Berkeley Retreat
July 12, 2008

Saturday PM

Keywords: Evolution/densities, wanderers (word not used directly), habit energy, heavy emotions, four bodies, heart opening, past lives, guidance from spirit, relationship, surrender, forgiveness, wholeness/innate perfection, (pole meditation)

Aaron: This afternoon I propose to have some time with each of you. It may be that we will go around and do one at a time or we may move back and forth, we'll have to see how it flows. If somebody brings up a question that resonates with others, we may move more into a certain topic and sharing feelings and experiences with that topic. Or we may go one by one. I want to be sure that each of your needs is met as the afternoon progresses. We can start anywhere.

Today is it your birthday, isn't it? Then you're the perfect one to start.

Q: You spoke about how our consciousness is moving into a higher level of awareness, into the 4^th and 5^th dimension. And I am aware that I move in and out of those dimensions. My challenge is bringing that sense of oneness into the third dimension.

Aaron: This is everyone's challenge. When you move into incarnation, a veil descends and you accept it as part of the conditions for incarnation, in which you forget the truth of who you are. If you remembered that truth constantly from the beginning, then the process of the incarnation would just be a matter of stoicism, gritting the teeth and carrying on.

I'm looking for an example that will help... If you are asked to climb a high mountain and at times it seems impossible, places where you must literally climb hand over hand, the body is trembling from the strain, and you have only the faith to go on–"This mountain can be climbed, and not only can be climbed, I must get to the other side because people are depending on me to get there, because many beings' welfare depends on my getting over this mountain." Then it's a matter of love, giving all your love to this task.

If on the other hand you were to look at a film of yourself climbing over the mountain in the past, a scene you had forgotten, so that you confirmed, "I've done this before; then I will just do it again," then you would just grit the teeth and push ahead. It doesn't involve any faith. It doesn't really involve love, just stoicism.

But the incarnation is not about gritting one's teeth and keeping going, it's about developing the capacity for love, faith, and compassion. In the long run it's about moving through duality.

My understanding of the universe –– this takes us far afield for a moment from your personal question –– there are what I name as 8 densities. The term density is used to indicate the density of the material, which relates to the vibrational frequency. Heavier density material has a lower vibration. Gas and mineral are first density. Vegetable and simple animal are second density, and on up to those animals that are becoming self-aware. Then we move into 3^rd density. The human is of 3^rd density. The most self-aware animals are on the borderline, ready for 3^rd density.

In third density there is still the notion of duality, of the separate self. The breakthrough into 4^th density involves the resolution of duality and of the dualistic mind. By "resolution." I don't mean that the notion of duality completely ceases to exist any more than anger or any other emotion ceases to exist, but there's no longer a belief in it. The idea of duality comes up. One notes that it's simply an idea and moves past it. One keeps connecting back into the direct experience of the non-dual and it's that experience, that touch, that carries you through.

The shift comes not simply by breaking through into the non-dual mind but also involves the development of faith and of the loving heart. So it's the process, not the goal, that's important. Non-duality must be known with love, not as a doctrine.

Beyond 4^th density, are all the densities up through 8. In 4^th density there is still a mental body and of course the spirit body. There is still an emotional body but there is more equanimity with it, no contraction around the emotional body. Presently in 4^th density there is no longer a physical body. Your earth is becoming a 4^th density environment. This is what this so-called New Age is about, literally the Age in which the earth will become a 4^th density, material planet.

All of you will be telepathic in 4^th density. If I were to ask you now, "If everyone in this room were telepathic, would that be okay?," some of you might say, "Ah, that would be lovely." But really, are you prepared for everybody in this room to be reading all of your thoughts today? (Q: No!) You to be reading everybody's thoughts? (Another No!) There's some discomfort because the emotional body is not fully resolved, by which I mean there's still self-identification with it so feelings of judgment and shame arise.

So the practice –– any meditation practice, but my own tradition, my own preferred tradition is vipassana because it asks you to be present with each object as it arises, note its presence and how it has arisen out of conditions, is impermanent and passes away. There's not a central self to it –– the practice leads to the development of equanimity with the emotional body, a cessation of reactivity to it. Then if you have a judging thought arise, it's just a judging thought. Another person's negative thought is just a negative thought; you don't take it personally. "I don't like your hair color." "Ah, is that so?" That doesn't mean the hair color is bad, just that somebody had that thought about it.

In 4^th density you live in families or groups, with dear ones with whom you have had a long-term relationship. You grow in this way, inter-relating with each other, deepening in compassion. By the end of 4^th density, the emotional body has resolved and strong negative emotions have ceased to arise. You're ready to move out of the protective environment of the group and into a much broader environment, which we would call 5^th density. In 5^th density, wisdom deepens. You begin to look around you more widely. By the end of 5^th density, I would not say the emotional body has ceased but there is no longer strong, contracting emotion, only joy and sorrow. There's still a mental body and there's still some self-identity with the mental body.

The meditation practitioner, –– I speak here specifically of vipassana; many other paths will take you there, but vipassana is a very direct path to this–the third density vipassana practitioner may have a very direct experience of the body and the ego dissolving. There's no sense of a separate self. Then you come out of that meditation and here's the self again. You go back into the meditation on another day and there's no self. And after awhile you really start to look at this collection of experiences. What is this experience of the self? Individuated ego loses power. It's just one more story, and yet it was a useful one, because through this experience of "self", you have learned compassion.

By the end of 5^th density the sense of self has thinned to the point that the mental body is more of a tool, not MY thoughts, just thoughts. So 6^th density is a density of pure spirit and mental body, the purified mental body without any sense of ego or separate self. At the upper edge of 6^th density, one releases even the mental body. It's as if there's a great sea and one simply offers all energy into the sea.

I am an upper 6^th density being because I retain that use of the mental body as a tool. I could easily move on into the 7^th density but I choose not to, not out of fear, not out of any attachment to the mental body, but because it's a one-way street. It's like taking a drop of water and dropping it into the ocean: you can't find that drop of water and pick it up again. I use the mental body as a teaching tool and I will continue to do so as long as there are suffering beings that can use such guidance. So I can't really tell you about 7^th density except this highly purified soul energy offers itself into the sea and helps purify and raise the vibration of the sea.

Coming back to your question. The reason I'm giving you this map is to help you see where you are. The challenge you find is not a problem; it's simply where you are. Stop worrying about it. Do continue to work toward integration. I think of the example of the feet on the ground in a rushing stream. This instrument once jumped off high rocks into the pool at the foot of a fast waterfall. The stream there was rushing out, water moving quite fast. She had watched other people do it; she knew it was safe. There were no big rocks under the water. But the current was fast and, once underwater, she didn't have a sense of up or down because of her balance, so she was spinning in the water. A bit of fear arose because of the lack of orientation. I said, "Just put your feet down." And the water was only 3 feet deep. As soon as she extended her feet, they made contact. The fast water was rushing around her. She couldn't stand for long because the current was fast, but she could put her feet down.

The current of life is rushing past you. Just put your feet down. I find this a very helpful metaphor. When you ground yourself in meditation and experience that ground, you get to know the ground. Then, when you're feeling not integrated, put your feet down. How does it feel to reconnect to that reality?

Q: That's called a standing meditation.

Aaron: Standing meditation is one expression of it, but in standing meditation one can connect only with the earth, and not simultaneously with the heavens. In the new book that Barbara is working on, I have what I call pole meditation, in which I suggest people to feel themselves as a pole. Standing meditation, yes, feet down, but also the head is in the heaven, the feet are grounded in the earth. Feel yourself not in one place or the other but both places simultaneously.

Stand up, all of you. Ground yourself into this earth. Let your energy carry down through your feet into the earth. Feel the blessings of the earth. Then draw the energy up from the base chakra. Feel it coming all the way up to the crown. Take a hand and touch the crown of the head, and now also the third eye. Place the little finger on the third eye and the index finger up on the crown. Invite the energy up. Feel the outer energy coming into the crown, energy coming in and going out. You are the link between heaven and earth, literally. This is part of the work of the incarnation, to serve as such a bridge.

If you wish, raise your hands up in the air; that would be helpful. Grounding; connected fully to relative reality and opening; connected to ultimate reality. (some time doing)

Bless this bridge that you are that's able to connect these 2 realities and hold them together. It doesn't help to get lost in ultimate reality any more than it helps to get lost in relative reality. Be this bridge, this pole connecting heaven and earth. Can you feel it? (yes)

You may sit.

I want to speak a bit more personally here to you and each of you as we go around. Each of you has different histories. Some of you have evolved very fully through the earth plane; others have evolved more on other planes. Now you're all fully human. Some of you who have evolved on other planes, sometimes non-material planes, find it more challenging to ground into the energy of the earth plane because it feels so heavy. There's a sense about the earth plane, "This is not home; this is not quite where I belong." The body feels too slow, the emotions, the physical body, even the mind, everything feels heavy as you would in a diving suit in the water.

For those of you of this orientation, and you know who you are, and you, my sister, this applies to you, there's a pull sometimes to separate from the heaviness of the earth and take refuge in the lightness and space of the higher planes. There's a joy in that experience and it's fine to do that occasionally as a vacation. But remember that your work is not to separate but to be this pole uniting heaven and earth, and that you CAN do this. It's important to look at the resistance, the part of you that says either it's too hard or it's just too heavy and you are weary. The part for some of you that says, "I want to go home." I don't mean a suicidal wish, just "What am I doing in this heavy density earth? How did I get here? I long for lightness and space."

Your incarnation is really very brief. You came to do this work, really not only for yourself but for all beings, to hold this space between earth and heaven; to bring it together to assist in the movement of the earth into higher consciousness and higher vibration. So each of you that do this work is part of that bridge. You committed to this when you came into the incarnation, and it's hard work.

Q: I'm doing alright. (laughter)

Aaron: You're doing fine.

Q: I've heard myself say those words over and over again. I'm the bridge.

Aaron: Yes. But you're trying to convince yourself, so I wish you would relax a bit and understand this is true. You don't need to convince yourself, just relax and be where you are.

Q: I think I have to ask for more help.

Aaron: That's good. The help will be there if you ask for it. Help is already there. In asking for it, you're really opening the door to allow it in. It's not like something will come that's not already there, but you will shake hands with it.

Q: Self-sufficiency?

Aaron: Not self-sufficient; no. In self-sufficient there's a separate self. There's no self here, no self to be self-sufficient. Self-service; self-service in terms of a buffet bar, it's right there. Help yourself to what is already offered.

I am going to speak honestly to each of you, not to hold back because we have a group here.

You are a very old soul. You have some aspects of what I call "old soul syndrome." (laughter) The newer soul makes mistakes, steps on people a bit, says, "Oh..." and shrugs it off. That's what happens. The old soul, when they act in any way that, not even harms another but simply causes inconvenience, is aghast. "I shouldn't." She is so quick to judge the self; so much demand for perfectionism in the self. And this, daughter, is what needs to be attended.

You can trust yourself. You have a deep intention to non-harm. There are still emotions, there is still some fear, but you're not going to destroy anything with it. Begin to be much more gentle to yourself. When negative thought and judgment arises about the self, use this little, "Is that so?" Hear me reminding you, you are a divine being of light. You are radiant and beautiful. Yes, sometimes there are mistakes. If one spills a glass of milk, one cleans it up. One doesn't have to berate the self and say, "Oh, I'm clumsy." Begin to pay at least equal attention but preferably much more attention to your beautiful qualities. You are not going to become egotistical. You're not going to develop a swelled head of pride. Begin to cherish your strengths and beautiful qualities and be much more at ease. And when anger, fear, greed, or disapproval of some sort arise, just sit it by your fire.

It is in this way that you will truly find yourself able to be that bridge. Right now you're switching from one end to the other end. It's hard to hold the whole pole, because you're either in a mode of heaven or in a mode of hell. Let yourself be the pole that holds it together.

Q: I know how to work really well and do that really well, so I'd like to have more information about how play and joy could expand myself, and also color.

Signer: She works a lot and would like to know how play and joy could serve her and also color.

Aaron: Here's another question of duality–you're separating work, and play and joy. There is a beautiful statement from Rabindranath Tagore, "I slept and dreamed that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold, service was joy."

When there's a self, trying to get it right, working, experiencing work as burden, life ceases to be joy. So the fact that you feel a distinction between work and play and joy says to me that there's too much ego wrapped up in trying to get the work right, probably the same old-soul syndrome because you're also an older soul. Perfectionism, tension, and insistence to get it right, these deprive you of joy. There's ongoing fear and tension. It's not to get it right so others will admire you; it's getting it right to take care of others.

Try to see that mind as it arises and just stop and breathe, "Breathing in, I am aware of the tension. Breathing out, I smile to the tension." It's just an old habit. "Got to get it right to take care of others." For the old soul there's such a deep intention to come into the earth in service, and there's a strong aspiration to get that service right because there's so much suffering in the world; to take care of that suffering.

When your energy field is contracted it pulls you more and more into separation and the cycle is repeated. Start to feel contraction in your body. For you, daughter, I think you feel it most in the chest. Just start to notice the experience of contracting. Take a big breath. Do it now. Open the arms. Allow the chest to fill. (breathing) Breathing in, I'm aware of the contraction. Breathing out, I smile to the contraction. Feel the body relax. Do that as a brief pause 100 times a day as you work, if necessary. This is not to create anything. Bring yourself back to the spaciousness that's already there.

As you do this, you're going to find some joy, more playfulness and relaxation, right there with the work. Not somewhere else but right there. I hope you will still go and play, just play for play's sake. Play in the water, splash! Run up and down the hill or lie on the ground and roll. Be as a 5 year old might be, expressing joy. Those things that connect you with the earth will be especially important for your playfulness. Climb a tree or hang a swing from a branch and just sit and swing back and forth. This kind of play will be important to you.

There's not strong blockage in any chakra but the greatest blockage is in the solar plexus chakra. Find a beautiful yellow, go to an art supply store with color papers and find the most beautiful piece of yellow paper you can find. Sometimes during your meditation, sit just looking at the yellow paper. Breathe in yellow, let it fill you, and release. Use harmonics. The tone of the solar plexus is E. (chants) Can you feel that at all resonating in that chakra? Sing that note to yourself. Use a piano if necessary to get the note right and then just the chant, OM, the sacred syllable repeated, literally singing into that chakra. You're not trying to force it to appear but inviting it to appear.

This chakra is about the relationship of the personality and the world. And it's very connected to these issues you're talking about. Remember that on one level the chakra has always been open. We're not talking about opening something that's closed, we're talking about finding the place that's open and inviting it more fully to express itself.

You're going to the Casa next month, is that right? As you sit in meditation in the Current Room, ask for help from spirit to open the solar plexus more fully. So, yellow would be an important color.

Q: I have many close friends and family members in my life that are not on the same path that I am. And I struggle with moving away from them and trying to integrate them <inaudible>.

Signer: She struggles with whether to integrate these friends into her life or to move away from them.

Aaron: Do you have love for them in the sense of connection to them?

Q: I do.

Aaron: Do they ask of you to deny your own truth, in other words to go out and do things that feel unacceptable to you?

Q: Not really <inaudible>.

Aaron: So this is not, for an extreme example, a friend who likes to steal little things from the stores and says, "Come on, do it with me." I said an extreme example, but...

Q: No, but for instance maybe they participate in lifestyle things like partying or drinking.

Aaron: Do they force you to drink? (Q: No.) Do you enjoy their company when they're drinking or do they become a bit boorish? (laughter)

Q: Well, it's also my family. Maybe I don't feel as much support from <them>.

Signer: She does not feel supported by these friends and family.

Aaron: What do you love about these friends?

Q: I feel that they don't love me. I feel that, for instance-- it's my family too, so with my family, I don't feel that I can disconnect from them.

Signer: She feels that these friends and family still love her. You want them to stay connected to you, is that the other piece?

Q: Yeah, but I mean, with my family, I don't feel like I can just... so I don't know how to integrate–maybe we'll stick with the family because that's kind of more...like I can't just let go with them. But I don't know how to take it as, to learn a lesson in my life, are they teaching me something by creating this challenge? Or do I need to just sort of disconnect from them <inaudible, background noise>

Signer: She wants to focus on family.

Q: But... do I take it as a challenge that they're teaching me? Is this challenge teaching?

Signer: Would it sound better if I said, what's the lesson in this for you? (Q: Yes.) She wants to know what is the lesson in her experience with her family.

Aaron: ...With this family who is not on a parallel spiritual path. I see two parts to this. One is to become so unshakeable in your trust of your own path and your own truths that there's no fear that somebody who has a different opinion will shake you off your path. And to trust that you don't need to convince them.

Many of you experience families, friends, people at work, who don't share your spiritual path at all. That can be perfectly okay or it can be very uncomfortable. If it's uncomfortable, it says to me that there's something within you that's making it uncomfortable, some need for that outer affirmation. And that need usually is because the inner affirmation is not clear. It's not that you suddenly want to become a so-called party animal, it's more about wanting connection, the deep human desire for friendship and approval, to feel connected, and the people not looking at you and saying, "She's a little bit crazy!"

But if you feel stable in your own inner knowing, then somebody else saying, "She's a little bit crazy" won't bother you. If somebody came in here and said, "You shouldn't have wood floors and red rugs, it looks terrible!" you would say, "That's that person's opinion. I personally love it this way." It won't upset you. They can have their own opinion. If the same person comes back the next visit and says, "Look, I brought you a purple rug," "Well, thank you but I have what I want. Please take the gift back home with you." You don't have to accept it or use it just because it's offered.

The ability to do that is part of the ability to say no with compassion. This is the other person's agenda. The other person's agenda may be to avoid looking deep into themselves by entertaining themselves with drinks and parties; it's too scary to go deep. As compassion develops and you see the fear in that person and that this is where they are, that it's simply an evolutionary stage, then you start to also see the beauty in that person, the depth, and the love.

As you begin to interrelate more with that depth and love, then you become teachers to each other. I don't mean simply you are their teacher; they're your teacher too. Teacher and learner go together. You begin to be inspiration to them, a reminder it's safe to go deeper. It may be 5 years before they say to you, "Tell me more about what you're doing. You're inspiring me." Maybe they'll never say it. And you don't have to go to their parties. You can say to them, "I don't really feel like going to a party. It doesn't appeal to me right now. But next week if you'd like to get together for lunch, I'd like to do that." Find the places that connect you. If there's nothing that connects you then you've probably outgrown this person. But presumably you'll find something. Maybe you enjoy talking about art or music together, or sharing in some deep way. Find that which speaks to you in the person and stay connected with it.

You can open the door for others; you cannot push them through. Your work is to keep the door open for them and to keep your heart open to them, and to say no to that which doesn't appeal to you. "No green rug, thank you. Please take it out." Does that answer your question?

Signer: She says thank you, she needed to hear that.

Aaron: You are doing fine, child. Trust yourself. Your heart is so open but there is still that in the self as in most humans that wants love and feels that if you reject that which is of value to another person, they won't love you. It's okay to say no to the thing without saying no to the person. And if it leads you to feeling unloved, then this is a place for you to work. What is this feeling of not being lovable? If the person says to you, "You're not the way you used to be anymore. I don't like to be with you so much anymore. You're not fun anymore," this is their issue. There does come a point where sometimes we need to move away from people. If they're family, we don't move fully away, we honor the bounds of family, the love of family. But you don't have to be who others want you to be, only who you are.

Q: What positive qualities or characteristics from past lives should I focus on to help me in my life now.

Signer: What positive characteristics and qualities can he concentrate on from past lives?

Aaron: What positive qualities and characteristics can you bring forth from past lives. Your truly open heart which you often do not allow yourself to recognize. This comes back to that same question of duality and simultaneity. There are times when your heart feels truly open but there are more times when your heart feels like it's closed. When it feels like it's closed, you don't believe the open heart exists anymore. Then you work to fix the closed heart rather than simply finding the open heart.

If you had two doorways side by side and you were used to coming through the right doorway, if it jams shut are you going to obsess about it or are you going to just go through the left doorway?

Do you see how you obsess about it? Shift the attention to that which is open. A being that you were in a past life was a monk, it doesn't matter in what tradition. A spiritual leader, a shaman, so to speak. He had many healing skills, a deep connection with spirit. Drought came to the land, obviously through no fault of his; simply the weather changed and there was a period of drought. People began to drink water that was not fresh because it was all the water they could get, even though you warned them against drinking it. People became sick and died. You felt that you were a failure, this karmic ancestor of yours. I want to distinguish him from you–this is not you, this is a karmic ancestor. He felt he was a failure because he could not save the people.

He immediately turned that criticism onto himself. "I am at fault." This is, again, one of these old soul syndrome stories. "I should be able to do this." Can you hear the ego in that? Why should he be able to stop the people from drinking, to magically produce pure water, or to save people who had been drinking bad water, no matter how skilled he was? But something in him said, "I should be able to do this. If I can't, I'm defective. I'm not good enough." And at that point, the heart closed.

I would suggest that you spend time in meditation with this ancestor. Be his brother, talk to him. Help him to see that what has happened is not his fault, is not due to a lack in him, but is simply the flow of karma, the flow of action and consequence. People drink polluted water, they'll get sick; maybe they'll die. Because of the drought, the herbs that might help are not available. There's nothing he can do but love them.

I want you to feel how his heart closed to himself and to try to find such a close connection with him that you can teach him how to reopen the heart. Let him feel the opening of the heart, the possibility of the open heart, and then bring that experience back into your present life, seeing what characteristics of this karmic ancestor continue in you. The feeling of, "I should be able to get it right, to save everybody, to do it right for everybody," and how the heart closes when there's not so much difficulty for the self as for others. And to find right there with the closed heart, the heart that is always open. When you allow and invite that openness, it supports the self and all beings. Do you understand?

Q: I think so.

Aaron: Your strength is the powerful openness of your heart, and your greatest struggle is the fact that the heart sometimes closes. And then you think, "I should be able to keep it open." And you dream that it really is closed rather than just knowing that the closedness is part of the illusion of the moment, and returning to the openness. This is not about denial. The closed heart may show itself, but it is not the ultimate truth. Note it and move on.

Q: <With background/mic noise, words missed> This is a health question. (She will tell the signer a story and the signer can edit it.)...

Signer: About nine years ago, she started waking up in the middle of the night with a very strong appetite. And since then–your appetite, how would you describe it?

Q: It's been abnormal. I'm hungry all the time. And if I don't eat just before I go to bed, I'll wake up in the middle of the night starving. And I've gained a lot of weight. I've tried everything.

Signer: So you don't know what it is...

Q: The doctor says they've never heard of it before.

Aaron: There are two parts to this. You are a vipassana practitioner, yes? I would ask you to commit for the next 6 weeks perhaps, every time there's a strong feeling of hunger, whether it's before a planned meal or just in the middle of the night or some other time, to sit for 5 minutes before you eat. Let yourself experience the hunger, how it feels in the body. Begin to ask yourself, "What is this hunger?" without trying to find the answer, just dropping the question like dropping a pebble into a pond and watching the ripples spread. "What is this hunger? What do I need to know?" Let it go and then just come back to, what do you use as a primary object in your practice?

Q: The breath, body sensations, sounds...

Aaron: Do you use nada, the sound of silence, at all? (Q: Yes.) Come back either to the breath or to nada. Nada is good here because you're more likely to feel the simultaneity of the hunger and that sacred sound, they can come together more easily than the breath and the hunger. The breath tends to screen out the hunger, but either primary object will do. Feel the difference between the sensation, hunger, and the need to go and eat. Think here of the itch, as sensation, and the impulse, wanting to scratch. Can there be a moment of hunger before you rush to eat? How does it feel, just hunger? Or perhaps you will find that the impulse, wanting to eat, arises with little experience of hunger in the belly. Just watch it.

Let's try something together. Can we have everybody with a drink of water, is that possible? (cups of water are passed around)

What I'm going to ask you to do, first mindfully take a swallow of water into the mouth. Hold it in the mouth just a moment. Feel the sensation of the water in the mouth, and then impulse to swallow, and swallowing.

Now the next step; don't do this yet, let me finish talking first. I'm going to ask you to take a sizable mouthful of water, not just a small sip, but at least a normal-sized mouthful, and hold it in the mouth. Don't swallow it. Just watch the sensations, perhaps coolness, fullness, wanting to swallow. Try it now.

Be aware of the sensation of the water in the mouth as contact, touch, and then the impulse energy, wanting to swallow. If you must swallow it, it's okay, but hold it as long as you can. If you must swallow it, then wait a moment and take another mouthful. If there's discomfort, know the discomfort.

And swallow... Open the mouth a bit, breathe. Take another mouthful, do the same thing. Try to relax. If there's a strong impulse to swallow, just be present with it, inviting it to the fire for tea. Just impulse. There's a subtle contraction, grasping energy. Even a subtle fear, "I have to swallow." It teaches you a lot about how you relate to discomfort. The human habit is so strong to dodge discomfort. Quick, scratch the itch. Do whatever is needed to get away from that minor discomfort.

Can you just sit there with your heart open to it? Breathing in and out through the nose. The water in the mouth doesn't stop your breathing. ...Until there is some relaxation of the tension.

Full mouth, one object. Impulse, grasping, wanting to swallow, another object. Just sensations. And you may swallow. What did you experience? Some of you please share this with me.

Q: I had trouble swallowing.

Aaron: Others?

Q: I swallowed without swallowing the water.

Aaron: The strong need for the throat to swallow. Others?

Q: I lost my concentration and swallowed.

Aaron: Others?

Q: I had fun playing with the water in my mouth.

Aaron: Others? Could you feel the difference between the touch sensation of water in the mouth, and the impulse of wanting to swallow? Could you feel that even though there was wanting to swallow, you didn't have to swallow? Was it easier the second time? Yes, mostly yes. As you practice with it, it gets easier.

(returning to Q)When you sit, I want you to focus on the sensation of hunger, wherever it's felt in the body, and then wanting to take something to assuage that discomfort of hunger, which is a kind of impulse energy. And recognize, just for 5 minutes, I don't have to do that. Five minutes. Just be present with hunger. Simultaneously, as you sit, if that feeling of hunger is not so strong that it's pulling all your attention, ask the question, just gently dropping it in, "What is this hunger?" You're not trying to get an answer; rather, you're expressing a willingness to see the answer, to have insight into the answer.

At the end of 5 minutes, simply go and eat. No judgment about it. Determine before that 5 minute period just what you're going to eat. Eat just that, no more. If you finish that and there's still a feeling, "But I need to eat more," sit with the need for 5 more minutes. Take the new portion onto your plate. Sit for 5 minutes, feeling the hunger and that, "I need to assuage the hunger by eating," and then eat without guilt.

If you persist in this, insights will arise about the nature of the hunger and eating. There are 2 parts to it, learning what the hunger is about and seeing that you don't need to be reactive to the impulse. That a deeper wisdom is in control and it's safe to say no to the impulse.

What you've developed here is in some ways an eating addiction and it always has some kind of root, often in a past life. Sometimes addiction patterns arise spontaneously ironically because at some level you are ready to resolve the issue, which you've avoided throughout the life and so not needed to have the addiction to bring it to the fore. Do you understand what I'm saying?

Q: Yes, I do.

Aaron: So there is something that's calling this forth. In the immediate prior past life, the being you were starved to death. It may be helpful to know that. The being you were starved to death. She was in a situation where there were many people who were starving. She was more of an elder in this situation. Not elder, but there were children. So she kept giving away her food trying to make sure the children did not starve, until she starved. She was in a prison kind of situation where there was not simply a general scarcity of food but there was only a small amount of very nutritious food offered, and she kept offering her portions to those who were more sick or younger until she starved. She did this in part from a deep place of love and generosity, but she also did it from a place that felt that others were in some way, not quite more deserving than her but that she should do this for others.

So I think this is a strong reaction on two counts. One, "I need to eat." The fear that she would not allow in that life is coming up now in this present body. It's not even in the mind so much as in the body. And it's coming up now because there is a readiness to deal with the base issues. the issues of comparing self and other, feeling you're not good if you don't take care of others first, all of these stories, and knowing at a deep level that there's the need to resolve that myth. Your body is in a sense cooperating by bringing this issue to the fore so you have to pay attention to it. Do you have questions?

Q: The only question I have is that this, the pain of hunger while waking up in the night if I don't eat. If I eat before I go to bed, then I gain weight. If I don't eat, I'll wake up, even from a deep sleep, very hungry. And when I have clients to see the next day I need to be present and rested. So it's a dilemma for me. If I eat, then it's <>, I can go back to sleep.

Signer: So tell me your question...

Q: I'm just not sure how to do this with a need to be really alert and present with people. I need to get sleep. Maybe I just need to sleep for awhile. I can't do my work, I can't be present if I don't get enough sleep.

Signer: She is worried that with the practice you gave her that she won't eat before bed and then wake up during the night and not be alert for work.

Aaron: (clarifying the question about eating or not eating before bed)

Signer: She is interpreting your practice as saying "Don't eat."

Aaron: No, that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying, ask yourself to practice. There's no judgment, eating, not eating. Simply, when hunger arises, give yourself 5 minutes. Watch the connection between the experience of hunger in the belly and the impulse, "I need to eat." Sit for 5 minutes allowing the deep experience of hunger and the impulse of fear, wanting to eat, grasping. Doing this for 5 minutes before each time you eat will simply give the chance for deep insight to develop, for karmic memory to develop, for whatever healing to develop. Then at the end of 5 minutes, if there is still desire to eat, eat! I'm not saying there should not be desire to eat, I'm not saying it should pass. If it's at your normal dinner time, certainly you're going to eat afterward. Sometimes the feeling will pass and you'll feel, "I don't really need to eat now," and you'll go back to sleep or you'll go on to your activities. There's no right or wrong to the eating. Let it go, that whole idea that it's wrong. Conditioning in the cellular level of the body creates this hunger. The need to eat is a result. You don't try to fix the result; you want to attend to the conditions. In giving yourself that 5 minute break, you're simply present with that experience of hunger and the impulse, wanting to eat. And see what happens to it. Just that.

We're going to take a small break here.

Aaron: ( Q and Aaron's beginning not recorded; the questioner says he wants to experience the Divine more deeply.)... experience of the divine we're speaking of. This is the density of faith. The skeptical mind says, "Oh, it's just imagination." Trust yourself. I can affirm for you that you do experience this but in those moments of doubt, it's just working in a skillful way with doubt. Fear closes the heart and love opens the heart but fear and love are not mutually exclusive. When there's the energetic experience in some way of the divine or the emotional or mental experience, and then you pull back, in a sense fear is saying, "Maybe it's not fully safe. What if I got lost in that space?" So you hold yourself back and you keep the cycle going.

At that point begin to note that there is fear. We don't have to ask, fear of what? It's the ego's last stand, in a sense. Who knows what it is. You don't really need to know, just that there is some degree of fear.

Be deeply present with the simultaneity of this expanded experience of divinity and the contracting experience of fear. Then invite the fear in for tea; just hold space for it. Be deeply present with the experience of contraction within the expanded self. Do you understand what I mean by that?

Q: Not really.

Aaron: (with Q) I'm going to press on your shoulder. I'm going to press on the top of the head, actually. First feel the top of the head with no pressure. (pause) Now, (pressing head) Pressing, pressing. There's pressure, yes? Can you feel simultaneously that feeling of no pressure? Is it still there?

Q: The prior experience of no pressure? No.

Aaron: (not pressing) No pressure, space, openness. (pressing) And pressure. Can you feel the openness still there? I'm going to press a little bit harder. Just stay with the openness without denial of the pressure. Can you feel that? Come back into openness again, feeling the openness. Very light pressure–can you still feel the openness? Okay, just that much. I want you to feel how both are present at once. Not alternating but simultaneous... (continuing pressure, alternating?)

Right there with that expansion of the divine, fear comes in. If you dive into the fear, you lose the expansion of the divine. If you deny the fear, you also lose that sense of expansion because a denial takes a contracted effort, pushing something away. But when you're able to be present with the direct experience of fear and simultaneously to stay connected with the high energy and vibration of the divine, then you start to see how the fear comes and disappears.

Q: But I don't seem to know either the fear or the expansion. I don't experience the fear or the expansion.

Aaron: I think you do experience the expansion of the divine at times and as soon as it comes up, you doubt it and the fear pulls you back so you lose it and you think, "Ah, I was making it up."

Q: No, no. That never has happened.

Aaron: It has never happened that you thought you were making it up.

Q: That I was experiencing it. That I felt that I was experiencing the divine.

Signer: But you said at the start that you had some sort of intellectual sense?

Q: I believe it; I don't feel it... I believe it exists, I even believe in fact in what Aaron said that I experience it, I just don't feel it.

(Aaron walks over to Q, away from mic)

Aaron: I am going to ask you pretend that this doorway leads outside... <lost to background noise> Stand here. Open your eyes and see the garden, the deck, the fresh air. Feel it. Now turn your back. Where did it go? You had a concept of it and now it's gone. Was it real?

Q: Yes.

Aaron: Yes. Turn around, look at it again. Look out the window here so you can better get the sense of it. It's right there, the outdoors, right there. (turns Q around?) Where did it go?

Q: But I've never seen it before.

Aaron: You are looking into the divine and then say, "It's just my imagination." Not in so many words, but it's there. Contraction of fear brings you away again.

Q: I believe you...

Aaron: Please continue to question in this way. "What blocks me form deeper experience?" When there is the moment of connection, KNOW it. As it slides past, do not grasp to hold it, but also watch how easily the mind denies the reality. Slowly, you will begin to see that the mind and heart can experience different aspects, and to trust the heart.

Q: When I was with John of God, one of my requests was to help me get over my fears of trying new things. So even today, coming today, was somewhat fearful for me because it was unknown. So I'm letting the fear deprive me. How do I let go of the fear?

Aaron: My daughter, here you are sitting here! And there you were taking that adventurous trip to Brazil. You let go of the fear one step at a time by being present with the fear, acknowledging the fear, and also acknowledging that which is not afraid. It's the same thing we were just talking about, the open heart and the closed heart. If you focus only on the closed heart and think "I have to get rid of this in order to be that," you're constantly fighting a war with yourself. When you note with ease and joy and peace, "The open heart's intention within me is to experience new things with joy," and there's fear, instead of trying to fix the fear, just go into focus on opening to new things with joy.

Try it in simple ways. Go into the market and pick some new fruit or vegetable that you've never tasted. Go into a Spanish market, perhaps, or a Chinese market. Pick up something, ask, "How do I prepare it?" Try it. And watch the attitudes about it. Will I get it right? Will I be safe? You start to see all the different stories. And you actually do it and find it's enjoyable and you focus at least 50% on the joy of the experience. Slowly the old fears die away. You become much more facile at noting, "Here is fear and it's just an old story. Here's the old story I won't be safe, I won't get it right." Don't get caught in it. I'm not saying to YOU, don't get caught in it, as command, I'm saying that the inner wisdom says, "I don't have to get caught in this, it's just an old story." It's like the story I was talking about earlier of "I'm unworthy." How many times does it have to come up before you can just say, "Shh! Go sit over there and take your tea"?

Q: Aaron gave the analogy of sleigh-riding. How do you get off the sled?

Aaron: We presume you're lying down and not standing up–you simply roll off into the soft, deep snow. You let go.

Q: Sleigh-riding becomes a habit, though; it becomes part of you. You can't just jump off of it. There has to be more to it than just rolling in the snow.

Aaron: You have taken the biggest first step, you have recognized the habit energy that exists. Now begin to apply mindfulness to the repetition of the habit and each time it comes up, ask yourself, "Do I want to be stuck with this habit and its painful results or am I ready to back off a bit?" Do it as an experiment, not saying habit is bad, just saying, "I see that this habit has painful results. What happens if I back off?"

Barbara was talking earlier this week about going out in her garden and neglecting to bring her gardening gloves. She found some thistles growing. She thought, "I don't need to go into the house for these, they're small thistles. I'll just pull them up." And of course she got prickles in her fingers. She pulled out 2 or 3, pulled the prickles out. It hurt. She went back for just one more. More prickles! Finally she said, "Maybe it's time to go in and get the gardening gloves!"

Be mindful. Watch the results. If the results are painful, ask yourself, "Do I really want this pain? What are my alternatives?" There is always resistance to the alternatives. For her the resistance was she didn't want to bother to take the few minutes to go back in the house and retrieve the gloves. In the deeper level of habit, there's the fear, "I won't be safe." But sometimes it's just habit, literally. There's not really any fear along with it; it's just habit. So you have to check it out and see. If it's just habit, it will go faster. If there's fear, then there has to be acknowledgment of the fear and a willingness to open the heart to the fear. We keep going back and forth seeing, "This habit energy has been hurtful to me or to others. I'm willing to take the risk to let it go for this moment." In an investigative way, try it just to see what happens. If the results are good, you're going to find it easier to do the next time.

Q: What advice can you give me that would help deepen and further my current spiritual path?

Aaron: (pausing) Old soul syndrome! (laughing) Become more mindful of the places of judgment of the self because of its seeming lack of perfection. Bring more attention to the place of true generosity, openheartedness, gratitude, joy. Practice gratitude. That will be a big one for you. First, when you wake up in the morning, think of the things you are grateful for about the day and about yourself. This body that serves you well –– not perfect, no body is perfect – gratitude for this body that serves you well, this mind that serves you well, this heart that serves you well. Literally consecrate that body, the heart, the mind, to the service of all beings.

You have a connection to Baba, yes? (Neem Karoli Baba) Go to him for help. Offer through him, giving this body, heart, and mind to the good of all beings. I'd ask him to use it and to direct you how to use it, and then through the day, when some kind of negative thought comes up, offer that also to Baba. Ask Baba, "I don't know what to do with this right now. Can you help me hold space for it until it dissolves?"

In a past life, a being that you were, under threat of his own death, I will not say needed – he had a choice, he could refuse and be killed, but he chose to live –– had to do things that were hurtful to others or felt inappropriate. He was in a very difficult situation. There were people being killed, quite literally, and he was asked to deal with the corpses. The corpses were not treated in a respectful way. It was horrendous to him, but he knew if he refused he would simply be shot.

Because he was part of a work corps who did this work, he received a bit of extra food, warmer clothing, lived in a little bit better condition than others, and he was able to give much of the food to others who otherwise would have starved. This was real, Q. He was not trying to delude himself and say, "Well, if I do this I can save others." He really was saving others, but he also was happy he was still alive. If he said no, not only would he die but many others would die. He was the life support of many other beings who truly would have starved without his care. He gave very generously. He really did not get more to eat but probably less because he gave so much away. But he still felt guilt about dealing with all these corpses. It went on for a long time and it was terrible work.

He could not forgive himself for working with his captors even though he understood the reality that he was supporting others, so he felt that he was giving an excuse for himself and his behavior. This was just one past life, but this whole feeling of, "If I do anything that's even the least little bit off, I should be held fully accountable for it." He was accountable. He was living a very challenging life and giving to others. But he felt he deserved to be punished in some way just for living when others were dying.

Spend some time with this being as a brother. Try to talk to him and help him to open his heart to himself. There's nothing for him to forgive but help him to have compassion for himself. Does that sound workable to you?

Q: I want to ask a question related to (previous Q)... was Aaron speaking of the Holocaust?

Aaron: It is irrelevant. To give the details just builds stories.

Q: Can I ask a question about my father? He's deceased, 2000, and I am planning a trip to the Casa on what would have been his birthday. And today he wanted to come here, his picture fell on my head as I was walking out the door. I didn't know him very much. I was with him 6 years and then there was a 30 year gap and then 2 years. I got to know him a little bit before he died, he died at 59 from a complicated life. And that's why for a birthday present I'm taking him to the Casa in spirit.

Aaron: That's beautiful. You will take his picture. Have you been to the Casa?

Q: Oh yes, many times.

Aaron: So you are able to sit with it in the Current Room and ask the entities' blessings and to support his path.

Q: Yes. Is there any reason he wanted to meet you today?

Aaron: I don't think it's about meeting me, I think it's about being here in this energy group, feeling the strong flow of supportive energy, uplifting energy, that will help him to move forward in his own path. He is in a not painful place but not a heavenly abode, either. He is in a place where he's working out the karma of his life and his choices, a place that's neither light nor dark but neutral to a degree that it's almost unpleasant. Not deeply unpleasant, not painful, but he now seeks a place of hope and light and something to bring him more fully into the light. So I think that he was seeking the light of this circle. We all hold him in the light. And I know that the Casa entities will support his path.

Q: Thank you. Can I ask a personal question, for me? I'm a closed-eye medium and my guides constantly say I could open my eyes. They can come in and I can look with them in there, but in order to make the switch, I can't do that. To really let them be in the presence, I can't do that. Does Aaron have any suggestions?

Aaron: Why do you need to open the eyes? Is your guide incorporating into your body fully or are you doing more conscious channeling, hearing the guide and speaking his words?

Q: It's incorporated.

Aaron: One moment...(pause) It's about surrender and control. He's incorporating into your body but part of you is still there too, and that part believes that you have to be doing something in order for him to be fully in the body. There's a part of you that's still staying there, I don't think it's to control the body; there's no fear of letting him in the body, but more a sense of, "I have to do this right; me; I'm the overseer of this." To open the eyes takes a greater degree of surrender.

Q: Oh, I see.

Aaron: The self then is really departing the body, giving the body completely.

Q: Except I have no memory of channeling.

Aaron: I understand that. But what I would ask you to practice is, let's see...(pause) Do you like to swim? Do you know how to swim? Can you float on your back? (Q: Yes.) Go out into a pool or lake and float on your back. Fully surrender yourself to the water. Does your body float or does it sink? Does your body sink if you don't make any effort or does it float? (It floats.)

Watch that subtle effort that wants to make the body float. See what it takes to release that effort and just allow the body to float. In other words, let the body simply be a body. Relax not just the ego but all aspects of the self, I'm not speaking of astrally projecting out of the body, so much as simply letting the body be a body and float. Start to see the distinction. That which is trying to float the body (ego) vs. that which is just watching the body float (awareness). Do you feel the distinction? Work with that for a few days. Then bring back into your channeling the feeling of simply releasing the body more fully, letting the body just be a body and opening it to the entity.. Then it's really up to your guide. If he wants to open the eyes, he will open the eyes. (Q: Okay)

You say you don't remember anything but who was keeping the eyes closed?

Q: I get messages back, that the guides say, "He won't open his eyes."

Aaron: The guide tells you that you won't open your eyes...

Q: I get a report back, often it's like a comment that comes to me.

Aaron: Is the guide saying, "You are not able to open your eyes"?

Q: I'm not able to.

Aaron: And they would like you to be able. Okay, then do the floating exercise. Learn how to more completely surrender the body so that the guide can open the eyes if he wants to. There is only very little "you" left in there once the guide incorporates.

Q: Okay. Is it related to birth trauma? Forceps, squeezed head...

Aaron: No... It's just the whole tendency of this very small sense of self staying in control. It's an interesting process. First one must learn to completely let go and surrender the body and then your guides will probably teach you how to bring more consciousness in.

Q: Well I can do that with them by myself. I can walk anywhere with them in and be fine, it's when I'm working with another person. I can do that with them.

Aaron: If you're alone you can open your eyes?

Q: Yes.

Signer: When he is working with another person, that is when the eyes don't open. When he is alone, the eyes open.

Aaron: (pause) I am looking in the akashic records. This relates to not drawing in energy from the other person in certain ways. Your guide is present now; can you move into a trance and begin to channel him?

Q: Oh yeah. Do you want me to?

Aaron: Yes. Please let me talk to him. (pause) (To signer) Can you come over here so I can see both Q and you? My brother, I am Aaron. How can we help Q. I hear that you would like Q to open his eyes. Would that make him a clearer channel?

(Q channels his guide while Aaron is speaking). Guide: It would serve his work better if he could.

Signer: It would serve his work better if he could open his eyes.

Aaron: I agree, and it would make him a clearer channel as well. What do you perceive as the difficulty?

Guide: There are some facial issues that are being worked through with the jaw and the mechanism, the head. There is a way that he has learned to incorporate the energy that will prevent him from fully allowing us complete access.

Aaron: Brother, this body is deaf so I would ask you to speak with slowness...

Signer: Can you say the first part again?

Guide: Yes. There is a disconnection between the lower face and the upper face.

Aaron: From the accident with an elephant in a past lifetime.

Guide: Walking on the face, yes.

Aaron: Yes. If we can cooperate together here,... brother, will you take my hands?

Guide: Yes... (shifting position)

Aaron: Now I'm going to ask you to invite Q to open the eyes and look at me.

Guide: Okay.

Aaron: No words will be needed, just to look at me and then to go back into the closed eyes.

(longer pause)

(brief sound of distress followed by deep relaxed breathing)

Aaron: It is safe. I am speaking here to Q; it is safe.

Guide: Just one moment, he won't let us do it...

(deep breathing as they continue, with pauses. Aaron continues to hold Q's hands)

Aaron: Q, we hold you in love. That life is past and it's time to heal the disconnection.

Guide: He understands this. We understand you.

Aaron: A little at a time is okay. You are safe. That lifetime is past. It is time to heal it.

Guide: Greetings.

(Seeveral minutes pass; many facial grimaces, eyes opening a slit then closing again but now the eyes are finally opened)

Guide: Very, very well to see you...We have longed for this day...

Aaron: Let it go. All is forgiven, from your heart and from others. Let it go.

(long pause, just the ongoing sound of deep breathing as Q struggles to allow the eyes to remain open)

Guide: <I/He/We> understand you. His heart is opening to us now. Yes, and we will be able to continue this ...(pause)

Aaron: Does Q know your karmic connection to him?

Guide: Not really because the...

Aaron: You know your karmic connection?

Guide: Yes.

Aaron: But Q does not know it? Do you want to tell him? I don't mean right now, not this moment, but it's time to discuss this with him.

Guide: We understand... We have been working with him for so long, we have been trying to repair many generations at one time.

Aaron: I understand. He needs to understand the karmic connection between you and to know that there's nothing to forgive, to the self or to you.

Guide: Yes. (pause)

Aaron asks that Q return to the body; he continues to work with Q, with some energy / healing work.

Aaron: Is there anyone who has not spoken who has a question?

(pause)

Signer: She said she has a little question or a big one. I told her to ask the big one.

Aaron: Yes.

(Qb has asked if new Q wants to sit "there" and the group is laughing. "The seat is warmed up", he says.)

Q: Maybe you can help me...My family members, my brother and my mother and my father are passed, or is it just my brother I want to know about... He had a violent death. <>.

Signer: She is concerned about her family members. Her mother, father, and brother. How can she help heal them, especially her brother who died very violently?

Aaron: Prayer. Love. He is no longer in his body but he has not ceased to exist or changed in any dramatic way. Talk to him. Let him know of your love for him, your concern for him. If there's any part of you who judges him or feels anger, work with that within the self to release. I want to say this carefully. Any judgment, pain and anger are honest. You don't have to get rid of them. But you have to understand how they have arisen from conditions and are not directed so much at your brother as at the whole situation. Do you understand what I mean?

Q: No, I mean I'm sure that's there but it doesn't feel like a big part of my experience. It doesn't feel that way.

Aaron: Okay. Fine, then simply talk to him. Let him know that he is loved, that he is missed, that he is cherished, and that you wish him well. Literally ask him, "How can I be of service to you?" Your energy directed toward him, not from a place of obligation but from a place of love, is his greatest support. Simply love him. Offer prayers expressing to whatever divine beings there may be, gratitude for the time that you shared with your brother in this life, for that which was good. And ask them to help support him. Of course they don't need your prayers in order to support him but the more energy that comes to him right now, the better. Just love him.

Daughter, is there any feeling that you should have been able to change things for your family? I think this is the most important place for you to work. Any sense that you should have been able to fix things or change things, any sense of responsibility in the self? We're always constantly responsible for our own and involved in others' choices, but ultimately we are only responsible for our own choices. No matter what catalyst one may offer to another, they are responsible for their choices.

This is your brother's choice. Your work is just to offer love, and that includes to yourself for the, you said there's not so much anger or judgment, but I think the anger and judgment are expressing as a sense of, condemnation is too strong a word but of blame of the self, that in some way you should have been able to save him, in some way you should have been able to mend the family. So it's so important with your vipassana practice to watch this energy of, "I should," and of blame, and to know this is just another story. It comes out of your conditioning and it has no basis in ultimate reality or even really in relative reality.

What happened in your family is not your fault. Let yourself trust that at a deep level because as long as there's some belief that it is, that limits the power of the love that you can send to the brother. So the best way you can help him is to let go of these stories of the self.

Do you have questions?

Q: No...

Aaron: That was a rather tentative no!

Q: Well, I have questions...

Aaron: Do you understand what I'm asking you to do? Does it feel workable?

Q: I think so.

Aaron: Blame is a story. Do you understand what I mean by that? Just stay with it. Each time it comes, just give it that little, "Is that so?" and remind yourself, "Here is a story. It comes out of old conditioning. I don't have to believe everything I think."

Q: I do have a follow up, I think it's related. I think I experience the blame more with my children. Like "Oh, if they're suffering I must have done something." I don't experience it actually with my birth family.

Aaron: Yes, I think that's accurate so it's a perfect place to practice.

Is there anyone who has not spoken and wishes to speak?

Q: I want to thank you for the love and the teaching. They all were for me (laughter). Can you help me identify this fear I feel right now?

Aaron: The fear you're feeling right now in this moment? I think it's the fear of possibilities, of recognizing your limitlessness. What would this mean? What would it mean if you let go of all the old stories and myths?

Imagine yourself floating down a river. There's a flood and water flows fast; the banks are high. You grab hold of a log. It's supporting you. Somewhere a ways down stream there's a big waterfall. If you hold onto the log, you're finally going to go over the waterfall. You know that. Trees that are down and projecting from the river banks out into the river but to grab hold of a tree and pull yourself ashore, you've got to let go of the log. How do you let go of the log? It's what's been supporting you.

What I've been asking everyone today is to look at the old myths that they've been holding onto and find, "I don't need this for support. It's safe to let go and take a more wholesome support," a more stable support, which is your deepest truth, your radiance, your love. But it's hard to put your trust in those things because at times they seem ephemeral. So I think this is what the fear is about. What do you think?

Q: I think you're right. I'll roll off the log.

Aaron: Don't forget that you know how to swim.

Q: Thank you.

Aaron: Many of you are going to the Casa soon. So much of the work there is around energy and vibration. In preparation for this trip, spend time daily in meditation and especially in these weeks, if you are able, sit at the times of the Casa current. Begin to see and experience the body as energy and to ask yourself, what blocks the expression of the highest vibration here? Orient your thinking to, I don't want to say service to others vs. service to self, but to the highest good of all beings of which you are one, no self or other. What serves you serves others, and what serves others serves you. Begin to make that as a conscious commitment, that this trip to the Casa will be for the highest good for all beings, because that commitment will raise the body vibration. The higher the vibration, the more easily the Casa entities can work with you towards whatever physical and emotional healing are sought. Everything is energy and light, and you are energy and light; move yourself into that knowing before you go so it will be stable.

We're finishing a book now about the Casa in which I talk about, the book is both about Barbara's path of healing, about the greater question "what is healing?" and also in detail, some questions like what really happens when they insert forceps into the nose? (laughter) The high vibration dissolves the metal completely. There's nothing there but light and energy. So he's not inserting something solid; it's just energy and light. It goes through the body. That's why there's no pain and no harm to the body.

There's really nothing that they do there that is outside of science, only it's outside of the science as you conceive it. The body, the flesh, is not solid; it's made of molecules. When the entity makes an incision, all he's doing is, picture a cluster of balloons. If you moved your hand through them, they'd separate. No balloon would break, they just separate. He does that on the skin. The molecules move apart by the energy of the knife. It doesn't have to be a sharp knife. He could use a banana but people wouldn't believe it. They would be skeptical. He uses a knife but the knife is not cutting, the energy is inviting the molecules to separate so there is an opening in the skin so he can get to the tumor or whatever it is he's repairing, to extract it or simply bring energy into the area as needed. The reason it goes back together so easily is, the flesh is like two slabs of wet clay; it just comes back together. Nothing separate.

As you're down there, let go of the mind that thinks that they're doing something magical and know that everything they are doing, you can do. Maybe not right now in this lifetime but this is where you're headed. This is where Earth is heading as it moves into this New Age, into 4th density: the ability to co-create with the world, not to master the world, not to be mastered by it, but to co-create with it, with deep hearted communication. This is what they're doing. Let them be a model for you, to aspire to these abilities and to develop these abilities in the future.

May your journey bring you great blessings. Thank you for being with us today, it's been a joy to share this day with you. I'm going to release the body to Barbara, I would ask you to hold the space for her...

Whatever work we have done here today we consecrate to the highest good of all beings.

May all beings everywhere be free of suffering.

May all beings be happy and find peace.

Barbara (on return): Thank you all.

(recording ends)