April 10, 2013 Wednesday, Open Heart Class

Barbara: When I started Deep Spring Center—when I say “I started,” a group of us started Deep Spring in 1989-- I had met Aaron. I was teaching a small group of people vipassana meditation in my living room, and another night people were coming to talk with Aaron. We decided to break it into two different evenings, just because we couldn't cover everything in one night. We really wanted to go deep into vipassana practice (which Aaron was teaching), and people wanted a chance just to hang out with Aaron and ask the “Who am I? Why am I here? What is life about?” kinds of questions. Most people were coming both nights. Some people were coming only one or the other.

We called ourselves Deep Spring Center for Meditation and Spiritual Inquiry. We made it clear that meditation was spiritual inquiry, but in one class we were specifically practicing vipassana, and in the other we were exploring a wider area of dharma, beyond traditional Buddha dharma. We didn't identify ourselves as a Buddhist organization. We were and remain open to people of all religions and there are no required beliefs or rituals. We were not teaching people to be Buddhists. We were inviting people to wake up, be present in the moment and to live with love.

For many years we met in my living room. We were a very unified group. Each week, 25 or more people came one or both nights. My house was pretty chaotic! I was raising 3 boys, and there were 25 people coming to my house twice a week.

Then DSC moved to this site. In those years I was also training new teachers, so that we had teachers were teaching meditation, but some of them had little contact with Aaron. People in their classes, some of them really knew nothing about me or about Aaron. They started coming to meditation classes. Some of them found us through the city of Ann Arbor Rec Ed classes or in other places. They would come in here and say, what is this channeling? What is this about? Some friction developed, some people‘s discomfort with the channeling  and people who wanted us to be a Buddhist center. Through the years, we've been trying to understand how to resolve the friction and hear each other deeply, to know that we are one unified organization.

The statement has always been “Take what's useful and leave the rest.” Nobody has ever been pressured to spend time with Aaron, to accept channeling, or to believe Aaron is real. And similarly, no one has ever been forced to practice vipassana, although certainly we strongly suggest it! We recommend it, but do not force it. So people come in for their own reasons, whatever is drawing them. Most people eventually find that this mix of going deep in themselves through their meditation practice, and opening themselves to their own guidance, their own higher selves, listening to guidance from Aaron, just asking these questions like “Who am I and why am I here? How do I do what I came to do?”, that this works well for people.

On Sunday, April 21st we have our annual sangha meeting, running from 11:30 to about 1:30pm. The focus is to share deeply from our hearts, “What does Deep Spring Center mean to me? What do I most value here? Where would I like to see us in 5 years?”  I hope that many of you will come. There is a Sunday sitting first (our regular weekly sitting) from 10 to 11:30; please come to sit too if you wish. I hope this meeting can allow the various faces of DSC to deeply hear each other with love and respect so that the participants can hear all the faces of Deep Spring Center. This means just hearing each other with an open heart, because that's what our practice is really about: deeply hearing, non-attachment, and compassion.

That's all I wanted to say. I will be there and I look forward to seeing and hearing from some of you.

I'm going to talk for a few minutes about akasha, and I'm going to read something to you and then give you Aaron. Then Anna Marie is going to talk later on. We both have some exercises to try. We don't want to present akasha intellectually; we really want you to get the feeling of it. What is it? How does it work?

(Barbara checks with Aaron re how to proceed; he asks her to continue.) Through all the years Aaron has always said, “I will not teach through you what you are capable of teaching for yourself.” I respect and appreciate that, but it pushes me. I always think, “He can say it clearer!”

There are four material elements: earth, air, fire, and water. We've been talking about those, and I hope you've been practicing with them and really looking at the balance of them in your body, in your mind, in your experience, as you move through your days.

Picture these-- earth, air, fire, and water-- as elements expressing out. Where do they come from? They didn't just suddenly appear; where do they originate? The fifth element is not really an element in the same way, but is the container for the other elements. Akasha, sometimes called ether, is an energetic substance more than a material substance. The core signature of akasha is that it's non-dual.

Think of a flashlight battery. It has a positive pole and a negative pole. It can't be a battery unless it has both poles. We don't feel that the positive pole is better than the negative pole; we understand that both are necessary to the battery. We might say that the battery in between is neutral, but when you place it into your flashlight in the right position, the positive pole feeds the energy out and lights up the bulb. Akasha works somewhat this way. In different traditions it's given different names. In the Buddhist tradition, it's sometimes called the All Ground, the ground for everything. There's also a term called “primordial purity,” which we might consider the purity before there was positive and negative. “All Ground” and Primordial Purity” are not identical, but we'll let the differences go for now.

I have a handout for you. Aaron asked me to read from this material, a book in progress.

Teachings on the Nondual Nature of Ultimate and Relative Reality, or

Floating Non-Duality in a Zip Lock Bag  - Draft Edition   Foreword

Barbara: continuing to talk to class: Aaron and I started this book, Aaron dictating it, almost 20 years ago. I was never quite sure where it was going. And now, in the past few years, as we've gotten deep into the akashic field teachings, I realize that that was what was necessary for the book. This book started with Aaron speaking to Karen Weber and me back 20 years ago. Karen died of cancer about 15 years ago. But for the early years of Deep Spring she was part of our board. She did all the transcribing. She was fascinated by this material and asked very clear questions of Aaron.

After Karen became too sick to work on it, it was put aside for a few years. And then another person, Kate L, who some of you may remember, stepped in and started working on it with me. She also asked Aaron astute questions. As Kate and I worked on the book in the early 2000s, she would come out to my cabin, and as Aaron dictated the material, Kate typed it instead of recording and transcribing it later, so we had it to work with immediately. We would print it out. We put each page in a separate zip-lock bag and took them down to the lake in the afternoon, to my boat, to read them and see what had been said during the morning, and what questions came up. The pages would blow off the boat, so instead of Teachings on the Non-Dual Nature of Ultimate and Relative Reality, which is quite a mouthful, it picked up a second title: Floating Non-Duality in a Zip-Lock Bag. That's our present working title, and I think that's how I'd like to see it published!

Barbara: Reading from the transcript is pasted in here: these are excerpts from the manuscript foreword.

Reader note: This Ariel font was the original transcript. As we reviewed Aaron's words, our further questions are in Times New Roman font, regardless of who is speaking, us or Aaron.

Aaron: Every telling of this story is biased. I state here my bias as highly positively-polarized discarnate energy. In the beginning, there was no beginning! We speak here of the Birthless!

Question:  I am aware that when I read some statements like “there has always been energy” and “birthless” that my mind just goes into “tilt,” just blank.  It is like it is so habituated to linear time and concepts that I can't really wrap my mind around such things.  

Aaron. I understand that terms such as “birthless” and “infinite” are only concepts to those who are confined in human understanding, as you all are.  I would ask you not to judge yourselves that you cannot immediately experientially understand such terms, nor to grasp at such understanding.  Just let these terms sit.  Note any confusion that arises from it and go on with your reading.

Of course I was not here. I do not speak from personal experience. My understanding of it, from my present experience and my teachers, is that the infinite truly is infinite. It did not begin with a “big bang”. There has always been energy. One can conjecture that that energy was neutral in its polarity and through its increasing experience, moved toward positive polarity until it became the model of positive polarity.

B: I have a question about the word “neutral, Aaron.  I don't even know how to phrase the question, but something here troubles me.  What you say below makes sense, that if it had manifest as light then it would be dual with darkness. But if it became positive, what is the relation to negative? Did it become positive, or does it just express more of the positive aspect of its still existent neutral nature, and express less of the negative?

Aaron: I am Aaron.  I understand the difficulty in clear articulation.  You are correct that this needs re-phrasing.  If that which is neutral offers its freewill choice to express that which is positive and to release without expression that which is negative, it is still made up of positive and negative aspects.  Think of it in terms of human expression.  Greed and aversion may still arise in the deeply positively polarized human.  Because they are met with compassion, and are not enacted, they become powerless.  The arising of anger no longer serves as catalyst for angry action or speech.  It serves as catalyst for compassion.  Eventually when angry energy arises, there is no contraction around it at all.  It is seen with compassion and that compassion serves as part of the motivation for the service to all beings.

In one sense, we would not say that this being is only neutral.  It is positively polarized.  We cannot say it no longer contains negativity. If that were so, there would be a duality.  It is in its essence neutral with the free will decision to enact its positivity and not to get caught in the stories of its negativity.  This power of intention is very important.  It is not an intention enacted through force, control or further negativity, but an intention enacted based on lovingkindness.

This All-That-Is in the ultimate sense does remain neutral.  But increasingly it chose to express its positivity and to release its negativity without expression.  I think it is merely a semantic question whether one will call it neutral or positive.  Suffice it to say that it is neutral, expressing positivity.

In the beginning, perhaps it played with both expressions of its being.  To be true to its non-dual nature, it saw that to express its negativity was to injure itself and to reap the karma of that injury.  I would perceive that it understood immediately that as soon as it acted in a dualistic way, it brought itself into the field of karma.  Only when it acted resonant with its true non-dualistic nature could it continue free of karma.  

Expressions of this All-That-Is still offer out negatively polarized, hurtful expression.  These are not things separate from All-That-Is but in those expressions they do wrap themselves in karma. But they are still non-dual.

It is hard to talk about this in the same ways and for the same reason that it is hard to articulate non-linear time.  All-That-Is can simultaneously be Unconditioned and free of the karmic field and offer conditioned expressions which are within the karmic field.  These are both wholesome and unwholesome expressions, but still from a place of self.  As the unwholesome expressions -  sense of self and fear about that self, and identification with it - are laid aside, the result is a bit like the blowing off of dust from a clear light so that the unshadowed light can emerge in its fullness.  We blow the dust off the light bulb, the dust that dimmed the light.  The dust doesn't cease to exist, it settles elsewhere, but it no longer has that capacity to dim the light.  

As That-Which-Is rested in deepening awareness of its unlimitedness and power, and the power of its choice to create suffering or freedom from suffering, it increasingly chose to express its radiance and not its darkness.

The label “neutrality which expresses its utmost radiance and clarity” is a mouthful.  I think this is no different than the shortened term, positive polarity.1  Think of positive polarity in terms of that magnet with a positive and negative pole. Positive polarity still has a negative pole.  It does not choose to express it.  Thus, it is the positive expression of the magnet, or of neutral.

K. noted that positive, neutral and negative are not on a linear continuum.  The whole magnet is neutral and contains positive and negative poles, but even within the positive pole is some negativity and vice versa.

There was no duality within this infinite energy. Precisely because it had begun as neutral, it contained within it both positivity and negativity. One could debate philosophically whether or not negativity is contained in positivity. But certainly both are contained in neutral. You have heard me talk of both light and relative absence of light; here all concept of duality is voided. When this energy has moved into perfect positive polarity, the expression of negative polarity merely manifests as a decrease in light.

This is an important point. Had this energy originally manifest as absolute light, one could then conceive of its essential nature as dualistic with darkness. Another important factor: because its first expression was as neutral, expansion, change and flexibility are part of its essence. The principles of giving and receiving not only are not contradictory; in a non-dual energy they must both exist.

We have here-in the core of the dilemma. If this energy contains all light and darkness, “good” and “evil”, positivity and negativity, giving and receiving, the human struggling to reflect only the positive becomes entrapped by its own humanness with arisings of greed, anger and various expressions of ego-based fear.

As Karen suggested, it comes to a question of responsibility. If my urges toward greed and hatred are “evil” and antithetical to God, then my work would be to smother those urges, perhaps through practices of austerity, or through strong focusing of the mind which instantly cuts off and denies fear-based arising. Doing so does not make me a more loving person nor a wiser person, only more in control. Thus, control and power are viewed as the attributes of the Divine most highly regarded by persons of this bias. Judgment is predominant.

On the other hand, we have the view of Divine as non-dual. Here one does not need to subdue the arisings of fear-based ego, but to draw those arisings more strongly into the heart of love. Just as this infinite Energy was drawn increasingly to express Itself as positive polarity until It became the perfect model of positive polarity, so is the human who embraces non-duality drawn along this path.

K:  A comment about the need “to draw those arisings more strongly into the heart of love.”  It would seem like that could easily become the creation of a someone doing something, that when we see these arising that there is something “to do” about them, that they are not acceptable.  It seems that through the simple awareness of them that we also see their contracted nature and the consequences and thusly drop it like a hot coal.  

Aaron: Precisely.  The way we draw them into the heart of love is simply to bring forth this awareness.  When we note both the contraction and the uncontracted and no longer get caught up in the contracted, the contracted releases leaving only the uncontracted.  If you feel there is a clearer articulation, I am happy to change it.  But I have tried to not abandon normal, human articulation, but rather to expand your interpretation of that articulation.

To draw negativity into the heart of love means to me simply to not contract around it but to know it for what it is.  Then you cease to give it energy and it will dissolve.   

Within every religious tradition that I have ever encountered in any incarnation, this schism exists. There are those who will distort the teachings of any tradition into a statement of the dual nature of the universe, and will state that “evil” must be destroyed. There are those who will focus on the non-dual nature and simply understand that darkness must be invited into the light.

It seems to me that this schism reflects an individual bias, a psychological bias perhaps. It reflects a lack of maturity. Every religion attracts both old and younger beings. Younger beings are simply more fearful and less ready to be responsible.

Barbara to the class: Okay, I've read part of it, not the whole transcript of the foreword.

I saw some people nodding and some people spacing out with glazed eyes. I think that this is very profound teaching, and you need to read it and reflect on it. Aaron simply asked me to read this much as a basis for his talk on akasha. So at this point I'm simply going to back out of here and let Aaron talk.

(Aaron incorporates)

Aaron: My blessings and love to all of you. I am Aaron. For some of you, that touched you profoundly, and for others, it was far too many words, and it's fine either way. Some of you learn more just through meditation and experientially, and some of you are guided by the intellect, by thought. Now I want to steer this discussion into what we mean by akasha, and why what Barbara just read is an valuable foundation to understanding akasha.

The elements are conditioned objects. They are expressing out of a ground or space from which they manifest. Here are fire shooting out, water, earth, and air. They're all expressions of something. What are they expressions of? Of the Unconditioned, but what does that mean? Observe your own personal energy fields: when anger arises there's excess fire. When there's a lot of sloth, tiredness, low energy, it's very earth heavy. These are expressions of your energy. What's the ground beneath the anger, the sloth? I say that which is aware of anger is not angry. What is the ground of that awareness? When there's happiness and joy, what's the ground for that?

Akasha is not a solid element like the others. I see it as a basket, a container. Think of the ocean. What IS the ocean? It has water, it has waves, it has fish. The fish are not the ocean, but if you take the fish out of the ocean, they'll cease to exist. The waves are not the ocean, but the waves are a direct expression of the ocean. The current is a direct expression of the ocean. The areas where the water is warmer or colder, are all direct expressions of the ocean. The vast stillness is an expression, as is fluidity. The ocean has the capacity to express it all, to give rise to the conditions wherein fish can live, to give rise to the conditions where it's a perfectly flat, still sea, or where there are monstrous waves. All of these expressions are arising out of conditions. What precedes the conditions?

Barbara was reading about the base of akasha. But the All-That-Is, the non-dual essence of everything - we may think of it as God or Goddess, divine essence, - is not akasha. Akasha is a direct expression of that All-That-Is. Within it are both the positive and the negative; the beautiful and what you find frightful or unpleasant; it's all there within the akasha.

Let me define the term akashic field. The akashic field is the container. The akasha is the substance within the container, just as the ocean floor contains the ocean. The ocean floor is not the ocean, but it's not separate from the ocean. The ocean floor cannot exist without the ocean. They're part of each other. The ocean floor is constantly changed by the currents and the movements of the water. The akashic field is not changed by the akasha in that same way. The akashic field simply is, eternal. The akashic field contains the akasha out of which everything is expressing, such as your laughter in one moment and your tears in another moment. It's all expressing out: joy, anger, love, fear.

The power of working within the akashic field is that when you sink down into it, you find everything is there. I will use an illustrative example that Barbara worked with several nights ago. She has, occasionally, severe tendonitis in the shoulders. Every six months or so, the doctor gives steroid injections into the shoulders; that releases the pain, and it's good for quite a long time, unless something causes inflammation.

Last Sunday, after a winter of not really using her shoulders, she went for a long walk with her walking sticks. It was a beautiful day. She enjoyed walking outside, but her arms were not used to the strain of climbing hills, and so forth, so she came back Sunday night with excruciating shoulder pain. She was up all night Sunday night and up all night Monday night with a lot of pain. Eventually, yesterday, she went to the doctor and was given steroid injections, and—magic! The pain is all gone.

However, Monday night she was lying in bed for many hours sleepless because there was so much pain. I asked her to go to the place where the pain was not, not in denial of the pain, but to see the simultaneity. There is pain. There is aversion to the pain. And there is no pain and no aversion. It was easier for her to find the place with no aversion to the pain, because the pain was strong. She could find the place first where there was not aversion to the pain, just spaciousness that knew pain as pain, throbbing, burning, pulling. Somewhere, by 2am or 3am, resting in that no-aversion spaciousness, just pain.

I asked her to take it a step further, going into the akashic field. First I asked her, does your head hurt? No, no headache. Toothache? No. Feet hurt? No. Bellyache? No. I asked her to pay attention to those things. There was truly no pain in those areas of the body. Then come back to the arms, and find the place right there with the pain, not separate from it, but with it, where there was no pain. She could feel the tendons contracting and burning, and right there with the contracting hurting tendons she could feel the potential, at first, and eventually move into the place where there really was no pain. So she passed about 4 hours, maybe 11pm to 3am, literally lying in bed doing this practice. Occasionally getting up—she went out and soaked in her hot tub for a while. She put ice on her arms. She went back to bed. She did more meditation.

Finally, about 4am there was still pain, but there was also no pain. Can you get that? And she fell asleep for several hours. And then she called her doctor in the morning and said, “I need help!” She knew she didn't need to heal it this way (without the steroids) but she also understood that she probably could heal it this way, because last summer she healed it to some degree this way. But last summer she didn't have to function every day. She could stay up all night with the pain and work with it with her meditation practice. Sometimes it's more skillful to ask for medical help, if there's a treatment that works. So there's not a right or wrong way to do it.

We go into the akashic field and find the simultaneity of anger and that which is not angry. Of excess of fire element: anger, burning. Right there in the akashic field is also where we find the coolness and spaciousness. The searching for it-- this is why I had Barbara read this talk—the searching for it is based on your aspiration to be loving and to take responsibility for your emotions, that you do not intend to enact negative emotion in the world. To not enact negative emotion in the world also means not to say, “I shouldn't be angry,” because that's just more negative emotion.

So instead you simply acknowledge, “Here is anger. First I will hold a bigger container for the anger. Then I will move into the akashic field and  find that which is not angry. I will see the various elements that are out of balance. The strong fire energy, maybe strong air energy, that needs grounding; that needs cooling. Taking these elements into the akasha, I'll find a place of balance, so that I can respond authentically in the situation, not needing to throw my anger out into the world, not needing to deny it. Literally transforming the anger within the akasha, because the akasha contains both the positive and negative polarity in this neutral base. Therein I make the choice for that which is positive and loving, and know my ability to bring it out and express it in the world.”

Several summers ago, when we were doing some of this work with akasha, a friend, was visiting at the lake for several weeks doing a self-retreat. He had a tent in the campground. Near the end of the first week, there was a severe storm. The wind was blowing right down the lake. The friend was afraid his whole tent was going to be blown away. It had his sleeping bag in it and his meditation cushions. It was a big tent. He had a small camp kitchen within it, everything he needed to be on retreat for two weeks. The wind was roaring down the lake, rain was driving down. He saw his fear coming up, tension. “I'll lose my tent. I won't have any place to stay. I'll have to go home. My retreat will be ended.” He could see the negative thoughts coming up. He could see how the negative thoughts, in a sense, were feeding the storm. He was the storm inside, and the storm was attacking outside.

So he began to breathe with it, and because this is what we had been working on through the whole retreat, he began to move his attention, seeing the fire energy, the anger, the fear, the heaviness of the earth energy, everything tight, frozen. He moved into the akashic field, and within it, saw the real possibility of the storm just blowing by. There didn't have to be stories of fear, anger or victimization. It was just wind, just rain, coming up because of atmospheric conditions. He was hanging onto his tent for dear life, holding it with his body weight so it wouldn't blow away. Lying there on the ground in the mud with the rain pelting him, and doing this reflection: come into the akasha. Come into this place of the open heart. What is it I want to manifest, here? I have a choice. I can enhance the atmospheric conditions with my own fear and negativity;  I can deny the fear and negativity, which is just more negativity. Or I can truly find the openhearted loving space inside, that can be with things as they are, and trust, even if the tent blows away, everything will be fine. There's no reason to believe that the tent will blow away. Why should it blow away? That's not my choice here. That's not my intention.

He still had to hold his tent down. He couldn't say, “Why should it blow away? I'm just going to walk away.” Hold onto it. But hold onto it with love, ease and spaciousness. Within a few minutes, the wind died away, the rain stopped, everything was fine. But the big shift was within him, that the storm stopped inside of him, and then was reflected in the outer atmosphere. Now, I'm not saying that he single-handedly stopped the storm, but  he knew that even if it continued, all would be well, and ceased to believe himself to be a helpless victim.

This is how we work with akasha. Whatever is coming up in your experience, find this field that contains everything, positive and negative and neutral. See that what is coming up may be part of the negative expression, and that that's not the intention. Come deeply into your highest and most loving intention, and find the simultaneity of that which is beautiful right there in that moment with body pain, or storm sweeping by, or whatever it might be. We remember our intention to allow this beautiful expression to manifest rather than the negative, fear-based expression, and that there is a choice.

The akashic field, of course, is where we find the akashic records, the stories of all of past lives, the recordings of all of the karma. Here-in you shift karma. In your everyday expressions of your life, you don't have to think about the akashic field. But if you do go into the akashic field, it's a much more direct way to release, transform, and balance karma. It's a very powerful way to work with karma, because there is consciousness and free will at play.

If you are very angry at somebody; they're abusing you and accusing you. They've betrayed you. And now they're standing in front of you, haranguing you. Anger is coming up, wanting to defend yourself, wanting, perhaps, to punch them in the nose. You are aware of the angry energy. Aware also of the intention not to strike back emotionally, verbally, or physically. Aware of how much you want to strike back. Holding it all in an open heart.

On the surface level, we simply work with mindfulness, and with clear comprehension of purpose. “My purpose is not to perpetuate this war. My purpose is also not to let myself be abused.” This reactivity is coming from the individuated self, the ego. “I won't do it this way; I'll do it this way. I'll stand my ground, but won't say anything angry.” Then we go a bit deeper. We see how strong the fire energy is. We see the hard armoring around the self, wanting to fix the situation, the sadness, fear, and anger. We begin to do metta with the self, feeling more kindness and compassion for this self and the one who is abusing it. We say no in a skillful way. It's still coming from the self.

Then, with practice, we begin literally to go into the akashic field, to see the whole tumultuousness. This person's abusing me is not about this situation only, it's about 10,000 episodes of abuse in 10,000 past lives, and how I've dealt with it sometimes by being stoic, sometimes by being angry and attacking, sometimes by running, sometimes by totally armoring myself or disassociating with the situation. In this moment, we find how the heart can really crack open with compassion. We find that place; it's almost like  finding the seed of that karmic response, and finding that that seed just crumbles into nothingness. Suddenly one doesn't have to do anything, and there's not really any solid self to need to do anything, there's just compassion.

At that point, there's no more anger. Even though the whole body may be trembling on the human level, one simply says, “No, you may not speak to me that way,” and walks away. It's finished. Ten thousand lifetimes of karma are resolved and balanced in that moment.

I'm not saying it won't ever come up again. You may have to work with it a number of times before it's really clean, but we keep coming back into the akasha and finding that which is truly not afraid, not angry, not feeling threatened, right there with compassionate recognition for the human that is feeling afraid and angry and threatened. And know, “This human experience is just coming up from conditions. I don't have to build a self and its stories around this.”

You can see here the importance of the vipassana practice to this moment. That gives you the skills to do the work. You can't do it without your vipassana practice. But as you deepen in the practice, simply sitting and feeling the fly walking on your face, wanting to swat it: tension, tension, noting unpleasant, tickling, and finally just breathing and letting it walk on your face.

We sit in practice and have the unpleasant memory come up, thinking, remembering, wanting to fix. We watch how that comes, how it plays itself out. And eventually, now, this next step is learning how to bring it back literally into the akashic field and see how it's rooted in so many lifetimes, and that you just don't have to do it anymore. Then you can brush the fly off. There's no anger brushing it off, just, “That's enough. Thank you. Go somewhere else.” The memory, holding compassion for it, letting it go. Then you are free. It's very powerful.

I am not suggesting that work within the akashic field is the only practice that brings freedom, simply that it's a very powerful one. And I urge any of you to whom it speaks to work deeply with it. We'll do much more work with it in class, and also in the workshops that Barbara and I will lead this summer and fall.

I don't know how much has been spoken about the workshop series in this class. We'll have four  2-day workshops, one a month in June, August, September and  October, to be held out at Michigan Friends Center at Friends Lake in Chelsea. In this series we will be going much deeper into all of this, because you'll have not just a two-hour class, but two days for each,  to really go into it and practice. Not just talk, but a lot of time to practice. This summer I envision as getting outside, literally perhaps sitting in the lake and working with the elements: sky, sitting in shallow water, hands on the bottom, breeze blowing, really experiencing the elements. So this is something I look forward to sharing in much more depth with those of you who choose to join us. For now, I'd like to hear your questions.

Q: How does the fourth state, turiya (too-REE-a), relate to the akashic record?

Aaron: I have no idea. I would need to do some research and understand what you mean by turiya. It's a term that's unfamiliar to me. I will research it for you. I do have a good research crew! There must be a different phrase for it. I'm not picking up from your mind a clear enough expression of what it is, so I will need to do some research.

Entered later: Aaron dictating: Turiya or caturiya as I have previously known it; in Hindu philosophy there are 4 states of consciousness. Let us refer to Barbara's chart of consciousness in Cosmic Healing. The states are: waking, in which we are aware of our daily world (gross consciousness); dream consciousness, which enters into the subtle states; deep sleep, which touches on the causal state; and that beyond the causal.

States and Stages of Consciousness

From Cosmic Healing by Barbara Brodsky

The state beyond the causal is referred to in Hindu philosophy as Turiya or Caturiya.  This is “non-dual awareness.” The question was how this state relates to the akashic records. Resting in non-dual awareness, the akashic field is most accessible. It is accessible in subtle and causal consciousness but there will be subtle distortions; from non-dual awareness it is undistorted.

From the internet: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turiya

Mandukya Upanishad

Main article: Mandukya Upanishad   The Mandukya Upanishad is the shortest of the Upanishads. It is in prose, consisting of twelve verses expounding the mystic syllable Aum, the three psychological states of waking, dreaming and sleeping, and the transcendent fourth state of illumination.

Verse VII of the Mandukya Upanishad describes Turiya:

Turiya is not that which is conscious of the inner (subjective) world, nor that which is conscious of the outer (objective) world, nor that which is conscious of both, nor that which is a mass of consciousness. It is not simple consciousness nor is It unconsciousness. It is unperceived, unrelated, incomprehensible, uninferable, unthinkable and indescribable. The essence of the Consciousness manifesting as the self in the three states, It is the cessation of all phenomena; It is all peace, all bliss and non—dual. This is what is known as the Fourth (Turiya). This is Atman and this has to be realized

Q: Can you speak about working with the akashic field while sleeping?

Aaron: This relates to lucid dreaming. In order to work in the akashic field while sleeping, there has to be enough awareness within the dream state to direct consciousness. There doesn't have to be a deep state of lucid dreaming, but enough clarity of lucid dreaming simply to know you're dreaming when you're dreaming. The typical dream state without lucidity is in subtle consciousness.  With lucidity within the dream, the dreamer moves into causal consciousness. That is sufficient to work in the akashic field but there will be some distortions.

(To Q) You're going to be there to talk to Robert Waggoner tomorrow. Robert Waggoner has written a very clear book on lucid dreaming. He, Barbara and I are spending some time together tomorrow, and I know you and M are coming to help sign for Barbara. I believe that he is giving a talk at Crazy Wisdom tomorrow night, so if any of you are interested, you can go and hear him talk there about his lucid dreaming book and his very clear understandings. He's speaking from his experience.

So how does work within the akashic field relate to the dream state? In the unconscious dream state, you're simply floating around in the akasha, more or less adrift. But because work within the akashic field demands conscious choice and intention, unless there is clear consciousness within the dream state, you cannot work within the akashic field, you're just adrift in it. As you develop the ability to lucid dreaming, so that when you are dreaming you are aware that you are dreaming, then you become able to make clear decisions. Within the dream state there is an advantage to making those decisions, because you are right there within the akasha. In the dream state you are in that reality rather than so much in your outer reality.

So that, for example, in the dream, the demon begins to chase you. Terror comes up. And then immediately the thought, “This is a dream. I don't have to run. Running is my old conditioning. Picking up the stick to try to beat him is my old conditioning. I can simply turn to him and say, ‘No, you are not real, in the sense of not solid; you are my illusion. Go away.'”

This is really true whether it's the demon in the dream state or the person I spoke of earlier, who's yelling at you and haranguing you, abusive. He's really an illusion, to some degree. If you give him permission to keep haranguing you by being defensive or closing down, or thinking, “I should be patient with him,” you're still pulling it into the separate selves, him and you. As in the dream state with the demon, you turn to him and say, “You're just part of my imagination. You seem real, but you cannot hurt me.”

Now, on this earth plane, if that's a grizzly bear, basically once you've gotten yourself into the situation where you're out there in the forest and the grizzly bear is chasing you, you can't really look at him and say, “You're a figment of my imagination.” What brought you out there in the forest with the grizzly bear in the first place? What need to encounter the grizzly bear? But if we work this out in the dream state, we don't have to go out into the woods and encounter a grizzly bear.

Ajahn Thanasanti tells a wonderful story about hiking with a friend in the wilderness. They had taken their packs off and I think he had climbed up on a big rock. She was down on the ground. Suddenly the friend screamed and pointed, and there was a bear charging at her. She was terrified. She thought, “He's going to kill me.”  

I don't remember the details. I think she waved her arms and did other things you're supposed to do to try to scare him away. But he charged, landed on her, knocked her over, and took her head in his mouth. She could feel the teeth crunching into her skull. She thought, “This is it, and all I can do is offer metta to myself and the bear.” So she lay there and moved into a transformed state of non-dual consciousness. There was too much shock to feel pain, but she could feel her skull being crushed. She knew she was being badly hurt, but she simply lay there being limp, offering metta. The bear lost interest. He dropped her and moved away.

Her friend was able to half-carry her, and she half-walked  many hours back to help. Manystitches, many scars in her scalp, but no serious damage. She survived. But she not only survived, she learned that she did not have to return fear and hatred to violence. A profound life teaching. So sometimes we do need to encounter the grizzly bear. But if you can do it in your dream, you don't have to come out with scars on your head. Okay?

The story in her words:  http://www.examiner.com/article/meditation-training-helps-denver-buddhist-nun-survive-bear-attack

Amma Thanasanti Bhikkhuni (the name means “Foundation of Peace”) is an American Buddhist nun who teaches meditation at a number of centers here in Denver. Her meditation career began when, as a student in the late 1970s, she took a course on the Religions of India at UC Santa Cruz.

“It felt like somebody had thrown a match on a bonfire and doused it with kerosene,” she said. “I was on fire with the possibility of dedicating my life to ending suffering.” It was during that course that she resolved a) to learn to meditate, and b) to someday take a pilgrimage to India.

She began going on retreats where she learned Mindfulness Meditation, an awareness technique in which thoughts, feelings, and bodily sensations are noted with precision and care. After graduation, she moved in with her high school sweetheart and went to work as an analytical chemist. Seven years later, she was ready to take the pilgrimage.

She quit her job, bought a one-way ticket to India, and said goodbye to her boyfriend. But after a couple of months in India, during which she'd continued her mindfulness training with some of the country's more illustrious teachers, she started feeling homesick. “This was my first time out of the US, and my first time travelling alone,” she said. “I was feeling a little disoriented, and I missed my boyfriend.”

Hoping to ground herself by spending some time in the out-of-doors, she headed for the mountains of North India. At the Tibetan Guesthouse in Dharamsala, she met a Brit named Bryan whom she asked to join her for a spot of hiking and camping. They walked into the hills, and camped out under a full moon. The next morning, Bryan climbed to the top of a large rock, while she remained below, looking into the mouth of a cave.

And that's when her world turned upside down. She heard “a roar, a growl, and a snort,” and out of the cave stalked a very large, very angry, Himalayan black bear. “It took him a split second to reach me,” she said. “I screamed, jumped backwards, landed face down on a low-lying tree branch, and blanked-out from sheer terror.” When she came-to, the bear was straddling her and had her head in his mouth. “I could feel his teeth in my scalp,” she said. “He could have cracked my skull like an egg.”

But then something quite remarkable happened. Her years of meditation training kicked in. There was terror, and the “knowing of terror,” and then a total surrender of body and mind, which in turn gave rise to “a state of joy, and rapture, and interest, and curiosity at how this whole dying process was going to occur." Inexhlicably, the sound of “Om” arose in her mind, and at that very instant the bear jumped off and ran headlong down the mountainside.

“Bryan was in a state of shock,” she said. “For him it was a total nightmare. But I was in a state of bliss. I had deep gashes on my head and neck, but for some reason, not a lot of blood.” Bryan patched her up, and helped her negotiate the four-hour walk back to civilization.

Later that day, after the bliss wore off, the pain set in. “There was no place on my body that didn't hurt,” she said, “and the tears were streaming down my face.”

Needless to say, the experience marked a turning point in her life. “Before the incident I would not have been able to tell you why I was able to survive,” she said. “Afterwards, I knew quite clearly that the reason I was still alive was directly due to the mindfulness training I had done. Knowing ‘terror' meant that I was free of terror, which in turn enabled me to transition into surrender. For me, the blessing was not that I lived, but that at the moment of the attack I was totally at peace.”
__

Transcriber:  I don't have any record of Ajahn telling her own story in a transcript. She visited in a May 17, 2000 transcript but doesn't tell her story.

There's a similar story summary in

http://archives.deepspring.org/Aaron/ClassSeries/2009/Venture/Intensives/Four/100731vfSatPMC.php , which also includes your past life bear story.]

Q: I have a sharing, but not like a grizzly bear story. I'm divorced and have one child. He's 23. His father has been very ill, close to death at times. My son chose to drop all of his life's activities to care for his father. When I got divorced, I was the one who left our home. Even though I know it was contracting and closed-hearted to feel jealous that my son was always with his dad and not with me, I still held that jealousy. The jealousy was causing me to suffer with myself, and causing tension and suffering between me and my son.

I knew this is not how I wanted to be, and I've been seeking a way to change this. I read in one of, I don't know if it was Barbara's or Aaron's transcripts, it was about the akashic field. It said, I don't remember all the details, but the truth is that I love my son deeply, and the transcript spoke of using my fifth chakra to send that truth, I think it said to recognize it or send it, let it be in the akashic field. Let the truth of that love become the strong element.

When I read that, there was a shift in me, and I sent that love. And I have been inviting the jealousy to tea. So I was feeling the jealousy, but I was able to recognize that love is the strong thing in me. And nothing different about what my son is doing or not doing, but I'm different. And earlier, I don't know if Aaron said it or Barbara said it, but letting the seed of karma crumble away—somehow I feel like some element for me of feeling lack or insecurity, worrying that I'm not lovable, even with my own son, that has shifted. And I thank Aaron and Barbara for the learning that helped me do this.

Aaron: Thank you, daughter, very much for sharing that for all of us. It's wonderful to have living examples of how we do this work. And it's not instant. It's not easy. But when there's a deep intention within you to move past all these 10,000 lifetimes of old habitual tendencies and break through, you don't have to go through them one at a time, 10,000 times. It's all here in this moment. And when your heart opens like that to yourself, to your son, to your ex husband, to the whole situation, it clarifies the karma of 10,000 lifetimes, literally. And then you don't have to do it anymore. That's freedom.

Are there other sharings or questions? I know you don't understand all of this, yet. We're going to do more talking and reading. We're going to go on today to a couple of exercises. But I do want to hear anything that you want to share, or any questions at this point.

Q: I'm wondering if empathy is when the elements that are arising in the field are resonating with the elements in my field, or our field? And I also have the opportunity to go into the akasha and rest there, and in that way, heal all....

Aaron: Empathy is really non-attachment to view. Not hardening around your own experience and creating separation, but allowing the literal energy of the other person, like the energy of the son and his desire to be with the father. You don't have to agree with it, but there's a certain heart-opening and empathy that deeply understands. And it's not just on an intellectual level, it's on an energetic level. It relates to the elements. It relates to the chakras. It relates to the whole energy field. You pick it up from the other person, and there's connection.

Some of you find yourselves more empathic than others. Some of you have learned more to, it's not just about attachment to view, but there's a certain hardening and armoring. When you notice that and that it's not skillful, it's not helpful for you, and begin to allow yourself to let through what seems to be dangerous, once you allow uncomfortable energy to come through, you can also allow heart energy to come through. The less armoring there is, the more connection of energy. So watch armoring, any rigidity, any attachment to self and to view. And as you watch it and soften around it, generally empathy increases.

It can go too far the other way. I want to caution you. We talk about boundarilessness, and yet there do have to be some kinds of boundaries in the human life. You are not just the angel, you're the angel in the earth suit. Creating boundaries does not have to come from a place of fear. When the setting of boundaries is a conscious act, created out of kindness and compassion for yourself and others, it's very different. Boundaries are very different than armor, which is a reflexive, reactive armoring, closing in. Can you feel the difference between setting boundaries and armoring? So what I'm speaking of here, empathy can exist with appropriate boundaries, for the human. Empathy cannot exist with armoring.

Any others?

Q: The idea of the akashic record is fascinating and scary. I mean, it's all there!

Aaron: You can't get away with anything, it's all there. But it's not fixed or solid, it's constantly adrift, moving, and easily shifted when you bring attention to it. It's not easy; it takes enormous courage. But it shifts, it opens.

Q: Simple, not easy.

Aaron: Correct.

Q: And this record is always accessible.

Aaron: It's always there, but remember: there is no judge, no jury. It's all there for you. If we said, “Let's paint the walls of this room,” and I brought in 40 buckets of paint, different colors, and paintbrushes, and said, “Start painting,” the clashing colors are all over the place. You step back and look: it's chaos. Then you come together as a group and say, “Well, what color is it going to be?” You talk about it: some people want light, some people want dark. Some people want cool, some people want warm colors. You come to some compromises and really hear each other, sit with it until there's really a sense of the whole group, what color we all want it to be. It's not a compromise, how many vote for it. It's consensus, really coming into the heart to hear each other. To sit with it, whether it takes a day or a month, until there's a real sense, “This is the color we choose.” And then all the other buckets go out, and you begin to paint.

It's really no different than that, working with your karma. There are all these thousands of colors of paint. It's chaotic. You see the chaos, how there's always this habitual response when there's some situation. “It's not wholesome. It's not what I want.” You become your own consensus committee, listening to the different voices in you that say, “But I won't be safe! But I've always done it that way!” And then this wiser voice that says, “Yes, but it hasn't been successful, has it? Maybe we can do it a different way.” The heart opening, more clarity, until suddenly you decide on which color paint you're going to try now. And then it's either the right color or you look at it at the end and say, “I guess I'm going to have to try it one more time. Maybe it should be a tone lighter.” That's how it works. So the karma is simply a teacher, not a judge.

We have 45 minutes, and I have an exercise and Anna Marie has an exercise, so let's stop the discussion here...

(break)

AM: There are many aspects to working with the akashic field. Also, since we're all so unique, just like any of these practices, when one person, one teacher tells you about it or someone shares their experience, sometimes it connects and sometimes it doesn't, because we each learn differently and have different experiences.

I'm going to talk about working with the akashic field from the way that I generally experience it, but also from a perspective of some analogies. It's kind of like the classic story of the blind men with the elephant. I'm going to give you some analogies and some experiences of working with it from one side of the elephant, and Aaron gave you another side, and other people may give you other sides. You may or may not actually understand some of the sides; they may not relate to you. But the more that people share in the group, and the more that we have different teachers, hopefully some of it begins to make some sense.

I generally experience most of my inner work as working with the raw energy. And that's kind of hard to explain, although I find it interesting that nowadays a lot of the quantum science is catching up to it. So, often I can get pictures and illustrations from quantum physics on the web that also illustrate what is going on inside me, which is kind of cool.

Tonight, the piece that I want to talk about is how you can manifest using the akashic field. Aaron talked about working with the akashic field as things arise. He explained what to do as you are experiencing things, how you can be present with it and how you can shift it.  In addition to this way of working with the akashic field / akasha, we can also work in akasha to manifest what we want since everything that is created comes out of All That Is, the Unconditioned, stillness, through the akashic field elements into physical reality, including us. So I will give a few examples for how to play with manifestation for you to think about, and to maybe help make a little more concrete some of the concepts Aaron discussed.

Now, as soon as you make stuff concrete, you know you're leaving out other pieces, so it's definitely not the whole story. But hopefully it will give you a little taste of things. So I'm going to use a few analogies, and then I'm going to use a demonstration with some food, that will hopefully help us understand some of the process for manifestation.

One of the first things that we have to do when we want to create is to have an intention to create. We're always talking about intention and how important intention is, from clear comprehension of purpose to the littlest things we want to manifest. Even before we came to the earth we came up with our life plan for what we wanted to manifest.

First lets remember that in addition to our human selves, we each have a huge and active spirit part of ourselves, like Aaron and another part of ourselves beyond that, which is pure stillness.  In the place of pure stillness we are all interconnected and when we rest in that that place of pure stillness, it's hard, if not impossible, for us to know ourselves, our Awareness, as separate from N's awareness, to know who we are. It's just one big set of interconnected love. So All That Is and each of us individually and repeatedly want to create and manifest so that we can learn more about ourselves and learn how to be more compassionate and have more wisdom. And we want to share that learning and wisdom with the interconnected All.

If you bring that down to a specific example of creation, it is hard to conceptualize because there are a lot of levels of us and All That Is that are pure energy that we generally can't see. So, we may think “Well, how do I deal with that?” and how do I get from working with pure energy in the Akasha down to manifesting at the physical level?

We start by working with intention. The first thing you can think about when you're working with intention is to begin to make it clear. What is a good way to do that? One way to do that is to think of it as you want to make a framework or template for what you're trying to create. So let's say that we're trying to create a star. We have a concept of a star, but we're not quite sure what ‘star' is or what it looks like.

The first analogy for your intention could be a pilot who is skywriting. The sky is that empty still space where everything is. And your awareness is holding the space, at least part of it - you are the space. Then, you have the intention to begin to manifest a star. You want to make a framework of what a star is so you begin shooting smoke out the back in the shape of a star. The star is just lines of crossing smoke. In those lines, you are both the space of the sky, the pilot or awareness who is creating the skywriting, and as you're thinking of that intention, the smoke that's coming out of the plane to create the star is you, too. It's your energy.

Now you have differentiated yourself from the space to actually have an object, the star. And there is an inner to the star and an outer. So you know yourself as a separate being - the star. (repeating for signer) You are the star, and you are the smoke that you created, and now you know yourself as the lines of the star, or framework; as the inside of the star, the container, and the outside that is perceptually the rest of All That Is. And you are all of those things, you just split your pure essence up to create. So you begin to learn with this creation. And what happens with skywriting? It fades really quickly. It's really not solid. It's very impermanent. So you've learned a little bit about yourself, about impermanence.

Now you want to create further to learn more. In another analogy, What if you imagine, “I want to create a snowflake.” You still have to create a framework. You begin to think, “What does that look like?” It's got the edges; it's a little fancier than the star. It has the inside of the snowflake and the outside. But then you have to begin to feel and know what it is that you want to create a snowflake as. You have to know yourself as a snowflake. And what is that? That is a combination of elements. So you start to think, “What is that? Oh, coldness. I need to create coldness. I need to create ice. How do I create ice? Oh, the water element. Let me bring some water into this. I need to have it coalesce.” I think this is true-- I think there are little flecks of minerals or something in there that the ice coalesces around. So you're learning what you have to create, and you really have to feel it as much as you can. See it, hear it, feel it  - viscerally experience what it is.

As you do this, you begin to draw in the energies from the akasha, the elements, that form to fill the inside of the snowflake. But what is akasha? It's you. What is the framework for the snowflake? It's you. What's the outside, that's the rest of everything else? It's you. So it's really literally not separate.

But then again, they're snowflakes. They may or may not last a little longer than the skywriting, right? But the snowflake will dissolve pretty quickly.

So if you want to bring things down a little bit more into physical reality, I want to give you an example of how that might feel. You're still going to start the same way. Let us say that we want to make a star, more of a physical star. We want to bring it into reality. So still the first thing applies. You have to create a framework. Think of it now more as a 3D star like a Star Tetrahedron. A Star Tetrahedron is a shape like this, with a lot of points (interpenetrating pyramids). There is an inside to it and there's an outside to it. The inside is a container to manifest that template of that star. How do we do that? I'm going to use frosting, a cake decorating tip attached to a tube of frosting and a plate to give you an example of how this might work.

I'm imagining that I'm going to create this star tetrahedron. And I'm imagining that I might want to make that a little more solid so it will come into the earth plane. So the first thing I do is, gather energy in my mind to create what that looks like. I might even start with some clay and create it, so that I start to get the feeling, what is that like? For this example, I'm going to say that what I'm creating in my mind is the star that's on the end of this cake decorating tip. I'm creating the shape of this star tip in my mind. This is me, this is my energy, I'm creating it, the star tip - the framework or template for what I am going to manifest.  Sometimes, when we are trying to manifest in the world, we create this image in our head, in energy and then we stop and wonder why nothing happens to manifest our intention.

But we need more than this. The decorating tip is the Intentional framework that we created from part of our energy, the inside of the tip is essentially a container. It's waiting; the container is waiting for something. It is waiting for energy to flow through it.  

The next thing we need to do is to invite our high, fast “spirit” energies to fill the container and when filled sufficiently to flow out into the world.  We are this level of light energy also. The frosting in the tube that is connected to the tip is like my high spirit energy coming through my crown chakra down into my body and the energetic intention framework (frosting tip). This energy is flowing continuously. We don't have to do anything to go get it, it is available to us.

Now I want to actually bring the star into the real, concrete world. So what do I have to do? I need to connect my spirit to my intention. So, energetically I connect the vision or intention to my spirit that's coming through. That's one of the steps. And then what I want to do is, I want to invite spirit to manifest through this. How do you do that? Well, you have to take an action to start it. One analogy would be, if you have a hose and a pool of water and you need to empty the pool, how do you do that? The water's there, spirit's there, the hose is there, how do you get it out? You suck on it to start the siphoning. You have to take an action to start the energy. In this case, I'm going to start a little squeezing (of the tube of frosting) —not a force, not a push, not a pull, but just a little squeezing, to invite the energy to flow through. This frosting is like your spirit flowing through you.  What is spirit? It's just your energy. It's just your higher energies.

When we are manifesting we learn as we go and may need to adjust many times to get to what we want. For example, I'm inviting spirit through, and I'm squeezing (the tube of frosting) out kind of slowly... and I see that at first I kind of have a blob there. It doesn't really look like a star, right? It could be that I am not working with the energy flowing through me well enough. Maybe I'm pushing my energy too hard. I'm actually grasping, right? I'm trying to grasp it. I'm pushing too hard. Or maybe I'm a little afraid of this, and I'm either pushing backwards or not pushing hard enough (on the tube of frosting). So we do this dance with our spirit and our intention, and we just keep playing until we get—okay, I have a nice little star here. That was the “right” flow. But let's just say that I get scared and I say, “Oh, gee, that doesn't quite look right. I don't know about that.” So then I start contracting on one side of the flow (frosting), and I start contracting here and there and the next thing you know, you get a distortion (irregular star shapes emerge from the tube), right? And then, if you start pushing backwards on the flow, then the flow is weak and you're not going to get anything out here, it's just going to go out the other direction, right? (nothing coming out of the frosting tip).

Another thing that can happen when we're letting this energy come through is we can begin to not believe, like, we say, “Oh, I want to create a star.” But you know what, there's a part of us that says, “I'm not that powerful. I can't create a star.” So part of us is here going, “Oh yeah, I'm just going to let this flow,” and doing this and doing that, and you're letting it flow, and you're letting it flow, “I can't do it. I can't do it. I can't do it.” And you are not receiving who you are. You are not receiving your intention. You let it flow away into the atmosphere, and then you say, “Why can't I create it? Why can't I create it?” You didn't receive yourself. You didn't believe you could do it. (a stream of star shaped frosting is falling into water and just dissolving instead of being received by the plate which represents another part of us).

So a big part of this is that when we are creating an intention, we have to create the framework / template for it, we have to invite spirit (our highest selves and elemental selves), and then our human part has to be receptive.

This also relates to the polarities that we were talking about earlier. We each have a positive polarity, near the top of our heads and a negative polarity, near the bottom of our torso, which is a receptive void. When you have an intention to create the energy coming from spirit can be said to be a positive energy flow, like the top of the battery and the receptive void is the negative polarity.  If we don't provide a receptive container that energy has nowhere to go. It just dissipates in space. So this is why, when you have an intention to create, you also have to have the intention to receive it.

I'm going to make a few stars (on some cookies) here, just to give you an example. This is my beautiful creation. (to someone) Would you like one of my beautiful creations? Will you eat it? (Q: Yes.) Okay, good. Let's see-- who else, here... Would you eat this? (Q: Yes.) Okay, thank you. Thank you for taking that. Is there anybody who doesn't like cookies? (to that person) Okay, would you like to eat this? (Q: No.) No. Okay. So, boo hoo, she doesn't want my cookie and my beautiful star. Boo hoo-- what do I do? What should I do with this? (Q: Offer it to someone else.) I could offer it to someone else, that's true. (Q: You could eat it yourself.) I could eat it myself. (Q: You could offer it to me anyhow, and not have the expectation that I will eat it, and not be upset about that.) Excellent, excellent.

The point is, no matter what each of you are doing with my creation, if I offer it, I offer it freely. And I have to be able to receive it for myself if someone says no, rather than, you say no and I say, “Oh my Gosh! I must be bad. This must be a bad creation. I think I better sit down here and see if I can make a better thing. Maybe if I made a triangle, she would really like it.” or, “Maybe if I put more frosting on it” she would like it. The star that came through is me coming through. And if I have clear intention, I'm actually expressing who I am. So when it's not right for someone else, it's really important to say, “It's okay, it's me, and I'm going to keep expressing that.”

So to wrap up, to practice manifestation, 1) You have a clear intention 2) You think about what it really feels like to be that; because that's what draws in the elements and the solidity and brings it into the world. And then 3) you have to invite it to flow by taking some action. It can be the littlest thing. For example, if you wanted to have some new roses show up in your garden and last year they didn't really do well, you can dream about those roses and how they look and so forth, but then actually go put some fertilizer on the ground, something to say to the universe, “I believe it's here right now,” and to start the flow of elements. And then don't just walk away. No matter what those roses look like, 4) Accept them and love them because they're part of what you created. And nothing is bad in what we create. You just learn one thing or another thing from it.

I thought I'd do more of these frosting stars, but the frosting comes out very slowly. So... (passes cookies around). Are there any questions? It's not a perfect analogy but I hope you now have a better feeling for the essence of manifestation

Q: Thank you... As you were doing the stars, I was thinking, my reaction: that star's not good enough! Throw it away. I need a better star.

AM: You know, it's true, I thought it too. This frosting says it has glitter in it, and I don't see any. It's supposed to be shimmering... So, noting disappointment and accepting it lovingly anyway.  What is this telling me about myself?  Thank you. Any other comments or questions? (No.)

(recording ends)

1 The term “Positive polarity” will be taken to mean , “neutrality which expresses its utmost radiance and clarity”  through the remainder of this text.

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