Private, April 19, 1994

Aaron to J and P (excerpts)

Aaron: I am Aaron … (Reference is made to the private session with K on energy streams, 94/03/25P.) There are two parts to the working with this, J. The relative and the ultimate. First, there must not be a getting rid of fear. You understand that. There is the process that you are skillfully doing, of making space for the fear, offering compassion to the fear. But there is not dwelling in ownership of the fear, simply seeing how it has arisen out of past misunderstandings. Seeing it for distortion, there is no longer need to reenact it, but a willingness to let it go. Then we return to the same ultimate practice of light. Your practice with this with emotional distortion will facilitate your practice with it with physical distortion.

I spoke of the light body which is projection of the Source, of God, and of the sub-light body which is a projection of the light body. There is an energy stream which flows through the sub-light body and into the object. We spoke of the sub-light body as being like a piece of glass with heavy emotion as a backing that sticks to the back so that when that fear energy is allowed to rise up the energy stream, it hits that mirror of the sub-light body and reflects right back down.

One can endlessly practice the distortion. One can become very adept at sending love to it. But after a while, one begins to wonder: Why does it keep coming back? You may be very skilled at inviting it in for tea, but it's still discomforting, and there's a sense that it doesn't reflect the deepest truth of you which is fearlessness.

It is at this point that you begin to work with the energy stream itself, seeing, hearing, feeling it, even tasting it-whichever sense is most potent for you. I will use the term 'seeing' so as to avoid the repetition of 'seeing, hearing or feeling,' but please know that it can be done with any or several senses. Seeing the distortion of fear as it rises up the energy stream, one literally smoothes out the distortion. One allows oneself to see through that glass of the sub-light body. One might almost see that there are two parallel waves arising-one is distorted and one is clear-and one makes the choice to follow the clear one.

The effort here is focused on carrying you through to the ever-perfect, the ever-fearless, reconnecting to that space in yourself. Then the energy stream carries that fearless and ever-perfect image back down. It has an extraordinarily quieting effect on the fear, like the calming and heartening effect of dawn after a long dark night. In the darkness you wonder if dawn will ever come. The sky begins to get light, but you still doubt whether the sun will come. Then there is that first ray of sun over the horizon and all the darkness is dissipated. In that moment of first light, you know the light is truth.

This does not mean there has not been darkness, but the darkness was only apparent absence of light. Once you know that with certainty, you can abide the darkest night with the deep truth: 'The light still exists; I am simply not fully in it as yet.' You can open yourself to it. The effect of this is to dispel the contractions of fear. They simply cease. It takes time and patience. It takes effort. It's not going to happen with one quick changing of this energy stream, but it's the same work we spoke about with physical distortion. Do you have questions? (No.)

I ask Barbara to read part of a poem. (Excerpt from Song 1 of Flight of the Garuda, by Lama Shabkar, Tsogdruk Rangdrol.)

In both samsara and nirvana the renown of the enlightened state
Is widely heard like thunder throughout the sky.
As this always remains within the minds of beings of the six realms
How amazing that one is never separate from it even for an instant!
Not knowing that this state is within oneself,
How amazing that one searches for it elsewhere.
Although it is clearly manifest like the radiant disc of the sun,
How amazing that so few see it.
Having no father and mother, one's mind is the true Buddha,
How amazing that it knows neither birth nor death!
No matter how much happiness and sorrow is experienced,
How amazing that it is never impaired or improved even in the slightest!
How amazing that without being fabricated,
This mind, which is unborn and primordially pure,
Is spontaneously present from the very beginning!
This self awareness is naturally free from the very first,
How amazing that it is liberated by just resting-
At ease in whatever happens!

Aaron: I am Aaron. This which we speak of is pure mind, pure awareness, Christ or Buddha consciousness. When we use the metaphor of the sun and the light body, which is the sunbeam, a projection of the sun, this pure mind is the sunbeam. How different this pure mind is from the content of mind, which is what you often mistake for mind: the highs and lows, the joy and anger, the planning, the worrying, the remembering. That is not mind but the workings of mind, its content, which comes and goes. Pure awareness is the sunbeam.

Let me phrase it in this way: It is the place where you can come closest to the experience of the sunbeam and of the sun itself while in physical incarnation. In deep stages of meditation, you may come to that place of pure mind, not calling it pure mind but perhaps God, nirvana, emptiness. But in your walking and waking state, you can continually tune into that space of pure awareness. The more you are able to move from a space of connectedness with that sunbeam, the more your actions and words reflect the sun rather than the distortion. Do you understand? Do you have questions?

P: Aaron, when you speak of pure mind, is that the same as pure body?

Aaron: I am Aaron. The body is a manifestation of the mind. When there is distortion incorporated into the plan for the incarnation, this distortion manifests itself into physical distortion in the body. The most concise way I can say it is that you think it and then you manifest it into physical reality. The physical light body template has within it the potential perfect physical manifestation. The emotional light body template has the potential perfect emotional manifestation, fully open to joy and sorrow. Sorrow is not an emotion of fear but an emotion of love. The mental light body template is essentially the pure mind aspect and the spirit light body is the soul. I. The soul is not synonymous with pure mind. It transcends pure mind. It is your own personal projection of God, but totally impersonal.

When I say 'your own personal projection,' it's just one of the sunbeams. Visually, perhaps, one could see it as if this sun, this metaphorical sun, were pulsating, sending out waves of energy in just the same way as the ocean pushes its waves against the shore. Each wave hitting the beach is a projection of the ocean. It's no different in any way than the ocean itself. The white froth on the wave is also of the same chemical matter as the ocean; and yet, it has a different appearance because there's much air sucked into it. You might think of that as the physical manifestation. The motion of the wave, the tumult of it-we would think of that as the emotional and mental projections. When you take out the white froth and the motion of the wave, what's left? There's nothing there that's not the ocean. In just the same way, there is nothing in the soul that is not God.

The mind is a projection of the soul. Emotion a further projection. The physical body a further projection. The physical body is a projection of each of those that comes before it. Thus, the physical body is a projection of the mind. When pure mind offers the perfect physical body to project, then that manifestation becomes a perfect mirror of the mind, but it is not the mind. When mind offers distortion, that it what is manifest. Do you understand? Do you have questions?

(Question not on tape.)

Aaron: I am Aaron. I partially interpret your question as a request to understand how to work more skillfully with the discordances that arise, and also, to know why they arise. The present physical body was not created as a projection of pure mind, but was a projection of much disharmony. It is a reflection of past karma. While the body of the infant may seem perfect, within it are all the possibilities for distortion which are inherent in that mind-body stream because of past karma. If the infant were able immediately to clarify old karma by these cutting-through-ultimate-reality techniques, it would grow up to be completely free of physical distortion. Of course, the infant can't do that. All it can do is move into its karma, experience it, eventually hope to come to understand it and finally release it.

This body is your place of learning, so you're not going to be able to keep it distortion-free. However, understanding the arising of the distortion, understanding the karmic stream from which it flows, and then being able to work with these light practices of moving back into the perfect light body, will tremendously ease the distortion.

That doesn't mean you're a failure if you can't do it. And some distortions have gone further than others. Barbara cannot physically clear the distortion which has killed the nerves and prevents her hearing. Even if she completely clears that distortion, she can't restore the nerves. I am not saying that it cannot happen, but she, in herself, cannot affect that.

On the other hand, in the hospital (Barbara has just spent 10 days in the hospital), because she was able to clearly see the distortion and then spent the days from Wednesday to Saturday basically doing what we just spoke about with J, spending much of her time seeing the distortion and working with it, over and over and over again, she was able to clarify that distortion very quickly. If she had not been able to do that herself, if she had needed surgery, that's not a sign that she's a failure. It's only a sign where more work needs to be done.

For you then, P, the places where there is pain and distortion in the physical body are places that are optimum for working with this energy process. But please know you are not a failure if you work with this and there's still distortion. Simply relax into the distortion. The distortion comes from two places. One is the physical distortion itself and one is the emotional distortion created around your fight with the distortion. You must relax the physical and the emotional. They are equally important.

In his book, Healing Into Life and Death, Stephen Levine tells of a friend who had always wanted to build a house in the woods. It was his dream. He was the survivor of a serious motorcycle accident, had bad pain in his back and his legs. Then one day he was given enough wood to build his house. A wonderful gift. But he felt, 'My body just can't do this.' He finally decided, 'No, I won't be stopped. I'm going to build my house.' He remembered that when he sang, his back didn't bother him so much. So he sang. He sang hymns to God. And Stephen says he built a temple instead of a mere house.

This is another way of working with the distortion, offering love to that physical distortion. It doesn't quite fit into the relative or the ultimate practice. It's a blend of both. As he sang, from my perspective, he made space for the pain emotionally instead of contracting around the pain, thus offering release of the emotional contraction. He allowed himself to connect with the divine in himself, and thus opened the pathway to the pure physical light body, allowing many of the physical distortions to release themselves, thereby alleviating some of the pain. So, it's a broad process. Do you have questions?