October 13, 2004

Aaron: My blessings and love to you all. I am Aaron.

To begin, I want to lead you in a guided meditation, interspersed with silence. I call this the Pole Meditation because we use the body as a pole, quite literally, grounding the feet in the heavy density earth vibration, grounding the head in the heavens, in this higher vibration. The body between the feet and head becomes the transition that holds all, the highest and lowest vibration, there together.

Please begin by grounding yourself in the body. Feel the buttocks touching the chair or cushion.

Breathing in, breathing out, (pause)

and then awareness of touching (pause).

Breathing in, breathing out, touching. (pause) (We will not continue to note each pause on the transcript.)

Many of you are floating above your bodies. Come on in! Breathe. Relax. Here we are together in a lovely room, a group of seekers, brothers and sisters in spirit, in this lovely space lit by candles. Be here.

Relax. Breathe, come into the body. I'd like you to take your hands and feel the body. Touch the arms, hand to the opposite arm. Touch the face gently and lovingly. Touch the legs. If you are sitting on the floor, touch the feet; in a chair, touch down as far as the knees.

I'd like to ask you now to contract the body. Tighten the jaw, fists, belly, shoulders. Feel it and know "contracted, contracted". And then, release, noting, "Open. Spacious". And one more time, contracting. Know the experience of physical contraction. And then release.

Feel the energy in the base chakra as it touches the cushion. Feel it as earth energy. The base chakra is the chakra of being, of expression into the world, of life, of energy, physical, mental, sexual. It's primary expressed color is red. Feel the possibility of life pulsating through the base chakra. Here we also may find fear related to survival, which closes the base chakra.

The second chakra, the spleen, is just below the naval. Bring your hands to it, perhaps one hand in the front and one hand in the back. Feel where that energy center might be. This is the human in relationship to the self and other people. It is more the seat of fear than the base chakra is. In the base chakra, we are so basic that there is not as much fear usually held in the base, except for that deepest survival fear. But as soon as there's something to relate to, fear comes up. This chakra is about sexuality, creativity, personal relationships, personal emotions including sorrow. It is also about reaching out to others, about energy and relationship, and embracing life. See if you can soften, literally gently rubbing the belly and/or the back. Bringing kind attention to this energy center. You may wish to see it filled with orange light. That is the primary color it carries. Breathing in, breathing out.

Now raise the hands and focus to the solar plexus chakra, just below the rib cage. Put a little pressure there. This is tonight's chakra (a presidential candidate's debate on TV) about the human relationship with the world. It is from this chakra that we get politics, and presidential debates. These men may be speaking from their third chakra. We would wish they were speaking instead from the heart chakra.

The third chakra relates to power, control, and societal relationships. Here we find power issues and also discipline and commitment or self-based will power.

As you bring touch to that solar plexus chakra, and perhaps envision yellow light flooding it, feel the possibility of opening, of spaciousness there. For the human, these lower chakras often become constricted, with more focus on the personal self. But this is not the true nature of these chakras. Within these chakras we can experience a oneness with all that is. So on the relative plane, this is the individuated personal, and on the ultimate plane, this is the personal level of this particular being as expression of all that is.

In the solar plexus we may feel constriction around power or control and see it as an individual issue. When we understand that all beings react with the hardening of this chakra when there is fear, that all beings want to be safe and happy, we come to see that hardening more simply, as conditioned experience. We find that we can rest in the uncontracted 2nd and 3rd chakras, experiencing immense compassion for beings who do not feel safe and in control, who do not know the ultimate safety that every being has. That is not the safety of this incarnation but the safety of its wondrous reality as expression of the divine.

So these chakras that are so habituated toward fear, power, and control can become the tools of our opening. We cannot discard these chakras because without them we lose our contact with this heavy density plane.

If you are going to lose that contact, why did you bother to come? You can't be in the incarnation yet avoid the relative reality, and still do the work you came to do. So this is the lower half of the pole, grounded deeply in the earth vibration.

We come to the heart chakra. The predominant color is green. The heart is the bridge touching the lower and the upper chakras. Breathing in, feel the energy moving from the heart down to the solar plexus and the second and base chakras, and back up again into the heart. Feel if you can, the way that the heart is grounded into this physical reality you call your own name, and into this density we call earth.

Touch where the heart might lie, pressing against the sternum. Put on a little pressure but soft, a light touch. Take a deep breath so that the chest expands out into that touch, not hard enough to be painful but felt. And then release, letting the chest collapse a bit.

Be aware of the heart organ, which is not the same as the heart chakra but ties in with it. The heart meridian does run through the heart organ, although the chakra lies slightly below and to the right of the heart organ.

Now please bring your hands up to the throat, a very gentle touch. Just at the place above the collarbone where the flesh becomes soft. The color here is blue. These next 3 chakras are the upper end of the pole. The body contains it all. You are angels in earthsuits. The upper chakras relate to that angel, to your true divinity, and help you to recollect that divinity. The lower chakras remind you of your decision to move into human incarnation, for both your own growth and in service to all beings and to the Light, to love.

This throat chakra is about your voice in the world, not just the vocal expression but the voices of all of the bodies: your facial expressions, the acts you do, the expressions of lovingkindness or anger, of fear or fearlessness. When the throat chakra is contracted and not spinning, it is usually because there is some doubt about your ability to send out that voice in the ways that you wish to send it out. There is the intention to know your connection and live that connection, but when the being experiences fear, greed or anger, the throat chakra may seem to close because at some level there is not the willingness to express that negativity. Or, if there is desire to express it, the throat chakra closes because the nature of the spirit plane is love. The throat chakra is within this spirit realm. You cannot use a tool of positivity easily to express negativity.

Gently touch this chakra area while offering loving wishes to yourself and others. Breathing in, "May I have peace". Breathing out, "May all beings have peace". Breathing in, "May I be happy", and out, "May all beings be happy". In, "May I have well-being". Out, "May all beings have well-being". Gently touching this chakra and feeling the blueness of it, feeling how it can open and spin, just through the expression of these loving wishes.

We ascend now to the third eye. It is located about an inch or two into the head, just above the point where the eyebrows would meet. If you feel the forehead, you feel a spot that feels a bit softer, a bit tender. That would be the third eye. Indigo light, blue-violet. Hold your finger there, just one finger against it, and see if you can feel a slight pulsation. It is the third eye that we must awaken for the remembering of our true spirit nature. With the awakening of the third eye, and presence in the base chakra, we begin to deeply experience the feet on the earth, and the head in the heavens. It is from the third eye that you truly know yourself as a divine entity, temporarily within this earthsuit but in no way limited by the human form and expressions.

Touch a finger again on the third eye, and now bring a finger of the other hand to the crown of the head. Again feel for a spot that is just a bit soft and perhaps sensitive. Some of you will feel the energy pulsating there; others may not. The color of the crown chakra is violet, a deep rich violet.

Keep one finger, just one, the forefinger or middle finger of one hand on the crown chakra, and now release the touch of the third eye and bring the hand around behind you to the very base of the spine, one finger touching. See if you can feel the flow of energy. Sit as straight as you are able, back straight, so the energy may flow more easily. As it comes down to the base chakra, send it down to the feet. If you're sitting in a chair, feel it moving through the feet into the earth; on a cushion, simply feel it through the sides of the feet, touching the cushion.

Breathing in, draw energy from the ground all the way up to the crown. Breathing out, let the energy flow down the front of the body and to the base. Breathing in, the energy comes up through this essential meridian, the chakras spinning, to the crown, and then exhale, feeling the energy drop back down through third eye throat, heart, solar plexus, spleen, to the base.

As you exhale and come down to the base, be aware of touching the earth. As you inhale, let go of the touch on the chakras. Literally raise your hands up. Lift your head up. Feel yourself literally connecting with the heavenly realms. You are spirit.

Exhale, lowering the arms, lowering the direction in which the head faces so if the eyes were open, they'd be looking at the earth. Exhale, feeling the grounding. Inhale, raising the arms, lifting the head. Long inhale. Exhale. Lowering arms and face. Coming back to the base. At this low point in the exhale, be very aware of the earth energy.

Inhale. Raising the arms, raising the gaze. Aware of the high frequency vibration that surrounds you. And exhale.

We're going to sit for 2 or 3 minutes in silence, then I will continue to talk a bit. As you sit here, please be aware with the flow of the breath. Exhale, you don't have to use your arms here, but exhale, aware of the grounding. Inhale, aware of the rising energy. Aware of how much spirit fills this room, and that you also are spirit. Exhale back to the material body, emotions, and so forth. Inhale, touching again on spirit essence.

After a minute or so if this if you wish, you may simply rest in that high vibration, letting the breath be shallow, not coming all the way down to the base. Or you may continue to come all the way down and up as you prefer. I'll be quiet now for several minutes.

(pause for meditation / bell / stretch)

I am Aaron. Have you ever attempted to do something that was just a bit of a stretch for you? For example, to swim just a bit further than you have previously swum. As you leave shore headed across the lake, you may think, "I'm not sure I can do that," and contraction comes. I'm not talking here of a situation that you know is beyond your ability. We're not talking of swimming the English Channel. It's just a hundred yards further than you have swum before.

Once you begin to swim, there's only swimming. The fear is in thinking about it ahead of time, based on, "Can I control, can I do?" It's based in the lower chakras.

If you are only in the upper chakras, you know you can do it. There's no you to be doing it; awareness knows it can be done. But the upper chakras cannot swim across a lake!

When the chakras are open, you look at the task ahead of you and there may be the subtle contraction of fear that says, "I'm not sure I can do it." Or even, "I don't want this. I don't want to do it." But there is also the connection through the upper chakras with that deeper truth that knows this also is workable. Perhaps hard, but workable.

We just had the joy this week to talk with D about his long hike on the Appalachian Trail, over 2000 miles. He said some of the time there was no thinking, "Can I do it?" there was just walking. Just the sun or the rain, the rocks or the dirt, the view or the trees. Just this present moment.

Sometimes your lives bring you difficulties: body distortions, the loss of loved ones, financial hardship, or just a difficult person in your life, that negative vortex that somebody mentioned a few weeks ago. The lower chakras say, "I don't want this!" and begin to close up. With this reaction, some of you have the tendency to freeze into the lower chakras and fight. This relates directly to the pushing arms exercise that we will do. Some of you have the habit energy when something is difficult or unpleasant to shift into the upper chakras. There is an imitation of calm, but there's really also a kind of escape because you are not fully in the lower chakras. You are not engaged in this material reality.

Whether it is a small push or a big push, your life is filled with pushes. When you contract, the energy is held in the lower chakras and there's no flexibility and no joy, no connection, but only oppositionality. When you move into the upper chakras and abandon the lower chakras, you may be able to give a convincing demonstration, but the open heart is not there. If somebody pushes hard, you collapse because there is no body, no connection, to ground you. When I say "no body" I don't mean no person (nobody), but no physical body energy to ground. You can't dance with energy unless you are also energized and holding that ground.

What I would say next may seem like an odd perspective to some of you. You are here to some degree as part of a demonstration. What do I mean by that word? We'll return to swimming. We have a class of swimmers. Some have a more refined stroke than others. I might ask the person with the smoothest stroke, "Please would you demonstrate the stroke so others can see how it looks?" You have worked hard to master the grace of this stroke, and so you demonstrate it.

This is a suitable metaphor although not exact. Most of you have come into the incarnation with the intention to demonstrate how to hold peace, to hold love, in the face of difficult experience, difficult pushing. But because you have forgotten the deeper truth of your being, you try to do that demonstration from only the lower chakras. Or, having remembered that truth, and finding the earth plane situation unpleasant, you prefer to abandon the lower chakras.

But think of it, my dear ones, you came here to do this demonstration here, on this heavy density earth, like shining light in the darkness. What you demonstrate by holding all of the chakras open helps to bring this higher vibration to the earth, to bring light where there is darkness. So through your work, through your courageous work, you raise the vibrational frequency of the entire earth plane, thereby making it a much more vital force for love and light.

In so doing, you come to know yourselves as that vital force for love and light, not the small personal self standing alone but the combination of the personal and the higher self.

Sometimes what is asked is difficult. We might think of Jesus in that Garden before the crucifixion saying, "Take this cup from me". It is too much. I don't know if I can hold heaven and earth together in this way, if I can hold the heavy vibration of the earth and the high vibration of divinity and invite them to express as one. But if this be the demonstration given me to do, "Thy will be done."

I am not bringing Jesus into this in a religious way, only that this is an example that we can look at regardless of religious orientation. Here was a man who was asked to do something very difficult and he was afraid. And yet he understood that it was safe in the ultimate sense, and it was to be his demonstration. Not the demonstration to die in that way, but the demonstration of the eternalness of spirit, and that spirit does not die.

Fortunately most of you are not asked to do such a difficult demonstration. It is enough to be with the difficult boss or in-law, to mutter over the traffic or flat tire. But these are your demonstrations. Do them with love.

We have promised to end this in half an hour so you may go and hear these debates. Please as you listen to the debates watch the contraction in the mind and body. "I like this; I don't like that." Please remember that these are 2 human beings doing their own very difficult demonstrations, caught in their own fears, their own egos, their own stories, and that theirs is a very thankless task, for there is no way to please everyone.

As you listen to them, allow your deepest heart and wisdom to guide you in discernment on which one you feel can most skillfully hold this whole space of chakras, lower and upper. I think that's as good a guide as any, as to who you might wish to elect as your president.

We will work further with this pole meditation in the next class, a second step to it. We'll get the transcript to you as soon as possible but I think you can remember what we did here, and I would ask you to practice this part of it in preparation for next class.

As you work with the Tai Chi pushing arms, be aware of contraction. When you are pushed, be aware of your energy and whether you can hold that space, grounding it but not lost in the grounding. Open to the highest chakras but be not lost there. That is enough. Thank you. I pause.

Barbara: We're not going to have any discussion tonight…(regarding the class' preference to leave early for the debate) I want to talk just for a few minutes more about what I've been experiencing; it ties in to some degree to what Aaron was talking about.

Those who came late, I talked about the fact that I'm here right now instead of being away leading a dharma retreat because I'm experiencing bleeding in both eyes. It's probably mostly a result of the wave incident at the end of April. The CAT scan shows that a facial bone was broken, so it's logical that there was damage in the eye. But because my vision was okay in May and I had other more serious problems, we never did an eye exam; we never considered whether there was damage to the eye.

So, it's a big "Don't Know". For me, as a deaf person, my eyes are my contact with the world. Thinking about being blind is terrifying. I've been watching, it's been about 3 weeks now, and I've been watching fear, despair, anger, and also hope. And I see, my practice really is a wonderful support. I'm able to see the despair is a story and the further stories that come out of that, like, "Oh, no, I'll be blind." Somebody said maybe I should start to learn Braille. Perhaps that would be practical, although I don't think I'm going to lose my vision to that degree. But I don't think I can do that without getting into fear stories. I can't start practicing something I would need for blindness without holding some slight feeling at least that I'm going to need it. I choose not to anticipate it.

So I need not to do that now. But I also can't go the other way and say it's going to be fine in terms of all going to heal. On one level it's going to be fine, but that may not mean healed. Rather, fine as my deafness is fine. Not a problem. Yet this is bigger than the deafness, and more scary.

I see that for me this is all about control, and deeper learning about what "fine" means. If fine means it's going to be great, I'm going to be able to drive my car next summer and go out to the cabin and I'm going to be able to climb mountains and I'm going to be able to do cartwheels, which I couldn't do before, I'm going to be able to travel, I'm going to independent, maybe I'm not. I don't know. I may not even have enough vision to lip read or to read my computer screen. That's the worst-case scenario.

Again, I have a sense that that's probably not going to happen. The bleeding is slowing down. I have excellent medical care. Hopefully the procedure tomorrow (a steroid injection into the right eye) will help. I will have some loss of vision, but not entire loss. But the first week, I didn't know that. There was despair. What is "despair?" It's a mix of thought and body energy and movement, shutting down, contracted, stories spinning wildly, energy depressed. I can watch these experiences and not be owned by them. By that I mean, I can see how they arise out of conditions, and they pass away, Awareness sees them arise and doesn't have to believe the stories, just knows them as stories. Small self does contract though, because there is a sense of danger. This is the conditioned response.

When I believe that the contraction truly means "danger" and that I must react, I further contract., I want to control. I strike out in anger. But this situation is literally about release, "Thy will be done". Aaron talked about that line from Jesus, "Take this cup from me." That's what I've been feeling at times, "This is too much. It's not fair. This deafness is enough. I can't handle more." Maybe "I" can't handle it; that's fear speaking from the small self. Love can handle it; connection and clarity can handle it, never alone, but from the greater Self.

I know I did not come into the incarnation to live a convenient life or an easy life. I came to teach the dharma, really. I came to love and be loved, to really connect. I came because there's enormous suffering and I have some capacity to speak to that in the world, hopefully to work toward some alleviation of it, for all beings. And I can't say that there's one way that's better to do that than the other. I can say what I prefer. I want to see, I want to hear. That said, I can work as hard as I can to bring that forth in skillful ways, like not flying off and endangering my eyes, not doing heavy physical activity and so forth; following the doctor's orders. But I can't say it's supposed to come out this way and not that way. I don't know that. All I can do is work with what is given.

I see how deeply our suffering comes out of our expectations. About 10 days ago I was out at my cabin on Sunday morning. At dawn I got up and went out on the deck to meditate, as I love to do. I'm on a cantilevered deck surrounded by deep woods, very beautiful. At dawn, usually the light filters in and it's just exquisite. I went out there and everything was blurry.

I just sat there and I started to cry. I don't want it to be this way; it should be another way. But as I sat and just was there with my breath, closed my eyes, breathing, I could smell the sweet wood smoke coming out of the stove, and my husband brought me a cup of tea. I opened my eyes and looked around and it wasn't the way I expected it to be, but it was no less beautiful. The light was very soft; because of the blurriness it was filtering in beautiful ways through the trees, in a way that I've never seen it before. And it was beautiful. And in that moment, nothing was wrong. It was just fine. There was no suffering.

So I see how much fear is about, "it shouldn't be this way, it should be that way" or, "I don't want this, I want that". Fear is not in this moment; it's about projections and memories. This is the root of suffering. In this moment, it's fine just as it is, even with pain, with not knowing, with sadness.

This weekend, once I said to Hal, "I want to close my eyes; would you fingerspell into my hand? He fingerspelled (demonstrating), "I love you," and I was able to feel it with my hand. I know how many people love me and that there are people who will continue to communicate with me no matter what means we have to take to get to that communication. It's not been easy for you to communicate with me now, because I'm deaf and you have to learn to fingerspell or write things out to me. Well, this will be a new trick! We'll figure it out.

Something I learned with my deafness; I know that the isolation was what I imposed upon myself by hating deafness, by being so afraid and angry at it. Once I got past that, there was no isolation. And I know the isolation that would come with blindness is also just what I would create for myself. Certainly it would be difficult, challenging. There would be real loss. But I also see how attached I've been to all I think I'd lose, and that there's nothing there that is permanent anyhow.

I pray total blindness doesn't happen. But I also know that if it does happen, it will be okay. Each day will bring what it will bring and it will be okay. So I'm finding an enormous depth of faith.

I've been looking at all the things that I would like to be able to do with my life in the next 20 or 30 years, and understanding if I can't see, I won't be able to do many of these things. Things seem so important. Another book in the works, got to do it! Traveling, want to see things. It feels so important. It is important, wholesome and beautiful. Like creating Deep Spring Center. But a hundred years from now, this is probably not going to be here. My cabin that I worked so hard to create and love so much, certainly a hundred years from now it's going to be gone. It's a little wooden cabin. My children are going to be long dead. Nothing survives except love. When I look at what's really important, the only thing we can take with us is love. The only thing we can leave behind is also love, and the reality of liberation that we leave as a trace for others to follow. Everything else decays. This is so deeply the Buddhist teaching and I've never really understood it before.

It's not that we don't give our effort to anything else, but we don't give energy based on that lower chakra, fear-based place. We do the work we can with as much love as we can, and without attachment, without a someone who does it all.

So this has been a profound teacher. I intend to go on sharing what I'm learning with you through these weeks and months. I've been in touch with the woman who was my guide on the trip to Brazil. She's down there now and she took my picture to the entities today and told them what was going on with me. And I have felt their energy with me all day. Tomorrow when the doctor does this procedure with eye, with injecting something into the eye, the entities there in Brazil do a procedure through John of God instrument, where they go into the eye with a knife, literally. But they raise the vibration of the knife, the frequency of it, so it's just light. It doesn't damage the eye. They enter the body and do healing through the eye. So I've asked them to be there with the doctor tomorrow, and to use this needle injected into the eye as a tool of light to go into the eye and support whatever healing there may be.

I've found what sounds like a wonderful eye doctor in New York, who works with holistic and homeopathic remedies and different non-traditional remedies. And so I'm following the technical, the more traditional procedures at Kellogg and also going to start working with these various non-traditional things. I'm learning how to do it with love, without grasping, and to trust that the outcome will be perfect, whatever it is.

I know you hold me in your prayers and I can still see all of your smiling faces with my remaining vision.

We'll do the Tai Chi next class. Let us just meditate together for 10 minutes and then we'll go.

Copyright © 2004 by Barbara Brodsky