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Sunday Meditation

April 3, 1988 - Easter

Group question: Has to do with suffering. What causes suffering? Is it something to do with the general lack of a person’s feeling and knowing of the unity of all of creation? Is it something that can be generally stated? What can be done to alleviate the suffering that a person goes through? Is the suffering that people go through an individual kind of thing? How do individuals deal with their suffering? How can we use the suffering for growth and learn from it?

(Carla channeling)

I am Q’uo. I greet you in the love and in the light of the one infinite Creator. It is a great privilege to be called to your group to answer your query about suffering. As we revel in your company and the loveliness of your meditation, we revel also in the extreme beauty which surrounds and permeates your domicile at this time, for we are able in consciousness to share with those within the domicile their impressions of the burgeoning blooming of the countryside, the singing of your birds and all the beautiful colorations of sky and land and water that create such ineffable beauty, that great manifestation of the bounty and the ever-living quality of life which, though in winter it may seem gone, resurrects from the winter earth each springtide into new freedom to seek the light in the humble way of plant, animal and element.

You wish to know what the cause of suffering may be, whether it may be due to a lack of perception of oneness, what its cause is, and what its cure.

We are minded to discuss a suffering life that all within your culture are aware exists, that of a teacher, master and Christ known to you as Jesus of Nazareth. When we examine the life pattern of this individual we see an entity thrown apart, even within childhood, suffering the loneliness and lack of companionship which accompanies the unusual and serious student in the small child’s body, for by the age of what you call your teens, the one known as Jesus was very learned, speaking as a rabbi would, knowledgeably of much literature, much memorization, much insight. This lonely entity walked in his curiosity into many places, always the stranger, seeking information, seeking guidance, seeking understanding, and suffering always the loneliness of the stranger.

When the time had come to make the final dedication of the life’s work the one known as Jesus was aware of this great and momentous necessity. There had been clear communication within this entity with that which this entity called “I AM.” The ministry, the one known as Jesus knew in advance, would be difficult and would end in the physical death of his body.

Why did this instrument of the one infinite Creator accept this suffering with no strife or struggle, no contentional argument? This is what we would explore.

There is much of what is called truth which is indeed not truth, but a multiplicity of ever-shifting truths which function in what you may call a social way, in order to slide one through the incarnation with the least possible friction. There is another truth, an absolute and unchanging truth, a mysterious, puzzling, ever-calling truth which any within your illusion cannot see but only know through the experience of love.

Love is the great one original Thought. It cannot be bought; it cannot be manipulated; and it cannot be killed. It may become obvious that we are not speaking of romantic love, which is prey to all these difficulties. We are not speaking of the love of friendship or any other definition of love which may be put into words. Indeed, could we find an unique word which would express the beautiful, terrible love which created all that there is, we would use it. Yet this concept lies so far within the area of the deep mind its reality can only be reached through the non-words which may be called “faith.” This love is single, and within it are all things, all entities, thoughts, artifacts, seeming objects and each and every energy within the infinity of creation. Each of you is love. This is your reality, your absoluteness, your unchangeable nature, your truth.

Suffering lies not upon this level but upon the level, for the most part, of half-seen truths, truths that are relative to the situations and conditions of your society and culture. We realize that there are those who experience suffering in physical ways: pain, hunger, sickness and death, that process which is so feared among your peoples. By far, however, the greatest amount of suffering among your peoples is due to the ingestion and acceptance of cultural and social truths—and in this we include theology of all kinds—as standards against which to measure the self.

This instrument, for example, experiences continual pain to one degree or another. The instrument’s suffering, however, is far more emotional than physical, for this entity suffers in wonderment that she cannot fulfill her own expectations of what her service, her energy, and her life should contain.

Are you then suffering emotionally, each to whom we speak? We assert that this suffering is paramount.

Let us gaze at the panoply of emotional suffering. Within most of your culture, to have a skin color at variance with the fleshtone which you call, to our puzzlement, white, is to suffer from the narrow-mindedness and the prejudice of those not of your race. And whether each race knows it or not, each suffers from prejudice, and this prejudice becomes a suffering. Each who is born homosexual within your culture is denied the consolation of your cultural institution’s regularizing relationships. Further, there are many, many cultural obsessions which form a rejecting net of discrimination, and so in the name of truth suffering is perpetrated. There are those who in their mated relationships, experiencing in the mate much love, find that in the passage of time, the mate has turned to other energies, other entities, other positions in time and space. The separation creates suffering, not because the separation is real, but because there is a loss of love perceived

My children, we could weep at the suffering caused in the name of truth. And as we go back within your planet’s history, we see and ask you to see with us, how each time and age and culture created its own bigotry, narrow-mindedness and distortion of harmony and unity, marking each person out in some way as unacceptable. And because all of the culture expresses much the same bias, the entity experiencing incarnation at any cultural moment will find that it is suffering because it cannot be that which the culture and the society have declared appropriate.

May we say that those whose spiritual orientation is rigid, by their judging of others in a harsh and overt manner, create much suffering in the name of the very teacher, the one known as Jesus, who moved into this vibration to call those who suffered, those who were mocked and despised. This entity was not interested in the righteous, those who knew the truth of the culture, and we specifically in this term, culture, include organized religion, as this instrument calls it, for these judgments carry an enormous, though specious weight among your peoples. Ah, we weep for you. Yours is a planet of sorrow, even upon the joyous day of Easter.

We move now to the contemplation of unity. We move out of the realm of the relative to the absolute, and we ask you to follow us. We ask you to release the opinions of the world, to release the dictates of what is expected, and especially in those suffering spiritually from teachings that do not show them the face of I AM, to release those harsh theological strictures which, though most helpful for some, have not been helpful for you, but have instead caused tremendous guilt and suffering. We ask you to turn from opinion, all opinion, and most especially your own, because this is Easter, because the energy of this planet at this moment is most light and full of life. We would ask you to experience directly the promise of which Easter is the symbol, the promise of the infinity of I AM.

When one moves away from, “I want, I feel, I think, I like, I dislike,” and so forth, one is left empty, and may perhaps feel that the comfortable structure that houses one’s ethics and principles have been left behind also. It is a naked feeling. It is a difficult feeling to achieve, for one who has not carefully examined the huge weight of opinion and accepted authority in one’s life has no idea of the percentage of the active portion of the conscious mind which is involved in processing catalyst using these distortions rather than experiencing catalyst with an open heart, an open mind, and a knowledge of the self’s true identity.

My children, it is difficult, we know, to deal with the intricate and wonderfully made illusion which begins with your very body and its electrical field, and continues with that which the organs of the body may perceive, all those things about one, all those thoughts spoken to one and by one, all the infinite details of a daily life. How much of the time is spent in the consciousness of I AM?

Thus, before we speak upon the purpose of suffering, we wish with steady hand and firm heart to present to you the concept that the truths which are relative and cultural must needs be examined carefully and analyzed closely, so that one may see to the best of one’s ability what one’s own selfhood truly feels and thinks about that which the culture demands of one. This includes everything from the choice of career to the intricacies of relationships. So much of your communication is distorted by each entity’s attempt, conscious or unconscious, to manipulate one’s environment in such a way that one is positioned in a satisfactory angle to one’s culture, one’s acquaintances, and oneself.

Cultures change. The self changes. These truths are relative. Those rules regarding behavior, for the most part, need constant reexamination, for that which has been true for you at one time, will of necessity change and transform as you change and transform. We do not wish to suggest that it is necessary to change any thought or action. We only ask those who are suffering because they are homosexual, divorced, addicted or any other calamity need not think of themselves lost to Oneness, for all of these things are taking place within an illusion which is designed for a certain purpose. This certain purpose is absolute, and within the absolute purpose of spiritual evolution towards love, suffering is an absolute necessity.

Now, not all those within the creation find the necessity to experience suffering. Many are the entities which have been created never to leave the Logos, never to leave love, never to leave the absolute, but always to experience and be the I AM which is love. Each bloom which breaks forth its tender shoots through the softening winter earth is expressing absolute ecstasy, absolute joy, and this joy is fragrant and beautiful, and may be perceived by all.

The one known as Jesus the Christ noted that his kingdom was not of this world. Think you then that he meant the kingdom of the world of flowers and birds, spirits and beauty? May we hasten to give our opinion, fallible though it may be, that this was never this entity’s intent. This entity had been courted as the hoped-for and earthly king of a specific people in a specific region. These people had a truth which was theological, and therefore relative, made of opinion. This opinion was that this entity could lead a revolution, topple a government, and reign as the kings of Judah and Israel of old, a Jewish king for a Jewish nation. This entity wished none of the limitations of relativity. He wished to be limited in no way, for this entity focused always upon the absolute, and in his converse, he turned as much to his Father, Abba[1], as he did to any friend or student.

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in the echoes of the half-seen truths one may see the Moon archetype. Where there is light also seen with shadow and darkness; not the full clear clarity of the sunlight has yet been reached. These are the fitful 'fumblings' of seeking; still in the illusion of experience.