Aaron and Jeshua, Seattle - February 20, 2003

February 20, 2003  Seattle, Open Evening with Jeshua and Aaron

(This transcript has been corrected by Barbara and Aaron; not yet corrected by Judi and Jeshua)

Q: I was reading some transcripts or maybe it was an article where Barbara says that in the 60s people who were on a spiritual path were very much involved in social work and social change. Today, you made the observation that many people are really into a spiritual path but there's very little activism. I tried to figure out with myself where I am with this because I used to be more active and even that was somewhat limited.

I'm finding that it's really difficult to even figure out where to start. There seem to be so many issues that it can almost lead to despair. And certainly to just a sense of "I don't know where to go so I'm just going to sit here at home." And compounded with that is a socioeconomic situation where people have to work many hours and have very little time and energy to put into activism. I'm not sure how to form a question beyond, "what does one do?"

Q: I am interested in hearing Aaron's thoughts about our current leadership and political situation, and where he thinks the most skillful action is for those of us who have a political bent.

Jeshua: Beloved and holy, and only child of our heavenly Father, child of the one Source, child of Light, Divine, that is who you are. Take it deeply within the consciousness and contemplate what that means. I am the one known as Jeshua ben Joseph; Jesus, you have called me. It is in great joy that I come to abide with you this evening in your timing as you have opened your home and your heart to this grouping and to the questions that will come forth.

As you have been discerning deep within your own self, there are many forms of activism, not only the ones that you see out on the street with the placards and the ones who will go about on the street corners saying what they believe in and how they believe things should go, but there are many forms of activism. And one of the forms you participate quite directly in: the meditation, the visualization, and holding as you will a grouping such as this that will ask the questions and contemplate answers and visualize what can be.

You do not have to be out on the obvious, but you are doing the work on the inner, which is as important, perhaps even more important because the inner comes before the outer manifestation. So you are setting a very strong fertile ground, a foundation for what will come to be manifest. So do not despair that you are not out there being most active and chanting certain slogans. You are doing work that is most important in the inner, in your own contemplation. And it is most necessary that that come first, that that be there.

So you are very much the activist, because you have been contemplating. You are not going through the life with the blinders on so that you don't see anything; you are very well aware of what is taking place in your world and you have certain vision of how you would want the harmony and peace and equalization of true Christ, brother to brother, sister to sister, come about. So you are quite active.

As to the leadership and what is happening in the world at this time, there is much that is leading to a complete shift in the consciousness. And you are one of the ones, you so gathered in this room and others that you touch, it is very much as the ripples on the pond that goes out, you are very much the ones that are bringing forth a new world order-not as that term has been understood in the past but a new order where in truth there will not be borders between countries, there will not be separation to the place where there has to be a certain ideology or a certain nationalism defended but a place where there can be equal discussion in a round table. You have that symbolism in what would be legendary, and yet it is a truth and it will come to be once again, the round table, where each one meeting will have equal say.

What is happening now, and there are many who are giving opportunity by their voices and decisions, giving opportunity to you and friends to look at what is important, to look at what have we done in past lifetimes-- where has that led in past lifetimes and where do I want to go from here. The decisions and the voicing that the so-called leaders are putting forth are as catalyst for ones to remember what would be ancient times not only on this our Holy Mother the Earth but also on other planets, other constellations, where the adventure has unfolded and played itself out. So there is a remembrance deep within the soul of you and within the soul of many who are drawn into this drama right now, the remembrance of what can come, most possibly, probably, will come from certain decisions which seem to be imminent.

And yet, as you have seen, even the decisions that would be made immediately and a certain thrust to go in a certain direction have had blockages, holding back. Your selected leader has wanted to go directly into what he has seen the path to be and yet there has been a holding back that he has, not wanting to, not desiring to, but he has had to acquiesce to this delay. So the activism that you are doing in visualizing what you want to be, the equality, the respect, and the allowance of different points of view, ideologies if you will, the visualizations you are doing and the meditation and the expectancy that this can come, this can happen, is most important and has influence. Does this answer your question?

Q: Yes...

Jeshua:  And it leads to?

Q: And it leads to... the conversation we had at dinner, where we talked about the shift in a lot of beings from monastic to what I called "urban monks." I guess my vision of what an urban monk would include is not just the meditation and prayer. I mean, I know those are important, I know the value of those, I don't dispute those for a second. (J: Exactly.) But there's a level of action that also needs to take place. (J: Yes.) And that's where I find that I'm not a peace with where I am. And I know that a lot of people are not.

Jeshua: Right, and you are seeing a certain wave of consciousness, if you will, that is growing. There is a certain timing about this. There has been a simmering within the pot as it would be and a growing restlessness and a growing feeling that there must be something acted upon, something to be done, because as you have said, no longer is this lifetime the one that is spent in the cave or on top of the mountaintop, denying the world affairs, but very much you have come down from that isolation to be the urban monk and to walk amongst the people and to spread the vision. You are doing that and there is coming a time when there will be more action attendant upon what you see the meditation to be.

But that time is not yet here. There are other pieces of the puzzle yet coming together. And you feel a certain anticipation. There's a feeling of excitement and a feeling of dread because this reality believes in the duality, so there's a feeling of excitement and also a feeling of dread at the same time. But there's a feeling of great imminent change, and that truly is happening and will come to be, not before there are certain old patternings that have to be looked at and discarded, perhaps by great upheaval, perhaps not, because it is open to the improv, every moment. As you change your mind about something, you see something in a different way. As my beloved friend, the one known as Barbara, has had new revelation as to joyously choosing that which she would have in her life, it has been a revelation. It has been a part of the improv that all of a sudden, one moment it was not there, the next moment it IS there.

There is a certain exquisite timing about it, and you will be most active in bringing about healing. You have set in place because of previous lifetimes a sensitivity. You have set in place because of certain previous lifetimes, techniques to facilitate healing, not only of the body but of the soul as well. And that will be called upon even more than what you have done up to this point. There are many who are going to come to you for the support, for the help in understanding what is going on and to understand the larger picture of what is going on. And you will find yourself very active.

The new life that you are bringing into this incarnation and this shared journey is also going to be most active in the healing, for ones will look at this new life and see hope. They will see an ongoingness of life, not just a devastation and an ending and a hopelessness, but the new one will come with such joy, such innocence and yet with such old wisdom, that he will be and there will be attendant around him, great symbolism of hope and of eternality of life and innocence. The holiness, if you will, of the divine child. You will find yourselves very active but it will be in a way that you will be most joyous about it.

As for the meantime, it is very much as the mate is waiting and you as well, waiting for a birthing. What is happening on the world plane is the same, there is a birthing that is coming to be, and the pieces are coming into place that need to be there first. And then there will be a certain labor that can be gentle, easy process but for many it will seem to be more harsh, more work. It is an exquisite timing, as you will see in your own microcosm!

I will give now to Aaron.

Aaron: My blessings and love to you all. I am Aaron. It is a great joy to see you gathered here tonight with your deeply sincere questions, with such deep wish to understand and to grow. And it is a great joy to share this circle not only with all of you but with beloved Jeshua, and with Judi who serves to allow Jeshua to come forth.

It's very easy to become caught up in the content of your lives to the point that you lose track of the whole progression of experience, within one lifetime and from lifetime to lifetime. There's no one here who has not lived through a war or died in a war. There is no one here who has not killed and been killed.

You come into this illusion we call incarnation with the intention to learn. At any level for any being there is an intention to learn love, but that learning takes different forms. For some it expresses as a more self-centered, selfish love, which brings forth grasping and materialism. It is a love that still is much founded in fear. But I ask you to remember that fear is not dual with love but is merely a distortion of love.

You practice fear until you see how much suffering it creates for yourself and others, and that the practice of fear does not bring forth that which you intend to express. And then you explore different ways to express your truth, ways that are more resonant with higher values.

At different times in each lifetime, you try on different ways of being, much as you see your children put on certain attitudes to try them out, to see if they fit. If you allow that child to explore, obviously needing to say no if the exploration would be seriously damaging to the self or to another, but otherwise giving the freedom to see what fits and what doesn't fit, they do let go of the unskillful, usually fairly quickly. But if they hold on to that expression, it is because there is something there that they still need to learn.

Sometimes it's a more active learning; sometimes it's slow and quiet. Coming into birth, each of you enters the illusion, as your son, D and J, will soon do. They leave the place of clarity, agree to forget the deepest truth of who they are for awhile and enter the illusion. The illusion is essential to the learning. If there was complete clarity about the nature of the spirit, about the nature of the incarnation, you would be deprived of much of the opportunity to learn. You agreed to this illusion including its seeming limitations because you've set it up for yourself in the perfect way to open a door to learning.

There is a fine balance that's asked of you, and coming to that balance is much of what happens on a conscious spiritual path. It is a balance between relative reality where there are seeming limits, where there is the illusion of fear, the illusion of separation, the illusion of gain and loss, and ultimate reality where there is nothing to fear, nothing to gain or lose, nothing separate.

Eventually the spiritual practitioner comes to understand that the situation is not either/or, relative or ultimate, but both. And that you have chosen the particular relative expression both individually as small groups and as nations and a world, because this is what needs to be learned in this time and place.  Others serve as catalyst for your learning  as you serve as catalyst for theirs.

The energy of all of you worldwide co-creates the world situations. There is no war caused by "Them". Everybody who is incarnate now is co-creating this world situation. It really doesn't matter how you attend to it, only that you do attend to it. As Jeshua pointed out, there are active and quieter phases. They have equal importance.

Imagine yourself on a ship. Your comrade falls overboard into a rough sea, with big waves. You see him fall. You see him as the boat pulls ahead of him, sometimes in sight and then out of sight for a moment, as a new wave covers him, then emerging again. Think of this: can you, yourself, both keep your eye on your comrade so as to tell the captain how to steer as the boat turns around, AND steer the boat? Can you make ready the lifeboat, climb down the ladder, and begin to row to your friend, AND watch him? One person holds the space; one person is active. Neither is more important.

So the whole question, "I should be more active," or "I shouldn't be more active," or "I want to," or "I don't want to," has no real relevance in terms of the actual effectiveness of what you do. What does have relevance is the clarity with which you hold the potential for peace, for understanding, for love, in your hearts, or the clarity with which you do active work.

You do your personal work to resolve the fear vibration and open deeply to that which is capable of the most intimate connection, of loving respect, of non-duality. The outer forms will take care of themselves. If somebody else is keeping an eye on the friend, you get the lifeboat out and begin to row. If somebody else is getting the lifeboat out, you keep the eye on the friend. Active, passive.

The distortion that comes in is that you see people making certain kinds of choices, protesting in this way or that, and fear says, "Is my participation enough?" Instead of just holding steady, the fearful mind starts to think, "I should be doing this, I should be doing that." This is just doubt. The question is not what form of activism or passive expression of love is best, but whatever form it is, can it be full and wholehearted and rich? What limits it? And how do you best address those limitations? Because you do not need to continue to express your limitations when they no longer serve you.

In your present world, with the powerful weapons at your disposal, the illusion of separation is becoming an increasingly unwieldy limitation. Many of you are going to need to give up that limitation, to honor it for the ways that it did serve in offering learning, and to note that it no longer serves, or else you will simply destroy your world. If you do, you will go on. There will be other planes in which to express your being, but you will need to do so without Earth sunrises and butterflies. That would be a sad loss. It feels important to me that you each embrace the enormous gift of this plane of learning and be willing to deeply attend to that which threatens this plane in the most loving ways, without too much concern over the choice of activity; only that whatever comes to you be done with as much love as possible.

I would like to pass this on to Jeshua who has more to say on the subject.

Jeshua: speaking to Barbara/Aaron:  I would say first of all, beloved brother, it is a joy to behold you once again, to be able to look with the physical eyes, and to behold the radiance of the face, and to behold the radiance of the soul come forth in the ascension. Remember you the lifetime of laughter, the time of struggle, the time of revelation, the times of the songs that we sang together around the fire?

Yes. It is a great joy to come together once again in this way. The question was asked earlier what language we would use, or do use, with each other. And in truth, there is not language that is needed. It is very much as you spend time with the loved one, the mate, where you have the instant communication: one starts a sentence and the other can finish it. It is very much the thought communication. No language, no limitation of language needed, but only heart to heart, the remembrance of the divine. Great friendship, great love.

And it is not by accident that we find ourselves here once again to share love with a grouping that in truth walked with us, talked, questioned, doubted, struggled, and asked many of the same questions in that day and time, for your world comes now to a point where there is a repeating, not quite in the same way but almost, of the same circumstances, of brother against brother, of sister against sister, of ideology against ideology, and world power struggling to see which will be dominant and which will discern the true meaning of life.

So you find that you have come again a full circle to make new choice in this time and a new choice indeed you will be making. And it will not be as you understand individuality. You will not be making it just as individuated self but as the aspect come forth into the incarnation from the higher grouping of you.

For you have volunteered to be the focal point of consciousness upon this plane at this time, but you are not all that exists within your soul grouping, which is within a larger grouping of the One. And there is much of encouragement, guidance, nudging, if you will, that comes forth from what you yet would define as a higher realm. And yet it is not above you, it is within you. There is much that is happening, events happening, that seem to be unexplainable, such as an event that recently happened with your space program. And the pieces are being put back together and much of the questioning as to why this happened. And there will be a physical cause that will be ascertained and defined. And yet the physical cause is but part, part of the whole of the activity of the soul grouping that desires now to know expansion.

It is an exciting time where there are many questions that come forth. It is an exciting time of expansion because you play with ideas in your meditation, in your daily activity, when you are doing the mundane that needs to be done, and the questions arise as to, "I wonder why that happened? I wonder why certain things were said? I wonder why certain decisions were made? And where are those decisions, actions, going to take us as a collective?" It is an exciting time, and that is why you are here at this time. You volunteered, you have chosen, you said, "I want to go. I want to be the consciousness that will be in that focal point at this time," as you made choice to be here this evening. You had to make trek certain miles to be in this grouping here this evening, all of you have, and it is not by accident that you are here once again amongst friends. For truly you have known each other in many other lifetimes, and you have journeyed together many other lifetimes, and you have laughed, questioned, joked, teased, until there was the revelation that came forth out of the blue, seemingly, and yet it was from that expanded state of joy that allowed the revelation to come forth.

Never pass up an opportunity to laugh. Never pass up an opportunity to tease another one lightheartedly, and to be in a place of enlightenment as you play with another one with love in your heart. For it is joy that allows expansion. It is joy that allows revelation. And as you have seen from your world news and your media, there is much of the heaviness that is calling forth a certain balancing of enlightenment at this time. Is that not true?

You are the lighter ones. You are the ones who have known the bridging, if you will, from the heavier density of the world, and also the lighter place, the enlightenment, the place of spirit. It is very active, what you do. I give back now to my beloved friend, the one known as Aaron.

Aaron: I am Aaron. Barbara was deeply moved as Jeshua began to speak, reminding her that their connection goes deep, leading her to rest not in a memory of specific detail, but in the memory of the shared energy and love. Not only for that child, that boy Mark that she was, and Jeshua, but love within the whole self. And Judi, my dear one, I think you feel that same loving energy from me, for of course we have known one another before. And all of you can remember those times. If we were not specifically part of your circles, nevertheless, each of you had that experience of deep love, of non-separation.

This earth plane is really in some ways an experiment about the power of love. You are given a planet that is deeply grounded in love, grounded by very highly positively polarized energy which nevertheless fully respects free will, including the free will to participate as deeply as need be in the fear vibration. Is that grounding enough to support you while you shake loose the roots of fear?  It is important that you do not just drift into loving action but make a conscious choice for loving action? Only that choice effects karma.

If you are not hungry, it's very easy to share your apple. If you are literally starving, have not had a decent meal for weeks, and yet you see your brother is also starving and share your apple, that's a very different statement of love. Fear is not an enemy; fear is a teacher. Fear comes to remind you that you can choose love. So many of you on the earth at this time wish to bring that choice into a very vital expression. I think many of you are in some way co-creating the fear-based situation so that you have the opportunity to see the power of love and to make that direct choice for love.  But you doubt yourselves, doubt your ability to choose, so you keep recreating fear to test yourselves.

In so many incarnations in the past, so many beings have turned their back on that choice. People have perhaps been benefactors and given but not with the kind of noble giving that gives without concern. Then giving comes with the concern,  "Will my needs be met?" not with trust, "My needs are always met." Many beings have been rich men who have dropped crumbs, even enormous crumbs, to the poor. This is still fear.

When I see the world situation now, I think that many of you have participated in the illusion that has helped bring the world to this point of enormous confrontation because you know it's time to make a choice. Your hearts are ready to make that choice, to cease to live centered in fear. You know now that you cannot stand balanced between both. It is time to choose. And you say, "I want the choice to be clear to me. I want to experience the power of love." As our teacher so beautifully put it, to learn how to "turn the other cheek", to return love to hatred even while being aware that fear is present. You seek to learn that one does not need to enact the emotion of fear when it arises but can make space for fear and choose love. To choose love in the face of fear is the enactment of love! I would pass this back to Jeshua.

Jeshua:  Would there be further questions that one would have? What is uppermost in your mind?

Q: I think that right now I'm trying to learn how to (let my understanding) struggle in my own mind during meditation and also in having to deal with other people with more compassion and wisdom. I guess, seeing, because I think it's in the forefront of everyone's mind about how to deal compassionately with others who are aggressive, very aggressive, to respect them but at the same time be able to say, "I don't agree with this. I don't agree with what you're doing." And that's not just taking one side or the other, but the whole situation. So in the example with the world leaders involved now, that I think everyone is coming from fear, trying to hold their swords really high. And it's hard to be able to tell them there's a better path, it's hard to show them. I guess, how do we in our situations help to contribute to a feeling that they can take those swords down?

Jeshua: It is first of all, as you have discerned, to speak your truth. To be clear about what your truth is. And to visualize how you want the road in front of you to be. And to speak non-judgmentally but just, "This is where I stand with your truth." Not that others have to accept it; it is nice if they do and they meet you in a place of resonance, yes. But if they don't, it doesn't matter. It is just my truth, and you are speaking it non-judgmentally.

You and others will find courage because of what you do. They will also say, "Well this is how I see it." And they find themselves in a safe place to speak their truth. This will have impact upon the outcome of what is yet hanging in a balance. One does not run from what is happening. In other words, when I walked the face of our Mother the Holy Earth, I knew what was happening with the Roman soldiers. I knew what was happening with the various agents who were the tax collectors and so forth. I did not deny the world but I spoke my truth to the ones who would hear it. Not that I was in judgment of, but I spoke my truth of a kingdom that is beyond the world, which is truly what you are visualizing. And when I had spoken my truth, I shook the dust off of my sandals and I walked on to the next village to find others who were in a place of questioning, a place of wanting to know more. And that is symbolically what you do. It is not that you have to shake the mud, as it would be, from the Seattle location off of the sandals, but symbolically you speak your truth non-judgmentally, and if ones want to hear it, that is fine. If they don't, it doesn't matter to you. You walk on to the next opportunity to speak your truth. And you hold a clear vision of what you know can be.

There is a presence around you that is very visible to others. It is a peaceful presence. The visage, the face of you, is open. It is a face that shows to others that they can trust you, they can approach you, and you are not going to put them down, although sometimes you do find within yourself a certain judgment of others. But you're not going to trample them. And there's a presence about you that allows others to feel safe with you. That goes a great distance in healing of the world situation for there is no separation.

You would see separation of bodies, you would see separation of geographical distance and what it looks to be other countries far away. And yet in truth there is no separation because the soul grouping of which you are an aspect, as you see your individuated energy to be, is joined to other soul groupings, at what you would see another level to be. And what you do impacts others whom you may never see with the physical eyes. But they will feel your presence, they will feel your courage of speaking your truth, and it will go a great ways towards healing of the world situation.

Live your everyday life as if it would be perfect, harmonious, the way you would like to see it be. Now, the world voice may throw doubts in your face, and appearances may look different, but as you practice living each day as if your life would be exactly as you visualize it in perfection, it would come to be that way. This was something that I practiced, that I remembered with Masters with whom I studied. That even though it looked as the world situation to be most chaotic, there was divine order coming out of everything that was happening, and to believe in, to trust, to see that divine order in everything.

As you would understand the unfoldment of the flower, as it is the tiny bud, first of all. And at that moment if you have never seen the open flower you cannot imagine how it is going to look. But as you watch it, it unfolds into the most beauteous flower. It is to live each day of your life as that unfoldment of most divine, wondrous beauty, and to know that in truth, that is what is occurring. Even though others may point out to you the thistles and the barbs and the thorns, you keep your focus on the unfoldment of the beauty of the flower.

There is a most wonderful presence about you. Even if you do nothing more than go through the life with a smile on the face, you will have healed many. The friends who know you can attest to this. I pass now to Aaron.

Aaron: I am Aaron. There are just a few thoughts I'd like to add to this in response to this question. Most people want things to be simple. You do tend to believe in your limitations, and among those illusory limitations is one that says, "I need to be going in just one direction." Such linearity is an illusion of the earth plane. You're constantly everywhere, how can you be going in any direction? But at one level, of course you are, on the relative plane.

Because you are human there will be multiple motivations for any actions. When something feels wrong to you, a very clear voice in you may suggest that you must say no to that wrongness. And then there may be a little voice that says, "And is anybody watching? Will I win some approval?" And another voice that's shocked and says, "How dare I want personal ego approval out of this situation!" There may be another voice that says, "Will I be safe?" ...

It's like a river with different currents. If you are here and you want to reach a place directly across the river, and you deny the existence of currents, you'll just get in and try to swim, keeping your eye on that spot where you want to emerge. But the current pushes you downstream. You're not working with the current but against the current. The more you deny the current, the more you're pushed downstream and the harder it is to reach your goal.

If instead, as you wade into the river you note the flow of currents, take them into account, and begin your swim upstream so that as you swim across, the current will also push you down to your goal, then your efforts bring fulfillment.

In this manner, when one sees the intention to say no in a kind and skillful way to something that seems hurtful in the world, one must recognize that right alongside of the loving motivations there is some fear, some confusion, and that that's okay. That you don't have to get caught up in fixing the fear and confusion, only to focus on where you intend to go, and to acknowledge that certain currents are there and will have some effect in the final movement.

Compassion is a very strong force. It's not weak-kneed. It doesn't roll over on its back and whimper. But the voice of compassion knows how to say no without hatred, without judgment and despising of the other, but deeply understanding that the other is where he is because of his own conditioning, his own life. He was not born with an intention to bring forth hatred and murder on the earth. But that those intentions arose in him out of his own conditioning. You are not saying to the human, "You are evil," you are saying, "You may not do this. That brings harm to others." The more you can be aware of the judging voice in yourself, the fear voice in yourself, the confusion and self-doubt, the more you can invite this innate clear compassion to speak. It takes a lot of trust because most of you have been trained to pay more attention to fear's voices than love's voice. Fear's voices may be screaming and love's may be a whisper. You've got to listen hard.

When you speak with compassion in this way, it not only is a clear statement to those who would do harm that you will not stand by and watch that harm done, that it is not acceptable to you, it's also a clear statement of your love for them, that you will not let them do such harm to others and thereby to themselves.  When I say, "will not let them," of course you cannot take out a gun and shoot them for compassion's sake.

How do we say no? There first needs to be the recognition that the other, in his fear or anger, may harm you, and the willingness to accept that harm, even death. It takes a lot of courage. But this is your learning opportunity and not just a teaching opportunity. If another abuses you and fear and hatred arise, can that fear and hatred be seen for what they are and not separate you from the truth of love that is always there?

The metaphor here, coming back to our river: if you pay so much attention to the current that you completely lose track of where on the opposite shore you wanted to swim, you'll just drift downstream. You've got to have both, awareness of the intended results and of the multiple currents.. But don't fall into the trap of thinking that just because fear and its voices as hatred and judgment appear, this  does not mean the innate compassion and love have gone anywhere. You just need to remember them. And that is what so much of your incarnation is about: remembering your truth.

Try to see it from a bigger perspective. Remember that if those who would bully and kill in the world today do have their way, eventually they will also be the recipients of bullying and murder. Everybody is here learning. There's not just one bully on the playground, but everybody gets a chance to play that part. And everybody gets a chance to play the part of the clear and compassionate one. Some play their parts with more skill. It takes practice to bring forth that compassion.

I would remind you that you could not run before you learned to walk, and you could not walk before you toddled, grabbing hold of chairs and tables. The practice of compassion takes practice, literally. Don't be afraid to fall down, just get up and start again. Don't be afraid of the fear, anger, and confusion that come. Just note them, stand up and start again.

Are there other questions the group would like to bring forth?

Q: This is probably on a different line but the analogy of the river and currents remind me of this. I talk to my friends about this and many of us go through the same thing. For me, I want to slow down in my life because I feel like things just go too fast for me. And the current seems to not let me. It seems for me to slow down I end up going against the rush forward. Supposedly that's called progress, but I feel like I don't have enough space and time in my life to do my spiritual practice, to focus on people who need compassion and love because it's just a blur. And it feels like it keeps speeding up more every year. There have been times when I've created that space. But it's not happening...

Jeshua: Right. This is a time of accelerated energy. It is a time very much of the birthing and there is a pushing, if you will, of what you have decreed that will be. In other words, it is not happening to you but it is something you have agreed to and it is something you have desired to have as the birthing process. There will be peace and there will be rest after a certain cleansing, and that is not the perfect word there, but after a certain harmonizing comes to be. But right now you are discerning well that there is much energy that is in the world and much energy that seems to be opposing itself. And even in the individualized there are so many choices of what you want to do that there is not enough time in the day to go where you would go.

This is going to be coming to a more restful place in time but it is not there yet. There is an exquisite timing about this. But what you are learning to do is what a beloved brother of mine spoke of, as to pray without ceasing. In other words, to do the spiritual practice even as you are doing the daily activities. You have learned enough of the foundation work that your spiritual practices now can be done on the run, so to speak. Yes, that is what it feels like. But you can incorporate, you must incorporate the spiritual practice into the daily living. And it can be done easily by the simplicity of the deep breath.

Whenever you feel overwhelmed by the energy of the world, allow yourself to take the deep breath, to just stop, to breathe in spirit, to breath that inspiration in, to allow that place of the spiritual practice to be right in that moment. It is not that you have the so-called luxury any longer to set aside certain hours for the spiritual practice but it is very much that you are incorporating the spiritual being of yourself into the practice of the daily living. So allow yourself very often the deep breath. It will energize the body and it will energize the soul as well.

The collective consciousness right now is holding its breath, waiting to see what is going to happen. And it very much needs the deep breath and the space of the deep breath. You are feeling that because you are one of the sensitives who has lived many lifetimes during a time of great change. And you are feeling it very intensely, this holding of the breath, this feeling of a build-up of energy. And you are being called upon to remember your spiritual practices through the deep breath and through the daily living of bringing that spirituality of you to touch everything that you do in the daytime, every thought that you have, to touch it with peace. To touch it with a blessedness. To touch it with a space of love. And to love yourself enough to take the deep breath and to nurture body, mind and soul of you.

And not to forget to nurture the mate, to encourage him to take the deep breath as well and to take the time for the water as well. For as you have experienced, the water is very nurturing. So even if you do not have what you see as a great chunk of time every day, take some of that time to share the breathing with each other, the water with each other, and what we have spoken of with this one, the great smile of each other.

And do not worry. This time of birthing is very intense. It feels pressurized and it is because you are birthing that which you have desired to see on this plane once again. There is a remembrance deep within you of the lightness of this plane, of our Holy Mother the Earth, of when you danced as the light upon the firmament, and when there was nothing you had to worry about, responsibility, decisions or what, you knew just the joy of being. And there is a desire deep within you to come back to that space: the freedom of just being. And that you can do meantime by the deep breath. Deal?

I pass now to Aaron.

Aaron: I am Aaron. My sister I think you will also return through the life that grows within you. As he comes into the incarnation, when he is very new, you will find a very still center in his eyes. He does not yet know the fast pace of the world. He still rests in awareness of divinity. A wonderful practice for new parents is to bring themselves to that space where the child is.

In some lifetimes when I was a boy or girl, we played a game where children formed a long chain. The one in the center began to turn very slowly. The ones on the outer edge had to go very fast, got pulled along at a high speed. Sometimes we played it on ice. The outer ones would slide very fast. There was a still center and a fast-moving outer edge. It was not one or the other; both were true. The chain held both ends. When you feel that life is going so fast, it's simply a statement that you have lost the part of the chain that rests in the still center. To bring back balance, you need to come back to the center, through the breath as Jeshua has advised, through resting in that center of divinity with your child, through meditation and prayer. And yes, it's possible to use that still center in a negative way, an unproductive and unskillful way, to hide there and deny the activity beyond you. But you will not stay thus hidden for whatever is at the still center is at the furthest edge, and whatever is at the furthest edge is also at the still center. Your practice is to learn to be at both places at once.

You speak of the rush, but in each moment there is only this. One breath; one smile; one moment of tension or stillness, action, or thought. The sense of rushing comes in part because you try to hold on to some moments and wish others. But each is as it is, and perfect as it is. As trust of the moment grows so you cease to resist, time will seem to slow and there will seem to be more time for your many projects, much as the slowing of a movie film. It is helpful then to watch the mind that expends so much energy in past and future rather than now. Greet this mind as a confused child, smile to it, hold and reassure it, and with the breath, as Jeshua has instructed, rest in this moment. You will be amazed at how time seems to open out for you. Are there further questions? I pause.

Q: This is a question I come back to many times. I'm still trying to figure this one out. It's the relationship we have with money. I see my limitations in that relationship. I see many other people with my kinds and even shorter limitations. Maybe you could just talk about this, the two of you.

Barbara: Aaron will say something very brief and then would like to pass it to Jeshua.

(next tape)

Q: (static on tape) ... and maybe that's the entire answer. But maybe there's something more here I'm missing. And I think a lot of people <>...

Aaron: I am Aaron. I want to just speak to this very briefly, pass the microphone to Jeshua and perhaps will choose to say more when Jeshua has finished.

You are unlimited, perfect. A function of the incarnation is to learn how to express that unlimitedness and to do so by exploring the experience of limitation.

For many years Barbara studied and practiced art using different mediums. She became highly skilled in sculpting with bronze, made large and beautiful sculptures. She was not nearly so skilled at carving. She did not know too much about printmaking. But she did not choose to limit herself and say, "I am a bronze sculptor." She chose to say, "I am an artist. There are certain areas where I have developed more skill and other areas, less skill. If I tried to paint a watercolor, chances are it would come out muddy. But the only way I am going to learn to paint in watercolor is to allow the muddy paintings. If I hate the muddy paintings and self-identify with them and say, 'I am a failure,' I'll never learn to handle watercolor. If I regard the paint as an enemy that I must conquer, then I will never learn. But if I enter into it with a lightheartedness, a playfulness almost, that is willing to experiment with the medium, then the medium itself will teach me."

All of you are artists in the medium of incarnate experience. But you want the colors to be clear when you first pick up the brush so you either hold yourself into a limited medium of which you feel you have mastered at least the rudiments, or you criticize yourself when the colors come out muddy in a new medium. Your whole energy field contracts, which makes it harder to bring forth something beautiful. You hold onto the idea, "I can't do this," so of course you can't do it rather than opening to the idea, "I'm not yet skilled at this."

What would it be like if this child of yours refused to talk until he could speak in elaborate sentences? What if he refused to try to put his feet on the floor and walk before he had the confidence that he could run up and down the stairs and out the door? Each time you watch him take a step and, plop, fall down, remind yourself and give yourself  permission to do the same.

When the energy becomes too contracted around bringing forth of abundance, either creating a person, a self who is going to be the one who brings forth abundance and never non-abundance, or the one who cannot bring forth abundance, in either case you limit yourself, like playing the same scales over and over instead of playing the music, or making the same piece of sculpture over and over, instead of going on to a new media.

There is much more to be said about this. I would like to pass the microphone to Jeshua as what he will say fits best here. Then I will speak further.

Jeshua: Most wonderful, your technology, so tiny and yet so powerful! (holding tiny mic?)

I will say first of all to you that you will never find yourself without abundance. This is a promise I make unto you because I know the truth of your being. You will never find yourself without abundance. You and the mate and all of you so gathered here, you will never find yourself without means to support and nurture, nourish the body.

For I would ask of you what is the purpose of money? It is to nurture the body, to keep it in relative comfort, to feed it, to house the body. You will always have that. You have known lifetimes when you were out on the street. You have known lifetimes when you have been the poorest beggar and no one paid any attention to you at all. You were in your eyes and theirs, valueless. You have known that lifetime and you have repeated it a few times with various nuances, subtleties of differences so that you could know it well. And the question that you bring forth now comes from the vague remembrance of those lifetimes, a "What if I would find myself experiencing that once again?"

But in truth you will not because you have been there, done that, and you have completed with it. Now, the abundance, I would go onto another aspect of this, is relative, is it not? There are many in your world who would look at the surroundings of this most beautiful dwelling and they would say, "This is a king's palace!" Truly look at the carpeting, look at the furnishing, the wall tapestry, look at what you are surrounded by. You are a king in your palace. It is a most wondrous thing to ones who will be experiencing in this lifetime perhaps the non-abundance as they would define it. So you have seen, as Aaron as spoken, there are many different aspects to the experience of abundance and non-abundance.

The function of money is to be in the flow, to keep it in the flow. And it is but one form of the flow of energy of life. Money is not itself an energy. You give to it its value. You give to it your energy. And you will always have creative energy, no matter if things were to turn upside down on the morrow, you would very quickly be creative and make for yourself a new way of providing for the body and for the mate and for the new life that is coming. And for friends, you would take them in. You would find yourself in a community of friends such as you have done many times. So you will never be without abundance.

But it is a question that comes up for many because the desire to know the underlying truth of the divine creativity of self, and how you bring forth the energy to support the physicality, the body. Now, you create the body moment by moment by thought. And you also create the energy to sustain it moment by moment. And you can never be out of that flow. It is impossible because you are of the father, an extension from the one Creator; therefore you are always creating moment by moment that which you experience, that which you manifest in order to experience.

So you will always have the energy of creativity. There will always be enough of it. Sometimes you may wonder if there's going to be enough or if it's going to arrive in time, and may of you play the game with yourself that you wait until the 11th hour and then 59th minute before it comes, but it does come. And you find yourself ongoing in life. So as I have said, there are many forms of money, of energy. You have a statement made by two of my disciples when they met one at the temple door who was with the begging bowl. And they said unto him, "Silver and gold have I none, but such as I have I give unto thee." You will always have that which will be valued by another one so that there will be an exchange of energy. And that will be the revelation to you of your divine nature. That is truly the underlying nature when anyone will ask about abundance or will ask about money and the golden coins, is wanting to know the divine nature of being, the creative energy and the flow of that energy.

You will never be without it. You have already played the scenario, all of you have, of being the one sitting at the temple door with the begging bowl, and even in that lifetime you did not cease to be even though ones would pass by and oftentimes not put anything in the bowl, you did not cease to be. Here you are back again, recycled, doing things a bit differently. So you not cease to be.

But it is a good question because it brings up the fundamental underlying question of "Who am I? What am I?" And then comes the revelation that "I am that which I am: divine energy in expression." I will pass back now to my brother Aaron.

Aaron:  I am Aaron. Given that infinite abundance is truth, that all your needs truly are always being met, let us look at the illusion of the concept of lack of abundance, of creating that limitation for yourself. As Jeshua has just said, the truth is,  "I am that which I am: divine energy in expression." Why limit it? It is one way of coming to know your truth. You investigate each small box, each limitation, until you can discard it. "No, that is not all that I am." Then you explore further..

The limitation may have been expressed originally because there was some kind of shame around grasping or greed, some discomfort with the hoarding energy that one saw. You did not understand the nature of abundance and sought to understand it. You created the illusion of non-abundance whereby to use that as tool to see through the limitations you created and finally grasp the truth of abundance. This instrument has prepared pancakes for her children and their friends, made a batch as she calls it, mixed the ingredients and cooked them but with an eye on what was in her cupboards, wanting to save enough for the morrow. and then seen there were not enough pancakes for so many hungry boys. Then she brought out more eggs, more milk  and flour and prepared another batch. There was always plenty, only there was a brief idea, not enough. It led her back to the pantry, abundantly filled It also led her to reflect on why she had held back, afraid to make that double batch at once. Grasping! Fear! Most of you have done that so many times and you do not have so much left to learn about the truth of abundance, but only are locked into the pattern of manifesting non-abundance out of habit energy.

It's not so simple as that, not just a habit of fear. This habit arises out of conditions, and then is held in place by the habit of self-judgment when there is any movement of fear or greed. So there are two parts, the experience of fear and the relationship to fear. You see that movement of greed and fear, judge yourself for it, and some inner schoolteacher says, "Whoops! We have not fully understood this whole pattern. Let's create more non-abundance so we can practice with it." You start to believe in the pattern as truth, and keep replicating it, so you keep going around in circles rather than making the clear statement, "I'm done with that. This grasping that just came up, I bow to it, make peace with it, and understand that it simply arose out of old conditioning. It does not define me. I don't act it out in the world, for the most part. And I don't have to keep practicing with this particular limitation. I'm done with it." This is what I call an addiction to fear.

Limitation of any sort, of lack of abundance, of skill, of health, of love itself, is an idea. That is all it is. As soon as you let go, you step out of its grasp. When you see dirt on the hands after gardening, you wash it off, but you don't have the idea that it has irrevocably stained the skin. Even if it won't all wash off immediately, the ever-clear skin is there. The stain will just need a while to go. Why relate to the small dirt patches of human experience as proof of your imperfection?

This is one of the 2 questions that Barbara wished to bring forth, and I would speak to it a bit further. This is the whole question of limitations, how the limitation serves as a useful learning tool up to a point, but then you become attached to your limitations. It's like the old life-jacket metaphor that some of you have heard from me. You put on the lifejacket because you don't know how to swim. When you go off and swim with your friends it supports you, it's useful. But 10 years later after you've learned to swim and the lifejacket is a mildewed, waterlogged, moldering mess that doesn't float at all, you still strap it on because you think you need it. It was skillful; it served a purpose and supported you. Now it drowns you but old mind still clings to it.

Limitations are part of the tool you use in this incarnation. They are not real. They are assumed identities that you choose to wear for a short while until they are no longer useful to you. But by then they become such habits that you're not ready to let them go.

All of your concepts of limitation - unable fully to express compassion, unable fully to express abundance, unable to bring forth your body wholeness - these have never been bad, they were teachers. There is a teaching in the Buddhist tradition: once you reach the other shore you let go of the raft. You don't pick it up and carry it on your back. There is no need to carry your limitations on your back. Use them, respect them, express gratitude for what they have taught you, and let them go. What prevents you from expressing this wholeness, from knowing this universe of abundance, knowing the wholeness of your bodies and your minds, knowing your infinite capacity for love?

I would pass this to Jeshua.

Jeshua:  I would speak to the one who has a resemblance to the celebrity known as your Robin Williams. There is a talent, an ability to bring forth much of enlightenment, laughter, and to be as a mirror for other ones, that this celebrity brings forth. And there is also a talent within you that does the same thing. It brings forth from others a certain feeling of looking at themselves in a good way. They look at you and your life journey and they see what you have done, what you have chosen, and they see what experiences have come to your door. And they see you being OK with what comes to be. It gives to them hope that perhaps they could be as easy with life.

Now, you do not always feel that you are easy with life or that life is easy with you. But what they see is you being OK with it so that you can give up the employment and hop in the car and say, "What a blessing it is that I have the freedom now to go and experience that which I would want to experience." And you are as the teacher for other ones because they see you as the human experiencing, and yet landing on your feet, so to speak, with everything that comes your way. You are very much the actor and yet the one who sometimes questions, but what ones see in your journey is encouragement. Courage. And also the understanding that "I make choices in my life to be in a place of holiness, a place that sees the best in every situation. And if someone is going to hand me the lemon, I'm going to make lemonade from it."

In other words, beloved one, I give you to you my respect. Would you have a question this evening?

Q: (hard to hear) It's amazing being with this group...A lot of the questions that I would have <have been asked, such as> the money, the feeling of being rushed, because I know when I was employed it was like 100 mph non-stop, no time or anything. And now these last 3 months have been a real slowing down process. It's a blessing. Actually I have to bow down to my boss who decided to pick me to be riffed, it's like a real blessing.

The only thing is I have ideas of doing something, one of the things I would like to do is, I work with prisoners, limitation. I have a real strong desire to really somehow do more of that. (J: You will.) I'm just kind of waiting for opportunities to open up <>.

Jeshua: And that will be. Right now it is a time of nurturing self and feeding self so that you have more to give to other ones, a bit of a time of the intake so that there is later on something to give out to others. But yes, you will be doing that which you have envisioned and you have done. You will continue to do that and you will see all men, women as brother/sister, you will see the Christ in them, or the holy one in them.  And by your seeing that, you allow them opportunity to see value in themselves. It is most wonderful and healing what you do. So I give unto you my thanks. Again, the most wonderful smile.

It is an evening of smiles, is it not?

Most beautiful, radiant one over there, again the smile. How are you in this evening? Would you have a question?

Q: (hard to hear): I've been thinking on several things. The one thing that comes more strongly to my mind right now, I've been struggling a little bit with this thing of organized religion. I don't seem to have so much difficulty being at peace with other people distant from me, practicing their faiths and ever aspiring toward my own. I don't seem to feel a lot of struggle with that so much. But right now I've been coming across some different interesting emotions to do with my partner who was raised in a very sort of an ethnic Catholic family and who is very open to sort of a universal approach to life - I guess in order to be dialoguing with me along the way he'd have to have some peace in that area. But I seem to struggle with his or what I perceive to be his attachments to the organized faith that he was raised with. I struggle with that so much. And I'm not able to keep that same kind of peace and clarity. And I get frustrated with that sometimes.

For example, what would he have his children listen to? Or what would he teach his children or not teach his children? For example, if they would go to a regular Sunday service... It's hard for me to sit in a service like and hear something taught which is so, I disagree with. Then I get frustrated with myself for being so frustrated. Something about that. I don't know exactly what my question is...

Jeshua: As you have discerned, it is not by accident that you have come together with this one in order to bring up these issues and to bring to a place where, you are fast approaching this place, of allowance and mellowness with it. It is not that the partner pushes it in your face and says that it has to be this way, you are dealing more with the what-if's. I will say unto you that when the time comes for the what-if's, you will see them as blessings, for the children will have a varied experience. They will have opportunity to choose for themselves because they will be what you called exposed to different belief systems and they will be stronger in their own beliefs because they will have a variety to look at. So you will not need to worry; you will not need to feel heavy responsibility. And it will free you of any judgment that at this point the what-if's might suggest. You are doing very well with this. You are struggling but you are laughing at the same time. And truly what you are dealing with are the what-if's, and you don't have to cross the bridge before you get to it.

You are one who will give and has given much of a wealth of variety of experience and beliefs to friends and to the partner and to anyone who comes in your presence. It is because you have been the seeker yourself and you allow others to walk out of their boxes, at least a little bit. Sometimes once they have had the courage to walk out of the box a bit, they feel the freedom of it and then they want to know what is in the larger box. And is this larger box contained within a larger box? Et cetera. So there is an expansion that goes on. You are indeed a blessing to many. Thank you.

I will pass back now to Aaron.

Aaron: I think it would be helpful to you, M, to look at the ways you divide your experience into good and bad, right or wrong. The choices to be made here will not result in harm, but, as Jeshua has pointed out, in learning.  Can you relax enough to remember there are different filters that each carries, which shape their experience of truth. As you and G become able each to share your own experience without fear, and to hear one another, also the children will hear. Wisdom will deepen for all of you, and compassion as well. What is the experience of attachment to views and how does it differ from the willingness to speak one's own truth. They are very different qualities, the first spurred by fear and the latter brought forth by love. .

Are there other questions? Those who have not spoken?

Q:  My question is like many others. I am looking for the ways to live my life in a more compassionate and open way, to be able to be present with suffering and be a container for that, all skillfully. I am looking to enact love. A part of that is my upcoming marriage and the way that seems to be an expansion of love, very amazing and blessed. But that is the back side of the other work that I do. And I am looking to balance those things skillfully. Is that a question?

Aaron: I am Aaron. My sister, I cannot help but smile as you speak because I know you are such a deeply compassionate person who gives so much in her life toward the service of others. And who works so skillfully with her own moments of fear and negativity.

There is a very natural movement in you, S, as in many of you, to aspire to perfection. I've just said that you are unlimited so on a certain ideal level, the expression of that innate perfection is possible. But you are not incarnate only to express your innate perfection but also to explore your relationship with those moods of mind and movements of body that seem to block the expression of innate perfection. That is, the greed, the fear, the anger, the judgment. You are not incarnate to defeat those so-called negative moods of mind so much as to understand them and bring compassion to them so that you render them powerless. When they are no longer given energy, they'll die out on their own.

So often for you the movement is like that fountain in the airport that you stood by this morning. When the jets stopped spraying, the water was still. If somebody put a hand in, it would ripple. And because the water was just to the very top, it ran over the sides. Seeing the water ripple, if you put your hands in to try and stop the ripples, you only make more ripples. The more you fight against the so-called negative tendencies of mind, the more you energize them, and the more you push yourself back into that cycle of the belief of limitation.

For you, S, I think it's mostly a matter of reminding yourself when fear, anger, or any other heavier emotion arises - just, "here it is and it's okay. I do not have to be at war with the emotion". You're at war with the self because the emotion has arisen. Allow the arising of such emotion to remind you to come back to the open heart, which is so available in you. Let your practice be, each time such negativity arises, literally to bow to it. After awhile you can let go of that outer form and do an inward bow, a reminder: My teacher. My fear, my teacher. My anger, my teacher. My guilt, my teacher. Guilt is a big one for you. My shame, my teacher. Practice until you cease to shake inside when these arise. Don't try to stop them, but just open your heart and remember your innate perfection. I would pass this to Jeshua.

Jeshua: I would say, beloved woman, only one thing to you, but take it deeply within the consciousness: You deserve only happiness. Long enough you have suffered the world. Long enough you have taken upon yourself the cloak of all of the world's problems and tried to solve them. Long enough you have felt that if they were not solved, it was your fault. And yet you have not given others their equal power to choose for themselves that which you would see them choosing. You have thought you had heavy responsibility to make everything right. I would say unto you but one thing: you deserve only happiness and joy. It is your divine birthright, for you are joy come forth incarnate. So you may choose that and you may live from that point now on, blessed one.

I would ask now if Barbara has a question.

Barbara: I do. I'm not sure how to phrase it. We talked about this at dinner... I've been looking at the value of my deafness, looking at the very real equanimity that's there about it, that it is okay, there's no more hatred of it. I value it. There is peace. The deepest aspiration is "Thy will be done", in terms of whatever will serve people best.

And yet the pain that the deafness brought is still there and is real, the sense of loss. I see a shift in my energy so that when I envision the possibility of hearing, I also see a grasping energy that comes up, and I see that I'm afraid. I don't know how to invite the joy of hearing in an openhearted way without getting into that fear. It's as if the equanimity is genuine but it also..., okay, I'm answering myself as I talk. I see I pushed away the pain. The equanimity is real; I need to let the pain come in more fully and resolve it more fully. I recognize that. There's just some confusion here and I don't even know if I can state it more clearly than that. I would simply like to know, Jeshua, if you have any thoughts about this.

Jeshua: That which you have termed pain about it is in truth excitement. It is okay to grasp that excitement. It is okay to look through the window and to open the door, even, and walk through that door into the place of joy. You have come to a place of equanimity, a place that says "Thy will be done", and it has been. But you have also come to a place of recognizing your own divinity and power of choice. And it is important now that you be example for others in exercising divine choice of druthers, or what I would rather have. For all, as you have heard Aaron say so many times, is available to you. There is no limitation. Therefore you are free to choose that which you will have in the rest of the journey. What only comes up for you is excitement and the possibility that this could be. And it has been because of habitual understanding, judged to be a bit grasping or self-willed. It is okay to be self-willed in the revelation of the divine power of choice. I would say unto you, beloved woman, go for it!

And now I pass back to either Barbara or Aaron.

Barbara: Let me just ask this question. okay, I see on the ultimate level there is no self or other. Wishing for that for myself is not selfish because it is shared with others. So it's basically the same energy that invites it for the self with a willingness to share it out for others, and it's simply the mind's distortion that's saying, "No, no, that's greedy."

Jeshua: You have discerned well, yes.

Barbara: Thank you. It's after 10, maybe it's time to stop. Let's just sit for a few minutes and share this circle of energy.

Aaron: I am Aaron. Dear ones, it is in such circles of sharing where you can begin to look deeply and acknowledge the truth of who you are, yourselves and as mirrored in your dear comrades. It is in such circles that you may begin to break through the illusion of any wrongness, and know the divine beauty of yourselves. My greatest wish for each of you is that you may truly come to trust in the truth of that beauty and find the joyful courage and willingness to express that perfection into the world. Into a world that needs that radiance now and asks for it from you. May your hearts sing. May the sun shine upon you. May you be happy and have peace.

I thank you for sharing yourselves so deeply with us tonight. Your deep searching brings me much joy, much gratitude, for this opportunity to serve by offering my own energy to you.

Jeshua:  I also thank you for your time, for your love, for your energy and your willingness to be here in the sharing of the one heart. Go now in peace. Go now in joy. Go now in the communion of the spirit of the One and know that always, the ones you have called Aaron and Jeshua walk with you. So be it.