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Home -> Books -> Human
Human by Aaron
Channeled through Barbara Brodsky
Copyright © 2001 by Barbara Brodsky
Offered by Deep Spring Center for Meditation and Spiritual Inquiry
3820 Packard, Suite 280
Ann Arbor, MI 48108
USA
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Foreword
This work is channeled. Some of you are familiar with
channeling and have no discomfort with the idea of a discarnate teacher.
Others may be new to this process. Perhaps you've been drawn to this book by
the subject but look askance at "channeling."
I cannot prove Aaron's reality, nor does it really matter. I
can only say he feels "real" to me, that I experience him as an
energy outside of myself which offers me new understanding, but that also
doesn't matter. What is "real?" Am I real? What or who am I? What is
this earth on which I seem to live, and who are those "others" who
share it with me? All of Aaron's work asks us to consider those questions and
to look at how much of our own and the world's suffering grows out of that
persistent adherence to our separate, ego-centered realities. Aaron's deepest
teaching are of non-duality and non-separation. So how can I state that Aaron
is separate from myself?
I could tell you that those who have worked with Aaron find
him to be a wise and compassionate teacher whose primary concern is to help us
find freedom and alleviation of suffering. Aaron would be the first to say
that also is irrelevant. Who he is doesn't matter. Put "channeled"
side. I ask only that you read with open mind and heart. If what is presented
here is helpful, take it and make it your own. If not, discard it. All that matters
is that these words connect you to your own deepest wisdom and that they bring
you back into your own heart.
With love,
Barbara Brodsky
Acknowledgements
No work of this size can come from just one, or even a few
people. Aaron and I would especially like to thank those people whose energy,
time, material resources and love have made this sharing of his work possible.
There are too many such friends to mention all, but special
recognition and loving gratitude go to Nicholas de Paul for his lovely
formatting and also for his inspired closing words to the book, to Roann
Altman and Judy Romine for editing and to all the friends whose hours spent
with Aaron have drawn forth these teachings. A thank you to my husband, Hal,
who patiently suffers the hours of losing me to a computer or meditation, to
allow me time to work. And deepest gratitude to the Deep Spring Center Board
of Directors, past and present, whose efforts have supported this work.
Finally, this book is offered with the deepest gratitude to
Aaron and the spirit and grace his energy represents. With humility and
gratitude too, to that unknown lineage of which he was/is a part — to Aaron's
teachers, and the procession of teachers before them who knew the value of
these teachings, who each added to them with their own realizations, and
passed them on to us. I hope these words will touch your lives as deeply as
they have touched mine.
Forehead to the floor and heart bursting with love, my
heartfelt gratitude and devotion to my guru, Neem Karoli Baba, without whose
grace none of this work with Aaron could have happened.
My friend,
you are human and yet
you are also spirit.
To be spirit
is to rest in the core of being
that is birthless and deathless.
To be human
is to contemplate the cessation
of your conscious existence.
1
To be spirit
is to live fully in the heart of love.
To be human
is to know fear.
2
To be spirit
is to offer everything.
To be human
is to experience
the fear expressions of greed and clinging.
3
To be spirit
is to know divine compassion.
To be human
is to know the fear expressions of judgment and anger.
4
To be spirit
is to know your completion.
To be human
is to hunger for it.
5
Yet, to be human
and to be spirit
are not at all incompatible,
for you are not incarnate
to abolish fear and its expressions
but to learn to draw them
into the heart of love.
Walk by my side for a while
and I will teach you.
6
The first instruction
is simply to remember
that you are divine.
Always and everywhere,
in every regard,
you
are manifestation of divinity.
7
The second instruction
is to remember that
all else is also divine.
Everything
emanates from the pure heart–
everything!
8
With this in mind,
begin to see how fear divides reality
into sacred
and profane.
"Profane"
is merely the mind's distortion of the Divine,
seen through the lens of fear.
9
With "profane" comes "other-than,"
the concept that phenomena exist which are
other than God,
other than Self.
Then you feel that you have
lost the Divine Self,
or lost God.
Thus begins the frantic search
for the ever-perfect.
10
Why do you seek elsewhere
for yourself?
You are not out there
but right here,
here
in the pure heart.
11
But if you must seek,
know that you are everywhere.
Everything that you see,
however grand or minute,
however pleasing or distorted to the eye,
is a reflection
of the Self,
of the Divine.
12
Look deeply into what arises
and see the many faces it offers.
You will find
beauty and ugliness,
joy and sorrow,
courage and cowardice,
generosity and clinging,
compassion and hatred,
even life and death.
None of these are dual in any way.
They are the myriad faces of Self.
They are the faces of God.
13
Since all of these expressions of being will arise,
the work of the incarnation is
not to eradicate that which seems negative
but to learn from it.
In this learning the heart opens.
That which was experienced as negative
is disempowered.
When the war with it ceases,
it dies its own natural death.
14
Here is where misunderstanding brings some confusion.
Each of you views the Divine,
however you name That,
as perfect,
and seeks to duplicate that perfection in the self
so that the self will feel itself to be
a worthy expression of Divinity,
free of shadow.
There is such deep aspiration to enact that clarity,
such yearning, in this way,
to come home.
15
Lost in that yearning,
you forget what you are,
that you are already perfect
in the core of your being
and that the illusion of shadow is
but an incarnative tool
to bring that inherent perfection into awareness.
16
Mistaking the illusion as
solid object with inherent reality,
you lose the self into a relationship with the illusion.
If it is "real" it must be maintained,
or conquered.
17
Already there is a dualistic notion!
There is the perfect
and the imperfect.
There is getting rid of,
and attainment.
18
But the path is non-dual.
It is a path of one word,
– of love –
in all its many guises.
19
It is not wrong to seek expression of perfection,
but you seek in the wrong place.
Do not seek outside the Self,
not in ritual or prayer,
not in austerity practice nor determination to betterment,
as if these could produce perfection.
For I tell you that
perfection is already present.
It cannot be produced.
You have not to attain it,
but only to learn to enact it.
20
The question then becomes
not "Where is perfection to be found?"
but
"What blocks
the clearest expression
of the Divine
which is
the inherent essence of this Awareness?"
21
When your inquire closely,
you will find that
the answers are fear
and the voices of fear.
22
"Ahh,
then I shall abandon fear,
and cast out its expression,"
you reply.
No,
no, no!
Nothing is to be cast away.
Nothing!
23
You shall not abandon fear
but embrace fear
and transmute the energy it offers,
bringing it
to the service of love.
24
Fear is the teacher.
Its omnipresence is a reminder that
you have a choice.
The choice is
not to destroy fear but
to cease to heed fear
as master.
25
The choice
between love and fear
speaks not of destruction
but of responsibility
and awareness.
Of love.
Of Choice.
Of awakening
into the realization
of that choice.
26
Fear
is an expression
of love.
You must understand this
or you can go no further.
27
I offer an image of the sun
as metaphor for the Divine.
The heat and light it broadcasts
are its expressions.
Where there is heat,
there must also be coolness.
Where there is light,
there must also be shadow.
These are also expressions of the sun.
28
Fear is an expression of love.
Only that!
Love is eternal.
29
We distinguish between
the conditioned expressions of the universe,
that is,
those phenomena that arise due to conditions,
and cease when those conditions cease,
and The Unconditioned,
which exists free of conditions.
30
Name that Unconditioned as you will:
God,
Allah,
I AM,
Goddess,
the Eternal,
the Absolute,
the Unconditioned.
Your names are mere labels
and cannot change the essence
of this Nameless.
31
You can merely speak of its attributes.
It is Eternal.
Unborn and Undying,
Unchanging and Uncreated.
32
Its clearest expression is love!
33
To seek to destroy fear
is to take a coward's path.
How much more difficult,
how much grander,
to embrace
that which you dread.
34
You must
draw fear
into the heart of love.
35
"How shall I do this,"
you ask,
"when I quiver in my humanness,
tremble with fear and anger,
burn with desire
and shriek my pain to the universe?
How shall I love
without first ridding myself
of those tortuous experiences of body and mind?"
36
So you still wish to believe
you must get rid of this humanness
to enact your divinity ...
No,
And again,
No!
That is the path for those who would close their hearts.
It is a path that ends at a steep precipice
from which there is no way but to backtrack.
It is a path of force,
named often as self-discipline,
but no less brutal for the euphemism.
37
The path of love
requires discipline
but it is a sternness borne of lovingkindness
and compassion
not of hatred.
38
It asks the constancy
of attention,
of mindfulness,
of presence.
It asks the heart to remain open
when it would fly away in anguish,
or clamp itself shut and
bar out all that grates upon it and makes it bleed.
39
This is the discipline that is asked,
To be present,
always,
with the heart open.
If it were not possible,
it would not be asked.
40
"How shall we learn to be present and to live
with the heart open?"
That is the lesson offered by the incarnation,
It is not as difficult as you might think.
The universe aspires to teach you
if you will only but attend
with an openness that
lowers the shields of self,
makes space for pain and fear,
and remembers that Love is always present.
The question is always,
"Where is love to be found?"
41
How do I make space for pain,
fear and confusion?
There are tools that will help.
May I walk with you as you uncover them
and become adept in their usage.
42
At the start
we establish mindfulness
and commitment to living in non-harm.
Such commitment must grow
from the loving aspirations
to live your deepest interconnection
with all that is.
43
It cannot come from a place of fear and judgment
which merely says "I should not harm,"
or judgment's voice distorts all that follows.
If fear arises
and a desire to destroy that which catalyzed fear,
the voice that has said
"I should not harm,"
may create of box of separation
around the experience of fear
and refuse it entrance to the heart.
44
It cannot come from a voice of will
which says
"I will not harm"
or control
and self discipline
become barriers
to the fullness of experience.
45
If fears arises
and desire to destroy that which catalyzed fear,
the voice that has said
"I will not harm,"
may quickly move to drown out fear,
to impose an order and control
that swallow fear's voice.
46
If you vow to exclude
the experience of fear from the heart,
fear will still arise.
You leave yourself no option
but to destroy it
or to sink into despair.
47
As long as there is a war
with fear
or any ego-based emotion,
you give control to negativity and make it solid.
The attempt to destroy fear
can come from mo other source but fear!
Therein, you practice your fear.
48
When you acknowledge
the presence of fear and its siblings,
and allow them much space,
then
the loving heart
can reassert its authority.
49
To acknowledge that presence
is to not become list in fear's stories.
It is merely to greet fear and its companions
as conditioned objects,
allow the experience of them
and rest in spaciousness.
50
That
which is aware of fear
is not fearful.
Rest in that awareness!
51
The love-based motivation
is always present,
although sometimes hidden.
To allow the light of lovingkindness to shine,
you must investigate the nature of shadow.
With understanding,
shadow ceases to carry authority.
The clouds thin
to a mist that
disappears.
52
The first step,
then,
is to
regard fear
and its companions
from the
spaciousness
of the
loving heart.
53
Within that
spaciousness
you may begin to observe
how attached you are
to these difficult mind forms.
54
When self-based thought arises,
you chastise yourself.
When fear leads to acts and speech
that advance the self,
then instead of looking deeply
into the misunderstanding
that gave rise to those acts or voice,
you turn the energy inward
to condemn the self.
55
My dear ones,
can you not see how
such judgment
solidifies the self?
Is this your choice,
or mere habit?
56
Self-judgment and guilt
are the voice of ego
and provide a way to practice "self."
Are you ready to observe
the nature of their arising,
as a conditioned habit,
and allow them to flow by
without so much attachment to them?
57
Toss a pebble into still water,
into the perfect mirror of a quiet pool,
and watch the ripples spread.
On the surface is movement
while beneath that surface
all remains still and ever perfect.
You cannot embrace your perfection,
cannot enter into the stillness of the depths,
while you pass your days
attempting to stop the ripples in the water.
58
Those ripples are
merely the play
of the phenomenal world.
Let them be!
59
Attachment to the ripples of
guilt and self-judgment
prevents you from
resting deeply
in the ever-perfect.
60
One must begin to ask what makes that choice.
Is it only mere habit?
Is it fear?
Fear of what?
61
Perhaps
the choice
to reside in the small self
grows largely out of
fear of the truth
of your unlimitedness
and
your power!
62
What does it mean
to be
unlimited?
What does it mean
to be
divine?
63
This is not a statement that you are not responsible
for the ripples you produce.
If they overflow onto another,
you must mop up the spill.
You must restore balance.
To judge and berate either self or other
does not restore balance!
It is merely a continuation of
the voice of fear and ego,
which avoids the work of balancing.
64
When you observe
the progression of
contact with phenomena,
action grown from that contact,
and reaction to action,
you begin to understand that
there is always a choice.
Here is the dawning of responsibility.
65
Are you ready to give up
guilt and self judgment?
Are you ready also to give up
unworthiness?
These are all the voices of the small self.
They echo the ego.
66
To "give up"
does not mean to condemn or to abandon.
Nothing is abandoned.
It falls away.
Nothing is to be attached or it reinforces itself.
Let it be.
It will go when it is ready.
Hold a small bird in your hands.
Open the hands and set it free.
It will fly when it is ready.
Let it sit there as long as is needed.
No force.
67
There is surrender in "give up."
It is a gentle letting go of that
which love knows
needs mo longer to be held.
Here is a courageous and loving
willingness to be responsible,
to return to the Self.
68
"Surrender" is not a diminution of being
but an opening into the true Self.
It is a proclamation of divinity and power.
One surrenders
the ego self
so one may fully enact
the Divine Self.
One surrenders fear
so one may fully enact love.
69
Always,
you must be aware that
this is your choice,
to continue to act in those ways which practice fear
and solidify the small self,
or to choose to act and seek
in the ways that express the true Self.
70
What is your choice?
What is your highest priority?
You must know that priority in order to choose.
We call this practice
'clear comprehension of purpose.'
If you act and speak
without regard to the highest purpose,
how can there be skillful and responsible choice?
71
"Clear comprehension of suitability'
asks,
Is your choice
suitable to the purpose
as you see it?
72
We see the twofold purpose, then,
to protect from that which fear labels as threat,
and to open the heart
in interconnection with all that is,
to act in ways
of true no-harm and non-duality.
73
Remember that true compassion
is strong,
able to say 'no'
to wrongness,
but with love.
74
Fear does not depart.
Fear ceases to be the primary motivator.
And love
establishes its clear voice.
75
Fear is known for what it is,
as non-dual with love,
merely an expression of love
which must not be enacted,
but which
kindness
and awareness
transmute
to empower love.
76
Now, but
One
remains ...
77
One Voice
heard and heeded
in effortless, empowering
surrender.
78
One Truth
not two.
79
One Love
which includes,
enfolds
and ultimately dissolves
any and all fears,
80
leaving naught but Love Itself,
dissolving Now
into Eternity.
81
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