December 17, 2014 Aaron's Christmas Stories, and with Jeshua as guest, speaking and replying to questions

December 17, 2014 Wednesday Night, Aaron's and Jeshua's Christmas Stories

Aaron's annual Christmas Stories, focused on Light. Then Jeshua incorporated to speak and answer questions.

Aaron: My blessings and love to you all. I am Aaron. Once again we celebrate the holiday season together. This is a time of year in which we celebrate light in many different traditions. We celebrate the light within each of us and find ways to enhance that light in our commitments to service, to love.

This is the second night of the Jewish festival of Hanukkah, so I'm going to start this by lighting the Hanukkah candles. You will remember that Jeshua was Jewish, 2,000 years ago, as I was. This is a very old tradition for me. I've been of many religions: Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, Hindu, and many more. So the first step tonight will be to light these candles.

We have the center candle, the shamus, or servant, candle. We light this one and use this to light the other candles, as each of you, from your own inner light, brings light out into the world.

(Recites in Hebrew) Praise art Thou our Lord, O God, King of the universe, who has sanctified us with Thy commandments and bidden us kindle the Hanukkah lights.

(Recites in Hebrew) Blessed art Thou, O Lord our God, King of the universe, who performed miracles for our ancestors in days of yore at this season.

The Hanukkah story contains a beautiful metaphor. There was not enough oil for the sacred, everlasting light to be kept burning, but it burned. There are eight nights of Hanukkah. The holiday  commemorates the fact that with less than one day's oil, the holy lamp kept burning for eight days. Does the holy lamp in your heart keep burning? Do you ever run out of oil? Think about that. When you feel yourself diminished, can you find that inner source of flame and invite it out?

We've taught a class this semester, and we'll have a new continuation of it next semester, using the Buddha's words, "Be a lamp unto yourself." What does it mean to be a lamp unto yourself, to avow to bring your light out into the world; to make that your deepest commitment? No matter how much sorrow there may be, no matter how much darkness, this light that is within you can never be extinguished. We look to the Menorah to remind us of the everlasting Light of the world. that is never extinguished.

We're here tonight to celebrate Jeshua's birthday with my memories of when I lived as the man Nathaniel 2,000 years ago and had the great blessing to be his friend, to have him as my friend. Each year I try to share something of what he taught me and what he was like as a human being, what it was like to literally walk beside him. One of the things about which he taught me was this inner light.

There was a time when my wife had died in childbirth. I was heartbroken. I knew he was somewhere within a few days' walk, so I set out with my eldest son, Mark, leaving the infant and my other children in the care of others, leaving my sheep in the care of my neighbors. I wanted Jeshua to fix this pain that my beloved wife was gone. Truly I wanted her back!

It was dusk; there was a storm. My son Mark, who was the being that Barbara was in that lifetime, wanted to stop. He was a young teenager at that point. He wanted us to stop and I said, "No, I want to get to Jeshua." So we walked on and I fell off the edge of a cliff in the dark. I broke my leg.

Mark stayed with me through the night, found sticks to bind it, helped me somehow to climb astride the burro that accompanied us. In this way, with me in great pain, he led me to where Jeshua was.

I knew that Jeshua had some miraculous powers. I looked at him, tears in my eyes, and said, "Heal me." And he said, "Yes," and told them to carry me and put me in a sheltered place. He came in, laid his hands on the leg. There was almost instantly less pain and I thought, "Is it healed?" He said, "You will have to stay here resting for a month." "I can't. I have children at home, and my sheep." Well, he said, "I am with you. I am taking care of you." And he walked away.

Several times each day he came and sat beside me, held my hand, talked to me. He asked me to do something that at first seemed impossible. He said, "Tell me about her. Tell me what you loved about her." Each day he induced me to go a bit deeper into the love and into the pain. Because of course, to speak of my love for her was to touch that place of pain. But unless I was willing to touch the place of pain, I could not touch the place of love.

A friend accompanied Mark home in a day or two, with Jeshua reminding me, "Mark is old enough to take care of the sheep. Relatives are taking care of the children. Just rest." Through that month, which began in total despair, gradually an inner light emerged, and I found the radiance of it. Daily he reminded me, "You cannot lose her, and you cannot lose yourself. You cannot lose that light."

The miracle was not that at the end of only a month, the leg was healed. The miracle was that the heart was healed. The heart does not heal instantly. It asks care and time. It's like starting a campfire where you have just a spark and a little bit of tinder. You know there's the possibility of light, of heat, of radiance, but you must take care of it because it's fragile, lest it be extinguished. You hold that light as sacred. Eventually the light blossoms and starts to shine forth.

There is a song I once heard from your generation, "If everyone lights just one little candle." Can you imagine a world with billions of candles lit, how much radiance there would be? But when you extinguish that candle, it's dark. The candle is never truly extinguished; it just needs love to come back into flame again.

I was tempted tonight-- perhaps some of you have seen the birthday candles, that when you blow them out, they flare back up. I asked Barbara to find some of those to put in the menorah so that I could blow them out and you could see them pop back up. Your heart is like that. The radiance can never be extinguished. You only believe that it can when you are in a time of despair and darkness. So I came to Jeshua in despair and he knew what healing was needed, and supported it. The leg was secondary.

As we speak of his birth, perhaps it seems an odd time to speak of the crucifixion. And yet of course that was also part of his life. Before the crucifixion he saw where his life was headed. He had first truly believed that somehow everything was going to work out, that he was going to live this life fully and peacefully, offering his message of love. But it was not to be that way. He had the wisdom to accept things as they are.

But yes, there were times when he felt some despair. "Why does it have to be this way? Why does there have to be so much hatred in the world? Why does there have to be so much loss and pain in the world?" And yet he understood deeply from his spiritual practice what you know as buddha dharma, that everything is impermanent and dependent upon conditions. He understood that he was a part of the conditions that would create this light and peace in the world. Until he set those conditions in place, helped the rest of us to remember them and support them, there would never be the higher consciousness to which we are headed.

At that point, his despair shifted from sadness, grief-- never fear, I don't think--but sadness, to gratitude. I've been talking a lot about gratitude this fall, and especially my talk at Thanksgiving. I asked those of you who were here at Thanksgiving, it's easy to be grateful for the beautiful things that come to you. I give you a gift–thank you. I give you a hug–thank you. But how do we find gratitude for that which is painful in our lives?

Being able to find that gratitude is part of keeping the flame lit and the radiance coming forth. Gratitude is one of the strongest forces for light. There are others, such as compassion, generosity, and so forth, but gratitude is a big one. Something that came to me repeatedly with Jeshua was his ability to truly feel and express gratitude at times when the rest of us were weighted by what seemed like a burden.

We were traveling together, a small group of us, when we were set upon by thieves. They took our food, our clothing. They took our Sabbath candlesticks, which were in the burro's pack. They took everything. They took our cloaks. They left us barefoot and shivering, hungry. They took everything at knifepoint and went off into the woods. They actually took the burro.

Immediately after they were gone we all began to ask him, "What shall we do?" He said, "Sit down. Let us all sit here together. Whatever cloaks or warmth you have, share it, and let us sit close together for warmth." He asked us to gather wood to build a fire. We sat there and we thought he was going to give us a plan, how he was going to perhaps catch these thieves, even punish them, although that would not have been his way. But it's what we as the humans wanted.

So he said, "Sit down. Form a circle around me and let us give thanks for what we have received."

"What did we receive? Everything was stolen!"

"What did you receive?" he asked us. "What is the gift of this?"

Our brother/sisterhood. The love we had for each other. The trust that all would be well. The knowledge that we would be okay for that one cold night, keeping our fire built up, and that the next day as we traveled on we would find comrades who would feed us and help us.

What is there to give gratitude for at the times of greatest emptiness and loss? How do we allow the heart to touch the blessings of our lives instead of over-focusing on what we've lost? There is always something for which to be grateful. If you can no longer walk, can you still see? If you have lost your family, do you still have friends? If your home has burned down, do you still have the bubbling spring that feeds sparkling water and around which you can build your new home?

When we touch on what we are given, the immensity of gifts we are given, there's no denial of the pain we also experience, but there's an unwillingness to give in to that pain, to bow to that pain and be broken by it, but instead the insistence to keep this light burning, filled with love, with gratitude.

It's so easy to fall into negativity and despair, and when we do that we're simply falling into the hands of what I call the loyal opposition, that which does exist, the negativity in the world, be it human or spirit, and which would like to draw you ever deeper into fear, doubt, and hatred. Each of you has the human privilege to say no to that kind of darkness and to hold the light, the miracle of light, in your hands, in your heart, and see how it can blossom.

It's hard to find stories to tell you that I have not already told, because I did not spend 30 years day and night with him but just these occasional times.

This is a story I have not previously told. We came once to a village that had been plundered by outlaws. We were traveling on the road. We approached what had been a thriving small village with farmers and artisans, with loving people. In the distance we heard wailing and we saw smoke. Apparently they had resisted these outlaws and the village had been burned. People had been murdered, women had been raped. Everything had been taken. What the outlaws could not carry they destroyed, to try to punish the people for not giving them everything openly.

It's interesting--nobody can take things from you if you give them. But these people, in their fear, resisted. I'm not condoning the outlaws for their thievery and murder, but the people co-created that through their fear and violent oppostition, rather than saying, "Take what you need," and trusting that their needs would be met.

So we came into this village that was a place of despair, of darkness, of hatred, of fear, of loss, and it's understandable that the people felt this way. They had been figuratively and literally raped, everything stolen or destroyed.

Jeshua was not one to lecture people. He didn't come in and say, "Oh, have hope. Oh, open your heart." He simply came into the center square. There were a number of us traveling with him on that trip, maybe a dozen of us, and he asked us to build a fire, to gather all the food we had. I cannot tell you whether he performed some kind of miracle, but over one hundred townspeople were easily fed by the food we carried, and I would not have thought that possible in terms of the small amounts we carried.

So this was perhaps a mid-day meal. After all had eaten, he asked all the men to go out into the surrounding countryside and bring back whatever trees and brush we could. The small pieces were put as wood for the fire, and with the big pieces a lean-to of sorts was built. Soft pine boughs were put on the ground to provide some bedding for people.

In this way he simply reminded people: whatever you have lost, life goes on. Come back to this flame within the heart, this flame of love and trust, of remembrance of your and everything's divinity, and rest in that light. And all is well and all will be well.

We stayed in that village for about a week. The first day it was Jeshua who helped get things organized, with assistance from those of us who had travelled with him. By the second day the villagers were finding their own strength. People had different kinds of expertise. Those who knew herbs and such began to make soup. Some men hunted or fished. People began to find ways to clothe themselves, to feed themselves. We gathered around the fire each evening together offering prayers of gratitude, knowing yes, some people had been murdered. That was not okay. And yet many had survived. Life goes on. Instead of the incident causing hatred, can the heart open in gratitude for the gifts that truly are given? The gifts of love and brotherhood. The gift of caring. The gift of life.

The outlaws had stolen two babies; on the third day they were found, alive and well, and returned to their parents. Several horses and other animals that had been taken returned home on their own. One man opened a hidden place in his home and brought out food that he had stored and also cloth, and women began to sew new clothing. Another man had hidden his chickens and had eggs, and also enough hens and rooster to start a new flock. One family had hidden silver candlesticks. They wished to give them to the entire village, to share for use at the Sabbath. An artisan had hidden some of his craftwork; it was taken to the market to be sold, to buy needed supplies for the village. A weaver had wool for blankets. People shared according to their ability. No one held back. A deep sense of family developed throughout the entire village.

Each of you makes a choice innumerable times each day; do I go with darkness or do I choose light? How many times do you have to make that choice before you know for a certainty that going with darkness only leads you further into darkness? Choosing light opens the heart, wakes you up to the divinity of all that is, and makes love truly possible.

Gratitude. Gratitude is a force for light. Gratitude is a force behind love, and love is a force behind gratitude. Here is the real possibility of joy, even in the face of disaster.

When we were boys together, Jeshua and I, I was about 4 or 5 years older than he was, sometimes he was permitted to come out with me to the countryside where I tended my sheep, to spend a few days there together. I've told this story before, how we sat on a bleak, rainy hillside-- me, Nathaniel, as the older one trying to build a fire to warm us, to cook our food, to warm the sheep. I felt I had to take care of Jeshua, who was younger. I was perhaps 13 and Jeshua, 8 or 9. So I was doing all the "right" things to build my fire. Jeshua simply watched me trying to get a spark lit, trying to find dry kindling in the dousing rain.

Finally after about an hour of this, both of us shivering, he looked at me and said, "Nathaniel, just light the fire!" We had been learning this kind of manifestation in our studies in the Essene school. I moved back and forth between tending the sheep and spending time in the Essene community where Jeshua lived. Of course, he was the master at this, I was the novice. All of us beside Jeshua were the novice. But Jeshua knew that when you looked at that damp wood and lack of spark, of course the spark already exists, and the fire already exists. On the mundane level you try to make the fire, to build it, to invite it into existence. On a much deeper level, you find the already existent flame and offer gratitude for it.

An aside here. In some native cultures in which I have been a part in other lifetimes, we would carry coals in a special way, in damp leaves that would not burn, carrying them all day from one campsite to the next so that we had hot coals ready to start the fire. This is really no different. The flame is right here. It can never be extinguished. You only believe it can. And if you believe it can be extinguished, you allow it to be extinguished. Then you believe you have to start it over again. "With what shall I start it?" Ahh, that flame that can never die, it's always here. That flame within the heart. Bring it out.  Here is the everlasting light of Chanukah.

Where do we find gratitude when there is despair? It's right here in the heart. Where do we find love when there is sorrow, loneliness, and desolation? Right here in the heart. Where do we find the ability to give to others when we feel we have nothing? We find the fullness here in the heart.

So Jeshua was a master of this, and I am so grateful for what he taught me about it. Later in that lifetime, after his crucifixion, I felt so much grief, desolation and anger. And yet I realized, if I give way to this hatred and fear, to this desolation, I was siding with those who hated him, who feared him. But if I remembered that his love, that our Mother/Father/All That Is, that love, exists always here in the heart, Jeshua can never be destroyed. Love can never be destroyed.

Can I find gratitude even for this crucifixion? How do we do that? I've spoken to some of you at times about the crosses that each of you bear, each of your crucifixion initiations–the times of loss, of illness, watching your loved ones go through terrible pain. How do you say thank-you to that? And yet that light remains and can be kindled. Not thank you for the loved one's pain, but thank you for all the years that you had the loved one, for all the joy that was shared, for the children and the memories. And knowing the eternal sense of it, that you and your loved one can never be parted, no matter what the future brings.

How do we say thank you when we've experienced bad health? Can we find that light within our heart, that eternal flame? Because this is what he came to teach, that the flame of love is eternal and can never be extinguished.

Now, with gratitude to all of you for joining me, normally at this point I would open the floor to some questions, but we have something special happening tonight. On Sunday, in Jackson at the Remembering Wholeness service that preceded Christmas, Jeshua incorporated and spoke. He has incorporated in this body before. So he asked us, "Aaron, I know you speak each year at this gathering. May I speak?" And it was decided, "of course! If we're gathered to celebrate Jeshua's birth and his life and his teachings, of course we welcome him to speak."

So, without my talking any further, I'm simply going to step out of the body and allow Jeshua to come forth to spend a little time with you, to speak to you of his own memories. I would remind any of you who are skeptical: it doesn't matter if I'm real. It doesn't matter if it's really Jeshua. Something is sharing with you. If it's simply Barbara, so be it. If the words are useful to you, take them into you and don't worry about the source. But perhaps some of you will feel the beauty and power of his energy and love. So I will step out of the way here and give Jeshua a chance to speak.

I want to apologize to those who are used to asking questions. Perhaps we'll have some time for questions, perhaps not. I don't know. But I want to allow Jeshua this half hour to speak, if he desires that much time.

(Jeshua incorporates)

Jeshua: Can I walk around with these electronics? (recording and conference call equipment) I know I need to stay close to the microphone, yes... Because I want to get closer to you; to share with you, to talk to you; to share my love for you, and with gratitude for your enormous courage to come into this incarnation. Each of you is a radiant flame. Each of you at times diminishes yourself into a very small spark without full trust of your radiance. And yet at some level you do trust it. It takes so much love to come into this human form.

We will sit down... The body is not entirely stable in balance, and I choose not to focus on keeping it upright.

You celebrate what you think of as Jeshua's birth, Jeshua Ben Joseph, sometimes called the Christ. But it is all of your birth that you truly celebrate, the birth of the awakened consciousness, the Christ consciousness, that each of you brings into the earth. It is not about me. I was simply a man on the earth. Yes, a very clear, wise man, but still just a man. And I'm sorry if that goes against some of your religious beliefs. But I was not more special than you. You are all divine. You all have the ability to manifest as the Christ, the Awakened One, the spark of God lit up into an enormous flame of light. This is the core of each of you. How could it be otherwise?

You may look up to me. You may use me as the model, as my friend Nathaniel does in these stories. Nathaniel, Aaron, whatever you call him. I knew him as Nathaniel then. He was my older brother and I was his older brother. We taught each other. He loved me. I loved him. He did not put me on a pedestal. But he was willing to trust me enough to follow me in places where his heart was filled with trepidation; to follow me into a leper's colony, for example, trusting, "It will be safe. Jeshua would not lead me into danger." And when I say it could be safe, he knew he could die. But he knew that the flame that was within him could not be extinguished. He trusted that.

Do you trust that? Do you trust that that flame can never be extinguished? For some of you this is hard, because when you feel enormous anger, for example, you lose touch with that flame. Then you believe it's gone. Well, it hasn't gone, it's just become hidden by some density, some clouds. You can't quite find it. But of course it's there. Where would it go?

You are all of you old souls, by which I mean wise and mature souls, come into this incarnation to help herald a new age on the earth, an age of divine consciousness. I know you may find that hard to believe in an earth that is so filled with horrors, with murder and destruction. But I think that, what Aaron calls the loyal opposition, these forces of negativity, they are more reactive because they feel you getting stronger, so they're more afraid. You will have to decide which is stronger, light or darkness. If you believe it is darkness, you empower the darkness. Each time you catch the light that is the deepest truth of you, you empower that light. You bring forth that light. You take the small ember, offer breath upon it until it flares up, and gradually it will light the whole earth.

This is why you came, to grow this light, which is your core. This is the time of transition from the age of darkness to the age of light, and you have all incarnated to help bring forth that age of light. But for that to happen, each of you must work in consciousness with the darkness within yourself and learn to trust that the power of the light, which is eternal, cannot be extinguished.

Each of you is given really thegift of darkness, because if you were not given such a gift, how could you work consciously to enhance the light? You would just settle by your campfire, putting on small sticks, and letting it burn. It's only when the rain pours down and begins to extinguish the fire that you begin to consciously choose light. And as Aaron told in the story, I said to him simply, "Aaron, enough of this nonsense. We do not build the fire, we invite. We remember the fire. We co-create the fire. Let it shine forth!"

Love is the answer. Just one word: love. Love in all its manifestations. Of course, that is an oversimplification. When I say love is the answer, that is a vast oversimplification. What is love? Love is eternal. Love is the open heart. Love is the ember that can never go out. But how do you find the courage to open up that ember and let it flare forth when it's pouring rain? When there is a deluge around you? When there is suffering in your own lives and in the world?

The question is not where is love to be found but how do you remember that heart of love, even in the times of deepest darkness. And here I'm pitching Aaron's viewpoint: this is where your meditation practice comes in, to be mindful about what brings you back into darkness and to consciously choose, over and over again, "No, I will not be pulled down into this despair. Yes, I am love. I am light."

It gives me great joy to see the young people here. You are carrying the torch forward, as it were. Your parents' and grandparents' generation, they had thought themselves to fight against darkness, to be warriors. But I think you need a different model: not to fight against darkness, which is a lack of trust in the light, but rather to know the light within your own hearts and trust the power of that light forever.

That means that when anger comes, when sadness comes, when pain comes, of course you contemplate, "These have arisen. This pain is real. This sorrow is real. This loss is real. I choose not to let it diminish the light." This is the hardest thing you will ever be asked to do, in the times of deepest pain, to say, "No, I choose not to allow this pain to diminish my light." Can you keep in touch with that light, no matter what happens?

This is your work, and I'm speaking especially to the young people of this new generation, but for all of you, also. For the older ones, can you abandon the war with darkness? Because there is no war, there has never been a war. As long as you think there is a war, you think there is something that must be extinguished for the light to come forth. But when you know the truth of that light-- eternal love--there is simply that which, as Aaron would put it, must be attended because it blocks the light. Nothing to fix. No opposition. The loyal opposition is nothing, is empty. It is just fear. One small match brings light to the darkest cavern.

This is the heart of my message, then. As you remember my birth, in these next few weeks, please remember that you are also the awakened one, the Christ. It is your light that you are celebrating, not mine. And you are the torch bearers, because I no longer walk the earth, but you are walking the earth. You are the torch bearers. Instead of saying, "Oh no, I don't know if I can do it," trust! You would not have come if you didn't know you could do it. You didn't come into the incarnation to be defeated. You came in to be the torch-bearers to bring light, to teach love. And as Aaron has reminded you, whatever comes, can you say thank you, because that is one of the greatest supports to remembering love; to remember the light.

My blessings to all of you. Thank you for sharing this time and space with me, and remember that I walk with you always. I may not walk the earth in a body, but my essence is here. You and I together, we are the Christ, we are the awakened ones. –One, Aaron says, singular. We are the light.

May this light flourish on the earth and lead the way to the non-dual consciousness, the awakened consciousness, which is truly the salvation that you all seek, to awaken; to know that you, each of you, are the heart of love. My blessings and love to you all.

I was going to release the body to Aaron. He suggests, would I like to answer questions? I am willing to answer questions. (Smiling) Aaron is being a bit modest and says, "They would rather hear from you than me."

Q: Some theologians have suggested that you knew all along that you were going to die on the cross. And other theologians said that you were deciding, you were in the moment. Could you comment on those two thoughts on your life?

(As I reviewed this, Jeshua offered a few corrections and additional words; BB)

J: First I must say that these theologians were not in my shoes, nor did they consult with me before making such statements! Did I know the future? No. Nothing was written. Everything, as the dharma would tell you, arises from conditions, so we must live in the moment. I did not know how the conditions might shift. I knew that many people would be angry and frightened by what I taught. I knew others would love what I taught. I did not come to sow dissension; I came to remind people that there was a choice. If enough people had made a choice for love in those days, then I would not have died on the cross.

Would I have come if I knew for a certainty that I would die in that way? Yes, I still would have come. It became clear eventually that the crucifixion would be a necessary occurrence. I was willing to take that path if it served the highest purpose. Certainly I had the power to avoid that end. Even there at the crucifixion I had the power to simply remove myself and walk away. All that would have proven is that somebody powerful could do this. My willingness to live for love was important, but my willingness also to pass from the mundane physical body was important as a demonstration of love and faith.

I knew toward the end that this was a clear course-- still not inevitable; as I said, at any time I had the power to walk away. But if I was to be true to what I was teaching, this had to happen. I also understood several things that are a bit hard to explain. I knew that they could not kill the essence that I was. They could destroy the body. They could not destroy the spirit.

I understood also that the crucifixion was a necessary precursor to the resurrection, and that the power of the resurrection was something that asked to be taught, if not then, then at some time. I had the readiness to teach that and the earth was ready for it. This teaching was part of the plan, if all flowed that way.

This is something we have talked about at Easter. I had the training to hold the body in a state that was death and not quite death. That which was resurrected was no longer the man Jeshua. It was perhaps akin to what you call the Holy Spirit. And yet it had human form, because the spark had not fully died in that human being, so that I was able to model the truth of resurrection, the immortality of the spirit. Each of you goes through your own crucifixion and your own resurrection. That which would seem to destroy you, burns away the dross so that the radiance comes forth. But nothing was written in stone and each moment opened into the next, based on my highest intentions of service and support for the highest good, and my willingness that my will and the Father's will be one and be made manifest.

Q: When you tell us to stay with the light or not lose sight of the light when we're in moments of despair, do you mean to remember the love in our hearts?

J: Let me use a biblical example. I am quoted in your scriptures, as I was dying in the body, of saying, "Father, why have you abandoned me?" It was a moment where the human, Jeshua, experienced separation. There was great pain. The heart temporarily closed and consciousness briefly lost connection with that Light.  But right there with that fear was the deeply conditioned response to fear in which I had been trained, in that and in many lifetimes, that when I felt the contraction and the heart closing, to open up to the light.

Aaron is saying that some of you are in Barbara's "Be a Lamp Unto Yourself" class. You've been learning how to do this, to watch the places where the heart closes and how you consciously choose not to move into that diminishment, but to say, "No, I choose to stay open and present. I choose the open heart."

This free will and intention is vital. It is the power of intention that keeps this light burning. In your human lives you are constantly faced with choice to move into that dark place. "Why have you abandoned me?" And I could have easily at that point, had I been someone else, someone different, moved into a place of negativity, even become a force of darkness. "No, I am Light. I hold to the Light. This is what I came to do. You can destroy my body. You cannot destroy this flame in my heart."

Aaron tells me there are stories of people who have survived torture, concentration camps, and other such, who tell remarkable stories of having kept that light burning. He's talking about–interesting process here, I'm channeling Aaron! (laughter) I'm paraphrasing Aaron. He is reminding me, and I've heard this story too, so I'll tell it in my own way. Of people in a concentration camp who had a few instruments, and who began an orchestra in the camp. They didn't have much freedom but they were permitted to some degree to play their instruments. Because the jailors saw that it helped people to be stronger and therefore get more work done, they permitted it. The power of music transformed people. It helped people not to submerge themselves in darkness but through the music to hold that light; to hold to human possibilities.

There is another concentration camp story I've heard, of someone who was forced to be a prostitute for the Nazi officers. The benefit this gave her was she was given more food, more blankets and other things that she could take back to her concentration camp quarters. At first she felt despair, thought that she would kill herself rather than be forced into this prostitution. And then she saw that through her willingness to allow her body to be used in this way she was able to save so many lives. She shared everything that was given to her. She saved hundreds of lives. This is the choice: to give in to despair and darkness or to keep the flame burning.

One last question, then.

Q: You gave a very dramatic example of how we can choose to keep our light rather than choose darkness, for the good of others. But in our common daily life, is it enough that we just work on our own light? How do we know our purpose, outside of ourself?

J: There is only one purpose, and that is love; to love against all odds. The more terrible it becomes, the more you touch on this flame in the heart. Each person who does that becomes literally a Light Bearer, so that when you find yourself feeling alone in the darkness and you open the inner eyes and look around, you see all the candles, and you know, "I am not alone."

It may be hard for you to believe this, but gradually your earth is bringing forth more and more light. This IS literally the time of transition. Now, I don't mean this year. Aaron, what year is it? 2014. I don't mean 2014. But this time, this decade, this century, this is the time of ascendance into higher consciousness for the whole earth.

Those of you who trust the possibility of this and follow this path of love are the ones who are helping to bring it forth, and for most of you, this is your purpose. This is why you came into the incarnation. You came in knowing it was going to be hard, but that it was possible. And that if enough of you supported this intention, "Let there be light. Let there be love," it would become manifest. But each of you must work with this in your way. If somebody mugs you, can you not hate them? If somebody asks you for your coat, can you give them also your shirt? If somebody asks you for a dollar, can you give him or her ten? Nobody can take anything from you if you give it freely. This is the power of Light. Such response becomes conditioned into your consciousness and it is this force that opens the door to the new world we approach, earth as a higher vibrational planet that will be a power for love throughout the universe.

I believe it is time that we must stop, giving you time together in your joyous connections with each other; to enjoy the love for each other, the laughter and the good food.

Once again, my deepest blessings and love. And remember on that day when you celebrate what you think of as my birth, to celebrate your own birth into the light. Celebrate the divine consciousness that each of you are and never forget it. Don't misplace it; it's sacred. Cherish it. Cherish it as you would cherish the tiny spark on a cold night, sheltering it from rain, feeding it with small bits of tinder, bringing it ever more fully into brilliant flame. Cherish it as you – I'm told you have a litter of babies.(speaking to the young people who have a litter of newborn puppies in their home) The mother takes care of them and nurses them, and the family takes care of them, cherishing them. If you said, "They're just a bunch of rotten puppies that make a mess," they wouldn't flourish. Everything is a mess–cherish the mess!

My blessings and love to you all.

(recording ends)