The Trainings, Abadiania, Brazil - January 24, 2004

Speaking to a very small group.

Aaron: I want to begin with a clear delineation of the basic trainings and initiations taught through many traditions.

You will see the beginning trainings to be no different than what you have been learning from me for years. You have thought of these as "Buddhist" practice, learning to be present with the arisings of body, emotions, and thought. The Buddha, in his infinite compassion for beings, did not emphasize the later trainings. They were available for those who were ready for them, and many were. But the higher trainings are not necessary for release from the cycle of birth and death, from samsara.

The core of what he taught was all that was necessary for freedom, that is, to end this karmic cycle of birth and death. Those who have thusly learned may choose to come back as bodhisattva, and many do, and are then able to learn and master the higher trainings. This does not mean that you must be a bodhisattva or even a fully enlightened being to move into these higher trainings, but it is more helpful to master the foundation first, so that is where we have started.

These trainings are in every tradition. They are given different names. The Buddhist tradition would call it training but we do not speak of initiations. What is an initiation? It is the opportunity to practice the skills in which you have been training and see if you have mastered them, offered as a test. If you fail, it simply indicates the need for further practice. Thus, the initiation is a guideline for your readiness to move on to more advanced skills. Your modern day fraternities and sororities sometimes have initiations with a very misunderstood use of that word. Here they are merely endurance contests. This has little to do with the true meaning of the phrase initiation.

I will now delineate these trainings, giving some basic information about each. Trainings one and two may come in either order and usually are learned together. They are the trainings to observe the arisings within the physical and emotional bodies. One notes that sensations and emotion arise out of conditions and when the conditions cease, these sensations and emotions will cease. The end result of the training at this level is a lessened self-identification with what has arisen, and an ability for more spaciousness with difficult body and emotion experience. Training three does the same work with thought. The phrase, "Don't believe everything you think," distills the essence of training three.

As you can see, these first three trainings are the essence of basic dharma practice, but Jesus taught the same thing in a different way. He did not give us the precise steps with which to transform difficult body sensation, emotion and thought, only reminded us that when one slaps us on the face we could return love not hatred. In large part, he did not spell it out because it already had been expressed by the Buddha, by all the practices within the various mystery schools such as those of the Druids and Essenes, and in many traditions. Jesus was speaking to all the people but I think he felt it was sufficient to remind them to "turn the other cheek," and that those who already knew how to release the anger could do so with this reminder. Those who did not yet know how would seek training.

These first three were the trainings given to the youngest of children in the Essene tradition. They were taught never to despise even the most negative arisings in the self, but to recognize them as the result of conditions, to make space for them and to allow their release. Actually even little children moved quickly into the sixth, seventh and eighth trainings which I will describe shortly.

The initiations for these first three trainings were freely given in life, through the stubbed toe, the rude remark that brought anger and the restless mind with its judgments, fears and complaints.

The fourth training was the first opening into the experience of selflessness, no-self. It was the first seeing of the small self as a created mind object and the first knowing of the greater Self. There was as yet no stability resting in that place of greater Self, only the first glimpse of it. This glimpse changes everything. If one has a deep commitment to non-harm one can no longer act out of one's ego and fear and still be honest with one's values. Included in this training, are the deepenings of … I am hesitant to use the term Sila here because others may not know this term but there is no other precise English equivalent term. For those unfamiliar with the word sila, it is a Pali language word. It connotes moral awareness, not a "Thou shalt not…" morality but a morality deeply based on knowing the non-separation of self and other.

The fifth training is the opening into non-dual awareness. It is the fruit of the first four trainings. In the fifth training, one more deeply recognizes relative reality and ultimate reality. Here is the first view that these realities are not dualistic, each to each, but that relative reality is an expression of ultimate reality. This means that when you are present with relative reality, the ground of the ultimate is still there. When you are resting on top of the ocean's surface, rising and falling with the waves, the stillness of the depths is still there. When you sink to the depths, the waves continue to rise and fall far above you. Mastery at the fifth level of training involves a more conceptual understanding. One who has mastered this remembers it but is rarely able to hold both places simultaneously. In Buddhist terms, this person is often at the stream-entry level.

The sixth, seventh and eighth trainings mirror the first, second and third but at a deeper level. Here one is asked to bring in what one understands about the conditioned arisings of physicality, emotion and mind, and to merge those insights with the experience of no-self, and with the, at this point, conceptual nondual understandings. One understands that difficult emotions will arise, for example, and one has learned how to not react to those emotions either by acting them out or by suppression, but just to make space for them. But they still arise. We understand they are conditioned, that this is the outplay of karma, of habit, but they still arise. When the training is deep enough not to react with negativity to their arising, but to bring kindness, then it is time to deepen the fifth training and begin to use it as a tool for the transmutation of the heavier body and mind experiences.

The four empowerments and seven branch prayer are useful here. In summary of those practices, you turn to the master for support, and with gratitude that these models of clarity and love exist for you. You see the negative emotion that has arisen, for example. Without a contraction, without a negative feeling about the arising, you experience compassionate regret that it continues to arise. You know it as result of conditions. You understand that for the result to cease to arise, the conditions must change. You understand that you are stuck in this place. Then arises the two levels of resolution; you resolve to clarify this habit energy on the relative level, and on the ultimate level you understand the already existent resolution of the habit. You can see here why training five must precede six, seven and eight.

Within this ultimate level of resolution, you clearly see the balance or antidote to the heavy energy that has arisen. For example, if there is jealousy, you do not try to feel joyful for the one who has received, so much as find that already existent joy and the willingness to nurture it. When there is restlessness in mind and body, you both resolve to allow the release of restlessness and you see clearly the entire resolution of restlessness, which is peace, tranquility and stillness. And you find those already existent in the Self. There is the willingness not to perpetuate the contracted energy of the restlessness but to turn one's focus to that which is more spacious.

If you see a being act in a brutal way toward another, and a strong judgment arises in the mind, right there with the judgment you note the possibility of compassion. You do not hold to the stories of judgment, you note that holding as old habit. Working with either the four empowerments or seven branch prayer, you both resolve to allow the arising of compassion and you see the already existent compassion and that you have the choice to hold on to the judgment or to shift into compassion. You see the nondual nature of judgment and compassion, that judgment is simply a distortion of compassion, a fear based expression of the inherently compassionate mind. You do not have to get rid of judgment for compassion to be known; judgment will go when it is ready. The question is whether you will focus your attention on the judgment and become caught in its stories, or in the negativity of judging judgment, or whether you will know it as a distorted expression and joyfully release it. In either case, you may move to stop the abuser. The judgment mind will attack with negativity. The compassionate mind will stop the abuse with loving energy. It will know how to say no with kindness, without fear or contraction.

The ninth training is a deepening level of understanding of no self. Here one becomes more stable in opening to that deep interconnection of all that is. When something pulls you out of that spaciousness and integration, you know that you are out. You understand that it is a temporary result of conditions. You do not take it as truth. You work with that experience of separation in the same way that you have worked with difficult body, emotion and mind experience in the sixth, seventh and eighth trainings. Thus separation and the arising of the small ego self are seen through Awareness. The greater Self is readily accessible. You understand that you go one direction or the other by habit and choice.

The tenth training is the deeper resolution of duality. One experiences oneself as a pole, feet grounded in the relative, and we could say here the base and lower chakras grounded in the relative, head and upper chakras grounded in the ultimate. The heart is that which holds it all together. At this level, you truly become an instrument of light. I do not want to suggest that those in the lower trainings and with heartfelt intention to transcend negativity are not instruments of light, but they are instruments of light in training. The tenth level is the first of more mature service to the light. It is the first level where the automatic response to negativity is to offer it love, to draw it into the light, to draw the negativity up inward into the light and bring the light downward into the negativity. This is possible because you are touching both. You cannot touch both so long as there is residual aversion to negativity, nor so long as there is duality.

At this point, the vibrational frequency in all of the bodies is in process strongly of transforming. The person at this level is increasingly able to experience negativity as low vibration frequency and to understand experientially the power of light as tool. At this level, there still may be karma to resolve so there may not be full liberation but there is the understanding that the liberation is in sight. At the full maturity of the tenth training and initiation, often, in Buddhist terms, is the once-returner.

The eleventh to fifteenth of trainings and initiations repeat the cycle. In trainings eleven through thirteen the adept is using his/her mastery of light in a continual way to transform negative energy as it arises in body, emotions and mind. The fourteenth training often leads one to a more profound enlightenment experience and the ability to easily hold both the personality self and the ground of being. The fifteenth training and initiation is of the deepening learning to stably hold this light not only into the inner experiences but into the outer world. Here of course we are at the level of non-returner, although many such beings choose to return in service. Karma is resolved to the degree that karma does not force return. There is still some karma, it comes to fruition quickly and is resolved with light.

Now we move to the higher training. I think you can see where this is going. Once this mastery is in place, anything may be done with light. The being who has done this work while deeply grounded in positive polarity, with deepest intention of the good of all beings, will use these deeper practices for healing. By healing I mean the healing of distortion on the physical, emotion and mental levels, in itself and everywhere in the world, wherever that healing is requested. The entities here are great masters. The tools they use are those of light. All of the practices alluded to in the book are real; cellular regeneration, light conception and so forth. Back in the times of Lemuria and Atlantis, these were common practices but the beings were higher density, not third density beings. The work now has been to teach third density human to bring forth these practices that were known and lost because of the heavy density human experience. It is not necessary that they be lost. More clearly put, it is not necessary that just because you have a heavier density body you cannot still work with light. In this process, the earth and all upon it raises in vibrational frequency. All who are ready to sustain that higher vibration will shift into fourth density, including the earth itself. And I think soon after, in cosmic time, into fifth density. Yet this density will all be comprised of the basic elements; earth, air, fire, water and ether, and will not have only a crystalline base.

Some of you are higher density adepts, bodhisattvas really, returned to help carry forth this transformation. Some of you are third density beings ready for transformation and who have brought this forth through your courage in repeated growths through endless incarnations in this third density plane. You are all seeking one thing together; the movement of matter into light, without loss of any of the beautiful qualities of matter. This shift has the power to literally transform the universe. That is why darkness so fears it.

Darkness wishes to keep matter at a low vibration, for darkness itself is a low vibration. It is based on fear, hatred, greed and self-centeredness. Light understands self-centeredness as Self-centeredness, which means holding All-that-Is is at the center. It understands that it is this All-that-Is; "I Am That!" Negative polarity puts the personality self at center. One is constantly at odds with the other, thus there is constant contraction.

The entities here are not only assisting with physical healing. That is one gift of their work. But the core of their work is the bringing forth of the light into this earth plane. We who do this work simply call ourselves brothers and sisters of light. You are also brothers and sisters of light, still in training, as we are still in training, all beings going into greater and greater light.

Copyright © 2004