May 27, 1998 - Elements

This is an excerpt from the night's talk, only the parts relevant to the elements.

Aaron: Good evening and my love to you all. I am Aaron. I want to begin to a guided meditation similar to the one we did last week working with the elements and then we're going to take it a step further. To refresh your memory, we spoke of the elements of earth, air, fire, water and what we might call ether or energy. We spoke of the way these elements exist in every substance, animate and inanimate. We would not say they only exist in the overall human being, but each of these elements in its own precise balance exists in each cell of your body; in the bone cells, in the skin cells, in the blood cells. They exist not only in the earth itself but in each grain of sand within the earth.

I spoke last week of the loving intention to bring these elements into balance, and to note when they are out of balance, not as a way of conquering difficult mind states but simply because there is distortion and the intention is to balance distortion, to restore harmony. Please note that when I use the word distortion, I do not use it in a negative sense. If you have a straight line upon the paper and then create waves in that line where it goes up above the line and dips below, and above and below, each dip up and down is a distortion. There's nothing bad about these distortions. If you have water in the sea, and the force of tide and wind and current push the sea as waves against the shore, the force of the wave building up and crashing down upon the shore is a distortion. And the air pulling it back into the sea is another distortion. There's nothing bad about distortion. I spoke briefly last week about jitsu and kyo energy. That is, the, I hesitate to call it grasping energy but receptive and taking energy that is tense and anticipatory, carries a certain high-pitched tension to it. Jitsu. And then as that which is reached for is received, the hand relaxes. The energy field relaxes. All the tension runs out with kyo energy. Everything in the universe is in constant movement between jitsu and kyo.

So we call these distortions but they are not negative. The effort, however, is to keep the distortion in balance. If there is too much jitsu, too much tense anticipatory receptive energy, it builds up and becomes out of balance. If there is too much kyo energy, you wind up with total lethargy.

When I speak of the distortions within the elements then and bringing it back to balance there is no statement of bad or good, only of the desire to aid in harmony by keeping things within a balance. It might be an extreme balance or it might be a very subtle balance.

Please remember then that experience of distortions is part of the incarnative process and is not inherently good or bad. If you need to practice compassion, you need some catalyst with which to practice. If nobody or nothing ever irritates you in any way, with what are you going to practice compassion and lovingkindness? They offer you the service of offering a catalyst so that you may practice. Is their distortion bad then? Uncomfortable, perhaps, but also perfect. In your desire to offer service to another, distortions are also part of that service.

Let us begin the meditation. (all pauses are not noted, only the longest ones)

Breathe in and out. Bring the attention to the breath.
Feel the soft touch of the breath on the nostrils, flowing into the body and then flowing out again. Allow yourself one at a time to perceive the elements in you.
Let us start with earth. The material substance of the body is in part the earth element. And we note here that every substance contains all the elements, therefore we cannot say the material body is the earth element and the blood and other liquid flowing through the body is the water element. Every cell in your body contains all 4 elements, each in its own particular balance. I ask you now to focus on the earth element, both within the body and in the world beyond you.

Feel the solidity of this house made of wood and brick. Bring to mind a forest or a mountain. Literally breathe in that stability which characterizes the earth element.

(pause)

And now, air. Air all around you, air in you. Openness and spaciousness are the most precise characteristics of the air element.

(pause)

Water. Visualize a waterfall, a stream flowing and coming to a drop of many feet, water rushing down, gathered at the bottom, swirling and flowing on down the river. Then bring that waterfall into the self, feeling the river literally flowing through your body, flowing through your veins.

(pause)

Fluidity is the primary characteristic of the water element.
And then fire. Here you might want to think of a raging bonfire with intense heat and brilliance of light. Feel the energy of it, the passion of it.

(pause)

That which I call ether is part of the composite substance of each element. It is not a distinct element unto itself. It is the energy within the flowing water, the energy within the crackling fire, the energy within the strength and solidity of the earth, the energy in the movement of the air. Feel all of these come together in the self and allow there to be a balance. Intuitively note what may be out of balance. In other words, note any element that may not be in useful balance to the others. Simply draw more of it into the self or release some of it, as is appropriate.

You will come to a point where you feel balanced, whole, open, comfortable, stable, and yet fluid, energetic and yet not erupting with energy. I'm going to make a noise. Note the ways that the noise pulls you out of this balance and simply invite the balance in again. We will do this now.

Shout!

I cannot tell you how to balance. Intuitively each of you does know how. Did you need to bring in more of the stable mountain? Did your energy suddenly start to dance off the top of the mountain? Did it perhaps become very solid, necessitating bringing in more air or water? Your needs will be different as each of you is unique. Let us do it again

Shout!

Just right. Gently allow the self to return to balance. This is not a statement of aversion to imbalance but simply the skillful desire to be co-creator in the harmonious flow of experience. Not to maintain imbalance for ego-centric reasons, such as to heighten the power or to create shielding.

Open. Centered. Balanced.

Now, as we did last week, I invite each of you to invite in a strong emotion that you experienced within the past day or two. Invite in the memory of it. Really allow it to be rekindled in the experience. It can be an emotion such as anger or desire, jealousy or pride. It can be an emotion such as deep lovingkindness or compassion.

Note with the drawing in of emotion and the movement into the memory of that emotion, whether it serves as a small catalyst, whether the elements shift out of balance. If they do, then simply intuitively draw the self back into balance the same way that you have just done with the noise. I will be quiet while you do this. We will pause for 2 or 3 minutes here to allow you time.

(pause)

I am Aaron. This is the basic practice that we introduced last week. Now I wish to add some subtleties to this. What we have done thus far is very simplified. It is the observation of the essential experience of each element in balanced form. This experience is like that of looking at a forest from an airplane. Very different than if you get down and walk through the forest. From above you simply see a sea of green. But when you get into the forest you see the earth from which the trees spring. You see dry areas and mud or marsh. You see the woody trunks and the branches, the green leaves above, the roots below.

Each element is comprised of all 4 elements in its own particular balance. By way of example, earlier today this instrument was walking barefoot and stepped on a sharp object, and cut her foot. There was a moment of sharp pain and then as she sat down and stopped the blood flow, experienced the continuation of the pain, there was a bit of anger that this object was there on the floor of the lake where she was wading. It wasn't precisely anger at cutting the foot, it wasn't precisely anger at the object on which she cut the foot, it wasn't precisely anger at the idea that she would have a painful foot for a few days; it was simply a tension of objectless anger.

I asked her to stop and examine the balance that was present. Fire was predominant. Instead of bringing in more water, air and earth, I asked her just to stay with the fire element and investigate the fire element itself. She began to see each of the 4 elements clearly, that air, water and earth were present in a balanced way. By which I mean, each of those elements was present with a balance of the 4 elements within it. In the water element, water predominates, but the other 3 elements are also there. In the air element, air predominates but the other 3 are also there. So the other 3 elements were there and each presented itself as a balanced representation of that element. Within the whole experience, fire was predominant and out of balance with the other 3, and within the fire element there was imbalance. What I asked her to do then was not to balance the 4 elements overall but to attend first to the fire element itself.

She began to experience how to do this work; in this case what was useful for her was to draw more air, but especially more water into the fire element, and most important in that moment, to draw more earth into the fire element. She felt how her energy was bubbly, as a pot that is boiling too fiercely. That air and water helped but bringing earth in tended to bring the whole energy field down and quiet and stabilize it. At a certain point in that stabilization process, she noted to me, "Aaron, I feel the same fire energy. It's still predominant over the other 3 elements. But it's no longer expressing itself as anger. Rather, it's expressing itself as a powerful intention to go out and wade around and find what I cut myself on."

This was not to take that object and abuse it in any way, it was simply to take that object and lift it out of the water so that it would no longer be a danger to others. I asked her, instead of doing that, which would have been a skillful choice, to use this as a learning process. To note what happened if she then went on to the other step of balancing all 4 elements.

So she let go of the fire element itself and the 4 sub-elements within fire and began instead to work with the 4 individual elements, bringing them into balance. After a few minutes of this she began to note the difference, that in the first situation where she had brought the fire element into balance insofar as the sub-elements, but left fire dominant over the others, anger had faded but there was still a strong energy, let's call it a fire energy, which was still predominant and able to be used as energy. When she balanced the 4 elements together, brought more earth and water and air in, released some of the fire, she came to a place of equanimity. It was still possible to say, "It's useful to go and find that upon which I cut myself," but the impulsive force of it had dissolved.

This is very subtle. I cannot give you precise directions because each situation will be different. When might it be useful to allow fire or earth or air or water energy to remain subtly out of balance with the others? We got into this question a bit last week, I believe on R's question about creativity. You really could become a master using these as an artist would a palette, mixing colors together. Sometimes you want the red to be forceful. Sometimes you want the overall palette to have a blue tone. What does the canvas need?

In a situation when you're planting a garden, for example, it may be very useful to have a predominance of earth energy within the self to help you be more deeply attuned to the soil with which you are working. You can do this both by acknowledging the earth sub-element in each of the 4 elements and also by allowing the earth element itself, with its 4 sub-elements, to take a shape of distortion of balance with the other elements, to be predominant a bit.

If you are hot, have been laboring or sweating, you find the body out of balance in terms of perhaps too much fire as heat, and feeling very solid and heavy, lethargic, too much earth. Bringing in air and water, there are 2 ways to do that. One is the kind of balancing we did at the beginning of this session and last week, and one is to note these 4 sub-elements within each element. If you're hot in that way, experiencing an excess of fire and earth energy, you can find the air and water within the fire and earth. Yogis in Asia do this to allow the body to be comfortable in extreme heat or cold.

I do not want to become too complex and put this out of anyone's reach. I would ask 2 things of you. One, that you work with these instructions at whatever level feels clear and comfortable to you, and let go of the rest. Two, that you experiment especially with the fire energy that comes with anger, because this is a place where imbalance is very accessible. When there is anger and you feel an excess of fire energy, instead of bringing in that which would balance the fire energy, I want you to pause and ask, "Is there any use to this excess of fire energy? How can I bring this excess of fire energy into a more workable balance and still leave fire slightly out of proportion to the others? Would that be skillful?" Just ask yourself these questions. Trust your intuition.

What you will likely find is that the intensity of anger from a fear-based place, where the anger wishes to control or harm or act in some way against some object, that that fades but that a certain degree of fire energy remains simply as energy, as thrust. I request you to work with the arising of anger simply because this is an accessible place in which to experiment.

I repeat that if this practice sounds too complex at this point, simply go back to what we began with, the 4 elements and the balancing of the elements. Slowly you will come to recognize the 4 sub-elements within each element and begin to understand how to bring them into balance.

There are many questions that were raised as a result of last week's talk. Amongst them was the question of literally using these elements as a palette: red, yellow, blue, green, or whatever. Perhaps a better metaphor would be to use green, orange, and purple as metaphor for 3 of the elements. You see that within green there is yellow and blue, within orange there is yellow and red. Therefore with 4 elements, each of which contains the 4 elements, you have 16 segments to work with. Please do not become too conceptual about this, just work with it intuitively and begin to understand when it's useful to maintain subtle imbalance and when it's useful to restore full balance.

Several very different questions were also raised related to other points of my talk. One was about the transition into 4th density and of the nature of 3rd and 4th density experience. I stated last week that part of what was lost by those beings that preceded 3rd density human form, higher density beings who dwelled in such as Lemuria, that what was lost was this ability to balance and therefore we were emphasizing the restoration of balance within the self and without. The other question that was raised is to ask more precisely what went wrong. I described how those of Atlantis had lost this ability that their forebears had, to balance the earth; as volcanoes erupted and tsunamis and earthquakes swept through, earth mirrored their own inner imbalance. So there was a question, exactly how did this happen? And what can we learn from that ancient history. Also, a related question: can I be more precise about how the outer environment mirrors the inner? In what ways are we creating the outer environment with our experience. These are all useful questions. I pause.

Barbara: Aaron asks, first, are there any questions about what he introduced tonight. He says he knows it's very subtle and that you're going to have to experiment with it in order to understand it.

J: When I recalled an experience that I had yesterday, experiencing a sense of fear and anger, as I sat with that tonight, what I felt energetically was a vacating of little bubble-like particles, primarily from my mid-section of body and my head.

Barbara: It was being released?

Jack: From about mid-thigh here, it was <sound effect>.

Barbara: Aaron is saying, J, forgive him for interrupting, that what was actually happening was not a vacating from your body of little bubbly material, that that was simply the image that it took. That what was happening was a release of a certain imbalance

J: ...The elements seemed like earth. It felt denser. The energy felt denser, that was shifting.

Barbara: He asks, could you feel that what was happening was that the earth element itself was coming back into balance in terms of the 4 elements. As the earth element came into balance, it was able then to be utilized in balancing the 4, he says we need a better word to talk about this, the words are confusing. Within the earth element, the 4 sub-elements came into balance, thereby making the earth element more able to be utilized in balancing the 4 elements.

J: Intuitively, yes. At the outset of re-living the experience, I felt that in reverse order.

Barbara: I'm paraphrasing Aaron. He says this is a perfect example of what he is talking about,. The element J intuitively moved to work with was the earth element, which had a surplus of both earth and fire energy in it. Some of this surplus literally bubbled out as he worked. It was a way of bringing the air and water sub-elements within the earth element into play so that the earth element came into balance. The earth element imbalance was then available to be used to bring him down from the anger, which was part of the imbalance of too much fire element. You couldn't use that earth element at first because it was out of balance with its sub-elements, but as soon as it came into balance, then you were able to use it to balance the fire element.

J: This explanation is useful, as I have had similar sensations, but in trying to develop a workable understanding....

Barbara: Aaron is saying, for most of us, an intellectual understanding is not useful until much later along when we are able to do it and then to look back and see what we're doing. But at first, what's useful is simply to work intuitively with it without trying to figure out what's happening. He will speak.

Aaron: I am Aaron. What is important here is simply to offer the statement of intention to come back into balance for the good of all beings. After that statement of intention is offered, there is no longer any aversion to the imbalance, only an awareness that it's out of balance. If you're on a raft that is tipping because all of the weight is on one side, it's skillful to move to the other side of the raft to help balance it, so beings don't fall into the water. There's no aversion to the imbalance, there's simply a statement, "For the sake of harmony, I am willing to allow balance to start itself here." Then intuitively you allow that balancing without trying to push or change anything consciously. You simply offer the statement, "I invite in what is necessary and I invite the release of what is not useful." Self does not offer that intention; love offers it.

Then observe the process and see how it happens, and begin to familiarize yourself with these 4 elements. Begin to observe when they are out of balance not just in your self but in the world. I pause.

J: The lesson this evening Aaron is speaking to helps because I have been aware that something else was occurring rather than simply just 4 elements. It is the multiple levels within each element.

D: And also it helps me see that I am not getting rid of too much fire. I am paying close attention to that element that presents itself.

Barbara: Aaron says, yes, precisely. I am paraphrasing Aaron here, he says, to you as an artist that he recommends the image of mixing paints and colors. That if you're painting with a palette and you put some color on that seems to clash a bit, perhaps you might feel that some degree of contrast is useful for the dynamic of the painting. But you might choose to tone it down a little, say to tone down the orange by mixing a slight bit of blue with it, just to bring it into a tone that's more harmonious with the rest of the picture while still being a dynamic element in the picture. He says that image of how you mix color in a painting is helpful as part of the image of how you're working with the elements. He asks do you understand?

D: Yes. But I, now anyway, think an intuitive approach will be best. The first time Aaron asked us to look at our balance, I recognized I needed more earth. I tried covering myself with moss and dirt but it didn't work. I went into a tree and that was what I needed. I felt the movement of water and the air at the needles of the tree, and all the elements. And then I could use earth. Before, I couldn't use the earth.

Barbara: He says yes. It is just this kind of balancing, precisely, finding out how to literally use each of the elements. Others?

L: I often get quite hyped at work and with my busy schedule, where am I at on the matrix, in this paradigm?

Aaron: I hear your question, L. Please all of you visualize the experience of total relaxation, hanging in a hammock, perhaps, or floating on a raft on a gentle lake. There is a state of low energy. It's not quite a kyo state, but it's close. Now I would ask you to visualize not only tension, or jitsu energy, but of hyper-tension, of real anxiety, fear-based anxiety and grasping. Pushing, pulling, controlling.

Finally, visualize a balanced, working energy. It cannot be as tension-free and kyo as the hanging in the hammock, and yet in order to relate skillfully to the persons and situations around you, it cannot be as high-pitched a tension as the strong jitsu energy and anxiety you've just remembered. You do control this. It's not an on-off switch, it's a dimmer switch. What I perceive specifically in you, L, and this will differ for other beings, is that when you reach that high-pitched level at work, fire energy is dominant as sub-element in all the elements. Fire energy is also dominant and is out of balance amongst the 4 elements. Air is also dominant and is out of balance. Specifically, then, as sub-element of each of the 4 elements, fire is out of balance. And in the 4 elements themselves, fire and air are out of balance.

You do not want to let go of all the fire energy. You don't want to shift to a lethargic kyo kind of state. This word is kyo, k-y-o. There are 2 possibilities. The simpler is simply to invite in more water and earth to release some of the excess fire. This is the cruder way to do it. It's fine but it's not as fine-tuned. It will serve the purpose of releasing some of the tension and bringing you back into balance, but it may not maintain the energetic jitsu energy that you need to do the work. More useful is to take this fire and air element that are each out of balance in their sub-elements, to find the fire sub-element that is out of balance in the fire element, to focus just on the fire element and how it feels, and bring the fire element itself back into a balance whereby it becomes a usable tool again.

You won't see this at first but after awhile you'll become attuned to the fact that as you balance the sub-elements in fire, and bring it back into a usable tool, that touches the fire sub-element in each of the other elements so that the fire remains as dynamic energy but it becomes a useful energy rather than an out of balance energy. Do you wish me to explain further? (yes)

When I ask you to picture the state of lying in the hammock, completely relaxed, you can feel that the elements may be in balance. They're in good balance for relaxing but they're not in good balance for dynamic action. Dynamic action does necessitate bringing in more fire energy. Can you feel that?

When there is tension, an anxiety-based, ego-based tension, as may happen in somebody that needs to get things done, needs to be in control, to be safe and keep others safe, to produce and so forth, then there is an excess of the fire element in the balance of these 4 elements. There's also an excess of air element for you in this situation, and for many people. The fire is the energy, the air is what keeps it going, like blowing on a fire in your fireplace. It produces hotter fire. The air keeps the fire energy in motion, stirred up. So there's a need for both water and earth to hold it down a little and make it workable.

This instrument in making her sculpture uses a welding torch with 2000 degrees of heat. She must balance the various gases that fuel the fire in the torch. It's of no use to her if it's a 2000 degree blowtorch bursting out in a wide flame. She needs a fine-pointed flame. How much oxygen? How much acetylene? This is the kind of balancing you do. You don't want to get rid of the fire and air energy. You don't want to go back and hang on a hammock or the work's not going to get done. You bring attention first to the imbalance, simply bringing in more water and earth energy, releasing some of the air and fire energy, until the fire element feels balanced within its four sub-elements. You still have a vibrant, dynamic fire energy, but it's a balanced fire energy. You bring attention to it in the fire element because that is the one in which you most notice the distortion of balance in terms of the sub-elements. As you balance the sub-elements in the fire element, those sub-elements are naturally balanced within the other elements as well.

Here we get into a non-linear process that is sometimes difficult for the human mind to fully comprehend. It's a simultaneous movement. As fire is balanced in terms of the sub-elements, that which is next to it automatically also balances the sub-elements. It's difficult for me to offer a metaphor here because it's a simultaneous, not a linear, progression and this is not common in the human experience. I can only offer a metaphor which is in reality untrue to human experience, but you can perhaps comprehend how it would be if this happened.

If you have an instrument that has 4 strings and you want to bring them into harmony with one another, you may tune one string. What if when you tuned that string the strings next to it automatically tuned them selves, and came into harmony with the first string? Basically that's what you're doing. As you create harmony within that fire element, within the sub-elements within the fire element, the other elements, sub-elements, create harmony naturally in replication of the fire element and its sub-elements.

Again, I fear I'm becoming too complex here and leading you to a conceptual experience or to over-use of the intellect. Very simply, note that the fire is out of balance. That is what first catches your attention. Simply act in the appropriate ways with the intention to create harmony there for the good of all beings by bringing in more water and more earth, releasing some of the fire and air, until the fire element feels balanced but dynamic. You're not putting out the fire. Balanced but dynamic. Then invite that dynamic balanced fire to be replicated in each of the other 4 elements. Observe constantly how you feel as you do this. If you're doing it skillfully, you're going to feel a release of the anxiety tension and yet there will still be a dynamic energy to do the work. Is this sufficient explanation, L? I would be happy to speak further on it if it's useful. I pause.

L: I feel better just listening to the answer. Is Aaron saying that I'm prone to hot air? (smiling) Barbara: Aaron says, somewhat. He says, better hot air than hot lava! He is saying please do not let this become a doing, a conceptual, "First I've got to do this and then that," making a long list and checking it off. He says it's an intuitive process and fundamental above all else is simply offering the intention to allow rebalance for the good of all beings. When that intention is strong enough, you intuitively know how to allow this. He says it's like driving on a highway. You don't have to think of how far do I turn the wheel and how far do I push the accelerator. You just observe the traffic flow and you observe, "For the good of all beings I intend to drive skillfully and invite the self to do it". Let me get R's question now.

R: I'm not sure which elements are out of balance, but I am experiencing a lot of resistance and aversion to writing my dissertation. What is the best way to get through a process that is very time-consuming and not enjoyable?

Aaron: I am Aaron. I would note here that work with the elements is just one kind of practice. It is very useful but not the most important practice in all situations. You are newer to our work here. There is much that has been said through the years that you have not heard. Working with the elements, it would be useful to feel the resistance and then visualize water element in a dynamic form, such as a waterfall, and bring it into you, feel it moving through you. A waterfall has much more fire element in it than a placid pond. Much more air in it also. So, working with the elements, you want to bring in something more dynamic and yet fluid. Cooling. This is useful, and I would certainly recommend it to you, but there's much more to this.

What is the resistance? Remember, you're not trying to fix the resistance, the resistance is not bad; nothing is broken. It is a challenge though, when you have work to do. Resistance is simply a statement of fear. What is your normal pattern when fear arises? I would suggest from what I know of you that your normal pattern is to become a solid self that's out to conquer fear. Here is an invitation to begin to work with fear in a very new way. When there is resistance, it's a statement of fear and you don't have to know what the fear is about. Instead, feeling that resistance, can you begin to do lovingkindness meditation. Hold in your heart the one who is resisting, the one who wants so badly to do well and is afraid that it will not do well. The one who wants to offer good and is afraid it may offer harm instead. The one who needs to be in control and is afraid that if it offers its energy to this work, it may move into a space of les than full control. Hold that dear being deeply in your heart and wish it well. See deeply into the pain of this being as if you were its sister and offer her wishes from your loving heart. In this way, instead of trying to conquer the fear, can you make more space for the fear? As you make space, you begin to find that within which is not afraid, and allow that non-fear mind to flourish and gain strength. Increasingly you will find you are able to say no to fear mind in a very gentle and kind way, not to control or get rid of fear mind, but in the same way you would say no to a puppy with muddy paws who wanted to jump on you. No. It's not appropriate. No, you are not running the show. The same way you would say no to a whining child who wanted a cookie just before dinner. No. It's not said with anger but with kindness. So this is the kind of practice I would most request that you work with, bringing more and more love in to this fear state that's being expressed through resistance. I pause.

Barbara: He says, do you understand? (Yes.) He says do you see the old pattern to conquer the resistance?

Q: That's me.

Barbara: He says that just sets up a conflict, increases the resistance. He says, just know that it is teaching. It's teaching you about the fear self and offering you an opportunity to create a different relationship with the fear self whereby the fear self is no longer either in control or one that must be conquered, but one that you just nod to and say, "OK, have a seat. But you're not running the show."

Q: I should see this as an opportunity.

Barbara: Aaron says please remove the word "should" from your vocabulary. He would prefer you to say it is possible to see this as an opportunity. (OK. Thanks.) He says, you "should" not remove the word "should" from your vocabulary! (laughter.) He says, you *may*!

(break, background noise)

Q: In the talk Aaron gave, he said he asked you to work with higher elements. As you did that, anger dissipated and you had strong intention to find the sharp thing and pick it up. He had you continue to work with the elements but he didn't say what happened then to the desire to find the sharp object.

Barbara: What happened was at that point I felt the anger dissolve and felt, OK, I'm done and the bleeding has stopped a bit and I want to find what it was that cut me so it's not in the children's wading area. Aaron said, "Just wait, stay here and work with balancing all 4 elements." And I saw that as I further released the fire element, it was important to keep enough of the fire element to keep the intention to find this thing, which takes a force of energy. When he asked me at that point not to go and find it but just to sit there and continue to meditate, and then to balance the 4 elements, what I found is when I released more of the fire energy, it came into a balance and there was no longer intention, "I'm going to find this thing!" After working with the 4 elements and bringing them into literal balance, I just felt like I wanted to take a nap on the dock! Let the thing stay there!

So I realized it's useful to keep that subtle imbalance. Aaron says this relates to R's question last week in terms of the imbalance in creativity. We don't want to be flat but to keep a controlled imbalance. We're creating the imbalance, not the imbalance being thrust upon us. We're constantly working to create this dynamic imbalance that's a kind of a flow, which allows us to take appropriate action.

When I sat with this, I was able to bring forth more energy and went out and found the piece of glass.

L: I remember when I started working in sales that I had a difficult time gearing up. Now, I have a difficult time gearing down. Interesting.

Barbara: Aaron is saying, similar to his message to D, it's useful to use this element balancing practice but it's also useful simply to use lovingkindness meditation. Be aware of that which has a fear base. Bring that fear base more into the open heart rather than try to fix it. Balancing the elements can become a way of fixing. He knows you understand that. This element balancing practice is only ultimately useful when it comes from a place of equanimity.

Several pages of unrelated questions are omitted.

(Joys and Sorrows.) omitted

<taping ends>

Copyright © 1998 by Barbara Brodsky