The subject of pride, especially spiritual pride, pops up here and there in Carla’s channeling due to it being one of those vices she identified within her personality. I always admired her for being very forthcoming about her personality, both its upsides and downsides. Many of us who looked to her noticed her comfort with self-deprecation and the light touch of humorous silliness, and it served as a wonderful example of service-to-others discipline in practice. The gentle correction with love sidesteps the dangers of too much self-criticism as well as the hazards of avoiding the mirror altogether.

Catalysis has a way of emptying us out, compelling us to find the true ground of selfhood in elements that partake less and less of the illusion. In the abstract this is a salutary process aiding our evolutionary designs; in practice it can feel positively excruciating to let go of aspects of our identity upon which we relied a bit too much. Whatever fear is induced by acknowledging our flaws and failures as a third density personality, we can at least take comfort that much of the pride that fixes us in our worldly identity burns off with it. Especially confusing is the spiritual pride we take in our status as seekers, for to the extent we make that part of our mask, to that very extent we make it something we will need to remove at some point.

Pride induces a positive identification with the illusory self; despair and depression perhaps being the negative variety of self-regard. Yet both are two sides of a coin we are seeking to give away as we continually work the lessons of the illusion into us. If it seems ridiculous that we must utilize such a funhouse mirror to navigate these encounters of self with self, then perhaps it is all to help us occupy that lighter position of the person telling the joke even we’re the butt of it.

There are two excerpts I want to share, and I apologize for the length but they both involve our friends of planet Hatonn telling stories, so they go a bit long. The first is from yesterday’s session, speaking soberly to why pride in one’s accomplishments in spirit is unnecessary. Even in Richmond’s recent work we’ve pondered the root paradox of incarnation: that we are shaped by catalyst from without that we program for ourselves. So is it our choices or catalyst that takes the credit?

There are many trees, my friends, but this is the story of only one tree. As a small seed it was carried in the clothing of a not particularly cleanly fellow for several years—you might say in the cuff of his trousers. It was dark, and the seed would have liked to have grown, but it could not; the environment was not correct.

One day at the beach this small, winged seed fell from the cuff of the trousers of the man as he walked, and it lay there on the sand; and again it tried to grow, but it could not, for the conditions were not correct for its blossoming,

And one day a wind picked up the seed and carried it far, far inland, blowing it on the winds of change; and over this the seed had no conscious control. When it landed it saw the sun and felt beneath itself the grass, and the rains came and watered the grass, and the seedling put forth its tiny roots.

With infinite patience and with an instinctual awareness that time fulfills its purposes harmoniously, the small seed became buried, put forth young shoots, dropped its leaves, and began the process of living. As it grew, it gave off oxygen to the air, being of service to those beings who breathed that sweet and healthy substance, who lived nearby. Its harvest was collected. And the beauty of the tree, the delicacy of it in the spring, and the [inaudible] richness of its colors in the autumn made many stop to envision the beauty of nature.

We ask you to realize, my friends, that you do not have or should not have pride in your existence or your importance, for that which you are you are because of the winds of change working upon that which is instinctually yours. You as beings of conscious volition over your destiny are unlike the tree, which has a destiny without free will. Its wisdom is given it freely, and it reaches for the sun and is of service to the creation without hesitation or doubt.

Those of you who enjoy the density which you call Earth and are subject to the emotions and the difficulties of free will are aware that, in many cases, you cannot intellectually know that part of yourself which is the sum of all that you are. You are surrounded by a dense chemical illusion in which your true identity is rather well buried. But you are quite unique, each of you. There is no, shall we say, tree like unto you. And the winds that blow forever changeably must blow each of you to a different spot before it is the proper time for you to grow and come into your own as conscious servers of the creation.

You may think that you do not have the capacity as people to blossom and be of great use to each other; but I say unto you, my friends, it is as instinctual to you to turn towards the light and love of the Creator as it is for the tree. It is simply less easy for you to penetrate the busyness of your daily lives—the limitations and apparent difficulties—and find within yourselves that seed which is very simple; that seed is that part of you which is a unique vibration of love.

In order to reach that part of yourself, we believe that a good method—and surely the quickest method available to you—–is daily meditation. Among your peoples this is considered a difficult thing to achieve, for there is, shall we say, no time. May we ask you, my friends, to make the time.

If you knew that there was a reward for an action a million times greater than that of money, or power, or sensual pleasure, would you not indeed then pursue a course of action in that general direction? Yet, this is what we say to your peoples. We ask them to awaken from their journey through power and money and the buffeting of the senses by good and bad feelings. And we ask them to take conscious control of that journey by realizing that they cannot direct their lives but only their selves—their inward and substantial selves—to not give a thought to where you are or to what conditions you may be in. From this point, my friends, seek the one simple truth of the Creator: your identity.

- Hatonn via Rueckert: June 17, 1979

Ideally we do not take credit for our growth and development, as that is merely a series of responses elicited from us by the illusion. Yet because of all the sacrifice and work we put into finding this deeper part of ourselves, it can be difficult to act upon this. Meditation seems to be the best way to give up that overidentification with the illusory self; just sitting next to the self in silence helps us give up that coin of excessive attention to the ego in both of its affective guises. When we meditate, we can simply experience being drawn towards the light; we can appreciate it as something innate in the universe, something of which we are a part, and not some special propensity within us for which we should feel proud.

On a more humorous note, Hatonn tells a sillier story that involves acting upon the fruits of the selfless, prideless awareness we gain by meditating and witnessing the self in the mirror. This mirror will show us much that we would like to deny and ignore. Yet it is in finding a way to love all of it, to own it without identifying with these ego traits and personality aspects, that we come to integrate everything into a whole seeking self.

The more we identify with that deeper self through meditation and work in the disciplines of personality, the less we need the ego to take precious time to desperately make all the parts of ourselves look good. That gives us more to work with so we can let the Creator’s light shine through us—not because we eliminate all our flaws, but because we can honestly identify them. The more love and attention (are they really different?) we give these darker parts of ourselves, the less they need to assert themselves, and the more they yield to the concerted self anchored in something closer to our roots.

Tonight I would like to tell you a little story. Once upon a time, my friends, in one of your southern cities there came to be a very unusual creature. This creature had the body of an alligator but the wisdom of a man. Soon, those about him learned to treat him as a man. And he wore special shoes and special clothing and had a hat specially made for him, and learned to sit upright and eat his meals and hold his job and act in every way like a human would act.

One day as he was sitting on a bar stool of his favorite pub, watching the big game on the television set, a rather tipsy man stumbled and stepped upon his tail. Somewhat tipsy himself, the alligator was furious, and he whipped around and made to slay the poor unfortunate who had dared to step on his tail.

“I am sorry,” said the drunken man, “but I did not see your tail.”

“I do not have a tail,” said the alligator with great fury, “for I am a man!” And again he made to lunge furiously at the poor man, who grabbed what he could off the bar, that being a large stick the bartender handed him, and rammed it into the alligator’s throat, killing him.

As the alligator lay on the floor, dead, in his shoes and his clothes and his hat, the man said to him, ’’I may be drunk, but I know an alligator when I see one.”

We ask you at this time, my friends, to consider this story in the context of your own personality. You must realize that within your own mind there lives a population of many creatures. Some are saintly—good and pure, kindly and compassionate; others are, perhaps, boring, over-intellectual. Some of your citizens may be too emotional, and a few may actually be beasts that you may not wish to face.

There are many negative emotions, which do not seem so negative on the plane which you now enjoy: greed is explained away as a means whereby produce is generated in the market place; ambition is explained as that which one must do in order to be of service to one’s family, to one’s children, or to one’s best interest; selfishness, jealousy, and envy, all of these things, my friends, can be so easily explained away in your mind. You can clothe them in explanations—the hat, the coat, the shoes.

And so we charge you, in your meditations, first to find your alligator and to remove him, and then to meditate in quiet and humility, knowing that you are not unlike your brothers but very, very much the same. Let the citizens within you which are compassionate grow and spread their wings. This can be done, not by your efforts, my friend, but by meditation; not by conscious thought, my friend, but by intuition.

There is no time to be proud, my friend, to assert yourself as a good person or as a bad person. You are a person… you are the Creator, and you have all of the parts of the creation within you. As that is so, all men are your brothers; from the murderer to the saint, from the fool to the sage. Look past the citizenry of your emotions and find the heart of unity that lies beyond all of the paradoxes of human nature.

You are in this life. Your vision is blurred, and your steps are unsteady and this is for a reason. Come to understand the challenge of this illusion and the possibility of progress. Above all, come to understand that you will never know your progress; you can only continue meditating, seeking the Creator, and attempting to be a channel for His love and His light among men like yourself.

Although we are more advanced than you, we of Hatonn know that our thoughts are varied and are not always harmonious. The difference between us, my friend, is simply that we can see our thoughts. We have a reality in our density. Consequently, we have no chance to quarrel with our alligators. When they arise, we must deal with them without further ado.

We ask you to never fear what is inside yourself, but only to love it, for it, too, is the Creator.

- Hatonn via Rueckert: July 5, 1979