November 25, 2014 on chakras, energy and ascension of consciousness

November 25, 2014 Tuesday, Teacher Training

The teacher-training group has been talking about energy, sound and chakras; how we use them in our own practice, if and when it is appropriate to introduce this topic to students, and how we do so. Some of the sharing was about resistance. After an hour of class discussion led by Barbara, Aaron has requested to speak about chakras, DNA and more..

Aaron: Good afternoon to you all. I am Aaron. You are energy. This is essential to what you are. The chakras are the instruments of that energy. They are the places where the energy is harnessed and liberated, or held back. The chakras are not the source of energy. Energy flows down through the crown chakra, and up through the feet, through the base chakra. You are part of that energy. It is not separate from you. It is also not yours. It is universal energy and you partake of it.

This is going beyond vipassana, but I think this is appropriate for this circle. You are, all of you, endeavoring to raise consciousness on Earth, which means opening the energy fields on Earth. The energy is here but most people have it blocked. The image that comes to me is, instead of a smooth-flowing river, if the river completely froze and then broke up so you had 10 million little pieces of ice, very little water, the ice chunks knocking against each other and each piece of ice believing that it was a separate self and not part of the river because it had frozen itself off. When the chakras are open, you know yourself to be part of the river and you're flowing energetically with the whole universe.

However, we have to accept the reality of the mammal that does contract and close itself off. A great part of your whole work with consciousness is to bring attention to that which is closing itself into a separate self; review it; see this is an illusion and allow yourself to come back. But this is hard for you because you are so habituated to being the separate chunk of ice and not the river.

What I hear from each of you is a respect for the chakras and an interest to work with the chakras, and yet also some clear resistance. And I think the resistance is based on the mammal's unwillingness to become the river, to truly be the river.

Now, this is hard because as the mammal you have to be both the river and the ice block. You have to live in the everyday self and in this stream of unconditioned awareness. So the more you rest in the experience of the chakras – knowing when they're open, knowing when they're closed, knowing the closing is an illusion, and yet itis the mammal's illusion, bringing kind attention, not to fix the closure because nothing is closed, but to bring yourself back to that which is open – the more fully you live the life energy that you are, fully embracing the universal energy. And the more fully you live from the open heart, from the place of power.

I think part of what blocks you and creates the resistance is discomfort with that power. Each of you has been in place where your chakras felt really open, even just briefly. There was a lot of power there, yes. Could you feel the power in it? There will not have been a thought, "Oh, I am powerful," or you couldn't have been in that place, because it was not YOUR power, it was THE power. But you were so tapped into the power that you knew, "I participate in this power."

This is the area we keep revisiting with vipassana students, that because the heavy emotions have not been fully purified, there is some fear of fully embracing that power, knowing that power in you, because what if one misuses that power? So we keep coming back to vipassana and knowing we can watch anger or any other heavy emotion and not have to enact it, not have to take it personally except to be responsible to it.; but not to build a self-identification with it.

All of you are in process of re-opening closed DNA linkages1

Some things we may experience during this change:

-feeling very fluctuating emotions,

- a lot of past life recall and healing, involving a lot of emotional and deep inner work.

-feeling exhausted.

-feeling immense energy surges

-needing a lot more sleep, or wanting to sleep

-shifts from constipation to diarrhea and back,

-low appetite,

-moderate back pain after intense energy sessions,

-occasional muscle weakness, coming and resolving. Occasional tingling and numbness in feet and hands.

- very occasional shortness of breath, sometimes even while lying in bed.

-erratic heartbeat at times

-much more inner ear sound, ringing, drumming...

For the earth to fully emerge into the higher consciousness to which you aspire, these DNA linkages have to be reconnected. The full power of what you are has to emerge, and there has to be a readiness to be responsible to that power, to hold that power with love, to live that power, and to support those who are not yet mature enough to hold it to become ready to hold it. Not to burden them with it, but to watch carefully and watch their readiness, and keep giving them more and more of it.

In a different interpretation one that I know some people would disagree with, this is your role as vipassana teachers. You're helping people to become more ready to hold the fullness of their being without fear, to know their innate power, their divinity, and to live it. We do not need to talk about DNA with students, only to watch for those changes and offer support where appropriate.

The chakras are such a helpful part of this because as soon as we pull back with some anger or fear or grasping, something in the chakra system will close. This is normal. Therefore, I see it as a basic part of practice, and something we have not previously considered for introductory classes, but increasingly I think it would be helpful. Not in the very first introductory class, but certainly for what we consider beginning students. To begin to make them aware–we don't even have to call it chakras; to become aware of the energy flow in the body. We don't have to talk about heart chakras or solar plexus chakra, or simply what's happening in the belly? What's happening in the heart? What's happening in the throat? Can you feel the movement of energy, the base, the crown? Just letting people put their hands in those places and feel the flow of energy. When anger comes up, what contracts in the body?

In fact, as I talk about this now, Barbara and I have been talking about what to do for the next Tuesday class. I think we'll do this in the Tuesday class. I think I will teach it and give you some model of one way to teach it. Certainly not the only way.

If we aspire to be a lamp unto ourselves, what dims the lamp? Can we feel that in the whole body energy flow? Why? Why am I closing down in that way? What am I afraid of if I were not closed down?

Q: It seems to me lately that even though I am aware of more and more subtle energy, I also feel more dense, like I am living in a very dense world.

Aaron: You are!

Q: Is it because of the changes in the DNA, that I have more awareness of the density?

Aaron: That's one part of it. I think more important is that your world inversely has become increasingly dense in the past recent years as a temporary reaction to the emergence of light. That means the light has to shine stronger, as through a mist. So you need to work harder to support the light because the mist is thicker.

You are also, it used be, I think for most of you, before you had much knowledge of any of this, there was either ease and spaciousness or there was tension and contraction and anger and fear. But increasingly you're seeing, I will not call it the simultaneity, because consciousness can only experience one object at a time. It cannot experience this and that simultaneously. But it's so fast that it seems simultaneous. But the reason you can experience both is that both are there and therefore they are ultimately simultaneous. It is just that mundane consciousness can only experience one at a time.

We're talking about two different things: whether they are indeed simultaneous and consciousness can only catch one piece or the other, or whether they are non-simultaneous, which creates duality. Barbara and a friend have been in an interesting back-and-forth email dialogue about this. She will share that with you at a point where it's appropriate.

From my perspective, of course it's simultaneous, and of course consciousness can only take one object at a time, so we cannot perceive it as simultaneous. Yet at some point you begin to know it's simultaneous and even know, let me use the example. If there was a dark curtain there(pointing to a window), you're looking at it and it's black. You say, "Oh, it's dark outside." But it is midday and the sun is out, only invisible through that window. You don't have to turn around to look out the windows on this side to know that there's light. The light has always been there, but your back was to it. You can't see it because you're facing the other direction.

So coming back to your question, as long as you are focused on the density of experience, the heaviness, it's very hard to see and experience the light. If you are deeply focused on the light, having a profound, blissful meditation experience, it's hard to experience the heaviness. But part of what you are learning to do as maturing beings is to bring it together.

It's fine that you're experiencing both, but don't get over-focused on either one, and begin to know which is more-- I don't mean to say more true, both are true–heavy density and high vibration–which is more of the ultimate and which is more the outflow of conditions. The heavy density is the outflow of conditions. As conditions pass away, you're left with a very high and vibrant light and consciousness, but you can't hold onto it.

Does that answer what you asked? I'm not sure if I've answered it.

Q: I think so. I will just be with that.

Aaron: Moving through this DNA reconnection process, you bounce back and forth, because while part of you aspires to the highest service for the highest good, aspires to become fully all that you can be in service to all beings, there's part of you that says, "Wait a minute, let's not get carried away!"  So we keep stepping 3 steps forward, 2 steps back, and that's okay.

Are there other questions about what I have said? (No.)

So then the question is, what do we teach of this, and how? Since I'm incorporated, I'll start with my thoughts about it and then give the body back to Barbara and invite the rest of you to talk.

As I said a minute ago, we have held back on talking much about chakras with beginners for two reasons. One, not being sure that they're ready for this information. Two, because there was a lot of pressure at Deep Spring to be teaching a pure vipassana practice. But I think we are at a point where people who are coming to Deep Spring are ready. Somehow energetically people know: this is where we go to get this kind of information. And there are a lot of new people coming in.

You are drawing students that are increasingly ready for this material. Your work is going to be to keep grounding them in vipassana and making it very clear that you consider vipassana an imperative part of their growth and of their grounding.

Q: There is a student in your class, a continuing vipassana student. She was in our class and she has been asking about chakras. We were going to talk about it last class but she was sick. And that is the end of our class. So maybe she might ask about chakras.

Aaron: I want to talk about chakras. I will talk to Barbara and Dan, and I think this is the topic for our next class. It's not just getting them mentally but experiencing them, and how to help people experience the chakras.

So I think that people need this information. In the same way, we started to teach pure awareness 20 years ago. We were teaching a mundane level of vipassana, breath as primary object and watching the mundane cittas; it became clear that we needed to start to teach about pure awareness and the supramundane citta as well as the mundane, to support people bringing in nada, luminosity, energy, and other such as primary object. So it's a continuation of that direction. Vipassana still remains the core.

Vipassana is simply the presence with things as they are. Opening our heart to things just as they are; learning, really, the path to liberation. We see how everything is arising from conditions, impermanent, not self, and how we keep trying to make it self. And what happens when we let it go.

So we're still teaching this path to liberation, but part of the path to liberation is the model in which we are concerned for the liberation of all beings and not just ourselves. This leads us directly to concern with the raising of consciousness through the earth. We can't cut that out and limit ourselves to basics. I don't think that we talked of Buddhist history and the Theravada versus Mahayana path in Teacher Training,. The original Buddhist path was of personal enlightenment. Zen and then Tibetan Buddhism came as response to this, saying we cannot take personal enlightenment without care for all beings, the intention to be of service to all beings. This is the bodhisattva vow, that I will not move into personal enlightenment until all beings are free.

This understanding is part of the whole raising of consciousness on Earth. The tradition of raising consciousness really is a bodhisattva practice.

Q: Do we tell students that?

Aaron: Depending on the level of student, but for a more beginner class, I would talk about our practice first as helping us to find some release from suffering, to see where it is that the suffering arises in our lives: in our grasping, in our fear, in our creating the stories, and so forth. As we progress and begin to find some freedom from that, it becomes very helpful to begin to hold the intention not just to free myself from suffering but literally to free all beings from suffering. To see the wars, the famines, the tensions in the world, that are growing out of that illusion of separate self. As we move into a more open consciousness, we expand out of the idea of "me" as the center and put "us" in the center.

Depending on the class, then, talking about it as literally transition of consciousness on earth. That you can talk about it to whatever degree of involvement or simplicity you wish. Simply, as children mature into adults, the human consciousness all over the Earth is maturing. Some people are still stuck in a very childlike consciousness. And here we have some of the religious fanatics, who are akin to the 3 year old who says, "No! We'll do it my way!" And we have those with a more mature consciousness who are able to say, "I don't agree with your viewpoint, but I would like to hear it and understand it." So we begin to communicate and grow out of that, "Me, mine!" mode.

So there's that transition from personal liberation, which is a process that has started with the first vipassana classes, to human liberation. Liberation, not just human, but of all sentient beings, and the importance of raising the consciousness to include all sentient beings and the possibility of true freedom for all sentient beings.

Q: So people who come to vipassana as a first step may be more inclined to be first thinking about personal liberation. Then there are...

Aaron: I don't even think personal liberation but, "Get me out of this suffering!"

Q: Then there are people I meet, and probably myself as well, that when I first started on a spiritual path, it wasn't about personal liberation. It was about service and wanting to help the whole earth. But in the process I realized, "Oh, I have to take a good look at myself."

Aaron: Exactly. So it doesn't matter which end you start on. If you start with just, "I'm suffering immensely-- which way out?" or "I have a deep aspiration to help with the immensity of suffering in the world," and then shifting back and see how you reflect that suffering in yourself and how you have to take care of yourself. Either way.

Two things I want to say here. First, we have a gift in all that has happened the past 3 years, in that there are now several other sanghas teaching vipassana, and that those people who are ready to learn a basic vipassana practice but not yet ready for this aspiration to the highest service, the bodhisattva intentions let's call it, and with deep concern for suffering throughout the world, who are more looking for either personal liberation or freedom from their own suffering, they have places to go. And I'm not suggesting that this is all that other sanghas are teaching. Certainly they're teaching it in a wider way, and they know it in a wider way. But there exists a place where the basic vipassana practice can be learned.

That movie image, "If you build it they will come," as model. If you simply begin to feel free to talk about these things in your classes, gradually word will get out and the people that need to hear about these things will come. These are the students that Deep Spring will invite.

Your work as teachers is going to be to insist that they stay with the vipassana practice and not say, "Oh, I don't need that," because it is a vital foundation. But you give them the food and you give them the dessert. That's not a good metaphor because the dessert is just as substantial as the main course, here. But they've got to be willing to chew and digest the main course, and also to enjoy the dessert. So some of them are not going to want to work so hard, to do their vipassana practice. But I think that it will all come together.

Now, coming back to the chakras. Everything is coming in through you. Everything is moving through everybody. When I say, "Boo!"(speaking loud)where does the energy close? Feel the place of closure. If it closes here in the solar plexus–ahhh, I put the hand on the heart. I put the other hand down here at the base, or at the spleen. Just gently inviting energy to flow up and down into this knot.

Breathing into the knot. Allowing the knot to open. Inviting it to open. Feeling it already open on one level, even, while it seems to be closed on another level. Gently ask yourself about the habit to hold that closed. What does it protect me from to hold it closed at the throat chakra? What does it seem to protect me from to hold it closed? Working from the heart and the third eye, and inviting energy into the throat, up and down into the throat. What does it protect me from to keep the throat chakra closed?

So we introduce the chakras, just gently giving a sense of what they are, that there are different chakras. Their energy areas are all interconnected, and each one can be very open in one part and closed in another part. When it's closed, just as anything else in your body, you want to look at it and see why it's closed. If I find myself with my hand closed in a fist, I'm going to say, "Oh, look at that! Why is my hand so closed in a fist? Oh." Because it's unwholesome to walk around like that. It will strain the body. It will strain the cellular structure of the body and the energy structure.

So for the highest good we commit ourselves to look at what's happening and help to support opening. And then there are numerous ways to help support that opening.It's something we can pick up again next time. What are the ways you work with opening the chakras when they're closed? How about if we look at that for our next meeting, and what can we pass on to students. Toning, breathing into the chakras. Just focusing with mindfulness on the chakras. Noting the simultaneity of that which is open and that which is closed. Just watching it with vipassana. What works for you? What do you do?

So these two weeks I'd like you to look at, what do I do when I feel chakras closing? How do I tend to it without trying to fix it? What are the most skillful means that I have to invite it to–I want to say this carefully; of course it's already always open-- to invite the experience of its being open.

I'm going to release the body to Barbara unless you have some questions for me. Are there any questions?

Q: I am writing what you said for next time. Could you please repeat?

Aaron:The question is simply, when you are startled, or anger comes up, or body pain, is there a response in the chakras? Bring attention immediately to that. Ah, hmm, this feels like it's closed. Is this suitable to my highest purpose, to leave this closed? Clear comprehension. My highest purpose is for the deepest openness and connection so I want to attend to this experience of closure. And then, what tools do you use to attend to it, being careful to avoid fixing it. You understand my distinction between fix and attend? Attending to it with love. What supports the opening?

You take it back into vipassana; is there any insight into if it's a habitual tendency to close at certain times. Like if somebody calls on the phone and you see their number on your phone–"Oh, so and so," and the chakras close. Where is this coming from? Not trying to figure it out, just acknowledging: each time this person calls, each time my boss asks this of me, each time it rains, whatever, each time my car doesn't seem to start, this specific chakra closes. What's going on? Just letting the question lie there. Willing to investigate it. Willing to gain insight. And what supports further opening? Different things. For Barbara, she will probably turn to her tuning forks and toning, crystals, and resting in Pure Awareness where there is no closure to watch the mundane level of closure.  Others of you might work in a different way. Okay?

I will release the body to Barbara. Thank you all.

(session ends)

1. DNA (Deoxyribonucleic Acid) is an essential component of all living matter and consists of a sugar base, phosphates, and sequencing nucleotides. It is unique and very personal for it contains the encoded information relative to ones physical and spiritual lineage. This information determines ones physical form, hereditary maladies, mental abilities, emotional behavioral patterns, spiritual gifts and much more. DNA is the blueprint for ones life's purpose and divine potentialities. Aaron describes how we voluntarily limited our DNA eons ago because, self-identified with the heavy emotions, we were not ready to be so powerful or we would do damage. Now we are returning to readiness to reconnect these DNA strands and are in process of doing so. See also, Lemuria; Atlantis. See archives for many talks from Aaron.