November 10, 2004

Aaron: My blessings and love to you all. I am Aaron. I want to begin with you here with a few minutes of guided meditation, using the pole meditation of our last meeting.

Come deeply into the body, aware of the touch of the buttocks on the chair or cushion, aware of the breath, aware of the sounds in the room, of scent, of movement.

Lift your hands out in front of you. Feel the physical heaviness of the arms, the hands. Perhaps even a subtle ache as the upper arms support the lower arm. The pull of gravity wanting to pull the hands downward, and bring them down gently, resting them back on the lap. Know this physical body.

(pause)

Please bring the back to a more erect posture, with shoulders and abdomen relaxed. Breathing in, feel the breath enter, the lungs fill. And as you breathe in, breathe in light as well. And then breathe out, releasing the light, coming back to the body. Breathing in, breathe in light. And exhale, releasing light. Once more, breathe in light. Breathe it into the abdomen, into the heart.

(Barbara is turning the light dimmer switch up and down as Aaron talks.)

Focus to move into that light. We don't confuse electric lights with that natural light, but the electric lights can simulate natural light to remind you of it.

Bring the one hand in a light touch to the crown chakra. As you breathe out, still holding the finger at the crown chakra, release, coming down into the body. Feel the touch of buttocks on the cushion or chair. Then breathe in, bringing the attention back up to the crown chakra. And as you exhale, bring attention back down into the body and base chakra.

Resting in the base chakra, be in the body. Resting in the crown chakra, be aware of the connection with all-that-is.

We will spend a few minutes in silence. See if you can rest in the simultaneity of the physical plane and this higher plane. Mundane consciousness and supramundane consciousness.

(pause)

Barbara: Aaron is asking how many of you are familiar with past years' teachings of the 3 kayas? (show of hands) How many are not familiar with it? (show of hands)

Aaron: I am Aaron. We will explain this briefly and ask those of you who have not met this teaching before to read a transcript that contains more information about it.

The word "kaya" means "body." There are many different kinds of bodies. "Nirmana" means form. Nirmanakaya is the form body. "Dharma" means truth; dharmakaya is the truth body. We spent a lot of time last year looking at the actuality of the form bodies, the physical expression, the emotional expression, the mental expression, and also exploring at the Ever-Perfect level, the dharmakaya. For each of you there is that Ever-Perfect level of each of these 3 bodies.

When your body is ill, experiencing some physical distortion, a very important force for healing is to hold the vision out to the body of the Ever-Perfect level. It's a bit like holding up a great painting so a class of art students can copy it. Think of Van Gogh's 'Starry Night.' Give the class one glimpse. While the student tries to copy it, the memory may not suffice. But if you put it in front of the room, and they may come up and look at it up close as often as they need to, it's easier to express an individuated manifestation of that beautiful painting.

So the Ever-Perfect level of each of the bodies exists. And the present expression exists, with whatever distortions it may carry. In order to paint that picture with accuracy, you need to come up and look with your eyes, perhaps even touch the textures with your hands. The finished product is your replica but it is very similar to the original.

We might use the process of creation of the replica as an example of the transition body, sambhogakaya. The "sambhoga" is often translated as "wealth," and there is a kind of wealth or richness to it. It is all the process, all the movement, that takes us from that ultimate level into the present. Sambhogakaya contains both the original and the replica, and is the place that holds them together. This is a very capsulized statement, so please be sure to read the transcripts.

The pole of meditation we've been doing is really the practice of sambhogakaya. You are becoming a bridge. Think about a bridge and how it functions. There's a chasm. The bridge cannot merely touch, just barely touch, at each end, it must be grounded firmly on each side of the chasm or it will collapse.

If the bridge extends 20 feet over onto the earth on each side of the chasm, if you are standing on the bridge with its foundations deep into the earth, are you standing on the bridge or are you standing on the right side of the gap? You walk across the bridge. It extends 20 feet over the earth on the left side also. Are you standing on the bridge or on the earth on the left side of the chasm, or both?

Now turn around and walk back. The bridge is rooted deeply into the earth, with foundation pillars buried deep into bedrock. You are walking on the bridge. As you step past the edge, so there's just the chasm, are you still on the earth on the left side? You're on the bridge and the bridge is on the left side. Are you still on the earth on the left side?

Walk across the bridge. All the way over to where it ends, grounded deeply on the right side. And again walk back to the edge and just beyond the edge, standing on the bridge. Are you still on the earth on the right side? Walk just a quarter way out. You're still on the right side. Have you ever abandoned the left side?

Can you see that as long as you stand on the bridge, you are on both the right and the left sides? It must be so. The term "wealth body" is the statement that you here have all the riches of the ultimate level and all the riches of the relative, mundane level. You have everything.

Another example that many of you have heard from me before. Think of an absolutely pure spring deep underground. Of course, this is only a metaphor, because a spring is still a conditioned reality. But imagine this spring. No pollutants can touch it. It bubbles up from deep in the earth, pure groundwater. And then it comes to an opening through rocks and tumbles off down the mountainside. The water runs downhill, cutting away at the rock so it forms a stream bed. Follow it down the stream.

One step away, it's easy to see that this is still the pure spring water. 20 paces. A little frog plops into the stream and he's covered with dirt, so you see a bit of muddiness around him. And yet the pure stream, the pure spring water is still there. A quarter mile down the mountain, cows are wading in the stream which now has a mud, rather than rock, bed. With their hooves they're stirring up the mud. And yet the pure stream is still there. Certainly one will not drink there or one will get a bellyache, but one could filter that water. If you filter out the dust, you're left with the pure spring.

I find this a very clear analogy to your own being. There's a brilliant radiance, this light, this divinity, that is the spring of your being, the essence, dharmakaya. The nature of that essence is to express itself so the physical, mental, and emotional bodies are expressed. They pick up distortion. You can get lost in the distortion level, the mundane level, and completely forget your innate radiance. You can also become lost in that innate radiance, disdainful of the heavier bodies. But there is a place in between, the pole that is deeply connected at both ends. I cannot over-stress the importance of realizing this pole within the self.

I hope you will continue to do meditation practices at home that help you connect simultaneously to the mundane reality and the highest reality, so that you may fully understand the way that the human that you are carries both, and the wonder of the simultaneity of the both.

We as spirit can guide you, can offer encouragement, wise words, but we are not grounded in your relative reality. Certainly it is possible for a spirit plane being to meddle in human affairs, but this violates the most basic rule of positive polarity, which is the respect for free will. You are the ones that came into incarnation. You are the ones that now have the opportunity literally to transform this earth. Then you will be on the spirit plane for awhile, and you will come back and do more transformation.

There is a gradual shift of the earth into a higher vibration, a higher, clearer vibrational level, which is the opening into 4th density. All of the practices you learn, of lovingkindness, of mindfulness, of generosity, of patience, of compassion, all of these are ways of bringing that higher vibration to increased light and radiance. Or, said in another way, of your innate perfection into the earth plane. It's like coming up and looking at the great painting close up, taking a few notes. Not, "How do I express the whole painting?" but just this one star, how did he do it. You go back and you try it. If the results do not seem quite satisfactory, you come back up and you look at the painting again, until you really are standing on that bridge holding both ends together. What you express, of course, is not a painting; what you express is the ability to bring love where there is fear and contraction; the ability to rest in the Uncontracted self even when fear is present in the relative self; the ability to watch difficult emotions arise and pass away, without getting caught in their stories and further pulled off into this lower vibration of fear.

Here at Deep Spring Center, we have emphasized vipassana practice because it is the greatest tool that I have experienced to do this work, to watch what arises in the conditioned experience without being sucked into it and into a fear-based negative vibration. All of you are doing this work to transform yourselves and your world.

I had originally planned to talk tonight about levels of consciousness. I'm going to put that aside for now because so many of you have asked me to speak some about the election. "What do you think of it, Aaron?" you've asked me.

I don't want to step on any toes here, politically. I will certainly not assume that you all supported the same candidates. I don't want to speak of the candidates in terms of good guy and bad guy, but to understand the sambhogakaya level of both candidates. Here is one reflection you might do; I thank Thich Nhat Hanh for this particular reflection. Look at Kerry and look at Bush. Can you see that Kerry also contains within him some Bush elements? Can you see that Bush also contains some Kerry elements?

Some of you are not fully understanding. Think of a bed, just a wooden frame. Place a box spring on it, also with wood and metal springs, and some upholstered surface. You put a mattress on that. Then you cover it with a soft featherbed layer, sheets, blankets, pillows. The whole is the bed.

We could say the bed has a number of elements: it has the frame element; it has the softness and warmth elements; it has the gentle firmness element of the mattress; it has a springiness. These are all the factors that make up a bed.

Now, think of a pallet on the floor. A mat on the floor. And a bare blanket. It's lacking many of the factors that create great comfort. And yet we would certainly say it has some bed elements. There is a soft mat, even if it's only an inch thick. There is a covering for warmth, even if it is threadbare. When we look at the pad on the floor, we can see that it also contains bed elements. When we look at the plush bed, we can see that it contains pad-on-the-floor elements, such as perhaps a bed-board to make the mattress more firm, and a blanket, one thick and one threadbare, but nevertheless both have a blanket.

When you look at the bush outside your door, you can see sky elements in it because without the sun and rain it could not grow. You can see earth elements in it because without the soil it could not grow. When you look at President Bush, can you find the John Kerry elements in him? He is going to be the president of the whole country, not only 50% of the country. He has certainly heard the dissatisfaction expressed with some of his policies, the concerns expressed, and he knows that a good portion of the population opposed him. In that statement, in that vote for Kerry, you have given Bush a big piece of Kerry element that he must carry with him, whether he likes to carry it or not.

Kerry, as he campaigned, had to look at all the situations that might face him as president. He had to understand President Bush's thinking, and in doing so, he had to incorporate many Bush elements. So I think it's important that you reflect on the place where these 2 men come together. If you supported Kerry, it is important that you continue to have a voice, so that Bush is constantly requested to hold that Kerry element within himself. And if you supported Bush, it is also important to maintain your voice so that he may continue to see the Bush element within himself.

The other candidates are also there. Nothing is lost. Please reflect on this so as to find the place of peace and harmony rather than the place of contradiction and polarity. This does not mean you do not make a firm statement against those policies which disturb you. Then President Bush will also have your elements within himself, his loyal opposition.

Let me take some thoughts about the election a step further. I have sensed in talking to many of you that many in this class, at least, were in support of Kerry, and are quite upset with the results of the election. My intended talk on consciousness would have come in handy as a preliminary, but we'll get to it next class or the following one. Suffice it to say that there are many levels of consciousness. When you speak to a 2-year-old, you don't try to explain things rationally all the time. The 2-year-old is very much in a magical consciousness. He can't always hear logic so well. If you explain to him why it is bedtime, that he'll be tired the next day if he doesn't get to bed, it doesn't really register. But if you tell him when the big hand points here, then we jump in bed, that's part of his magical consciousness, a ritual he can follow.

But the 12-year-old has outgrown magical consciousness. Often young adolescents are in what we call mythic consciousness. Here I am borrowing Ken Wilbur's terms. There are many ways of elucidating these levels of consciousness, different articulations of it. But Ken Wilbur has done a remarkable job of naming levels of consciousness. Although his articulation is not the one I am most used to, I would prefer not to bring in a new terminology when his is clear.

Mythic consciousness is caught in beliefs, black and white, right and wrong, good and evil. Much of what you term the religious right in this country is caught in mythic conscious. It has not yet evolved into rational consciousness. Those who still take the Bible literally would be an example.

Much of this country is in rational consciousness, but beyond rational consciousness is what we would call vision-logic consciousness. These are the visionaries who are still grounded in logic but able to see with a bigger perspective.

At the time of my final lifetime 600 years ago, much of the earth was still in mythic consciousness. Rational consciousness was just beginning to become more common, though not yet a norm. You've made tremendous strides since then.

Vision logic consciousness yields to psychic consciousness, psychic consciousness to subtle consciousness. These are the levels at which one can perceive beyond the ordinary senses through clairaudience, clairvoyance, and beyond that, simply with intuitive awareness and with sensing of energy. Those of you who practice energy work are working with subtle consciousness. Beyond these we have the higher supramundane consciousnesses. I will not go into detail tonight.

The whole earth is in process of growing through from the lowest level of consciousness, which has a very heavy vibrational frequency, to a higher and higher and higher consciousness. Just as you cannot rush the 2-year-old into the next level of consciousness, but must allow gradual transition, you cannot rush the earth and the sentient life upon the earth. But, just as your willingness to explain to the 2-year-old even though he doesn't yet understand, to hold the door open to the next level of consciousness is vital to his shifting into that higher level of consciousness, so your willingness to hold the door open is essential to the shift in consciousness in the earth.

So this election was in a sense, Barbara begins to use the word battle, and that is not an accurate word. This election was in a sense a teach/learn situation between those who are still in mythic and early rational consciousness, and those who are more firmly grounded in vision logic and higher consciousness. It is one of the first elections to have been so radically a statement of this consciousness vs. that one. More often in your elections, both candidates are of a more similar consciousness.

I want to make it clear that these levels of consciousness are not like floors in a building; rather, they are intersecting planes. So I am not suggesting that President Bush is simply at childlike mythical consciousness. He has areas of vision logic consciousness and areas of mythic consciousness, and areas of rational consciousness. Kerry I would say has passed beyond most mythic consciousness. When it arises in him, as it does arise in all of you, he recognizes it as such and doesn't get caught up in those early beliefs. He touches more on vision logic consciousness, though he is mostly based in rational consciousness. Occasionally he also extends himself more into psychic and subtle consciousness, is much more intuitive.

This is how I saw this election, not as these 2 forces in opposition to each other, but really the higher consciousness inviting the lower consciousness. Higher consciousness was making the clear statement, "You cannot stay hidden there in such early childhood consciousness. You must move out." Mythic consciousness was resistant.

I know I may be offending those Republicans amongst us. Please note I am not saying mythic and rational consciousness are inferior to vision logic consciousness, only they have a different vibration. It is the view from the bottom of the mountain, not the view part way up the mountain.

Remember that the person who has not developed the pole that we've been looking at, the sambhogakaya, and who moves into the highest supramundane consciousness, you certainly would not want such a person for your president! Not without grounding also in rational consciousness. The president has to deal with very real life issues, but hopefully to deal with them from this place of higher consciousness, as well as with openness to the everyday mundane dirt swept in on the rug. But you also do not want to trust As leader the person who is attached to beliefs so he/ she cannot see the larger picture.

You know I do not predict the future. What I say next is what I simply see as a very real possibility. This goes beyond President Bush himself and into some of the election tactics used with or without his knowing. I have not looked to see what he knows; that would be an invasion of his privacy. But there were some very dishonest tactics used in the elections. Note that this is true of most elections.

There are certain deceits, certain lies, that are likely to come forth in the coming years, I think. There is likely to be much turmoil. It is important that those of you with the wisdom to see, understand that the Kerry elements exist in Bush and the Bush elements exist in Kerry. The contracted elements exist within the Uncontracted, and the Uncontracted exists within the contracted.

I think that if Kerry had just won, there would have been a lot of dissension from that 50% whose candidate lost. Without the ability of that group as yet to sufficiently raise the consciousness, there would have been contraction moving into defensiveness, into narrowness. This is not what the earth needs. I think that those honest supporters of the current president are going to be strongly invited to look at their attachments to their beliefs in the coming years, as certain truths come to light, in a way that will bring forth a powerful transition; maybe in 4 years, maybe not for 8 or 12 years. But that the aspiration to honesty, clarity and love will bring forth this move into a higher vibration, into higher levels of consciousness, in the same way that the 2-year-old matures into a 12-year-old and into a 20-year-old.

I hope it will not take so many years. I realize that right now people are dying because of decisions made by the current administration. I am not condemning those decisions, only saying that they are based on a certain belief system. It gives some of you much sadness to think about those people dying, and yet you might consider the possibility that this, really we could call it sacrifice, is one of the things they came into incarnation for. There is a songwriter, Bob Dylan. His song's words state the question, "How many deaths will it take till we know that too many people have died?" How many deaths will it take? But this is the only way that those beings with blinders, living in a fear-based, mythical, belief-structured consciousness, can outgrow their attachment to beliefs and begin the shift into the higher consciousness, which is necessary for the entire transition of the earth. This level of consciousness with fear and attachment to beliefs is not just true of the supporters of the president but of the adversaries too.

Enough words. Let us pause here for you to stretch and then we will speak to your questions. Thank you for hearing me, and I ask the forgiveness of any staunch Republicans in the crowd if I have spoken in a way that leads you to feel hurt! That is all.

(break)

Barbara: Questions and comments?

Q: I appreciate Aaron's perspective. In the last week (it's) about the only ray of hope that I have heard. I've gone in the same direction he suggests, but it's a little more convincing coming from him. I wish I could trust that learning can take place.

Aaron: I am Aaron. There was a lifetime in which the human that I was served as a teacher to mentally handicapped individuals, beings who had a very difficult time understanding new information. These were people that many had given up on. That being I was, was a nun living on the outskirts of a large city. These were orphans who were cast out of their homes, who were unable literally to speak or care for themselves, and in that culture so many ages ago, they were simply abandoned to die.

The sisters with whom I lived invited these children in. What is amazing to me as I reflect back on that lifetime was not how retarded they were but how they well they could learn given a situation that supported learning. Certainly some of them did not learn a lot, did not learn how to care for themselves, nor even how to talk. But a certain radiance began to shine through these children who had lived as animals and been treated as animals, when they were treated with kindness and respect.

One of the beautiful things that happened in that lifetime was as the developing orphanage for handicapped children eventually became quite overcrowded, people in the city began to pay attention to what we were doing. New living places were set up for these children. As the children became adolescents and adults, supportive living situations were created for them, places where they could do whatever kinds of work they could do in the world and be treated with respect.

There was a couple who had given birth to such a child. They had other children. They could see no way to care for this child and they had literally abandoned him. We had raised him. For his first 4 years he was treated as less than an animal, literally tied in a corner of the home and fed scraps of food. This treatment was not from unkindness but from need, the only way to keep him safe, but alos grew from fear, anger and frustration. With us, he learned to speak. He was more articulate than many, able to talk about his childhood. Finally as a teenager he asked to have the opportunity to meet his parents. There were some records that enabled us to find them. Another sister and I went with this boy. I'll never forget his words as he faced these people who had been his tormenters in his early years, given him a loveless life and then thrown him out. And he looked at them and he said, "I have learned to love you and I forgive you because I see how hard it was for you. You didn't know what to do with me."

This was the invitation this couple needed. The boy of his own choice continued to live in the orphanage and as he matured, to work with the younger orphans. But he visited with his parents frequently. And they came to the orphanage quite often. They began to take some of the children who were less needy of care back into their homes for visits, to help acclimate them to the outside world. They began to ask their friends to do so.

There is no way that this couple could have been led to that movement in those early years when their fear led them to abuse and then abandon their son. No amount of shame could have converted them, only love.

I think this is the way it is for your world, that you who see deeply are asked to have the courage to forgive and to forgive again, to have compassion, and yet also to remember that compassion is strong, and that it is vital that you continue to take a stance, continue to state what you find to be true, to support the ability of politics, media and so forth to bring truth into the world. You cannot abandon this world. The trick is learning to do it without attachment to immediate results, because, as with these parents, the results will come gradually. But my experience is that love always wins, and that the nature of consciousness is never to go downward but is to rise.

Yes, there will always be new souls coming into the earth plane, coming in with a lower level of consciousness. And yet, so many beings who are just beginning third density now come in with a higher level of consciousness because they have related to the higher consciousness around them in 2nd density, as pets, as plants, and so forth. The soul energy that was in these animals and vegetation has been surrounded by a much more loving, higher vibration than was true many hundreds of years ago, so that even the newer young ones are not so young, are not so deeply set in lower consciousness. There are many more who come into their first human lifetime with much higher consciousness. I pause.

Q: I want to thank Aaron for his discussion tonight. I personally found it very helpful. I had started practicing some of what he was talking about with the understanding that those of us who have been exposed to more awareness have a responsibility to act at that level. I also found a lot of consolation from the teachings I have been exposed to, especially impermanence. Perhaps this situation is what those of us need, who want a different outcome. It must be what we need for the next steps that need to take place for our world. And even though growth is sometimes painful and not necessarily to our liking, Aaron's words were very comforting to me, and I think for a number of us. And I will pass that comfort on to my friends who have found the results very hard to deal with. So I thank him for what he has said tonight and I thank him for showing us how to be non-partisan in our thoughts. And for also letting us know that it's okay, it's good, to act upon our beliefs so that our voices will be heard.

Aaron: I am Aaron. It is important to act upon your beliefs while knowing them as current belief and not absolute truth. It seems true to you now, and yet conditions do change. When you can understand that these are impermanent views, you can work as hard as possible to bring forth what seems at present to be truth, and yet you can stay open and able to hear others. This is not being wishy-washy, as the term has been used in the election, this is being open-minded. Wishy-washy attaches to this and then attaches to that, and then attaches to something else. It is absolutely convinced of the correctness of its belief at every stage of the way. The stance, "Not attached to views," is willing to make a statement, "This is what seems real to me now and so I will support it with all of my heart and mind and energy. But I am still open to other views." This is the texture of consciousness that will be most supportive of the changes that can come about in the coming years. I pause.

Q: This is relevant not only for the political situation but also a personal situation I have. Sometimes I know I have an intellectual awareness, but somehow the emotional part of me interferes. Like, political discussions, I could have one on an intellectual wave, but I mostly like swearing! It just like comes out. And this is not the same as that situation. I have a friend whose daughter is very ill and I prepare myself to call and comfort her knowing it will be mostly a recording. She's in New York right now. When I call and leave a message, I think I'm going to be able to offer her encouragement, and I cry. I feel okay before, but that emotional self, it's like I don't have a handle on it, it just comes out. And it's like I would like to be more skillful.

Aaron: I am Aaron. You have already taken the most important step, which is the recognition that there is an emotional body that still reverberates and it catches you up. Your dedication to being present, to mindfulness, to kindness, I think these will see you through. Please be patient with the human who may have clear-seeing but still not fully have the ability to manifest what is seen. There is not one of you in this room who even just today has not had a vision of something that you wished to manifest and fallen short of it. This is the human experience. And it is a valuable experience because it helps you deepen in compassion. When you can be mindful of the experience of reaching and failure, when you can be mindful of the turmoil that sometimes comes in to the heavier emotional body so the mental body is clear but the emotional body is shaking, here are the grounds for compassion. I pause.

Barbara: He's asking you to remember that these 3 bodies, physical, emotional and mental, each have their own vibrational level. The heavier physical body is slowest to change, then the emotional body second, the mental body quickest to change.

Aaron: I am Aaron. All change begins with the mental body. There's a shift that comes at the mental level. The bringing along of the emotional and the physical body is much slower. This is just part of the nature of human experience because of the heavier densities of these heavier bodies.

I would ask all of you to remember that this is part of the catalyst of human experience. As I just said to Q, part of the teaching of compassion. And yet also to recognize that the human does have the ability literally to manifest by cutting through the heaviness of the emotional and physical forms. This is how I think of some native cultures manifest instant healing, in such cases as where a broken leg is instantly healed. It begins at the mental level and there is no heavy obstruction. So the shift is felt immediately in the broken limb. The innate wholeness is known, there is no doubt. Doubt is what stops you. Doubt reverberates in the emotional level and it pulls you down, so it short-circuits the connection between the mental and the physical. You tend to think of the physical body as the heaviest and yet the physical body without the impact of emotions really can come much closer to the mental level. So, so much of what you are doing here on earth is, on the relative reality level, healing the emotions, and at the ultimate reality level, transcending, releasing the emotions. I pause.

Q: Thank you for clarifying that. The emotional body feels far more visceral. I can almost feel where it comes from more in my stomach and below my waistline where this kind of feeling becomes so intense.

Barbara: He says, yes. And this is what you work with. He says that right there is the place to cut through using your vipassana practice as a base and experiencing how this tension is really the emotional body response shifting itself onto the physical body. As soon as you stop believing in it, you break through.

Aaron: I am Aaron. Please try to imagine this. You're captured from somewhere. You don't know what your treatment will be. You have been brought before a captor. The captor has a big bucket of molten black stuff and says, "This is tar. We're just going to coat you with it. Hold your hands this way. We're going to cover you with it. Hold your feet together." So you're not going to be able to move. Believing that it's tar, as it's put on you, the whole mindset is, "No, I cannot move," and you literally cannot move.

Then you notice the captive sitting next to you who has been coated with the same black stuff. After the captors leave, he simply stands up. "How did you do that?" "Well, it was just black mud. No problem."

The whole thing is in the belief system. If you believe that it's tar, you can't move. Once you know it's not tar, you just stand up. Once you break through the myths, and here is where all of you are still residing on that mythic level, the myths of your unworthiness, the myth of sin, the myths of your shame, all the myths that have bound you into certain kinds of self-concepts, you no longer need to maintain them on the mental level or on the physical level. You begin then to be able to live your truth, your unlimitedness, to live from the divine self and as the divine self. I pause.

Barbara: During the break, M was speaking to Aaron about the discomfort in some of the laws that will be coming up in Congress that could pass and send us back to the Dark Ages, seemingly. What do we do about our political system moving back in that reactionary way. Aaron began to speak to M and then said, let us save it for the big group.

Aaron: I am Aaron. Another past life story. The being I was lived in a rather primitive culture in the middle of a continent, a rather arid area. He undertook a great pilgrimage. There were many myths about what was beyond the known boundaries of landscape. But none of those myths included snow.

For two years he walked, always northward, until he found himself in a climate in which there was snow. Then he returned to his tribe and he tried to tell them about the snow. And they all said, "You're imagining it. Why are you trying to fool us with such make-believe nonsense?" They couldn't see it, so they couldn't imagine it. This is the difference between rational consciousness and vision logic consciousness, which can step outside of what seems rational as based on what the ordinary senses can perceive.

Several years passed. This fellow that I was, he had a yearning to wander and decided again to go north, this time to see if he could trade some goods. He had a beast of burden laden down with local products, and again he headed north, but this time 3 friends came with him. They all saw snow. They all came back and described it. No photography in those days, of course, it had to be described in words. But now there were 4 of us saying, yes, frozen water falls from the sky.

That was the last trip I made, but others in the coming years made the same trip. About 20 years passed and by that time, dozens from our home area had seen snow. Now when you spoke to young children who said, "Why is it so hot here? Is it so hot everywhere?" And you said no, in the north there's snow, and you explained what it was. They said, "Oh, we know about snow." Change of consciousness. It is not in their knowing about snow but in the willingness and ability to imagine and visualize.

If I had backed down and said, "Oh, you're right, I'm just imagining it," even if somebody else had gone and seen the same thing, nobody would have believed it. I had to persevere in saying, "This is how I experienced it." Regardless of what blocks people threw at me, I had to persevere. But I also had to understand that these people, caught in their sensory consciousness, did not have the vision to see the bigger picture, to imagine something that they could not tangibly hold in their hands.

Understanding that, I did not blame them for their lack of vision, I simply held to my own truth. This is what each of you must do. It's a challenging line to walk because frustration, even despair, come easily. I can tell you but it may be hard for you to believe me, that each time you uphold your own truth in a compassionate, openhearted way, without malice toward another, with willingness to hear the other but still with firm holding to your truth, each time you do that, you help hold the door open for the other. It's not just on a practical level but exchange is happening on an energetic level. You put forth a different energy when you passionately hold to your truth and bring it forth, no matter how much others may negate it.

You may be seen as the thorn in their side, but nevertheless they do have to pay some attention to you. And if you can hold forth your truth with enough love, and enough freedom from fear, there is a shift in energy that happens. I think the important thing to remember is, vital though it may seem not to have your society regress into unhealthy patterns, sometimes that may need to happen for people to see that it's unhealthy, to see the real harm done.

For example, in your state marriage proposal, it is easy to say how unfortunate that it did pass, And yet, if it had not passed, disgruntled people would have still held to their righteousness. It may be that they have to see the destructiveness of what they've brought forth, to really see it amongst their neighbors and coworkers, so that the spark of love in them can begin to open and grow and they can shift their view rather than feeling forced, which only makes them hold tighter to their view.

This is not a matter of simply stepping back to let it all collapse. You continue to work passionately for your own truth. You continue to hold compassion for those who are not able to see your truth. This is the basis of Gandhi's work, of satyagraha, soul force. The soul is able to be fully present in expression of its own truth and to accept that the others may be so appalled by what is put forth that they may literally strike you, even kill you.

You forgive them. With satyagraha you must forgive them in advance. You are the catalyst. You are asking them to pull their head out of the sand and look at something they don't want to look at, to shift from a place of safety in belief into a place of more insecurity because their beliefs fall apart. You must recognize that when you ask this of somebody, one of the things their fear will do is to attack you. The process of satyagraha works best when this is recognized and there is already not only forgiveness for whatever assault there may be, but compassion that needs no forgiveness because you understand so deeply the fear the other person has. And yet you still do not accept the fear as the only level of consciousness for that person. You continue to invite forth the place of non-fear, the place of love, the place of unlimitedness. This has been the work of the visionaries for as long as the world has existed, and it is through this work that the progress made to date has been made and will continue to be made.

You are not to think of yourselves as martyrs or you draw forth more confrontation. You do not go out and say, "Strike me down." You are fearless in the statement of your own truth, and simultaneously deeply compassionate and willing to hear another's view. I pause.

Q: The thought has been recurring to me for a couple of days now and I need to make sense of what's happening. The thought is that for a very, very long time in this country, liberalism or progressivism was an ascending idea, and conservatives and fundamentalists had to live under it. I can sense how frightening that is even to people.

Aaron: I am Aaron. By its nature, fundamentalism is grounded in mythic consciousness. Liberalism can also ground itself in mythic consciousness when it comes just as a belief. But for the most part there needs to be at least some not just rational but vision logic consciousness for the liberal. So the liberal CAN get stuck in spouting beliefs, but for the true liberal there's going to be some vision.

Imagine a large group of people. They're dying of drought. A sub-group of that culture have said, "We have traveled and 100 days walk to the east there is fertile land. There is rain. There is a big sea. Everybody must come with us." There are going to be those that say, "But this is our family's home. We've lived here for 20 generations. I cannot leave this land. Yes, my children are dying, my parents are dying, but I will not leave."

You can drag them. They're going to get there and find everything wrong. They have water, they have fertile soil, but the climate isn't the same. The plants are a little different. There are too many bugs. This and that. They want to go home.

If you don't drag them, one alternative is simply to stay there with them, or you can go by yourselves. You come back to visit. It's a long walk but you come back after a few years and you bring many goods with you, dried foods, dried fish. And again you invite them, those that are still left alive because of the severe drought and famine. You say, "Come, it's good where we are." A few more will be ready to go. You come back again in a few years and still more will come.

When there was a trend to liberalism in this country, those who were of more of the mythic consciousness, more of the fundamentalist belief set, felt dragged. And as soon as they could they wanted to escape home. Most of them did not learn anything. I think the time is coming now when they must experience the results of their beliefs and come to see that these are not as positive as they had hoped, that there are real troubles brought forth within that set of limitations and beliefs. Only when they are thus figuratively starving will they be ready to have a different element come in to control the policies again. There may still be resistance, but that backlash group, so to speak, will be more ready to consider the possibility of movement so it won't be a tug-of-war any more.

What is so hard for you to remember as humans is that this is a gradual process. You see it within this lifetime and you want results now. That is natural. And yet all of you have lived so many lifetimes and you can't see the results because you can't remember those lifetimes.

How would it be if you forgot who you were and all your memories, each night when you went to bed, and yet you still retained skills. If you learned a skill like how to read or how to swim, you retained those skills. Eventually you'd be quite a good reader, quite a good swimmer. You'd wake up in the morning reading and swimming. You would have no memory of the time when you could not read or swim.. Living in that non-memory space, when you see others who are better swimmers and better readers, doubt comes up. "Why aren't I better at this?" But you have nothing to compare it to because you can't remember when you couldn't read at all, or swim at all.

This is why it's so hard for the human, why it's so much easier for me to offer my perspective. I'm perfectly at peace with your situation, but I recognize that you are not. And it's okay that you are not. Just try to hear me and see it a bit through my perspective and see if that's helpful to you. Yes, I feel sadness for ther pain, but I also trust the innate lovingkindness and goodness of the human to be able to bring forth the needed changes for the good of all, however long that process will take. I pause.

I am Aaron. Please continue to practice this pole meditation. Reflect on my image, when you are on the bridge are you on the right side or on the left side? Can you touch both? When you meditate, can you touch both the relative human and the highest expression of being without finding any divisiveness between them but knowing them simultaneously. Reflect on this in your life.

For example, stopped at a long traffic light, impatience arising. See the human caught in impatience and ask yourself, "Right here in this moment, where is patience?" Sometimes it comes through gratitude. Note with wonder that you're sitting in this car, sheltered from the cold weather or rain or hot sun. Reflect on how easy it is relatively to travel 10 miles to another place, not a day's journey in the rain or heat, but just a few minutes. Reflect on the wonders of traffic signals so that cars will not collide so easily.

This kind of reflection with gratitude can help lead you to the open heart, to the one who is not afraid, who is not impatient, the one who is not angry. Please do not see that as separate from the one who is angry or impatient or afraid, they're there together. The Bush element in Kerry, the Kerry element in Bush. The fear element in your fearlessness, the fearless element in your fear. See how it comes together.

Next class I would like to hear from some of you who have not chosen to talk thus far. I recognize that some of you may not wish to talk in a large group. I respect that. If you would prefer, please send us an email sharing some of your thoughts, anonymously or with your name. We can read them aloud. If you would request to be held anonymous, just say that in your email. Those who truly would rather not participate through writing or speech, that's okay, just come and participate by your being. But I would like to hear from more of you next class. How are these teachings touching your lives? Thank you. That is all.

(taping ends)

Copyright © 2004 by Barbara Brodsky