May 1, 2014 Thursday Evening, Emerald Isle Retreat; Q & A Pole meditation, mudita, and more

This evening was open to questions. The first was about the pole meditation.  John speaking to the question, then Aaron. We did not record John's part.  Then questions about mudita (sympathetic joy) and upekkha (equanimity); auras.

Aaron: My blessings and love to you all. I am Aaron. In response to a question and some confusion, we have been discussing John's version of the pole meditation, which worked with his understanding of what is called “the microcosmic orbit.” It's quite different than the way I have interpreted and taught the pole meditation. We have not recorded John's words and the discussion up until now.

The “pole meditation” is my creation. It is not a Theravada Buddhist practice. While at the Casa, Barbara was invited to sit in the Entity's current room, and with her eyes open, to observe visible surgery where the Entity works directly on a person's body. She asked me, “Aaron, how can I not get in the way, guessing that I'm going to be a bit disturbed by some of what I see?”-- some of the surgeries that they do such as literally scraping the eye with a knife, inserting the forceps up the nose, or cutting the skin. With the nasal procedure, the person is experiencing no pain. It's like a quite sturdy metal forceps, but the high vibration simply changes it into light and energy. There's nothing solid going up, but you still see him inserting this firmly into the nose. He's using it as a tool to bring light and energy into the body. But this was Barbara's first year at the Casa. She had seen photographs of this and she said, “Aaron, I don't want to get in the way of this.” So I said, “Here is a meditation you can do.”

Holding the highest vibration of love, the deepest intention for good of all beings, as you feel contraction, fear, disturbance, aversion, see the ways that it is non-dual with love. When I speak the words positive and negative polarity, I also do not mean good and bad. Positive polarity is spacious. It's offered in service to all beings. Negative polarity is a distortion of positive polarity grounded in fear and service to self. It's contracted. The hallmarks of each are really spaciousness versus contraction. So when you feel fear, there's contraction. When you feel love and connection, there's spaciousness.

I asked her to observe the contractions that led to separation, fear, a slower lower vibration of the body, and immediately to come up into the loving heart and also to feel the high energy at the crown; to bring herself up into the light, and to find the place where positive and negative polarity are non-dual, where love and fear are non-dual, where spaciousness and contraction are non-dual, and simply to sit there watching whatever she was observing, watching any contraction in herself and offering it out into the light. Bring contraction up into the light.

I had taught her how to do so before this Casa trip. The day before the surgery, we practiced with it. I asked her to move into a fearful or painful experience in her memory, to reflect on how it felt and feel the contraction. But then - it's really the same as the akashic field exercises we've been doing, but I didn't put these labels on it 10 years ago - feel the loving heart, the spaciousness in the heart.

Feeling with that painful or frightening memory the deepest wish for the good of all beings, invite the painful memory into that spaciousness until it literally dissolves in spaciousness. Feel the high energy of love coming in through the crown chakra and down into the heart. Let anything tight or contracted in the lower chakras come up and dissolve in that light and spaciousness in the heart. I called it “pole meditation” because in a sense your head is up in the heaven realms and your feet are down in a much slower vibration with the pain and fear and confusion of the earth realm. But based on the power of your practice you are able to see head and feet, spaciousness and contraction, are non-dual. Certain experiences arise out of conditions, are unpleasant, are frightening, even bring forth aversion. But based in your practice, you are able to hold a spacious heart around that.

When we speak of higher and lower vibration, think of a stringed instrument. The lowest strings throb at a lower vibration, slower vibration. The higher strings vibrate faster. One is not better than the other; it's simply the nature of the instrument. If you have a two-octave instrument, lower C will be different than high C. One is not better than the other; it simply vibrates at a higher tone, a higher frequency.

So lower vibration is not worse. Higher vibration is not better. What we are after is harmony. When you view that which is vibrating at a lower vibration with kindness, with the open heart, you invite it to purify its vibrational rate. The tuned, clear base chakra has a lower vibration than the spleen chakra, than the solar plexus, than the heart. The throat chakra has a higher vibration, the third eye still higher, the crown still higher, and above the crown, even higher, very clear. But the low vibration of the base chakra can still be very clear, just as the lowest string on a stringed instrument can be very clear or out of tune.

By bringing these vibrations up into the heart, you're essentially tuning the instrument so that the base and spleen and solar plexus chakras that can become out of tune-- squawking, so to speak, closed-- so that they begin to vibrate at a very clear tone that is harmonious with the tone of the heart.

Barbara worked with the meditation through that year at the Casa, and then we fine-tuned it a bit to try to make it useful to others. The later phrasing of it was not about work at the Casa, but was simply a way to observe the squawking that might be going on in some of the lower chakras. Tension, fear, pain, aversion—ahhh... Let's bring light down into this. Tighten the string a little, get it in tune. And also, if the energy goes too high, not just one or two octaves but ten octaves up, how to ground it by using the lower chakras, by bringing it down. We're just keeping the instrument in tune.

I find that the pole meditation, as I've observed Barbara and others do it, can have the same effect as tonglen1. Are you all familiar with tonglen? So it becomes a way of being present with real pain and seeing the discordancy of that pain. Breathing that pain into your own loving heart. Holding it with spaciousness, not fix-it, contraction. Holding it in that spaciousness, letting it rest in that spaciousness, and then breathing it back out, willing to release. In this way it becomes a form of tonglen.

I think the confusion was two-fold. There is a semantic difference. I am not using positive and negative as the poles of a battery. I'm not really personally familiar with the “microcosmic orbit” practice, although I've observed it in John with this warm current meditation. I think it's a skillful meditation, and I've seen him teach it and people benefit by it. But it's not something within my personal experience.

But as I reflect on this tonight, I see the benefit to noting the distinction, that what I am speaking of here is not at all as poles of a battery. There is a difference between negative and positive polarity. Neither is good or bad, but negative polarity is much more contracted in the way that I speak of it. Positive polarity is much more spacious and open.

As you work with the akashic field more, you'll find yourself very adept at being in situations where you can feel the contraction in the room, through fear or anger, and simply breathe in that contraction, bringing it into the loving heart and release it. The next breath, drawing light, loving wishes for well-being, down into the heart. Sending that out. Breathe in the contracted again, the tense, the frightened. Sometimes you consciously release it; sometimes you just hold it in the heart. Breathing this up, space, breathing this down. It's almost like tonglen within one's heart. So these are some of the different uses of it.

I hope that helps to clarify it. I'd be glad to answer questions.

Q: I think your explanation, Aaron, clarifies the difference. It seems to me there is some overlap, but also some distinctions. I think both could be valuable. So I would not want you, John, to think that that meditation should be discarded, in my opinion, anyway. I think it was just either not hearing or maybe a little more articulation needed of what to do during the silent period. But I know that I've benefited greatly from the microcosmic orbit, which is different, but I appreciate it, because energy is my primary object, the background you have in Taoist techniques and philosophy and hope that you will continue to bring some of that to this forum.

John: I also worked with the pole meditation at the Casa. But I did it instinctively. It wasn't following Aaron's instructions; it was more intuitive, because I had worked with energy extensively, especially with the Taoist tradition. So for example, sitting in the current rooms, all I'm doing is feeling the connection between the earth and the heat, and what comes down from the crown to the heart, and holding all of that space; all of that energy, essentially, as non-dual, as part of each other. That's all that I do with it. I don't do anything else with it, I just experience it energetically. I don't pull up any negativity or anything like that, I just become the pole. I just become the pole between the ground and what's above. And for me the experience of that is the meeting of both at the heart.

(Aaron releases the body to Barbara so she can add something.)

Barbara: When Medium Joao comes to the U.S., or last year to Toronto, and this has only happened a few times, it's not frequent, but on those rare occasions, I've been asked to be what they call an anchor medium in his current. So he's sitting in front, and I'm sitting 10 or 15 feet in front of him, in the front row. The work as it's been explained to me by spirit is, people are filing in and some of them are very agitated. Some are sick, some are in pain. Some have never been there before. They're confused; they don't know what's happening. There's a lot of agitated energy.

The agitated energy can create discomfort for Medium Joao. That's number one. Number two, they're not as much accessible for the entities to help them because of the agitation. It's not just me doing this work, it's all the mediums in the current. But as the anchor medium I'm holding my energy and supporting the other mediums who are seated in specific places through the room,  helping to hold that as a network of energy. It's almost like a strainer. I feel the agitation as the people come in, and simply invite in that energy with no fear of it. Sometimes it's very dark, very heavy. Inviting it in with love. Breathing it in. It's like tonglen, breathing it into my heart. Letting it mingle with love and light there and releasing it. I don't actually put my hands up, which could be disconcerting to people, but energetically reaching up and bringing in all the light, the entities that are around, all the loving wishes, the other mediums that are spaced through the room and supporting this, Medium Joao sitting up there in front of me, and this goes on for hours. People are filing through, and with each one it's a different energy.

Basically it's the pole meditation. I am just finding the non-duality between this agitated fear-based, sometimes very dark and heavy energy that's coming through, and Love. Reflecting the light and love back to them. It's up to them whether they accept it or not. I can't force it on them; I'm simply helping to make it available. It's almost like people coming through with a lot of mud on them and I'm sitting there with a hose, just hosing them off with very loving, bright, sparkling water.

Aaron, is there more you wanted me to say? He says that is sufficient.

Q: While we're on that subject, I was earlier going to ask about Brahma Vihara meditations. One of the three of you referenced an equanimity meditation. (John says he did.) And I've never been exposed to that. I don't know if there's a mudita meditation. It occurred to me that there are four Brahma Viharas and I have experienced with the two of you certainly metta, but also metta-karuna. But I was very curious about that equanimity meditation, and also if there is such a thing as a mudita meditation.

John: Which there is, yes. The mudita meditation, the way that I practice it, anyway, is, traditionally mudita is explained as feeling a gladness of heart in the success of others, which is one form of joy, I would say, when we experience happiness, we experience joy. For example, if your child comes home from school with a good report card, and you feel happiness, you feel joy in the joy and the happiness of others.

One way to practice...

Barbara: Aaron is interrupting you. He says, that illustration is a little bit difficult because you may feel a kind of ego-based pride. “Oh, look how well my child did!” And that has to be differentiated between the genuine joy. If your neighbor's child comes home with a good report card and you feel real joy for your neighbor's child, that's more mudita. He says you can feel genuine mudita for your child, too, but it's more complicated because the pride and personal, “Oh, look at my kid!” comes into it. He says thank you  and please forgive his interruption.

John: One way to start the mudita meditation is to imagine someone who you know is feeling joy in their life, happiness in their life, for whatever reason. And in that there would be no ego investment on my part, the person who is doing the meditation. We all know situations, people in our lives, where they're experiencing happiness, they're experiencing joy. And in a sense we are opening to the gladness within our own heart in the happiness of others rather than feeling envy, for example. It is a way of being able to, it's the balance to the envy, essentially.

Q: It occurs to me it could be interesting to do something parallel to the structure of metta, so that you're increasingly challenging yourself to experience joy in your adversary's triumph.

John: It goes to a whole list of people. It might be more difficult to feel joy towards ourselves or the adversary to begin with. Sometimes it's easier to begin with, a friend for example, who got a new job, or their daughter's getting married, or whatever the case may be, and sharing in that joy with them. That person can be a good starting point. And then moving through to ourselves as the object of mudita. The neutral person, the challenging person, etc.

The equanimity meditation. Traditionally what is used is, “All beings are heirs to their own karma.”2 A person's happiness or unhappiness is not dependent upon me but upon their own actions. So especially in situations and relationships where we take too much responsibility for other people's pain, there can be a negative co-dependency that arises when we take too much responsibility for what somebody else is experiencing, and in the course of that get further drawn into their pain. So the equanimity meditation is a reminder of the truth that each of us are heirs to our own karma. And this other person's happiness or unhappiness or well-being or lack of it is not dependent upon us but upon their own actions. That doesn't mean that we close our hearts off to this person and their pain, but wisdom understands that in truth, all beings are heirs to their own karma. You can't take that away from someone, that they have to work with that. So the heart is open to their pain, but at the same time there is the wisdom that you can't take that from them. That's their responsibility. That's the essence of what the equanimity meditation is.

Barbara: I'd just like to add something here. There are four traditional Braham Viharas. We've sung the chant this week: metta, karuna, mudita, upekkha, these are the four traditional Brahma Viharas. Brahma Vihara means “heavenly abode.” When you're practicing them, it raises your whole being into this more light-filled, higher vibration.

But there are many beautiful qualities that are focused in the heart. In Venture Fourth we worked with a very partial list of about 20 qualities. The traditional Brahma Viharas, gratitude, respect, humility, generosity, all of these qualities have the ability to help open the heart. And with all of these qualities we find both the genuine quality and that which is posing as the quality. It's called the near enemy because it looks like the quality, but it's not really it.

We find for example, with humility, self-derogation, “I'm just no good.” That's not really humility, it's a contracted quality. Respect and pride. Self-respect doesn't necessarily mean, “Oh, I'm great!” “I'm great” comes from a place of contraction, “What if I'm not so great?” Self-respect just knows the genuine worth of every being.

We find with each of these qualities the place in the middle. Like generosity may show as, “I should give,” or “I'm afraid to give.” Coming to the center place, who is giving? Just opening the heart and resting in that spaciousness. For these heavenly abode practices to really change us and touch us, they need to come from that place in the center. Otherwise they become something forced and artificial.

We worked in Venture Fourth with a practice from the Jewish tradition called mussar, which looks at these different qualities of the heart and spends a day or a week or month with each one, observing it in our lives and getting to feel where that place of balance is, and what pushes us out of balance.

Then we start to look at matched qualities like humility and self-respect, and where do they come together? Where is the balanced place where I'm respectful of myself and others, but resting in humility that respect doesn't put self above others?

The book was by Allan Moranis. He has a couple of books. We used one called Climbing Jacob's Ladder, but there's a second one that much more specifically defines these qualities. If anybody wants the Venture Fourth material on this, see the DSC archives, Aaron/ venture fourth. There is a lot there, weekly exercises with these practices.So this is a wonderful practice of the heart in a balance, and some mix of sila, wisdom, and the open heart.

Q: In the chakra system, where does the aura come in?

Barbara: The aura is an outer expression of the degree of openness of the chakras and the energy flowing through. If there is a distortion in that energy, it shows up in the chakras. Aaron is offering the example; it is like a sunspot. A distortion in the sun makes a flare or a dark spot in the sun. The aura is not directly related to the chakras, but is always there. If the chakras have more energy flowing through in an even way, there's less break in the aura and the aura is stronger. When the chakras are closed down, energy not flowing through, then we'll find breaks in the aura and the aura diminished.

But unless you see auras, it's not really a useful thing to know. Some people have the ability to look at others and literally see their auras, so that if you see somebody whose aura is closed, you know there's suffering. They're experiencing some difficulty.

Q: I think I can feel mine.

Barbara: Most of us can feel auras. Sometimes we've done an experiment. We won't take the time to do it in depth now, but we have somebody sit (demonstrating with John), the person sitting behind, eyes closed, brings their hands down until they feel where the aura is. Aaron says, why not do it now? Each of you, turn your back to one other person. The person in the back, close your eyes. Bring your hands down. You're feeling body heat and energy, yes, and you're also feeling the aura. Just bringing your hands down. See if you can feel where the aura starts. Then switch. At first you think, “I'm imagining it.” But you find you really can feel this.

We can do an experiment where the person in front, after some meditation, breathes in and really expands their aura, thinking loving thoughts, and the person behind can really feel the aura moving out.

(exercise)

So I assume you could feel this. Now remember, what you're feeling is just the outer edge of the aura, the aura's energy. But the aura also has color and intensity. There are different parts to the aura. The aura may be very intact, or it can be broken up. So if you're feeling it out there but then it's cutting in, or it's strong and solid out there, just see how it feels.  

So the aura is an outer reflection of the health of the energy field. There's no better or worse color. Our aura is of different layers of color. They don't necessarily reflect whether we're loving or not loving people or good or bad people or anything of that sort. They reflect more the chakra issues that are there. A strong green layer in the aura, not necessarily the outer layer, but a strong solid green layer usually indicates a very open heart. A very thin green layer may indicate a very closed heart. There could be a huge blue layer. This person is living way up in the higher chakras, and very little red or orange because they're avoiding the lower chakras. So the aura is a very complex thing with some relation to the chakras.

(sharing and discussion not transcribed)

Q: With the akashic field meditation, can we feel free to take that meditation to other groups? I know there were some restrictions coming out of the book.

Barbara: Certainly. But they may not understand it. It's not something you can do conceptually. Your vipassana practice is what grounds it and gives you the ability to really enter into the field, because it's based on equanimity. As long as there is aversion and attachment, pushing this away, grasping at that, you really can't open into the field. So without that grounding it's very hard to use it in any way except conceptually.

(Barbara recommends Hands of Light by Barbara Brennan)

Q: Do you practice the akashic field meditation by yourself?

Barbara: Certainly... It's helpful to be in a group but you don't have to be in a group...

(session ends)

1 Giving/ receiving meditation

2  From “Reflections on Universal Well-Being”: When they act upon intention, all beings are the owners of their action and inherit its results. Their future is born from such action, companion to such action, and its results will be their home. All actions with intentions, be they skillful or harmful, of such acts they will be the heir.

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