Colorado Springs Circle Second Channeling Intensive Session 6 Wednesday, May 18, 2022

Q’uo on the Spiritual Aspects of Safety

Colorado Springs Circle Second Channeling Intensive Session 6 Wednesday, May 18, 2022

Introduction

Q’uo speaks to the difficult balance between staying safe and embracing catalyst. Where the integrity of the incarnation is concerned, Q’uo tells us, safety is an important baseline. But it is easy to become overprotective of both self and other. Q’uo reminds us that one must decide for oneself how much catalyst can be taken in and processed. They then touch on many other intersecting topics, such as the light touch, martyrdom, boldness, and group harmony.

Group Question

Ra says in session 41, question 19 that “The key to balance may then be seen in the unstudied, spontaneous, and honest response of entities toward experiences, thus using experience to the utmost, then applying the balancing exercises and achieving the proper attitude for the most purified spectrum of energy center manifestation in violet ray.”

There seems to be a tension between the need to preserve both the incarnation one’s relationships in a viable sense, and the more spontaneous response that could well put them at risk, but that could also yield extraordinary learning. What role do concerns for safety play in a well-balanced spiritual life? How much credence or attention should we give concerns of safety? Conversely, how expendable is an incarnational experience? Should an incarnation be used up and tossed away, or is it to be savored and protected?

Channeled Message

(Steve channeling)

I am Q’uo. We greet you in the love and in light of the One  Infinite and all-embracing Creator. We speak to you on this fine day of things transient and things less transient in the hope that that which is transient shall at the appropriate moment give way to that which is not transient, that which is eternal. You have asked a question which we find to be rather central to the process of spiritual growth, especially poignantly so in the density which you now enjoy, which is the third. For you want to know how it is that you may respond in an unstudied spontaneous way to a world full of catalyst not all of which, it seems safe to address in such a manner.

And so we would begin by pushing the question into the small years of your experience and note how it comes to pass that so much in your environment is seen to be unsafe, is seen to be in fact threatening even to the point of extinguishing the life you live as you know it.

It is true that one of the primary parental functions is to keep the child safe, is to nurture the child, which is a way of keeping the child safe from the diminution of hunger or of threats that would so distort the child’s capacity to relate to the world in a trusting manner that its growth might be permanently stunted or harmed in some vital fashion.

So, it is not the case quite obviously that a young child can be permitted to roam unprotected into a domain in which threats abound from many different directions, all at the same time. Given this fact, it is hardly in doubt that incarnate mind/body/spirit complexes in third density must take care for the preservation of body and we will say, the preservation also of the mind. Because the potential for damage for the unprotected soul is real, and this damage can be physical and this damage can be psychological, and in both cases it can be debilitating even to the point of rendering the incarnation nonviable.

Now, those of Ra, and we stand with them in this regard, have counseled that the best use of catalyst in the broad sense is one which is unstudied, and this would suggest that you permit yourself to be vulnerable to catalyst that can often be harsh, and can often seem to be threatening in very serious ways.

So, we would make a useful distinction here, and you may read this into the comment that you have quoted from Ra as an addendum, if you will, to the effect that this unstudied use of catalyst should be conceived to lie within certain parameters. We do not mean that you should expose yourself to conditions which would have the effect of preventing you from being able to make use of catalyst in the future, for example, as you would be if you lay dead upon the ground, or as you might be if your psyche were so seriously damaged by harsh catalyst that you were unable to proceed in your life in the way in which you find it possible to receive, in the way that you have suggested, that future catalyst which may come your way.

So, there is judgment required in the use of this advice which we have to offer that you lay aside protections when it comes to the absorbing of the catalyst that is on offer.

Let us put the matter this way: the more you are able to lay aside those protections that are unnecessary for the preservation of body and soul, the more effectively you will be able to use that catalyst which remains.

Now we will say that in a great many cases there is what we would call over-protection applied. It is certainly understandable in a world in which dangers do abound that the protections and shielding should be provided to an extent which might seem to be overkill, for you never which harsh wind will blow next, and you never know which difficulty will arise so powerfully as to overrun your capacity for dealing with it. Therefore, how could there ever be such a thing as too much shielding? And that, my friends, is exactly what we are suggesting there too often is: too much shielding.

The judgment that you must make as an individuated mind/body/spirit complex requires an awareness of the context that you find yourself in, and an assessment of your capacity to address that context in a way that allows for the full play of the catalyst that you are receiving.

We find that this issue is most central when dealing with catalyst offered by other selves. It is well to take care to dress against the elements when those elements threaten. It is well not to walk too close to a cliff where doing so might lead to a dangerous circumstance for the body. But how close dare you walk near someone who might well have a harsh word for you? How much do you think you can allow yourself to open up to another individual who may well make you the subject of an attack?

These are more nuanced questions, more difficult, and in truth, they do have something of the same character as those dangerous situations that might be encountered in a physical sense, for if you judge, to the best of your ability, that your capacity to react in a balanced way to a certain individual that you know to be threatening to you is not what you would have it be, and that if you allowed yourself to be too open to the harsh catalyst that another self can be foreseen to offer you, that you would recoil into an unbalanced configuration that could be lasting, and could reasonably be expected to inhibit your capacity to interact with others in a balance manner in the future.

Thus we find that interacting with other selves upon your planet is certainly not a science, but much more an art. You have to be able to know just how much you can take, and even this is not an absolute, for, upon one occasion, you might feel stronger and more empowered than you would feel upon another occasion. You are constantly juggling all of the factors that you are offered in your reception of catalyst.

Now there is a special kind of catalyst that we might reference here, and this is catalyst that is not offered by other incarnate individuals, but catalyst which is offered by those such as we. You receive now catalyst from us in the form of words. These words are meant to inspire and to inform, in that order of importance. It is also possible that you could receive catalyst from others of our vibration whose intention is not to benefit you in your path of developing greater and greater capacity for serving other selves, but rather to encourage just the opposite: that you should recoil into a posture of serving primarily your own self. And this catalyst, too, requires caution on your part. That is why we encourage you to challenge the contact, and to do so with every fiber of your being, every ounce of your strength, so that you may ensure that that catalyst that you do open yourself up to is of the sort that you are inclined to embrace.

Now, having said that, we also want to move just a little bit in the opposite direction. We also want to say that it is good work when you feel you are strong enough to do it, to allow yourself to receive that catalyst — and we speak in this instance most particularly about the other selves upon your planet — it is good work to allow that catalyst which moves you off your center to do so that you may rediscover that center on the rebound, so to speak, so that you may feel that center tested, if you will, so that you may undergo a process of broadening your circumference, so that the center holds in relation to a broadened sense of who you  are, an expanded sense of who are, a less restricted sense of who you are. And therefore a sense of who you are less in need of protection, one that is capable of being more open and more spontaneous in responding to other selves.

Now, what we have spoken up to this point deals largely with respect to which the self itself may be able to be held open, and may need to invoke protections. There are, however, issues that come up in relation to the way you treat other selves in such a manner that you respect their boundaries likewise. There are situations in which you can be fairly confident that an activity you may undertake in relation to another self would be harmful to that other self. And it is not the task of service to others to deliberately harm other selves. However, there are circumstances in which the avoidance of what you might fear could possibly lead to harm would deprive that other self of catalyst that might indeed prove to be useful. This, too, is a matter of judgment, and it requires a nuanced capacity to assess where things stand with regard to the other self, and also where things stand in regard to your own self, such that you may be able to operate in a clear way while at the same time employing what you might call a light touch.

So once again we are dealing in areas in which nuance overtakes the straight advice that one might give for behaving in a way that is honest. There are expressions which suggest that honesty itself can be brutal. And there are times in which brutal honesty may well not be called for. There are other times in which the honest may be called for requires also on your part that you be courageous, for another self that does not want to hear the honesty that you have to offer might well react in a predictable way that would be harmful to yourself. You have to make the judgment whether that harm would be of such a nature that it would lastingly disrupt your capacity for dealing with the self in the honest way that you aspire to, or perhaps even potentially disrupt your capacity for dealing with other selves in general in the way that you would aspire to.

Once again, nuance is of the essence here. How much can you take? How little can you take in this circumstance? Now, as it happens, you live in a very complex environment of catalyst, and it is a near certainty that you will not always get this equation right. You will over-step yourself. You will under-step yourself. You will be out of sorts with regard to what you have judged was the correct response. You will walk away from an interaction wishing you had said such and such, or wishing you had responded in a more defensive way or a less defensive way. And so we would suggest to you that it is an essential part of learning to deal with catalyst that you learn to deal with the picking-up-the-pieces, if we may so put it, of an interaction that has not gone well, or has not gone as well as you wish it would have gone. These, too, are all learning experiences, and there is no one formula that we could offer for rightly dealing with them all.

So we feel that we have given you an overview of what you are likely to encounter, and to deal with some of the issues in a more intricate fashion, we would ask that this instrument relinquish the microphone, so to speak, and to pass the contact to the one known as Joseph. We are those of Q’uo.

(Joseph channeling)

We are those of Q’uo, and we are with this instrument. We would like to consider what honesty consists in, what an unstudied spontaneous response to a situation would even be. Suppose for example that you find yourself in conversation with a loved one, and in a moment an unkind thought passes through your head. And the unkind thought maybe takes up residence for a moment and powers additional unkind thoughts. And you find yourself maybe even thinking something cruel about the person. This is someone you love, and yet here you are entertaining thoughts that you suspect the other person would be hurt to know entered your mind. Now, on one hand, you might think that the unstudied spontaneous response is to simply allow whatever passes through your mind to cross your lips. In such a situation, you may find that you are manifesting a lack of attention or concern for the wellbeing of your friend. After all, this was a passing thought and, in all likelihood, later you will easily see that this thought did not contain the ultimate truth of your feeling toward this person.

Thoughts and feelings flow through the mind. They suggest things to you that you can take up into your web of representation of the other person, or let slip away. Many of the thoughts and feelings, the emotions that enter into your mind are not in fact an honest reflection of your representation of that relationship, but are instead an honest reflection of the condition of your mind at any given moment. What passes through your mind is often for you.

What, then, would it mean on such an occasion to have an unstudied response? And we suggest that often the unstudied spontaneous response is a kind of acceptance of what the contents of your mind, the condition of your mind, are at any given moment. To blurt out whatever comes to mind is a recipe for interpersonal difficulty, because as much as you might like to think that we should all, in third density, or in any density, be able to accept the bare and unvarnished truth at a particular moment, the reality is, especially in third density, each can only attain to the spiritual maturity that they have in that moment. Courtesy is not a disservice.

Moreover, and perhaps even more importantly, if you were to express an unkind thought that turned out to be merely passing, the other may not have the context to recognize that this is not the deepest truth about your representation of them. It can stick in their mind as a marker of the nature of the relationship, and it’s not that the other cannot forgive you, but simply that what is put out into manifestation cannot be taken back.

An unstudied and spontaneous approach to interacting with others is, as we have said, a nuanced affair. The boundaries within which these unstudied responses occur do not make them less spontaneous. Boundaries of the nature of a relationship are what you might also think of as code-switching. The way that you conceptualize your interaction with another, or the appropriate limits of that interaction, is an environment: a metaphysical environment into which you enter when you interact with the person — not unlike stepping into a room. When you enter a room, there are certain pathways that are available to walk. You cannot walk through the wall, but your inability to walk through the wall doesn’t make your walking in the room unspontaneous. Likewise, the conceptual boundaries that you often unconsciously impose upon the nature of a relationship establish the pathways of flow. And to shift these conceptual boundaries is to attempt to change the nature of a relationship. Sometimes, this is appropriate. Sometimes the relationship needs to change. But abiding by those boundaries does not make your interaction unspontaneous.

Consider now the light touch. It might seem that there is a kind of opposition between attempting to live by or to acquire interaction that has a light touch — it may seem that there is an opposition between this and spontaneity. But this would suggest that there is an opposition between wisdom and spontaneity. The reason the light touch is on the horizon — is a skill to be striven for — is that a touch heavier is ineffectual in most cases. To interact with another entity, to offer to this entity a suggestion that gets too close to the traumas or too close to the defense mechanisms that the person has in place, can trigger those defense mechanisms, can spring the trap.

The reason for these defense mechanisms, in most cases of individuals who walk the service to others path, is to shield the self from those forms of catalyst that simply cannot be dealt with at the moment. There is entirely too much catalyst available to you at any given moment to effectively integrate. You drink from the firehose. So, defense mechanisms, especially for those who have endured trauma, are often appropriate. And it is not necessarily for you to attempt to sidestep them. Each must assert for themselves where the catalyst is most effectively taken in. There are countless lifetimes with which to iron out biases, so if a bias is not dealt with in this lifetime, there is no tragedy. It can be taken up later.

Now return to the light touch. The purpose of the light touch is to be an effective source of catalyst for others, to be an effective source of light to radiate to others in a projective way, but in a way that does not activate defense mechanisms, for you cannot see what defense mechanisms lie awaiting to spring. We do not mean to say that you ought to be cunning in your attempts to slyly slip under the radar. Cunningness is not a virtue on the service to others path. It is a pitfall. Instead, the light touch comes through hard won experience when one witnesses that a raw or unrefined or even brutal kind of honesty or interaction produces a souring of catalyst.

And, on such occasions, one might appropriately respond with a feeling of guilt or disappointment in oneself. This guilt or disappointment is a catalyst for you to use, to turn upon yourself and to discover where it was in the catalyst that you offered the other, what it was in your expression of self to the other — in your attempt to radiate — that was aggressive, or was too forceful or insistent, or simply failed to appreciate the subtleties of the situation. Guilt is not to be thought of as a black mark for all time, a mark in the ledger that will be opened upon your death and set in the balances. This is not the function of guilt. Guilt is an indication from your deeper self that there is something there to be worked with, that there will come around again another opportunity and in that opportunity you might be able to handle the situation with more grace. Guilt is a means of spurring you to further self-discovery and further refinement of service.

Now consider the concept of safety. There are many different forms of safety. There are many things that you might want to be safe from. One of the forms of safety which we discourage is the safety of shielding your true nature from another over concern that you will not be accepted. This form of safety must be abandoned; it is a central of letting go in the choice offered to each of you in third density to open the self to the other, to become vulnerable even to the attack of the other is necessary for your growth.

However, balanced against this willingness to be vulnerable is an additional form of wisdom, the wisdom to recognize whether you are interacting with someone who interacts in what you might call good faith. Careful attunement to the subtle forms of manipulation that are available both from your incarnate other selves and from discarnate sources is a crucial point for maintaining the integrity of this incarnation. An incarnation is carefully planned and is a resource that, especially at this time, is relatively scarce. The incarnation is to be cherished. It is for this reason that wisdom would speak against what you might call martyrdom.

In fact, you might think that a certain kind of vulnerability or spontaneity of expression brings on the potentials for martyrdom. And so, in such a case, it would seem wise to hold the tongue or to stay the action. But again, we advise against cunningness. Recall that spontaneity need not be a conscious enforcement upon the unconscious. The intertwinement of the conscious and unconscious mind lies at the heart of the choice of service to others. And in this intertwinement, the development of wisdom is a process of taking in catalyst, down to the core and integrating a lesson so deeply that one’s desires themselves change. One’s motivations change. So, in attempting to respond to a situation, the wisdom to not be a martyr is not imposed from above, so to speak, but it comes from deep within: the feeling that this is not for me, that maybe another would prefer to offer themselves up to the great sacrifice, but I would prefer to maintain the integrity of this incarnation in the hope that my actions in the future can be efficacious.

Now, we should note that martyrdom is not to be scoffed at. In fact, because the choice of third density is a choice of love or a shutting down of love, martyrdom can be a pure expression by which love transforms the self. So we do not discourage the dramatic, overt actions that might bring retaliation upon the self, the heroic acts that sacrifice one’s incarnation for the sake of some other. Such expressions of love and commitment and respect and fidelity are to be cherished. So to those who would prefer not to be martyrs, we say, walk your path and respect that of the other. And vice versa. There is benefit in both directions and it need not be that every individual on your planet Earth walks the exact same path. In fact, it ought not be that way. Each is distinct.

In any case, the wisdom to recognize manipulation, to recognize the power play when it confronts you is a crucial resource to the individual who prefers not to live a martyred life, but to remain in the incarnation and to subtly offer their love, their light, their support and their wisdom to those around them.

And on that note, we will now pass the contact to the instrument known as Jeremy. We are Q’uo.

(Jeremy channeling)

We are those of Q’uo and are with this instrument. We have spoken at length on the nature of wisdom when appraising matters of safety, of harmlessness, of the prudent use of those dynamics in your incarnation which lend themselves to the gambit of living a full life that is not in any aspect unnecessarily cut short. But my friends, it is here that we must turn the sphere 180 degrees. These are all matters which you must keep in mind and you must balance as you best can. But why is an incarnation so vulnerable to ending on terms that seem to foreclose on one’s desire, at least as understood as that desire foremost in the conscious mind? 

Why do you occupy vehicles with vulnerabilities? Why do you construct languages and phrases that cut so deeply? Why, in other words, is there danger, such that the concept of safety even has meaning? If it is all to be prudently grounded as catalytic nourishment and opportunities for growth in a less bounded sense, after all, in your larger selves, you are not so harried by the conditions of this material experience. You have the agenda of spiritual evolution always before you, and one life is, whether lived fully or not, just a life; precious, no doubt, but also constitutive to a transformation that transcends the, shall we say, nickel and diming of the moment by moment calculus of safety. So we are trying to understand along with you the mystery; perhaps not the deepest mystery, but something that does give one pause. 

Why risk? Why danger? Why the possibility for the loss of what is precious? Especially from the point of view of the third density waking consciousness which carries along with it the learned responses of the second density lifeform. These are not abandoned in your experience. Why then not? 

My friends, the spiritual power that you seek to perfect by working at 90 degrees to it in this life is designed to engage your full selves. When we talk about an engagement of one’s full and total self, we are talking about the expenditure of that which is prized in the context in which it is thought valuable. For one way to think of “the transformation” is the expansion or modification of the standard of value. 

When you were closer to your second density origins, survival rose above every concern. Gradually, over many incarnations, you are exposed to more imperishable ideas of where value lies, and my friends, we do not endorse martyrdom when we say that all of you, at some point in your journeys, have chosen that path. It is part of the ways of being a focus of the Creator, to be so focused as to let the incarnation slip away, to let the reputation diminish, to let that which one values be put on the pyre, not as a way of denigrating it. No, my friends, for precisely the opposite reason. For the reason that it is valuable to you, at that time, in that place, in that context, that bubble that you called the world at that time. 

There are ways of expanding that bubble that do not require great cost on your part. But there are times when paying the price shows one the true nature of oneself in ways that cannot be expressed in thought, in speech, even, my friends, in the momentary opening to spirit. It seems contradictory, does it not, sometimes? This is an example that you have been given by many teachers throughout the ages. These teachers do not, you will notice, demand that you die. No, they demand that you discover truer forms of selfhood, and that you value an aspirational quality to the self that allows for that which is not needed to be identified as such and therefore to be allowed to fall away, to tumble from your hand. We are coming on very strong on this point, perhaps not as light a touch as we normally take, because the heart must have its say: the passion that one feels when one considers the upward spiraling light, the future that looks back on one at every given moment and shows one a small glimpse of what it is all for. 

Now, my friends, this is all an answer to the question we posed just now: why danger? When you are at oneness once again in the distant future as you know it, you will have no reason to value things, for there will be no things. But while you are here, danger provides you a choice. And it is in making that choice in that analysis of one’s desires and opportunities of further expression of that which is in potentiation, that one benefits from there being stakes to one’s path. It may seem, as many things in the abstract architecture of spiritual evolution, somewhat contrived, but we assure you: when you reflect on those moments in which you have desperately sought safety, have stared danger and threat directly in the eye, that you felt something that was true, that cannot simply be conjured up in your meditations. And therefore, you had unstudied responses that redounded to your benefit regardless of what that response was in particular. 

Spiritual evolution is not simply the chanting and procession of monks in a monastery. It is also the hustle and bustle of the raucous and rowdy nature of this world. We do not say this to speak ill of the meditative reflection; indeed, not one truly learns to stare fear down without much time staring oneself down. So we hope you can understand that this is the background in which you learn the lessons of wisdom. And this might also somewhat explain why the lessons of love precede it, for you must understand the stakes; you must have felt the slings and arrows deeply before you learn how to spend your love in an efficient manner, in a wise manner. 

When we talk about matters in such a clean manner, my friends, we sometimes do you a disservice. Our perspective doesn’t come from a context where the stakes are so visceral, and so, we see a chessboard with energetic vortices influencing each other, and the details of how that precipitates into manifestation are details that often miss our gaze. 

So we stress once more the unstudied and spontaneous response to events in your life are there to teach. The risks of cruel catalyst are there to teach. And you are here to learn as best you can, making gambles at times, and folding at times, in a dance with the sometimes rough nature of this band in the array of frequencies that issue from the central trumpet of the One Infinite Creator. 

We would never bother to caution you to exercise discernment with our words were there not opportunities for missteps you find grievous. All that we can do from our vantage point is point out the boundaries of the chessboard, the avenues of traversal, and those rules that sometimes trip up one’s strategy. You must decide when a light touch moves your evolution forward, and when throwing caution to the wind and boldly going into the fray serves the Creator that is you. 

It is after all your choice, and if you can have faith that the game’s ending will be in your favor at a long enough time scale, you free yourself, you truly free yourself to become the Creator in the moment, and to let that be your watchword, your caution, and your boldness to use a precious life, to use it, but also, to cradle it, to protect it, to spend it wisely. For, my friends, it is a deflationary currency; it will not last forever, and in the end, if this is the promise of safety, then it must be given a second look. 

Perhaps that is where we would end the paragraph and the contact with this instrument, so that we may offer a few more thoughts through the instrument known as Steve. We are those of Q’uo.

(Steve channeling)

I am Q’uo, and we are back with this instrument.

We feel that we have covered a good deal of ground in our response to your interesting query. It may be the case that a synopsis would be in order, but we feel that in lieu of a synopsis, we might at this time provide something that gives another view of the issues currently under discussion refracted according to a slightly different perspective, and in this way review what still remains essentially the same material.

So we would suggest that the issue of safety and apposite response to the catalyst that is on offer largely through other selves in your experience deals with a matter of evolving relationships with those other selves such that they can be stultifying or invigorating. One of the greatest fears of those who seek to evolve is a closing off of the very possibility of evolution. The physical death, of course, within the context of a lifetime, can be seen to have this effect, but it is far more the case that the stultifications that can set in human relations have this effect, and can do so across many, many lifetimes, as patterns of relationships harden to certain expectations that become stylized and provide more than just a context for relating to other selves, but also a set of strictures according to which relations to other selves are allowed.

Now, when the strictures are in place, it can seem highly dangerous to violate them. For there are generally associated with them some kind of enforcement measures, some kind of enforcement protocols, and these range from the heavy hand of the law to more subtle expressions such as ostracism  or a negative response expressing contempt, hatred, or other forms of physical or psychological violence. These are, indeed, fearsome responses. And one does not fly fecklessly in the face of the expectation that such responses may well be in the offing to an honest and unstudied expression that you may have, coming from your open heart.

So, let us frame this issue broadly in terms of the concept of harmony. Now, there are two kinds of harmony that a social energy complex in third density may typically aspire to. One is a harmony that is imposed from above, and this requires the structure of an authority. In such a circumstance, so long as you conduct yourself and express yourself according to the acceptable lines of conduct as established by some visible authority, you are considered to be in harmony, and you are generally left to your own devices.

If, within that context, you violate the established strictures, there can be severe consequences, and these consequences do not typically stem from those with an open heart.

The other type of harmony of which we may speak is that more seemingly tenuous harmony that obtains often in an ephemeral way, at least to the unstudied eye, within groups that have learned to chime together in a common manner of life, a common modality of expression, and a common context of aspiration.

This emergent or discovered harmony is not something which can be enforced from above or from within. It is an unenforceable harmony, and in fact it is central to the nature of this harmony that it does not chime to the very concept of force. It resists force of its very nature. And therefore any enforcement is impossible.

Now we say that such discovered harmonies very often are elusive, ephemeral, short-lived. Sometimes, in rare circumstances, they can enjoy a longer life, and a broader reach. But they almost never in your density last a great length of your time. Therefore they are to be the more cherished when they do become available.

Now, when harmony is a living reality in the context of a group mind that is in the process of being developed, the harmony becomes a value, and we may say that to a very significant extent it is a value it is worth embracing, and worth adjusting one’s conduct to preserve. Now this can mean that when it comes to particular interactions, one does well to think twice before offering that spontaneous response or self-expression that an unstudied affect would seem to call for. It may be even after a closer analysis of your own motivations in providing a response, you could determine that those motivations are in fact clear, and yet find that perhaps in the present circumstance, it is best to without the gift of the catalyst that you have to offer because it is not the right moment, because the dynamics of the interpersonal relationships among those with whom you deal are such that you might well do more harm than good from your honest and unstudied response. That is sometimes true.

However, that which is sometimes true is not at all times true. So what we mean to suggest by this qualification is that it is not typically possible to sustain a harmony functioning within a developing group mind by repressing honest and unstudied actions, by repressing unstudied and honest emotions, by repressing unstudied and honest expression of those emotions. For what we discover is that repression of this nature leads to stultification, and a spontaneous group evolution that can be well begun can sour very quickly if an attempt is made or an expectation should arise that moves in the direction of repression of honest affect.

Accordingly, it can be a significant gesture in the direction of maintaining harmony which is always in itself a protean quality, to express feelings coming from yourselves that on the face of it would seem to disrupt that very harmony that you so wish to preserve. It is not well done in the service of harmony to refuse the self that expression which it needs to be harmonized with others.

And we would go one step further and say that in so many cases within third density, there arise structures of authority, structures of quasi-elitism, even if there is not an actual elitism embraced explicitly within the group, and these structures, whether acknowledged or not, tend also to create a stultified atmosphere. And so when a being within the emerging group mind feels that it is not being well attended by others, whether due to some disposition on the part of these others, or some stultifying structure having to do with the way the group is seated within the larger social energy complex — authority structures, we mean — then, that entity must be given the leeway, the freedom to speak out. And if it does not, it will find the doorways to further growth within itself closed. And it will not have to offer to the group that which the group wishes to receive from it.

Therefore we say that there can be expectations of harmony which in fact work against the very harmony that each and every member of the group would so gladly embrace. And so that brings us back to the issue, again, of safety and self-expression in unstudied and spontaneous and free and open-hearted self-expression. This self-expression does not always assume the appearance of sweetness and light. And when those around you speak out against you, perhaps, when they speak in such a way that challenges you, perhaps, a little understanding, a little acceptance goes a long way.

Perhaps you yourself, perhaps this instrument itself, is behaving in a way that actually does more to close doors than to open them, for the other selves within its environment. And we would say that defensiveness, or the attempt to preserve safety for the little self that this self so proudly calls its own, is perhaps not such a good thing. Perhaps not even such a needed thing. Perhaps something which could actually be blessed and released into the vapors to go its own way.

So, we would like to thank this group for the interesting question which has given us the opportunity to share our thoughts with it. And we would ask at this time if there is one more question which we may address ourselves to.

(pause)

I am Q’uo, and we see that, as is our wont, we have yet again spoken overlong. We thank you for your patience, we thank you for your dedication, and we thank you for your attention. We are those of the Confederation of Planets in Service to the Infinite Creator, known to you as Q’uo, and we would take our leave. Adonai, my friends, Adonai.