Angels in Earthsuits
Mini-workshop, Part 1
July 22, 2004

This 4 hour workshop was offered as part of a larger 5 day gathering. The evening sessions were with Aaron and Jeshua, channeled through Judi Coates.

A: Good afternoon. My blessings and love to you all. I am Aaron. I am enjoying the reunion aspect of this gathering. Those of you who have come here together before have understood that you knew one another 2000 years ago, which is no surprise to any of us. That lifetime in which Jeshua walked the earth, you knew me perhaps as a shepherd, an uncle or brother or friend. Like most of you I was trained in the Essene tradition, but I brought it back into the hills with the intent to help raise the consciousness of the shepherds and their families, the everyday people who had little formal training but great receptivity, to raise the consciousness in support of Jeshua's coming, and in support of the new understandings we were working to bring forth on the earth.

I was not quite 10 years older than Jeshua, still a boy at the time of his birth. As I matured, like my father before me, I became a shepherd and a teacher of these trainings and practices of higher consciousness, What a joy it was to see the transformation from a climate so deeply enmeshed in fear to a climate where people began to understand their own divinity and the divinity of all that surrounded them. And here we are again, gathered with much the same work ahead of us, to bring these same teachings forth in a new time.

Of course, all of us have learned quite a lot in these 2000 years, and yet the basic questions still remain. When there is fear, how do we live with compassionate response to that fear, and yet not express it out into the world? How do we choose love when we feel blind to see the path of love? How do we work with the difficult catalysts of the body and the mind in ways that bring forth a higher consciousness, more lovingkindness, more compassion, and all the expressions of love in the world? For that is why you are here.

You are not here to be perfect. If you were already able to express that innate perfection in every circumstance, there would have been no need to take birth. You are here to learn love, and that practice begins with your own self: to love the self even including negative thoughts that come, the body pains that come, the contraction of the energy field; not to create dualities of good and bad, pleasant and unpleasant.

Let me take us into a bit of earth history here, a look at the experiment we call earth. There was seen to be a need for a third density material planet that was deeply grounded in the vibrations of love. Those beings that you know as the guardian angels of the earth: Rafael, Ariel, Gabriel, and Michael, and one more, they all came together to give their highly positively polarized energy in support of this experiment, literally to serve as the ground on which earth would express. There were other material planes for evolution, and there were and still are non-material planes. The grounding in this deep, I can best call it vibration, of love, was what made the earth different.

Another vital difference; as you come from the astral plane into the material body, forgetfulness comes. This is a part of the human experience: you forget who you truly are, and why you have come. This forgetting is not a mistake but is an important part of the earth experience.

On some planes where beings have a very clear sense of the core of their being, and yet emotion still arises, there is a sheer force of will to conquer that emotion. Let me give you an example. If you are climbing a mountain and can clearly see the top, and if you have been taught that it is important to reach the top, by sheer force of willpower you will push yourself up the mountain. If in the same physical situation you have been told there was a top but mist swirls around it, so haven't seen it, you must take it on faith. Can you imagine the faith and love that must be strengthened to carry you up the mountain?

You are in this 3rd density earth incarnation to develop faith and love, so forgetfulness of your true being is a part of your path. And yet, we must also wake up! You cannot remain forgetful forever. For the human, there is not the awakening of seeing the mountaintop totally and eternally free of clouds, but the waking up when bits of mist blow away and there's a moment (clap) when you see it and say, "Yes it's there!", and then it is closed in by mist again. You keep getting glimpses, ever deeper glimpses of the truth of your being, but there is still the need for faith and the development of unconditional love. So this earth was grounded on the energy of these loving beings, and it came into fuller and richer expression as humans learned that love and brought it forth into the heavy density of the planet.

Let us go back even further in time, before there was an earth, because some of you existed before the earth existed in some form. There was a time that some of you may be able to recall when there was simply undifferentiated energy, divinity itself. Actually all of you have that same root of divinity itself, but some expressed out from that undifferentiated divinity before there was a notion of duality, and some at a later time. This is difficult to explain because we're talking here about linear and simultaneous time, and of course linear time is simply an illusion, so I cannot say "this" happened before "that". Yet, to communicate something to you I must use your mode of expression, which is linear time.

Suffice it to say there was a time when this great undifferentiated energy of infinite love and intelligence made the decision to express itself in all the multitude of ways possible to it. It cannot be limited in what it is; we cannot say it's smooth or rough, light or dark, small or big; it is everything. How can you limit God and say it's this or that?

That which Is, as part of the movement of Love, began to express these infinite aspects of itself, creating on the surface the seeming dualities of rough and smooth, bright and shadowed, generous and stingy, loving and fearful. In its infinite intelligence and love it understood that all of these expressions must be offered out and explored. As part of this ground of being, each of you, as a spark of this infinite love and intelligence, came at some point to that awareness, (clap) "I am", and in that moment of I Am, it seemed "I am here and God is there". Duality! Then came the question, "How did I get kicked out of the Garden?," as your Bible puts it. But of course nobody kicked you out of the garden; rather it is as a baby taking birth. It cannot mature within the mother. There's nothing there separate from the mother or the father and yet it is also unique. A separate being begins as the sperm and egg, the genetic codes of the parents. To emerge into its own personality and being, it must take birth and move into the illusion of separation. In this way each being moved into that illusion of separation as part of its journey to knowing non-separation in a mature way.

There was joy in that birth as well as fear because each expression of the divine, each of you, is unique, a radiant bit of that divinity, expressing out into the world, each with your own unique body and mind. But you forgot who you were. As I said in the beginning, that forgetfulness was part of the plan. You must move through the forgetfulness and then emerge into remembrance. Now we are here gathered to help bring forth the remembrance.

Each of you, as individuated expressions of the One and the core of divinity itself, sought ways of learning what you had come to the earth to learn of faith and unconditional love, using the catalyst of earth as teacher.

Here is an example of the process, using fear and generosity. If you have an apple orchard with 10,000 apples, and a hungry child approaches you saying, "Please, may I have an apple?", of course, there's some generosity in giving it, but it's a very easy giving. Source is infinite! If you have just one apple and you are hungry, and just as you're about to bite into it, here's that gaunt, hungry child, "Please, could I have some?" The voice of fear may say "This is my only food for the afternoon." The voice of love remembers that source is infinite, and knows, " I can give it freely because I know my needs will be met." Yet fear may also be present as the infinite source is only seen through the mist. Here is real generosity, and we cannot experience such generosity unless we move through that passageway of fear. Please note that it's okay to cut the apple in half. You are also that divinity, not just the child. We take care of ourselves and of others.

In the same way, when there is much pain offered through another human being, and bitterness, hatred, or desire for revenge comes up, here is where you learn compassion. You can not learn true compassion unless there is the catalyst of fear. The purpose of fear is to teach you to rest deeper in truth. If you could see clearly, see a whole sequential picture of what was being learned, you might be able to push away the bitterness or hatred and try to push up a not quite authentic compassion. But that's not what you came to learn. That's forcing oneself up the mountain.

Authentic compassion, unconditional love, these are your true nature. You are here to reveal that true nature and find how to nurture its expression in this heavy density earth plane.

So you are literally the angel, the unconditionally loving, infinitely wise being. This is your deepest birthright. And each of you has willingly come into incarnation. Some of you are laughing a bit at my word willingly. At some level willingly although you may feel you were dragged into the incarnation. Each of you has entered the incarnation with the heavier physical, emotional, and mental bodies, the earthsuit. I know sometimes you feel a bit like a deep-sea diver walking around in a heavy, old-fashioned underwater suit with a big glass globe around your neck, as if you cannot breathe this atmosphere. You wonder, "Why am I in this heavy body? Why do I bear these heavy emotions?" Because your intention was to deepen in lovingkindness, compassion, and faith. And so you enrolled in this school, taking birth again and again in the human form, each time reminded a bit more deeply of the fact that you always have a choice: to act out the fear, the discomfort, the confusion of the human, or to use this human catalyst of the heavy bodies as a ground for touching the innate compassionate heart.

If it were easy work, you would have done it already. Some people with much memory have said to me, "Aaron, I had thought I only had to come here once or twice." It's not like that, is it? We keep coming back because we keep getting caught in the same old myths, the stories, the same self-judgments.

Each of you so deeply aspires to offer your energy with love. Each of you so deeply wants to come home. You have evolved to the point that you cannot willingly harm others, and yet, because of the nature of the human experience, negative emotion still arises. When it arises, you judge yourself. Your culture and religions have taught you, "Don't be angry. Don't be greedy." When these emotions arise within the younger soul, it's easy; they just act them out. But as you evolve you can't act them out any more. First you try to suppress them but they sneak in. You do practices to balance them, thinking, "If only I work hard enough, eventually they'll cease to arise." But no matter what you do, it seems sometimes anger, hostility, greed, jealousy, pride sneak in.

There must come a willingness to stop trying to fix the self and instead to see that these arising expressions of consciousness are simply arisen out of conditions. They are results. And that you cannot hate the anger, that's just more hatred. You cannot hate the mind that grasps; it's just more hatred.

There comes then a time of surrender, a time of, "I give up. I don't know what to do." And in that moment of allowing unknowing, you become open to new possibilities. As you begin to see how these, I hesitate to call then negative, let us call them fear-based expressions of the self, arise as the result of conditions, you also deepen in awareness that your true nature is not anger, greed, and fear. You see through the tendencies and know the always present innate perfection, the radiance of true being.

Let us do an exercise here together. I ask you to hold your hand about 6 inches in front of your face. Fingers open. Move the hand a bit, wiggle the fingers. Stare at the fingers, with firm attention to them. All you can see are the fingers: let's call one anger, one greed, one jealousy, one impatience, that's all you can see. Now keep them moving a bit in front of you and when I tell you, look through, look at the person across the room from you, or look out the window, Now; Hold them up and look beyond them. The fingers don't go away. You're still aware of them, but suddenly you see the space beyond. Can you see that? Now look back at the fingers again. If you fixate on the fingers, you cannot see the space. When you look through the fingers, you see the space that has always been there, only you were so fixated on the fingers that you could not see that space.

The sky offers a similar metaphor, a vast blue sky with a few clouds in it. You can focus only on the clouds thinking, "Oh my it's going to rain, look at that cloud, and that cloud." You can look past the clouds and see the infinite blue sky. The blue sky is always there; clouds come and go.

The recognition of this shift in perception is a vital phase in your training. In the Essene trainings, which many of you received in one or many long ago lifetimes, this was taught to the youngest children. This was the first level of training, to hold the space and watch the arisings of the mind and body, to attend to those arisings so that they don't harm others, but not to contract around what has arisen; to simply note it as the result of conditions. What does that mean?

If this bottle of water was open and it fell over, water would pour out. If I waved my hands about and knocked it over, water would pour out. "Oh, a mess! Look what we've done!" No, it's just the result of conditions, nothing bad. Let's get a towel and wipe it up.

An unpleasant person stops you on the path, says something rude, and anger arises. It is not necessary to judge yourself, only to note, "Here is anger." Watch the experience of anger in yourself. This brings us back to the meditation that Barbara taught this morning. Learn to be present in your minds and bodies. When anger arises, know that anger has arisen; you don't have to figure out why it arose. You see the anger as one finger, and you see the vast space around it, the innate space of lovingkindness, the infinite light of your being. The anger is not other than the light. Nothing can reduce your innate radiance, nothing. Nothing can reduce your divinity.

These teachings have been lost along the way, and you and most of the earth have become conditioned to contract around the spilled water or milk, to contract around the arisen anger, to contract around the body pain as if you can and must fix it, instead of holding a space for it and using it as a teacher to nurture and draw forth lovingkindness.

Our brother Jeshua came to the earth 2000 years ago to help wake us up to the truth of our divinity, to teach us that we, each of us, co-create the universe, and that when we attempt to co-create from a place of fear, narrowness, and negativity, we simply create more negativity. When we co-create from the ground of our divinity, we co-create the heaven on earth that is our birthright.

Now we are moving toward a shift in the earth plane to 4th density earth. What does this mean? There is a common metaphysical terminology here, 8 different densities. 1st density on earth is mineral and gas; 2nd is vegetable and increasingly mature animal. Third is human. Each has its own learning: awareness for 1st density, self-awareness for 2nd density, and then the human form, 3rd density. When the 3rd density being ceases to contract with fear around the arising expressions within the seeming self and in the world, but relates with compassion and equanimity to these expressions, it ceases to create the karma that draws it back again and again to repeat the 3rd density lessons. Arisings may continue, but there is equanimity and still the ability to attend to what has arisen in skillful ways. In other words, you are not here to stop anger from arising; that will happen in a higher density. Eventually anger will no longer arise. You are here to not enact the anger, to learn compassion when anger arises in yourself and others. To experience equanimity with arising.

The 4th density being is telepathic. Sometimes I ask a room full of people, if everybody in this room were fully telepathic, would that be ok with you? "No!" people tell me, "Today I have thoughts of which I am ashamed," or "I don't want to know other people's thoughts about me. I'm not ready for that." This is because you are still caught in fear and judgment and self. When you deeply understand that all thoughts arise out of the conditioned mind, you can only smile when somebody looks at you and says, "Oh, her earrings are too big." It's just the conditioned mind. You smile at each other. She knows you know what she thought, and that you don't blame her for it. that it's just her mind in the cycle of conditioning. And you don't feel judgment. You begin to hear one another deeply. Imagine when you are fully telepathic, finally you can learn from each other's experience, you are no longer bound by the limitation of your own direct experience. Imagine the gift to learn from others' experience.

But you cannot do that until there is equanimity with what arises. There cannot be equanimity until there is access to the ground of lovingkindness and compassion. In a very real way, the beginnings of the shift to 4th density earth began, I would not say with Jeshua's birth but with the plan for his birth, to bring forth the opening to and awareness of higher consciousness, to allow ourselves to rest in that truth of being. There have been times where many were aware of this, and times when higher consciousness seemed to die away, even for centuries at a time. But on the whole there has been a progression, through plateaus, and now you are all approaching a time of awakening to your true divinity, to your true self.

Everything is always perfect. Sometimes that is hard to believe. When you feel yourself stumbling in the darkness, you wonder, "Aaron, how can this be perfect?" But what would prompt you to seek the light if you did not sometimes stumble in the darkness? To take it a step further, what would prompt you to open to that innate radiance if you did not play with this conditioned, separatist, dualistic mind and create "this" and "that", light and darkness?

The first thing to know, then, is that whatever you are experiencing in your body and in your mind, it is perfect. The experience itself can come as a wake-up call. It may be an experience of loss, grief, pain, despair. How are you going to use that experience to bring yourself further into the light, further into clarity and love?

Meditation is the most powerful tool that I know to do this work. There are many forms of meditation. After your break we're going to do a guided meditation on compassion that helps you to discover, to uncover and nurture your innate compassion. But most important, I think, is simply being present, training yourself to be present and see what's here in each moment. As with the finger exercise, unless you know you are fixating on the fingers, you cannot remind yourself to look through them. If you are not fully present, you become fixated on the fingers and forget that there's something beyond them. So the practice of presence is essential.

Just presence is not enough. What is the texture of that presence? There must be kindness. Presence and kindness; the two ingredients. And as the result of that stew of presence and kindness, we end up with the very aromatic, delightful dish of maturity, awake awareness, freedom. And one of these days you will wake up into 4th density, aware of the radiance of all that is, each expression of the divine. You will rejoice and you will know this is just one more step on a path to final maturity. Because there is no limit to the amount of love and compassion that can be radiated out, since it is infinite, we just keep polishing away a little bit more of the dust on the surface. It is like polishing the streaks on the windows so that more and more and more light can come through, or perhaps more precisely, so light can be radiated out.

There is so much I could say to you here. I had planned to speak for 30 minutes and I would guess we are at about 47 now, so we'll draw to a close. After your break we will have a guided meditation and a chance for questions and discussion. I want to review the focal points of my talk very briefly.

1. You are divine. This is your essence. 
2. You lose sight of that divinity because of the heaviness of the earthsuit, and you have moved into habitual patterns within the earthsuit that are hard to shake.
3. With awareness, with presence and kindness, you can begin to see the habit energies you have carried through so many lifetimes, and to cut the identification with those habit energies. This is vastly different than taking a stick to the habit energies and trying to chase them away. They'll keep emerging. You cease to identify with them as self.

We rest in spaciousness and begin to know the truth of who we are, and from that spaciousness, we attend the habit energies, and the energy of them diminishes and dissolves, because there is nothing left to support it. In this way, with love, we dissolve the habits that 1000 years of animosity could not destroy. And finally, there are ways in which we can practice that love. There are some of the techniques that we can teach you. The compassion meditation we will do is one of my favorites, and I hope you will enjoy it also.

Many of you, my dear brothers and sisters, have sat around a campfire with me, 2000 years ago, and had similar discussions. What do I do with my greed? What do I do with my anger? It may seem to you sometimes that you are not learning, but that is not so. Two thousand years ago the discussions were much more theoretical. Few were ready to put them into action because there was such a strong grip of fear and such a strong hold by the small ego self. When I look around this gathering today, I see the radiance coming from each of you, and how deeply ready each of you are to release the strong self-identification with the tendencies of mind and body, and yet to be responsible for those tendencies. I see how deeply each of you have gone into the realization of your own true self and of your interbeing with all-that-is. I applaud that growth with enormous joy.

I wish to remind you that all that I offer you here are simply my own thoughts and experience. If they resonate for you, please take them and make them your own. Allow them to awaken within the self that which was not quite fully remembered. If they do not thusly resonate, please simply leave them aside. I thank you for your attention. We will have 10 minutes to stretch now, then begin the guided meditation. That is all.

(break)

Barbara: This is me, Barbara, speaking. Aaron pointed out that we have habit energies that are very strong. If somebody pushes us, the habit energy may be to push back or to run away. If we push back, then we may judge ourselves for doing that. "Look how bad I am." If we run away, we may judge ourselves for doing that. We all have these different habit energies.

We have to understand that these are the results of our conditioning and that it takes a lot of gentleness and presence to shift the habit energy. We can't just say "I shouldn't feel this;" it doesn't work. One of the ways that we really can shift the habit energy is to practice with kindness instead of shame, and the compassion meditation we're going to do provides a tool. We do this guided compassion meditation as a way of remembering our innate ability for compassion. We're not trying to create compassion; compassion is already there. We awaken our innate compassion, letting ourselves see that even in a difficult situation there can be a compassionate response. And as we start to practice the compassionate response, then the narrow fear-based response begins to resolve.

In this meditation we work with several different people. We start with a loved one, somebody who has supported us, taken care of us, helped us in many ways. It might be a parent, grandparent, or other relative, a beloved teacher, or a dear friend. We look at the person and see this person has suffered, and we wish them well. It's as simple as that. Then we do the same thing with ourselves, seeing we also have suffered. What does it feel like to wish ourselves well instead of judging ourselves? We do it with a neutral person. Sometimes it's hard to find a neutral person, somebody we neither like nor dislike. Often somebody like the mailman, or a neighbor with whom you've rarely spoken, might be a neutral person. We find that once you start to think about a person and relate to them, they stop being neutral very quickly. But we can find a semi-neutral person. Then we go on to work with a difficult person. And finally we extend this more broadly out into the world.

That's enough background, I'm just going to let Aaron lead the meditation, and then we'll have some time for questions and answers.

Aaron: I am Aaron. Compassion is somewhat different than simple kindness. Compassion is the open heart's natural response. When we see somebody in difficulty, when we see pain and suffering, it is the heart's loving response, seeing deeply into the nature of that pain and offering love to help support the being through the pain. And your energy does help. Have no doubt about that.

Bring into your mind and your heart a being who has loved you, nurtured you. Sometimes we take such a being for granted. We don't see deeply into their situation, but are more on the receiving end from such a person. Look deeply at this person and see the ways that he or she has suffered. Speak to this person. "You have suffered." Say their name to yourself. "You have suffered. You have known loneliness, fear, confusion and doubt. (small pauses between statements throughout the following meditation) You have known pain in your body and in your mind. You have not been able to hold on to what you love, nor to keep yourself safe from that which seems to threaten you. You have suffered. May you be free of suffering. May your heart open and flower. May you find the healing that you seek. May you love and be loved. May you come to know your deepest interconnection with all that is. May you be happy and find peace."

Move even deeper with your connection to this person. Hold them in your heart. Continue to speak to them using the wishes we've just offered or whatever your own heart prompts. What do you wish this person? Tell them. I'll be quiet for a few minutes while you do this.

(longer pause)

Letting this person go now. Draw into that center of the heart your own self. Speak to yourself. "I have suffered. I have known loneliness, fear, confusion and doubt. I have known pain in my body and in my mind. I have not been able to hold on to what I love, nor to keep myself safe from that which seems to threaten. I have suffered. What do I wish for myself? May I be free of suffering. May my heart open and flower. May I find the healing that I seek. May I love and be loved. May I come to know my deepest connection with all that is. May I be happy and find peace."

Sometimes there may be resistance to offering oneself these loving wishes, a feeling, "I don't deserve it," or it's selfish to ask for myself. My dear ones, how can you ask for others, what you do not ask for the self? Giving and receiving are part of each other. How can you give love without receiving love? Soften yourself to receive these wishes. Offer what feels most appropriate from your own heart, holding yourself tenderly. Offer what is needed. I'll be quiet for several minutes.

(longer pause)

Let your own self go now. For time's sake, as we approach the closing time for this session, we will skip the neutral person here, but if you practice this yourself, I ask you to include this person. Bring into your mind and heart someone who has been difficult in your experience. It does not have to be the most difficult person. Please use no force. If it feels too difficult to open your heart to someone, choose someone else. Build up the muscles of compassion slowly. They will grow.

Remember as we invite in the difficult person that we are not doing a forgiveness meditation here. Compassion is the ground for forgiveness. It's fine to say we should forgive, or we want to forgive, but sometimes forgiveness does not come so easily. With deep compassion that sees into the other person's situation, forgiveness will come.

You may even find that you need to begin by saying to the person, "You have hurt me, and I am not sure I'm ready to forgive you, but I do want to wish you well." Just explore what it means to see deeply into another being's suffering and wish them well. It is so painful to hold someone out of your heart.

Invite this person in, then, with free will and without force. Softening around any resistance that comes with their presence, say, "You have suffered. You have known loneliness, fear, confusion and doubt. You have known pain in your body and in your mind. You have not been able to hold on to what you love, nor to keep yourself safe from that which seems to threaten you. You have suffered. I see the ways that you have suffered."

As you offer this wish, be aware of how it feels to offer the wish. You will feel that part of yourself that doesn't want to wish it, and also that part of yourself that can wish it freely and with love. And in so doing, we nurture that love-centered part of the self and transcend the fear-based aspect of being.

"May you be free of suffering. May your heart open and flower. May you find the healing that you seek. May you love and be loved. May you come to know your deepest interconnection with all that is. May you be happy and find peace."

Please continue with the wishes that the heart prompts using these that I have spoken or in your own words, as you prefer. If there is any tension in offering the wishes, be soft and gentle with it. If it begins to feel too painful, simply return to doing the practice with yourself. I'll be quiet now for several minutes.

(longer pause)

Letting this person go now, we open our hearts to the whole world where beings suffer. Sentient beings of all sorts, human and non-human. We can see so clearly the whole chain of suffering: one person attacked, frightened, unmindful, turning that frightened energy on the next person and the next and the next. People taking out their fear on the environment, the fear that their needs won't be met, that leads them to destroy and pollute. Can the heart open to this enormity of fear and confusion, offering love? For it's only with love that there can be healing and truth.

(longer pause)

May all beings everywhere be free from suffering. (Bell) May all beings come to know themselves as expressions of the one heart and know their infinite radiance, divinity, and love. (bell) May all beings everywhere be happy and find peace. (bell)

I thank you. After a stretch, I would be happy to hear your questions.

Q: I have never heard the concept of the 4 densities so I'd like to talk about them, especially the 4th density, the telepathic. And did I understand, in order to get to that 4th density we must own all our emotions or as he said, the equanimity of emotions. But also I'm not sure I understand the purpose of the first 3, mineral/gas, vegetable/ animal, and human; I know they're all life but are they different vibrations? Why do we put a level on them?

Aaron: I am Aaron. I hear your question. First, there are 8 densities, not 4. We've only gotten half way through. But you don't need to know too much about the others, you're not there yet. I do speak about them at length in Presence, Kindness, and Freedom, in the appendix "The Universe According to Aaron". It's also on the DSC website. (See www.deepspring.org / library / books / Aaron / contents / Universe According to Aaron)

The word density is used because there is literally a density, and a lower vibrational frequency to the lower densities, a heavier vibrational frequency, and a higher vibrational frequency as we move to higher densities. Some of you experience a heaviness to the earth density because you remember the lightness of higher densities. You have not been demoted! You have come by loving choice, to learn and to serve.

As the being matures, the vibrational frequency raises. The lessons are different from one density to the next. Just as a child must learn to crawl before it can walk, and to walk before it can run, one must learn awareness before one can learn self-awareness. One must learn self-awareness before one can learn love.

Please don't think of these densities as having a hard edge, like the floors of a building, as separate from one another. It is more like the floors connected by flights of stairs, a plateau that we may call 3rd density and then walking up the flight again toward 4th density. As one becomes stable, one rests on the 4th floor, and then moves on to the 5th and the 6th.

In each density there is a different way of learning, depending whether we are on a material or non-material plane. I name 2nd density in the earth plane as vegetable and animal, coming to 2nd density learnings of self-awareness. These understandings will be arrived at in different form on a non-material plane or other-material plane. The point is simply that there is a progression of learning, and each of these areas must be traversed through. As the earth plane shifts into a 4th density planet, all of you are called upon to either move to a different 3rd density learning experience, or to arrive at the readiness for the equanimity of which we've spoken, for the release of that contraction that holds on to fear and the delusion of separate self. That is why a gathering like this that speaks of the realization of oneness can be of such value in the growth toward 4th density stability. I pause.

Q: So is he using the words "dimension" and "density" as the same thing?

A: I am Aaron. Not quite. The densities are simply the stages of learning. There are many dimensions on which these stages will be happening.

This is just semantics. Don't get caught in the terminology. Simply be aware that there is a progression of learning, and on each flight of steps you are mastering certain skills, moving to stably stand on the next landing before continuing upward. This learning takes place all over the universe, in physical and non-physical areas. Some of you have evolved largely through the earth plane, some have evolved in other dimensions, other situations. It doesn't matter; we're all learning the same thing, love and oneness. Other questions?

Q: I have someone I work with who is very angry. As I did the meditation, I could feel the burning in my heart of the anger, the depth of her pain. As the meditation was over, it was gone. As I work with her, I work with as much acceptance and love as she shares her story repeatedly. Is there anything that can be added here? Anything you can share? [the questioner explained afterwards that she didn't mean that she herself was reacting in anger, or that it was her own reactive anger; it was more an empathy, or no separation between her and the other so she experienced/felt the other's anger. And the meditation released the shared feeling of anger from her own heart.]

A: I am Aaron. First to draw a map of the process. Sometimes in trying to find understanding of another's situation, and not to react w/anger to them, we ignore our own pain. This is not an either/or situation. This person is filled with anger, with bitterness, with fear, arisen from conditions in her own life. You may see deeply into those conditions and not blame her, and yet, here would be an extreme example, because I do not think she uses physical force, but if she were to take a stick and hit you, it would still hurt. Our words are also like a stick, they can hurt. Simultaneous with the offering of compassion for her and insight into her situation must be holding one's own self with tenderness, with mercy, knowing, "this is painful, this is hard for me. I honor myself that I am willing to stay with it, to practice compassion here for both of us." This you have done. At a certain point the separateness falls away, as you have experienced. There is no longer the compassion wished to that person and to the self, but simply the offering of compassion, a space of compassion in which all may enter and rest, no longer a self or other.

Can you all see how easy it is, see the tendency in oneself to put oneself last and say "I should offer compassion to the other." And not include oneself in that circle of compassion.

I also point out that compassion is strong and able to say no. It does not say no from a place of anger but from a place of love. Compassion first must lead you not to judge the other, to open enough not to hate the other, but then it must lead you to the skillful ability to say no to that which is hurtful. Those of you who are on a conscious spiritual path with a strong intention to non-harm tend to let yourself more easily be run over by others' anger, with the feeling, "I should be able to tolerate this," but it's not kind to let yourself be abused. It's not kind to you and it's not kind to the other. This co-worker is incurring a lot of hurtful karma by enacting her anger in the world. Your own intuition will teach you ways to say no that are skillful and kind. Increasingly, you are ready to say no from a place of kindness, relatively, not completely but I emphasize, relatively, free from anger. I pause.

Q: Does this also apply when the person that is angry or abusive is also experiencing Alzheimer's?

A: I am Aaron. Absolutely. With Alzheimer's, what happens is that the predominant personality trends come forth. They may have been hidden somewhat before, but the person loses the ability to hide the feelings, and when there is strong fear and anger, it will come forth. With repetition, kindly address that anger. Take that angry person in your arms and look in their eyes, saying, "I know you are afraid right now. I hear your anger, but it's not okay to lash out at others with that anger. Let us breathe together and create a safe container for the anger." In some ways the Alzheimer's patient is more able to learn because there is less conscious conditioning. The past is forgotten. There is only this moment. And in this moment they can learn how to relate with more kindness, more space, to the contractions of fear. The hard part of this is that it must be repeated so many times, because what is learned is so quickly forgotten when it is no longer of this moment, but that is not really different than with anyone else. I pause.

Q: Could you repeat your prayer? Bringing compassion to the person you're thinking about.

Barbara: Do you mean those steps that he offered? I'm paraphrasing Aaron, he says certainly he can repeat it, and in the book "Presence, Kindness, and Freedom," a similar meditation to this is written out. But rather than using his words, look in your own heart and find your own words. What is it YOU want to offer? He says, so don't get stuck in his words. Use them as a suggestion for what could be offered. Then go inside and offer it.

Q: With Alzheimer's, it looks to me like there's a big disconnect between the soul and the personality, the body, the mind, the feelings. Does the soul abandon the person in Alzheimer's? And if it does, what is the purpose of the suffering the body and mind and feelings go through? I don't understand the relationship.

A: I am Aaron. No, the soul never abandons the body. Let me rephrase that—occasionally as with a fetus when it is known that fetus will not come to full birth, the soul may not enter the body but that is not an abandonment. Or it may enter the body choosing just that brief time in utero. But for the being that has taken birth, the soul does not leave early with illness. Here, please remember that the soul's experience is non-linear, so it may certainly be elsewhere and in this pained or confused body and mind, but the mind and body are not deserted.

Keep in mind that this body experience is only one part of the soul's experience. The soul is vast. A small part of that soul energy is in the body. It may seem that no learning is taking place. The higher self, which is an aspect of the soul, may be learning from the experience of that fragment of itself within the body. The learning may not be readily evident.

I find that with Alzheimer's, the forgetfulness of the life's history, and sometimes of the intellect and so forth, leads that person to bring forth the dominant tendencies. If fear is dominant, it will show itself. The ability to deem fear inappropriate and to hide fear is no longer present. Guile is impossible. The ability to step past that fear may not have been developed. The greatest gift for the one living within Alzheimer's is to be surrounded by others who can help to draw forth their innate goodness, kindness, and so forth, and to speak compassionately but strongly to negativity.

I have heard a beautiful story of a man who had Alzheimer's. The man was a college professor, very much beloved, a very kind and generous person. Our friend had not seen him in 6 months and had not realized how quickly the Alzheimer's had progressed. She and her husband were invited to dinner at their house. They rang the doorbell and he answered, and instead of hugging them and greeting them in his customary way, he looked at them a bit blankly, and then said, "I'm very sorry I don't remember you, but since you're here at my door, I know you must be beloved friends. Dinner will be ready soon. Please come in." This was his predominant habit energy, this courteousness and kindness, and it shone forth from him.

More often, we see in Alzheimer's the fear energy coming forth, because fear is predominant and now comes forth without the mind's restrictions of how one "should" act and speak. Here is such an unrealized opportunity for Alzheimer's caregivers to speak to that fear energy because the person does not have the chain of memories and the fear is very accessible. When the caregiver speaks with kindness to the fear, the one with Alzheimer's can begin to learn what had not been able to be learned previously.

This connects to the work that we do with what we call rooted or rootless habit. Some habit energies have deep roots. With Alzheimer's the deep roots are severed. It's not that they don't exist but they are forgotten, and we don't need to get at it, only to see that this habit energy still exists, and right here at the surface and it can be tended and shifted, without going to the roots. Your culture has not explored those possibilities sufficiently. And so Alzheimer's sufferers are expected to act with anger and fear, and nothing is done to nudge them out of that rut. Typically the family member or friend struggles with their own anger and fear at the condition of their loved one, separates themselves, and then the opportunity is lost. I pause.

Q: Was Alzheimer's always around, even 2000 years ago, or is it new?

A: I am Aaron. It was always around but with a difference. Going back 2000 years, 3000 years, 4000 years, in some cultures people did not live long enough to develop Alzheimer's. It was very scarce because most people died before moving deeply into the aging process. In other cultures, I'm thinking here specifically of within the Essene tradition, the various trainings in regeneration of both mind and body prevented the outbreak of Alzheimer's even though through such cellular regeneration techniques some beings were hundreds of years old. So much has been lost. And yet it's not a problem that it's lost. Rather it gives new opportunities for learning to be with the situation as it is today and ask ourselves, as in any situation, how can more love be given? How can even this situation turn into a rich opportunity for learning and growth for all of us involved with this person? I pause.

Q: I'm confused. In the beginning, you had mentioned that we are not here to be perfect. Later, you had mentioned that everything is perfect. May I have more clarity? (The question can't be heard on the tape to be revised; it was longer than this.)

A: I am Aaron. Here we get into the balance of relative and ultimate experience. On the ultimate plane, everything is perfect. For example, none of you in this room would think it was perfect if you were told you were going to die tomorrow, "No!" And yet without death, how could there be birth? Death is perfect. The whole progression is perfect because you finish you work in one incarnation and have a time of rest, are ready to come back and learn some more. How would it be if there were no death? Of course there is not really death, there is simply transition, one level of consciousness to another. So on the ultimate level, we can say it's perfect. And on the relative level we can say it's not perfect at all.

B briefly mentioned to some of you this morning her experience with the wave in April. She was happily swimming in the ocean when a series of much larger waves came in. The first knocked her off her feet a bit. She dove under the second. She is a skilled ocean swimmer. The third one she saw coming, and it was even bigger, so she tried to head to shore. The undertow from those first 2 big waves caught her and she was swept up into the belly of the next one and slapped down. She experienced what felt like her back breaking, lost consciousness, head hitting the ground very hard.

She was rescued. It's a longer story I will not go into it. My point is simply, she laid there on the beach, coming back to consciousness, really not knowing if she had a broken neck or back, bleeding profusely from her head, in a lot of pain. The first thought that came up was, tension, anger, don't want this. And then the deep recognition, "It is as it is. It doesn't matter whether I want it or not." A deep surrender into things as they are, even a sense of joy. Lying there, still alive, somewhat to her astonishment, seeing the faces of concerned people surrounding her. Feeling the lapping of the ocean on her feet and aware that there was still feeling in the feet. Smelling the salt air. In that moment, she simply relaxed into, "It is perfect. Just as it is, perfect." And of course, she has lost that sense of perfection at times, chafed at the injuries of the body, at the limitations. But at another level she does understand it is perfect. Do you understand what I'm saying? I pause. (Q: Yes.)

Barbara: Let us stop here. We'll have more tomorrow.

(Barbara announces that the guided meditation for tomorrow is taken from the book available on the table. She gives a brief description of the meditation.)

Copyright © 2004 by Barbara Brodsky