November 10, 2010 Wednesday Night with Aaron

Keywords: angels in earthsuits, wholeness, Vision is Mind, compassion, heavy emotions, awareness, healing, ever-perfect, Project Light, forgiveness, devotion, metta, enlightenment, earth transition, densities, karma, death/transition

Aaron: Welcome. Thank you for being with us tonight. You look around you and see human beings. I look around the room and I see both humans and radiant spirit. You think of yourself more as the physical form, the mental thoughts. I see the spirit body. And I don't see you as limited to this incarnation. Rather, it's as if you would feel with a friend who changes her clothes often. You change your bodies often. Once you were here in another body and before that, still another body. You just keep coming.

But you're the same being underneath that costume, and yet not the same at all but evolving constantly, growing. And that is why you are here. You are not here to have an experience limited to the human, you are here to find the fullness of yourselves.

Religions have different ways of talking about this – to find the Buddha nature or the Christ Consciousness. I'd rather just call it the fullness, or wholeness of yourselves. That which you are when you're not busy being the body and the personality.

You are all so beautiful, radiant, and such timeless beings. How can we wake you up to the truth of what you are?

I love you. I love each of you very much. And I so deeply appreciate the fact that you constantly put yourself on that line, on the edge, and push yourself to go a little bit further and a little bit further into knowing the radiance that you are. That takes such courage. So I deeply appreciate and respect that about you. You are love. You are loved.

But the human does tend to get caught in belief in limits. So you think of yourself, "I am this. I am this small shell." Then you believe that there is only a limited amount of compassion, for example. I can love this much but no more. I can do this much and no more.

But my dear ones, you are truly unlimited. You are afraid of that lack of limits, like the young child who wants boundaries set because the child doesn't trust his or her own impulses and wants the parents to say, "No, this far and no further." You want boundaries because you often are self-identified with the emotions and thoughts that move through, you're afraid of the negative thoughts, and yet every being has negative thoughts.

I remember a deep moment of truth at a meditation class back in the days when the classes were in Barbara's living room. We had many young parents in that particular class. Somebody came in looking upset. Barbara asked, "What's happening?" And the parent said, "The 5 year old made me so angry tonight I could have picked him up and dropped him out the window!" The parent was so distressed with him self that he had such a thought, but every other parent in the class laughed and said, "Yes! We've been there!" That kind of anger comes.

So you are here to know the fullness and also you are here to have a human experience and that human experience is precisely what teaches you compassion. If there was nothing that triggered emotion, where would you learn compassion?

There's a wonderful story about the teacher Gurdjieff. He had a man living in his spiritual community who didn't do his share of the work, and he spoke in a rough way to others. He even had poor personal hygiene, didn't smell good. People disliked him intensely.

People paid Gurdjieff to live in this community. This man finally came in one day to see Gurdjieff and said, "I'm leaving. Nobody appreciates me around here." He packed his bags and started to leave. Gurdjieff came after him and not only asked him to stay but offered to pay him to stay.

Others in the community were aghast. "He doesn't do anything. He's so irritating. He's irresponsible. How could you pay him to stay?" And Gurdjieff replied, "He is the grist for the mill. Without his presence, how would you learn compassion? He is your teacher of compassion."

In the meditation class, we have introduced a a 5-part practice from a Tibetan teacher. The first part is called "Vision is Mind". The teacher asks people to find what he calls the "famous person". This would be the person who, when you think of him, your skin crawls. You get a shiver. You don't want to think about this person. Just seeing him walking down the street, you want to turn around and go the other way. Seeing a card from him in the mail, you want to tear it up. For whatever reason, this person brings up a huge amount of agitation. It may be based on some past experience with the person and it may be based simply on the fact that the person reflects back to you some quality that you have judged in yourself, and that makes you uncomfortable.

So when we see this person we immediately see the agitation. And here is the opportunity to stop, to note the agitation, and to ask oneself, "Is this about this person, or what is it about?" "Is what's happening about something out there, or is what's happening in my mind?" Vision is Mind. Seeing that all that's happening is that this person, who may or may not be irresponsible, who may or may not be nasty at times, who may or may not have bad body odor, this person has walked into the room. He is the teacher of compassion.

This is why you have come into the incarnation. It's very nice to have lovely experiences, dear friends, happiness, and I wish you all these. But life is not going to be entirely happy, and when the famous person comes along, one can learn to bow and say, "Ah, thank you for coming. Thank you for coming to my party." It's going to remind you to open the compassionate heart.

Here is where you start to break out of the idea of the limited self, the one who feels, "I cannot like this person." The one who tells the stories, this person did this, did that, makes me feel like this, makes me feel like that. Ah, these are just stories, just thoughts in the mind. In this moment, all that's happening is this person maybe is saying nasty things. Let them talk. One doesn't have to believe it.

Something is triggering this person's negative speech, negative behavior, if indeed there is negative speech and negative behavior. Can there be compassion for this person? If the person walks up to you and starts to push you, it's fine to say no. Compassion is strong, compassion knows how to say no, but it's kindness that says no, not anger. It's a very different experience.

Each time negative emotion arises in you, it is the opportunity to find the fullness that you are. That which is aware of anger is not angry. We experience the anger with no contempt for the anger and without expression of the anger. Simply, "Here is anger. Certain conditions are present so anger has arisen."

If I have a big pot with very fertile soil and I put it in the window in the sun and water it, and into I put one flower seed and one thistle seed, they're both going to grow. If the conditions are present, whatever is planted will grow.

Within each of you the conditions for negativity are still present, and the conditions for your innate radiance and wholeness, your Buddha nature, Christ Consciousness to shine forth and bloom, are equally present. As long as you believe, "I must get rid of the negativity and then finally I will be able to experience the positive," it's just more negativity. Both are already present. To which do you give your energy?

An example I frequently use – we cannot use it tonight as the curtains are drawn with dusk – we look at the windows here in the daytime. There's inevitably going to be a bit of dirt on the windows. So I ask people, "Must we break out the glass and install new windows?" What would you do?

The nature of the glass is clear, just as your own true nature is clear. One must attend to the dirt on the windows. One does the everyday work to attend to negativity, to greed, to anger, to fear, to jealousy, to impatience, whatever has come up, to attend to it. Not to fix it, to attend to it. To take care of it. To hold it in a loving container and hold space for it until it dissolves. And it will dissolve, it's all impermanent.

One does that not with a belief, "If I finally conquer anger, then I can be a loving person," but knowing, "I am a loving person in whom the conditions for anger, greed, or fear, are still dormant. When something triggers them, those emotions still arise. And it's okay that they arise. I will not use those emotions to do harm in the world." So you hold that commitment, that deep intention to non-harm, and you hold love for the self in whom these emotions have arisen. That which is aware of anger is not angry. That which is aware of fear is not afraid, and so forth.

What is this awareness? How can we get to know that part of ourselves that is truly the ever-perfect, that is radiant and beautiful, divine? So this is the first part of my talk, just the reminder-- I call you "angels in earthsuits". You are divine, radiant beings. And, in the human form, you learn to love yourself, warts and all. The warts are there, how do you take care of them?

Now I want to expand this talk into a new area. This is something that I've spoken a lot with Barbara about in the last week. Many years ago we did a class with people who were healers in one form or another, people who were Reiki practitioners or polarity therapists, did bodywork of one sort or another. We called it Project Light. I suppose it was a 2 or 3 year class.

These were people intent on cultivating the intention to work in service to others, but also one must work with oneself. The focus of that class was to see the ever-perfect expression of the body and the distortions and how they exist simultaneously. What I have just been talking about is the simultaneity of the emotional distortion and the ever-perfect. There's really no difference. We watch the emotional distortion and know the ever-perfect that exists side-by-side with that emotional distortion. We transcend the emotional distortion and make the commitment to rest as deeply as we can in the ever-perfect. We forgive ourselves when we can't. We just keep going. We're never going to get it perfect; that's okay. We just keep inviting ourselves ever-more-fully to manifest that ever-perfect and to take care of the distortions when they come up.

Barbara has had some knee pain, not new for her, it comes and it goes. Here for a month or two and then gone, and well for some period of time. Usually after she goes to Brazil, to the Casa there's no pain for 6 months and then it starts to get more painful again, probably because she does not faithfully do the exercises that she should do to keep it strong.

So the pain was running up through knee and thigh and into her lower back. The past few days she's taken several long walks, and by the end of each walk she felt a lot of pain. Today she visited the chiropractor. This chiropractor has been with her to Brazil, to John of God. Today's visit was during the time of the current room there in Brazil, so both Barbara and the chiropractor could feel the entities around them and working with them.

As Barbara lay on the table (today) with the doctor working on her she began to get a very strong image of her higher self. This is really a story Barbara should be telling you but I don't want to bring her out of her trance to talk and then me to come back in.

(Stands up)... She saw her body as kind of stooped, trying to get away from the pain. She saw her higher self open. I want you all to stand up, if you will. (group stands) Stand tall. Watch me as if I were the higher self. Try to stand this way, opening your body as fully as you can... (arms are outstretched, posture tall)

Just keep standing there while I talk. So she watched the body, the higher self, open, radiant, and she could see in her own body, the subtle distortion of that higher self. Can you feel just this minute as I've been talking where your body is sinking back in? You stop paying attention for just one moment and it closes down. Can you feel that? (yes) Open it up again. Open... (holds for a short time) You may sit down.

So she saw the higher self radiant, open, and she saw the distortion in back and shoulders. She saw how old the distortion was, through so many lifetimes, lifetimes that at times she has explored. Twenty years ago she saw a very ancient lifetime in which the being she was sat at the overhang over a cave mouth where her month-old infant was lying swaddled in clothing in front of the cave. She had climbed up to pick berries when something caused a landslide.

Rocks tumbled down. She was grabbed at them, held them back. If you can imagine, she's 6 or 7 feet above, the cave opening is just below her, and the terrace in front. If these rocks go forward, they're going to fall on the baby. She's the only one there. There's no way she can get down to pick up the baby because she's holding the rocks. How long can she hold the rocks? Eventually she's going to have to let go. When she lets go and the whole thing starts moving, she's probably going to be pulled over also. What a terrible situation to be in. What does one do?

How can there be anything but compassion for the woman? And yet that human that she was felt only contempt for herself that she could not fix the situation. Eventually she had to let go. The baby was killed and the woman that she was, was very badly injured as the rocks threw her down and half-buried her, so that the husband came home from his hunting and found her half-buried under rocks with a broken body. She's watched many times how this is held in the arms and the back; holding, trying to hold the world back, and how that affects the body.

So she watched the self, the physical body, bent over and contracted, and the higher self inviting spaciousness. The invitation was more or less a statement, "Let it go, daughter. Let it go. You can let it go. All the shame, all the pain, all the horror of so many lifetimes. You can let it go. You can choose to be that woman and all the other humans through so many lifetimes who suffered, who were maimed, who were tormented. You can choose to carry all of that, or release it" When I say "Let it go", I don't mean dismiss it-- take it into you as a teacher and cease to identify with it. Let it teach you compassion and love and let it go.

The doctor is not fixing the body, the doctor is encouraging the body into new patterns. So as she lay there on the table and the doctor was working on her, she began to see how the body could either accept that encouragement and choose the new patterns, choose to express its radiance and wholeness, or how the body could take the treatment as a temporary fix, feel better for an hour or two, and then feel pain again. Which way is it going to go?

What blocks your knowing your wholeness, whether it's emotional or physical? Knowing that something blocks it, can there be kindness for the human experience, not contempt for the human? When you choose to express less than your innate wholeness, why do you do so? This is not something you ask yourself with a critical eye but only with the deepest kindness, because only that kindness will support healing.

Nothing heals. What is there to heal? The window cannot be clearer glass than it is, and yet we can wash the window. What is there in you that could possibly heal, emotionally or physically? And yet we can release the distortion and more fully express the innate radiance. This is the core of healing.

I believe Barbara has literature about her new book. She'll pass it out later. This is the core of the book's message: coming to know your wholeness and express your wholeness, to choose wholeness. Because as long as you live in a belief that you will always be unworthy, that you will always be dyslexic and unable to read well, that you will always be confused, that your back will always ache, that you will always be deaf, as long as you hold those beliefs, that's how you're going to live. As long as you hold the belief, "I'm just an angry person," that's how you're going to live.

Are you ready to drop those old beliefs about yourself and to know who you truly are? My dear ones, can you see how much easier it is to drop into those old beliefs than to move past them and choose the wholeness? So much easier to say, "I'm just caught here. I can't do it. This is how I am. This is who I am." And then yes, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. But you can go beyond it.

It is the practice of love. It is the practice of kindness. Until you are able to give this gift to yourselves, how can you give it to others? Are you ready to forgive yourselves for all the mistakes you have made in the past? This is not a forgiveness that says, "Ah, it doesn't matter," but a forgiveness that sees how deeply it did matter and still forgives because this is what the loving heart can do? Saying, "Eh, it doesn't matter," is not forgiveness. Forgiveness only comes from the loving heart. Forgiveness sees how much power you do have to destroy and to create, to harm or to heal, and takes responsibility for that power.

This loving heart is not afraid of power because it recognizes that it will not misuse the power. And if it does, then it is ready to do the work, to be honest with itself, to see why it misused the power, what its fears and so forth are, its fears, its habit energies, and so forth, and to work to release that which has held it into negative patterns. This is where your growth lies. This is why you are in incarnation. It is the work you came in to do. Why settle for anything less?

Let me pause the talk here and open the floor to questions. First I would welcome any questions about the talk itself and then other and different forms of questions.

Q: When you speak about creating a loving heart with compassion for yourself, what practice would you do every day to help that, to create that?

Aaron: First, daughter, we're not creating the loving heart but revealing the loving heart. There's a big difference. As long as you believe you have to create the loving heart, you're still trying to fix something. "Something is broken and if only I can fix it what I want will be created." But rather, "I am looking through the litter that has covered the loving heart and revealing it."

The practice I would do is simply mindfulness meditation, vipassana, but it doesn't have to be vipassana. It's sufficient simply to bring attention to the arising of negative thought, know it as a negative thought, and each time it arises, to ask yourself, "Right here with this anger, where is love? Right here with this impatience, where is patience? Right here with this feeling of greed, where is generosity?"

This is not conceptual. When one asks, "With the anger, where is that which is not angry?" one can do a short meditation such as, "Breathing in, I am aware of the anger. Breathing out, I smile to the anger." Just in that moment of relaxing and smiling into the heart, one is bringing in lovingkindness and begins to see the possibility of lovingkindness here in this moment, right with the anger. Not after the anger but with the anger.

When you're driving your car and there's a traffic jam and you're delayed, impatience comes up. "Breathing in, I am aware of the impatience. Breathing out, I smile to the impatience." There's got to be mindfulness this has arisen. Feel it in the body, tension in the body. Ahhh... right there with the hard belly, breathe into the belly. Feel the softness of the belly. With the hard heart, feel the softness of the heart. See where in the body, in the shoulders or the jaw, the tension is stored. Help it to release a bit.

The traffic is still honking and gridlocked around you. There's a moment of relaxation. Look around you at the drivers of the other cars. Agitated. Do some compassion meditation for them. "Seeing you, brother, in this car honking your horn. Where are people going to go? You are feeling so tense. My heart goes out to you. I wish you well." "This woman peering out her window. What's going on? Banging on her windshield. My heart goes out to you." And then you turn it to yourself. "I'm also feeling tension. Right here with tension is that which is aware of the tension and free of the tension." Feel the possibility of that spaciousness.

So as you do this in a skillful and persistent way many times a day, slowly it starts to click. The self-identity shifts from being the one who's angry or impatient or greedy. You see that these arise out of conditions, are impermanent and not self. If they are not self, then who am I? If I'm not my anger, my greed, my impatience, who am I? What remains? Slowly you strip the dirt off the window so the clear glass is revealed, the loving heart is revealed.

Vipassana is an excellent practice for this but I would not want to force that on anybody. Just the daily mindfulness practice will get you there. Devotional meditation can also be helpful because it reminds you we're not praying to some outer god out there; when we do devotional meditation, we're finding the divine within everything. It reminds you that that which you seek to become is already here in the heart. One looks at the picture of the guru or deity and finds that which one so deeply cherishes is also here in the self. So these combinations of practices are helpful.

What form of meditation do you do?

Q: Mantra.

Aaron: Does it open your heart?

Q: Yes.

Aaron: Combine that, then, with mindfulness.

Q: Thank you.

Q: I have a brother and I want to describe some things about him and then how he transitioned from the planet.

Aaron: Is your brother the one who just died? You said somebody died.

Q: Well actually 3 people I was close to died in one year.

Aaron: So your brother...

Q: My brother was almost a creative genius. He would make small inventions when we were little, like a little lamp that could light up. He was always protecting me, showing me every way to be creative and happy. He did many accomplishments. He got 800s on every test he took, AT or SAT. He went to MIT and graduated in 3 years. He would make a good joke, "It takes a little schizophrenia to make it in the world."

Then up to more the present, I was in an abusive marriage. Upon my partner's death I remember him saying, "Oh, can you believe that, D died." I had my children in the system and he was saying that belatedly because he believed the kids would be returned to me immediately.

When he wanted to visit, before he came, my mother spoke to me sadistically, announcing, "How do you think this brother will help? Ha ha, he just lost his job."

Aaron: Daughter, I hear that you want to talk about this, but I wonder, do you have a specific question for me here?

Q: I can't deal with how my brother died, after this, he died. I treated him badly. And I was called to identify his body.

Aaron: I would ask you to find a photograph of your brother and put it on an altar or where you meditate. Sit with your eyes open, looking at him, and start with the lovingkindness meditation. Have you done metta, lovingkindness meditation? Look in my book Presence, Kindness, and Freedom. Take the Compassion meditation from the book.

Do this form of meditation. Look at him and say, "I see that you have suffered. I see the ways that you have suffered. I wish you well. May you be happy. Whatever plane you are now, wherever you are, however you are, may you be at peace. May you be loved." Spend a few minutes offering him the wishes from your heart. Then offer yourself those same wishes.

After awhile of practicing in that way, when it seems to flow, then say to him, "In whatever ways I have harmed you, I ask your forgiveness." Sit with that for 5 or 10 minutes, just repeating the phrase, "However I have hurt you, through whatever I said or did or even thought, please forgive me." And then turn it to yourself. "Whoever has hurt me, in whatever ways they have hurt me, I offer forgiveness." To the brother, to the mother, to the husband, to anybody, in whatever ways the heart can open, to offer forgiveness. This is not a one-time practice, do it over a period of many weeks, and I think you will experience some heart-opening and ease. Will you try that?

Q: I want you to talk about enlightenment. When the humans on this earthly plane become enlightened, do they go to 4^th density or do they get to the Infinite Intelligence or Infinite Creator? What really happens?

Aaron: First, I would like to recommend that you read the chapter in that book I just mentioned called, I think it's an Appendix, actually, "The Universe According to Aaron", and I believe it can be found on the website as well as the book. So I don't want to repeat information that's spelled out over 20 pages in the Appendix.

There are 8 what we call densities. Presently humans are in 3^rd density. For the human in third density they are caught behind the veil, with the belief, "I am this physical body, this emotional body, this mental body." As one practices, the veil gets thinner and one starts to see, "These are part of me and I am responsible to them but they are not my true identity." If I cut my hand, I wash it and put a bandage on it. If an angry thought comes, I make sure it doesn't burst out and hurt people. But I am not these, they simply pass through me and I'm responsible to them. If I am not these, Buddhism calls them aggregates or skhandas, if I am not these, what am I? And one starts to know the true spirit self.

The readiness to move into 4^th density comes at the point where one is no longer self-identified with the physical body, thoughts, and emotions, is able to take care of them but is not self-identified with them. As long as you are in human form there's going to be a body, there are going to be emotions, there's going to be thought. This is how the human experience is. One attends to it.

One is much more identified with that which attends, which is the spirit body or Awareness. This is what moves into 4^th density because in 4^th density – let me put it this way – those who become enlightened, as you used the term, and realize their true self, don't suddenly drop the body. They're still walking around. But there's identity with the body. Emotions may still come but there's no identity with them. Once there is no identity, there is no need to move into a new incarnation. There's nothing that pulls you karmically into a new body.

Earth is in process of becoming a 4^th density planet. Beings on Earth will be 4^th density beings. That means that you will be telepathic. That's a part of 4^th density. If everybody in this room were telepathic right now, if everybody knew everything you thought this evening, and you knew everything everybody else had thought, would that be okay with you? With you, yes! Who else? Anybody uncomfortable with that? A little bit uncomfortable?

Usually when I ask that question most people say, "Oh, no! I'm not ready for that!" That's okay. You are learning this; this is what you are practicing, to reach the point where when somebody looks at you and you read the thought from them, "Oh, that turquoise shirt looks awful on her," you don't get angry, you just think, "She's having an interesting thought! Is that your opinion? Okay."

Somebody else's emotions don't trigger something in you; there's only compassion. If something happens that makes somebody angry in the room, I don't know what... if somebody came walking in the door screaming, "What are you people doing in there!?" and then walked out and some people here became very angry, the person who is not caught up in the veil, in the illusion, will be able to feel the anger around them and simply have compassion for it.

This is the shift, from being caught in the illusion, caught behind the veil, into this deep opening that sees everything popping up and dissolving out of conditions, with so much compassion for this human experience-- emotions, physicality, body pain, fear.

That being is, I don't like to use the word enlightened, but that being is beginning to realize his true nature, and the true nature of everything and his interconnectedness with everything, and to understand how to live that interconnectedness.

At the point where you start to realize that deeply, you might say, "Ah, I've had an enlightenment experience,"--a profound meditation experience where suddenly you know your interconnection with all that is--"Wow! Okay, great! I'm enlightened! Now I don't have to do any more work!" That's not how it works. You are just at the beginning, now. Now how do you live that realization experience? What do you do with it?

This is the point that I was talking about earlier where people become ready to be responsible for their divinity, ready to truly live their true nature with love. Ready to greet even fear with kindness in themselves and in the world. It is this readiness to take responsibility that will transform the world and stabilize this 4^th density.

It's going to need a lot of people who are ready to do that hard work, because as the world becomes a 4^th density planet there's still going to be negativity here. It's going to need a lot of people who are ready to hold space for that negativity the way one. . . you have a young child, yes? When the baby, you don't have a 2 year old, you have a baby, but your older child was 2 at one point. You remember the temper tantrums. You didn't shake the baby or stuff it in a closet, you just held it, held space for it until it quieted down. This is what the whole world is going to need, people of sufficient realization and compassion to hold the 2 year olds regardless of whether they are 2 or 20 or 60, but to hold them with their fear and anger and greed, and hold space for them and not let them enact negativity. It's going to take a lot of courage.

The person who has an enlightenment experience will tend his or her work in the world. When he or she is ready to transition that being may move on to a higher density, maybe 4^th or 5^th or even 6^th, or as high as they are ready to go. The work always continues. What obscurations remain? That work will be done on another plane if there is no karmic pull back to earth. Eventually, that being will move into 7^th and 8^th density.

Does that sufficiently answer your question?

Q: I have a follow-up.

Aaron: Let me just add here, besides this book, another book that will be published next August by, it is a mix of channeling of me and my brother Q'uo who is channeled by Carla Rueckart, who channeled the Ra material. The same publisher is publishing it, The Aaron-Q'uo Dialogues. Q'uo and I speak quite in depth to many of these questions. The book is not yet available but it will be. Your other question?

Q: So when a person like the Buddha gets enlightened, and they leave their body and die, do they get to 4^th density or do they get to the Infinite?

Aaron: It's different for each being. Fourth density is just the plane beyond 3^rd density. Beings who leave their body and have no karmic need to come back to the earth presently are in 4^th density and then move into 5^th density. Fourth density is more the learning of compassion, and then the learning of wisdom in 5^th density. Many 5^th density beings are guides. Fourth density beings often come into spiritual families, exist as a kind of group experience, learning compassion from each other, practicing. In other words, a group where something triggers one of their anger and everybody is able to hold space for that anger until it resolves. There's no judgment of everybody, just holding it in compassion. And a 5^th density being will be a leader of such a group. And people are constantly evolving and growing, it's not like a school class where there's a graduation for the whole class, but as beings are ready to move out of the 4^th density group, others will move in.

Then, of course, is 6^th density. I am a high 6^th density being. That means that, of course I have no physical body but I have no emotional body left at all. I do feel joy and sorrow. These are not really emotions in the same way that anger, greed, and fear are emotions. They have a very different energy. There's no attachment to joy or sorrow, no aversion to them. But I feel sadness when I see the suffering in the world, and I feel joy when I see a human being transcend that suffering. I do retain the mental body as a teaching tool. I'm not identified with the mental body in any way but it's a useful tool or I couldn't talk to you in this way.

Those who move beyond the 6^th density literally let go of the mental body, which is a one-way process. It is no better to hold on to the mental body than to let go of it. No better to let go of it than to hold on to it. I do not hold on to it with attachment but merely from compassion. The one who lets go of it, if we could use the example of a body of water and here is one that is a very clear, pure drop of water, when it drops into that body of water, it raises the vibration of that whole body of water. Each being who reaches that outer edge of 6^th density and says, "I will go forth into 7^th density," the pure spirit body dropping into that body of water we could call beingness raises the vibration of beingness throughout the universe. So that is 7^th density.

And 8^th density is a step beyond that. Different beings have chosen different routes. The one who know of as the Buddha has moved into 7^th density. His energy holds that vast space, that high vibration. There's no one you can look at anymore and say, "That was the Buddha." The one who you knew as Jesus remains as a very high 6^th density entity, so that his mental body and thoughts are available and present in the world. One is not better than the other, each follows his own course.

Is there another question?

Q: When one is contemplating choosing to express the fullness of one's self, please explain or elaborate on the process of balancing karma. I could go on but let me leave it there.

Aaron: Both must happen together. One comes to know the fullness of oneself, or if we could say it in a different way, the deeper reality of oneself, but there is still no denial of the human experiences. Part of the human experience is karma.

If I could put it in very simple terms using the physical body, for example, if one had continuously neglected the body, chosen improper diet, lack of exercise, the body had gotten very grossly heavy, there was shortness of breath, the high blood sugar, different physical situations, then one might realize, "I am doing this harm to the body." One might then lose weight, begin to exercise, strengthen the body, heal the body in many ways. And yet perhaps because of years of walking with great excess of weight the knees are both ruined, the hips are ruined. The blood sugar is still high with diabetes.

So the person now is of a normal weight and getting good exercise and diet but there are still these repercussions. The body is coming back into its wholeness and yet there is, I would not in this case call it solely karmic but physical repercussions of the choices.

If we could take that illustration into karma emotional patterns, if one has acted out certain, let's call them unwholesome patterns of greed, of anger, manipulation of the world around one, fear, one begins to realize how one has done that, really begins to drop the need to be a controlling and fearful and angry person, becomes much kinder in the world. And yet the old karma of all the people one hurt through that negativity is still there.

Probably that person will suddenly find that they're attracting a lot of controlling, angry people to themselves, even thought he heart is now much more open. Why is this happening? It's the opportunity to balance the karma by practicing compassion with these controlling and angry people, compassion that says no in a clear way but compassion that is also kind and loving.

So one is releasing one's own habitual tendencies on the one hand, and balancing the karma of those habitual tendencies through what one attracts to one. One attracts it because one has the intention to balance the karma.

If you had always been an angry person, always in people's faces, and now suddenly you're kind, and here is this next door neighbor who's moved in who's angry and is always in your face, that's your path to balancing the karma. Now it's your turn to help him get where you've moved to.

Q: Your story of Barbara today with the chiropractor and the higher self saying, "This is how you do it," how does that play with what you've just described?

Aaron: It's a bit different because Barbara has done the work for many years releasing and balancing the karma. What's left are simply the habitual patterns in the body that have not fully shifted. It's like somebody who is used to being a punching bag for others so they walk around with this kind of posture (stooped over). Now they realize, "I don't have to be a punching bag for others. I am safe in the world." But as soon as anybody comes toward them with any aggression, the body just instinctively pulls back. It's not in the mind any more, it's just in the body. So for Barbara today this was about karma held in the body and no longer in the thoughts.

Q: Mental body?

Aaron: It's not in the mental body, it's in the physical body. The physical body itself carries karma. The physical body has its own intelligence.

I want to tell you a story. This comes from a meditation retreat that Barbara led at a Catholic center. They were Catholic priests and nuns.. It was just a straight 10 day vipassana retreat.

There was an elderly nun perhaps in her 70s or 80 who sat hunched over like this. Probably in her 70s so not that elderly, but not a young woman. Barbara would walk by her and straighten her body. She would sit up for 30 seconds and then (slumping sound). She came to talk to Barbara for a private meeting and described how she had been abused as a child and as a young woman, before she became a nun. She wondered how she could find forgiveness for that terrible abuse.

The woman said she felt she had released much of that abuse but she could not forgive the abuser and she didn't know what to do with it. She could not forgive herself for her hard heart. So Barbara taught her tonglen, in which one breathes in light, sends it out to the person in pain, breathes in the pain like a heavy tar-like mass, letting it touch the heart and then it releases.

Barbara adapted the tonglen practice asking her to see herself as the young woman, as the one who was suffering. Because she was a Christian nun, to breathe light from Jesus into her heart and send it out to this young woman. Put a picture of herself as the young woman on the altar and breathe this love out to the young woman. And then to feel the young woman's suffering, anger, and so forth. Breathe it into her heart, and release it to Jesus. She pointed out that when the heart can fully open to the self with compassion, there's nothing left to forgive. The start here was not t the abuser, but o the self, and to encourage compassion for the self.

She practiced with the woman and several days of the retreat went by. One night quite late, Barbara was getting ready for bed when the door crept open. A hand came in, "May I come in?" This woman was standing erect, radiant! She just said to Barbara, "Jesus took it." Jesus took it.

She went through the rest of the retreat sitting upright like this. She had no more need for the body to move into that defended posture. It was released. Now this is a woman who had been a nun for 50 or more years. She had been practicing a deep spiritual life for 50 years and condemning herself because she could not fully forgive the one, the father in this case, who had seriously abused her as a child and young woman.

So much had been healed in her already but she didn't know how to take it this final step, and the body was carrying the weight of that self-anger. It wasn't so much anger at the abuser anymore; it was anger at herself, and being unable to release the old story of he row badness. Now she understood, "I don't have to believe that I'm bad anymore. I don't have to believe that he was bad. I let go of the whole thing. Jesus took it." Let it go.

The last we heard she was teaching this practice, going to different convents around the country and teaching it to many nuns. I find that a beautiful story, a true story, but it also demonstrates how that shift can happen. One becomes ready to recognize the true self in that moment of saying, "I don't have to be the angry one, the inept one, the one who is going to save the world," whatever beliefs you have. "I don't have to be that anymore. I can release that weight from my shoulders. I don't have to be the one who is deaf or the one who has a bad back or who has chronic headaches. I don't have to be that anymore. I let it go."

Does that answer your question? One more question here and then we will end.

Q: Aaron, could you say something about the transition of death. What happens in the first two weeks after death?

Aaron: Am I correct that your father just died? Yes. The process is different for each person. First, the whole process of dying and then death, it's like walking into an increasingly obscure place where one is maybe afraid, "I can't see anything," and then suddenly at that moment of transition, the lights come on. You look back, you see the doorway the other way, and you wonder, "What was I afraid of?" I didn't stop, I just walked through a doorway, and on the other side of the doorway there is light.

Beings who approach that doorway with tremendous fear may close themselves in to the degree that they cannot see the light right away. They will spend however long they need to spend in darkness. They will always be accompanied by loving entities, loving helpers, but they may not be able to feel the energy of those loving helpers.

The person who moves through the transition with more consciousness, and if there is fear, at least with awareness of the fear and not so caught up in the fear, will experience the light almost immediately, will experience the presence of these loving helpers. The very conscious person will simply come into this vast light and say wow! This is great! Here I am!

For most people there's some fear, there's some period of dimness. People who are very self-identified with the body may not immediately recognize that they have died.

We have a friend whose mother died in the past month. The mother was very confused mentally before the death. She was I believe Catholic and had certain Catholic beliefs about hell. She had Alzheimer's, so there was a lot of forgetting who she was, what her life was about. Coming through the transition process, at first she did not recognize that she had died. It took her some time to start to shift back into her true self. But now several weeks later, that's happening. She's very much more aware of who she is and aware of the loving guidance around her, aware of past loved ones who surround her and so forth. The mind is clear again.

If I may speak personally here, your father is comfortable in his transition, aware of the love around him. He is safe and well.

Q: I feel that.

Aaron: He is in a light-filled space. He is in the next step after that first coming into the light, however long it takes to come into the light. It's what we might consider to be a rehab center. For each person it will differ. One might find themselves in a beautiful house by the sea and another in a place with beautiful gardens. A third might find themselves in an exciting population center, not a city so much as a place with beautiful structures. Always there will be some solitude and guidance around one and the setting that most nourishes one. And as much time as one needs to release the identity of the old life, come to know the self as one is, the true spirit that one is, and be ready then to work with one's guides on a review of the life. One doesn't review the life while one is still so self-identified with it. So as there is space; then one begins that life review.

And then with one's guides, determines, what is the next step for me? It may be for some people that they spend a long time on that astral plane before coming into a new incarnation. Some people will feel moved to move quickly into a new incarnation. The guides do not make the decision, the individual makes the decision.

This is not about your father, your father is clear, but people who go into the death experience from a place of darkness, with no idea what's happening to them, a lot of fear, deeply closed in, they're very caught in their minds. They're pulled into a new incarnation karmically and there's not a lot of conscious choice about it, they're just pulled off into a new incarnation. This is that constant samsaric cycle that one gets caught in. The more conscious you are, the more choice you have.

Q: I have been with 3 people that I was very close to while they died-- my mother, my father, my first husband. And in all those cases, it seemed very clear to me that the presence of people with them that loved them and saw themselves as helping them on this side of death <lost to noise>. Do you think that's the case?

Aaron: You're talking about living people in the room with them when they die. If people who are with the one who is transitioning are openhearted, positive, loving, it's very helpful. If they are grasping at the person and saying, "Oh, you're going to die. What will we do without you? I can't stand it," or if they're fearful, "You didn't do these specific religious rights. You're going to hell," this is very negative for the person who is dying.

It's important if you cannot be loving and centered with one who is dying to take yourself out of the room.

Thank you. It's 9:15 so we will end here. My love to all of you. Thank you so much for spending this evening with me. I believe our next time together is some time in December when we will have our Christmas stories. It's my annual favorite.

You are all angels. I invite you to come and bring your angelic presence to the Christmas stories.

Try to work with what I shared with you today, the awareness-- that which is aware of anger is not angry. That which is aware of fear is not afraid. Right there in this moment of impatience, can I find just a little bit of patience and ease? Right there in this moment when I'm ready to wring someone's neck, can I find just a little bit of compassion for them and for myself? Work with that practice. It will take you far.

I love you all. I wish you everything that you wish for yourselves-- joy, peace, happiness, enlightenment.

(session ends)