March 11, 1993

Aaron: Good morning and my love to you all. I am Aaron. I am going off on a tangent today. I had originally planned to move on to the next steps of Dependent Origination but will wait one more week.

Barbara and I spent much time conversing this weekend, while she was on vacation. Last night I shared some of the fruits of our conversation. Since none of you were present, I would like to talk about this with you. What follows is not original to me but is simply wisdom offered through the ages.

For some time Barbara had been pushing herself at a very rapid pace and was feeling a bit of, not really exhaustion, but numbness. It took a day or two for that numbness to begin to recede. As she skied on these lovely paths through the woods, her heart truly singing in joy, gratitude, and praise of God, she asked me the simple question, 'Aaron, why am I here in incarnation? To do what? When I feel such love and joy, simply being outdoors like this, and such pressure and stress that I sometimes lose track of the joy during the constancy of my work, should I not choose that in my life which leads me to be able to express the joy? You say we're here to bring light where there has been darkness, but sometimes I feel like I'm part of that darkness."

Yet can you avoid stress in your lives, even on vacation? The light is always within you. How do you practice so as to allow it to shine, no matter what the circumstances?

We spoke about the fact that Barbara, as most of you, has lived monastic lifetimes concentrating deeply on the spiritual, but often living in countries where the teachings of spirit emphasized renunciation of the world, where there was deep poverty, where the focus was so strongly on the spiritual that little attention was paid to the material side of life. Many in those countries still lack the basics for a healthy life. Spirit becomes an escape from the realities of physical existence. Enlightenment touches the spirit but leaves form untouched.

Now, in this Western society, there is material plenty and spiritual impoverishment, as your technology has brought you out of harmony with spirit and the environment. You, in your Western culture, are looking for deep spiritual traditions, while those who have been raised with those traditions are looking for Tupperware! Looking for more than that too, but grasping at the material which they increasingly see in the world around them and which their culture has so often lacked. Yes, it is wonderful to live simply, but not when that simplicity involves disease, hunger, cold, lack of the barest necessities. Think of the wonder of a bowl with sealed lid to keep your flour from insects, and thereby help your children be free of disease. This is not materialism, but survival.

Those of you presently incarnate in non-physically deprived cultures are in a wonderful place where your efforts and love may begin an actual transformation of the world into this Garden of Eden where all beings know their true spiritual nature and where all beings also have food, shelter, clothing, medical supplies, books and educational materials, music, poetry, all the material necessities to live physically without pain. This is the time for the drawing together of form and spirit, of transcendence of that duality.

It is valuable to sit in private meditation. It is lovely to walk in the woods or on a warm and sandy beach and enjoy that beauty and sense of connection. Your joy at those moments does offer light, does have real value. But at physical levels it does not touch the fundamental deprivation in the world. How can you allow that connection with spirit to now begin to transform the world?

This does not mean you should not take holidays, but your work is in the world. How do you bring joy and love back into the stressful situations? Would you worship a hollow god that stands above the world, superior to the world, that will not get its feet dirty? Would you strive to pull yourself up to those heights and leave the world to suffer with itself in the dark alleys? Or do you give your love to a loving God, less absolute perhaps, but not seeking to enhance itself by diminishing others? Rather a God willing to partake in pain through entering the human illusion.

This is why Jesus' life speaks so powerfully to so many. I do not wish here to promote one religious tradition over another. Many traditions have truth and great beauty. I use Jesus here only as one example with which many in this culture are familiar. The beauty in Jesus' incarnation is that this was the coming of God to Earth. Here is God not staying in the heights to be worshipped, but God touching the suffering of mankind, God offering love and receiving love. It is a reciprocal relationship.

There are two different views of God. One must ask, which one holds true for me? To know my relationship with the world, I must first understand my relationship with God. Because I have that of God within me, that spark of divinity, to know my relationship with God is to know my relationship with myself and all else. My relationship with the world and its suffering is a reflection of my relationship with God. I have the potential, each being has the potential, to express God's divinity and love through loving relationship with the world, or to express that aspect of God that it sees as absolute and all-powerful thereby reflecting a different aspect of God.

Yes, God is absolute. We have often offered a quote from the Udana scripture in which the Buddha says to the assembled monks, 'There is an Unborn, Undying, Unchanging, Uncreated …" God is all of that. It is easy to distort that truth to say that this Absolute, Infinite, All-knowing is separate from the world. We may then end up worshipping God so as to selfishly raise ourselves. God has infinite power. Do we try to please God, so as to grasp some of that power? Many have done so, with the sense, 'God is on our side." The Old Testament portrayed God as a strong and even wrathful God having dominion over all. It is to teach this change in our relationship with God, to clarify this distortion of man's image of God, that Jesus took birth, simply, to bring the message, love is the most powerful force in the universe and God is love.

We emulate what we worship. If God is worshipped for being superior, dominant, and all-powerful, is it not natural that those who worship this image of God attempt themselves to become all-powerful? They may claim that power grows out of love, to control others because they know best what others need. Do the ends ever justify the means? Can we dominate others because we think we know what they need? In fact, this direction reinforces ego and self-service.

I believe you will remember Ariel's talk about the creation of Earth and the move into negative distortion by those angels whose energy was the foundation of the world. Some of those beings moved into distortion because they sought to control out of love. Their love was so fierce it became protective, denied free will, and in a sense became dominating. This was the beginning of negative polarity on the Earth. While this powerfulness and absoluteness are undeniably attributes of God, they are not the most significant attributes. Absolute power must be balanced by absolute love. This is the truth for which Jesus life offers us reminder. What is our relationship to be with God? God is love.

I spoke last night of a counsel of Bishops in the 4th century after Christ, by your figuring of years, 325 A.D. This was called the Council of Nicaea out of which grew the Nicene Creed. The debate that prompted the Emperor Constantine to call this council was involved precisely with this question, what is God? What is the attribute of this infinite God which is most true to humans, which most inspires you and draws you to the expression of your own divinity and to the expansion of God? What allows you to reflect that glory back to God?

One view at this meeting was that of a priest named Arius. Arius was very angry at the Creed which grew out of this gathering and said that CHRIST WAS BEGOTTEN OF God and therefore shared that divinity. The Creed says specifically, 'begotten, not made …" Arius preferred the image of an absolute God. He failed to see through the distortion that an absolute God which dominates all teaches domination. There are many on Earth today who still worship Arius' God and place themselves in position of power over others, claiming a religious righteousness in doing so. I ask you to see the negative polarity in this, the twist of service to self done in the name of God.

The chief one who answered Arius was a bishop, Athanasius. This man said God did not make Christ as subject makes object. Otherwise the whole universe would be one of duality. God gave of Itself, bestowed the seed of divinity into this being, and-I take that one step further-into all beings. For that same seed of divinity lies in all of Creation.

The debate is not ended. This leads us to today's discussions of what is called 'original sin" versus Matthew Fox's teaching of 'creation spirituality."

Yes, you incarnate as third density seeking to serve and also incarnating for karmic reasons. Yes, the one known as Jesus incarnated only to serve and was a much purer energy at the time of that incarnation than you are as you incarnate. Nevertheless, that seed of divinity is within each being, not only the human, every being.

Again I use Jesus here not to promote one religion above another, but only by way of clear and familiar example. Jesus taught us what to do with this gift of divinity. 'It is not for me, not to make me powerful." In the Gospel of John, ch. 14, he says, 'Whatsoever ye may ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son." So God gives him divinity and he does not use that to empower himself, but to serve others. He does not reap the glory of that service for himself, he returns it to God. This is the model of positive polarity: service to others.

You are third density beings, imperfect at service to others. Fear arises. Your desire to serve another in genuine gratitude and love becomes distorted by that fear. When you ski down a mountain path or walk by a lake taking in the beauty and peace, it is easy to feel gratitude and love. When you reach out to others, serving in whatever ways you can, there is the small voice of the ego that says, 'What about me?" We've talked about this many times, how to work with that ego self and its fear, with compassion, not judgment. I will not repeat those lessons here.

But your work will be far easier if you can keep awareness of these two different models of God before you. When you give and ask, 'What will be returned to me for this giving?" notice the fear, the desire to control, to be dominant, to keep the self safe and separate, even if there is also loving motivation to serve others. Remind yourself not only of the teachings of Jesus, but of so many who have lived the model of service, not claiming or holding anything for themselves. At first this seems a terrifying path, not to hold on to anything for yourself. 'Will I not be emptied, destroyed?" Yes, the human may well be destroyed. The human Jesus lost his life. What is it with which we identify? The ego self or the divine self?

In offering himself fully, even to the death of that body, he made the definitive statement to negative polarity, 'Your attempt at domination will not work on me. You have no control over me because all you can take is the body. You cannot touch my divinity. Your cannot touch my soul. Your fear has no dominion over the power of love."

My dear ones, you are human. The ego self is going to arise again and again and again. I am not asking you, nor do any ask you, to go and get yourselves crucified, to be martyrs. Only to be mindful of the arising ego self that seeks to dominate, to use that arising as a warning flag, and to come back to true self.

You each incarnate over and over and over to learn to express this divinity with increasing purity. In your early lifetimes, you sent out very little light to the places of darkness in your illusion. As you polish away the ego, the soul mirror of the Divine shines brighter, so that divine light and love shined into you are reflected back with increasing brilliance. As you evolve you claim less of that brilliance for yourself because self is dissolving. Instead you come more and more to emulate those pure beings who returned that light fully to the Source.

It is this continual process toward positive polarity that brings light where there has been darkness and love where there has been fear. This is why you are here. Remember that you are always in process. You are not God, but of the same nature of God, truly begotten by God. Remember who you are and fear will not win out over love. That is all.

Discussion: (Not transcribed. About reciprocal relationship: giving and receiving are one.)

Discussion: ('God is not absolute." What does this mean? …)

Aaron: I am Aaron. You may see the relationship between yourself and God expressed through God's relationship with Christ. God did not make Christ as subject to object. As spoken in the Creed of Nicaea, Christ was begotten by God, Christ is of God, and returns all that he is to God. There is a reciprocal relationship. Thus, as the energy of each of you is purified and returned to God, God expands. One cannot give without receiving. God is able to receive. This does not imply needy, but receptive. Needy indicates a void. Receptive indicates room for expansion. Thus, God is ever-expanding. God is in reciprocal relationship with every soul. With each bit of work done by each being to purify its own light, that light is not held onto but returned to God. This is the model of service to others. That which is returned to you is not for personal gain, but handed back to God. Please enjoy your break. That is all.

(Break.)

Aaron: (Homework.) I am Aaron. For this week, go back to watching vinnana-becoming, or rebirth consciousness. You cannot watch this as a lifetime to lifetime process. Watch it as a moment to moment process. What plants the seed? See a bit of irritation in yourself, the impatience in your reaction. Watch how another person bounces off that impatience, and how the seeds of the next moment, reflecting some tension between you, are planted. What solidifies self? When you are mindful enough to see the seed you're about to plant, notice-"Feeling irritation, I do not need to speak or act with impatience, I will take a few deep breaths and offer merciful awareness to the irritation, make a space for it, so I can plant a different seed." That is what I want you to watch and practice, always with gentleness to the human.

You will not be perfect at it. That's fine. Notice judgment of yourself if you feel, 'I should be doing this better." That's just another seed. What is being planted? Through what ignorance, what delusion of an ego self, what delusion of duality is this seed formed? Through what motivation on my part is the formed seed planted? Watch the forming of the seed and the planting of the seed, and see that you do not have to plant every seed that's formed. It is your choice.

You might envision yourself this week with a little sack in which you can throw the distorted seeds of anger, jealousy, and greed so that you do not need to plant them. Then at the end of the day when you meditate, pull out these distorted seeds, sit them in the sunshine of your awareness and see how they may transform into clearer and more loving seeds. Are there questions?