January 28, 1993

Aaron: Good morning to you all. (Transcribed while being channeled. Time spent trying to get rid of the computer's comments, cheerfully programmed in by mischievous young friends. The computer had been saying, 'Go ahead, make my day" every time the space key was touched, and offering a Bronx cheer with the return key.) Again, good morning to you all. Dare I say, go ahead, make my day! (groans and laughter) No echo from the computer??? I find myself fascinated with the tools with which you simplify your lives!!! I want to introduce the next step today, which is vinnana. This word translates literally rebirth consciousness. It is perhaps the most difficult and most complex of the steps to understand. Exactly what is it within that takes rebirth? What is consciousness?

There are many aspects to 'consciousness." When we speak of sense consciousness, of smelling, hearing, touch, taste or vision, we are talking of the process which originates when a physical sense contacts a sense object. There is also that sense that we call mind. When the mind touches a mind object, let's call it a thought, then thinking or knowing occurs. This might be labeled mind consciousness. Some beings incorrectly limit consciousness to this awareness of contact of physical senses and mind. The physical body experiences the physical sense contact and the mind knows that contact has transpired. However I have no physical body and yet I see you all. I hear you. I do not see with physical eyes. I do not see your physical form but your aura, energy and light, perceived with a different sense than physical eyes. I do not hear your words; I have no ears. I hear your thoughts. The senses are not confined to the physical body. Telepathy comes through the mind. This is still just one part of consciousness, mind knowing the contact through senses, either physical or non-physical.

Volumes have been written about consciousness. We are not going to penetrate into the whole mystery today, nor even this semester!

As we begin, it would help to define our terms. I would like to make a distinction between consciousness and awareness. This usage derives only from my own perspective not from any written text or teachers. I want you to be aware of how I use these words so that our communication does not become distorted.

I choose to use consciousness to refer to that part of mind's knowing which arises from a sense of self. To clarify: Consciousness is that which knows it is knowing. There is some vestige of self there even if only a slender thread. I use awareness to specify that form of consciousness which is totally pure, no sense of a self being conscious. Yes, awareness may be 'self-aware" in terms of awareness being aware of awareness, but there is no do-er, no self who is aware! When there is no conscious self but just pure awareness, this energy that is aware, for that moment of pure awareness, is functioning as a seventh density energy. Then in the next moment it fluctuates back into its third density being, and consciousness with its ego content returns. Thus, consciousness equates with a self, awareness with absence of self. I emphasize that these are solely my definitions. You may find that other teachers use these words differently.

When there is pure awareness, no sense of the self being aware and thereby being a 'doer," the acts, words and thoughts that grow out of such pure awareness cannot lead to adhering karma. These acts, words and thoughts plant no seeds for rebirth, whether rebirth as reincarnation or simply rebirth of self-containing consciousness into the next moment.

Since I've just said there is no rebirth of self-consciousness drawn out of the acts, words or thoughts created through pure awareness, one might be led by the above statement to the conclusion that once there is pure awareness it would be maintained indefinitely. It would be indefinite if the awareness were 100% pure but in human form there is always some mix. No human but the fully enlightened Arahat acts and speaks only from pure awareness with no bit of self. Even in the highly realized being, there will be moments when self creeps in. Awareness is so highly trained that it notices that self immediately, and with equanimity, and releases it before new adhering karma can take root. The pure part of the act plants no seed; the ego structured catalyst plants the seed. Therein are the conditions for the birth of the next moment.

Visualize a glass of the purest water, absolutely free of any pollution or microorganism. Take another glass that contains some impurities, of the sort that may give you a belly ache. Pour them together. Some parts of that water are pure, some tinged. If you drink it there will be that belly ache, differing in degree dependent on how much of the water was impure, how much was pure.

As long as there is an ego involved, and the primary delusion of a separate self, then even the most loving words, thoughts, or actions are somewhat shaped by this ego. While they may create wholesome karma, it is still adhering karma that leads to rebirth consciousness. In its simplest form, I want to you to think of this rebirth consciousness as growing directly out of the ego self. As long as there is an 'I," a doer, a shaper, no matter how lovingly that 'I" does its work, there is still rebirth consciousness.

You know that you cannot simply get rid of the 'I." All conscious striving to do so simply solidifies self. This is just more doing. What one can do is to focus on those moments of brief, pure, connected awareness. Become aware of pure awareness. This will become one focus in this semester. I'm not going to introduce much new material in the next several weeks. What I am expressing is very difficult to shape in words but you can watch it in yourselves. See the times when you shift from total interconnection back into self and separation. Simply put, what works? What frees you from that delusion of self?

As you observe yourselves, it is not convenient to watch the seeds of rebirth consciousness from your last lifetime. Let go of 'lifetime" and deal with 'moment." The ego-self, expressed through words, thoughts and acts in the last moment, creates the consciousness from which you arrive in this moment.

As you watch there may be moments of purity, and then it snaps back. There is again a doer. The more you try to get rid of the doer, the more forcefully it expresses itself. Then what works? This is your homework. Watch it and we'll discuss it next week.

There is such a wonderful and simple tool with which to watch: choiceless awareness. As you let that doer be, just watching it, clarity returns. Space returns. You begin to have a clear perspective. You know, 'That doer, that is not who I am." You return to pure awareness, to your natural state. Each of you, my dear ones, is unlimited. Each of you IS pure awareness! Fear leads you to express your limited self.

Think of it in this way. Which feels safer to you, to be curled up in a snug nest, an easy chair, wrapped in a confining blanket, or to be in free fall in deep space somewhere between Earth and Mars, with a small breathing apparatus??? Can you feel the instinctive gut wrenching fear of all that space? I did not ask 'Which feels more adventuresome?" but 'Which feels safer?" Your sense of confinement, of limited being, helps you to feel safe. While part of you may choose adventure, one aspect of the self prefers to feel safe. So the mind denies limitlessness. The experience of emptiness of self is an experience of limitlessness. It may terrify!

Can you smile at yourselves each time you see yourself being somebody, whether loving or angry? Rather than seeking to get rid of that self, can you let it be and quietly watch the way it works? Compassion for the human aspect, with its physical and emotional bodies, does not grow from that small ego self with its boundaries but from the heart which knows its unlimitedness.

Your developing sense of compassion is what frees you. You just keep returning over and over and watching the process: fear, closing, awareness, compassion, opening, fear, closing. The periods of opening become longer. You rest in that pure awareness and let it stabilize. The times of fear and reactivity to fear become shorter. We will learn practices to identify and stabilize pure awareness. We will try one later today.

Have you ever watched a young child playing in sand or water? Sometimes it is somebody doing, trying to shape a structure in the sand. You can really see the shift to pure being. The child simply takes a delight in the textures, the sense, the movement. It splashes just for the joy of splashing. There is nobody doing the splashing. The child is not thinking, 'Now I am doing the splashing." There is just splashing happening. No one is building; building happens. Then self-consciousness returns.

Watch keenly. I want you to become so aware that each time a seed is planted, be it of wholesome or unwholesome karma, something in you registers 'seed planted, rebirth consciousness!" You will not recognize the times when no seed has been planted until you have shifted back from pure awareness to consciousness and remembered it. Do you understand that? That level of pure awareness totally free of self has nobody to note, 'I have done this." If you are asking 'Am I there?" you are not there. With pure awareness, the memory will come after.

Then you may reflect how the heart felt during those moments. You will find that there is a willingness to be vulnerable, to be undefended, which allows this ego self to dissolve and full connection to be experienced.

Next week, we will speak more about rebirth consciousness. I want to explain how I see that from my present perspective. Just what takes rebirth? What leads an energy to seek rebirth? Since you have free will, why does karma lead you to rebirth? We will save that for future weeks. The question has been raised, what is the first level of awareness of that spark of God which perceives a self and moves into the first illusion of self and other? When does pure awareness become consciousness. Is it useful to ask? I think not. I want to speak to last week's questions. First a break. That is all.

(Break.)

Questions from 1/21/93: Aaron has said that one need not be completely beyond ego to graduate from third density, yet the 1/21 channeling seems to imply that one would need to be beyond ego to escape the birth and death cycle. Can Aaron explain?

Aaron: The confusion, perhaps, lies in how karma is dissolved. There was that moment of which D just spoke, of total, open hearted connection. (D spoke of hearing that a friend had cancer, feeling no ego self in the decision to visit, just a loving desire to be service, to be there for another, really free of a doer. There was that moment. But now, driving to Toledo, there is a doer, a visitor helping another. Here she assumes there is wholesome but adhering karma.)

Now there is mostly wholesome, and some unwholesome karma, as she makes the actual trip. There is an emptiness, just loving support happening-no giver, no receiver, no adhering karma. There is also D, who wants to offer her friend love and support; that's wholesome, adhering karma-serving another. There is unwholesome karma in any resentment that arises, or any sense of 'What's in it for me?" Because she is human, some of that is going to arise. This does not mean that she is going to have to visit ten thousand sick friends until she can make the whole trip from a space of emptiness. The human cannot do that, not perfectly. Emotions will arise, creating the seeds for both wholesome and unwholesome karma. Also note that the fear, 'What's in it for me?" or the notion of being someone serving another, are where karma sticks and takes root.

Compassion and forgiveness dissolve karma. The more you fight against this doer, trying to get rid of self, the further you get from emptiness, compassion and forgiveness. The more the heart opens to the dilemma of this human, struggling like a fish out of water, gasping for breath, the more freedom you find. You do not find ultimate freedom from this cycle by ending the arising of all adhering karma. You can't do that. You find freedom because compassion becomes so strong, and mindfulness becomes so strong, that they penetrate the delusion of separateness and self. Remember, in ultimate reality terms, ego is illusion. How do you get rid of that which was never there? Rather, you return to rest in Pure Mind until that space becomes the stable one from which you interact with the world.

There is a beautiful bit of writing by Krishnamurti above Barbara's desk. Let us pause to read it.

When the mind is still, tranquil, not seeking any answer or solution even, neither resisting or avoiding, it is only then that there can be a regeneration. Because then, the mind is capable of perceiving what is true. And it is the truth that liberates, not our effort to be free.

What you are doing here is not getting rid of karma, which is a resultant phenomenon, but penetrating the delusion of self. The more awareness you bring to this work, the more fully you understand that this self is a manifestation of the fearful mind and is not who you are. The more you understand that fact, the more frequently you will be in that space of pure awareness where there is no karma. That space is not free of the arising of fear, but it no longer owns the fear. This is the vital difference. You do not have to get rid of all wholesome, adhering karma, but to find compassion for the human that slips into self. And, of course, to find forgiveness for that which serves as catalyst for unwholesome karma and fear, whether catalyst lies in the perceived 'self" or in the perceived 'other."

We will address the question about roots of karma next week. I want to share a meditation which is part of the homework. We have done this before.

Meditation

I'd like you to breathe with me, just inhaling and exhaling. Deep breath. I'm not going to direct the inhale or exhale, I want you to do it at your own comfortable speed.

Deep inhalation, deep exhalation … Watch the breath moving in and out …

Feel it at the nostrils, as attentive to it as you can be …

Now, not while I'm talking, but when I stop, with the next inhalation after I've stopped, I want you to pause for a moment before you exhale. Not too long, just a fraction of a second.

Instead of seeing inhale, exhale, I want you to see inhale, stop, exhale. Do that now …

(Pause. We do this.)

If the stop is not too long there is not space for any thought or sensation to enter. In that moment there is pure awareness. The pure, radiant mind.

So you carry this with you all the time. It's not something you must become enlightened, or do anything special, to experience. It is your natural experience. Please do it again. (We meditate in this way for awhile.)

You are constantly cut off from pure awareness by the arising of thought, emotion or sensation and the ensuing thought, 'I must get rid of the thought or the physical sensation or the emotion to come back to this space of perfect quite, perfect peace, perfect clarity." But Pure Mind transcends arising and stillness. Pure Mind watches it all, still or in motion.

As part of your work this week, please practice with this meditation, allowing yourself to rest in that space of Pure Mind. Do this not only while you meditate but during your active periods. Try to breath in this way when you are feeling tense. What happens to the tension?