing and by faith alone, one may see that the incarnational experience is a process, first of choosing the way that the self wishes to be distilled, of what essence it wishes to smell; and then having made that fundamental choice of how to love, opening oneself to the very painful process (to the self, which does not like to change) of distillation or refining. This instrument often sings a prayer which is, “Temper my spirit, O Lord. Keep it long in the fire. Make me one with the flame. Let me share that upreaching desire. Grasp it Thyself, O my God, Swing me straighter and higher. Temper my spirit, O Lord. Temper my spirit, O Lord… “ 3

The densities above your own are densities in which this refining process progresses from the point at which you are when you graduate from the third-density schoolroom. Shall we say that in third density, the Higher Self, which is the Creator, evaluates and grades, shall we say, using the curve, as this instrument would call it. There is not absolute perfection possible. Thusly, one is simply hoping in a relativistic way to approach nearer and nearer to a heartfelt dedication to begin the refining process in a conscious manner, not simply reacting to the stimuli in this thick darkness of unknowing but choosing rather to live a life in blind faith and to prosecute that first choice of service to others which does begin in love of self with every possible vehemence and passion.

There is always much to forgive when the self perceives the self. We suggest that each entity may helpfully see all the dross of self, not as shameful but as inevitable—as, to use the one known as Ram Dass’s phrase, grist for the mill. Thus, one can refrain from fear of one’s own fears, anger at one’s angers, judgment at one’s own unskillful judgments, so that the process may be seen mercifully, that the self may see that the self plunges into the furnace by choice. Yet we would suggest that loving-kindness and mercy be a portion of self-awareness, so that one is able to move into the refiner’s fire only when it will not do violence to the young, precious spiritual self that was born immaculately within when the first decision was made of how to serve the infinite Creator. The choice to serve others is not a conclusion; it is the cornerstone or beginning of a process of distillation that will continue for a long, long time, as you understand time.

We would conclude with a comment about emotion. Entities over-value the intellect because it seems to the intellect that one has only the intellect with which to analyze situations. In the strict sense of analysis and linear thinking, this is so. Yet by depending upon that analytical ability, the attention is drawn from the true intelligence of the self, the true seat of wisdom, which is the mercy seat of purified emotion. It is not your lack of self-acceptance, it is a lack of self-acceptance, a quality which you now dip into and experience and use. It is not personal to you. It is an emotion felt by you and [by] many. In emotion one is never alone, for the emotions run like the underground waterways which bubble up in clear springs at their own time and season. One who wishes to dig a well to tap this underground or subconscious source of the water of spiritual refinement needs to go gently, to go deep carefully, so that one rather woos or courts the earth away which lies between it and the water of purified emotion, which is a portion of the deep wisdom of the self. Honor each emotion. Look at it as you would gaze at a gem, at a crystal. You may see it as imperfect, but it is your truth. As you turn that crystal, flawed as it is, you may see that though it refracts light unevenly, yet the refraction is full of beauty and color. Thusly, in honoring the emotions for the wisdom that they truly convey, one is able to bear the pain of self-revelation, which is the essence of conscious entrance into a safe and gentle refining fire, a fire that does not burn away that which you still need.

We would at this time allow the energy of the group to move back to the one known as Aaron. We leave this instrument, briefly, in love and light. I am Q’uo.

I am Aaron, and it is with love and joy that I share this process of responding to your questions with the principle known as Q’uo. I speak for both of us when I say that it enhances our understanding as well to listen to each other and to your own thoughts, and to investigate these questions more fully. We have by no means exhausted any discussion of fear or anger; and yet, perhaps enough has been said for tonight.

Are there further questions that any wish to ask?

R would like to know 4 if the work begun in healing the child within, and which was left undone after discovering it, plays a significant part in his current illness.

I am Aaron. I am troubled by the question because of the place of self-judgment from which it comes. We have spoken with R and find much anger within him at the self. His assumption is correct, and yet, he must be helped to understand the desire within him to use that assumption to simply blame himself further; that it will become simply another object of anger, another source of that anger. Can you see how easily this is distorted? It is necessary to be truthful with him. And yet, if I were speaking to him in person, I would stress instead the healing that is needed, the opening more compassionately to the self. Rather than putting the focus of the attention on what has not been done, I would put the focus of the attention on what it is possible to do. Is this answer sufficient, or would you prefer me to speak on it?

[The questioner indicated that this was sufficient.]

Are there further questions?

My question has to do with pain and the emotions that surround pain as a messenger. One technique that I’ve learned in looking at the pain is to be soft with the pain, to resist not. I wonder if you could elaborate on how one learns to soften more. I think that is enough.

I am Aaron. I understand your question. As you know, this technique is a very valuable one. It would be useful to look deeper at why it works. What does softening around pain mean? I would like to suggest the value of investigating the difference between pain and suffering. Pain is just pain. That doesn’t mean it’s pleasant, but one can deal with a great amount of pain without its causing suffering. Suffering comes to your resistance to pain and is very different. We speak here both of physical and emotional pain and suffering. When you struggle with what is, wishing it away, hating it, you create suffering for yourselves because you cannot control what happens in your life. You’ve seen this countless times. You are happy and everything is beautiful, and suddenly it has been turned upside down. You are picnicking with your loved ones in the sunshine and it begins to pour. And you hate the rain! You are hiking on a beautiful trail with exquisite views and begin to rub a blister on your foot. How can you avoid pain?

Q’uo spoke earlier of happiness. As it comes and goes there is a much deeper level that one can reach than happiness. What is happiness? It’s not something that comes from sunshine on a picnic or freedom from a blister on a hike. It comes from a place within that knows that whatever happens is okay. I would suggest the term equanimity here—a deep space of acceptance where one lets go of the need to control, where there is neither aversion to what is nor a grasping for what is not. This does not mean that one does not give energy to try to make things better. But there is a difference between preferring that something be a certain way and working toward that preference, and needing it to be that way. When you need it to be that way then you create suffering for yourselves, seeing suffering, then, as resistance to what is, even to the point of hating what is.

I would like you all to try an experiment with me. I would suggest that Carla not do this. Hold out an arm, just hold it up while I talk. I will go on to other things and allow this arm to become heavy, allow you to feel some pain.

What I want you to begin to look at is the difference between the pure physical sensation of discomfort that you call pain and that within you that hates the pain, that wants to put the arm down, that says, “This is enough”—the struggle to make it go away. As you begin to sense that struggle, whether it be with physical pain, with an emotional pain, with anything in your lives that brings intense discomfort, when you begin to see aversion to that discomfort, that fear is what you need to soften around. First, you notice the aversion, the wanting it to be different, the hating it the way it is, and you allow yourself permission to grieve for that which could not be. In its most simplistic terms, you wake up on the day of the picnic and see it pouring. You stub your toe and feel the pain, and know that because of that pain you won’t be able to continue to walk, that your life will be uncomfortable for several weeks. Then you move into a space of anger and judgment. Finally, especially those of you who are more advanced spiritually, you say, “I shouldn’t be judging; I shouldn’t be angry,” and that just increases the suffering.

I believe most of your arms are feeling heavy enough now to continue with this experiment. Can you begin to separate the physical discomfort from the suffering that comes from disliking that discomfort, allowing yourself the right to be uncomfortable? Experiment with this for a moment, and when you need to, put your arms down.

So there are two different things we’re speaking about here. To soften around pain means to let go of the resistance to that pain. When you do that you are no longer suffering; then it is just pain, nothing else, and is far more easy to bear in that way. Second, when you notice the suffering, you begin to treat yourself with much more love. To honor the pain and respect it gives you a great deal of freedom from hating it.

There are many other techniques that can be used to soften around pain. Visualization is a great help here, especially when speaking of physical pain. Simply think of that being whose presence connotes love to one. It may be Jesus or whatever being of your choice. Visualize that being literally sending out love and light to that part of the body where there is pain, not lessening the pain, perhaps, because that may not be in its power nor may it be desirable that the pain be lessened, as it is there for a reason, but touching the heart that fights against the pain, the place of fear that says, “Will this pain never end?” because there is so much fear in pain.

Another thing that may help is remaining in this moment, because so much of the fear of pain is not that it’s intolerable in this moment, but fear that it will continue till the next moment and the next and the next. When you can come back to this moment you can simply experience the pain with a far less intense need to get rid of it. What is pain? When you come back to this moment, you can begin to investigate it. You’ll see that it’s not solid as it feels at first. It comes and goes; it moves around. Sometimes it seems to peak, then to relax a bit, and then it returns. It is not a solid object with which you need to wage a war. How much more lovingly can you relate to it?

Finally, I would suggest a method whereby one visualize the blockage in that part of the body where the pain is concentrated. Visualize, if you will, your own inner energy as flowing through you and simply blocked at that point. A visualization that some have found helpful is to see themselves as lying in the bed of the stream… a hot sunny day and the water feels cool and refreshing; and it’s flowing strongly, a stream with bubbling rapids. Lying with your head upstream, allow that water to flow in through the crown chakra, not forcing its way past any obstruction, as that would be a violence to the self, but allowing that gentle water to touch the obstruction with loving coolness, to remind the self where the obstruction exists so that the self may gently allow it to dissolve, not feeling any brutality at all but just the loving pressure of water that over a time erodes even the largest boulder. Allow that same loving presence gently to touch this obstruction, one sandy grain at a time, until the energy flow is restored. When there is an injury to some part of the body or a recurrent physical ailment, this continued use of this visualization may be helpful.

One of the things that may grow out of such a visualization is a clearer understanding of where the energy is blocked. When you experience a chronic illness, it will help you to understand why there is blockage in that area. I say this because you are each aware that you have certain weak points in your body; and when there is physical injury or loss, it seems to concentrate, for one in the head, for another in the stomach, for a third in the back, and so on. These are not by accident, but come from the cells’ memories of past karma. One does not need to know the experience of the entire lifetime to have a brief glimpse that there was an injury there or violence to that area of the body, and that there is still holding or contraction there that needs your love and forgiveness to dissolve.

I believe that Q’uo has more to say to this, and rather than trying to answer it all myself, would prefer to share the answer. That is all.

I am Q’uo, and as we feel this amount of material is sufficient to engage the hearts and minds of those now sitting, this shall be the concluding response from Aaron and ourselves.

In parting, we would offer to each that which is not original or new, but that which seems at this particular moment to be helpful. We would preface this by saying that each entity is far more than it realizes itself to be, yet the ruthlessly literal nature of logical processes in which the mind is so often engaged creates a situation wherein the body is indeed the creature of the mind. But the body, in its literal hearing of the mind, expresses itself as literally as possible in response to catalyst that has not been used by the mind, thus expressing within the body in a very dogmatic and fundamentalist way, if one were to speak in terms of spirituality, those blockages or difficulties encountered by the mind as stimulus.

Thusly, we would ask each to perceive again that there are indeed, as we have been speaking of in these last few sessions, two hearts and two minds. The mental mind is shallow, but extremely useful for dealing with the illusion. The second mind is that heart or emotional self wherein lies deeper knowledge, deeper wisdom, and true awareness. Likewise, there is that heart which is the heart of wisdom and which would give anything and everything to ameliorate or palliate pain, either self-perceived or perceived by another who comes to the self for helpful advice. This first heart strives in its wisdom ever to become more wise, more purified in its emotions and its wisdoms. The second heart is indeed the heart which needs to be worked with in softening the self to “resist not evil,” 5 as the phrase goes.

This heart, whether male or female, can be imagined as a womb which is full, soft, and pregnant with unlimited fullness. Each time that one experiences the tightening of any portion of the physical vehicle, it is well to move gently, slowly, down this tree of mind and heart to the full heart, which gives a fullness without diminishing itself. Feel the tension in all of the body, but especially in this womb-heart and literally in the way the abdomen is tensed. One may even push at the abdomen to feel the degree of tension and explore this as a physical sensation. Then one may guide one’s breath ever deeper, breathing in mercy and loving-kindness, allowing that rigid belly to be soft, literally soft. You will find that as soon as the attention wanders from the softness of that abdomen, of that womb, the belly begins once again to tense. The entire body, when facing the catalyst of pain, reacts quite literally in defense by tensing against a danger. Thus, it is very, very healing to work continually with patience at the unending task of relaxing that creature of mind which is the body, and especially allowing the breath to flow into the heart-womb, bringing its gentleness and its healing to dissolve tension, and breathing out all that tension in deep, spontaneous breathing, not to attempt to breath deeper than usual but simply to breath in visualized love, nurturing light, and spaciousness in which the self may relax.

In the case of a solidified pain due to illness, there are many, many layers of tension and tightness. Thus, it is not enough to do this exercise once or periodically, but rather to honor the self by paying the coin of attention and mindfulness that it deserves. Attend to the state of the tenseness of the body; and whenever it is perceived, in whatever company or circumstance, allow the mind to do its visualization of softening that heart-womb of fullness and allowing that fullness to give out of fullness into fullness at the cellular level for all of the body. Then, the feedback of body to mind becomes that which the mind cannot create; that is, mercy and merciful forgiveness.

May each respect its own striving to be more and more a channel for the love and the light of the infinite One, but may each also perceive the mercy and kindliness of a Creator which is love, and allow that love to inform ever more deeply the conscious being which often feels unloved.

You are all beautiful. The blending of your vibrations is that which gives us enormous aesthetic pleasure; and the joining of our hearts to yours in shared thought is a more precious gift than we can convey with mere words. So allow the love of the Creator which is channeled through us and through each other to rest upon you, now and in each moment. We would leave you in the love, the light, and the peace of the infinite One. We are known to you as those of the principle, Q’uo. Adonai. Adonai vasu borragus.

  1. Inscription at the Delphic oracle, as reported by Plutarch in Morals. ↩

  2. Holy Bible, Malachi 3:2, and the text for a bass solo from Handel’s oratorio, Messiah. ↩

  3. A hymn often sung at camp in Carla’s childhood. The hymn book used is no longer to be found. ↩

  4. Offered in absentia for R. ↩

  5. Holy Bible, Matthew 5:39. ↩