October 11, 2011 Tuesday Morning, Seattle Retreat

October 11, 2011 Tuesday Morning, Seattle Retreat

(Gathered around the table in D & J's house in one last circle.)

Aaron: I am Aaron. I'd like to go around and hear from each of you any questions you have about the akashic field, how you are experiencing it. My primary interest for now is to leave you at the end of this retreat with an understanding of the experience of it based on your own experience and what you've heard from those around you.

Remember, if I asked each of you to tell me what you experienced as the ocean, I would get something different from each of you. One might experience it as very soothing and another as cold, deep, and powerful. One might experience it as filled with light and another dark and murky. There's nothing right or wrong, here. The akashic field is so big that you will experience different aspects of it. What's important here is that you have enough confidence that you know how to enter it and how to practice within it, that you can pursue this on your own.

So I pass it to you.

Q: It is not infinite?

Aaron: It is not infinite. The Dharmakaya is infinite. The akashic field is one expression of the Dharmakaya.

Q: It feels like infinite minus one!

Barbara: Aaron says, if you find yourself right in the middle of the Atlantic ocean with a small kayak, it would feel infinite.

This morning he led a brief guided meditation, very brief. I did not record it. Leading us into vipassana, present with a primary object, seeing other objects arising and passing away. Reaching a space within our practice, not yet access concentration necessarily, although access concentration may be okay, but simply a place where there was awareness of arising and dissolution and no going out to or pushing away objects-- equanimity. He says it's on the way to access concentration, but mind may not have been that focused and that's okay.

And then he asked us to move from that space into consciously choosing to bring attention to the akashic field by taking one object that had arisen into our experiencing, following it down into the akashic field.

He used the example that I was smelling the candles burning. It was a neutral scent, maybe partially pleasant, the scent itself neutral, the associations pleasant. Then he asked me to follow that scent back to where it filtered through from the Unconditioned into the akashic field and contact was made. Scent organ touching the scent, consciousness, scent consciousness. And at that point, because there was no disruption in the field from what I was experiencing, there was just recognition of floating in the field. He asked people to take an object and follow it into the akashic field.

This is me, Barbara. As I went into the meditation then, after he stopped talking, there was agitation because I have been informed through a third party that the DSL modem in my house has failed and there's no internet connection. That is why I have not been able to contact Hal for 3 days. And N, the man who I talked to about it, just let me know that it had failed, a replacement modem from my server was needed, but he had no idea if Hal was doing anything about it or waiting until my return. I may get home and find that for a week or more I have no internet connection until this replacement can be ordered and it arrives. So I could see the agitation.

Aaron asked me to go into the akashic field and see the disturbance and that agitation, not to try to fix it. We talked about the distinction between how I would work with it in vipassana, simply noting, “Breathing in and aware of agitation.” Holding space around the agitation, until gradually the agitation was no longer a predominant object. And then coming back to my breath, still seeing this little bit of agitation floating around. It's still there but it's no longer gripping at me; there's more equanimity with knowing, “Okay, if I don't have internet connection for a week, I don't. Whatever work I have to do will just not get done. Let it go.” So there was some degree of equanimity.

Then he asked me to come back into the akashic field and see this was not about fixing the DSL, this was about attending to the agitation. Seeing the ripple of disturbance of the agitation, and instead of simply holding space with it with equanimity, to see the place where the agitation truly isn't, and to move into that space, resting in that space, knowing how conditioned the agitation is. “Oh, things are going to be needed from me. There's a retreat coming up next weekend. I won't be able to send out the schedule, to organize. What will I do? And all the transcripts from this retreat...!”

Where is the place where there is no agitation? Not just holding space around it so it is not active, but coming to the genuine place where there's no agitation and resting in that space, and then seeing the conditioned nature of mind, as many different conditions are popping out and creating the agitation on another level. Going deeper and deeper to the place before those conditions. It was very busy for awhile because I just kept seeing conditions. He said, don't keep going into each one, thinking about the history of it or even the texture of it as it presents itself; just become aware of the one who feels responsible, the one who needs to get things done, the board, the teacher's work, all the different things that I do. Just see the one that feels responsible, and hold her in your heart, opening space. Then watch that bubble pop and return to the space before these conditions. This is very different than just equanimity where the agitation still remains, but equanimity with agitation.

So I worked with that pretty much the rest of the period, and came to a point where I could see the ripple of disturbance in the akashic field calm down, where it simply no longer was pulling at me. It was no longer just equanimity, it was stepping back and seeing, “This is healed and I don't need to repeat it. I don't need to keep this going.” Letting it go, coming back into spaciousness.

When I came out of the meditation and I looked at my email to see what's happening with the DSL, I felt the agitation come up again! It's not entirely gone, but it's shifted. It's not nearly as strong.

Q: So you went into that space where you could see the one who always feels responsible, and just... love?

Barbara: Both that, and I could see the conditioned nature of it. Aaron is saying

Aaron: (paraphrased, not incorporated) it's like seeing an oil slick on the water. “Oh, no! Not that! That will distort the water.” Going back to the many sources that are feeding into that clear pond and bringing in little bits of disturbance in the oil slick. Not just opening with compassion to each source of pollution, but it is almost as if one would energetically touch each -- seeing each point of pollution coming in from this factory or that can of oil left on the shore - one would simply lift it back into place, close the valve that's flowing into the pond, move the can. Come to the place where there is no oil in the pond because the conditions that led to oil in the pond have not happened. Inviting that possibility, at which the oil in that pond will be gone, or never was.

Now, in a similar vein, as Barbara attends to the various pollutants, if I could use that name-- maybe it's too harsh a name-- various conditioning that led to this self that has to take responsibility for teaching, for the board, for retreats, etc., --tension. And seeing, this is just conditioning. This one is conditioned, that one is conditioned, that one is conditioned. Yes, there is responsibility on the mundane level, but no need for a ‘somebody' who is responsibility It flows out of emptiness. Some of the move into a self is ancient, from many past lifetimes. Just close off this source of pollution by bringing forth the new possibility. In the one sense, for example, looking at next weekend's retreat, if there is paperwork she must attend to, a person will have to carry it to her and print it for her. She'll check it over and give it back to them for somebody else to make corrections in the electronic schedule, or whatever. It's not a problem.

With “problem” self arises so that is another habitual tendency. Go back to the place where action is needed with no self called for.

So, going to the place that believes it to be a problem, seeing the non-problem nature of it, and that there's something about the agitation itself that is so deeply conditioned. Seeing the possibility of non-agitation. Simply, if there is schedule or other work to be done for the retreat, it will be handled. Who and what is making it a problem?

Releasing that possibility. Holding space around releasing that habitual patterning. Holding space around the possibility of no problem.

Q: But do you mean that you are thinking of these details, or do you just hold space for that to arise?

Barbara: I'm learning this with you. The details were all just arising and passing away. With the agitation, when Aaron says, “What is the agitation?” I could feel the tension: J is sending in these transcripts. There's class on Monday and I need to get material out to the class. There's a retreat next weekend. The board minutes just came in and there are some errors. I have to respond to them. Seeing the agitation. And with each new “I need to” there was a self created.

Aaron asked me to take whichever thought was predominant. Me with retreat, that was a predominant. To feel the conditioned nature of the agitation around, “I won't be able to get  the schedule done; therefore something unwholesome will happen at the retreat. There won't be an accurate schedule, or meals will not be served at the times I chose them, or somebody who wants to reply late for the retreat won't be able to get through to me to ask if they can come,” or whatever. Arranging small groups, getting that information out. These are all the different things that I have to do to prepare for a retreat. Seeing the agitation.

But it was not about the details but about the conditioned nature of the agitation. A self that's supposed to get all this done and is responsible, no matter what happens, come flood or tornado, I'm supposed to get it done. What if I don't? Is the world really going to crash down? What is this illusion that it has to be done now? With that illusion there is contraction into “me” rather than just empty attendance. Can I release that? Can any tension be held with love and seeing the conditioned nature of these tensions until they release and the whole ‘self' releases? This statement is more accurate than, can I release it? Can the alternate pattern be seen? Here is this long-conditioned pattern. Here's the alternate pattern from a perspective of emptiness. So it will just be how it will be.

Q: Can you see that?

Barbara: I can see that, very clearly.

Q: Being the one who has to do this in some parts of my life, I think, do I also have to think up these possibilities? These others, am I responsible to come up with these alternate paths?

Barbara: The alternate path is just to be present and see things how they are, and to attend to them in the moment. Watch the habitual self. What remains when the self goes?

Q: But I think that it is also a matter of stating things, stating your request correctly, meaning that instead of saying, “I want this instead of that,” as opposed to, “This is not working and for the highest and best, I ask that an alternative solution come up that is smoother, more convenient.” And this is something that Aaron was talking about yesterday. Seeing how when you ask for these things, you are not just asking it for yourself, and it doesn't just affect you. You also ask for it for everybody and it affects everybody. So by asking for, let's say, life that is easier, it's not just for me, it is for everybody. And it affects everybody.

Barbara: But we still don't know what that “life is easier” is, what the highest good is, and that's one of the things I was saying in the meditation. At first I was asking, “I want this fixed. I choose to have this working.” That's control. I can say, “If it is for the highest good, I choose to have it working.” If it's not working, can I trust that in some way that I don't yet get, it's not for the highest good. What if there's no schedule, there are no small groups arranged, things are a bit chaotic at the retreat, and people have to deal with that? Might that conceivably be for the highest good rather than having everything be what I imagine to be perfect?

What if it really is chaotic and it's not as smooth a retreat as usual and the Deep Spring Board finally decides this server is just not working for us, as they've wavered back and forth with for awhile, and makes a choice to switch servers? Maybe that's what's needed. What if the retreatants need to experience some chaos for reasons I don't understand,  and to relax with that chaos?  I have no idea what this is about, but I can approach it with non-agitation rather than agitation. So, going into the akashic field, I need to find that within me, within my mind and body, that can be present with it as it is without agitation and see that agitation is one choice and non-agitation is one choice, and the choice of agitation is the habitual choice. Then, going further, I see the agitation as one expression of the mundane self and drop down into emptiness that preceded the whole movement of agitation.

Q: There is a level that I find that says, well, it is true that I don't know what is highest and best. However, from my limited perspective, and I acknowledge and know that this is limited, my preference is this.

Barbara: This is where our free will choice comes in. And we choose, and we have the responsibility to state our free will choice but not to be attached to it. It's the attachment that leads us into suffering.

Q: I think there is a slippery slope between saying your preference and becoming attached and fixing...

Barbara: This is so much of what I've been learning about at the Casa. Being able to say, “I choose to hear,” and to find that place that can choose without attachment to it, and trust, “My choice is heard by the universe. And when that is for the highest good, that will materialize.”

Q: That is the delicate balance that I find that I am working with a lot.

Q: But when I have done manifesting work that worked, it worked when I requested with the energy of joy, and just let it go.

Barbara: And not with fear, “What if it doesn't work?” or...

That thought may come up, and then we note it, it's conditioned nature, and drop down into the space before fear.

Q: And this is how I see that I got stuck with things that I was very attached to like relationships or money, there is fear and attachment. But, “Oh, I need a truck,” and there is a truck. Or I need a violin teacher. Oh, here she comes! Things like that, that I could express the request with joy and non-attachment. Whereas, “I need money!! A job! A lover!” And it would become problematic.

Barbara: Aaron asks, do you understand the role that contraction and non-contraction play in that? When you're contracted, you block whatever is coming. When you're uncontracted, then you can invite that which clearly seems positive.

Q: I would like to bring this conversation into discussing my practice of today and yesterday. Yesterday as we practiced on the roof, I had agitation about rushing to get my work done. I had to do a little work right before, but quickly it triggered something much deeper. Deep fear, “I am a failure. I want to die.” All this past karma that had nothing to do with our meditation on the roof, I thought.

Barbara: From a vipassana perspective, were you able just to note it as agitation without getting locked into various stories? There's a balance, here, because if we look at the various stories too deeply, we can get locked into a dialogue with them and trying to fix them, rather than just seeing it as, I'll just use the image, the sewage pipes that are attached directly to the river, somebody flushes the toilet and the sewage flows out. Step out of its way; let it flow downstream. Don't stand there trying to stop the flow of sewage.  The flow is a result. Then go back and repair the pipes but without a self who repairs.

Q: So it was hard to work with it that way because we were doing our meditation together. Today I had another very strong fear arise which we worked with at my first Emerald Isle retreat, a very deep fear from a spiritual crisis I had with that teacher. So my question is, how to work with strong emotions or karma in the akashic field.

Today I think I was able to follow it down to where it emerged from the field, but I kept being pulled into a greater sense of self and trying to fix. So I had to keep opening into loving non-self mind to tend to this in the field, and watching the emergence of self being pulled into contraction and fixing. So my question is, how do you work with strong karma?

Barbara: Okay. Let Aaron speak. (tape paused; Aaron incorporates)

Aaron: My blessings and love to you all. I am Aaron. You were talking?

Q: We were talking about how, as one gets more light that there are...

Q: As one grows in the light and love, there are negatively polarized beings that will wage spiritual attack and try to pull you down. And sometimes that feels like from the inside when it really is from the outside and needs to be put into proper perspective that way.

Aaron: I understand your thoughts, Q, but if there is an attached negative spirit, it's only able to attach because there is something within yourself that is not yet purified that gives a finger hold for it.

Q: It attacks more strongly in the more vulnerable areas.

Aaron: Two different questions here. At a certain point, there is such deep compassion toward this still-present negative karma that there's no reactivity to it, just kindness. Then, because of that kindness, external negativity has nothing to attach to; in fact, it's repelled. But if it does slip over you, it slips off. If it sticks, the immediate question is not to address the external negativity but to turn into the self and ask, where am I stuck here that's still providing a foothold for this negativity? Where is there contraction?

Q: The service that these negatively polarized beings provide from that perspective is that they highlight the areas that still need work.

Aaron: This is a wonderful place to work in the akashic field because you can see the human that's not so much attached in the situation but stuck in inability to get away from the repercussions of the old karma, wanting to move past the old karma. And then you can go into the akashic field and see the place where you are past the old karma, and that there's simply habitual tendency to stay stuck. I've talked about this so many times: humans love their problems. And what keeps the problems going? The fact is that in any moment you can simply step back and let it go.

Imagine this: you have the situation where you have a huge truck full of garbage; you've pushed the lever, the bed raises, and the truck is about to dump a load of garbage on your head; even if you push the lever for it to go back down, some of the garbage is going to come out. You've set it in motion already, but you don't have to keep it running. If you started the spill, then after it finishes spilling you have to attend to it, clean it up.

I'm going to come back to this. Let me come to Q's question first. You have different practices and each is best used in different situations. You cannot work successfully in the akashic field as long as there's strong emotion, agitation, imbalance, and a sense of a personal self. To work in the akashic field demands a reasonable amount of mindfulness, equanimity, presence, non-attachment, and space.

So if there is strong emotion and you feel that it's related to old karma, for example, to your old karma and the learning from that long-ago retreat, that's best worked with by simply moving into metta for this human, perhaps tonglen, looking at the younger woman that you were and offering loving wishes to yourself and to the teacher. Opening the heart to the situation.

Once there is some degree of peacefulness with it, and you start not to be so caught up in turmoil with it, then you turn and look at it, saying, “I see how deeply conditioned this is, and that it wants to come again and again and again. I see that from the level of ‘that which is for the highest good', it is not best that it come again and again. Am I ready to go to the place before it existed in the first place?” It can be heartbreaking to see that place, because you suffered some terrible trauma and suddenly there's deep insight, “That didn't have to happen.” You see the way you participated in that happening and drew it forth. But at that point you simply release it and shift it in the akashic field. Does that make sense?

Q: Yes, thank you.

Aaron: Coming back, then, to Q. Yu see the possibility of continuing it and continuing to work with the repercussions, even in skillful ways, or moving to  the place where it never was, and accepting the responsibility that although it never was, some old karma and conditioning in you drew it forth again and again and again. Then you open your heart to this human in whom this has happened, and in all the humans in whom this has happened.

At that point, you begin to work in the akashic field, not just with your own karma but literally with human karma. You begin to see the interconnectivity of these ripples of disturbance and to touch the deepest places where humans are conditioned to be reactive to fear.

For example, through aversion, through, let's put it this way-- fear gives you a chance to feel out of control or back in control. As long as there is an ongoing story of, “Am I in control?” you keep inviting these situations that produce fear. And within that space, negative energy says, “Oh, here's one we can tinker with. He's inviting in some fear and control questions, and let's show him.” No, I do not choose this.

So, we have to work at these different levels. And you have to be very honest with yourself. If you try to go into the akashic field prematurely, it simply becomes a fix-it kind of practice. There has to be spaciousness first.

Q: So when we are in the akashic field and we see the ripples or the distortion, I have heard that we can do several things: see the innate perfection, or see where the distortion is not or never existed.

Aaron: Is there a difference?

Q: No. Or, see the possibility that is in the highest good. All the same? I see a clear energy emerge next to the distortion. Once it emerges, do we ground in it? So, two questions.

Aaron: I want to answer this by way of a story. Some years ago, Barbara would go out on her dock and meditate early in the morning with the mirror smooth lake. And as soon as she came out on her dock, she would see the fish swimming around, little fish, bigger fish. One or two here, one or two there. In very still water in the shallows, she would see them swimming. So she thought to herself, I'm going to buy a big can of fish food and I'm going to feed them.

One day she came down to the dock, and after her meditation she threw out some handfuls of food. The bigger fish immediately charged into the small fish. They became very aggressive. After a day or two, as soon as she walked out onto the dock and the fish that had been swimming saw her presence up on the dock, they became aggressive, before she started to offer food.

So she said, “What do I do with this, Aaron?” I pointed out to her how she was leading them into an inbred mammalian tendency to grasp at the food-- I don't know if mammal is correct with fish, but a sentient being tendency to grasping. I said, if you're leading them to the karma of grasping at what you offer and fighting for it,  instead of feeding as they normally would with this or that small insect on the surface; it's up to you to lead them out. How are you going to do that?

So she began to take one piece of food in her finger, hold it out, and all the fish would come under her and start to congregate, fighting with each other. And she would flick it to that one little fish over there. They would all rush over, but he had already eaten it. I asked her to do this persistently, and it took about ten days before they realized, “The food is not going to go where we're congregating and fighting. We need to back off.” Somehow they learned that. Then when she came out onto the dock, they would all back off, each into their own space with, I can't call it respect, I don't think it was born of a heart-open respect for each other, but, “If I want to get food, I need to stay back from the bunch and not try to push other fish away.” Then at that point, I asked her to take a big handful, two hands, and broadcast it as far in many directions as she could. And sure enough, instead of all converging on one piece of food, when they saw one fish going for one piece of food, they went for a different piece of food.

So gradually, it really took the whole summer, she brought up this karmic tendency for grasping in them, then helped them rid themselves of it and trust that abundance would be there, that their needs would be met and they didn't have to fight with each other.

I bring up this story because it's really no different than what you do in yourselves. You see the karmic tendency, whatever it may be-- grasping, fixing, control. You ask yourself, what will bring balance? And you start to invite in that balance, not as theory but as practice. And then you keep coming back to the situation in which the imbalance arose with such force, and remind yourself there is a different route. In a way it's an akashic field practice. It's not consciously seeing the akashic field, it's simply seeing at the conditioned mind level.

After there's peace with it and you find, somebody else has thrown the tidbit, there's no contraction, then you can begin to go into the akashic field and see how the roots of this contraction were so deeply embedded through so many lifetimes, and not just for yourself but for all beings, a group karma. And how to release those ripples of disturbance, not just for yourself but for all beings. To see the real possibility of a world where everybody has plenty, where nobody needs to control.

I think for Barbara with this retreat, with not having email, and the retreat is not the only consideration but it's a primary one, but also her classes and not being able to send out the transcripts that are sent to her, to get them cleaned up and sent out so they can read them before next week's class. People say, “I need the transcript! I need to know what group I'm in! I need the schedule!”  Maybe you don't need any of that.

So at a certain level she's doing the same thing. If she can relax and not have the email, and of course if the email comes she can still do her work, but if it doesn't come, she can recognize, “This is serving some purpose and I don't have to know exactly what it is, just trust.” Of course she could always go to an internet café and check her email. It is challenging for her because she needs the big monitor to be able to read things easily.

We wait until there is more spaciousness before we begin to work in the akashic field; otherwise it becomes a fixing. And there are levels of working in the akashic field, first with your own energy and then with human consciousness, with the whole world.

Q: This morning, initially I worked with pain in my back, held it in love. Allowed it as it was. It subsided, diminished. Then I asked the Brethren, the Circle, what next? How can I help? A client I have not seen for over a year, he emailed me this morning. He was severely beaten. He has severe traumatic brain injury, many disorganized circuits.

Aaron: How long ago was the beating? Are we talking weeks ago or days ago?

Q: I don't know... 10 years ago. In my impression, from having worked with him previously, there is some attachment to his condition. In the akashic field this morning, the field looked bruised-- many, many bruises and like spider webs connecting the bruises. Lots of physical and emotional pain. I held it in love. Became distracted, came back...

Aaron: Let me be sure I'm clear, here. As you were sitting in meditation this morning, the image of this man and his energy and issues came up for you, and you have not seen him for a client as a long time. So you're not constantly thinking about him, but it suddenly came to you.

Q: I had an email from him this morning.

Aaron: I see. Okay, that's what brought his image to you. So is there a question? I hear many questions, but I'd like you to voice it.

Q: It seemed that the bruising diminished and he was somewhat better. I want to check with you, 1) to verify I was in the akashic field (Aaron: Yes, you were) and 2) did I actually help him?

Aaron: I would say so, yes. Remember that you are not so much helping him as reminding him that there are options, conveying on an energetic level that he can open his eyes and help himself. There is a deeper level of work in the akashic field that none of you is ready for yet, except perhaps B, and Q, who does some of this in her healing work, of energetically moving into the distortion and assisting in support of the release of distortion. But you have to understand exactly what you're doing. I think that you see this sometimes, as you work in a particularly physically distorted area of the body and see the place where the distortion isn't. We'll use the spider web image, it's almost like a strand came undone and it's floating around, so you (blowing) energetically bring it back. Or one strand becomes tangled and you untangle it.

Q: When working with clients on injury, either physical or emotional, there is a technique, we call it a technique, where the client goes into the akashic field. You take them there...

Aaron: ...Let me point out they are not necessarily aware consciously that they're going in.

Q: Well, I tell them. (Aaron: Okay...) And there is a technique where, to find the source of the injury or the karmic thread, we do a timeline and keep taking them back to before. “Now you are 8, and what is happening?” Whatever presents to come up, then I go to that age. Or before birth, or another lifetime, and we find an original wound or trauma. And then we go back before that.(before the original trauma) And then we stitch it up to the present, or we take that and place it as a blueprint on the present, that original from the akashic field.

Aaron: You take the original trauma, or you take the original place free of trauma?

Q: The place free of trauma, the blueprint of wholeness, or trauma-free, and place this on the etheric body of the person. Oftentimes, though, we stitch it up through the other points. I don't know if we really need to do that...

Aaron: This is clear and skillful, and it presents (previous Q) with the image of, the first step for (previous Q) was not taking that person back, (to previous Q) because that person was not there with you, but simply entering the akashic field yourself and seeing the possibilities and holding the possibilities open to that person. On a deeper level, if you began to work with that person again, you could begin to work in somewhat the way (this Q) is describing.

Q: Not consciously! Consciously with him, he would...

Aaron: Okay, not with him but with someone else...I simply want to distinguish the two levels of work within the akashic field. What you were seeing was clear. You were holding open a door. And then another level of work in the akashic field is, with their own free will agreement, to take someone's hand and guide them through the door and show them the places of distortion and pre-distortion. Q is doing this by talking and energy work. You might do it simply in meditation with another. At one level they're getting it.

I want to tell a very quick story here. Barbara has bits of this story in the book Cosmic Healing. There was a man in her Quaker meeting who was very disruptive, had some form of mental illness that led him to constantly be yelling and abusing, inappropriately standing up in Meeting and yelling at people. People asked, what do we do with him? Do we keep him out of Meeting? Do we just sit here and be harangued in this way?

Barbara agreed to sit and meet with him and talk to him about his anger and the way he was doing harm with his anger. Somebody assisted her who could sign for her. They talked for many hours over lunch. She could not find any opening. He was very caught in righteous anger. Finally they said goodbye. She went home, and in her sleep she experienced his spirit there. He came at her with very strong negativity, and she recognized immediately that it was his energy field, and that it was her discomfort with the anger she had experienced that afternoon, her aversion to it, that was allowing inroad for his energy field.

So she woke up from her sleep and just began to talk to him, from her heart to his heart. “I will not be caught in your negativity. Love is the highest law for me...” and so forth. She spent maybe an hour and a half in meditation with him.

The next day was a Sunday. She came to meeting; they had devised a technique where a number of them were sitting in the lobby and would sit with him but refuse him entrance into the main meeting room, by simply standing there and physically blocking him. He didn't try to push or fight his way in. Barbara was one of those sitting in the outer room, the lobby. He came in and walked up to her, took her hands. He had left the day before agitated and angry and saying, “You're wrong. You just don't get it.” But he said, “Thank you.” He took her hands and looked her in the eye, which he had not done at all the day before, and said, “Thank you.” And he left.

He didn't leave for good. They eventually had to get a legal injunction to keep him from coming on the property. But somehow on the akashic field level her energy field had connected with his, and he had heard or learned something, which he was not ready to fully embody and manifest in his daily consciousness. But it was a very clear thank you. He had heard her the night before. What he had not been able to hear the day before on the mundane level he had been able to hear at the akashic field level at night.

It's real. Your spider web metaphor is perfect. But it is not just one web but each of you as spiders with a billion webs, all interlacing so that movement on one web carries down the line.

Q: In Hawaiian tradition, it is called aka, emphasis on first syllable. It comes from the chakras, or they are connected out of the chakras. There are ways to meditate on all the connections and clear the aka. The threads, they look like webby stuff.

Q: Very intricate and very big. I saw it like that today.

Aaron: This is one way of experiencing the akashic field. Yes, you were in the akashic field. Yes, you helped him. But I would hesitate to phrase it “you helped him” so much as you allowed him to open to choices he couldn't open to himself..

If one is hungry but doesn't know what one wants to eat, and then somebody brings a tray of fruit, one says, “Ah, yes, that's perfect.” Or a plate of fruit and a plate of cheese, “I'll take the plum.”

Q: I have a comment about the helping. One time I worked on a client. I was practicing phone work. And I found the phone cumbersome and the schedules were hard to work out so I just told them I would work on them at night. It felt clearer and easier at night. This one woman was going through a really, really hard emotional time with her family and husband. So I did the work and I saw things happen symbolically, and did not do anything, just held the space and watched and honored. So I did not come up with any solution; that is for spirit to do. But the next day, she emailed me and said she woke up and felt like there was more light in her life. (She was very depressed.) And she had some solutions that came to her, some possibilities, and she felt much lighter. So she was able to have her free choice.

You can always ask someone on the akashic or astral level if they would like help, as opposed to asking them on an email. That helps too, I think, but it's always possible to just bring them into your consciousness. Their higher self might be receptive.

Aaron: Thank you, this is very helpful. I want to take it one step further. Barbara has been working with her mother in the akashic field for the past year, since she moved into an assisted living situation. She misses her independence, her friends, getting in her car and driving to meet a friend for lunch. She misses all of that, so she was filled with complaints. “I hate my life here. I hate the food. I have no friends. I'm lonely.” And she kept injuring herself, falling and so forth. Barbara asked her, “Are you wanting to leave? Are you wanting to die?” “Oh no.” And her mother couldn't talk about it at all, very much denying that as a possibility. “No, I just don't like being here.” “I understand, but this is where you are and there's no other choice right now.”

So Barbara began to work with her on the akashic field level, asking her to look at her choice, to live or to die. She's always been an upbeat person. If you're going to live, do you really want to live in this dragging, negative way? Or are you going to open your heart and accept your situation and your present body limitations and try to find what's good here?

Barbara spent about a week connecting with her daily in meditation on the akashic field level. And then one day Barbara called her and instead of the list of complaints, she said, “Guess what! I went to a group activity today. We baked apple pie! It was fun!” It's the first time she's done that in the year and a half she's been there. Barbara has said to her innumerable times, “Why don't you get out and try these activities?” “No. They're stupid. I don't want to.” But working on this akashic field level, she was able to help communicate that it's her choice and it's okay with Barbara what she chooses. If she wants to be unhappy, she can continue to be unhappy, and if she wants to find some kind of happiness, she can find that.

Q: No attachment to her mother's choice.

Aaron: Exactly. Barbara had to do the work first, not to be attached to her mother's choices.

Everything is interconnected. You have certain thinking patterns. For example, when Barbara first sat down and her computer was here and her cup of tea was here, immediately as the cup of tea was put down, the image went through her mind, (sound effect of spilling). And instead of moving the cup of tea further and saying, “What if?” she just thought, “Why would I want that to happen? The old habitual pattern of creating disasters, finding power through solving the disasters, I don't need that.” No problem. Just let it be...

But try to watch this in yourself, the places where there's “not that!”, which at some level is inviting that. Take it into the akashic field. Look at the ripples of disturbance that are so old and really no longer have any base in conditions besides themselves, just the running of the habit energy.

Q: I understand what you say, and I don't think that leaving poisonous liquids around with kids is a smart thing to do. (Aaron: Absolutely not.) So I don't do those things out of fear, I do those things out of love. When I bring my cup of tea to my desk, I make sure to put it a distance away from my laptop, out of love for my laptop.

Aaron: There's a difference. What I'm pointing out is the fear-based mind starts running through: your children poisoned, in the hospital, sick, dying. That's not a useful condition for action. But when you choose out of love, yes.

You choose based on your wisdom and your loving heart, to make skillful choices. But the scene doesn't need to be played through your mind: did I put the poison away? What if it's not high enough? What if the cabinet's not locked? You fear invites the situation where the child explores, climbs  and gets into trouble.

Q: I was wondering if you could explain again how we work with distortions for ourselves in the akashic field. I have heard “holding love”...

Aaron: The first step is not to go into the akashic field, the first step is to find a spaciousness with the distortion and compassion for the self, so that as Q pointed out, the step of entering the akashic field is not a “let's fix this” step but an openhearted attending to, and then it floats.

Q: I think I experienced that yesterday. So are you saying, we have heard several different descriptions of tending to the distortions: look for the innate perfection, hold it with love, ground into the innate perfection.

Aaron: And at an earlier level, if the distortion is deeply habituated and keeps coming up, work with something like the Seven Branch Prayer. There's no one right practice. You have to ask, what helps? If there's a lot of contraction, just practice metta. If you see how deeply the habit energy flows, try mindfulness and bringing awareness to it. And each time the habitual pattern comes up, just stopping to breathe and noting. Working also with such as the Mussar practices. When you begin to see that there's not such a deep karma behind it, it just comes up because it's triggered, then working with the Seven Branch Prayer. At a certain point where you see it coming up and there's not a lot of self in the awareness that observes it, more spaciousness with it, then going into the akashic field is suitable.

Q: And then what?

Aaron: You're free of it.

Rest in that which flows from the wholesome of the akashic field. For example, for Barbara, when she goes home, either her internet will work or it won't work. If it doesn't work, just rest in that “doesn't work.” Watch any tendency of mind running back and saying, “How do I fix it?” Ahhh, nothing to fix.

So on one human level she has to do what she did yesterday and today, which is to send out appropriate emails asking for support to get it fixed. She can't just pretend it's not an issue. It's an issue but not a problem. Resting in the spaciousness.

Q: And choosing to let go of the conditioning?

Q: You want to know what you're supposed to do. You want to do something.

Q: I want to know what we are supposed to Do!

Aaron: And this is just the voice of control and fear, wanting to get it right.

Q: It will present itself.

Q: Okay.

Aaron: And remember, on the relative reality plane, things are never going to seem perfect and hold themselves as perfect. Barbara might go home, find that this has been fixed, and see that there are enormous issues that need to be unthreaded about the retreat and wish that it wasn't fixed! Who knows?

Barbara might go home and find that it's not been fixed, call the computer company that's supposed to replace the modem, be told it will take 10 days,  (written in as I review; this is what happened. It took about 5 days; the new one had been ordered but was defective; the company said another week to send another replacement; I just went out, spent $100 out of pocket, and bought one) and just relax with it. She doesn't know all the threads that are connecting. Perhaps they'll tell her “Tomorrow,” perhaps they'll tell her 10 days. At that point she can put in a request, “I really need this. Because I'm deaf, so much of my communication goes on through the internet. Can you make it sooner?” “No, we can't. We have to get a part and it will take 10 days to get it.” Okay, then let it go. And if the mind won't let go, that's the karmic energy that you work with. It's not about getting it fixed, at that point, it's about seeing that they are all these currents coming through and I'm not in control. Can I release and let things be as they are?

It's 11:30. We could go on talking for another 3 hours, I'm certain. I'm going to release the body to Barbara with my blessings to each of you. Thank you for coming all this way. Thank you for hosting this. Thank you for giving us this opportunity, this group and all of us, to inter-respond, and to relate in this way and share.

We are not drawing any conclusions here, we've just added a few steps, a little bit of guidance as to how to practice with more kindness and clarity in the world. So just practice. Don't expect perfection. Be kind to yourselves and see where your own heart and your practice take you with all of this.

I love you all very much...

May the work we have done here be for the highest good of all beings and the alleviation of suffering on all planes. We dedicate our work with love to the highest service in the world, giving out all that may be used by others. May all beings be free and at peace.

I will release the body to Barbara.

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