April 17, 2012 Tuesday, Crazy Wisdom Bookstore

Barbara has been talking about the book, Aaron/Q'uo Dialogues. Now, this is part 2, with Aaron.

Barbara: ... Let's open this to questions—questions to me, questions to Aaron, but please understand both of us can't be in the same body at the same time! We can come and go to some degree, but please address your question to either of us or, if it's to a specific one of us, let us know which one you want to answer. I can hear Aaron and paraphrase him, but if he incorporates, he comes fully into my body and I leave the body. That means I project my consciousness out of the body.

Paraphrasing im, or a deeper level of hearing and repeating, is called conscious channeling, where I hear his thoughts and just say what I hear. The more usual method and more accurate for me and Aaron is, I leave the body and he incorporates into the body. He's literally here in the body. It looks like me. His voice may even sound like mine, although many people find it different. Don't try to figure out, is he real? His words have content. They have meaning. Is it useful to you?

If you found a book on the ground missing its cover and you had no idea who the author was, but it spoke to you, you wouldn't throw it away even if you didn't know the author. And conversely, if you found a book by a famous author and it seemed like gibberish, you would throw it away. He says if his words have meaning, use them. If they don't have meaning, toss them. It's as simple as that.

So I welcome your questions.

(There is some static and the group's questions may not be completely accurate.)

(tape off and on?) 

Q: I have a question for Aaron. When one tries to live true to oneself, true to your heart, what is some advice that you can give about going from <living> and understanding to actual decisions about life changes, career, relationships, that sort of thing? Specifically about making decisions about one's life.

Barbara: Aaron will incorporate.

(Aaron incorporates)

Aaron: My blessings and love to you all. I am Aaron. Thank you for permitting me to be with you here tonight. Daughter, I hear your question.

Most of you as humans have the tendency to make decisions from the everyday rational mind. Within the incarnation you are all evolve through early levels of consciousness. There is first the magical and mythical consciousness of children, the level of consciousness that claims, “This is right and everything else is wrong.” No shades of gray. Little compassion. Then the human evolves into rational consciousness, and gradually into a higher level of consciousness.

In Cosmic Healing, here, we have on page 261 a chart describing all of these levels of consciousness and a chapter about evolving consciousness. I'll pass that around so people may take a look at it.

A good part of your intention in coming into this incarnation is for an evolution of consciousness. Those of you who are at a talk like this, you are old souls, which has nothing to do with your chronological age but your spiritual maturity. You have come into the incarnation to learn how to live your lives with love. But it's hard because you are mammals still caught to some degree in rational consciousness and used to making decisions based on logic rather than from the heart.

When you get stuck, finding yourself making the decision from the logical standpoint only, it's not a problem. There are no problems; there are only situations that ask your loving attention. This situation is asking you to remember to come back to the heart. Then there is mindfulness that observes how the controlling mind is closing in on this issue and trying for certainty. At a deeper level, love knows certainty, but in decision-making, love doesn't know certainty; it only knows the experience of the open heart. You may feel the contraction of the closing heart—fear, tension, wanting to get it right. You're all familiar with that, wanting to get it right, in part because you ARE old souls and so committed to non-harm to others that the idea of not getting it right is upsetting to you. When such fear arises, you revert back to the old familiar tool of the intellect. Some of you with very finely tuned intellects have more trouble with this than those of you who are not so bright, because you're used to using the intellect as this tool able to figure everything out and bring forth a good outcome.

Begin to feel when you are in the heart center, how it feels. It's an experience of non-contraction, resting at ease. There's no longer a strong ego self that says, “I am the one running things.” but rather a spaciousness that says, “I am interconnected with everything and willing to receive feedback and information from all sentient beings and from the earth; to let it all collect in this wise heart center. And then I am willing to let go of trying to get it right, and watch that trying, while just relaxing into pure being”

Know that mistakes are part of the plan. As long as you're paying attention, you will learn from them. Then you will ask, how did my ego get involved in this and push the process askew into a place where it was contracted and ended up not being the ideal path? You will see the ego and fear caught up in it. You will drop the identity with the ego and rest more deeply in the true self.

You are here learning this path from fear to love. Your situations as the ones you described are part of the teaching. Look on them as such with gratitude. Don't be afraid to plunge in.

For now I'll stay in the body. If somebody wants to speak with Barbara, she will come back. May I hear your further questions?

Q: May I ask a question that's personal to me? (Aaron: Certainly.) I have studied for a very long time and learned many wondrous things, and I believe that I have become more and more allowing and less resistant. I had a year of three medical heart procedures where my heart was actually opened, and I wonder what that means for me, as I have been told that I should think bigger than I normally think. I wonder if you have any guidance for me.

Aaron: Thank you, daughter, for sharing. How is the heart physically now? (Q: It is fine.) Good. I am happy to hear that. This muscle we call the heart is also metaphorically the heart of your being, the heart energy center. You said, “I have been told I should think bigger.” First, the thing I want you to do, daughter: if we have a trash can, I want you to drop the word “should” into the trash can! But perhaps what you're saying is that people have suggested that this might lead you into a bigger area of thinking.

May I look in the akashic records? (Q: Sure.) I would not violate your privacy by looking without asking. (pause) You find it hard to open your heart to yourself, daughter. You find it very easy to open it to others but not to yourself. This procedure on the heart, let it lead you into asking yourself, in what ways is my heart closed to myself? You have lain on the operating table and had them cut open into the heart. What does it mean to have the heart opened in that way? What holds the heart closed? What fear, what sadness? What old stories of not being good enough, not being lovable or competent or perfect?

Just as the heart surgery physically released the distortions in the heart, now you are invited to do a different kind of surgery on the heart, to truly allow the heart to break open. There's a beautiful image from an ancient teaching. A man has a lovely ceramic jug into which one would put a candle. He drops it; it breaks, cracks. When intact, a light would shine out the top. But now, when it's glued back together, it doesn't fit perfectly and there are cracks. When he seals the jug back together there are cracks everywhere. He looks at it and says, “Oh no! My jug! It's cracked.” His teacher says to him, “That's so the light can shine out everywhere.”

This is what you are doing now. I would suggest you work with compassion meditation. Are you familiar with that? It's in all three of these books, I believe, or at least in Presence, Kindness, and Freedom and Cosmic Healing, but perhaps not in The Aaron/Q'uo Dialogues. It's a guided meditation in which you simply offer loving wishes and compassion to yourself and others well. Be aware of any places where you are suffering and feeling unlovable, afraid, incomplete. “What do I wish myself?”  Then wishing yourself well.

Put a picture of yourself as a child, at the site where you meditate or pray. Look at that picture. See the ways in which that child suffers and wish her well. Work with someone dear to you and see the way that person is suffering, and wish them well. Do it as a daily practice for a while, and begin to ask, is there anything that blocks this as a completely authentic practice? Any block to the intention for the open heart?

What if I do open my heart? This is the crucial question, daughter. Ask, “What does the closed heart protect me from? What am I afraid I might experience if I truly open my heart?” This is conjecture and not from the akashic records, but I think it's going to lead you to your sense of frustration that there is such enormous pain and suffering in the world, and that you personally cannot seem to do much about most of it. So you've learned to keep your heart closed to some degree because there is such pain at the feeling, “I cannot resolve it, for myself, for others.” But you cannot. All you can do is love. And in love is the resolution that you seek.  

Q: The world today seems so full of competing stimuli. Can you offer any insight on how to focus despite these distractions, especially when we're trying to complete tasks we are already hesitant to do?

Aaron: Thank you for the question. I'm sure it speaks to many people here.

The issue is not all the chaos in the world or the distractions, but how you relate to them. Barbara and I were just in North Carolina for three days this past weekend leading a meditation retreat with a focus, “Living in a World of Chaos and Finding our Heart Center.” You might look on the Deep Spring transcript archives once this retreat is transcribed and up and read the talk I gave, the instructions and so forth at the retreat, for more information beyond what I am about to say.

When an object comes up and claims your attention, it's making a lot of noise in some way. Usually there's some old tendency in you that feels, “I've got to take care of that. Oh, there's another one. I've got to take care of that, and that one.” And you keep going back and forth.

You are never going to quiet the world. The training comes from watching the impulse energy and that little voice that says, “I should.” I should do this; what about this? Can you feel the contraction in the “should”?

When that “I should” comes up, just say, “Is that so?” Three little words. “Is that so?” That's all that's needed to remind you, this is just a conditioned story based on my old karmic conditioning. When I hear that little voice, I can just say shh! and go back to what I am doing.

What pulls you off is tension. You've lost the center for the moment. You were in a deep clear place, knowing what you were doing, pleasant or unpleasant task. Then you lost the center and now you're lost in all these “I should” voices. Breathe. Re-center into the heart. Give that vocal, “Is that so?” to the “I should.” State to yourself your highest intention at the moment, to finish—we're past tax day so I suppose it's no longer a topic until next year, but “I should finish this particular unpleasant task.” Instead, simply note, “This task is unpleasant.” Spend a few minutes with compassion and kindness for yourself. Look at the aversion to the task and the wanting to go someplace else, anywhere but here. That makes the distractions all the more solid and pulls you away.

But when you notice in this way, “I don't want to be here. There's tension about being here. It's unpleasant. And yet, something in me knows it will be important to finish this task. I choose to finish.” Not, “I should” but “I choose to finish this task.” Rest in that place of choice, which is the place within the heart. “I choose because of love; because of intention for the good of myself and other beings. Love chooses to finish this task.” Then I don't believe the distractions will call to you as much.  But if they do, and if the “I should” comes up-- “Oh, I forgot. I told so-and-so I would call.” “Oh, I forgot to answer this letter.”, then remember to ask,  “Is that so?” “Yes, I did forget. Yes, I will need to do it. Right now, I choose, love chooses, to stay with what I am doing.” Does that sound workable to you?

Q: (a young boy) Does Aaron have any questions for me?

Aaron: Do I have a question for you? Yes: do you know who you are? Beyond your name. Beyond this body. Have you ever had a moment when thought has briefly stopped? I challenge you. You are an old and wise soul; you are in a young body, but that doesn't mean you can't do this.

What I'd ask you to do is, when you've thought a thought, bring attention and know, “thinking, thinking.” If it's a planning thought, know you're planning. If it's a memory, know you're remembering. And in that moment when the thought dies away, be with whatever is there. Just there in that moment. Who is there when the planning or remembering mind is gone? When the whole everyday self is gone?

Let me ask, B (store owner), do you have a brass bell or some kind of a bell we can ring? If B can find us an appropriate bell, we'll do a brief exercise, here.

So my question for you, and I don't expect you to find it quickly, you're going to have to go deep but it's going to be life-changing: try to find out who you are beyond the everyday self that the ego thinks it is. There's something magnificent, radiant, beautiful there. Get to know it. Okay? Thank you for asking.

(B brings a bell)

Let us try it for everybody as an exercise. I want you to listen to the bell sound and simply note, “hearing, hearing.” Then stay with it until the sound dies away.

(bell)

What is there when the sound goes? Listen to it again.

(bell)

There's a moment of space and then the mind churns its way out again. But there's a moment of space. Look around this room. What is it filled with? People? Walls? Books? Ceiling? What's the biggest thing in the room? Space. The biggest thing is space. What do you not notice when I ask you what the room is filled with? You notice all the concrete things, not so much the space. This space is profound. It's life-changing when you start to notice the space between thoughts, between body sensations.

Q: For us healers, how do we help those in medicine begin to remember the true meaning of healing?

Aaron: I think that's a very important question. There are healers and there are those involved in medicine, and sometimes you are blessed if both come together. People involved only in medicine are often on that rational reality track that I spoke about, immersed in relative reality logic, with deep understanding of the technical aspects but with no awareness even of body energy, of anything you cannot see and touch.

Those of you who are patients of such beings, you may just simply want to remind them that you are a whole being with a body energy field and ask them to address the whole body and not just a symptom.

Those of you who are in the quote “healing professions” and work with all the diverse levels of healing, are aware of the discrepancy. The first thing I would say is, get these not-yet-awake people down to John of God!  Many doctors do go down there and come away totally transformed by the experience, seeing a whole new way of being in the world. You cannot force anybody anywhere. All you can do is open the door for people. Make articles available. Talk honestly to people about your experiences. Make it as accessible for them as possible.

A long-time friend went to Brazil with Barbara in 2011. He is retired now, was a high level manager at the University of Michigan, but he was also a meditator so he was not stuck on a rational plane. But he was quite a rational, logical human being. He went down there, not really with skepticism, open, but also, much as he's known and loved me for 20 years, still somewhat wondering, who are these entities? Is this real?

He came away from the experience profoundly changed and wrote a book about it. (Hal shows them the book.) After the talk here Hal can give you information about where the book can be obtained. Just recently published in the last week or two.

So, read books like this. Read Cosmic Healing and Heather Cummings' book, John of God. Heather spoke here several years ago when she visited. The Book of Miracles, by Josie RavenWing is another wonderful clear book. These are all books that talk about possibilities; how we can get beyond mundane healing and into a deeper level of healing.

On another level, a very profound book is Anna, Grandmother of Jesus, by Claire Heartsong. I don't know where it's available. You'll have to look for it. Perhaps B sells it, I don't know. I think B is looking for it, perhaps, I don't know. It's a magnificently accurate book that will awaken, will kindle memories of life 2,000 years ago in many of you. When you live at a different level of vibration, aware of the teachings of the Lemurian influence, and how that permeated the Essene community in which Jeshua grew up and lived, it's a very powerful book and will awaken memories for you.

As these memories awaken in you and help you move to a higher consciousness, and as you follow that higher consciousness—not your logical mind but the heart, the non-dual consciousness within the heart—you begin to have insights into how to best teach people these things, how to best open doors for people. But remember, you can only open the door. You cannot push them through. If you try to push them through and they're not ready, they'll resist and become even more fundamentalist in their beliefs. So just hold the door open patiently and cultivate patience and loving kindness, and compassion in yourself for such beings who are not yet ready to open in this way. And choose your medical caregivers and healers carefully, that they are able to give you what you need.

We have time for one or two more questions.

Q: If the people in this room are considered to be old souls who have incarnated at this point on Earth, when things are very traumatic and painful to behold on a daily basis, when we see the lack of consciousness and the amount of suffering it causes, what is our personal responsibility to move humanity along in a direction that would lessen suffering and make room for the next generation?

Aaron: Q'uo and I devote a number of chapters to that question and variations on it in Dialogues. The one direction I would lead you is simply compassion. Compassion does not mean falling over when another pushes you. It means not hating the other for pushing,  and still saying no. Understand that the other pushes because of his own conditioning, his own fears.

Have you ever read Thich Nhat Hanh's poem, “Please Call Me By My True Names”? For those who have not read it, look it up on the internet. He says he wrote the poem because he learned of a 12 year old girl who was raped by a sea pirate, who then threw herself overboard and drowned. At first, hearing the true story of this aroused enormous anger in him and then he said, “Who am I angry at? Am I angry at myself for being helpless to prevent it? Am I angry at the sea pirate? But the sea pirate was probably abused as a child. The sea pirate grew up in a violent culture. Do I blame his town folk? His parents? His culture? Who do I blame? There's nobody really to blame.”

Then we come to the point where we learn that we can say no to negative acts but without fear and hatred of them. We keep the heart tender and open with compassion, and that compassion is what says no, not fear.

When you begin to cultivate this kind of compassion in yourself, you become able to say no in a skillful loving way to others. It's still firm. This is Gandhi's satyagraha. Another term. If you're not familiar with it, look on your Google and find satyagraha. I won't speak of it here, but it's the whole principle I'm talking of, in much depth. Compassion says no.

When enough of you learn how to say no with compassion-- and that, my dear ones, is why you incarnated, to learn how to say no with compassion—when enough of you learn how to do that, gradually you're going to change the world.

The Buddha says in a beautiful scripture, “Hatred never resolves hatred. Only love resolves hatred. This is the truth, ancient and unchanging.” And yet so many of you still get caught in your own negativity and are trying to change things from that place of negativity, or pushing that negativity onto yourself and saying, “I'll change myself. I won't be angry! No, no more anger!” Not working, is it?

So, how are you going to learn to open your hearts with compassion to yourself? This is much of what both Cosmic Healing and Presence, Kindness, and Freedom speak of. How do I open my heart more deeply to myself? How do I become aware of my own strong opinions, anger, the stories that come up, should/shouldn't, I should/I shouldn't? How do I drop those stories and really open my heart and come to a place that's quiet and can hear everything, and is able to take a firm stand on that which is unwholesome in the world, but with love?

Barbara handed out retreat flyers. The learning how to do this is the whole practice of this year's June retreat. It's the whole focus of the retreat, learning the meditation and working with these old stories of mind. “I'm not good enough. I shouldn't be angry. I will fix everything. I can't fix anything.” All of these stories. How do we release them? How do we get to know them first and then step aside from them and into that space that we just demonstrated?

So, compassion and meditation are my answers.

We must stop soon... One last question.

Q: We say that now is a time of change in our world. What are the best lessons that I can teach my little children?

Aaron: Thank you for your question. Teach them they are loved unconditionally. You may not always agree with them or like what they do, but they are loved.

Look at the Deep Spring archives, DeepSpring.org and then hit the Archives button. There's a place where you can type in a word for a Search. Type in the word “Trainings”. This is a talk I gave a number of years ago, and it's a very applicable topic to teach children.

Some months ago Barbara had a wonderful opportunity. She was visiting in somebody's house for a few days where she was teaching and there was a 4 year old in the house. He was trying to put together a structure of Lego blocks. The blocks wouldn't hold together. Finally he got frustrated and picked them up and threw them against the wall. Barbara was sitting in a chair across the room and she saw this, so she walked over and she said, “You look very angry that they won't hold together.” And he looked at her and he said, “Yes, I am angry.” She said, “Can I help you?” He said, “No. I'm taking care of my anger.” She said, “Can I sit down with you while you take care of your anger and keep you company?” “Yes.”

His hands were clenched. He was breathing hard. So she sat with him and she just breathed with him. Slowly the hands unclenched, the breath softened. The 5 minutes passed, perhaps, and then he looked up at her and he smiled and said, “I'm all done. We can play now.”

You can learn this. Teach this to your children. Barbara just bought a book-- I'm naming some books here. I think your bookstore is going to get some calls for them! She just ordered a book to send to her 6 year old grandson called, Moody Cow Meditates  The little boy's name is Peter and he has a very bad day and he's very angry. And he comes home from school and everything has gone wrong. And his mother says, “Time to call Grandpa.”

So Grandpa comes over and sits down with, his friends were all calling him Moody Cow because he was so angry all day. His grandpa sits down with him and teaches him how to follow his breath going in and out. And then he takes a glass jar with some water and glycerin in it, pours sparkles in it and shakes it, so the sparkles are all through the jar. And then he sets it down and says, “Now watch this. This is your mind.” And gradually, as 5 minutes passes, all the sparkles settle to the bottom. Grandpa says, “When the sparkles have settled, see what's happened to your anger.” And Moody Cow says, “It's gone.” No surprise.

There are other books like this too. This is one I am presently familiar with.

Be with your children. Acknowledge their feelings. If you are feeling upset by their feelings, in other words, if their anger upsets you, be honest with it and let them know, “Your anger is making me feel upset and tense and angry. Please sit and meditate with me and let's take care of our anger together,” rather than, “Don't be angry.” Acknowledge their feelings, respect their feelings, AND respect the truth that there's something beyond the feelings, which is a deeper aspect of their being. Help them find it through the mirror of your eyes.

So it's time to stop. Thank you for this opportunity so share with you tonight. B, thank you for inviting us to be here.

B: Thank you. I just wanted to mention that Barbara is happy to sign copies of her books. We have her books for sale right here. You can purchase them downstairs if you wish. And thank you for coming, Barbara, and thank you everybody for coming.

Aaron: You are very welcome. I am Aaron; Barbara is still not back in the body but she'll come back and she'll be happy to sign any of the books.

Let me add that once a month at Deep Spring Center we have an open house on a Wednesday night. I simply come in and teach. I offer a talk and then answer questions like we have tonight. The next one is May 16. Please look at the Deep Spring website and you'll find it. “Open Night with Aaron.” Those of you who have signed up to receive mailing from Deep Spring Center, you'll automatically get an email announcement of it.

That's all. My blessings and love to you all.

(session ends)

11