February 15, 2012 Wednesday Night with Aaron

(This tape not yet corrected by Barbara and Aaron)

Barbara: How do we live our lives with love? What do we do when there's a lot of body pain, fear, or confusion? We want to live our lives lovingly but sometimes our emotions and our bodies and our habits get in the way. How do we work with that?

I met Aaron decades ago. I lost my hearing suddenly in 1972. Struggled with it for quite a while, feeling a lot of anger. It happened when my first child was born, so suddenly I had a new baby and I was deaf. It was very challenging. Why me?

I was struggling. I was angry. I was confused. I prayed for help. I had no idea what kind of help I was asking for, just prayed. Right afterward, I was sitting and meditating in my living room and I had the strong experience of an entity there. I could see his physical presence, surrounded by radiant white light. An older-looking-- he's teasing me, he's saying, “I am not old, I am only thousands of years old. I'm still young!” A Biblical looking being with radiant white hair, white light pouring out of him, high cheekbones, a long beard, deep blue eyes. And I thought, either I'm hallucinating or it's real, and I don't know which one is morescary!

I got up, went and got a cup of tea. I came back. He was still there. I said, “Who are you? Why are you here?” He said, “You asked for help.” “How are you going to help me?” “You're suffering. Let's look at the causes of the suffering.” This is all in the beginning of my book Cosmic Healing.

So he began to unfold very deep information and it resonated as truth. And suddenly I was not suffering in the same way. I was still deaf but I was at peace with the deafness, understanding how I could live with it with more centeredness and not be so afraid of it. I began to understand that the suffering was not from the deafness but from the, not just fear but hatred of the deafness. Wanting to change it, to get rid of it. Then when I made peace with it, I was deaf but I wasn't suffering so deeply any more.

People began to ask to talk to him. How do I do that? He said, just listen and say what you hear. Somebody then said to me, “You're channeling.” What's channeling? This was a new one to me. I really was not familiar with channeling.

This is 23 years ago. Since then we've led a lot of workshops, a lot of meditation retreats, worked with students all over the world, produced a lot of books. It touches my heart so deeply that these teachings have been able to come through me as an instrument for them and touch people's lives and help people. Just as I am no longer suffering in the same way from my deafness, I hope many people all over the world are no longer suffering in the same way from some of the painful catalysts of their own lives. I consider it a wonderful blessing and honor and privilege to be able to channel Aaron and some of the other entities that come through.

That said, I'm just going to be quiet. Aaron incorporates in my body; he literally comes into my body and my consciousness leaves the body. I have no idea what's being said. I'm not here. Aaron will talk for a while, he'll answer questions, and facilitate a discussion.

I would add to that that this is the first session in two months. I've been away in Brazil. The book I mentioned is called Cosmic Healing: A Spiritual Journey with Aaron and John of God. I've been in Brazil with John of God; some of the people you see sitting here in the room were with me. John of God is also a medium and many different healing entities work through him, and do truly miraculous healing. So I'm always inspired when I'm down there, and always learn a lot. It was a wonderful trip. I'm just four days back and re-acclimating.

(a pause while Aaron incorporates)

Aaron: Good evening. My blessings and love to all of you. I am Aaron. Such a joy to see the light pouring out of your faces. (Remarks on whether people can hear him and Barbara's re-entry cold, coming back from Brazil warmth to Michigan winter)

And you, daughter, (speaking to a woman who had been very sick) it is such a joy to see you healthy again. Welcome back. You with the golden heart.

We have entered a new year, 2012. Much has been said about 2012 in some of your metaphysical literature. When people ask me, “What's after 2012?” I simply say, 2013! This is so despite the Mayan calendar. But there is a difference, not specifically in 2012 but in this whole period of your being. You as humans, you as Earth, are transitioning into what I call a higher vibration. This transition has been happening for centuries. It's not new, not like an on/off light switch but like the dimmer switch. The light's slowly coming up (demonstrating with the dimmer switch on the room lights), more and more light radiating out from each of you.

Picture yourself as the garden hose. The water is turned on full force at the faucet but if you crimp the hose, the water can't come out. If you squeeze the hose, it may come out slowly but not gush out. Look at the hose that you are: are you open or are you crimped a bit? What crimps you?

I'm going to try something here that some of you have done with me before, and I'm going to warn you about it. I'm going to shout. Even though you've been warned, it's going to take you by surprise. And after the shout, just after the shout, I want you to look at your body and see, is there contraction? What happened to my body with that startled moment?

Then, assuming for each of you when I shout the body's going to contract, how do you relate to that contraction? Is there ease and simply noting, “contracted”? That which is aware of contraction is not contracted. Did you get that? That which is aware of contraction is not contracted. There are two different aspects of you here: the human body and mind with its habitual patterns, and this divine radiant awareness that can watch the human patterns. Knee-jerk reaction; it happens; that's how the body is.

So there will be a contraction. Let's watch, each of you, what happens with that contraction. Are there stories that come up about it, like “I shouldn't be contracted,” or can you just note it as, “Oh, startled, contraction,” and let it go, come back in... (shout!)

Watch it. Breathing in and aware of contraction, breathing out and smiling to the contraction. Open the hose.

Does anybody here know the song, “This little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine”? Could we sing it? Really sing it! ... (Aaron leads group singing several verses with gusto) Let's change it to, “This giant light of mine...”

Thank you! Thank you for indulging me and joining me.

I want to bring out that you have a choice. You could feel that startledness and the contraction. There is the habitual energy to shift into the contracted mode, believe in yourself as small, as contracted, and diminish your light. You've done this for thousands of years. As we shift into this new phase of being, your work, each of you, is to note the thousands of contractions that come and not get caught in the stories, but make the declaration, “I'm going to shine. I'm not going to crimp the hose but I'm going to allow my full energy and love to pour out and touch the world.”  It's the choice each of you has to make. Why do you remain small and constricted? What are you afraid of?

There's a beautiful statement: you fear your own enormity. Not your smallness but your enormity, your power.

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate...

Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.

It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.

Attributed to diverse sources

Many of you are familiar with the quote; Whoever wrote it, it's beautifully phrased. You have not all made peace with your heavy emotions and with negative impulses that arise. And many of you are afraid if you really are as powerful as I say you are, and if negative impulse arose, you could destroy with that power of the negative impulse so you shrink back, not wanting to own your power.

At this time of earth transition, each of you needs to take responsibility to face the negativity that's part of the human experience, to make peace with your emotions, and to make peace with your bodies, which at times are going to be painful. To make peace with your mental body, the physical body, which at times are going to be painful. Move past it and know, “I am a divine being of radiant light and I choose that. No matter what comes my way, I choose to express that radiance and love into the world.”

You cannot do that if you deny that there's body pain, or emotional pain. Instead there must be the utmost compassion for that pain. How do we cultivate compassion? By going into our experience, the direct experience, but not into stories about that experience. In other words, if something triggers anger, one knows, “In this moment, there is anger in this body and mind. It does not define me. There is simply the experience of anger. I make space for the anger. It arose out of conditions. It will pass.” Can there be compassion for the human who is literally trembling with anger, and still the knowledge this anger does not have to be enacted in the world?

It is this practice which raises your consciousness and vibration. Anger and other difficult emotions are not given you as a burden to carry but as a teacher. If there was never anything negative, how would you learn compassion?

There is that wonderful story of Gurdjieff, the spiritual teacher, who had a man in his community who was very unpleasant, to put it simply. He didn't do his share of the work. He was rude to people. He had poor hygiene and bad body odor. Everybody hated him. One day the man said, “I've had it. I'm leaving.” Everybody else paid to live in this community. Gurdjieff went after him and said, “Please stay. I'll pay you to stay.” The others in the community where shocked. How could he not only ask him to stay but pay him to stay? And Gurdjieff replied, “He is the yeast for the bread. Without him, how would you learn compassion?”

For each of you, your heavy emotions, your difficult body sensations, these are all yeast for the bread. They are not things to try to escape. They are not things to hate. But they are teachers of compassion. At the same time, we would wish them to go. I certainly don't wish physical or emotional pain on any of you. But if you're here in the human form, that comes with the human experience. How are you going to relate with it with compassion, rest increasingly in this core light essence of your being and shine it out, no matter what happens?

When something is upsetting you, stop and think, “This giant light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine.” Just a verse or two. “Oh, my back hurts—(singing)This little light of mine...When my body's aching, I'm gonna let it shine.” It doesn't mean I'm going to ignore the body ache. I'm going to feel compassion for the body ache, attend to it,  and still allow this light to shine.

When Barbara was in Brazil, an interviewer from Toronto media interviewed her; she asked about the book, why is it called “cosmic” healing? Each of you is a part of this cosmos. There is no separation. What happens in each of you is part of the whole.

Think of the tug of war, with two teams each holding on to the rope and pulling. One person's hands start to feel achy from holding the rope so he just says, “Well, I'm gonna let go.” And the person behind him says, “Well, you let go-- I'll let go.” And suddenly everybody lets go. What if this person whose hands are achy turned to his neighbor and said, “Can you pull a little harder for a moment while I relax my hands, and then I'll pull harder while you relax your hands?” What if you worked together on this, knowing that every sentient being has emotional pain, physical pain, mental pain, and that you take care of each other with love, and know your interconnection with each other so that my pain ceases to be MY pain and becomes OUR pain that we attend to together? My sadness is our sadness. I'll help you with your sadness and you help me with my sadness until we both know it is our sadness and invite it to heal.

Wherever there are people starving in the world, these are our children that are starving. Wherever there are people fighting wars with each other, this is our war. How do we send love to the places in the world and in our own inner cosmos, wherever the pain is greatest? And know that each time we touch ourselves with kindness, we touch the whole world with kindness. And each time we touch ourselves with condemnation, contracting, we touch the whole world with condemnation and enhance hatred, and thusly lower the vibration.

All of you have consciously incarnated in the world at this time. Regardless of whether you're 20 or 70, have made a decision to come into the earth plane at this time of transition. And because all of you in this room have what I call a positive polarity, that is, an intention to be of service to all beings, to act with love, not always expressed well but still, there's the intention, you came into your incarnation with the intention to help support the Earth through this change into a much higher vibration, higher positive polarity, into the Eden that it was meant to be. Each of you has that dream that this world can be the Eden that it was meant to be. No starvation, no deprivation, no hatred. How are you going to make that happen? Certainly not with guns; not with contempt for others or self; only with love.  And you and your own experiences are the place to practice sending love to where there is pain, fear, and negativity.

At this time on Earth, there are many spiritual beings, not just you humans in a heavier density body but high spiritual entities, your own guides and beings that are not so much personal guides as simply loving supporters who are with you and helping you. It's hard to believe in something you can't see. Am I real? Who or what am I? You could say, “Well, it's just Barbara with a vivid imagination.” Okay. I don't have to be “real”. But certainly there's some intelligence speaking to you, here.

My sons and daughters, reach out and feel the vast loving presence. This room, we could say there are 30 beings in this room or we could say there are 100 or 1000. There are a vast number of spiritual guides and loving entities supporting you. So when your heart is breaking or your body is aching and the body contracts, “I don't want this. How do I handle this?”, stop and ask for help. It's such a simple thing to do. “I'm stuck. I need help.”

Barbara reported to you at the beginning of the evening what happened when she said, “I need help.” There I was, sitting in her living room! Maybe you don't want to find an entity sitting in your living room. Then again, maybe you do! Would it be so terrible? If one appears, make sure you challenge it and ask, “Do you come in service of love and for the highest good for all beings and harm to none?” And if it hems and haws and says, “Well, you're special, I'll come and support you, not those others,” tell it,  “Go, sit quietly. I don't want to talk with you.” But if it says, “Yes, I come in the fullest service of all beings and with love,” then ask it, “How can I deal with the anger or fear that I feel? How can I deal more skillfully with these body pains?”

There are so many loving entities, all available to support you. You have to reach out. The door is always open from our side. You have to reach out. And you don't have to literally hear us or see us. What you are doing is opening the whole energy field and inviting in whatever is most loving, and beginning to trust, “Yes, I can hold that space of love. I can do that.”

There are many entities here. I come to you as Aaron, a masculine presence. But I am not a male, but androgynous. Aaron is a being who I was in one lifetime but I have been male and female, of many different cultures and religions, skin colors, speaking many different languages. Often an entity will take one form that's comfortable to it and in which it had a highly positive lifetime. Or it will take a form that is most helpful to those to whom it aspires to offer assistance.

I'm going to try something here tonight. There is a, let's call it an aspect of the Divine Mother, a loving mother energy. Let's just call her a sister of light. She spent time with Barbara in Brazil. She's going to incorporate, to move into the body, because I want you to get a feeling for her. You feel my energy; what would it feel like if a different energy suddenly was in this body? Some of you may relate more easily to a Divine Mother aspect than to this male teacher named Aaron. Let's try it.

(divine mother energy incorporates)

DM: What a lovely sight to see your faces here, to feel your presence. You are so beautiful, and I thank Aaron for inviting me to come into your midst. Part of the human experience is the yearning for the mother, and yet the Mother is always with you. Where would I go? Love is always with you. Many of you feel bereft of that love. Where would it go?

( Her voice and energy field, are softer than Aaron's yet she exudes great power too. She invites people sitting next to her to take her hand, one at a time, and looks in each ones' eyes. Several minutes pass. After looking into the eyes of those immediately beside her, she  opens her hands in a welcoming way and invites, “come.”  People from around the room come up to take the Mother's hands and look into her eyes; she speaks to some, not all, and not all recorded. She spends between 20 seconds and a minute or more with each person, then ends each connection by lowering her eyes and releasing the hands. About 20 minutes passes)

(to individual) You are loved. Know eternally that you are loved.

(continuing)

(for the transcriber) We are simply looking into each one's eyes, And daughter (speaking to transcriber), we look into your eyes also. (tape off and on)

Hold your hands open and allow yourselves to be touched by the many loving entities in the room, not just me. (People coming up one at a time, continues).

(tape paused)

That you can feel my loving energy is proof of your own loving core of heart, for we cannot experience that which is completely apart from us. If that of divine love was not an essence of you, you could not feel it from me.

(tape paused; more people coming up; about 15 or 20  people have come up.)

I am more about energy and Aaron is more about articulation, so let's let him come back...

(Aaron reincorporates)

Aaron: I am Aaron. Thank you for opening your hearts to this guest speaker, as it were. So, wonderful things can happen as you open your heart. It does not take a medium like Barbara sitting here to bring forth myself or an aspect of the Divine Mother, all it takes is your willingness to open your hearts and ask for support for what you most need. If you ask, it will come. But you must ask with a willingness to, I would not say to get rid of doubt—you cannot get rid of doubt, but to move past doubt and at least entertain the possibility that such loving help is available.

You ask, “Who am I that I should have such help?” You are radiant, divine, and courageous beings who have come onto the earth plane at this time of transition to support the transition, and of course we want you to succeed so we are here to help you. Why would we not be here?

Let me ask you, could you feel the difference, the shift in energy? (most nodding yes) We could possibly have gone through 5 or 6 different entities and you would have felt something different from each one. Do you suppose if you had two of your best friends sitting behind you, one stepped aside and the other one came up close, that you might feel which one was there? It's likely, yes. And then that one stepped aside and the other one returned. You'd have a clear sense: one has gone, the other has come. Just because you can't see us doesn't mean you can't learn to distinguish. So that especially for your own personal guides, the energy starts to feel familiar to you and comforting, like a warm embrace.

Let us shift here to question and answer mode. I'd be happy to hear your questions.

So, your questions.

Q: I don't even know how to ask this, but I feel fearful and I'm trying to maybe work through fears, but I'm not sure what I am afraid of.

Aaron: Daughter, often it is not necessary to know what you are afraid of, only to know the direct experience of fear, how it feels in the body. The mind racing around, often wanting to get rid of it or control it. Can there simply be a statement, “Feeling fear. In this moment, this is the direct experience of fear. Breathing in, I am aware of fear. Breathing out, I smile to the fear.”? The belly will probably be contracted, or the chest or the throat. Feeling contraction. That which is aware of contraction is not contracted. We're back to “This little light of mine...” Come back to the place that's uncontracted. Open deeply to that uncontracted space and rest there, watching the contractions moving up and down in the body. Watch the mind racing around. Watch it from this still center of awareness. And gradually the fear will resolve.

If you do that each time there's an experience of fear, without trying to figure out what the fear is about, you change your relationship with fear so it is no longer the master, no longer dominant, it simply has arisen out of unknown conditions and it's impermanent. It will pass. You assert your own inner truth: this deep, lucid, radiant awareness that is not entrapped by fear.

This is the way you reduce the conditions out of which fear arises so it will arise less often. Gradually it ceases to come, or comes much more infrequently. Fear is like a bully. If you run shrieking from it, it will run after you. But if you just bow to it and say, “Oh, hello, have a seat. I've been expecting you,” it will get bored and go look for somebody who it can bully because it can't bully you anymore.

(next recording file)

Q: I have a friend who is in Cleveland Clinic. She came with me a couple of times here and you spoke before she had her surgery. She has had the surgery. She is having a very difficult time. She's on a respirator. She's now suffering with an infection. I want to say that after her surgery she had a heart-opening experience that gave her the feeling of being loved. It was the one bright spot in all that she's been going through.

She called me Monday. I was going to go and see her this weekend and she asked me not to come.... Now the infection is in her colon. She's depressed. And I'm not sure if I should go anyway, or how I can be of help.

Aaron: One wants to respect another's free will, and if one says don't come, to respect that. But as I look into her situation, it feels more that her depression than her heart is speaking, and that your presence could be helpful to her. I would conjecture that part of her fear is that she cannot be an adequate hostess to you, in a sense, that she is too weak, too tired, to entertain another, and that as soon as you show up making it clear that you don't expect to be entertained, only to help hold space for her and love her, she'll relax into that truth and enjoy your presence. I am not suggesting you should go, only that is a choice you can make from your heart.

Please let your friend know I recognize the person of whom you speak, and we are supporting her as best we can. Much love surrounds her.

Q: I would like to know what happens when we pass and are on the other side.

Aaron: Daughter, I could most easily answer this by way of a simple illustration. Would the three people sitting beside you here, simply walk into the kitchen? Turn the light on. Hold hands and smile. Now you, dear one who have asked the question, stand up. Look around this room at the beloved faces. Reach out and take a few hands here and there. Feel the presence of these beings. Feel that there would be sadness not to hold these hands for a while, but now it's time. Walk on into the kitchen, and feel yourself embraced!

Now look through the doorway. You can reach out with your energy toward the beloved ones on this side of the doorway, but they can't see you. There's a veil. You can see them; they can't see you. So you reach out but they don't reach back, for the most part.

One of you, will you get up and approach the doorway? You are still on this side. You cannot walk through the doorway, but walk up to the doorway and touch fingertips. One on each side of the veil, but the veil has dissolved temporarily, and you really can embrace each other with your hearts, if not bodily. But then the one on this side has to say goodbye and walk back and sit in her seat again because she's not ready to walk through the door. But she can come back to the doorway as often as she wants. That's what we were just doing with the sister of light. Does that answer your question?

Q: It certainly does.

Aaron: It really is as simple as that.

Q: Continuing with that same question, what's going on in the kitchen?

Aaron: They're cooking delicious brownies. They're dancing, they're singing. Perhaps playing a good game of golf or bridge. Studying. Embracing. Nothing really any different than is going on here except that they remember who they are. You do not remember who you are. You get caught up in the belief that you are the body, the mind, the emotions, and you forget this core of light. But once you cross that threshold, you remember that core of light. Not always and immediately, for some it takes some time of transition. But eventually the veil falls away and you remember.

For some, then, there is a deep sense of shame that that core of light was forgotten here on this earthly plane, and that deeds were done, words were spoken, that went against that essence of your light. Then there is support and help to forgive yourself and to forgive others who also mal-expressed with anger or hurt. So on that plane there is a deep learning of forgiveness. There is deep compassion because you see how beings got caught up in a self-identity and acted from that self-identity and karma. And in forgiving them, you forgive yourself.

At the transition loved ones meet you. After a reunion,  you go with your guides to a healing environment where deeper remembering of your wholeness and review of the lifetime can occur. There are lessons to be reviewed. It can be hard work. When you are ready, you move into some work in service to others, or a period of instruction in your chosen fields of interest. When you are ready, and hopefully with good preparation, you move again into a new body.

Q: May we know a name for the sister of light?

Aaron: We will simply call her “sister of light”. She goes by many names. It is not necessary to have a special name. She is an aspect of the Divine Mother. Do not think of her as The Divine Mother, but as one expression of the Divine Mother.

You are laughing. Did you really think I was going to give you a name? (laughter)

Q: My question gets back here on the earth plane. What is your conjecture of how the increasing tension with Iran and, my words, bluster of nuclear armament, and many countries increasingly fearful of how to proceed without great harm and suffering?

Aaron: You are all learning, Q. We come back to the neighborhood bully. Perhaps there's been a gang in the neighborhood that has terrorized the neighborhood and now a new group of people have moved in, people who are grounded, loving, generous, and they're changing the nature of the neighborhood. Instead of it being a place where everybody's afraid and where the bullies have power, it's becoming a place where people are treated with kindness, and people can relax and be open with each other.

But the bullies don't like this. They feel themselves losing esteem, power, and control, so they step up their bullying work. The more they bully and pull people into a strong opposition to them, with fear andwith return of use of weapons, the more they're winning. But if they keep bullying and the neighborhood bands together and says, “We're not going to be controlled by this group,” even a large group, “We're not going to be controlled by them,” and set up peaceful, heart-centered ways of dealing with the bullying, simple things like always traveling in groups of three, not out of fear but out of kindness as a way to support each other, not letting the bullies win, eventually the bullies are going to give up and go somewhere else.

In terms of the Earth in transition, that “somewhere else” is often going to be to a different planetary system. Their souls as they die off, if they remain highly negatively polarized, are going to move into a negatively polarized planet. As the Earth becomes a more positively polarized planet with a higher vibration, it's going to be too uncomfortable for them. But if they succeed in creating terror and holding you to responses of negativity, then they're going to thrive on an increasingly negatively polarized fourth density earth. .

Think of the seesaw, the teeter-totter. It's very balanced right now, and positive polarity is trying to gain the weight and shift the whole Earth into a positive polarity. As the weight comes down into positive polarity, the negative beings are going to fly off. But they're not going to go without a fight, and your response to that fight can only be kindness, love, compassion. But remember, dear ones, that compassion is strong, not weak. Compassion doesn't say, “Shove me around, stomp on me;” compassion knows how to say no. But it says no with kindness, not fear and hatred.

Many of you must have seen the movie Gandhi. At the end, asvhe sees the man with the gun and the gun is shot, and he just raises his hands up and says, “Ram” (God). There's no use to hate this murderer. By the time he's said “Ram”, he's already dead. The bullet has reached his heart. This to me is a remarkable scene because it portrays the possibility to die with love, and to refuse to hold onto hatred, to hold onto fear, but to make the firm commitment for compassion and loving kindness.

And then we go back full circle, starting with yourselves with that shout, that contraction. That was your ‘shot.' How do you relate to the contraction? Can you relate with kindness to the human who contracts when I shout, (sound effects), just opening and holding your heart.

Let's try that again. Again I'm going to shout. This time after I shout I'm not going to talk a lot but ask you to work with this contraction and relate to it with kindness. (shout!)

Bring your hands to your heart. Know where the tension is—in the chest, the throat, the belly, the shoulders. Put your other hand where the contraction is. “I love this human being.”

Quiet pause

This human is sensitive the various catalysts, the physical catalysts like sound or touch, to sadness or fear or darkness. I love this being. This beautiful human who, through experiencing such catalysts and learning to stay open when there's contraction, is literally changing the entire cosmos, creating an opening for light where light had not before been able to penetrate. I so deeply love and appreciate this human form and the transformation that it can bring. I give thanks, gratitude, for the opportunity to experience human catalyst and create such transformation of darkness into light.

Quiet pause

Can you feel the contractions opening? So this is how we work with it, over and over and over, ten thousand times. And gradually, when there's contraction, the habitual response will not be to further contract but just to remember to bring kindness, love, and warmth there. And at that point, negativity is going to fly off somewhere because the earth plane can no longer sustain it.

I will not deny that right now there is a battle between light and darkness. Or, said differently, darkness would like you to believe there's a battle. If you get caught up in that idea that there's a battle and prepare to do war, then you're part of the negativity. If you understand that darkness is inviting battle but you refuse to get caught in the battle stance, but simply compassionately say no again and again and come back to this radiant core light of your being and the intention to express that light, gradually darkness falls away.

Does that answer your question?

Q: You said negativity flies away or leaves this plane. Can it not be transformed?

Aaron: It will either be transformed or leave. If it is transformed, it's no longer negativity.

Think you of an amphibious environment, and beings that must live underwater. As the water dries up, those beings must either learn to breathe air or must leave for a different water environment. If they transform and can breathe air, they are no longer amphibious creatures. They're air-breathing creatures. But those that persist in the water environment will need to go elsewhere.

What you are doing, all of you, is creating an environment that is not hospitable to darkness. And you are doing that by transforming that within yourself that still gets lost in darkness, and knowing that you truly are beings of light.

Q: The being of light spoke with love and compassion; would you speak to how wisdom comes into play?

Aaron: There are two parts to your evolution: wisdom and compassion. Compassion without wisdom can become maudlin, overly sentimental. Wisdom without compassion can become sterile. Wisdom has a broad meaning; every religion and philosophy has its own wisdom traditions but they have much in common. I am most deeply rooted in Buddha Dharma. Here is the wisdom that knows that all that arises is impermanent, and empty of a separate self. That is, there is no central self in which it arises but it arises because certain conditions are present for it to arise, and when those conditions cease, it ceases. This wisdom also knows that to believe otherwise creates suffering.

When we see that deeply, in the Buddhist tradition it's called right view and right understanding. We no longer take things so personally. When you're driving and in a hurry and you seem to catch every red light, it's easy to take it personally and say, “Why did they stack these lights against me?” All that's happening is that some traffic light pattern is going one way and you're going the other. When you've planned a picnic and you wake up to rain, “Why is this happening to me?” it's simply atmospheric. If I think it's happening to me, I will suffer. When I know this is the way the atmospheric conditions are right now and when those conditions change, the sun will come out, I can be happy for the farmer whose crops are being watered. We'll light a fire and have an indoor picnic in the living room, and everyone will have a good time. There's no more suffering.

So we cultivate these insights on an ongoing, really a constant basis with mindfulness, watching what is arising in the mind and body. Everything arises out of conditions. It may be pleasant; it may be unpleasant. We note, “sensation, pleasant sensation, unpleasant sensation.” We note the way we react to that pleasant or unpleasant sensation, with grasping, wanting to hold on to it because it's the smell of sweet baking pie, for example, or aversion, the skunk outside. We notice the angry thought or the happy thought. And then we watch, how does this mind/body/consciousness relate to aversive experience? What is the habit? How does it relate to pleasant experience and grasping, what is the habit? And do those habitual responses cultivate an open heart and joy and ease, or do they cultivate suffering? Which do I choose? This deep seeing is the ground of wisdom.

I could speak at great length on this, but perhaps this is sufficient. Do you have further question?

Q: The follow-up question would be, and maybe this is too simplistic, but is wisdom then the observer in us?

Aaron: Wisdom is not the observer, but taking the stance of the observer rather than rooting in the personal self allows the arising of wisdom. As long as you are stuck in the personal self, wisdom cannot arise because there are too many opinions. So, spaciousness allows the wisdom to arise and the observer invites spaciousness.

Q: I had a question about personality and personal self. Tonight both our visitors have their unique essence, and we are always changing. Does our personality come back with us, or is that always changing, too?

Aaron: Are you talking about when you come back in a new incarnation? (Q: Right) So when you transition from this body, move through the astral plane and come back into a new incarnation, you are asking if your personality returns? It depends how much self-identification there is to the personality. It depends on the karma.

For the most part, that which we term “personality” stems from two areas. Personality is a catch-all basket. There's that which is of the most wholesome karma, the part of your being that takes delight, that is open and loving, and feels deep interconnection with others. There is then the part of the personality with is more grounded in fear, is tight and narrow.

In the new incarnation, both can come through. You will make a decision before your birth what specific areas of karma you would like to work on, heal and release. If, for example, there is a fear of being with others, a deep pervading shyness that's painful and that makes it very challenging to be with other people, you may choose not to bring that aspect of personality into the new incarnation. There may be some other area instead that you wish to investigate and release.

But the part of you that is openhearted, wise, loving, and has been deeply freed of all unwholesome karma, that will come back in the new incarnation and ground the new personality. So you never lose what gains you have made, in terms of evolution. But when there are areas of learning you may carry those traits as ground for learning. I'll use Barbara as an example. She has an ongoing fear of spiders. She's mastered that fear to the degree that she no longer takes a shoe and whacks the spider; she can find some kind of container and carry it out of the room, but shuddering and holding it at arm's length. In a new incarnation she may have no fear of spiders because that will not be the consideration of this next incarnation. Right now she has something to learn from mastering the fear of spiders enough not to do them harm. However, that which is loving in her and determined to do no harm will come back as part of the new personality. The spider may not be the catalyst in the next incarnation.

Let's have just one more question. Barbara is still a bit jet-lagged; I think other than L the rest of you came back at least a week ago and perhaps have had time to shift your time zones. But Barbara is feeling it to be 1am, not 9pm. One more question.

Q: The Christian martyrs and saints are known for their self-imposed suffering as a sort of expression of their devotion to divinity, and that's not emphasized today. Is that an example of progression of the ages, the times?

Aaron: Yes. I think there has been an evolution, both in personal and universal terms. That was a different time. There are two parts to my reply.

First, it is clearer to you today that suffering is not necessary; the Divine in you asks rejoicing and love, not suffering. Second, in those times it was believed there needed to be more a statement of the human devotion to a divine truth, a truth of love, a statement of refusal to do harm to others and willingness to take discomfort onto oneself rather than harm another or abandon one's truth.  Thus, there was a conviction that one must adhere to one's own deepest truth and be willing to die rather than violate that truth.

This is still relevant in your world, but less so. There are still places where people are asked to die for their own truth, perhaps more visible 50 years ago than today. But there are still places in the world, we would not call them Christian martyrs, but places where children, literally, are given weapons and told that they must kill, even people in their own families who are now considered the enemy. If they refuse they are shot. They're no different than the Christian martyrs except that they may not hold as clear a concept of their intention, “I will not do harm. I will not kill.”

I think what's most important here is that as all of you are evolving into a higher light and vibration, that which is seen as truth becomes clearer to you. The challenges become subtler. There's nobody in this room, who, if handed a gun and told, “You must shoot everybody else,” would shoot. For most of you, even at the risk of your own life being taken, you would not pull the trigger.

But most of you in this room, if you were the last one out and you found a dollar bill on the floor, would you take it to the office and say, “I found a dollar. Will you please ask who may have lost a dollar?” or would you just pocket it?

The depth of how we experience our interconnection with others changes. If you have a sandwich and your friend is hungry, you easily share the sandwich. If you have barely enough to eat and a hundred starving people around you, are you going to hide and hoard your own sandwich? Are you going to feel, “an apple split into 100 parts is not going to feed everybody so I'll just hide it and eat it?” And yet, if each person has their own apple or loaf of bread of hunk of cheese, if they get together and share it everybody will be fed. Which will speak; fear or love? Fear or truth of interbeing?

This is really no different, just a change of the way commitment to truth is expressed in the outer world. I'm not sure if this answers your question. No... Can you rephrase your question, then?

Q: Another time.

Aaron: Okay. Think about it and reword it for me.

Let us end here. Let us make a circle here of light and love. All of you connected with love through the energy of this group moving around through the circle, so that each one within the circle is part of the loving heart; the loving heart of the Christ, of the Buddha, of the Divine Mother; the loving heart of radiance, of peace, of joy. No being can truly find happiness unless every being is a part of this circle.

May we each live our lives to include each other within the circle until there is no other but only this one heart we all share, held open with the utmost of compassion.

May all beings everywhere be happy and find peace. Through our talk here tonight and our own inner work, may we truly transform ourselves, our village, our nation, our Earth, and ultimately the whole cosmos, into a vibration and space of love.

I thank you for this opportunity to share with you tonight. My love goes with you as does that of the sister of light and the many other entities who were here with us this evening.

I release the body to Barbara.

(session ends)

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