DAY 5 · Part V: Spiritual Principles & Channeling
CHAPTER 23
Spiritual
Principles I
Gary In this section we depart from the biographically oriented questions to explore an area that is very personal to each seeker. Each who embarks upon the quest to seek the truth must find their own answers and find their own ways to live and tackle these questions. We now turn to Jim McCarty and Carla Rueckert to see how they’ve answered and attempted to engage these questions on their own paths.
We’ll start with some quotes from Ra:
The understandings we have to share begin and end in mystery. 28.1
There is a mystery-clad unity of all creation in which all consciousness periodically coalesces and again begins. Thus we can only say we assume an infinite progression though we understand it to be cyclical in nature and, as we have said, clad in mystery. 28.16
We must gaze then at the stunning mystery of the One Infinite Creator. 97.9
The rhythms [of intelligent infinity] are clothed in mystery, for they are being itself. 27.7
Though certainly English, or any communication of sign and symbol, is completely inadequate to the task of answering this question, I will nevertheless endeavor the query: What, in your opinion, is meant by “mystery” and “mystery-clad”? And why does Ra indicate that all happens in an ultimate context of mystery?
Jim The beginning and the ending, and a whole lot in between, seem to be mysterious. As we progress through the densities, I think some of the mystery falls aside. The veils are taken apart and we’re able to see what we couldn’t see before, and experience what we couldn’t experience. But Ra, being at mid-sixth density, or a little further than mid-sixth density awaiting their seventh density graduation, still says that there’s much that they are unaware of. They assume it’s an infinite creation. We assume the same thing, but until they are actually into the seventh density, moving into the density of foreverness, maybe until they have again joined the Infinite Creator in what we see as a black hole, perhaps then the mysteries will be revealed.
But there is always mystery—things we don’t understand, things that we need to take on faith, things for which we need to continue to exercise our will in order to approach in any way. I think mystery is just part of the infinite creation that each of us is going to continually confront as we move through the densities. Maybe one day the mysteries will all resolve and make themselves known to us, but not any time soon.
Carla Basically, how do you get from third density, with its very black-and-white, yin-and-yang dynamic, to the density of unity? How do you get all the paradoxes resolved? It’s all a mystery. I can answer some questions for readers, but I cannot answer how this particular paradox or that particular paradox is resolved. I don’t know. To me, it’s a mystery. So I think in some things we abide in the mystery; we take it on faith and put aside the demand to know until a later time.
Gary In connection with the previous question, Ra says:
RA It is a grand choice that each may make to, by desire, collect the details of the day or, by desire, to seek the keys to unknowing. 84.7
What does that statement mean to you two?
Jim Well, we can continue to seek what we don’t know: the keys to unknowing. There seems to be a, what shall we say, physics for each level of experience, a way of operating in each level, and in fourth density things will be different than they are here. We’ll be aware of each other’s thoughts. We can affect things with our mind, and as we go into fifth density, there will be more things that we’ll be able to do and think and feel. So we can either continue to seek into the mystery of what we do not know, or we can satisfy ourselves with what is happening in the world around us.
That statement was given in response to Dr. Puharich’s tendency toward liking riddles and puzzles, rather than getting information straight out,1 so we have that choice. We can either satisfy ourselves with what can be known on our third-density level and not try to go any further, or we can seek the keys to unknowing—seek the keys to that place where we don’t know and maybe we’ll learn more. Maybe we’ll expand our natures and our experiences. How about you, Ruck, what do you think?
Carla I’m happy with what he says.
Jim [playfully] And what do you know? What level of physics do you have?
Carla You could look at it precisely the opposite way: the keys to unknowing being the mystery, being satisfied to take things on faith because you simply cannot know everything at this level of understanding, or continue to batter away against the doors of what we don’t know with the tools we have at hand, knowing that our third-density tools are pitifully inadequate, even to measure things like our vibrations. What happens when we have telepathy and so forth? I think we’d be fools to expect those tools to be able to answer higher questions.
Gary I hadn’t considered the way you just put it. That makes perfect sense, that the next stage will always be unknown to the present stage; that’s why it’s the next stage. And in order to transcend or move beyond the current stage, we need to, in a way, let go of our attachment to our current situation.
I’ve always associated being with “the keys to unknowing” as well—going beyond the intellectual mind and just abiding in the mystery of being, like you were saying.
There is a notion repeated throughout the massive body of Confederation philosophy that, in short, we can only serve others to the extent that it is requested. Why, according to the Confederation, is this the case?
Jim If we attempted to give people information they did not ask for, we would be infringing on their free will—we’d be forcing something upon them, attempting to control them in some way. You need to know this, so here, pay attention! It would be sort of a negative approach to serving, and that’s not the way positively oriented entities wish to go about being of service. They need to be asked. There needs to be a request so that there is free will in operation. The person that you’re attempting to serve has asked for service with something that maybe you could help with. Then you can give freely. Otherwise, if they don’t ask, they don’t need you.
Carla Imagine someone asking you to explain something that you understand but they don’t, and yet they still have trouble understanding. Imagine the difficulties involved in saying something to somebody who doesn’t give a hoot. Seems to me whatever the person who hasn’t asked gets out of that information will be very distorted.
Gary So in this philosophy, there is an absolute necessity for each entity to find their own way, to find their own truth, to determine what is truth for them at that particular—
Carla In the Ra way of things, yes, free will is always paramount.
Jim In order for whatever you learn to carry any weight in your total beingness, it has to be sought by you. You’ve got to eventually master it yourself. There are teachers along the way and ways of getting assistance and help in that, but it’s got to be the fruit of your own labor.
Gary And the great split of polarity that Ra describes diverges on exactly that point: How do I relate to the free will of others? What is free will? Should it be respected and honored and treated as something that’s sacred and inviolable? Or should I infringe on it?
So what, in your opinion, constitutes a request for service? And do you think it always needs to be verbalized?
Jim Apparently planet Earth is crying out in agony. The Confederation has mentioned before that when they are tuned in to planet Earth, they are aware of the pain, the sorrow, the suffering—and that is as a great calling. They likened it to one portion of their own body that was injured and cried out for healing.
So no, you don’t have to say, “I need your help.” You can say aagghhh! [makes noises of anguish].
Carla I think we do as teachers need to have the request: please teach. Even if the request is somebody showing up at a workshop, that’s an implied request—that’s enough. They’re here at the workshop, they’re here out of their free will, they wanted to listen to what was going on. But you can’t sense that somebody’s in pain and then think that that’s the same thing as somebody asking for help. I mean look at girlfriends or . . . I don’t know about you guys . . . but a good friend comes to you and goes, “He is the worst guy . . . “ and she expresses the pain and expresses and expresses and expresses, and you have the answer, you think. Until that person says, “Can you help me with this?” they’re just dumping, they’re just finding it very helpful to have a listening ear. They may not want to solve the problem at all. They may just want to express the difficulties that they’re having.
If you do express your opinion, express it once and then lift up. That’s the most that you can press against free will because nobody’s asked you, and it won’t be taken kindly. So, yeah, you do need—in the sense of us personally—we need to be asked.
Jim There are some planetary entities apparently that do nothing but send love and light to planets like Earth that are in such dire straits, and that service can be used or ignored by those on Earth. It can be used however the entities wish, though they might not even be aware of it.
Gary That’s actually a question that I’ve seen come up among those who study this information: Is it an infringement to send love and light to somebody without it being asked for first? According to that example, it sounds like it’s not an infringement because the service of sending of love and light can be used or discarded—
Jim It can be ignored.
Carla Right.
Gary So what, in your opinion, is the “best” way to serve others?
Jim However you can when you’re asked. The best might not be available to you. I don’t know what the best is, actually, but you do what you can.
Carla It depends on the person. Somebody asks you something, you see what you can do to help. If nobody asks anything, but there’s implied desire for support, you give what support you can. You just look at the situation at hand and you ask yourself, what can I do to help? If what you can do is just rest in love, and love that person, then rest in love for that person, and that’s all you can do. That’s the amount of service that you can give, and that’s good.
Gary I thought this question might also open up the opportunity to dive into the service of “radiation of realization of oneness”, the service of being that Ra describes.2
Carla Which is more or less what I was saying. If all you can do is rest in love for that person, then let your whole being radiate the love of the Infinite Creator by the simple fact that the spiraling upward light of the One Creator is coming through our bodies at all times; and if we keep our hearts open, our whole being will radiate that love. It’s a matter of keeping the heart open and not resting in judgment of that person: Well what that person needs is—, or, What’s wrong with that person? You want to know what’s wrong with you?
No, not that kind of feeling, but just thinking, I love this person, I love this person, I love this person’s soul. A lot of times you don’t love their behavior at all.
Gary What is the value of praise and thanksgiving? It’s mentioned a lot in The Law of One.
Carla It’s personal. The value of praise and thanksgiving is personal to you. If you’re resting in judgment and thinking of all the things that are wrong with this world, and you’re getting smaller, more and more contracted, then there’s no room for the love and light to come through; your heart is closed, closed solid.
But when you start counting your blessings, and resting in joy, and resting in praise, resting in thanksgiving, ah, it feels so good. You’re expanding and your heart is opening, and the love and the light have all the room in the world to come through. It’s personal to you. It has to do with tuning the instrument, let’s put it that way, so that we can be as open-hearted as we possibly can be.
Jim It tunes you up, gets your best energy ready to go. You’re affirming what is, because you are blessed. It is a blessed creation.
Gary How about prayer? What is prayer and what is its value?
Jim That’s a really good way of asking for assistance.
Carla Help! Help!
Jim If anybody’s listening, this is what I need. [laughs] I think it also affirms to yourself what you believe in, what you hope for, your highest ideals, your desire to serve others. A lot of prayer is directed for the benefit of others. Carla used to head an intercessory prayer group at her church, and they had people in the group whose job was to pray for other people.
Carla We would pray for anybody that asked. That was our whole reason for being: to intercede for others. It was a blessing. There are prayers of, “Help me, Lord,” but in intercessory prayer you are praying, “Help so-and-so, Lord, I’m asking spirit on their behalf.” It’s a very strong prayer also.
Gary So, it’s an activity that can even become a discipline, which helps to further tune and set the intention, and may even have the capacity to create changes in consciousness, whether of self or another.
Do you think anything happens, besides working on yourself, when you pray for the benefit of another?
Carla You offer an opportunity. That’s what healing does in general, at least the kind of healing that Ra was talking about. You see yourself as an instrument that is capable of knowing the truth, and as you know the truth for someone else, you are giving that person the opportunity to know that truth, and, further, to choose that truth over the distortion that he’s got going. And then it’s up to that other person whether to accept it or not.
But in the case of my intercessory group at Calvary Church, Louisville, we did not pray for someone who we just thought, put that person on the list, would you? No, that person had to ask so that we would be sure that we were not simply praying in vain, or against someone else’s desire.
Gary What is the “magical personality”?
Jim According to Ra, that’s apparently our higher self that exists at mid-sixth density level. Each of us has one, and this higher self has the capability of being of great assistance to us because it knows the path we are on and the potential paths we may travel. It is also the repository of a great deal of information and assistance that we can use as we go through our lives. So the higher self is a resource upon which we can call.
Apparently there’s also beyond that—the higher self has a resource upon which it calls: the mind/body/spirit complex totality. I think Ra said that is a collection of all that has been or will be, and is as “the shifting sands.”3 If you try to pin it down and figure out exactly what it is, it’s a little harder.
Both of them basically are larger portions of ourselves that are very closely aligned with us and who know what we’re doing and what we need. When we are in between incarnations we apparently consult with them very carefully to determine the lessons to be learned in the upcoming incarnations, or even parallel incarnations if that’s what we’re doing. So they’re kind of like teachers, guides, inspiration—the highest and best part of yourself, and also mystery-clad.
Carla To answer in another way (and probably not as well as Jim), the magical personality has to depend on your definition of magic. In the definition of magic that Don was always using, and that by mutual understanding Ra was always using—that magic has to do with Western white magic, or in other words, positive right-hand path, ceremonial magic. This kind is a lot like the priests expressing, for instance, the rituals involved in the prayers and process of communion. One thing leads to another and another before the ritual is complete.
In this kind of ritual magic there is a simple definition of what constitutes magic. You, as the magician or magical personality, have the capacity to successfully change the direction of your thought by consciousness only—using your thought to change your thought, in other words—the capacity to create changes in consciousness at will.
And that would be the same as a person feeling like he was going down and saying, “No, I call upon all the forces of spirit. I call upon my magical personality to change the force of my feeling right now, and I will now stop feeling that all things are going bad. And I will remember that things are great. I’ll remember how terrific things are and that is going to be my state of mind.”4 And being able to switch from the one to the other without negative feelings, like, oh, darn it, I didn’t want to feel this way. In other words, in the practice there is no internal resistance to the change of consciousness, so that you’re capable of honestly being an instrument for the Creator. You’re not at the beck and call of your own bad moods.
And that has appealed to me always as something that was very worthwhile doing. I want to be able to create changes in my consciousness at will, and I think it’s for my own benefit that I do these things, not just for the benefit of others but beginning with myself. It’s a waste of energy. I mean, you’re always expressing energy, and that energy cannot be gotten back. You can’t get back the energy that you already used up; it’s gone forever. It’s expended. So don’t you want to make the best possible use of your own energy if you know it’s limited? I certainly do, and I know mine is very limited, so I don’t want to waste any time at pity parties, or feeling sorry for myself, or any of that.
People say that they have an inalienable right to sulk, that it’s a good thing to get that out of their system. I’m not sure it always is. It may just be self-indulgent. It depends on your personality and what your needs are. But I don’t think I have a need for pity parties; I think my need is to be a servant, and I want to be a good servant, so I want to be able to get myself tuned up again if I’m sliding.
Gary So the magical personality in your case is used as a means to help you meet the challenges of your life with courage and fearlessness, and to open the way for you to serve others.
Carla That would be the reason that it would be a good thing for me, but in general—Jim is right, Jim is right in all that he said. His is a more general answer and, as I said, the better answer.
But in terms of understanding, where did that come from? What do you mean, “magical personality”? Well, it’s best to understand what kind of magic we’re talking about, because there’s ceremonial, negative, left-hand path magic—Satanic magic5—which is usually copying the positively oriented magic and then turning something around, like turning the cross upside down, which is one easy example. There’s cookbook magic where you create a love spell and all the kinds of magic that go into that. You have little dolls that you stick pins in and things like that, just different ways of creating a curse or a blessing by some kind of a recipe that somebody wrote down; you can look it up and say it again, and it will work. And then there’s Wicca,6 nature magic, and that’s really not positive or negative, it includes elements of both, but it’s just appreciating Mother Nature, which certainly runs the gamut from awesomely positive to awesomely negative. You can’t say that’s negative or positive, you just say, well, it pretty much comes out neutral, but it’s a beautiful way of worship in that you’re worshipping the seasons and the stars and all of those cycles of nature. So all of those are magic, but the one that Ra was talking about is the magical personality in the sense of white ritual magic, in the sense of creating changes in consciousness at will.
Gary So is it fair to say that those changes in consciousness that are created aren’t so much a lateral or horizontal change but rather a vertical change in that the perspective or the consciousness is lifted up to a broader point of view, or a truer point of view?
Carla Not precisely a vertical one, but rather than linear you could say, moves into foreverness.
Jim Ra made a kind of, I guess you could say, deeper definition of magic, saying that magic was the conscious ability to access the subconscious, which also tells you where the magic is. The subconscious mind is one that is connected to the universe far more closely than is our conscious mind. Our conscious mind has been cut off from everything that exists, including our subconscious, so that we can make choices in, what you might say, a vacuum—make choices all over again, make choices about things we already know in our deeper being. But if we are consciously able to access the subconscious mind then we can make available other energies, opportunities, definitions, and parameters.
Gary Ra also describes a process whereby it can be invoked in a more formalized, disciplined way. How is the magical personality invoked?
Jim Well, there are various rituals that have been set up by, for instance, the Order of the Golden Dawn that have been developed and used over the course of hundreds of years, and I’m sure there are Egyptian rituals as well from way back in the Pharaonic times where certain entities in the court were in charge of doing the magic. You see this in the Old Testament where the Lord God of Israel performs magic or wonders in order to convince the people to do one thing or another, and the court magicians attempt to match it; in many cases they succeed.
But I think the magical personality is invoked through a specific ritual. And you can devise your own. I think in the long run, a ritual you devise yourself and use many, many times is probably more potent for you. But if you want some potency right away it’s best to use a ritual that’s already been developed. For us, we used the Banishing Ritual of the Lesser Pentagram for a long time in order to clean or clear the place of working—that was the Ra room. I do it every morning in here as well, and the first thing you do is invoke the magical personality.
The way Ra suggested that could be done is by putting on something. Many times a white magician will put on a mantle or a cape or a ring or have a talisman of some kind. We simply make a gesture that suggests that we are putting on something, inviting it to come to us. So we don’t actually have a thing that we use, we have a gesture that we use. So you can determine how you want to do it yourself. There are organized ways of doing it, and research into that is very helpful. W. E. Butler is one of the best resources we’ve ever found. The Magician: His Training and Work is probably his flagship and crowning achievement. We’ve read that a few times. That’s where we got the Banishing Ritual of the Lesser Pentagram.
Carla Just to put it in really simple terms, I invoked the higher self during the tuning that we did before this when I asked for spirit’s help in being our highest and best selves, and to keep it that way. That was a way of invoking the higher self. It can be very simple and momentary.
Gary So that invocation—I’m leaning towards the more disciplined, formal way of achieving this—that invocation can be tailor-made for one’s own processes and can include, as you said, a simple request. And probably ought to include some gesture or item to indicate that something is being put on.
Carla And you’ll notice that I said, “I want this for the duration of this session,” indicating that at the end of the session we were released from that, because you can’t keep the magical personality as the default personality. It is not your default personality [laughs] and never will be. If it were your default personality there’d be no reason for you to incarnate on planet Earth. But you can keep asking for its help as much as you want, as long as you make sure you say: “It’s for this moment, it’s for this reason.” And after the end of that reason then release it, “Leave me and my free will.”
Gary So in addition to those things that you’ve named in your own invocation, are there, in general, other elements that you would encourage seekers to investigate when constructing their own invocation process?
Jim Yes, I would read in the field of magic to start with. If you want to depart from that it’s possible, but it’s a good idea to start from what’s already known and to begin by mastering that. They always suggest that whatever you use, whether it’s something you put on, a talisman or ring or a bracelet or whatever, that it be new, that it be virgin, that it be clean and pure and not be used for anything else.
Carla You can clean something that has been used to the point of making it virgin by putting it in water overnight, salting the water, asking the water to take away anything that is keeping it from being as new in terms of any thing, or any intention, that has been impressed into it. People think that stones are stones and trees are trees and so forth, but it depends on what people have involved them in. The reason that gems are so very impressive as talismans and as things that can be worked with is they have a very specific crystal character, and that is their character, it can’t be any other way. They’re fit together in a crystalline manner, and no impurities can get into it, or it won’t be what it is. It won’t be a pure ruby or diamond or amethyst or pearl or whatever.
Gary Are there other elements that go into these invocation processes that you, in general, apply to invocation?
Jim Purity and cleanliness.
[to Carla] So is that why you put so much salt on your food, you’re purifying it?
Carla [laughs] I try to get all that impurity out of myself, that’s what it is.
Jim It just came to me. There must be a reason.
Gary Her food is very pure in that case.
Carla I am a salt shaker. [laughs] I represent, I express the salt shaker. We’re getting completely silly.
I don’t think that, in terms of everyday life, you can go around invoking stuff unless you are very careful about it. As Jim said: do your reading, do your homework, become familiar with what is possible in the natural and appropriate way, not in an inappropriate way, not trying to bend things.
I think your intention is everything. In this world it’s your results that count. In worlds that are unseen (time/space) the intention is what counts—it is [as solid and real as] a physical object is here in this world. If you’ve created a beautiful, perfect intention, in that world it’s happened, more or less. In this world it may not ever happen, we may never live up to our intention. In that world, simply having that intention is enough to give us the credit for it. So you can’t really mesh the two worlds at all. They don’t have the same rules at all.
Gary So I was going to ask if there are any cautions when working with the magical personality. You named the big one—that is the need to release the magical personality when the working is completed. Are there any other cautions to be aware of?
Jim Ra suggested working in a group and not to work by yourself, because if you work by yourself, for only your own self’s benefit, it’s too easy to get into the negative path—a gathering power for the self’s use. So it’s a good idea to have as your goal some sort of service to others, and to work with others if possible. It’s much like the channeling process. We never channel with less than three people because that’s the number that allows the universalization of the information, plus protection of the one serving as instrument.
Carla And that’s not important if you’re just praying to the Holy Spirit because praying to the Spirit is protected within the self, you’re praying within yourself, so the vast majority of what people intend is within themselves.
Jesus encouraged all to pray, and he wasn’t talking about praying to somebody from Hatonn or Latwii or from Ra; he was talking about praying to your own spirit, because the spirit within is that which gives, and that’s what, in actuality, I was praying to: the spirit within all of us. I was invoking it for all of us, so that made it a more magical act.
If you’re praying within your spirit, you don’t really have to have any caution. But as Jim said, if you want to get ahold of a friendly spirit outside of your personal energy system, you want to find out what that being thinks, and whether it comes from Mars or elsewhere—there are so many dangers . . . there are so many dangers that I can’t even begin to express them all. And they all have to do with giving over of the will of the self to another will—to another self who may be far stronger than you, and so negative that it beggars the imagination.*
Gary Why does Ra say:
RA The Law of One blinks neither at the light or the darkness, but is available for service to others and service to self. 7.15
Carla It has to do with the light. You proceed through the densities because you can use the light. You graduate from density to density because you’ve demonstrated yourself able to use all the light that a density has to
* Carla has switched gears somewhat in this paragraph. She is talking not about invoking the magical personality, but about channeling outer planes sources. The magical personality is you, though a higher you (your mid-sixth-density future you, according to Ra).
offer, which means that it’s time for you to move on in school and go to the next class and get a higher density more packed with information, packed with light. The denseness has to do with light, and the information is carried by different kinds of light. So in the negative as well as the positive, if seekers can use the light they can graduate.
Now those of the negative polarity are graduating into negative light, negative fourth density instead of positive fourth density because they leave out the heart; and it’s the path of that-which-is-not because of this omission. At the point that you can no longer learn anything by having negative beliefs (negative beliefs meaning beliefs in which there is no such thing as love), then the negative path becomes unable to use the light and has to switch polarities in order to be able to use the light again and to continue evolution.
So it’s easy to think, well, you just can’t use the light if you’re negative. Well, you can, unfortunately, that’s why The Law of One doesn’t blink at the light or the dark, because it honors all ability to use information.
Jim And it made all the entities, gave them free will, so why would The Law of One say, “This child can have the light and this child cannot.” They’re all the same.
Gary What is initiation? And how, in general, may the seeker skillfully navigate an initiation?
Jim Hmm, that’s a really good question. Don was undergoing initiation at his death. Initiation usually involves some type of a challenge. It’s an opportunity to become more available to power, you might say, more available to evolution and to the ability to expand your own consciousness. There’s usually some sort of a test, some sort of a challenge that you’ve got to overcome or to meet—to answer the questions, solve the riddles, solve the puzzles—and it usually involves a good deal of effort.
Other than that general description there are apparently all kinds of initiations. One that Don asked about was—he was talking to Ra about an incident many years in the past when his arm began to glow during meditation. As he moved it up and down, there was a blue glow to it.7
Carla He was getting this encouragement to move his arm on the top of a chair—the chair’s arm—up and down very quickly [makes a swishing sound] like that. It began to glow blue, and he looked at that and watched his arm and he asked the fellow he was meditating with, whose name was
Frank, he said, “Frank, do you see this?” Frank said, “You’re going blue!” and Don said, “Frank, I’m sure glad you can see that.” [laughs]
Jim But when Don asked about it, Ra gave a little description, and then Don asked, “Well, now how could I reproduce it?” Ra said it’s an initiation and to reproduce it is to go backwards in evolution. So there was something about it that was an initiation. As to what the initiations are, I do not know. I know there are a lot of them.
Carla I think they differ from the simpler insight or even epiphany to being that which many have gone through before—which is of a certain kind and can be defined as such. Like the initiation into the Golden Dawn was defined by the Golden Dawn as such-and-such, and then when somebody was able to see what you were supposed to see when you had that initiation, then you had completed the initiation of the Golden Dawn.
So it needs to be part of something that a group defines as such—this is an initiation. I think the closest we come to it as regular people is what St. John of the Cross called “The Dark Night of the Soul.” Most people have that experience where you’re learning, you’re learning, you’re learning—it gets harder and harder and then finally, bam! You run up against what seems to be the end, the absolute end, and you’re cast down into the cellar and you’re suffering tremendously, and then somehow, there comes to be the light—the dawning of the next day—and everything is clear again, only you’ve graduated to a new understanding, a new level of understanding.
I think we do that several times in our lives; most people do. It has to do with the spirit, it has to do with a certain amount of things that the spirit learns, and even there, it’s very subjective. We all set ourselves objectives in this incarnation, and when we’ve managed to come to the end of what we’ve attempted to do, I think we can easily run into a dark night of the soul and then finally the light after the dark, at which it all comes clear: Ohhh, okay.
Gary It sounds like initiation sits at the boundary between one stage and the next, one level and the next, and one of its chief characteristics is its difficulty, and that it usually for the entity involves suffering and some kind of releasing of the old in order to step in to the new, to the next level up.
Carla You got that. Yeah, I think those are all very much part of that phenomenon.
Gary How does one skillfully, in general, navigate an initiation?
Jim Faith—
Carla Humor, light touch, a refusal to take oneself too terribly seriously, a refusal to be stopped. Absolute stubbornness is a wonderful tool. Say, “No, I won’t, uh-uh, I’m gonna keep going, I don’t care how hard it is or how long it takes. This is my path and I’m on it, so . . . ”
Gary Balanced by a certain amount of surrender too, I would think.
Carla Well, yeah, definitely, it’s the surrender that’s there, but it’s the surrender into the lesson you gave yourself to learn before you were born, in terms of what the dark night of the soul might be.
Ken Do you think that in studying the information that Ra gave us on the archetypes, specifically the mind cycle, one would set out to do just that in a microcosm/macrocosm to successfully navigate an initiation experience?
Jim To study the archetypes, I think, is to go through a type of initiation. I mean there is so much in the archetypes that unlock parts of ourselves that we’ve not thought about before—that we’re opening up boundaries and expanding possibilities—and that will take some sort of initiation in order to get through it.
Gary What, in your opinion, is the role of discipline along the spiritual path?
Jim Well, it’s the way that we get things done. It’s good to have a discipline, a ritual, a routine by which you practice your spiritual journey, whether it’s meditation at a certain time each day, balancing exercises, yoga, running, jogging, mountain climbing; whatever way you’ve chosen needs to be done in a regular way, just like exercising your muscles. If you’re trying to get stronger to do hiking or do anything, it’s a good thing to have a set number of routines that you do every week designed to strengthen certain muscles, and you’re doing the same thing when you use a discipline on a spiritual path—you’re disciplining your spiritual muscle to meditate, to look at your catalyst around you, and to open your heart.
Also, you’re disciplining yourself to assess a situation, hopefully, with wisdom. It helps you use your energy efficiently. If you don’t have wisdom, then you’re likely to have a big burst of energy at one time. Then it will slack off, and then burst back and forth. You may eventually get somewhere, but it’s so much easier and quicker to do it with discipline.
Carla I tried to help a lot of people who were interested in working with channeling. Through the years I’ve talked to probably hundreds of people who want help one way or another. At the beginning they all have a great feeling to do these things—a great desire to serve, a great big burst—but if you go at more than a certain level, you burn yourself out. I’ve seen so many people burn out. They get off the spiritual path and they can’t do anything because they’ve exhausted themselves. They have to sit while they get themselves back together.
So it’s better to have a certain amount of self-knowledge, know how much you can do in a day, in a week, at all; know how far you can go with yourself as far as trying to adjust your attitudes; have a lot of respect for yourself in figuring out what “you” is, what the essence of you may be. Then you try to just form the habits that you want to go on with. It’s easier to finish your day before you burn out, finish your week before you burn out. It’s easier if you don’t want to finish it all—if you want the work to be a way of life—to form habits that do take discipline, whatever the work is.
I think it’s discipline balanced by a sense of humor and a light touch that will really serve the spiritual seeker.
Gary What’s the difference between disciplining the self and the imposing control over oneself?
Jim Nothing. Just different words.
Gary Because Ra says of the two polarities that control is the opposite of love and—
Jim When you’re doing it with other people. Self-control and self-discipline are the same thing.8
Carla Knowing yourself. If you know yourself you may have to impose that discipline a couple of times once you’re getting the hang of it. But if it’s really you, if it’s really you and you love it, then you’re going to love doing it. If you don’t love doing it, you’d better go back and reexamine what it is precisely you wanted to discipline to make sure that it’s you and not some idea you have about what you’d like to be. We’re all as we are. We can certainly change a lot; we can eliminate bad behaviors, we can open up new ones, but we can’t change our essence. We can’t change what’s really in our hearts. So if it truly makes us gag to do something, then we shouldn’t have to do it.
Some people look at modesty and they see it as an outward behavior. They see a lot of joy, for instance, in clothing themselves the way some Mohammedans do—the covering of the body indicating that only your husband will ever see the you, the outside of you, and that’s modesty. But in another person that wouldn’t be modesty. That would be not wearing clothes or wearing clothes; it wouldn’t have anything to do with modesty. I would never be too skimpy on my outerwear, so I must be somewhat along the lines of people who think that clothing expresses you.
But I think that your words really express you more. A person can be entirely modest simply by choosing to be modest in speech and modest in attempts made to control others, to say, “Boo-hoo, look at me.” So there can be a good deal of difference in precisely how you choose your boundaries for yourself, what you choose to change about yourself, and once you’ve decided this is what I want to be, if you can’t do it every day then it’s probably not you. So try it for three weeks, try it for a month, try it for six weeks, but if you’re still hanging up on it, if something about you still wants to take a day off from that, well, it’s not really you and you need to think again.
So you need to be very careful about how you discipline yourself. Give yourself the benefit of being in love with yourself and giving yourself the freedom that you need.
Jim What is being disciplined or controlled is the expenditure of energy: in what direction, in what amount, for what reason, for what periodicity. It’s just a way of managing your energy.
Carla That’s a good way of putting it. Beautiful.
Gary Why is meditation so repeatedly emphasized in the Confederation’s message?
Jim Because it’s very helpful. [laughs]
Well, meditation seems to be the easiest and quickest and most available way for people to get into that original Self, that Self from which we all sprang; to get in touch with the heart of you in this third dimension; to find out what makes you tick, which is that great inner silence, that unity of all things; to get back down into the silence of the mind so that you can relax into the center of yourself.
Carla People have talked repeatedly about how they can feel the energy on the tapes, even when the Q’uo aren’t saying anything (or whoever I’m channeling). That’s a good example of the silence. There’s always silence that is used in speech or song or whatever way we have of making noise. There’s the silence in between the notes, or in between the words, or in between sentences, in between paragraphs. There are the pauses. So even when we’re talking we can make use of silence by being mindful. But when you enter the silence, you are entering a whole kingdom in which you have eternity and you have infinity. It’s wonderful rest from our very busy minds and our very busy lives. It is in the kingdom of silence where the spiritual life lies, so you need to become acquainted with the silence.
I don’t care how people do it. Some people thrive on very formal meditations, some people thrive on meditating a whole bunch, some others have units of 20-30 minutes where they meditate, or even less, and it works for them. That’s certainly true for me. And some people feel that their goal is to meditate all the time, and what would be best for somebody like that would be long walks, especially in a state of nature and without the boombox along or the iPod, no manmade music because the music of nature, the music of silence, is so full of beauty. I’ve never found an end to the beauty, to the wisdom, to everything—the kingdom of everything that is found in silence. I doubt I ever will. It’s an infinite kingdom.
Gary Why does Ra describe the spiritual seeker’s path as “strait and narrow”?
Jim Well I guess if you’re going to use discipline to take your energy expenditures and use them efficiently, it turns out that it’s the shortest distance between where you are and where you want to be, which is, relatively speaking, a straight line.
Carla Well, strait is s-t-r-a-i-t . . . it’s like The Strait of Gibraltar; it’s a narrow place. If you’ve ever done this [mimics a looking glass with fist] to focus light in order to see something better, you understand how valuable it is to focus your energies so that you’re getting the maximum amount of light into your energy to hit the beam right where you want to hit it and look at what you want to look at. That’s why I think it’s “strait and narrow.”
Jim It’s paradoxical too. Ra speaks of the upward spiraling line of light which suggests something like this [makes a spiral motion].
Carla Yeah, you don’t go like this [moves looking glass in circles around the eye].
Jim And we’re traveling that too. Trying to put “strait and narrow” together with “upward spiraling” is a paradox.
Carla I love paradoxes. You know you’ve hit spirituality when you hit paradoxes.
Gary Maybe one way to attempt to understand it is to imagine trying to circumnavigate the globe, heading in what appears to be a straight line to you, but in actuality you’re going in a circle.
Jim It’s such a large area that you’re working with that you think it’s straight, but eventually—like when you’re lost in the woods, you think you’re going in a straight line and you come back around to the place you started and you’ve gone in circles.
Carla But I think strait is another way of saying narrow. I’ve always felt that people misunderstand “strait and narrow” to mean “straight and narrow,” and it doesn’t mean straight like a straight line, it means strait like narrow.9
Jim Which could mean it would meander a little bit. The Strait of Gibraltar isn’t straight.
Carla Well, I doubt that they are, but they are a very thin line where you navigate your ship and we’re trying to navigate our ship so it’s a beautiful way of pulling that metaphor in. We’re navigating a ship, and if it’s a spiritual ship our focus is going to have to be strait and narrow in order to maintain maximum focus.
Gary If I had to choose any one word, “focus” would be the one that comes to mind when I think of that phrase. It is an intensive, constantly reinforced focus with less deviation away from that which is sought.
Carla You can’t just be a fly-by-night person and get far. It may feel like far and that’s the kind of mind that goes to say, well, “I want to take drugs, I want to have that help.” The strait and narrow path doesn’t include anything except using the powers of silence and your mind and will, and that is by far the more exciting path.
Gary A concept from Ramana Maharshi that I also associate with “strait and narrow”: he says something along the lines that if you were seeking water underneath the ground, you wouldn’t go here and there and over there digging holes. You would stop in one place and continue boring down in that one place. It’s focus in a repeated, determined fashion.
Many who resonate with L/L Research’s work feel that they are wanderers, sometimes in the sense of having wandered outside the boundaries of consensus thinking, but more so in the literal sense that their soul came to earth from elsewhere in order to be of service to those of this planet. What is the symptomology of the wanderer profile?
Jim You wrote the book! [to Carla in reference to A Wanderers’ Handbook]
Carla Scott Mandelker is actually the one who’s done the most careful study of the tendencies of the wanderer and collected them in a wonderful little questionnaire that I have in the Wanderer’s Handbook that people can take to see how many questions they could answer in the way a wanderer would. The wanderer tends to feel lonely and isolated. He tends not to feel that he came from around here. Sometimes he has feelings of not being from on this planet, sometimes he has feelings he doesn’t really come from the parents that seem to be his mom and dad, sometimes he looks up at the stars and feels homesick for home, wants to go home. I think that agony of isolation is very characteristic—that feeling of being tremendously lonely because he has no one to talk to about what’s happening to him. That’s probably the chief characteristic. Also wanderers tend to be somewhat sensitive to this earth and show up with some kind of allergy, one way or another, to Earth, animals, plants, whatever. What else—what am I missing?
Jim That’s a pretty good description. Yeah, there’s usually some general alienation. Ra said that wanderers frequently have some kind of a psychological difficulty with blending their vibrations with the planet Earth because this is a very adversarial type of environment; the vibrations are heavy and dense and it’s just hard to get to feel at home here.10 So there’s usually some feeling of alienation and a feeling like you’re not home.
Carla My heart just goes out to those who feel this way. That’s why I’ve spent so much time focusing on how to help them. I wrote A Wanderer’s Handbook for that reason, the whole reason that we’re in business. We never ever fail to answer a letter, ever—and that knowledge that there is somebody here, and that they will be heard, and we do care about what they have to say—even knowing that, it makes people feel a little bit less lonely, and I think people do trust us, and thank God.
Gary Those that fit this profile also tend to care a great deal, tend to want to better this planet in some way, and tend to be very service-oriented.
Carla That’s true. People have a feeling that they did come here to do something, there’s a mission. And what is it? A lot of people are scrambling around looking for the mission that’s already right in front of them.
As I said before, it’s so hard for people who are oriented towards behavior, towards doing something, to just realize that your being, your actual way of being is very, very, very important. If you can open your heart, simply be that much of yourself and rest in the open heart as much as possible, you’re already fulfilling your service to planet Earth which was to lighten the vibration.
I can’t tell people, “Well, no, you don’t have an outer service, just focus on opening your heart,” because they may have come to help the planet in a particular way. They may have come to teach. I don’t know. I never know. I have to trust the people themselves to start digging these truths out for themselves.
I’ll ask things like: “What kind of things to do you like to do to be of service?” If you spend a lot of time volunteering in a certain area, then it’s very likely that that’s your area of service. That’s what interests you—well, go with that. I don’t know if you can make a living at it; you may have to stay being a volunteer all of your life. Focus on what you love. And invest whatever you do to make money with all that you can. Sometimes all that you can invest of yourself is to do it the best you possibly can, and that excellence in itself is a gift of yourself.
If your job is to compile lists of stuff and then put the lists against other lists—you know, technical things that people do—it’s hard for them to figure, well how am I of service? Well, you’re of service because you’re doing it just beautifully. You’re fulfilling that job with all that you can, with your full heart going for it. That’s the service.
Gary So you would say to wanderers that you are the service, you are the mission. It’s not what you’re doing but how you do it, and with what degree of open heartedness and faithfulness, that the wanderer is literally changing the atmosphere of this planet and lightening the vibration, as you said.
Are wanderers alone?
Carla Not at all. But they are physically. I think in order to sprinkle them around the planet, there had to be a certain amount of division of labor—there’s just so many of us, and there’s are a lot of mud.
Jim But there are others around. Look, gather together in little communities and help each another out.
Carla Yeah, I have found no shortage of people that are full of hope and full of desire to do good things. They’re wanting to help and it’s very reassuring to be with others of like mind, so if you can find a couple of others, then by all means, make sure that you stay in close contact because it’s very encouraging to be with others that think like you do.
Notes
[1] About Puharich’s love of puzzles: ↩
QUESTIONER Thank you. I’m sure that we are getting into an area of problem with the first distortion here, and also with a difficulty in a bit of transient material here, but I have two questions from people that I’ll ask, although I consider especially the first one to be of no lasting value. Andrija Puharich asks about coming physical changes, specifically this summer. Is there anything that we could relay to him about that?
RA I am Ra. We may confirm the good intention of the source of this entity’s puzzles and suggest that it is a grand choice that each may make to, by desire, collect the details of the day or, by desire, to seek the keys to unknowing. 84.7
[2] On the radiation of realization of oneness with the Creator: ↩
QUESTIONER Is it possible to help an entity to reach fourth-density level in these last days?
RA I am Ra. It is impossible to help another being directly. It is only possible to make catalyst available in whatever form, the most important being the radiation of realization of oneness with the Creator from the self, less important being information such as we share with you.
We, ourselves, do not feel an urgency for this information to be widely disseminated. It is enough that we have made it available to three, four, or five. This is extremely ample reward, for if one of these obtains fourth-density understanding due to this catalyst then we shall have fulfilled the Law of One in the distortion of service.
We encourage a dispassionate attempt to share information without concern for numbers or quick growth among others. That you attempt to make this information available is, in your term, your service. The attempt, if it reaches one, reaches all.
We cannot offer shortcuts to enlightenment. Enlightenment is of the moment, is an opening to intelligent infinity. It can only be accomplished by the self, for the self. Another self cannot teach/learn enlightenment, but only teach/learn information, inspiration, or a sharing of love, of mystery, of the unknown that makes the other-self reach out and begin the seeking process that ends in a moment, but who can know when an entity will open the gate to the present? 17.2
QUESTIONER Well, if an entity wants to learn ways of it, wants to be of service to others rather than service to self while he is in this third density, are there best ways of being of service to others, or is any way just as good as any other way?
RA I am Ra. The best way to be of service to others has been explicitly covered in previous material. We will iterate briefly.
The best way of service to others is the constant attempt to seek to share the love of the Creator as it is known to the inner self. This involves self-knowledge and the ability to open the self to the other-self without hesitation. This involves, shall we say, radiating that which is the essence or the heart of the mind/body/spirit complex.
Speaking to the intention of your question, the best way for each seeker in third density to be of service to others is unique to that mind/body/spirit complex. This means that the mind/body/spirit complex must then seek within itself the intelligence of its own discernment as to the way it may best serve other-selves. This will be different for each. There is no best. There is no generalization. Nothing is known. 17.30
[3] See 36.1–14, and 36.22, among others, for more context and information. ↩
[4] Author’s note: I was a bit confused on the aspect of commanding the self by affirming: “I will immediately stop feeling (insert undesirable feeling).” Such an approach rang to me of control or suppression of “that self which is perfect.” A method at odds with balance, acceptance, love, and forgiveness. ↩
Which is not to imply that I have not done similarly, or that in certain pickles sometimes you simply need to assert and demonstrate that level of self-control, just that I’m not sure it is an appropriate application of Ra’s teaching.
In querying Jim on the point, he replied saying that he understood and wasn’t certain, but he remembers:
When we were discussing with Ra how fasting or the changing of one’s diet could aid in changing behavior patterns in the way of purification of the behavior Ra also said that it was possible, by an act of will, to accomplish the same thing. The exercise of will and faith could produce the same results. So maybe Carla was onto something here that is based on what Ra had said.
I think that part of what Carla was saying is that we are responsible for our own thoughts and too often we like to wallow in negative thoughts like self-pity, anger, guilt, despair and it is counterproductive to do that. We can do better just by willing it so. And, maybe, if we are unsuccessful at willing it so, then we will be left with the need to balance the negative thoughts with positive thoughts in our meditative balancing procedures.
On the same question Austin Bridges adds:
Ra says that control may seem to be a shortcut to discipline. So when the context is shrunk small enough, the two may look very similar. And in some situations, control and discipline may share similar aspects. The scenario that Carla speaks about is using the will to guide our thoughts in order for us to be our best selves able for service. What she does not speak about is the longer context of dealing with these thoughts:
In a negative context, control over those negative thoughts is sought. The controlled thoughts are then stashed away in a toolbox as aspects of self that may be used to further self-service.
In a positive context, controlled thoughts may be set aside for the moment in order to allow us to serve in that moment, but the controlled thoughts are not forgotten. Ideally those thoughts temporarily controlled would, upon the positive path, be subsequently processed as catalyst: examined, accepted, and distilled to where love may be found until they no longer serve as an interruption to our service, and learning and balance are achieved.
The disruptive emotions or thoughts are controlled for further use in the negative path, but accepted with love and allowed to fall away in the positive path.
I think it is a similar scenario to experiencing that which is desired versus indulging in that which is desired. There is a point where effort is needed to break habits, thought patterns, and behavior. This effort takes discipline of paying attention to our thoughts and making choices that allow us to move in the direction we wish. In a more general definition, this could be seen as control.
[5] It should be noted that there exists a variety of so-called “Satanic” belief systems, each unique in its rituals, beliefs, symbolism, and tenets. Belief systems of this nature may or may not correlate with what Ra describes as the left-hand, service-to-self path. ↩
[6] The replies given by Carla and Jim to these questions are their opinions, of course, but in instances like this one where Carla speaks authoritatively on a subject, perhaps without substantial personal familiarity upon the subject, there exists the possibility of creating significant misunderstanding for the reader. Consequently we add a second opinion regarding the practice of Wicca which states that, according to our limited understanding, prominent early Wiccans explicitly referred to their magic as “white” or “right-hand path,” and made the distinction that it was done for positive reasons and with good intentions—they articulated an explicit code to “do no harm.” However even this opinion is fairly unfamiliar with the practice of Wicca, so in either event inclusion of salt granules and one’s own research is counseled. ↩
[7] Jim wrote of this incident: ↩
Don was meditating at his and Carla’s Douglass Blvd. apartment with a friend. Carla was away. After a few minutes of meditation, Don’s arm, which had been resting on the arm of the chair he was sitting in, began moving up and down and glowing blue. The elbow remained on the arm of the chair and the rest of the arm and hand began to raise from the horizontal position to a vertical position and back down to horizontal a number of times, all the while glowing blue. Don opened his eyes to observe the phenomenon and asked his friend if he saw what was happening too. His friend said he did indeed.
Ra speaks about it here:
QUESTIONER In meditation a number of years ago my arm started to glow, moving rapidly involuntarily. What was that?
RA I am Ra. The phenomenon was an analogy made available to you from your higher self. The analogy was that the being that you were was living in a way not understood by, shall we say, physicists, scientists, or doctors. 44.12
[8] Where the practices of discipline and self-control intersect and diverge is a subject absolutely ripe for analysis and consideration. Ra and other Confederation sources generally attribute “control” to the negative polarity, but they have also used the term “control” in positive contexts. In other words, control needn’t be strictly an activity of the service-to-self path. For instance, it is well to control one’s bowels. Or, more deeply, it is well to control one’s impulses if they would result in an infringement upon an other-self. ↩
It is in this author’s humble opinion, however, that, in contrast to the replies Jim and Carla gave in this section, self-control and discipline of the self are not precisely equivalent concepts. Though so much depends on how “control” and “discipline” are defined, Ra generally used this terms as if they were not one and the same:
QUESTIONER Am I correct, then, in assuming that discipline of the personality, knowledge of self, and control, shall I say, in strengthening of the will would be what any fifth-density entity would see as those things of importance?
RA I am Ra. In actuality these things are of importance in third through early seventh densities. The only correction in nuance that we would make is your use of the word, control. It is paramount that it be understood that it is not desirable or helpful to the growth of the understanding, may we say, of an entity by itself to control thought processes or impulses except where they may result in actions not consonant with the Law of One. Control may seem to be a short-cut to discipline, peace, and illumination. However, this very control potentiates and necessitates the further incarnative experience in order to balance this control or repression of that self which is perfect.
Instead, we appreciate and recommend the use of your second verb in regard to the use of the will. Acceptance of self, forgiveness of self, and the direction of the will; this is the path towards the disciplined personality. Your faculty of will is that which is powerful within you as co-Creator. You cannot ascribe to this faculty too much importance. Thus it must be carefully used and directed in service to others for those upon the positively oriented path.
There is great danger in the use of the will as the personality becomes stronger, for it may be used even subconsciously in ways reducing the polarity of the entity. 52.7
RA Control is the key to negatively polarized use of catalyst. Acceptance is the key to positively polarized use of catalyst. 46.9
[9] Spelled “straight and narrow” in the original publication of The Law of One books, (17.11, 26.38, 27.17, 32.12), it was changed to “strait” for the Lightly Edited thanks to Tobey Wheelock’s inspection of the term. Strait was chosen because it seems to be a better contextual fit (the article below sheds some light), coupled with the fact that, as Tobey noted, Ra seemed to love archaic and poetic language. ↩
“'Straight' is a much more frequently used word than 'strait' these days and so the most common question about this phrase concerns the spelling - should it be 'strait and narrow' or 'straight and narrow'? Well, that depends on just how pedantic you want to be. The source of the expression is the Bible, specifically Matthew 7:13/14. The King James' Version gives these verses as:
Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.
That clearly opts for 'strait' rather than 'straight', as it calls on a now rather archaic meaning of strait, that is, 'a route or channel, so narrow as to make passage difficult'. This is still found in the names of various sea routes, e.g. the Straits of Dover. Such a nautical strait was defined in the 1867 version of Admiral Smyth's Sailor's Word-book as:
“A passage connecting one part of a sea with another.”
Smyth also offered the opinion that strait “is often written in the plural, but without competent reason”.
The 'confined and restricted' meaning of strait still also lingers on in straitjacket, dire straits, strait-laced and straitened circumstances. All of these are frequently spelled with 'straight' rather than 'strait'. These spellings, although technically incorrect, are now widely accepted and only 'dire straights' comes in for any sustained criticism.”
“Straight and Narrow,” The Phrase Finder, accessed February 17, 2016, www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/strait-and-narrow.html.
[10] About wanderers’ difficulty adjusting to the planetary vibrations: ↩
QUESTIONER Do any of these Wanderers have physical ailments in this Earth situation?
RA I am Ra. Due to the extreme variance between the vibratory distortions of third density and those of the more dense densities, if you will, Wanderers have as a general rule some form of handicap, difficulty, or feeling of alienation which is severe. The most common of these difficulties are alienation, the reaction against the planetary vibration by personality disorders, as you would call them, and body complex ailments indicating difficulty in adjustment to the planetary vibrations such as allergies, as you would call them. 12.30