The question today has to do with what it is to be a member of a group. We would like Q’uo to give us an indication of, is it something more physical, is it more metaphysical? Has it to do with commitment to ideals? Is it work effort offered, working for the general welfare of the group? What is it to be a member of a group? Especially a group in a spiritual community. And also, as a second part of that, what is the most loving way to deal with any member of a group which is seen to fall short of the group ideals?

(Carla channeling)

We are known to you as the principle of Q’uo, and we greet you in the love and in the light of the one infinite Creator, in Whose service we come to you this day. It is a great privilege to be called to your group to talk about groups and, as always, we would ask for a favor from you and that is that each of you guards your discriminatory abilities well. Listen to those things that we share with you asking yourself if these thoughts are helpful to you or not. If they do not seem helpful to you or to resonate, then we ask you please to leave them aside without a second thought, for we would not interfere with your process or be a stumbling block. Do not respect authority, but question it. Always put everything to the test before you allow it strength or power within your own mind. For you know that which is yours. It will resonate and re-echo within you as if it were something that you just remembered, even though you might not have heard the thought before. When thoughts are not resonant it is much better to leave them behind. With that understood, it will allow us to speak freely and have no fear that we will be infringing upon your free will, and we thank you for this consideration.

You ask us what it is to be a part of a group and since we are a part of several groups, let us begin there. We, speaking to you as the principle of Q’uo, are a group made up of three social memory complexes. We have, as complexes, chosen to serve in a unified way by sharing thoughts with those who are actively seeking, who are actively questioning, and who have the ability to listen to channels such as this one. We also speak directly within entities’ dreams and meditations, not with words but with a basic vibrational energy which is as a carrier wave for your own vibrational nexus so that it is as though we were strengthening your basic signal and making it easier for you to hear yourself and to be aware of the reality of yourself.

Thus, we have come together as social memory complexes to serve in this way; and we have come together as a principle to serve together in this way with regard to this one instrument who requests the highest and best contact that she may receive. It is our way of responding to that request to form a three-party principle so that together we may maximize the nuances available to this instrument from spiritual sources. To be a part of this particular group, then, has been a very conscious and deliberate choice on our part. It has been a choice of all three of us social memory complexes to come together to serve and it has been a choice of these three complexes to serve together in this one instance.

We have the advantage of knowing where our center is. We have the advantage of having an awareness of our—we give this instrument a word she can not translate into English; it is not leadership, it suggests centrality but focuses beyond any physical entity or person and is wrapped up in the concept of the Creator Itself. But to us, that concept is very real, obvious and natural within the illusion of the Earth plane.

A Creator-centered group cannot function as though that Creator were obvious, clear and full of meaning. Within your density, the systems of illusion are paramount. That which you call consensus reality is illusory. And to seek for a center, or a Creator that has meaning within that consensus reality is to seek that which is not existent at that level in that reality. Consequently, that which we find natural, comfortable and obvious is not something we can explain to you and say, “Here is the rule for a group. Here is how you know you belong together in a group.”

Within your consensus reality, however, within third density as you know it, the question of groups is central. This is due to the fact that within third density the progress of each individual is impossible without group interaction to some extent. An entity left entirely to himself cannot thrive. This is the way of third density. It was designed to be a density in which entities would learn more and more about who they were by interacting with other entities who were doing the same thing. It was an environment designed to deceive as much as to reveal, to confuse as much as to explicate. It was designed this way in order to advance the energies of growth, which are also the energies of confusion. And therefore, within third density the individuals who are seeking to advance spiritually, mentally, emotionally and physically have, more than anything else, their feelings and instincts to guide them. Those instincts naturally lead them into groups.

The most obvious kind of group within third density is the family. In the family, the center is physical: the progenitor has sired children and those children have sired children and so forth. And there is a family tree from which one descends and of which one is a part. One cannot opt out of a family group. One’s mother and father and so forth remain who they are and, indeed, were specifically chosen by each of you before entry into the incarnation that you enjoy at this present time.

The energies of entities within third density are also instinctively and naturally that which we would call political. There is the desire to organize the structure and tenor of one’s existence for the perceived group and through time this has developed into the rise and fall of many different kinds of civilizations and cultures. Again, in such groups, the center is obvious. There is a perceived authority; that is, the leader of the state, the city, the nation, or whatever group is perceived to be the government, shall we say. Your people have created many different kinds of structures from which government depends. And at this time your experiences of political structures are for the most part happy in that, while there is often disagreement with the leaders of your structures within the Western civilizations or cultures, there is a perceived degree of freedom which is that which feels proper and appropriate. So that, while entities may feel disappointed or discomfited by specific leaders, there is that underlying trust in the processes that guard freedom and keep government from coming oppressive and a type of slavery.

Another obvious kind of group that you experience within your culture is the nuclear family; that is, the family made up of two who decide to marry. In this group, the center is obvious also and it is physical. There is a kind of family corporation which has been set up and it is a partnership. In all of these groups, there is no need to plumb the mysteries of the human spirit [and] more particularly, of your own spirit and your own nature.

When one attempts to begin a group which has as its focus the Creator, one begins to create a group which is based and founded in mystery. There is no obvious center, physically speaking, to such a group. Within this instrument’s experience, the religious aspect of spiritual seeking has been emphasized and she has appreciated the physical centrality of group worship along the lines of her distortion, which is the Christian worship. Within the church atmosphere or group, again, there is a physical center. There is a place where entities gather to worship. There is a perceived leader of the worship, that being the rector or priest, and there is liturgy into which entities may enter. The means of joining such a group are ritually set out, those being baptism and confirmation.

For the purposes of this particular entity’s seeking, however, belonging to a physical, religious group did not at all satisfy this entity’s desire to serve the Creator. And in conjunction with others of like mind, this entity long ago began to make agreements, first with the one known as Don, to form a partnership of seeking service and giving. Then, after many years of serving at this level, there was a further agreement made with a third entity, the one known as Jim, and this agreement reached between three entities was manifested into the physical by the three entities sitting down together and making a group agreement. The external shape of this agreement was a document in which entities simply held their lives in common, their goods, their talent, and their time, offering all to the Creator: all for one and one for all.

When these three entities came together in this focus, the outward manifestations of grace which rained upon this group in abundance and plenty included channeled material which those within this group know as the Law of One information. And in general, throughout the years up until this threesome was expanded by many of those within this present circle, the peace, unity and harmony of this group and its focus were notable. As the time flew and the century turned, more abundance began to befall this group, more souls were called to this vicinity with that feeling that there was something here, some opportunity to serve, some possibility that was worth pursuing. And so, in idealistic hope, in the desire to serve, and in great positive harmony, entities began to come to create a spiritually-oriented family. Where before there had been a group of three and then two because of the loss through death of the one known as Don, there came to be six and seven and even eight within the household which had gathered in hopes to serve the infinite One.

Perhaps it may be seen, as you look at this developing pattern, that, at this point, this particular group that is L/L Research, or the family that has gathered around the ideas and ideals of L/L Research, has gone for quite some time without sitting down in counsel and agreeing upon a group focus, a group identity, and so forth.

Now, what is it to be a group? May we say that it is what you wish it to be. Do you wish your group to have a physical focus? Do you crave that state of agreed-upon contractual support? Or rather, do you crave a sense of independence in your seeking, in your service, and in your learning? For there can be confederations of like-minded entities which do not have specific agreements within the physical plane.

Now let us look at what each of you brings to the circle of seeking in terms of group potential. Each of you has a certain energy, that with which you came into the world, that which is your unique and wonderful gift to give. There is no energy that is like yours. The way you relate to each of the others within this circle is unique. The colors of each of you blending, aurically, energetically, chakra by chakra, are marvelous and complex. You each bring your level of awareness, your gifts, your time, your energy, and your being. Most of all, you bring that essential beingness. You also bring unseen friends. Each of you has spiritual guidance and in some cases this guidance is extremely well developed. And it is as though your family history is with you, not in the sense of your physicality but in the sense of your stream of soul energy: where you have been, with whom you have worked in other lives, in other densities, on other projects. So you bring to a group your own energy and the energy of your guidance system. You also bring with you that which you hope, that which you dream, that which you intend.

When speaking of group energy it is good to see in the members not simply that body which fills the chair or sits upon the floor, but to realize that entity as an energy, a power, and an extended structure that walks back through time and space, connecting as it goes with other levels on the inner planes and on the outer planes as well. There is a very rich embranchment of energies that each of you brings. And as you sit in a circle as you are now, you may see yourself as the circle of stones at Stonehenge or a circle of trees in a magic circle and especially may we use the simile of the trees because in the trees there are those branches and those branches reach out so that you are not simply the trunk of a tree here, you have unseen ramifications that blend within the unseen ramifications of others within your group.

When you choose to come together as the kind of outer group where there is a perceived center of authority, it is much easier to move forward in ways that everyone can understand than it is to do so when the group is as yours: stubbornly dedicated to a center that is unseen, hoping just as stubbornly to serve in ways that remain mysterious. This entity, for instance, has hopes of developing a sacred growth center in the country, a place where a community was designed to be set down to live. This entity, therefore, is attempting to sense into what it is to create a community. “What will be needed for that kind of community?” this instrument has asked many times. The sense that this instrument has had is that the main need is to keep the focus pure, to keep the love unconditional, and we could not argue with such simple intentions. But how difficult it is to keep all things loving and all things pure when one is dealing with entities within third density who are necessarily imperfect and unaware of many of the ramifications of the things that they do and say! This is where the question that the one known as V had becomes very important and that is, what is the best way within such a group to communicate? The luxury of full communication is not one that is offered to third-density entities. It is a luxury within third density for even two entities to be able to communicate fully. It is extremely rare for non-telepathic communication to be entirely successful.

What needs to be remembered is that unseen energy of the open heart. When one is dealing from the open heart there is a feeling that accompanies the words and it is that feeling which must carry the gaps made by the imperfections of the beings involved and fill those gaps.

You also asked what is the appropriate way, when one entity in the group has failed to meet the criteria of the group, to deal lovingly with that entity. And, indeed, this is a question that is close enough to the surface of consciousness of this instrument that we find it impossible to move very close to discussion of this aspect of the question. For, indeed, as this entity was saying earlier, it has attempted to be impeccable in open-heartedness, in the loving quality of communication, and yet it realizes that it has failed to serve, in a pure and full way, the forces of love in this moment. For there have been hard feelings, disappointments and other emotions that tend to pull groups apart and to tear down the very work that the entity known as Carla was attempting to do.

When a question is this close to the consciousness of a channel, we feel it is inappropriate to attempt to move through that interference and so we will simply say that, to all of those within this circle of seeking and to any who attempt to serve the one infinite Creator, it is well to realize that each is dealing with imperfectly realized human beings who have, nevertheless, legitimate hopes, dreams and intentions. The group that comes out of such a circle of seeking needs to be that group which is the real, the essential heart of each of those within the group. When you have no dogma upon which to lean, when you have no perceived authority figure upon which to depend, when it is a true circle of seeking, and when the center of that circle is that unseen yet deeply felt truth of the Creator, when it is the One that calls all towards it, then each must become a priest, each must become an authority, each must choose for itself how and in what way it wishes to create a group. You have the opportunity to accept that which the one known as Carla and the one known as Jim have created thus far and attempt to help that perceived, physical group which is Jim, Carla and L/L Research.

Yet, both the one known as Carla and the one known as Jim have stepped back from the position of centrality and perceived authority to request that a group be created with its unique focus created within the entire group.

There is no right or wrong way to create a group. Either the group of L/L Research, as it was before each of you came, or the group that L/L Research might become if all entered into the creation of a further flowering of this group, would be not only an acceptable group but a wonderful group. There is no downside to creating a group, as far as we know. There is only your sense of how you would wish to enter into the creation of the group. Is the group as it is that which is comfortable? Then let it be so and let authority stem from the ones known as Jim and Carla and their perceived desires. If there is a further focus that can be gathered, and we feel that there is that which has potential to grow that is more than simply the hopes of the ones known as Jim and Carla, then that too would be a wonderful and a more complex pattern. We cannot encourage you one way or the other. Indeed, we can only marvel at the energy that has pulled you this far, that has lifted you off and tossed you into the pattern in which you are now scrambling for all you are worth, attempting to perceive the pattern within the chaos, that pattern which is forming.

We cannot say to you that spirit has the answer for you. We cannot say to you that there is one right outcome. All the outcomes possible are equally right. It is in your hearts, in your hands, and in your speaking. We feel the tremendous love each of you has for yourself, for each other, for the one infinite Creator, and for your planet. We sense the depth and the richness of your intention to serve and we gaze at the beauty of your being. And we know that you shall create light and life and new things. We are glad to be a tiny part of the energy that you have together.

We encourage you always to look to the unseen center, to look to the mystery that has called you here, and that calls you forward now. What is your group? What shall you do? It is in your hands. It is in your hearts.

At this time we would open the meeting to further queries. Is there another question at this time?

Q’uo, who or what are the “lions at the gate of green ray”?

We are those of Q’uo, and are aware of your query, my brother. The figure of the lions at the gate of the temple is an ancient means of expressing a truth concerning spiritual gifts. The New York Public Library, that this instrument has seen, has just such lions sitting couchant upon the two sides of the steps leading up to its main entrance.

The mythical concept of lions at the gate goes back for many thousands…

[Side one of tape ends.]

…of years in your cultures and has to do with that sense of safety that entities wish to feel when they go to bed at night and blow out their candle and lie in the darkness waiting for sleep. There is that desire to know that you are protected. The reality of your inner energy system is that you are indeed protected at each level so that unwise use of energy cannot actually destroy the energy body.

When one is attempting to move into the heart, one is attempting to enter a sacred space. Even more than the gates of a city or the gates of a library which are supposed to protect knowledge and wisdom, the gates of the heart protect you, your essential self. If you barge into that sacred space drinking and wenching and swearing and making a great deal of rude noise, you have entered a sacred space inappropriately and the heart chakra does not wish to be entered inappropriately. Consequently, if you attempt to move into your heart chakra, to come through that door into that sacred space, when you are not appropriately tuned, you shall, in one way or another, be kicked out by the lions at the gate. That is the meaning of that figure.

May we answer you further, my brother?

Not right now Q’uo, thank you.

We thank you, my brother. Perhaps as you work with this figure there will come a series of queries that we may follow with you.

Is there another question at this time?

Q’uo, you talk about the guardian at the gate as a metaphor also for the guardian between levels so that we are protected and can not advance too swiftly. There is a theme in mythology of the guardian on the bridge and I would think that would also be a metaphor for the same protection but is there something further there—not just the protection between levels of spiritual advancement but is there something else there that causes that figure of the guardian on the bridge to show up in so many different cultures in mythology?

We are those of Q’uo. and are aware of your query, my sister. It is an interesting query for, as the one known as V so often does, she picks up the nuances that cover hidden meaning. And yes, my sister, the reason that the figure comes up so often is that it is built into the fabric of spirituality or metaphysics or the time/space play of creation, [so] that only the honest and single-minded entity will be able to thread through that narrow place, that eye of the needle. Whether it is an emotion or a learning or a realization or an astonishing epiphany, [with] each piece of yourself, as you are able to retrieve it, it is as though you are retrieving it through a very narrow space, over a very narrow bridge, through the eye of a needle or in another figure of that kind.

It is not that the forces of spirit are attempting to imprison or limit. It is rather that the way of time/space is that things are allowed to bloom when they have been fully felt. And the quality of that fullness has to do with being willing to surrender everything that is not that thing. There is a tremendous amount of releasing and letting go in the process of crossing that bridge, passing the lions, and so forth.

May we answer you further, my sister?

Yes. Can you can say whether in fact there is an entity that is the guardian on the bridge or if it is simply the conscious nature of reality?

We are those of Q’uo, and appreciate your query greatly, my sister. It is not that we refuse to say, it is that we are unable to encompass the actual nature of the reality of the metaphysical world. There are, in fact, many such guardians and they are entities and essences. They are archetypal in nature. However, for each entity, for you, for the one known as Carla, for each within this circle and each within the creation, the nature of the self helps to create those archetypes. That is a very difficult concept to wrap one’s mind around, that, you are not only the seeker but you have a very powerful part in creating the world into which you are seeking. The truth, so called, is beyond all efforts to seek it. And you yourself, as creator of your world, create, in part, the truth that you are attempting to seek.

The study of myth and archetype, therefore, is an interactive walk through the house of mirrors. For in many ways the archetypes are given and are as they are. In other ways, the entities that you meet are entities that you have helped to create. But they are indeed specific entities. However, as well, the fabric of time/space does have built into it the intelligence to recognize, respect and create openings for mature, ripened or fully formed awareness, consciousness or realization.

In each entity there is an ongoing process which is somewhat complex having to do with learning, initiation, the follow-up to initiation, the beginning of new learning, and the cycle beginning over. Further, there is not simply one initiatory cycle going on for most entities. Within this circle, certainly, [this is so] because they are not only learning from third density onward; they are learning from fourth density, fifth density, or sixth density backwards. Consequently, there are several initiatory cycles going on in most of your lives at this time. Not all of the critical portions of these cycles will hit at the same time. Occasionally, more than one cycle will hit, in a critical sense, at the same time, thus creating more than usual feelings of confusion and chaos. And certainly, this instrument has experienced this concatenation of more than one cycle moving at one time.

Thus, the purpose of the lions at the gate is one which is in an infinite process of shifting in order to respond to where the gates are in that particular entity on that particular day on that particular level; and there may be more than one level, more than one gate, and more than one lion.

May we answer you further, my sister?

Is it then a true statement to say that the archetypes are, on one level, certainly independent and separate entities or outflowings of the universe, but how they manifest and when and under what circumstances is determined by the seeker.

We are those of Q’uo, and are aware of your query, my sister. Within limits, my sister, this is a fair statement. May we answer you further?

Not on that topic, thank you. We do have a separate question from our friend, B. He asks, “If a wanderer kills another during his third-density incarnation but also spiritually awakens to be of service to others and strives to love all from the heart, will he still be able to make the harvest?”

We are those of Q’uo, and are aware of your query, my brother. The energy of manslaughter is certainly an energy that carries with it that which this instrument knows to call karma. You may see such an action as placing one upon a wheel of sorts. The wheel carries with it the self, the other self, all of the feelings which were involved in creating this relationship between the two, and so forth. In the classic sense of karma and cause and effect, the action has as its consequence a loss of unity with other self and stopping that wheel of karma has to do with balancing the energies that were disturbed by this transaction.

In any action in which another’s free will is abridged there is the necessity to seek the forgiveness of the one whose free will was abridged. In a deeper sense, the transaction has also harmed the self and perhaps more than the other self, it is the self that has been harmed. Consequently, stopping the wheel of karma involves forgiving the self as well as asking the forgiveness of the other self.

It is not for us to promise paradise, for we do not hang upon a cross. We do not gaze upon other crosses and say, “This day, you shall be with me in Paradise.” We can tell the one known as B that the forces of unconditional love would indeed speak from the cross of suffering and redemption and say, “Yes, you shall be with me in Paradise.” And we can offer that hope and that truth to the one known as B. From the standpoint, however, of one who is upon the ground, gazing at that cross, there is the self and the life that is left to live and the realization that each and every day of that life there is a choice to live in self-forgiveness, in service, in faith, and in hope.

We would urge the one known as B to work on the depths of forgiving the self, for, indeed, it is, we would say, impossible to plumb the depths of human judgment. Release those forces of judgment and know that you have come into the present moment and in that present moment lives a new life, a new hope, and a new being that is you. In this present moment, choose and dedicate that moment to the service of the one infinite Creator, and we do not feel that there is a single force in this universe that could be denying to you the love and the light of the one infinite Creator.

Is there another query at this time?

Q’uo, I’ve had a challenge for many years avoiding distractions during meditation. And I feel that recently it is greater or maybe I’ve noticed it more. Do you have any advice that might help my self and others in this situation?

We are those of Q’uo, and are aware of your query, my brother. We would indeed suggest to the one known as T that he find the music within the noise. The excesses of twentieth century classical music notwithstanding, there have been many successful attempts to frame, in some way, the art behind the nature of modern noise. This instrument, when away at school, also found herself within a very noisy atmosphere, for this instrument’s school was on a truck route and there was a red light at the bottom of a hill upon which this instrument slept. So during the night there would be the screeching of air brakes as large trucks on their route approached the red light at the bottom of this hill which was paved with brick. It created a sound not easily described but easily imagined and certainly loud. This instrument found that if she created a song in which she used the melody and the tones of these otherwise obnoxious sounds in the creating of the melody so that she was able to acknowledge it and even hum along with it, she was much more able to take it with a light heart and see it as part of the music of life.

We realize that it is more difficult to do this with the careless and thoughtless noise of those around one who do not have to come to a stop at a red light while making their living. It is much more difficult to forgive entities who are not busy about their business for making unnecessary noise. But if it may be seen, or heard, shall we say, as a part of the melody of life, then it may be easier to acknowledge it, take it in, and even to have fun with it.

May we answer you further, my brother?

Thank you Q’uo. I have mental thought and distractions during meditation where the mind wanders and it wanders off into myself. Do you have any thoughts on how to manage that within meditation?

We are those of Q’uo, and are aware of your query, my brother. Our feeling about distracting thoughts during meditation is that these are acceptable. Our way of dealing with them would simply be to watch them, to sit with them and be with them, not either to resist them or to enter into them but to be with them and watch them. Let them arise and let them fall away.

May we answer you further, my brother.

No, thank you and thank you for your presence during meditation.

We are those of Q’uo, and, my brother, you lift our hearts! We thank you for being aware of us.

Is there a final query at this time?

Q’uo, I have a friend who’s experienced a repetition in circumstance that appears to have created in her life a very striking patterns, this time around with slightly different circumstances, a slightly different cast of characters but a pattern nonetheless. Do you have anything to share with her that might shed some light into the meaning of this particular pattern or what she might look at so that she can discern what the meaning, what the pattern might be telling her?

We are those of Q’uo, and are having difficulty making out a query.

I can try to rephrase, I’m sorry.

We would appreciate that, my brother. We are those of Q’uo.

She is interested in knowing the meaning behind this particular pattern, the why’s, what the message is, what it’s telling her. Would you have any information that might shed some light on to that meaning for her or give her some clues as to how she might go about discerning the meaning?

We are those of Q’uo, and we believe we are aware of your query, my brother. When there is a repetitive pattern, then it is well simply to write it down, to treat it as a research project, to list those things about the pattern that seem obvious, to journal about those things that do not seem obvious and simply to start attempting to come into possession of a feeling that you have full knowledge of everything about this pattern that you could possibly know on a conscious level. Then I think, my brother, that we may say that it is a matter of taking that pattern and gazing at it without mind; taking it into the silence; taking it into that place that does not have boundaries and does not have rules of logic. For often, when there is a repetitive pattern, that which is attempting to be said to the self by the self is not all of a piece but is rather part on one level and part on another and so forth, so that there needs to be some time and some silence to surround the thoughts of this so that a new pattern in which the jumbled pieces are reshuffled and found to form a new and more sensible pattern emerges.

May we answer you further, my brother?

No, thank you very much, instrument, and thank you, Q’uo.

We thank this group from our hearts for taking the time and the energy to come together as a circle of seeking. It is a beautiful thing for us to share and we just feel very privileged to have been called to you. Thank you for asking for our thoughts. It is a true blessing.

We leave you, as we found you, in all that there is, in the love, in the light, in the unity, the power, and in the peace of the one infinite Creator. We are known to you as those of Q’uo. Adonai. Adonai.