March 30, 1994

March 30, 1994 Wednesday Night Group, Corrected

A note about tonight's talk

Tonight's talk was an interweaving of the reading of a private session transcript and Aaron's expansion on those ideas. The transcript itself, from March 25, 1994, begins with a note of explanation. What is presented here is the result of that interweaving, as it was presented to the Wednesday Group. The introduction to the private transcription is given in italics.

March 25, 1994: This session was channeled and simultaneously transcribed in Barbara's study. Barbara was sitting on the floor in front of an altar, above which there is a batik wall hanging taped on a cinder block wall. The tape was coming loose and Barbara just pushed it back in place, then reached for a box of wooden matches to light candles. The match lit, flared and went out. She reached for another when Aaron asked, “why did it go out?” Matches in this box have never done that. There was no breeze to blow it out. He suggested that Barbara retape the banner before lighting a match, said it went out because the fabric was in danger of falling on the lit candles. He began to talk about interdependent energy fields. We didn't type the very beginning.

Aaron: I am Aaron. Visualize an object, like a match. See an infinite line of light running through that object. The object rests within the line. Find more objects: you, wall hanging, the whole room. See each one placed on an infinite path of light, which we will call the energy stream. Sometimes the light is tight, as a line; sometimes it's diffused, creating a wide space. When it is compacted it is an indication either of its own focused intention or that energy has come into intactness because of pressure from without. Whether diffused or contracted, the energy stream is always comprised of a more diffused outer area and a core light line. The light line begins at the light body, or more correctly, at That of which the light body is a projection.

There is tape on the wall hanging which is losing its stickiness simply because that is what happens to tape when it grows old. There is the line coming from Barbara, which energy manifests an intention not to be harmed nor to harm this home. At a totally unconscious level the energy from the aging tape has crossed both Barbara's energy and the energy stream from the match. There is intention from Barbara to light the candles. There is not intention, but necessity, from the tape that it is aging. This is simply the condition of the tape due to the dampness of the walls and its age and material structure. It offered an unintentional indication of its age and condition just a brief time ago when Barbara pushed the falling picture back on the wall. The energy stream of the match intercepts Barbara's intention not to be harmed and the deteriorating energy of the tape. In response to that, the match lit and then went out.

If you are alert to the messages of the material elements in your life, you will find that they are responses to very clear conditions on either the physical or energy planes. There is always some reason. Yes, the reason could be simply deterioration of the match because of conditions, just as the tape deteriorates because of conditions, but Barbara knows that the matches in this box have not acted as if they were damp. Therefore, the match is responding to some condition. What is it? When it speaks, are you paying attention? It is a matter of training yourself. Barbara was not paying attention. There is no guarantee that the hangings would have fallen, but it was a real possibility. The match knew it because it picked up this inter-weaving of energy.

You asked, “What about the rest of us who don't have Aaron to interpret?” My dear one, pay attention! When anything acts in a way that is different from usual, stop and ask, “why?.”

We move into more complexity. I asked you to think of each object as resting in an infinite energy stream. The light body, the sub-light body projection, the object and the connecting energy stream are surrounded by this energy field. Let us give this a name. I don't want to say “human energy field” because it also exists in inanimate objects. I am going to coin a new term, stream energy-field, as no existing name satisfies me. This is the continuum of energy from the light body to the manifestation. It is denser at the physical manifestation as it exists in space/time, thins to a gauziness in parts of the energy stream, and diffuses further at the sublight body.

Let us look, then, at the whole. We have the light body, the sub-light body projection, the energy stream with its core light line and its diffused area, and the object itself. All of these together rest in a stream energy-field, a space/time continuum of the various energies of the manifestation. This energy field manifests as linearity (the light-line core of the energy stream) and expands into a three-dimensional light field, which aspect constantly contracts and expands. One might almost say that the stream energy-field is the composite aura of the light body, energy stream and physical manifestation. The object's aura is only one piece of that total aura. The reason “aura” is not quite accurate is that this stream energy-field tapers off to infinity in all directions. Perhaps one could call it the aura's aura!

The energy which feeds that energy stream and the physical manifestation itself comes from two places. The energy moving down the light line of the energy stream from the light body is the primary energy source. The energy from the manifestation itself is a secondary energy source. This is not energy from the physical mass but is the particular distortion of energy which is a combination of the mass's reflection/absorption of stream energy-field and the energy drawn in from earth and other mass. It is all received as light.

The energy stream flows from the light body through the sub-light body. There it assumes any illusory distortions of the sub-light body. The core part of the stream, the light line, moves into the manifestation. The outer, diffused parts, surround the manifestation. The outer “aura” of that energy stream, the stream energy-field, creates a very gauzy connection like the thinnest of wings into the whole infinite energy of the universe. Everywhere it is connected to everything!

If the mass dissolves and has not yet come into a new incarnation, the space/time continuum of that stream energy-field will be very diffuse. There will be an intactness of light which is not incarnation but merely the present expression of that energy. The energy-stream will also be diffuse; denser at the intactness of energy, but sheer along the infinite line. The light line will appear to be dissolved until there is new manifestation.

We will not discuss here which comes first, intention to move to intactness and incarnation or the pulling together of the energy-stream into greater density at the point of that approaching manifestation.

Visualize this whole scenario of light for one object. Visualize the intersection, not of two objects themselves, but of their energy-streams and of their entire stream energy-fields This is not just the crossing of the core energy light line, but these very sheer wings. And it's all infinite, so your energy is touched by the energy of everything else in your universe, manifest or not yet manifest.

This is very technical. You don't need the labels. What I have just offered is a basic description of the energy process of karma. You understand that the basis of karma is that you reap what you sow. Why? Because when you send out a contraction it moves up this energy stream where the sub-light body serves as a mirror and reflects it back at you. What is a mirror but glass with a backing. The density of the contraction is sticky and becomes the backing. If you send up loving kindness and openness, metaphorically it scrapes the back off of the mirror so you can see through it. When you see through it you see straight through to the light body. The illusion of distortion dissolves. What comes back to you then is not the illusory distortion but the perfection.

When we've spoken about this in the past fall and winter, I emphasized working with this process only after there is no strong aversion to what is being experienced. If you are experiencing physical or emotional pain—fear, jealously or any other discordance—and strongly desire to get rid of that pain leads you to say to yourself, “Aaron says it's illusion so I will go to the ultimate reality where it doesn't exist,” my dear ones, that's escape.

On the relative plane, which is where this incarnation is, there is that fear or pain. It must be attended to on the relative plane. When there is an openness about it, space made for it, then you are ready to let it go; not to get rid of it, simply to let it go. The process of letting go is one of working with this light and energy stream so that what you send up the stream is clarified; so that you no longer see this sub-light body as distorted, but see the ever-perfect.

We frequently use the example of the clear piece of paper that has always existed within the wrinkled sheet. When you have that wrinkled sheet of paper and focus on the wrinkles, that is a way of practicing the wrinkles. When you look at that wrinkled sheet of paper, stretch it out and see the wrinkles and see the perfect sheet of paper within the wrinkled sheet, you fix your attention in a different place: on perfection rather than distortion.

This relates to the new age maxim that you create your own reality. You know that I'm not found of that saying because of the ways it is often misunderstood to provoke guilt, and yet it is true, of course. You do create your own reality. What are you sending up this energy stream? What does it shine back at you?

I want to say to our friends who are new here tonight that this practice we are introducing is a very valuable one. You can start at either end, working with clarifying this energy stream or working in relative reality with the fears and pains of everyday life. Eventually you've got to work in both places. I only want to mention this for those of you who have not heard me speak at length about the work in relative reality. We have simply put it aside, temporarily, but there must always be a balance.

I do want to emphasize, for those of you who are confused about the precise details of this scheme, that it doesn't matter. I provide the whole scheme because there are many of you who are interested in it. If it eludes you, simply focus on two things. First, the contraction that you feel in the physical body and the way that contraction moves out of you as distortion of energy, and second, the ways that opening your heart and letting go on the physical plane can clarify that energy. We will do a specific guided meditation to give you a feel for it. We return here to reading the March 25 transcript:

We break here into two different aspects of the energy work: what you call your own energy and the crossings of energy. Let us speak here first of personal energy, leaving what I have described above as foundation for understanding energy relationships after you better understand personal distortion.

The energy in the sub-light body is not distorted. How could it be? If you have an unmarked sheet of white paper and snip off a part, it is also unmarked. Yet before your first earth plane incarnation there were distortions in the emotional and mental bodies. Before incarnation, distortion led to the illusion of seeming separation from God and desire to re-merge with that energy. This distortion created contractions in the, at the time, non-physical manifestation of that energy. Let me explain this further.

At that first moment of self-awareness, that which we call soul did not find itself separate. Pure awareness is not aware of distinction of self/ other. It rests always in its own pure luminescense, which is the luminescense of All-That-Is. That which was self-aware is what found itself separate! We can call it consciousness. Although this was not yet physical matter, it was an energy with potential to manifest physically. With that first moment of self-awareness there was not yet sub-light body, but there was energy stream feeding into that consciousness which was now self-aware. Self-aware consciousness, at that point, was the non-physical manifestation. Physical, non-physical—it doesn't matter; I don't want to get into a what came first—the chicken or the egg—question. It's not relevant. Simply, energy of non-physical materialization contracted and sent distorted energy back up this stream. Since the light body itself cannot distort, a sub-light body broke off to absorb that distortion and reflect it back.

Barbara: This is Barbara. There's a drawing being passed around. In that drawing the light body is the body that's within the sun. The sub-light body is just below that and the physical manifestation is the one on the bottom.

Q: What was self-aware? Was it the light body?

Barbara: The piece of cellophane was self aware. The sub-light body. Where did it start, if there was no sub-light body until self awareness? I don't know. I don't think it matters.

Q: When there first was self awareness, did it form the sub-light body?

Barbara: Yes. First there is just soul, or spirit body, whatever we want to call it, which finds itself totally merged with God, or whatever we wish to call that. There's no self awareness. With that first moment of self awareness, there is that which became self aware. What experiences itself as totally merged can not have the illusion of distortion. Because self awareness leads to a sense of self and other, we then can move into that distortion that Aaron has called the first distortion of love. We can not experience love in that sense unless there is lover and loved. So, with the first distortion comes both love and separation; then the energy moves into the possibility of further distortion. But, as Aaron just said, the energy in the sub-light body is not distorted, how could it be? He said, “If you have an unmarked sheet of white paper and snip off a part, it is also unmarked.” So, the distortion (this is the hard part) in this sub-light body is illusion. We've taken it as real. This delusion, of separate self, is a primary cause of all of the physical, emotional and mental distortions which incarnation after incarnation after incarnation have carried. This process, as Aaron said earlier, is a way of explaining the energy of karma, why karma happens.

Aaron wants to say (I'm paraphrasing), for the people who were not here last week, this cellophane that he's talking about is that perfect sheet of paper that we've taken and wrinkled. As cellophane, it's transparent, If you shine a flashlight through it you can imagine what it would look like. What you see shining on the ground picks up the clear places and the wrinkled places. In a sense our physical, emotional and mental distortions are the reflections of those wrinkled places. Once we understand that they are illusion, we can begin to release them, but only if we're not getting rid of them. If we are getting rid of them we solidify them more because there is aversion to them and we're somebody trying to get rid of something. Does that make sense to everybody? It will take meditation and practice with it. Right now what you have is a conceptual understanding, which will steer you into a path of experiential understanding.

Q: Aaron said “At that first moment of self-awareness, that which we call soul did not find itself separate. That which was self-aware is what found itself separate.” Where did the self awareness come from?

Aaron: I am Aaron. Self awareness is infinite light and intelligence's projection as it seeks to expand and know itself. Does that answer your question?

Q: Aaron's answer is very satisfying because he implied that what we are all doing here is working to expand God.

Barbara: Aaron says, essentially, yes. He says (I'm paraphrasing) that somewhere we have an old transcript about the question “Can an infinite God expand?”

Q: I think that this is a chicken or the egg question. Are the wrinkles formed as a reflection of our distortions on the physical ... (inaudible)

Barbara: It's spiral, circular. Aaron says it's kind of like a mobius strip, it feeds up and comes back; it's continuous.

Back to the transcript, last sentence repeated:

Since the light body itself cannot distort, a sub-light body broke off to absorb that distortion and reflect it back.

Notice that I say, “to absorb that distortion,” not “to become distorted.” The sub-light body in itself is never distorted, but you think it's distorted because of what you throw at it. It simply reflects. It is the perfect mirror, absolutely clear so it reflects perfectly that which it receives. It reflects so you may work with it again, and again, and again, and again. When what you send back becomes free of distortion, what it reflects back is free of distortion.

Two examples. Yesterday Barbara had dental surgery. The gum was cut open so the tooth roots could be scraped clean. Local anesthetic numbed the area. There was no pain. She had an hour to lie in this dental chair while this procedure was done. In that hour she came to literally see the distorted energy she sent back when she tensed around the pressure and pulling of the work being done.

When she relaxed it was clear that there was no pain, not even real discomfort. She could clearly see the fear contraction as being old fear, a desire to protect, and having nothing to do with this moment. She was in a deep enough meditation to literally see this energy stream.. When she sent fear contraction up that stream, she could see the energy reflected back. When she relaxed, knowing the fear was real on the relative plane but was a manifestation of old mind distortion, then she could see through this sub-light body, through the backing of the mirror to the perfect light body template. The sub-light body was perfectly clear. When it appeared clouded, reflective rather than transparent, t was only doing its job, reflecting her own fear energy back to her so she would know it.

Perhaps this is a key sentence. You are here to expand, as D. put it, to expand God, to expand the divine as expressed within yourself. Part of that expansion is learning to live your life with more love. If there was nothing to reflect back the fear energy and let you know the fear which needed to be worked with, how would you learn? Some of you have pitched rubber balls against a wall. If you want something to come back gently you throw it to the wall gently; it returns what you throw. If you have a strong pitching arm and you throw it will all your might and it comes back to you as a fast ball and punches you in the chest. That punch's discomfort is simply saying, “be aware; throw softer.”

You can catch distortion anywhere along this chain and work skillfully at many levels. You can become aware of the contraction of fear in the physical body and with no knowledge at all of what we spoke of above, each time fear contracts in the physical body you can be mindful of it, work not to throw that fear at another, begin to cut through the identification with that fear, and eventually find freedom from the pattern of that fear. That is perfectly sufficient.

You can also work from the ultimate reality side. Each time that fear arises, breath it out and move back to rest in pure mind, stabilizing the experience of this pure awareness. Eventually that will feed back into the relative reality responses to fear. You will start to know that the fear is not who you are and cease your reactivity to it on the earth plane. That's also a viable path.

The balance of the two is much more powerful. For those of you who are saying that you want to be finished in this lifetime, here is a balanced path. It is very hard work, but very, very potent, because you're cutting through on both planes, the relative and the ultimate. To work with this balance is to note the contractions of fear, anger, greed or whatever there may be in the physical body: to note the movements of those emotions in the mind: to note the desire to fling them at another, the desire to be rid of them: to open your heart with compassion to this being that's caught in the midst of such violent forces. And simultaneously to note how you are owing that physical sensation or emotion and identifying with it, thereby continuing it because you send it up to the sub-light body and it reflects back, over and over and over. Until you finally can say, “I don't need to do this anymore. I've learned.” We return to the reading of the transcript.

Relaxation of tension very literally smoothes out that distortion and clarity is reflected back. The shadow in these strands of the energy-stream dissolves. You begin to rest in the pure and perfect light body with no need to create further distortion. This was work done consciously with my guidance. It is an example of how re-shifting the focus to the clarity of the perfect light body instead of focusing on the illusory distortion allows truth rather than illusion to reflect back. It's circular: no start or finish. The more you rest in clarity, the more you manifest that clarity. It does get easier and easier.

A second example is of one who walked into this house and was pulled into contraction by the dog barking. There is discomfort in this one of the angry energy a dog may project. This one has experienced that discomfort before with this dog. This time there was a difference, an awareness: “This is old conditioned fear. This dog will not hurt me. I choose and intend not to manifest more fear.” While there was not conscious work with the energy stream and sub-light body, the intention was powerful enough to send an energy of compassion and clarity which, conscious or unconscious, does dissolve the distortions of the energy stream. Because those distortions are softened, what reflects back is clarity. The being then experiences far less old mind fear. Its increasing clarity allows it to send up still clearer and more loving energy. The sub-light body reflects it back, a constant stream back and forth.

Without conscious intention, there is not the same force of cutting through the illusion of distortion of the sub-light body. It's more a scraping away than a penetrating thrust through it, but this work does dissolve this illusion of distortion at whatever speed.

All of what I have just described may be considered an explanation of the energy factors through which karma works.

Break: after break, people ask Barbara to speak more about the experience at the dentist. Questions not recorded.

Barbara: It was a very powerful experience. I've never had any real dental work in my life. I've never had Novocain. There I was lying on my back in this chair with bright lights shining down on me, the dentist and his assistant with all these sharp looking tools. I was clutching the arm of the chair! Aaron first asked to me to chant, Om ah um, which in itself was an interesting experience because my mouth was propped open. So, I was chanting silently to myself. I couldn't do the “um” because I couldn't close my mouth, I was just thinking that part. But it did settle my energy. Then he asked my to take my hands and turn them face up to that I couldn't clutch onto the chair and to observe that there was no physical pain. There was discomfort and a sense of the body being invaded, but there was no physical pain. Slowly, as I moved into a deeper meditation I began to feel the stream energy, to feel what I was projecting. Each time there was a pull or scrap and my energy tensed I literally could see the difference. As I relaxed the energy and sent up simply an intention to be present with real discomfort but that I didn't need to reinforce it and have it play back, I could see this energy clarified.

I was working in two different places. One was the emotional fear; feeling invaded, wondering what they were doing to me, noting aversion to having my gum cut open, my gum which had been pain free and healthy. One was with the physical distortion that had created a pocket of infection along the root in the first place. I was able to work more with the emotional than the physical distortion, for whatever reasons.

I walked out of that office feeling so high, and my energy feeling so clear. I have to go back tomorrow and get the stitches taken out and I don't know what else will be done but I have absolutely no fear of it at all. Whatever has to happen is just the reverberations of old karma that are still working, reverberations of old fear in my body. They need to finish working their way out, but I just need to go sit in the dentist's chair and get the stitches taken out, and whatever work he's gonna do, he's gonna do. It's a very different feeling and I can very clearly see the way that I was wrinkling the sub-light body and taking the wrinkles for what was real. The way that I'm now seeing through it, seeing the clarity and that that clarity is what's coming down.

Important in this experience, for me, is seeing that it goes both ways. That the energy stream moves from what our body is projecting up, then is reflected back down to us. There is something that I don't have quite clear yet. I'll tell you what I see but I think that Aaron would prefer to talk about it until I understand it better. I see two things in parallel, the distortion energy and also the light body energy which is always perfectly clear. I am only at the concept level of understanding; my question is, if I shift my focus fully to the light body energy that's coming down, can I end the whole thing? It seems like I could but I don't have an experiential understanding of it yet. (Barbara's note while cleaning the transcript, April 20. Yes, I can end it, but the body may still need to experience the old reverberations of its past distortions.)

Q: ... sending that positive energy, or very clear, loving energy back up, in a sense are you bypassing the sub-light body and going right to the light body, which is the clarified energy that is reflected back, but the negative or bad energy hits the sub-light body and bounces back down?

Barbara: I'm paraphrasing Aaron. He says think of the metaphor of a mirror, which is just absolutely clear glass with a painted backing of some sort. You can't see through it, it just reflects back. This backing is self; this is the part of us that is self aware with the illusion of separate self. When you send clear energy up, this is basically what scrapes the backing off. You can't send up that clear energy unless you are resting in pure awareness, empty of the delusion of separate self. Then the energy you're sending up goes straight to the light body. The sub-light body seems not to exist anymore. It's there but it's totally transparent. So, it's no different than the light body. Aaron is saying it never was different from the light body, it was all illusion that it had this backing on it anyhow. But we've cut through that illusion and removed the backing. So what comes down is perfectly clear, it's just from the light body.

Q: So in a sense the distorted energy “coats” the mirror and doesn't allow the energy through.

Barbara: Yes. Let me give you Aaron.

Aaron: I am Aaron. Visualize yourselves sitting on a sandy beach in the sunshine. The sun feels warm, wonderful. You are thoroughly enjoying the sensation of gentle warmth on your body. Suddenly there is a big, snarling dog, barking, growling! Your body contracts in fear. The sun is still shining and the experience of warmth is still there, but you've ceased to be aware of it because of the contraction of fear. This whole distortion we are speaking of is illusion, at least on the ultimate plane. It only has solidity because your mind has given it solidity. Just as the warmth is always present in the sunshine of the beach, the connection with the divine is always there, the connection with clear light is always there. But your contractions cut off your experience of it. Does that answer your question?

(Question inaudible.)

Barbara: I worked on both but it was because the contractions of fear and so on were so strong that was much more directly what was in my experience. I was aware that there was this distortion of the infection in my gum, which is why he was cleaning the root of my tooth. But it was not something that I had felt physically. Back in November there was pain from it, but after an antibiotic there was no more pain from it. So, it wasn't as directly a part of my experience. I've worked more with that distortion this week when, following the surgery, I've had a lump like a baseball on my cheek, and it was really painful. So, that lead me into much more work with the physical distortion. But in the dentist's office I was working with what was more immediate, which was the emotional distortion. One can work with either one in the same way.

(Remaining Q&A not yet reviewed)