We have just started a new year and we are wondering, as we look back over the past year, we are wondering what we can learn from intellectually? What can we observe and benefit from? And how much does our intellect play into the growth that we do accomplish? We would also like to know what role gratitude plays in our evolution?

(Carla channeling)

We are those of the principle known to you as Q’uo. Greetings, in the love and in the ineffable light of the one infinite Creator, in whose service we come. We want to thank each of you for calling us to your circle of seeking this day. It is our privilege and pleasure to respond to your call for our thoughts and opinions. As always, we are most happy to be with you and to share with you anything that we feel or know, with the understanding, as always, that each of you will take from those things which we say only those thoughts that seem useful and good to you, leaving the rest behind. We are not an authority but, rather, we are your companions on the way.

The topic you have asked us to speak on this day is the place of the intellect in learning and assessing one’s spiritual state and the place of gratitude in that same process of seeking ever more deeply and fully that truth that lies at the heart of things. As is often the case, we would begin by moving backwards from the question to a more fundamental place, that place which sees all of the incarnational experience of each entity on the Earth plane as a very small part of a lifetime that is eternal and a citizenship that is infinite, for each of you is a thought that has sprung from the Creator. From the Logos through many densities and experiences has come this present incarnational self with its burden of gifts and challenges. Each of you existed before time and space. Each of you will exist when time and space have no more meaning, and, yet, within each incarnation there is the hope of transformation. There are the lessons put before the self by the self. There are the gifts of the incarnations that you share. There are the sufferings of the incarnation to work with, to accept, to forgive, to heal.

Each who enters the Earth plane has these things in common, and truly each sub-sub Logos, each spark of the infinite Creator, each person, has within this small incarnation tremendous forces poised, waiting for the proper stimulation or invitation in order to exist, to guide, to help with healing processes. And if each has felt this hope that there are those forces, energies and essences that can help with difficult incarnational challenges, then we say that this hope is infinitely justified. For each of you is as the magician with the wand, in potential. Each of you has power and force, will, and faith. These things are stored in infinite supply in great storehouses that lie within each of you, awaiting only that awareness that calls in quiet confidence for the assistance that is already there.

Since each of you is as a thought we may see the tremendous and infinite complexity of that concept, for you are not a thought in the sense of being only one thing; that is, in the sense in which words are used. Certainly, each of you is one thing and the same thing, that being love. And yet each of you has colored that infinite love that is the core of being with those distortions which take the clear white light of limitless truth and shade it in rainbows of personality and character so that each of you is as a tapestry in which dark and light and colorful threads are woven together through your experiences, your sufferings, your joys, and your sorrows. And all of these threads—the light, the dark, and the color—are beautiful and the way that you put them together can be beautiful, even when the material seems very difficult and the experiences very dense and hard to bear.

Upon the human plane, then, on that level of conscious living from which each of you is asking this question, the prospect of gaining a great deal from the use of the conscious mind may be seen to be, at best, limited. Certainly, the use of the mind is recommended, and, certainly, there are more and less skillful ways to use the mind in that attempt to create for the self clearer understandings of the self and of the challenges and issues that are before not just the conscious personality but the metaphysical entity that each is.

May we say that the intellectual mind has implicit limitations, those limitations being the natural limitations of reason. Ratiocination is an exercise which is posited upon the faith and logic and reason. To a certain extent this faith is justified. However, that which is rational and reasonable is only a small part of this essence of self and, therefore, the use of the conscious mind has natural limitations. Reason cannot move down into the roots of being, for those roots are not reasonable or rational but are, rather, of that energy which this instrument is used to calling archetypal or archetypical. The essences of each of your beings have far more to do with intense purified emotion than with reason. This is a topic in itself that bears much inquiry.

And when we have finished with all of the avenues of thought that reason and logic and imagination can form and create there is much material of self remaining which has not been touched by the process of analysis and thought. When the one known as T brought up the question concerning gratitude the appropriateness of this direction of thought was extremely logical and reasonable in a profound sense, that sense being that the deeper reaches of thought and mind and consciousness and being are directly worked upon with far greater efficiency and effect by those energies which are usually called emotions or emotion-laden concepts such as gratitude, hope, faith and will. It is beyond all reason to expect within a little life to transform that infinite eternal being that you are, and yet within every incarnation this is possible and in many incarnations this is realized.

There is no incarnation that is just a punishment or just a vacation. All incarnational experiences are clear so that there are lessons to learn and gifts to share. And the channels in which each entity is moved to travel are those pathways of thought and habit that feel right to that entity and this is as it should be. For your essence, your deepest energy, is more feeling that thought, more energy than concept, and that which works best upon the deep self is essence, that essence of feeling as opposed to sense.

This instrument has often said it is not what happens to one, it is one’s response to what happens to one which is the natural arena within which entities may wield their power and offer their truths. It is the attitude with which one meets the moment that sets and prepares the self to receive that moment’s burden of joy or sorrow. If the attitude is gratitude, if the moment is met in thanksgiving, whatever comes at that moment is bid welcome, is embraced, and this is a very positive and excellent metaphysical stance with which to greet that which is occurring in the moment. This business of attitude is extremely central to the metaphysical learning experience and much wisdom is expressed by the entity who is working with the attitude with which she greets the moment. This is not a process much open to reason. Oftentimes, in any reasonable sense, there is little to give thanks for in a given moment, and there are what seem to be weighty reasons to meet the moment with fear and trembling. And yet in these moments, as in all moments, great skill lies in keeping the heart completely open and allowing love to flow through the self with that attitude of thankfulness and praise that looks for the very best that could be within the present moment.

There are many circumstances within your experience, and, certainly, within all third-density experience in which the self is very uncomfortable, in which there are many negative feelings of alienation, isolation, anguish, grief, anger and disappointment. And, yet, it is especially [important] in these times to cling to the same attitude of praise and thanksgiving with which the high points, the good days, of an incarnation are naturally greeted. It is when it makes the least sense to be thankful, to offer praise, and to have an open and flowing heart, that there is the most skill in choosing this response to life itself. For if each of you is a thought, and if that thought is love, then shall you not be at your most skillful in attempting to keep open a channel for that love that you are? It is as though the situations of life try to silence and make dumb that clarion love within. And, yet, they cannot silence you if you will not be silenced, for it is always your choice to cling to hope, to believe and have faith when there is no evidence to support such thoughts, such attitudes. It is when all seems darkest that you may, with the most direct apprehension, know and feel and sense that truth within, that unconditional and absolute love that created you and sustains you.

In the dark of the night that lies across the hearts of those who mourn and weep there is a humble dwelling, and in that dwelling that lives within your heart there is a principle, an essence, an absolute being that is Love. To this instrument that Love came down into the human condition as Jesus the Christ. To many to whom this is not meaningful the essence can remain unnamed and simply be Love, Love eternal, Love divine, Love creative and destroying, infinite Love. However you wish to frame it, this Love is with you in the darkness. This energy is faithful to the light with complete disregard to outer circumstance, for to love there are no outer circumstances but only infinite light and infinite love.

So, we certainly suggest that you make use of those faculties of intelligence and reason that help you to analyze what is happening to you, help you to keep yourself in a self-understood order, but, more than this, we would encourage the cultivation of purified emotions. Those emotions being faith and hope and charity. Encourage yourself to be faithful in meeting each moment with hope and gratitude, praise and thanksgiving. And, insofar as it is possible, we encourage each to find ways of strengthening these habits of mind so that, little by little, it becomes habitual to greet the moment with hope, to greet the situation with faith, to greet the relationship with gratitude, humility, patience and love. Where the intellect loses energy and is no more these deeper emotions become more and more and then oceans of energy offering infinite power and infinite grace to those who persist in seeking them. May we suggest to each of you the great benefits of disciplining your personality so that the first thought when engaged in a new situation is that thought of praise and thanksgiving. For when you stand upon that thought all that your outer circumstances can give to you will be grist for the mill, fodder to be chewed, experiences to be analyzed, to be loved, to be accepted, and to be forgiven.

We would at this time transfer this contact to the one known as Jim that we may continue this working through that instrument. We leave this instrument with thanks, in love and in light, for we are those of Q’uo.

(Jim channeling)

I am Q’uo, and I greet each again in love and in light through this instrument. At this time it is our privilege to offer ourselves to the further responding to any queries which may yet remain upon the minds of those present. Is there another query to which we may respond?

About a recent experience that I had, I had attempted to meet a relative’s questions over many years on the subject of channeling with patience and tolerance and although this has seemed to be the right way to handle things in actuality, during this last Christmas I became unable to be tolerant and patient and expressed strong emotions such as anger and pain at this objecting that my relative was doing to me. It seemed to create a much more rapid and healing response from him than all my patience and tolerance had and this surprised me very much. I wondered if you could comment on this process?

I am Q’uo, and am aware of your query, my sister. As each of you move through the various levels and kinds of relationships with those who are close to you, you will find that there is a certain efficiency to speaking from the heart as contrasted to speaking from the mind or the intellect. For though the mind is quite useful in its ability to analyze experience and to chart a potential course of action, there is no efficiency greater than the spontaneous response of the heart that wells up from inside of one, for this tuning into one’s emotions in an honest manner, without desire or manipulation, is that which speaks to another heart most clearly. For though each of you is able to, shall we say, put a good face on a situation by using one’s intellect, this is only a stop-gap measure, for there is within each entity the sure knowledge of clear communication that is from one’s heart and this kind of communication speaks more clearly than any other. For it tears away that facade or barrier which keeps one heart from another. All hearts know pain. All hearts seek solace. When one becomes aware of another’s heart that is in pain then there is the greater likelihood that one will respond honestly with one’s own emotions, the doors having been opened by the first to do so.

Is there another query, my sister?

No. Thank you. That was very clear.

I am Q’uo, and we thank you once again, my sister. Is there another query at this time?

Yes, I would just ask since this is the season of Jesus’ nativity if there is anything that you would choose to say about this entity and this particular season of the year.

I am Q’uo, and am aware of your query, my sister. This season, that which gives the focus of attention for a moment to the life and love of the one known as Jesus the Christ is, for us, one of our favorite for observation among your peoples for it is at this time, especially within this particular culture, that many difficult relationships are made more smooth and loving as a result of the focus upon the Christ child coming into the world of illusion. It is at this time that many of your peoples find time to drop their usual cares and concerns and to make a pilgrimage to their own hearts, and, in so doing, also move in a compassionate vibration into the hearts of those about them. Though the practice of revering the life of the one known as Jesus is usually short lived, we find that the focus, even for a brief time, upon this entity’s center or central message of love is most helpful to the entire planet, for as love becomes the focus for more and more of your peoples so does this vibration of love move in an harmonic manner around and throughout the planet itself. Thus, we rejoice with you at the birth of this entity in each heart that makes room for him, and we remind each that this pilgrimage to the heart is a journey that each can take at any moment. We thank each for making this journey. It is our privilege to walk with you upon it, for we also make the same journey.

Is there another query at this time?

No. Thank you.

I am Q’uo. As we have apparently exhausted the queries for this session of working, we would take this opportunity to thank each gathered here today for making those sacrifices necessary in order to form this circle of seeking. We are aware that each works with much catalyst in the daily round of activities and it is often not easy to remove oneself from that momentum. At this time we would take our leave of this instrument and this group, leaving each, as always, in the love and in the ineffable light of the one infinite Creator. We are known to you as those of Q’uo. Adonai, my friends. Adonai.