May 24, 2011 Individual Session, Excerpt on Akashic Field

Aaron: My blessings and love. I am Aaron. (We're) together on a lovely morning...

Let's talk a bit about the akashic field. Pretend that you are snorkeling in a shallow, lovely lagoon. There's very beautiful coral. There also are very dense fronds of seaweed that blow back and forth with the current. You can catch glimpses of the coral through the seaweed, but they block the way. You cannot pull out the seaweed without damaging the coral. The seaweed also has variety and interest.

You are looking for the coral. You wish to investigate the coral up close to see the details of it, to see the myriad shapes and colors and texture. Imagine yourself then gently parting the seaweed with your hands as you swim. As a piece of coral seen from a distance comes closer, you continue to part the seaweed and move yourself closer to it. There's a clear focus. Perhaps there are some other objects on the bottom: an interesting piece of driftwood, maybe even a broken-off piece of an old ship, things that catch your eye and your interest.

If you go into the water with the intention, “I will see whatever catches my interest,” then you move awareness from the seaweed to that object on the bottom, to the coral for a moment, to the fish that swims through, a kind of choiceless awareness with whatever is there. If you enter the water with a firm intention to gain deep insight into the nature of the coral, to come up very close to and investigate the coral, then you don't despise the other objects, and you don't get ensnared by them, but rather, you just pass through. You notice this or that on the bottom and put it away for a future visit. Intention returns right away again to, where's the coral? Seeing the coral.

Within the body and within the mind, there are old patterns that are set and held deeply within the akashic field. The body on a cellular basis is habituated. A trigger brings forth a certain pattern. If the emotion of anger comes, the body tenses. This is the way the body is conditioned. If fear comes, the body tenses. The breath may be held, and so forth.

The patterns are unconscious and so deeply ingrained that the body continues to re-enact them. The mind continues to re-enact them. We've worked with the Seven Branch Prayer with these kinds of habitual movements, especially in the mind, seeing that even though you've worked with a certain situation, with that catalyst, anger still comes. Instead of trying to fix the anger, which is a result, we look at the conditions, and the Seven Branch Prayer will do the process of inviting help, stating intention, releasing the conditions.

If the conditions are held very deeply, so habituated for eons, they may not release easily. Then we can move directly into the akashic field itself, and see the new possibilities. See everything that's been pulling at our attention and refocus ourselves. Know, this is what I'm aiming for, this resolution of heavy emotions, service to all beings, passion about my work, whatever it may be.

Then each time you figuratively  dive down and see both what it is you're seeking and all those waving fronds of seaweed, colored fish, whatever is distracting you from what you're seeking, there is the opportunity, almost to say to yourself, “No, not that, that's not it. The fish are beautiful but I dismiss that, that's not it. Even the seaweed is beautiful, but that's not what I'm after.”

One begins to see the mass of habitual conditioning that has occurred in body, mind, and spirit, and to disown it, in the sense of seeing how it arose from conditions and not owning it as self. . Not to deny it, not even to try to change or fix or stop it, but simply to see, this old conditioning continues to arise because it's literally set deeply in a cellular level of the body, set deeply in the mind, and it is now serving as an obstacle to the enactment of that which I choose to enact.

Let's talk about passion (Q has said she felt loss of passion) . The innate passion is there. It has always been there. Where would it go? But certain old conditioning has set up so that when you start to move yourself toward fully opening to something, with excitement, with love, something else says, stop! And it blurs in front of you, the seaweed fronds are moving.

I would like you to pick one area of experience. It can be something in the body, or it can be something such as feeling a lack of passion, or feelings of separation, or fear of falling behind, no sense of passion-- pick one major experience or lack of experience that's recurrent. Each time it comes up as a thought, I want you to take it into the akashic field and see it simply as something waving and moving within that field. It is the result of innumerable conditions. It's not bad; it doesn't need to be fixed. But here it is, waving in front of you. And then to hold that aspiration to service to all beings and love for all beings, the deepest possible healing, hold that as the goal. See the rest of it just waving there. Say hello to it. Ask yourself repeatedly, what is involved in releasing the ensnarement of this particular old conditioning?

So what I'm suggesting you do here is to work much deeper consciously within the akashic field, but with only one specific mind or body issue at first, so that you can really begin to feel, see, how the field works. How you move into that field, see the old traps that have held you back within that field. Just say no thank you. Like swimming through the seaweed-- if you try to swim too hard, it snares around your arms. When you swim in seaweed you have to move very gently, and then it doesn't get in the way, it just floats aside.

What snares and catches you, but not to fix it, not seeing it in order to fix it, just seeing it to say, “Ah, here's the old conditioning,” and often you'll be able to see this and feel this literally in the body, in one or another part of the body.

Working in the same way with some area of pain or tension in the body can be very fruitful. I've had Barbara working with it for several weeks, not a long time, just several weeks, with the tendonitis in the arms. Seeing how the slight push creates that subtle tension. But even, she's using a pen in her writing, taking notes on something, but it's a beautiful day and she'd rather be outside. And there's this subtle “don't want this,” that starts in the heart, really, and runs all the way through the arm. That which is aware of tension is not tense. Seeing that she can choose in every moment, and how the body-- in this case for Barbara, she's working with the connective tissue in the arms, and how the connective tissue is tight. And of course, the open tissue is always there. How to literally choose the open tissue and invite the arms to release their old patterning in which there is winding up and tension of the connective tissue when there's any kind of a push. Then the cells can remember the openness of their original experience and reflect that back instead of the tension.

So, you can work with this in a very precise way in the body, only with one issue at a time so it doesn't become a “Fix Q” process, and it doesn't become a conceptual process, but something you can literally watch shifting. You'll find whatever issue you choose as primary, be it a physical or emotional one, you'll see the ways they come together.

Q: Will I recognize this?

Aaron: Yes. But start either with the physical or the emotional in the beginning, and whichever one you choose, one issue, then begin to follow it. And if it's a physical issue, begin to see the emotions that trigger that physical shift. If it's an emotional issue, begin to see the physical reactions that are so deeply conditioned to that particular emotion. And see all of this within the akashic field of unlimited possibilities. See that, for eons, this mind/body/heart has done it this way, and I release it. Just going directly to the heart.

The statement of your intentions on a daily basis is very helpful here, because immediately when you see, for example, those seaweed fronds waving and you say, “Oh, that's beautiful-- give me a seaweed book so I can see what they are. Look at the colors, look at the shapes. They're beautiful,”  you can remember,  “No, I'm looking for the coral right now. I release the seaweed.”

It's not just something unwholesome we're talking about, there's nothing unwholesome about the seaweed, it's the ensnarement, and the ensnarement is part of the conditioning.

One gains the ability to investigate all the subtle tensions of mind and body independently, gradually, not trying to do it all together. Just picking one current.

Q: What's different from this than traditional vipassana?

Aaron: The difference is seeing deeply how it's all mingled together in the akashic field and you can choose out what you want. Have you ever worked on a big jigsaw puzzle?

Q: A long time ago.

Aaron: You can imagine the puzzle is laid out, perhaps you and friends have put together the outer edges. You see in the picture that there's one small vivid area of pink flowers. You've got 1,000 pieces. You don't have to look at each piece individually, you move over it: what am I looking for? This pink, or this unusual shape. There it is.

So, no matter how interesting the other pieces, you don't keep going back to the other pieces. Intention chooses the area of focus and then has the capacity to look at the various multitude of possibilities and choose what's needed. Here is this pink flower, and there's a little hole here. Now I need a projecting edge that's also colored pink. There!

It doesn't matter if there are 1,000 pieces or 10 pieces. Within this practice there are tens of thousands of pieces, but intention knows where it is going. It's not different than vipassana, it's just one step beyond. It's built on the vipassana practice, the mindfulness that we've learned. Bringing attention to an object with some equanimity, noting pleasant or unpleasant, and watching any move into attachment or aversion, so that one can come back to equanimity. So that the choice is not made from a place of grasping or aversion but simply, here is the intention: what's needed?

So, using Barbara's arms again as an example, when she moves her arms in a certain way, sometimes there's a sharp pain. I've asked her when she feels that sharp pain simply to stop, go deep into the tissue, not trying to understand any emotions behind it, at this point. Often it's just the body reacting. But seeing how that certain movement of the body triggers tension and pain. Breathing in and holding space for that pain while finding, right there in the connective tissue, that which is open. Releasing that which is wound up and moving into that which is open. Touching the arm with love, with kindness. Inviting the arm to express the openness of the connective tissue, even in this particular situation where there's tension.

For example, I don't remember exactly where it was, perhaps driving back from Sunnyside, she found herself sitting at the wheel of her car. It was raining. And a little tense at the wheel, and she could feel some pain developing in the arms and shoulders. Seeing it's raining, the road is a little muddy. Releasing the possibility, which is also in the akashic field, of an accident. “I have no need to create that. I do not thusly choose.” Envisioning arriving safely at her destination, heart open, body open. And then literally feeling the opening of the tissue. The cells of the body learn such a deep habit of reaction to certain kinds of triggers. What is learned can be unlearned.

Does this feel like something you can practice?

Q: Yes. Do you feel that I am sufficiently skilled to do this?

Aaron: Yes, absolutely. But I want you to choose one object to watch for a week or two, not to keep jumping around to different objects.

Q: I have many!

Aaron: I know, that's why I don't want you to become diverted and into a fix-it process, but just as an investigator watching. My intention here is not that you change anything, especially, in these first weeks, but simply that you become increasingly familiar with the akashic field. And with a multitude of choices within that field, how you can draw out the choices that are most resonant with your highest intention.  Okay?

If you have the time and interest, I would be very grateful to see a transcript of what I have said to this point, omitting anything that was deeply personal, because I think it's perhaps the clearest specific instruction I've given on this process to date.

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