question: I feel very drawn to all kinds of channelings and other New Age topics like ascension to a higher dimension and it feels very true to me. But I also read teachings from enlightened people who teach that there is nothing to seek, and once you are enlightened the seeking stops. Everything else is described as a concept. How does this fit together?

Quado, do you have an answer to these questions?

Ah, yes, of course, of course.

The first thing I wish for you to do is relax. Just relax and enjoy your life. Just relax and know that your higher self is with you at all times, that you are walking the path you need to walk and that all is well. Just relax.

When you enter the world of spirit you must do it calmly and quietly. The angels whisper. Psychic skills, and that is what you need for much of what you have mentioned, are like little wild animals in the forest. They come to you when you sit quietly and offer up a treat or two. And the treats to offer up are an open and willing heart and mind. If you chase after psychic skills or your spiritual center, it will recede from you. Relax.

And when you do reach up into your higher self, a self which is with you even now, when you reach it consciously, it will not speak to you. When you reach up into the oneness that is all, you will be blessed by silence, by peace, not by voices.

Stop trying. Relax.

Now for your second question and how it relates to the first. There is a view of life which I present and which I find useful for communication. But it is a metaphor. Everything is a metaphor for what you cannot understand, for what you will never understand, because what is passes beyond your ability to comprehend. And there are those who believe this and those who do not. There are those who believe that things presented to them are to be taken literally and those who do not.

I would wish you to take it all as metaphor and not fall in love with the representation of the truth, but with the truth which underlies it. Yes, it all feels right to you, because it is a version of truth, and it is all very well-meaning.

If someone has a vision and sees an angel, does that mean that angels exist? Or does it mean that energies exist, benevolent loving energies, and that this person, within this society and this time, has unconsciously interpreted those energies as taking the form of an angel? Both are true and not true. And in the end, does it matter?

Does it matter if there are really angels or if they are simply the closest approximation to what is that humans are capable of imagining? The real question is not all of this seeking and questioning. The real question is: how can I live my life productively, feeling calm and loving, at peace and fulfilled?

And the answer to this is not through endless searching and questioning, for the answer will never satisfy and never be complete. The answer is through becoming peaceful, finding your center, relaxing into it and enjoying the wonderful blessings all around you.

Begin a daily contemplative exercise of some sort. Formal meditation will do, or simply sitting outside and contemplating a leaf or a flower for a few minutes. Or just close your eyes and breathe.

Breathe deeply and relax. Feel your connection. Feel the deep peace of the world and let it surround you. Do this every morning. And throughout the day, as things happen which confuse or upset you, breathe deeply and remember again, physically, the peace you felt in the morning. And when your mind begins to run away, chasing after thoughts, relax and breathe and send the busy thoughts gently out of your mind.

Do this and let it begin to change your world.

You might also try writing a journal, just three stream-of-consciousness pages each morning, to put your busy thoughts down on paper and release them. Just write it and then let it go before you do your quiet contemplation. This might help.

And one day, when you have learned to relax and become peaceful, you might wish to reach down into your center of peace, feel the peace there, and then reach up into the space above the crown of your head and see if you can feel a presence there, a presence which begins there and extends down into you, into your core. See if you can feel a quiet peace which feels like the essential you. Move into that peace and be it. Let it envelop you.

Do not seek voices and momentous events. Seek only this, to be consciously aware of the deep peace which you are. To realize that you are joy, you are peace, you are love. Seek only to get quiet enough and peaceful enough to know the love of the universe and how it surrounds you and envelops you.

All the rest are like projected images, visions which are true for the beholders but which are not truth themselves, but rather just representations of energies. The truth which will guide your life has nothing to do with spirit guides and ascension and angels and voices; it has to do with peace and love. And this deep well of peace and love is within you. It is you. You are everything and everything is contained within you. And all you need to do to reach it is become very still.

It is not easy, perhaps, but it is very simple. Quiet your mind and feel your own presence. And within that presence, everything else exists. For everything is connected. All is one and all is love.

Note from Carrie: On http://www.carriehart.com/the_vision.htm you will find a description of a vision I received which lays a foundation for much of what Quado says on these topics.

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