Aaron and Jeshua, Seattle - November 11, 2004

Aaron: My blessings and love to you all. I am Aaron. I greet you from the place of infinite love and speak from the loving heart within me to that of love within you.

We have been talking a lot recently of the intersecting planes of consciousness. Each of you carries the mundane level of consciousness, and each of you carries the highest, both Christ consciousness and non-dual consciousness.

As you move into a higher consciousness, the heavier levels of consciousness do not depart, but you cease to identify with them as self, and thus you cease to be reactive to them. The entire earth is moving into this shift into higher consciousness, a very gradual process. To me the highest value of this in the earth is that it is not merely done on the astral or causal levels. It's easy to maintain that high consciousness on that causal level. It is much more difficult to maintain it on the etheric level, the level on which you reside as heavy density beings with the heavy physical, mental, and emotional bodies.

It is as if you saw a fire burning across a chasm. Here you stand with a hose and abundant water, but from where you stand on this side of the chasm, you cannot put the fire out because there's no way to reach that physical fire across the chasm with this water. In order to put the fire out, you need to go where the fire is.

You have all volunteered, you're all volunteer firemen and firewomen, come here into this heavy density earth to put out the fire of fear through the practice of love, to put out the fires of hatred, greed, anger, and all of the heavy emotions, not by getting rid of but by holding them in the vast spaciousness of love.

It is only if you stand where the fire is that you can transform the fire. What makes you so good at this is that the heavier density energies are familiar to you and are part of your daily life. We of spirit can work to support that transformation, but we are not where the fire is. We can support you energetically, but I do not have a heavy-density physical or emotional body, so I cannot transmute the physical as you can. Yes, I was physical, as was Jeshua, and we each did this work in our various lifetimes.

You think of us as great ascended masters, but my dear ones, all of you are ascended masters. You don't realize it yet, just as at some times we did not realize who and what we were. In the process of realization, you bring forth the energy that truly transmutes the heavy-density experience and literally brings the earth into a higher vibration.

You might say, "So what?" This higher vibration is the vibration of love. I will put it to you simply. Would you rather live in a climate of fear and hatred or in a climate of lovingkindness and compassion?

What you do here on earth will transmit itself out into the entire universe. Everything interrelates to everything else. So each time that you choose love, even though there is fear and strong emotion present in you, or strong physical pain present in you, each time you choose love you are making a choice that transmits itself out into the entire universe.

It's a little bit like dropping one drop of dye into a cup of water. That cup of water is stained a bit pink, green or blue. Then you pour that cup into a larger container. It is a less intense color but still the color permeates all of the water. And then pour it into a larger container. Certainly it seems very pale, but if you keep adding drops of that dye, eventually the vividness of the color will come through. Each time you practice love, you reinforce the vividness of love so that it does begin to permeate the entire universe, thereby literally changing the vibrational frequency not only of earth but of the whole universe.

That of negative polarity that holds itself apart is eventually pulled into the light because the light becomes so intense. We always abide by free will. Negativity may hold itself back for as long as it wishes, but when a light is vibrant it becomes harder to ignore it. It mirrors the positive within the heart of the negative. In this way we also transmute negative polarity, inviting it to rediscover its own positive polarity.

It is a joy to be here and speak to you of these things. I hope that tonight we can investigate together some of the ways that you may work with the real everyday catalysts of your life to transmute and bring forth light within the smaller self you call yourself, and the greater self of your world, until you come to realize the infinite radiance that's always been there within the self and within all that is. Then you know that you are a part of that All That Is, making that choice to transmit your radiance rather than your shadow. That is the choice.

It is always a great joy to share the platform with my beloved friend, brother, teacher, Jeshua. With much joy I offer him the microphone.

Jeshua: Thank you, beloved brother Aaron, and thank you to all of you who have chosen to come out on an evening to be together this way.

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. And it is in great joy that I come to abide with you this evening in your timing as you have chosen once again to call me forth.

Great joy to behold the radiance of all of you and to behold the radiance and love of the four-footed one, [Doron's cat] the one who walks on the 4 feet and gives forth the unconditional love. Many of you have expressed as the four-footed one in what you would see to be other incarnations, for truly the incarnation does not have to be as human form for love to be expressed. Mankind/Womankind often think the human form is the highest, and in the arrogance of the human there is the thought that only the human intelligence is the highest that there can be.

But I say unto you, look upon the four-footed one now, receptive to what is going on, before the rest of you knew there was something happening outside the window. The four-footed one is most in touch with what is going on around and even within the minds and hearts of you. The four-footed ones do not have to be most active; they abide in a space of love, in a space that knows allness, knows how to get what they need, knows how to get the affection, the attention. Look at how that one asks most simply to be petted, to be stroked, to be loved. It does not have to have words or even sounds, but makes the intention clear. And all of you have done that in other lifetimes. You have been the small four-footed one, you have been the large four-footed one, you have been other forms of life incarnate as well.

I have said to you many times that what you do in a lifetime is no mere thing, for as you come and you bring your consciousness, your intelligence, your light, to this plane, you offer to this reality an opportunity to come up higher in the remembrance of the divinity of you, the divinity of all, such as the four-footed pet who comes and will live a lifespan perhaps short as you measure a lifespan, and yet will pack in what you see to be a quality of love, of intelligence, bringing the light and the love of the Father to this plane.

What you do is no mere thing. You think as you focus upon your own life that you have certain goals, objectives that you want to achieve, and that is important. But what you do is even more important than what you see your individual goals to be, for you add to the collective consciousness. You add to the enlightenment of all of humankind, all of the incarnate beings, as the four-footed one does, most quietly. Look how attentive this four-footed one is right now; there is intelligence, there is receptivity, there is a welcoming, there is a knowing. Very much in tune with all that is going on. It is in truth the Christ energy.

In this evening, we will speak of the various levels of consciousness and the enlightenment that you are bringing to this plane as you remember who you are, as you remember your divinity, as you work through the various methodologies and ways of remembering, for there are many wonderful ways to remember and to come Home once again. And we will also invite your questions, because the questions are most wonderful ways of getting at the kernel, the inside part, of what is truly the answer you are looking for. So as you start with what seems to be the outer, in other words, the question, it will lead you to the inner.

So I would ask now, who will have the first question? (To Doron) You have a question, yes?

Doron: No, I don't, I mean... 
Jeshua: Yes, you do. 
Doron: I mean, I asked before. 
Jeshua: Well, you can ask another. 
Doron: Ask another. I want to ask another but I want to think about it. 
Jeshua: OK, we have what is called the open mic.

Q: Well, Jeshua, since no one has taken the opportunity at this moment, I bear you greetings. 
Jeshua: Greetings to you, beloved one. 
Q: This is rather fun, for a little change, to be here speaking with you in a different locale. 
Jeshua: Yes. 
Q: But then of course I speak with you many times. 
Jeshua: All the time, yes. I hear you.

Q: I am very detached from all these things that are going on here, in this election, although I'm aware of it. Our past election that we went through, experienced, all that sort of thing. I have just recently come upon a phrase regarding the "spiritual winter." This came through Kryon. And I'm asking myself, perhaps what in a linear time frame, what would be the extent of a spiritual winter. He uses the number, year, 2008. And I've always felt that there was going to be a lot of chaos and turbulence on this planet, at least for another 4 years or so.

So the idea of a spiritual winter for me was a time of going in and becoming introspective, because I was raised as a child in the snow country. So I'm wondering what your perspective is on a spiritual winter for perhaps 4 or 5 years.

Jeshua: Yes. In truth, as you look at a longer view, let us go back even 2000 years. You have come through...

Q: We've come through a big spiritual winter!

Jeshua: ... yes, a very long spiritual winter: what you have called the Dark Ages. And then you have had a slight taste, as is often true, when spring begins to come perhaps in your February, a small taste of spring, and you had the Renaissance when there was a small taste of possibility. And then there was a bit of the closing down as there was the Industrial Age, and as you have now moved through the 20th century, where there was much of the focus on invention and technology.

Now you are moving, as you have said, through the spiritual winter into a place where the springtime is about to blossom. There is much of intuition that is coming forth from within. Ones are wanting to see the blossoming, and yet feeling that there is still, as the seed feels, the encasement around your feelings, for example, with your elections and of your leaders and of the maneuverings that have been going on. You have been feeling the encasement and yet you have been feeling a great energy that is swelling from the grass roots; even from what you would call—and this is not my terminology—but what you would call both sides, because I do not see separation. But from what you would call both sides, there is a swelling of energy of wanting to clean house, to open the doors and the windows and to have the spring cleaning. And that is what you are referring to in your next four years.

It is not by accident that the one who was chosen in the election was chosen. It was all for the purpose of leading to the spring cleaning.

Q: I think we're going to have a humungous spring cleaning, too!

Jeshua: There are going to be many carpets lifted and swept, and some of the dust that is under there will come to light. There will be much of that.

But you have discerned well that there is a feeling within the collective consciousness that something is about to happen. And it is the shift that my beloved brother, the one known as Aaron, has just spoken of. The shift of moving into higher consciousness, where you can stay in the higher consciousness longer.

Now, there are times when ones such as you move into a place of the meditation, the silence, the prayer, whatever you want to call it, and you see from a different perspective. You can see with holy vision. And it feels good to be in a wider perspective. And then the world calls to you and you come back to doing whatever needs to be done.

You are moving into a shift, into a higher perspective where you will stay longer. And as this grows, because it will grow upon itself, you will feel more and more at ease in the higher perspective. And it will be easier to stay there. This is what you are discerning.

Q: Yes, I feel I've made some definite shift here recently. But even back a few months, I think last October, which is over a year ago, inside I had personally a feeling that everything is going to be much brighter, much more wonderful, much more positive. And I see that once I gave up on the idea of being anxious about surviving, that things have blossomed for me personally, too, and I can get my needs met. I'm just wondering if, sometimes I know I've been ahead of the curve on certain ideas, and this has been my experience.

Jeshua: This is true.

Q: I refuse to get upset about anything any more.

Jeshua: You have moved from the place of the doer to the place of the beholder or the allower, yes. Very good.

Q: Alright; well, it will be an interesting next few years. I shall be the silent witness.

Jeshua: Not so silent, probably!

Q: Well, that's true! I couldn't go very far in life without stating something...

Jeshua: I will pass this now to my beloved brother Aaron for his further comment.

Aaron: I am Aaron. I'm chuckling a bit as I watch Barbara pin on these microphones. The attempt precisely demonstrates the difficulty of the human experience, to be in the trance state, resting in a higher consciousness and yet needing to do the mundane world chore of working a small clip!

Winter can be seen from a mundane perspective as a time of stagnation. But from a higher perspective winter is seen as simply the period of preparation for the next burst of energy, the next expression of light.

The stagnant aspect of winter reveals itself through fear. When there is fear and self-identity with that fear, there is contraction. Everything literally freezes into winter. Nothing is nurtured. Nothing grows.

You speak of fear and becoming the silent witness. Fear is not the issue, but the relationship to fear. When one becomes conscious of fear, that which is aware of fear is not afraid. You already are shifting into the higher consciousness that is able to see the human responding in ways that are certainly not inappropriate to the human, as contractive, fearful, or uncertain, and you are able to smile; awareness is able to smile. This is what breaks the grip of fear, the grip of that icy, stagnant winter, and shifts you into that dormant stage of winter so full of possibility, so full of readiness to express as soon as the sun shines a bit brighter. You all go through these seasons personally and culturally, as a nation and as a world.

Jeshua said it quite clearly, that this is the shifting of the season where the roots receiving nutriment are invisible to you and the buds are still closed tight, but everything is ready to burst out as soon as you and you and you and you allow it. It is your choice that brings forth spring, brings forth the break of this dormant period into the fullest expression of light.

We would hear your further questions. I pause.

Q: Aaron spoke of transmuting fear through living a life of love. Is this the kernel of truth that the early church fathers twisted into the teaching that only Jeshua takes away the sins of the world when really it is the Christ of each of us that does this?

Aaron: I thank you, Q, I believe I understand your question. On the Christ level within each of you, there is no blemish, there is no sin. You are here to explore from the heavy density experience, learning how to bring compassion to that heavy density experience. On the highest planes, there is nothing but love. There is nothing to shake you into the contracted state wherein touch with love is lost. So you have come here willingly to explore, experiencing the catalyst that contracts the physical and mental bodies, contracts the energy, and then learning how not to bring self-identification to all this experience but to stay connected to the love known within as the Christ.

So on the mundane level, we would say yes, that it is the Christ within each of you that redeems you from the sins, the shadow side experienced by the mundane expression of each of your energies. On the ultimate level, there's never been anything to redeem. You must rest in both levels of consciousness at the same time, understanding that on one level you work in a linear way to move past the whole image of lack of wholeness, of wrongness and distortion, and past the sometimes terrible expressions of fear.

But if you get lost in that doing, it simply enhances the ego, builds up more self. So you also have to stay in touch with that Ever-Perfect Christ level of the self, and of all selves. But you cannot simply rest there, you've already been there. You came here because you wanted to enhance compassion, to build more power of unconditional love as expressed out in the face of negativity. So you hold this balance: the mundane human and the Christ.

Yes, I would say that this was the distortion of those early Church fathers, who through their own fear ceased to recognize the inner Christ, and thus fixated on their one known human expression.

Does this answer your question, Q? I would like to pass this to Jeshua but I would also like to hear from you first because your question was not completely clear to me.

Q: That was fine. That was good.

Aaron: I would pass this to Jeshua.

Q: I was mainly wondering how we got that teaching of Jeshua taking away the sins of the world. There must be some truth to that, that they took off from, how it got changed.

Jeshua: Yes. First of all, beloved one, when what is known now as Christianity as a religious/philosophical grouping of thought came to be, ones were sincere of heart and took the teachings, my teachings, in the simple forms to heart. But as time went on, they found they had to put them into a certain order or form. These came, then, in some of what you have recorded now and saved as the letters of Paul. There were other letters that were more to the point than Paul's letters, because Paul's letters had more to do with settling some of the differences of the various churches, or the groups; they were not known as churches then. But there are other of the writings that had more to do with preserving my teachings of the Gospels.

As time evolved, it was felt to be necessary to have structure and a bit of organization to preserve these teachings against what was seen to be a threat from other, I will call them political groupings, other groups. And in the beginning, it was thought to come from a place of sincerity, to keep the teachings, as they understood them to be, pure.

Now, there are writings in your holy scriptures that say, "I am the Way." And by that I meant that I as the Christ am the Way. But that wasn't written, and it wasn't explained, so as time went on, the interpretations changed. And then it became a way for ones to have power over what they saw to be the ordinary person. You had the learned ones who could write and they felt that they had more temporal power, worldly power, because they could write. And they could read. And they knew how to use the golden coins. They had more power over the ones who were the shepherds and the ones who were the farmers, etc.

So there came to be an evolution of a hierarchy where the ones of the farmers and the peasants, if you want to call them that, and the shepherds, etc., would pay money to the hierarchy to pray for them, to intercede for them. And from that came the thinking, or the doctrine, that I, one Jeshua ben Joseph, was the Christ and the only Christ, the Son of God. And that I could take away their sins, and they didn't know what their sins were, but they had been told that they were sinful creatures. Therefore, if they paid a few of the golden coins, then there would be ones who would intercede on their behalf and see that these sins were taken away so that they wouldn't have to spend all of the afterlife repaying whatever they didn't know that they had done.

That is how the doctrine came to be in place, and then to be re-established and to be kept in place, over and over, even to this point in time. It was an evolution. And then, of course, once it was set into place, it was not something that ones wanted to give up because after all, if everyone knew that they were the Christ and they did not need someone else to pray for them, or to intercede for them, then why should they pay someone, etc.? So it has been kept in place for a good, what, 2000 years. Good question.

Q: Good answer. 
Jeshua: Thank you. You will give me an A on my report card? 
Q: Yes.

Jeshua: (To first Q) You have another question? 
Q: Yes. The term, "Christ," the Greek is Christos. 
Jeshua: Right. 
Q: I'm wondering what is the foundation or the beginnings, what is the meaning of that particular group of letters? I don't know that it's in the Jewish, in the Kabala, or they don't refer to it. 
Jeshua: Right. Well, I would ask of you: we have a grouping here of scholars. Any of you know the derivation of the word, "Christos"? 

Jeshua: It means, in truth, "the anointed one," the one of God. It means, "of God." As I have said to you many times, you are the extension of the Father. You have come to a most wonderful place in your understanding where your religious/philosophical teachings now say, many of them say, that you are the Child of God, you are the Child of the Father. And yet that still speaks of separation. So I have gently led you to the place of understanding that you are the extension of the Father. You are the Father in expression in this form. You are Life, here, now. You are consciousness, here, now. You are the Father in extension.

Q: So I recognize that because you came into body when you did and where you did, "Abba" in Hebrew is Father (Jeshua: Yes), that's how you referred to Him. The Pleiadeans talk about the Prime Creator. (Jeshua: Right) And now in Science of Mind it's the thing to talk about All That Is. (Jeshua: Right) So, forgetting about gender, it's just a question of us understanding, like the nucleus and the cells that keep dividing and dividing, so that's who we are, huh? That's who we are.

Jeshua: Yes. As a stream of life, yes. 
Q: Stream of consciousness, yes. 
Jeshua: Exactly. I used the term "Abba" as meaning Father in that day and time to bring it closer to ones' understanding of love, of paternal love, of family, rather than a God far away in the mountains, as had been thought up to that point. I brought it more personal as Father, which would be seen to be within the family, closer. And yet that was a concept still. It was not the Truth with a capital T, but it was bringing the concept of God, the Father, Mother, All That Is, Prime Creator, down from the mountaintop into the family dwelling to the place where there could be a close relationship.

Q: I have a question for both you and Aaron. Although I do have a little joke which is, when people talk about God the Father, I think, well what happened to the mother? Oh right, just like in all the other movies, she died in the last episode and this is the sequel!

But actually, the question I had is about... We are talking about living in higher consciousness and finding ways to bring our love into the world and make it more concentrated, more, like Aaron was saying, to vivify it, the intensity of love in the world. I have recently, I'm just going to say this for myself, in the last few months I have gotten to this, well, starting with the last few months have gotten to this point of being exhausted emotionally, physically, mentally and spiritually. Just feeling kind of comatose.

What I notice about that is when I'm driving around in traffic, I don't have a tenth of the patience that I used to have. And to me that is such a marker. Once I get in the car behind a wheel, what I say to other cars and to the people in the cars. And so I'm thinking to myself, there are lots of other people out in the world right now like this. They are so tired, they are so stressed out. How else can they relate to the world? Because their coffers, their spiritual coffers, their physical reserves, their iron level, whatever it is, is really low. You know, we eat bad food, you know, we run here and there. And I think, this is what I'm identifying with.

I no longer feel burdened by this. I had something that happened a few weeks ago that was very, very heavy, very emotional. And I was able to relate to other people who had this very heavy thing happen to them. And I did feel that grief. But I don't feel burdened by it. Is that identifying? Am I identifying with these people in a positive way, or am I... 

Is what I'm doing useful? I mean, not to say useful, but... should I be focusing more on actively doing, helping? I know I need to take care of myself and put my own house in order in order to give to others. I know that and I plan on doing that. It's a priority starting this weekend.

But I'm going back to the Midwest next week. Looking at the election results, there's a lot of contraction there, as Aaron would say, lots of contraction and fear, I think. I also remember Barbara telling about going to the south to ride the freedom buses and realizing she was doing some confrontation and causing... she was going to tell them her way. This was a long time ago. And I don't know how to go into that situation and let go of my "I'm right and you're stupid," or "I'm right and you're full of fear."

I know that somehow my connecting with how exhausted other people are has something to do with how I can be real with people and not put myself in a position of, "I've got the answers." But I don't know how to do it. I don't know how that connects. Does that make sense?

Jeshua: It does. You have been there. You know how it feels to be in their sandals. You know how tired, how exhausted other ones can feel and do feel. You also know how it feels to step back, as you have done. It is a bit of detachment, which is necessary, to step back and to be the beholder. You have done that. And yet at the same time, you have felt some compassion and some of the feeling of resonance with what others are going through.

I will give you a short answer and then I will turn it over to my brother Aaron. But I will say to you that after this weekend (retreat) you will have a different perspective than you do this evening. And when you go back to the Midwest this next week, you will be in a different place than you are right now.

Q: With a bit more sleep. 
Jeshua: With a bit more sleep, yes. I will turn this over to my beloved Aaron.

Aaron: I am Aaron. I want to step backward in the question and then gradually bring it forward. We spoke about the Christ, Christos. First there is the I Am, which is neither masculine nor feminine. Superimposed on that I Am are the somewhat heavier density experiences of masculine and feminine, superimposed on the higher self that holds both masculine and feminine and does not self-identify with either.

The father is in the mother. The mother gives birth to both mother and father. The mother is in the father. Without the father, the mother cannot be.

You are here in this great improvisation, sometimes knowing the I Am, sometimes exploring the Father expression or being or the Mother expression, learning how to draw into the self the Father or the Mother energy, and learning how to express that energy out of the self.

In the similar but not identical way, fear and love intermingle. Love is always present, and fear comes and goes. Spaciousness is always present but contraction comes and goes. Right there with fear we can find love. Right there within contraction is spaciousness. You sometimes know the great I Am of love, and sometimes slip into the smaller expressions. 

When there is conflict or pull between any two mutually contributory expressions, we close off to one or the other. We start to think of one as better than the other rather than recognizing that they are interdependent links, each fully in support of the other.

Buddhist cosmology has a wonderful image. They call it one figure the "hungry ghost." This is a being with a huge bloated body and a tiny mouth and throat. It constantly needs, grasps, yearns for, and it cannot be nourished. It is constantly exhausted.

The hungry ghost comes into actuality because the thought of the self as hungry ghost first exists. The thought of fear that leads to the thought of need, leads into the experiment with neediness and deprivation and the hungry ghost experience. We cannot say the experience does not exist, each of you has had your hungry ghost days and months and years.

And yet, you must step back and realize this is just part of the drama, part of the improvisation. Through exploring the experience of the hungry ghost, you eventually are ready to say, "That's enough. I step back into the fullness of my being as the I AM, and I release any neediness for anything, because the I AM is complete unto itself." What could be lacking? Where there is no lack and no perception of lack, there's no fear. You open into that spaciousness, that fearlessness, and you hold it for some time. But then because you are here within this heavy density experience, the body and the mind slip back into that tight space. The body swells and the throat and mouth shrink, and again there is exhaustion and fear.

I know there is suffering through this experience, but there is also learning. I want to make it clear, to remind you, that you do not need to suffer in order to learn. You suffer because you set up situations for suffering because you mistakenly believe that without suffering there will be no learning. This is part of the belief system of the magical and mythic levels of consciousness. It is part of the belief system that evolved for the Christians when the teachings were taken over by those who were fearful, as it evolved for those of any other religion.

Every religion has its, let us call them fundamentalists, those who are caught in beliefs including the belief of an unclean self that must be purified. It's easy to perpetuate those beliefs because you do have negative thoughts. You do get into the traffic jam. The angry words and thoughts emerge. And then you think, "What's wrong with me? No matter how much I practice lovingkindness in my meditation, here in the traffic jam I'm cursing at somebody."

Then the mythic level of consciousness, the consciousness based in beliefs of good and evil, says, "Scrub that clean! Redeem yourself! Purify!" Basically, get a scouring cloth and cleanser and scrub until it bleeds. At that point you are cut off from the light, cut off from love, through the contraction of fear. And there is then the experience of exhaustion.

As you recognize what you are doing and if you practice lovingkindness, you find a spaciousness that can hold this whole container of fear. My sister, just in the way you hold your child when he cries and is afraid or uncomfortable, you don't shake him to get him to stop crying, you hug him. You create a loving space around him. When you thusly create that loving space around the self, the constricted throat opens. The swollen body shrinks. The chakras become open and receptive of light and energy. And suddenly you begin to connect again to the I Am. 

I think the Father and the Mother image must be understood as part of the human need to personify the I Am to create something with which the human can better identify, because the I Am is the heart of non-dual consciousness. But most of you as humans spend more of your time in a much lower level of consciousness, only rarely touching that non-dual consciousness. For the more mundane-based and heavier levels of consciousness, there is the need to personify the I Am as Father, as Mother, and even in the way that Jesus seemed to be the only Christ. It is so hard to recognize that perfection in the self because you so clearly see the imperfection. So you create the image of that perfection as something out there, unattainable by the self but only through your prayers and supplications to something outside the self.

But your responsibility is to begin to know it in the self and choose to manifest that perfection, not separate from the negativity that also comes up within the self but as answer to that negativity, thus truly purifying and transcending the negativity. It is only at that point that you truly conquer the negativity, not by knocking it out but by, the image comes to me here of a snarling tiger, and when you open his mouth, you discover he has no teeth at all. You find the negative side of the self to be that toothless tiger, putting on a good show but when you look deeply, all that you see is the lovely beating heart, the pussycat curled in your lap purring and exuding love. I pause.

Q: So I think I was looking for an answer to something in what was said, and maybe I need to rephrase my question, which is basically, when it comes right down to it, how do I support others. Like for instance, we've been talking somewhat about how there's this winter maybe of the country, that perhaps the positive polarity is just pregnant, like winter is pregnant and ready to burst at some point in a few years, maybe. How do I support letting go of fear? Like, I know I have to work on myself, but then we can say, you act with love, you choose love, and that seems abstract to me, I guess. It seems abstract.

I'm going back to the Midwest and to me there's a symbolic journey, because I find lots of xenophobia, fear, contraction. I find it everywhere but I find it kind of symbolically in this area more than where I am here. Does that make sense? And so it makes me think about opening and making space to be loving and choosing loving actions when one is in a place where there is fear and contraction. And yet, that's just really abstract. I guess I was looking for something a little more concrete.

A "How To" book. "How to love Republicans." I hate to say it because it's not about Republicans being bad. But how to love that in myself that is fearful and contracted. But extend that to other people. And not just abstractly.

Does that make sense? Because when I'm really tired and exhausted is when I realize how hard it is to be nice! I have a hard time being nice when I'm exhausted. And I think a lot of other people must be like that too. And maybe a lot of other people are tired and exhausted...

Aaron: I am Aaron. My dear one, the darkness you fear in the Midwest is simply the symbol of the darkness you fear in yourself. You are traveling now to the Midwest because you are ready to explore this image of darkness in the self and to release it. Know it first that you do not need to maintain the darkness in the self, but you can release it. It cannot be done conceptually, and it cannot be done by force.

Fear is a habit energy, and the contraction that comes with fear. You always have a choice in every moment to continue to practice that contraction of fear or to first observe the arising of the habit energy, the arising of the contraction, and without trying to get rid of fear, to shift the attention to that which is open and radiant and joyful. There in that moment with fear, not someplace else.

If you enter into a restaurant with delicious scent, place your order and sit at the table. Beside you people are eating. You're hungry. Contraction starts to come. Do you stomp into the kitchen in a rage, saying, "Where is my food?" Or might you just sit back and notice, "Here is impatience. Here is the belly expressing hunger pangs. I will focus instead on the delicious scent. The joy of just sitting here in this warm, lovely room with these beautiful smells wafting out of the kitchen." You can see that there's a conscious choice there to follow the movement of fear, or to recognize that movement and make the conscious decision not to follow it, but quite literally offer a balance to it, the balance here being appreciation. Gratitude is a wonderful balance, generosity, joy, feelings of lovingkindness, the opening of the heart.

The work is to begin to bring equal attention to these very loving and beautiful expressions of the heart. But so often the human does not do this because you are so contracted in need to control, in what is thought to be a need to control, the negativity. When negativity is seen just for what it is, as the conditioned habit energy in mind and body, so that you do not fear negative thought and feel you must fix it or control it, then you have the freedom to come back into that spaciousness and light and joy.

I would suggest, my sister, the conscious practice of gratitude, which is so easy with your beautiful child. I know you feel enormous gratitude for his presence. Look out your window tomorrow morning at this magnificent evergreen filled with energy and light. Just pause, take a few deep breaths, and feel the gratitude. Look at your husband, your friends, and feel the gratitude. Gratitude is only one practice but a very accessible one that balances contraction because it is quite literally impossible to experience gratitude and the fear contraction at the same time. Just as it's impossible to clench the fist and open it at the same time. With gratitude the hand is open. There may be the impulse to clench the fist, but with gratitude you can't clench the fist. We pause.

Q: I think he nailed it. I realize that I want to love so that I can control this negativity in the world. You know, like create more love so I can get rid of negativity. So I want to control it, I want to fix it. And I definitely, I see it on the inside and it projects onto the outside world, especially in politics right now. If I just put enough love on it, that should fix it. So that's what I was trying to ask. And then I saw, when you talked about controlling, it's like, oh that's what I'm doing. Instead of just opening up and having gratitude and love and allowing love to just do what it does and not say, "I'm going to fix you with love. I'll make you change your mind..."

Barbara: Aaron is saying this is the distinction between doing, which comes from a fear place, and being, just being love. 
Q: "I'll change your mind by loving you. I'll change your vote by loving you." 
Barbara: He says yes. He wants to pass this to Jeshua.

Jeshua: Thank you. You have discerned well. You have come to your own answer most wonderfully. It is as your beloved little one would show you. If you had a Republican and a Democrat sitting on the sofa, and your little one came in with a toy in his hand, he would go up to either one, no distinction, easily. No problem at all. He would not want to fix either one. He would not see a need to fix either one. The same as you have now discerned. He probably will not have the same problems because you will have exampled for him a different world. Thank you.

Other questions?

Q: Aaron was talking about male/female. And we are coming into a time when we're balancing male and female energies. I realize I don't understand this as much as I thought I did. So what I'm wondering is, where did this come from originally, this duality? Is it something only on the earth plane or is it universal across all creation and all creatures? And why these specific characteristics for each? Is there a story about the origin of this? And as we move into 4th density on earth and we are more balanced, how is that going to change the tool of this duality. Is it still going to be as useful, this masculine and feminine in the future? Just questions like that, whatever is useful to know about this. But I realized I don't know quite as much as I thought I did.

Jeshua: Well, first of all, not all realities experience the masculine and feminine. They do not experience duality the same as this reality. This reality, this collective consciousness, has said let us play with the idea of duality. Let us play with masculine and feminine, and has assigned certain traits and abilities to each gender.

Now, you have in the history of your cultures where the feminine has been dominant, has been strong, has been powerful and made the rules. You have had a long period of time where the masculine has been dominant and has made the rules. But you are coming now to a place where there is honoring of the masculine traits and the feminine traits, as well, and a balancing, an integration, if you will. It is more, not so much a balancing as an integration.

You have seen this happening over what you would see the last 50 years or so in your timing when there have been many of the marriages, I use this only as example, marriages that have ended. Culturally the women have thought that they should be in a marriage. And for one reason or another, there was divorcement, and the woman was "on her own," and found that she had to do all of the masculine things. And found, to her amazement many times, that she was just as good at driving the vehicle, fixing the vehicle, filling it up with the gasoline, doing all the grocery shopping, taking the rubbish out, fixing the lightbulb, fixing the water fixtures in the bathroom, all of the things that supposedly the masculine had to do. Same with the man. He has found he can to do his own laundry. And he has found that he did know how much soap to put into the laundry, and how to run the dryer, and how to fold the clothes, etc, the whole thing.

And there has been an emotional integration as well. I have talked about the physical examples of things that had to be done in daily living, but there have been also the emotional issues where one has had to learn to companion self, and to be support to oneself.

There is a story, yes, and it is the Adam and Eve story. You know it well. It is part of the collective consciousness, part of the scripting, that said, let us play with the idea that there could be the one self, divided into two, and to play out for awhile how it would feel to activate different form of body, and how these 2 different forms could come together to procreate another small form.

And so it was part of the scripting, part of the adventure, the creativity, literally, to see how it would work. And there has been much of improv that has gone along through the eons of time in this reality.

But there comes now, as you have spoken, a time of the 4th density moving into a place of the integration of male/female. Will the genders begin to look alike? Perhaps. There is thought right now that is moving along those lines. Look how many of your women now instead of wearing the frilly skirts that cover up all of the gender now wear the trousers. Look how sometimes the men adorn themselves with what used to be considered just the feminine adornment (earrings), the length of hair, etc.

So there are things that are changing to bring in, you have what is called even in fashion, the unisex. So there is the progression of thought that is moving in that direction. Now, it has not been decided--as I have said many times, everything is open to improv, that is what is so wonderful on this plane