Introduction
In this session, the principle of Q’uo explores the nuanced relationship between desire and catalyst, suggesting that desire extends beyond the individual to encompass one’s collective identities and groups. The selective nature of desire combines with the occluded nature of catalyst to deliver its internal conflicts, culminating in the sacrifice that releases and transforms the desire. Delving into the overlap between this idea and the catalyst stations of the tarot, Q’uo calls out a few of the broader qualities of each archetype, noting the reflective nature of body and the intensifying overtones of spirit. They conclude with a challenge to individual responsibility for desire and its attendant catalyst, hinting at the wisdom of pursuing a deeper appreciation for these two features of the seeker’s journey.
Group question
What is the relationship between desire and catalyst?
Channeled message
(Steve channeling)
I am Q’uo. We greet you in the love and in the light of the One Infinite Creator. We are joyous at being given the opportunity to speak with you this day, for we find that your seeking stimulates in us a resonance in a register that is perhaps beyond your comprehension in your present state. But the effects of this convergence of resonance, let us hope, may be transmitted down through the dimensions so that there is a meeting of the minds with regard to the themes you have put to us in question.
We know that each here and all who will be within earshot of our words are capable of exercising discernment. And we do implore you to keep that exercise sharply honed, for we are not infallible, and there are many layers of being that must be traversed in communications of this sort which gives rise to the possibility of misunderstanding. You are all masters of your own ship, and we commend you to that vocation. With this feeling of confidence that you will take our words for what they are worth and no more, we will proceed to the question posed to us this evening, and that is how desire, as you name it, may be thought in relation to Catalyst, conceived as an archetype.
We would begin by suggesting to you that what you understand as Catalyst is, in fact, a complex concept concealing within itself dimensions generally unsuspected by the conscious mind. You are all individuals, but in addition to being individuals, you belong to larger units of being, shall we say, larger groups, if you will, and this too constitutes a portion of your identity. Now we begin by pointing this out because we wish to suggest that what you understand as desire is not necessarily limited to a single unit of being or what you think of as an individual personality. Is it not true, for example, that within your desire you find you make room for those whom you love? Your parents, perhaps; your mate, your children? And beyond this you might even understand that those other groups with which you identify in one way or another have a purchase upon your desire: what you hope will come to pass, what you hope may reach fulfillment, what you hope will not come to pass or befall those within the reach of your desire.
So, it is true that desire, as experienced, is selective for the most part. And being selective, it ferrets out in anticipation that which it does not desire, that which it would reject, that which it would never allow itself to hope. And at the same time, desire fastens upon those futures to which it is drawn, those dispositions of the temporal framework in which you dwell that it looks forward to with eager anticipation.
Now, in truth, desire is very rarely in full agreement with itself. For it may be, for example, that you identify with, let us say, a group for whom you wish the best, for whom you desire a good outcome, but you would perchance like to make a small exception for a certain individual with whom you are not in accordance, with whom, perchance, you are at odds. And you cannot bring yourself to desire that this individual shall prosper. Now, if you look at the desire of which we speak, from the point of view of its outreach and inclusion of the larger group, it would seem that this one exception you wish to make, or perhaps two, or three, or four, would be considered an impurity in that desire: a fracture, a hesitation, a refusal. And so the desire itself fails to achieve full realization as a desire because of the small print, shall we say, which you have included in the contract.
Now, you might understand that the best characterization that might be given of desire as an element of being itself—your being—that it reaches all the way to the highest apex of the creation, yea, even unto the Creator itself, that it will not rest satisfied at any lesser achievement than unity with the All. Yet still, in truth, the expression, the experience of desire is mostly selective, and in being selective it is, as we say, subject to impurities, subject to diversions, subject to distractions, subject to distortion. Thus we find that one who has put a foot on the path of spiritual seeking becomes aware over time that desire is in a constant struggle with itself. Desire often desires not to desire what it in fact suspects it does desire. Desire rests upon one’s overburdened shoulders as a terrible weight which one would be free of were it possible, though it is not. It is not . . . it is not . . . it is not.
Desire comes upon one from every unexpected direction, in every unexpected way, in a thousand different fashions, overwhelming one before one has an opportunity to process it. And these desires, we would suggest to you, lie at the tangled root of that catalyst which is yours uniquely to own, to work, to feel, to advance in its expression so that it may serve the function it is intended to serve, which is to say that you might be provided the mirror for the myriad desires that people your being. One after another these desires will invest your catalyst with a kind of charge, redolent of a significance you cannot quite put your finger on, you cannot quite see. And thus the great experiment of incarnation goes on, but the process, we might say, is marked over and over again by one simple truth, and that is that every desire which may be named a desire, in so far as it is selective, will reach a point where it can be seen that the desire can have no true reach into the future. It must be allowed its death.
The word for this experience is sacrifice, and sacrifice will, in each and every case, register as loss. And the greater the loss, we say unto you now, verily, the greater the potential gain. For, to lose the whole world is to gain the simplicity of spirit, and the spirit can be understood in no other way than utterly, utterly simple. In the loss of desire, there lies the humility of spirit which paradoxically, my friends, is the one, the true, the lasting object of purified desire.
And with this thought, we would, at this time, transfer the contact to the one known as Jeremy. We are those of Q’uo.
(Jeremy channeling)
We are Q’uo, and we are with this instrument at this time.
We would build upon the foundation of this concept of purification and sacrifice to perhaps share yet a few thoughts on catalyst and its archetypal nature and what it can help us understand about desire. In discussing the archetypes of catalyst, we are discussing catalyst purified, stripped of its petty details and the hooks it puts into the conscious self, tipped with a psychoactive chemical that can create such confusion in the self that one would despair and die rather than release the reins on the great stallion pulling forward in the spiral track towards the rising sun.
My friends, you have three ways to understand this purity. These are manifestations, in a way, of a deeper concept that has been the apple of the Creator’s eye through countless experiments and questions posed to the yawning cavern of potential that we expect may never fully be understood in a piecemeal fashion, but through which each incarnation—each individual return to the source—exalts and proclaims the majesty of our very beingness.
In the mind it is easiest, perhaps, to register the mechanism in which desire finds purchase, for it is the conscious self and, yes, the significant self which goes and projects itself without; looking, searching, digging, combing through the manifest creation for the slightest hint of a glimmer, something shiny, that when the light hits one, something deep within resonates in sympathetic vibration. Why must the Creator’s search for itself take such a circuitous path? Why, in other words, all this drama, all this heartache?
Well, it must remain mysterious to us, my brothers and sisters, but let the archetype of catalyst of mind sink in, and understand the lack of foundation under the feet when desire is the question at hand, for you will always be tempted to shift from the position of balance, and call, therefore, to the possibility, immediate or distant, of transformation. This is the promise of deep desire: the transformation that provides the context for letting go, that makes it precious when the treasure one has found is released back into the pool of potential, and one resonating with this catalyst of mind archetype understands the function of mind in evolution: to provide the setting for the discrete and limited; to call, to call forth that which it cannot fathom. That is largely its function, and what issues from the way catalyst lands, so to speak, the way it glances or hits square in the forehead, has much to do with the hidden aspects of desire that the self in incarnation cannot afford to simply admit plainly. And if this seems like a superfluous dance, then one is called and prompted to go deeper, and in this you see perhaps why this form of catalysis is one of the first that you will likely wrestle with as a conscious seeker, working with this tool to understand deep mind.
Now in the body, as the one known as Steve explicated, you have a reflection. We would build upon this to say that the substrate of reflecting is a kind of indeterminability that juxtaposes itself relative to the emplacement of the body. And here the sacrifice is to recognize what the illusion of positionality and discreteness obviates. It is a kind of negative example of what one desires, and beckons to the seeking self to imagine possibilities of beingness that time and space cannot adequately encapsulate. And it speaks this truth by the very falsity of the denseness of the illusion. And your sacrifice, while illusory, will be poignant, and will be furthermore something tangibly recognized by your other selves, and in this the individual at its peak of uniqueness is paradoxically united with others and transcended. And in this reflection of the mind, you see the infinite possibility of mind paradoxically again.
With spirit, catalyst reaches its finest and yet most abstruse level. Conditions of seeking are questioned on their very own terms, and the project of the Creator is put on trial, so to speak, and tested in fire. And we will leave that archetype there for the moment, for we wish to inspire you, not to instruct you.
What our message, we hope, conveys is not the shallow definitions of the intellectual, not the cataloging of the species of experiences as if they are a mere periodic table of phenomena. It is instead the appreciation of the mixture inherent in manifestation, and most especially, manifestation on its own terms, when the infinity of self is not directly at hand. And by this, we indicate the function of the veil between the conscious and unconscious minds, returning again to the primacy of mind in all of this, for it is the foundation of the other two forms of catalysis.
And only by resonating on a certain level will you be able to bridge these different capacities of mind and understand the gift of catalyst: that it gives you a coordinate system of some sort in the deep space of seeking. For it is vast, my friends, what you are engaged in. It is vast what all of us are engaged in, but we have some concept of self relative to this vastness. You must build that sense through the trials of faith, and in doing so you set a unique example of what the Creator’s possibilities always were from time immemorial and further back even: the immensity of the audacity of being a self.
We are those of Q’uo. We appreciate your patience with this instrument, and at this time, we would return contact to the one known as Steve. We are Q’uo.
(Steve channeling)
I am Q’uo, and I am again with this instrument.
We would bring this discussion to a close by returning to what we see as the crux of the problem with which you are concerned, and that is: how can catalyst be understood in relation to desire? For surely, not all of that which happens to you can you willingly embrace as that which you have desired, and is it not the case that it is what happens to you that defines catalyst? Are we really prepared to say that we have drawn to ourselves through some function of desire, at whatever level, precisely what has happened? Are we really able to take such responsibility for the reach of our own desire?
And the answer from the point of view of the individuated personality clearly must be “no,” and it is for this reason that we began our communication to you by suggesting that that personality you know of as your own individual self is in fact a portion of a larger unit of beingness in which you are embedded. And perhaps a small thought experiment will aid in grasping what we are trying to suggest.
If you think of yourself as a current in an ocean you may begin to feel the sense in which you can be individual in so far as the current itself may be identified, and yet at the same time you belong to the larger liquid expanse that is the ocean. And if you now think of the ocean itself as a vast collection of various currents—some small, some large, some going one direction and some going another—you can begin to sense how the way catalyst works in relation to the individual self is indeed something that requires an understanding of the momentum or movement that desire represents in a sense that is broader than you are accustomed to see. It does remain true that that desire which you may own as your own and which rises to the level of conscious life cannot be said to be at the root of your catalyst, and so it requires an expansion both of the term catalyst and the term desire to see where that convergence may indeed lie.
We are those of Q’uo and would at this time ask if there are further questions upon your minds that we may attempt to clarify.
(No questions offered)
There being no questions that come to mind, we would at this time take our leave of this instrument and this group thanking each for the intensity of the seeking that have brought you here. Adonai, my friends. Adonai. ☥