I did the Morning Offering and then got myself ready for the day. Today the 102 quote comes from Chapter One and the section on emotions:
Emotions
“The creation is consciousness, and that consciousness is pure emotion, not the pure intellect. Infinite intelligence expresses itself within incarnation as deep and abiding emotion. Thus, as one feels love pouring through one, one is fulfilling one’s fundamental and major mission upon your Earth sphere, and that is to be a radiant being, a light to many, not by action, but by the vital energy, the sweetness of soul, and the expressions of love which move through the seeker who has opened the door to deep emotion.”[1]
As Players, we often do not trust our emotions. And sometimes we are correct to distrust them, because surface emotions are not always trustworthy. There are two general reasons for this. Firstly, we may have learned as children to “stuff” our emotions. Even though we have awakened to a larger view of our lives now, we may still be trying to slough difficult emotions out of our surface awareness and into deep caches of buried pain. These emotions do not seem, at first glance, to lead us anywhere good, spiritually speaking. And so we bury them. This means that our energy bodies are vulnerable to contracting when that hidden pain is triggered by catalyst.
Alternately, we may have learned as children that emotions create drama in our lives, and that we enjoy drama. And so we might be wearing our hearts on our sleeves, embracing impulsivity, diving into surface emotions when they arise and milking them for effect without attempting to take them deeper. The resultant emotional splash may give us the feeling that we are vibrantly alive. But the pond of emotion in which we are splashing is shallow. This means that our energy bodies are vulnerable to being over-activated and therefore blocked as we emote and dramatize without processing and refining the emotions we feel.
Neither method of valuing and dealing with our emotions will help us as Players to learn more about ourselves and to begin to purify our emotions. We want to purify our emotions because pure emotions tell the truth of creation. Q’uo says:
“Purified emotion, whole and unblemished divine love, is the very axis upon which infinite intelligence built the myriad illusions which lead each imperishable soul along the path of inspiration, closeness to the one Creator, and an infinite capacity for compassion and service to others. Without emotion of a deep nature, the life experience lacks vividness, and it is more difficult for the seeker to make the choice of service to others or service to self with firmness of heart and intensity of passion.”[2]
As Players, we are intent upon making that choice of service to others and then persisting in affirming that choice. Each time catalyst strikes us, we will have a spontaneous emotional response. As we come upon incident after incident of catalyst and response, we can begin to see into the underlying pattern of these responses. We can follow the surface emotions deeper and begin to hone and purify them. This takes courage and patience. Above all, it takes faith. For you have no real evidence that the work is worth doing until you see the fruits of it in your life by hindsight.
An example from my life of the purification of emotion is my experience with the dark emotion of grief after the death of Don Elkins in 1984. My journey in purifying the emotion of this grief took me six years. For a long time I was awash in the various aspects of grief, as so ably drawn by Elizabeth Kübler -Ross.[3] I denied, I was consumed with anger, I bargained and I was profoundly depressed. Each time I thought about anything at all to do with Don’s death, that one small detail would sweep me into the whole epic story of his illness and passing. I was drowning in my emotions, often suicidal and lost to myself.
I got help. I was in therapy with a skilled, sensitive Jungian psychiatrist for five years. I took anti-depressive medication. I worked tirelessly with the resources of faith. I placed mottoes and inspired quotations where I could see them at all times, and I focused upon them. At the worst of my ordeal I prayed a hundred times a day, and that is no exaggeration.
I was Niobe of classical myth, changed to stone in her grief, yet crying still for her slain family. I was Shakespeare’s Juliet, mourning her Romeo who was barely but surely dead, kissing his still-warm lips and knifing herself mortally, saying to the blade as it entered her heart, “This is thy sheath.”
Most of all, I became myself again, vibrating fully with the song of grief for my beloved companion which I offered with every breath. My grief was larger than this earthly life, ennobled by my willingness to allow it to sink deeply within me. And as the grief transformed, gradually, from surface emotion to archetypal purity, it set my memory free to remember Don’s death without having to relive it. I had become an instrument that was able to vibrate the beautiful, haunting melody of pure grief.
When the L/L Research study group asked those of Q’uo about the discipline of the personality, the Q’uo group responded with a discussion of the seeking self as a musical instrument, saying:
“You may look upon the structure of your mind, emotions, mentality and spirituality as an instrument, that each is a different kind of instrument. Some personalities are those which must be struck, such as the piano or the drums. Others are entities who have various strings of character and nature that individually can be tuned and then plucked or vibrated in such a way as to produce tone by friction. Other instruments require energy, the pressure of breath forced into a shape and then air opened and denied in order to produce various notes. Each spark of the one infinite Creator that is each of you is an unique instrument with the ability within its potential to produce pure, clear, beautiful tones.”[4]
Isn’t that an interesting way to look at ourselves as emotional beings? We can ask ourselves, “Do I act like a drum, a harp or a trumpet? Does catalyst have to strike me quite firmly in order to produce emotion within? Then I am a fairly hardy soul, or perhaps I have numbed myself on purpose to avoid having to feel. Do I need to encourage myself to allow myself to feel more expressively?” These are questions worth consideration. Working with my tuning is fairly simple if I am a drum-like personality. I need to “tune” to one note only—the “concert A” of the vibration of the Logos, divine love.
“Am I like a harp or violin, my emotions sensitive to being plucked or bowed by catalyst? Then tuning myself as an instrument is more complex. I start the tuning with the string which holds the vibration of the Logos, but then all the other strings must be tuned also so they are in harmony with that ‘concert A’. My emotions are easily stirred. A mere breath of wind across any one of my strings can set them all vibrating with emotion. Do I need to work on reducing impulsivity?” It is an issue to consider.
“Am I a wind instrument through which the breath of catalyst must be forced in order to produce my emotional response? In that case I will adjust my energy body to tune to the vibration of the Logos, as my instrument as a whole will be in tune if ‘concert A’ is in tune. It is not as easy to move me to emotion as it is for the harp-like personality, but when I am so moved, my emotional response is liable to be loud. Do I need to relax my control a bit? Might I find ways to tone down my responses?” These are questions useful to ask.
Once we have chosen the musical instrument we are most like, we have a new vocabulary and system of imagery concerning how to bring our emotions into truer pitch.
What all personality types have in common is “concert A”—the vibration of the emotion of unconditional love. If we cannot find that vibration of love anywhere in our emotional response when we are working with a given situation, we know we need to do some work with that emotion and penetrate its surface to find its underlying heart and its deeper truth.
Q’uo goes on to say:
“One may perhaps see that the first concern of one approaching the self and wishing to do work in consciousness is to investigate the nature of one’s own instrument. Because of the veil, this is excruciatingly difficult without help, for it is hard for a person to see its own character. One may most accurately see into one’s own personality by reflection. It is no mistake or coincidence that your third-density experience is determinedly social, for it is in the interactions of personalities with each other that the truth is projected to each from the other.”[5]
The logic of this train of thought is that we can be thankful for the people around us who help us see into our own emotional nature by reflection. Why should we trust those around us to give us good information when they mirror to us? Q’uo says:
“Were each personality not to have come from one source, it would be an entirely different thing to learn the disciplines of this particular instrument that you possess, that you have created up to this point in your cycles of manifestation. But you can stand upon firm ground in receiving information from any other human source, because each is most assuredly and truly a distortion conglomerate whose roots are identical to your own. This is why so much can be learned in the interaction of person to person. Moving deep enough, one treads common ground with all entities.”[6]
Do the people who provide catalyst for us have any real awareness that they are “distortion conglomerates” whose roots are the same as ours? That is doubtful. It is a hard concept to fathom using the intellect. Jesus’s words echo the same sentiment, however:
“I am the vine; you are the branches.”
Holy Bible, John 15:5.[AB1]
We are all children of the One Creator. Our deepest essence is love. Whatever we are feeling, it has its roots and its truth in love.
The Confederation looks at catalyst as a positive thing, and it looks at the deliverers of catalyst as blessings. By reflection, as we react to the catalyst we receive, we have the chance to learn about our emotions and ourselves. It turns out that a big subject in 103: The Inner Work, the discipline of the personality, has everything to do with becoming aware of our emotions. We are getting an early chance to peek into inner work here. Before we discipline this personality of ours, however, for the moment, dealing with the outer work we simply want to come to know and accept ourselves and to understand where our emotions are coming from.
Q’uo says that becoming deeply aware of our emotions is the work of many lifetimes. We need not feel inadequate because we find it hard to apprehend our emotions rather than their sweeping us away. In the same session, Q’uo remarks:
“It is equally important to grasp the common ground and to grasp the peculiarities and specialties of your particular instrument.
The music that personality plays is a music made of pure emotions when the discipline of the personality is somewhat advanced. However, as in any entity attempting to learn to play an instrument, the sounds produced by one who has not practiced can be discordant and unpleasant to the ear, and, in most cases among your peoples, those who have not yet learned discipline produce many unpleasant tones.
There is the feeling of one sitting down at, say, a piano but knowing not where the keys are or how to make harmony, and, unless certain keys, certain key information, that is, is made available, the piano continues to be a large physical object which produces nothing that is pretty. When one sets oneself to learning to play the piano, one practices each piece to find the harmonics of that particular key. Then, and only then, can one begin to make music.
So, as you have emotions, as you experience emotions, what you are first attempting to do is find that purity that lies within the distorted feeling that you have.”[7]
In other words, it is equally important to know that the people giving you catalyst can be trusted in their gifts to you and to trust that whatever emotions you are feeling are legitimate and worthy of your attention and respect. We can have faith in this process of catalyst and emotion.
And we do not expect this process to recreate us as tuned instruments overnight. We know it will be slow going. When asked by a tourist how to get to Carnegie Hall, the New Yorker replies, “Practice, practice, practice, practice!” That’s our lot! We need lots of practice. And life gives us plenty of that. And we know the way to go about getting a handle on our emotions, honoring them and developing them, over the course of our lifetimes, into feelings that are harmonious and lovely rather than discordant and dull.
Q’uo finishes the train of thought by saying:
“We think that each of you as seekers will find this work enjoyable. It is not an intellectual process but rather a sensing or feeling or intuitive process to find the heart of emotion, and we would simply suggest that each of you, as it feels right to do so, begin to sense into the emotions that spontaneously arise, loving, supporting and respecting them as they come to you and, at the same time, allowing the heart within to search for the heart within that particular emotion.”[8]
When the energy body is contracted and emotions are either numbed out or overblown into mere noise instead of signal, we feel things chaotically. As we are able to experience our emotions more and more intelligently, consciously and fully, we are able to feel more fully self-forgiven, worthy, hopeful, cheerful, peaceful and oriented toward offering a lively service on behalf of the One Infinite Creator. As Players we are hoping to free our surface emotions from confusion and allow them to clarify, deepen and mature.
Q’uo says, in another session:
“Humankind is fueled, not by oil or coal so much as by inspiration, passion, sharing and caring. Thus, the more fully one is able to tap into the deep and plangent notes of purified emotion, the greater is one’s ability to manifest the light of the infinite One to a darkened world which rejoices in seeing beacons of light, whether or not they know why the light is there, how the light has come to be there, or what is its function.”[9]
To switch analogies, let us look at our emotions as colored light. If we have not worked to free numbness and to damp down excessive impulsivity in our emotions, the Creator’s love/light is colored in dim or muddy tones as it passes through our energy body and out into the world. As Players, we hope to refine our emotions so that we can be full of harmonious passions that color the Creator’s love/light in beautiful, pure hues.
Observing some spiritual practices, we might presume that we should try to leave emotions behind. For the Confederation, the opposite is true. Their readings suggest that we want to aim our emotions and come to be able to allow them to go deeper and deeper, into truer and more brilliant states. We want to trade in our numbness or our hectic impulsivity for more deeply felt and realized emotions. We know that at their base, emotions form the sacred rivers of the archetypal mind, and as we purify our surface emotions and let them run deeper, we can begin to resonate with that deep mind.
Q’uo says:
“When one is persistently fearless with emotions and is able to sit with the self as it experiences an emotion flowing through, there is a gradual deepening of that emotion. Eventually, as repetition and work in consciousness with these emotions begins to yield its fruits, the seeker begins to have glimpses of the refined and purified emotion that started out so highly colored. And eventually that emotion can take one into the archetypical mind, where the deepest of truths may be found.
In the archetypal mind these emotions flow like underground rivers, emptying into the sea of bliss and unconditional love that is the beginning and ending of all that is. As they wend their way through the archetypal mind, they water the myths which make up the roots of consciousness.”[10]
Later in that same session, Q’uo continues:
“These emotions, while often not pleasant to experience, have great value. We say this because we wish to encourage the seeker to work with that which he feels, not judging it, not condemning it and not being indifferent to it, but rather giving it respectful attention, investigating it, and exploring it. Each emotion, given this honor and respect, will reward the seeker with more and more of a sense of surety as to who he is and to why he is here.”[11]
In the next chapter we will look at some of our most common emotions, both positive and negative. They are important to us as we tackle the issue of our lives. We Players know that we need to keep our energy bodies open. That is the basic and enduring resource of our Game. But as we tackle problem-solving, we will get much further if we are prepared to spend a substantial amount of time sorting through and coming to understand the emotions we feel which are involved in a given situation.
It is sacred work because we as souls, and part of the Creator, are sacred. It is highly worthwhile to do the work of deepening our understanding of what we feel and why we feel it. It is freeing to feel our emotions come more into tune with love. And the process of working with our emotions is—or can be—a lot of fun.
This morning I ran errands with my first stop at Feeder’s Supply where I bought food for the cats. My second stop was at Anderson’s Sales and Service where I picked up my backpack blower and chain saw that needed repairs. My last stop was at Walgreen’s Drug Store where I picked up a couple of prescriptions and some non-food items.
This afternoon I went outside and used my seed sower to sow grass seed in the area of the sump pump pipes that I tilled yesterday. Then I spread five bags of pine straw on top of the grass seed just in time for what is supposed to be significant rain tomorrow. Of course, after the rain I will have to plan on using the hose and sprinkler for a couple of weeks to keep the grass seed wet and cause it to sprout.
From A Book of Days, channeled by Carla L. Rueckert:
March 22
Your Inner And Outer Universe
I am the spirit of the living Christ. I greet you in the name of Jesus the Christ, in the full consciousness of divine love.
We ask you to consider your environment at this moment. Each of the stars in your night sky careens in perfect balance along its cosmic track and about your sun your planet travels in that self-same regularity, all elements harmonizing into the divine plan which affords opportunity that spiritual consciousness may grow in you.
Contemplate, within, that universe of cells which makes up each organ and member of your physical body. Know and feel the utter harmony and regularity of those infinitesimal galaxies as in their whirling they create bases for that energy field which you experience as a living body.
Is any member or organ of that body seemingly out of harmony? If so, allow the spirit to offer instruction as, in your knowing and inner faith, in a deep way, you speak to your own body, telling it of the wonder and perfection of the creation of the Father.
Each of you has within you the means whereby to call bodily, mental, emotional and spiritual harmony to you. If such be your need this day, do so and be merry, resting in the vibrant peace of the Father.
We leave you in that peace, now and forever. Amen.
Tonight I said the prayer for the Gaia Meditation:
We come in the name of love and open our hearts, minds, and souls to send love, light, and healing energy to Mother Earth as she brings forth a new Earth in the fourth density. We ask that the infinite love, light and healing energy of the One Infinite Creator heal the hearts of all souls in pain on Earth tonight. May all souls on Earth feel our love, light, and healing energy in their hearts, their minds, and their souls. Amen.
[1] Q’uo, November 12, 1989.
[2] Q’uo, November 12, 1989.
[3] Famous Swiss-American psychiatrist and creator of the theory of five stages of grief.
[4] Q’uo, January 5, 1997
[5] Q’uo, January 5, 1997.
[6] Q’uo, January 5, 1997.
[7] Q’uo, January 5, 1997.
[8] Q’uo, January 5, 1997.
[9] Q’uo, November 12, 1989.
[10] Q’uo, January 7, 2008.
[11] Q’uo, January 7, 2008.
[AB1]
