08-03-2013, 10:46 AM
this is a fantastic session which offers many thoughts when it comes to relating to our 'Personality Package' that we chose for this lifetime. Much like we have a body that has gender, height, and genetic specificity that we work with in our balancing and experience, there is a 'shell' on the mind which can best be described as a personality layer. This, too, was chosen by the self before coming into the body.
so how do we relate to this personality thingy? what use is it? what does it do? this is a great session from Q'uo which addresses some of these points.
apologies in advance for the many words to follow
- -
September 8, 2007
Group question: The question this week has to do with the role which personality plays in the spiritual development of the seeker. We’d like Q’uo to give us an idea of the best way for the seeker to look at the personality, to use it or not to use it, and how to use it. What role does the personality play in the work of the spiritual seeker?
(Carla channeling)
We are those of the principle known to you as Q’uo. Greetings in the love and in the light of the one infinite Creator, in whose service we come to you this day. May we thank you for the privilege of being called to your circle of seeking. You can have no idea what it means to us to be able to share our thoughts with you. This is the service that we have chosen at this particular time, and when we are able to speak through instruments such as this one, we feel that we are able to fulfill our service.
Please accept our humble thoughts for opinion rather than fact, for they are our thoughts and opinions. We would not wish to be in the position of authority over you. Consequently, we would greatly appreciate your using your powers of discrimination to sort out the thoughts that are helpful to you from those that are not. We thank you for this consideration, as it allows us to rest easy, knowing that we are not infringing upon your free will.
There is always that danger, when a seemingly advanced entity speaks. One feels one ought to listen. We encourage you not to feel that you ought to do anything whatsoever but follow your heart.
Your query this evening has to do with the use of the personality for the seeker who is doing spiritual work. Oftentimes in your organized religions there is the suggestion that the human being is entirely separate from that entity that may do good works, or who may be acceptable to the one infinite Creator. The things of this world, which include all of those facets of the personality which have to do with this world, are seen as full of sin and the territory which is in the rule of the Devil or Satan or the negative forces.
The spiritual is seen as something separate, something to be yearned for and to be sought through the middleman, whether it be the priest, the Holy Spirit, the Blessed Virgin Mary, Jesus the Christ, or whatever intermediary is taught within other forms of organized religion than those with which this instrument has familiarity.
This is not our view of the use of the personality by the spiritual seeker. We realize that from the level of the personality, it is an unsolvable puzzle to see through the personality. Certainly this instrument has been assailed by many doubts as to her worth, which seems paradoxical in that the cause of this was receiving many, many compliments at a recent Homecoming Gathering. The possibility that she could ever, in a million years, be such as was being described by some of those attending this Homecoming caused her to feel deep doubts as to her true worth.
We mention this because this is the way the personality works. It is full of quirks and quiddities, often illogical and even contradicting itself in its various facets. The personality shell, as we have called it many times rather than using such pejorative terms as ego, is not a smooth, symmetrical, completely integrated thing. It is, rather, a collection of gifts, challenges and predilections.
Imagine yourself, my friends, before this incarnation began. You and your guidance gazed at the totality that is you, that perfect being that has come through so many waters, so many experiences, and has collected an over-abundance of gifts, challenges and predilections.
You looked at the suitcase that you were going to pack for this incarnation. You had to leave out most of the traits which are part of the totality of your beingness. You chose quite thoughtfully and consciously, attempting to provide yourself with just the right clothing with which to dress your essence. A good deal of subtle and thoughtful consideration was put into these choices.
And so you packed, carefully and with respect, those assets, deficiencies and preferences that you felt would set you up to learn the lessons that you wished to learn in this incarnation and to meet the challenges that you wished would temper your spirit and transform you in this incarnation. You carefully selected your biases and arranged for relationships, or perhaps more accurately the possibility of relationships, throughout the incarnation, the parents, the teachers, the siblings, those who would be your children, your mates and all of those friends that connect with you in ways too deep for words.
In this you were redundant, so that you could never, ever become lost and be unable to find your way back to the proper track that you hoped to follow throughout this incarnation. Some of you packed sparingly. Some of you packed so many gifts and challenges that you had to sit on them to close the suitcase. Therefore, some of you are quiet and some of you are full of energy and bursting at the seams. But all of these things were done with careful thoughtfulness. There was no mistake made in your packing. You did well.
You have come to this incarnation with a personality shell in which there is a loose association of all of these aspects that you packed beforehand. You have taken them out of your suitcase and placed them around you, just as you placed your flesh around the essence of your light body as you took incarnation in flesh. And here you are, a seemingly unified, integrated individual, more or less in control of a busy and productive life.
And yet those are not the experiences from the inside of the personality shell, for the most part. It is quite normal, in fact, for entities to sense that they are not completely seamless in their personality but rather have many shifting elements that can combine in different ways at different times to surprise the seeker at the eye of the hurricane of all of these facets of personality.
So, how shall the seeker deal with its own personality as it seeks to penetrate the surface of life and to go deep into the areas of mind which have real meaning and value, those areas of deep water that call the spirit forward? The one known as C was saying that perhaps it is necessary to put the personality to one side and to release the personality in order to do work in consciousness. And indeed, as we said before, this is the traditional model of organized religion, which sees things human as things sinful and in error.
Our opinion varies from this model markedly. We feel it is well to take the personality somewhat lightly. It is well to have a sense of humor as one gazes at the many quirks and impulses of the personality. One cannot defend the indefensible! One cannot say that every choice made is a good one, when quite obviously there are many, many times when one looks back upon a choice and estimates it as being foolish.
And yet such moments of inner realization teach and instruct the seeker within, so that gradually, as life experiences are collected and spiritual maturity begins to develop in the entity, it becomes more difficult to be thrown off one’s balance by the realization of one’s folly and one’s limitations in general.
We would encourage entities who seek to know the one infinite Creator to spend time developing an affectionate and tolerant relationship with the self. There is no use in dwelling in judgment upon the self, for every day is a new day. Every time you perceive that your personality has led you astray you have the opportunity to begin again. You do not have to carry those mistakes of your past on your shoulders. You do not need to carry old sorrow upon your shoulders. You do not need to retain guilt for those things that you long ago expiated by your very suffering and remorse. It is well to travel lightly, if you are a spiritual seeker, and to release the judgments of yesterday, that you may be entirely fresh this day.
As you evolve, you will discover that there are things about your personality which have begun to become transparent to you. It is not that you lose the personal aspects of yourself at all, but rather that they no longer affect you in the same way. You can see those same impulses and preferences that in the past have been so very powerful, and you may notice that while you see these preferences you do not have great catalyst in choosing whether or not to move with them in a certain circumstance. For your viewpoint has widened. You see through yourself, and this is a transparency that works both in the outer world and in the inner world.
You see through your personality in the outer world, seeing more of the world than just those things that you care about personally. Your viewpoint widens. You are still the driver of your creation but you are no longer necessarily the star player. You begin to sense into the endless mirroring of the world. You become less afraid to contact other people’s suffering. And therefore you become more able to rejoice with other people’s joy.
The transparency also works within yourself, as you honor, respect and fully acknowledge the quirks of your personality, while becoming able to choose whether or not to indulge your personality at a certain point. It is, indeed, one of the reasons that you took incarnation. For as suffering, pain, loss and limitation temper your spirit and make it ever more flexible and strong, you become more and more an instrument that is transparent to the distortions of the surface personality, allowing them to be declarations and embellishments which do not cover the essence within.
This is not something that can be done on purpose. It is the result of a life lived thoughtfully and consciously. It is a great reward of the spiritual life that eventually you become able to choose to bring into the forefront of your awareness that selfhood of yours which does not partake of any masks, but rather rests in the mystery of the unconditional love of the Creator.
You become an impersonal eye, yet this impersonal eye does not take over the personality. It is not intended at any time during the incarnation that the personality be dropped. It is simply that it becomes that plastic, workable, transparent collection of facets that you brought with you.
Indeed, the sum total of becoming aware of this impersonal center or core to the self is that you fall in love with your foolish, human personality shell. You like yourself. You accept yourself just as you are, for it is this vehicle that has served you so well and offered you so many occasions for laughter, comradeship, love and affection. It is this very personality that has allowed you to open your arms and embrace others and to accept the love of others.
It is this very human, error-prone personality that is one of your glories. It gives your light color and texture, making that light that you welcome through yourself from the Creator have just that certain delightful uniqueness that makes you so very special and so very necessary to the Creator.
Therefore, we would say that the proper use of the personality to the seeker is to respect and honor it, while at the same time realizing its nature. Realize that it is clothing which you have put on to meet the faces that you meet, all of whom are similarly clothed in these ways of looking at the world which are unique to each person.
If you wish to work upon your personality, it is always well to think in terms of balance. There is a tendency in those who wish to be truly devoted to the infinite One to toss aside all things except the highest and best. And yet entities who do this are off balance. They have forgotten how to laugh and to enjoy the transient pleasures of food and drink and the way the air smells on a summer’s day when it has just rained and the dust rises off the tar on a country road.
Who would wish to lose the small delights of the personality in order to be ever more devoted, serious, and sober? We would not recommend this approach to seeking the one infinite Creator. For the personality is that which notices and remembers the little things that would mean nothing to the impersonal self. Therefore, open your arms and embrace yourself, for your personality is a sturdy, useful, even necessary garment.
Now, when you speak of garments you also speak of the garment of impersonal life as well. And we encourage you to explore that concept, that even the cloak of Christ Consciousness is a deep personality characteristic. Even the so-called impersonal self, that I AM THAT I AM, is still a cloak with which you clothe yourself. No matter how much you hunger to become completely the Creator’s, you shall always, because of the very nature of this density, be that entity which wears the masks and wears the garments, and comes at experience with a certain angle or edge.
Therefore, explore your personality to find those angles and edges that are positive and life-affirming, that bring you to laughter and tears and honest emotion. Encourage those traits within yourself.
And when you find the angles and edges of personality that are life-destroying, look deeply within yourself to find the fear that has caused you to exclude certain activities, people or thoughts from the list of those things which are acceptable.
We find in your settled religions, for instance, that many entities are excluded from belonging to the one infinite Creator, by those who believe in that way, because of not believing as they do. We find other entities that are prejudiced against one or the other sex, against other races than one’s own, and so forth.
As you spot these angles and edges in your approach to life and you see that they are destructive of life and denying of the unity of all things, you may well work upon enlarging your point of view and gradually, lovingly, gently bringing these fear-based biases of personality more into the light, that you may develop within yourself a greater compassion for all of life and a greater knowledge and sense, on a personal level, of the unity of yourself and those who you have thought to exclude from your good offices.
Yet, my friends, if you are unable at any certain time to accomplish these things, accept that about yourself as well. There is no hurry. There is no limit in terms of how long it may take you to bring yourself into your best balance. For each moment is a new one. You never run out of the opportunity to see something that will help you to have that epiphany of mind and heart that create in you that wider point of view from which you may, more and more, create the balance within yourself that gives you peace in your heart and peace in your mind.
It is well, in the midst of the confusion and rush of personality, to be single-minded about one thing and one thing only. And that, my friends, is love. Look for the love. When you find it not within yourself, look further, and ask for help. Whoever it is that you ask, whether it be the Confederation, the Holy Spirit, your higher self, your guru, your teacher, inspirational writing, or whatever it is to which you look for aid, seek in all ways to enlarge your awareness of the love within you; of the love flowing through you; of the love that you are able to radiate to those about you.
As always, we recommend the daily habit of silence, one way or another. For there is much transmitted within the silence of a seeking heart, in those energies far too deep for words but enormously rich in information, that goes directly into your subconscious and informs and enlightens your heart.
- -
peace and namaste,
plenum
so how do we relate to this personality thingy? what use is it? what does it do? this is a great session from Q'uo which addresses some of these points.
apologies in advance for the many words to follow
- -
September 8, 2007
Group question: The question this week has to do with the role which personality plays in the spiritual development of the seeker. We’d like Q’uo to give us an idea of the best way for the seeker to look at the personality, to use it or not to use it, and how to use it. What role does the personality play in the work of the spiritual seeker?
(Carla channeling)
We are those of the principle known to you as Q’uo. Greetings in the love and in the light of the one infinite Creator, in whose service we come to you this day. May we thank you for the privilege of being called to your circle of seeking. You can have no idea what it means to us to be able to share our thoughts with you. This is the service that we have chosen at this particular time, and when we are able to speak through instruments such as this one, we feel that we are able to fulfill our service.
Please accept our humble thoughts for opinion rather than fact, for they are our thoughts and opinions. We would not wish to be in the position of authority over you. Consequently, we would greatly appreciate your using your powers of discrimination to sort out the thoughts that are helpful to you from those that are not. We thank you for this consideration, as it allows us to rest easy, knowing that we are not infringing upon your free will.
There is always that danger, when a seemingly advanced entity speaks. One feels one ought to listen. We encourage you not to feel that you ought to do anything whatsoever but follow your heart.
Your query this evening has to do with the use of the personality for the seeker who is doing spiritual work. Oftentimes in your organized religions there is the suggestion that the human being is entirely separate from that entity that may do good works, or who may be acceptable to the one infinite Creator. The things of this world, which include all of those facets of the personality which have to do with this world, are seen as full of sin and the territory which is in the rule of the Devil or Satan or the negative forces.
The spiritual is seen as something separate, something to be yearned for and to be sought through the middleman, whether it be the priest, the Holy Spirit, the Blessed Virgin Mary, Jesus the Christ, or whatever intermediary is taught within other forms of organized religion than those with which this instrument has familiarity.
This is not our view of the use of the personality by the spiritual seeker. We realize that from the level of the personality, it is an unsolvable puzzle to see through the personality. Certainly this instrument has been assailed by many doubts as to her worth, which seems paradoxical in that the cause of this was receiving many, many compliments at a recent Homecoming Gathering. The possibility that she could ever, in a million years, be such as was being described by some of those attending this Homecoming caused her to feel deep doubts as to her true worth.
We mention this because this is the way the personality works. It is full of quirks and quiddities, often illogical and even contradicting itself in its various facets. The personality shell, as we have called it many times rather than using such pejorative terms as ego, is not a smooth, symmetrical, completely integrated thing. It is, rather, a collection of gifts, challenges and predilections.
Imagine yourself, my friends, before this incarnation began. You and your guidance gazed at the totality that is you, that perfect being that has come through so many waters, so many experiences, and has collected an over-abundance of gifts, challenges and predilections.
You looked at the suitcase that you were going to pack for this incarnation. You had to leave out most of the traits which are part of the totality of your beingness. You chose quite thoughtfully and consciously, attempting to provide yourself with just the right clothing with which to dress your essence. A good deal of subtle and thoughtful consideration was put into these choices.
And so you packed, carefully and with respect, those assets, deficiencies and preferences that you felt would set you up to learn the lessons that you wished to learn in this incarnation and to meet the challenges that you wished would temper your spirit and transform you in this incarnation. You carefully selected your biases and arranged for relationships, or perhaps more accurately the possibility of relationships, throughout the incarnation, the parents, the teachers, the siblings, those who would be your children, your mates and all of those friends that connect with you in ways too deep for words.
In this you were redundant, so that you could never, ever become lost and be unable to find your way back to the proper track that you hoped to follow throughout this incarnation. Some of you packed sparingly. Some of you packed so many gifts and challenges that you had to sit on them to close the suitcase. Therefore, some of you are quiet and some of you are full of energy and bursting at the seams. But all of these things were done with careful thoughtfulness. There was no mistake made in your packing. You did well.
You have come to this incarnation with a personality shell in which there is a loose association of all of these aspects that you packed beforehand. You have taken them out of your suitcase and placed them around you, just as you placed your flesh around the essence of your light body as you took incarnation in flesh. And here you are, a seemingly unified, integrated individual, more or less in control of a busy and productive life.
And yet those are not the experiences from the inside of the personality shell, for the most part. It is quite normal, in fact, for entities to sense that they are not completely seamless in their personality but rather have many shifting elements that can combine in different ways at different times to surprise the seeker at the eye of the hurricane of all of these facets of personality.
So, how shall the seeker deal with its own personality as it seeks to penetrate the surface of life and to go deep into the areas of mind which have real meaning and value, those areas of deep water that call the spirit forward? The one known as C was saying that perhaps it is necessary to put the personality to one side and to release the personality in order to do work in consciousness. And indeed, as we said before, this is the traditional model of organized religion, which sees things human as things sinful and in error.
Our opinion varies from this model markedly. We feel it is well to take the personality somewhat lightly. It is well to have a sense of humor as one gazes at the many quirks and impulses of the personality. One cannot defend the indefensible! One cannot say that every choice made is a good one, when quite obviously there are many, many times when one looks back upon a choice and estimates it as being foolish.
And yet such moments of inner realization teach and instruct the seeker within, so that gradually, as life experiences are collected and spiritual maturity begins to develop in the entity, it becomes more difficult to be thrown off one’s balance by the realization of one’s folly and one’s limitations in general.
We would encourage entities who seek to know the one infinite Creator to spend time developing an affectionate and tolerant relationship with the self. There is no use in dwelling in judgment upon the self, for every day is a new day. Every time you perceive that your personality has led you astray you have the opportunity to begin again. You do not have to carry those mistakes of your past on your shoulders. You do not need to carry old sorrow upon your shoulders. You do not need to retain guilt for those things that you long ago expiated by your very suffering and remorse. It is well to travel lightly, if you are a spiritual seeker, and to release the judgments of yesterday, that you may be entirely fresh this day.
As you evolve, you will discover that there are things about your personality which have begun to become transparent to you. It is not that you lose the personal aspects of yourself at all, but rather that they no longer affect you in the same way. You can see those same impulses and preferences that in the past have been so very powerful, and you may notice that while you see these preferences you do not have great catalyst in choosing whether or not to move with them in a certain circumstance. For your viewpoint has widened. You see through yourself, and this is a transparency that works both in the outer world and in the inner world.
You see through your personality in the outer world, seeing more of the world than just those things that you care about personally. Your viewpoint widens. You are still the driver of your creation but you are no longer necessarily the star player. You begin to sense into the endless mirroring of the world. You become less afraid to contact other people’s suffering. And therefore you become more able to rejoice with other people’s joy.
The transparency also works within yourself, as you honor, respect and fully acknowledge the quirks of your personality, while becoming able to choose whether or not to indulge your personality at a certain point. It is, indeed, one of the reasons that you took incarnation. For as suffering, pain, loss and limitation temper your spirit and make it ever more flexible and strong, you become more and more an instrument that is transparent to the distortions of the surface personality, allowing them to be declarations and embellishments which do not cover the essence within.
This is not something that can be done on purpose. It is the result of a life lived thoughtfully and consciously. It is a great reward of the spiritual life that eventually you become able to choose to bring into the forefront of your awareness that selfhood of yours which does not partake of any masks, but rather rests in the mystery of the unconditional love of the Creator.
You become an impersonal eye, yet this impersonal eye does not take over the personality. It is not intended at any time during the incarnation that the personality be dropped. It is simply that it becomes that plastic, workable, transparent collection of facets that you brought with you.
Indeed, the sum total of becoming aware of this impersonal center or core to the self is that you fall in love with your foolish, human personality shell. You like yourself. You accept yourself just as you are, for it is this vehicle that has served you so well and offered you so many occasions for laughter, comradeship, love and affection. It is this very personality that has allowed you to open your arms and embrace others and to accept the love of others.
It is this very human, error-prone personality that is one of your glories. It gives your light color and texture, making that light that you welcome through yourself from the Creator have just that certain delightful uniqueness that makes you so very special and so very necessary to the Creator.
Therefore, we would say that the proper use of the personality to the seeker is to respect and honor it, while at the same time realizing its nature. Realize that it is clothing which you have put on to meet the faces that you meet, all of whom are similarly clothed in these ways of looking at the world which are unique to each person.
If you wish to work upon your personality, it is always well to think in terms of balance. There is a tendency in those who wish to be truly devoted to the infinite One to toss aside all things except the highest and best. And yet entities who do this are off balance. They have forgotten how to laugh and to enjoy the transient pleasures of food and drink and the way the air smells on a summer’s day when it has just rained and the dust rises off the tar on a country road.
Who would wish to lose the small delights of the personality in order to be ever more devoted, serious, and sober? We would not recommend this approach to seeking the one infinite Creator. For the personality is that which notices and remembers the little things that would mean nothing to the impersonal self. Therefore, open your arms and embrace yourself, for your personality is a sturdy, useful, even necessary garment.
Now, when you speak of garments you also speak of the garment of impersonal life as well. And we encourage you to explore that concept, that even the cloak of Christ Consciousness is a deep personality characteristic. Even the so-called impersonal self, that I AM THAT I AM, is still a cloak with which you clothe yourself. No matter how much you hunger to become completely the Creator’s, you shall always, because of the very nature of this density, be that entity which wears the masks and wears the garments, and comes at experience with a certain angle or edge.
Therefore, explore your personality to find those angles and edges that are positive and life-affirming, that bring you to laughter and tears and honest emotion. Encourage those traits within yourself.
And when you find the angles and edges of personality that are life-destroying, look deeply within yourself to find the fear that has caused you to exclude certain activities, people or thoughts from the list of those things which are acceptable.
We find in your settled religions, for instance, that many entities are excluded from belonging to the one infinite Creator, by those who believe in that way, because of not believing as they do. We find other entities that are prejudiced against one or the other sex, against other races than one’s own, and so forth.
As you spot these angles and edges in your approach to life and you see that they are destructive of life and denying of the unity of all things, you may well work upon enlarging your point of view and gradually, lovingly, gently bringing these fear-based biases of personality more into the light, that you may develop within yourself a greater compassion for all of life and a greater knowledge and sense, on a personal level, of the unity of yourself and those who you have thought to exclude from your good offices.
Yet, my friends, if you are unable at any certain time to accomplish these things, accept that about yourself as well. There is no hurry. There is no limit in terms of how long it may take you to bring yourself into your best balance. For each moment is a new one. You never run out of the opportunity to see something that will help you to have that epiphany of mind and heart that create in you that wider point of view from which you may, more and more, create the balance within yourself that gives you peace in your heart and peace in your mind.
It is well, in the midst of the confusion and rush of personality, to be single-minded about one thing and one thing only. And that, my friends, is love. Look for the love. When you find it not within yourself, look further, and ask for help. Whoever it is that you ask, whether it be the Confederation, the Holy Spirit, your higher self, your guru, your teacher, inspirational writing, or whatever it is to which you look for aid, seek in all ways to enlarge your awareness of the love within you; of the love flowing through you; of the love that you are able to radiate to those about you.
As always, we recommend the daily habit of silence, one way or another. For there is much transmitted within the silence of a seeking heart, in those energies far too deep for words but enormously rich in information, that goes directly into your subconscious and informs and enlightens your heart.
- -
peace and namaste,
plenum
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