Friday Afternoon Session
July 11, 2008
Berkeley, CA

Keywords: Guidance from spirit, Earthsuit/True nature, Compassion, Habit energy, (depression), Non-duality, Stages of/shift to higher consciousness, Dependent origination, Past lives

... Talk began with Introduction to Barbara and Aaron.

So at this point I would like to simply give you Aaron, let him incorporate and talk to you and spend the afternoon with you. You understand when he’s in the body I’m not in the body. So he will be using the body, and I’ll read the transcript.

Aaron: My blessings and love to you. You sit there wondering, who is Aaron? Who are you? You have a body; I have no more need of a body. I am spirit; you are spirit. I come to you as spirit to spirit, one soul speaking to another. There’s no denial here of the heavier bodies. There is a physical body, an emotional body, a mental body, but you humans often forget the pure spirit body, and this is the essence of what you are.

I call you “angels in earthsuits.” You need the earthsuit; that is part of the incarnation. If you were already finished with the work you are doing, you wouldn’t need these heavier bodies. So while they are sometimes chafing and uncomfortable, they are also the tools for your awakening. Sometimes you despise them. Try to learn to love them instead, to love the heavy emotions, even, rather than constantly condemning the physical and emotional body.

Each time you come into a new incarnation there’s a strong intention to release some of the old karma, to awaken more fully, to live your life with more love. How many of you have seen the movie Groundhog Day? That’s a good example. He keeps waking up every morning into the same exact scene. He keeps trying, first the same thing and it doesn’t work, then trying something else, then getting frustrated, and finally–ah, an insight, there’s another approach! Then things start to resolve.

That “other approach,” this is the approach to be with the self and the world with love instead of condemnation and negativity. I am not suggesting that there should be or will be no negative thought, but when negative thought arises, it’s just negative thought. If you took a bare patch of lawn out there, added fertilizer, watered it, put in grass seed, had warm sun on it, grass would grow–would you expect anything else? This is the way the world is. So when conditions are present, there will be a certain response.

If there was a tack on the floor and you stepped on it barefoot and it bled, is there anybody here who would say, “I shouldn’t bleed”? This is the way the body is. If the body is punctured, it will bleed. If you stub your toe, that’s a condition, and you feel the pain. But when you stub your emotional toe and anger or judgment of some sort comes up, somebody says something you don’t want to hear, maybe something abusive, or something comes up that frightens you, then most of you have at least some level of self-judgment–“I shouldn’t feel that.” Of course, sometimes anger and fear will come, sadness will come, confusion will come. How do you deal with these?

You are in a process of evolution. My view of the universe and of human evolution is this. There are eight, what I call, densities. The heaviest, the lowest density, the heaviest vibration, is mineral, gas, rock. Second density is vegetable and animal, from the very simplest forms of vegetable to the increasingly complex and finally self-aware animal. With that self-awareness comes readiness to progress into third density. Third density is human.

The span of third density is enormous, it’s everything from the animal who is first self-aware to the human who finally shifts from taking self-awareness as self-centeredness to knowing self-awareness as connection with all that is, so that limits of the self fall away and you find that you’re everything. At that point you’re ready to move on, but you’re still only moving into the 4th of 8 densities.

Most of you have heard the term “New Age.” The meaning is very simple. We are moving from the age of rational man into the age of non-dual awareness, where each of you are starting to know your deepest connections with the earth and with each other. Your third density life experiences give you the opportunity to practice through the body, through the emotions, to watch the recurrent thought of “me against that”, and instead begin to understand that the heart can open in compassion, connect to whatever seems separate, and yet work with it if it’s something unwholesome.

So if there are people doing, let’s use damage to the environment, instead of hating the people or saying helplessly, “Well, it’s them doing it, there’s nothing I can do,” you recognize whatever anybody is doing, you are also doing at some level, and when you hold the whole situation with love, you open the doorway to shifting the situation.

When I say “holding the doorway with love,” I’d like you all to think of something that angers you, something difficult. Bring your attention to it. Perhaps something unfair that somebody said to you, something hurtful. Can you feel your energy close up when you think about this? Tension, tightening in the body, contraction. The angel aspect of you is in a permanent state of non-contraction, and the earthsuit goes into contraction.

Now think of somebody that you deeply love or admire. Think of some exchange between the two of you that brought warmth into your heart… Can you feel the contraction dissolve? Can you feel the heart opening? The energy opens. When you are contracted, you move yourself off into a place of separation and thereby you set limits, because as the personal self you are indeed limited. But in this greater self there are no limits.

I am not suggesting that the personal self is non-existent. There is indeed a personal self and we honor and cherish that personal self. But we don’t ignore the greater self and choose the personal self as the only thing that’s real, any more than we ignore the personal self and choose the greater self as the only reality. How do you hold it together simultaneously?

I’d like you to try this exercise with me. Hold your hand up in front of your face. Wiggle the fingers, move the fingers. One is the body, one is the thoughts, here is emotions, here is planning or judging mind, it’s all there. Stare at the fingers. That’s it, that’s the personal self, constantly rushing around!

Now keep the fingers wiggling and look through them, look right up at me. The fingers haven’t gone anyplace, but look beyond. (pause) Look back at the fingers. When you focus on the fingers, you can’t see the spaciousness. When you open into the spaciousness, you don’t ignore the fingers. If one of the fingers suddenly started bleeding, right there while looking through you still can take a tissue and wipe it.

This demonstrates the simultaneity of the personal self and the greater self. So much of what you are learning in the incarnation is to hold that non-duality. You do that in your personal emotional work, for example if a judging thought, self-judgment or judgment of another, if a judging thought arises, you note, “judging, judging, here is a judgment.” I want you to think hard about my next statement. Some of you will get it quickly, others of you may not get it right away: that which is aware of judgment is not judging. Do you understand what I mean by that? That which is aware of judgment is not judging.

When anger comes up the body tenses. There is heat, pulsation. Here is anger. That which is aware of anger is not angry. Now you’ve got to be careful. There’s no denial of the anger. The anger is the direct experience of the moment. There’s also a commitment not to enact the anger in the world, but in order not to enact anger in the world you don’t have to combat the anger or defeat it, but rather to open your heart to this human that’s experiencing anger in this moment.

When there can be kindness for the self and the experience of anger, there can be kindness for another. Then there can be kindness for terrorists across the world. Maybe compassion is a better word. Non-judgment, non-hatred. Compassion is strong, compassion doesn’t simply say, “Okay, if you want to terrorize the world, I’ll just step back and let you do it.” Compassion holds the commitment to non-harm and to not judge another, and it knows how to say no in a loving way. As you practice in this way, you develop the ability to relate in your personal lives in a kinder and more openhearted way.

Let’s look at an example where you’re walking down the street and you see someone walking toward you with whom you’ve had a very difficult relationship, a person who seems chronically angry and frequently takes out that anger on you, with verbal abuse. Your first instinct is to cross the street–let’s get away from him. But even as you start to step to the curb, he starts to step toward you and clearly he’s going to intersect with you. Uh-oh.

Picture these two different possibilities, radically different possibilities. In one, you bristle, “Now what are you angry at!” What are you inviting with that response? What if you say to him in a softer voice, “You look angry today. What’s going on?” It’s a very different response. His answer could be, maybe he’s your neighbor, “Your dog littered on my front yard again!” Rage. “Okay, I hear you, I’ll work hard to make sure the dog doesn’t do that again, and I’ll be glad to come over and clean it up.” Or maybe he’s got a completely irrational reason for his anger. Or maybe he says, “My boss just fired me.” You tend to take it personally. You see the anger. The stories build up and you believe, “This is about me and our old angry relationship with each other,” and there’s no compassion in it.

The primary lesson of the human incarnation is compassion. It’s as simple as that. In order to practice compassion, you need to be aware of two things: the times when your response to the world is not compassionate but is caught up in the old stories of “not fair,” “why me” and “how do I keep myself safe?,” and that the compassionate heart does not have to be created, it’s already existent.

Let’s look at windows. These windows are not a good example because they’re sparkling clean. But what if they were covered with mud? Would you believe you needed to break away the glass and install new glass? The ever-perfect window is there, it just needs to have the mud washed off.

When there’s strong anger or any form of negativity, the loving heart is still there. If you forget that the loving heart is still there, you make a different effort, which is to try to get rid of the anger, to try to get rid of something, to use force, contraction. But when you can remember, “Yes, this is here but that’s still there,” the loving heart is still there, is always there, then you can relate to what has arisen from a much more openhearted place. The more you practice this, the easier it becomes.

It really begins with a commitment that I think all of you have or you would not be here today, to learn how to live your lives with love. Once that commitment is in place, then very gently you begin to look at the places that seem less than fully loving. This may be for many of you especially about yourself. How many of you frequently judge yourselves? You don’t have to put your hands up but I would guess that most of you do.

Just the reminder–I like the term, when a judging thought comes up, “Is that so?” “I should have been able to do this better. I’m not good enough.” “Ah, is that so?” You start to see this thought is just the judging mind, is habit. What does the loving heart say, the angel in the earthsuit? Can we let the angel come through more fully and express this innate capacity for love?

Dharma students ask me, they’re looking for liberation. How does karma end? As long as there’s a self trying to fix this or that, you’re giving off this message that it’s all coming from a self and that somehow, somewhere you’re going to conquer this thing we call existence. There’s no freedom on that route.

When you relax and get to know this divine radiance of being, you learn that there’s nothing to conquer. The move into fourth density, for the human--we said that 4th density, this “new age,” is really a shift in consciousness in which the whole earth is involved, non-dual consciousness. In this state of non-dual consciousness, every being is telepathic. If everyone in this room was telepathic right now, would that be okay with you? Any problems with that? (smiles and nodding yes) So we have thoughts that we have a bit of shame about or another’s thoughts that we might feel uncomfortable with.

As compassion develops and we no longer judge ourselves, we no longer judge others, there’s clear understanding, these thoughts, they’re just–back to that patch of grass. One dandelion seed fell into it so up comes a dandelion. Okay. That’s the way it is. That’s what’s growing in this moment. I don’t have to hate the dandelion but I can get out a trowel and dig it up by the roots. I can attend to it.

The way we dig up the negativity in ourselves by the roots is with kindness, deeply opening our hearts and knowing, this, the dandelion, didn’t just appear and it’s not trying to do me in. It’s here because some dandelion seeds fell on the earth and that happened because the wind blows. Would you stop the wind from blowing?

We simply attend to conditions with an ongoing resolve toward loving kindness, toward compassion. And we watch the mind and its stories with the intention to soften ourselves, to uncover this loving heart, wash away the dirt, in effect, so the clear radiance of being comes forth.

This is your work. All of you are involved, consciously or unconsciously in this shift to a higher consciousness. The Earth has been evolving through consciousness through many millennium, from a more of a magic and mythic consciousness many thousands of years ago into the rational consciousness and now it’s evolving into non-dual consciousness.

If you did not intend to participate in this work, you would not have incarnated. Some of you may not believe that and some of you may not feel comfortable even with the idea of reincarnation and that’s okay. For whatever reasons, you are here. And so we stay with that basic question: how do I open my heart with love in each moment with whatever physical, mental, or emotional catalyst presents itself?

Okay, I want to leave us a lot of time for questions. I promised a short talk today. So at this point I’d like to simply invite any questions that any of you may have.

Q: What is my next step in helping others to prepare for 2012?

Aaron: To more deeply resolve the emotional body, as I have been talking about. By this I do not mean to stop the emotions but to find greater equanimity with emotions. The reason that this is the next step is twofold. First, that you then serve as a model to others and many look to you to be that model. And second, as long as there is still even subtle self-judgment that is identified with, you’re holding onto this self-identity on a personal level, not allowing the deeper level of your being to be predominant.

That pure heart, that’s what has to lead. The mind and the emotions, they follow. This really relates to manifestation. As long as you are reacting from any place of contraction, even the contraction of trying to combat the judging mind, there’s still contraction. But when you make friends with the judging mind, it becomes like a parrot squawking in the background. You don’t really have to pay much heed to it. And eventually it will get bored and fly away. Do you understand?

Q: Yes, thank you.

Q: I have depression. I would like to know how to live with it better.

Aaron: Do you meditate? (Q: Yes.) What form of meditation do you use? (Q: Buddhist.) What school? Vipassana? Zen>? (Q: Some Zen, some to do with the Twelve Step Program.)

There are many paths. The path with which I’m most familiar and I find a very viable path is that of vipassana. I’m certain that there are vipassana groups found in this area. With this form of meditation, we watch how different object arise and pass away. Some are pleasant, some are unpleasant. We watch the whole chain whereby when an object is pleasant, there’s grasping after it and when it’s unpleasant, there’s aversion to it.

Depression is generally a closing-in of the self and one’s energy, and it often relates to trying to suppress certain kinds of feelings. The more you suppress, the more it closes in. The whole energy field gets locked in, the energy isn’t moving along all the chakras and meridians. This state is frequently diagnosed as depression. It has an organic outflow in the emotional and physical. But it can be turned around as you begin to see the experience of depression, just as Barbara spoke of seeing the experience of not-hearing. In not-hearing, just not hearing.

Depression is an uncomfortable feeling. Imagine yourself visiting the beach and being buried up to your neck in sand. Tight, confined. Can you visualize how you might first feel, sitting in that hole up to here in sand, locked in, tense, and how you could breathe and relax and just be there, just somebody sitting in a pile of sand? It still might not be pleasant, it would be cold and damp, or hot, gritty, trapped, but it’s just sitting in sand.

As you relax around it, you don’t need to push against the situation. The vipassana practice starts not with something major like depression but just a twinge on the little toe. Unpleasant. Itch, wanting to scratch. You watch these different sensations and thoughts come and go and begin to see how you monitor and judge and try to control, and just gently to let go.

When you are ready, you begin to work with the experience of depression itself, but not until the practice is stable. Two things are likely to happen. First, what you request, that you start to be more comfortable with depression. It’s just depression. And second, you begin to see the factors that are creating the depression. You begin to allow yourself to go deeper and see the fear, pain, sorrow, whatever might be there, with that same fearless, open heart. Be willing to say, “Okay, this is here, this is here;” you don’t have to condemn the self for any of it. At that point there’s nothing to hold the depression in place anymore.

There are some of my books in there and there are a number of chapters on dealing with depression. I think you’ll find some help from those.

Q: Is my contribution in this incarnation having to do with my new book?

Aaron: There are many levels of contribution and work. There is the outer work in the world and there is the inner work in the heart. I would say that it has less to do with the book itself, although that is a contribution, than it has to do with you using the book as a catalyst to you asking yourself, how do I feel about it? Do people endorse the book? Are they pulling back from it? What are my hopes and fears? What comes up for me as I offer this child out into the world? Because this is a place where you are able to look at the personality self and the stories, the most deeply embedded habitual stories, and release some of it. So the book is a gift out into the world but it’s also a catalyst for the personal work.

Remember that love and fear are simultaneous. So there is the offering of the book out with love and there are also the fears that come. Can you regard fear with kindness? Can you avoid being captured by the stories of fear? This takes us beyond this specific question and into the whole question of how we manifest anything in our lives.

If you have a new endeavor and you are focused on getting it just right, controlling it in some way, concerns–What if this goes wrong? What if that goes wrong?–in a sense you’re planting the seeds. There’s some part of you that is wanting, I would not say wanting but at some level, inviting the possibility of these things going wrong because there’s something that still needs to be resolved around it. So you keep the whole cycle going.

But at that point where you’re able to say, “Okay, this fear is old and I’m not going to enact these stories,” the story might still come, “What if the book doesn’t sell? What if people reject it in some way? What if I get some bad feedback?” Instead of going into that story, “How can I fix that before it happens?” just note fear, wanting so much for this work to be important to people, wanting so much to be liked. That’s part of it, wanting so much for acceptance. Can I embrace this human with all its human qualities? So there’s a commitment not to go into fear’s stories, not to perpetuate the stories. Then there is no longer reason for anything to go wrong. You’re creating a different possibility. So I think this is the more important aspect of the work because what you learn here you will teach others.

I want to see something here. (Aaron walks away from mic to Q2.) May I put my hands here? I want you to take a deep breath. Lower down into the belly. Are you aware of how shallow you’re breathing? Bring the attention to it. The part of you that’s not willing to let the world come into you. I want you to envision as you breathe in, open your eyes–do it for me now, all of you can try this. Breathe in, breathe the whole world into one self. And release. Letting go of the separation, letting yourself remind you it’s safe to bring the whole world in. I think just that act–try that again –– I think just that act is going to change your energy. It will be a force in helping to release the depression.

Q: Thank you.

Q: I believe in spirit guides. I want to know how to best work with my spirit guides.

Aaron: Do you have conscious contact with your guides?

Q: No. I do feel a presence every once in awhile.

Aaron: Child, there is no wall between us from our side. From your side, you keep the doors closed. You have to learn, all of you, to open the doors. You all have guides. You all can connect with your guides.

Here’s a very simple exercise with which many people have had success. Begin with a notepad and pen. Think about a question that’s very important to you, something that you don’t as of now have any understanding about. A question like, “Why am I here in this incarnation?” or “What is my next step?”

Putting the notepad down, then--write the question, put the pad down. Sit quietly and state your highest intentions, whatever they may be. They will differ for different people. For some, it could be as simply as, “To be safe and happy in my life.” For others it might be, “To be of service, the highest service possible to all beings. To live my life with love.”

If possible, think of a great Master with whom you feel a resonance, Jesus, the Buddha, some other being. Feel the resonance and the commitment that the way you live your life will be in harmony with the teachings of this Master.

Then, having stated your deepest values, you ask for help. Say the question. “Whatever help may come must come in harmony with my own deepest values.” It’s a very important statement because there is a negative energy out there. You don’t want to just open the door and say, “Free beer!” You’ve got to make certain whom you’re inviting in. You do that by a clear statement of your highest values. Make that statement, pick up the pad and just sit.

When you write, usually your brain thinks of what you’re going to say. Here you’re just going to feel an impulse and just start to write. Don’t monitor it in any way. It could be 3 words, 3 sentences, 3 pages. As long as you feel this flow of energy, just keep writing without reading back or thinking about what was written. Just to try to keep a clear channel. When the flow stops, you’ll feel it, a distinct, “That’s it.”

Then read it. Read it with discernment: does this come fully in harmony with my own values? It may not be something you’re happy to hear. It may be pointing out something that needs work and that’s frightening, something you are working on, but it will resonate as truth.

If it does not resonate as truth, you immediately put it down and make your statement of values again. Make the statement, “This comes with a kind of negative twist to it. This doesn’t feel right to me. Again I’m asking for guidance, for the highest guidance that I can hold, that can flow through me, in answer to this question.” And if more energy comes, write again.

When you feel it resonates as truth for you, if there’s a question that it raises, ask the question. Get into a dialogue with this being, and before you close the contact, ask, “Do you have a name? How can I reach you?” It may simply give the name “Teacher” or “Friend” or it may give a specific name. Very likely it will give certain instruction about raising your own vibrational frequency along with the reply to your question, something like visualizing certain colors and bringing them in to further tune the chakras and the energy field. I don’t know what. It may give very specific guidance.

Work with the guidance. What the entity is doing is helping to raise your vibrational frequency so that you can clearly hold that energy, that vibration, so there’s no static on the line between you. You want to connect with this entity through writing 2 or 3, or even 4 or 5 times, before you’re ready to put the pencil down and just hear the thoughts.

All of you have guides. You all have at least one and usually several personal guides. Some of your guides are simply third density beings like yourselves in between incarnations. Some of them are much higher vibrational beings.

I see this, if I may use this as a metaphor, like the university system where you have students, TAs--teaching assistants–who are just out of school themselves. Assistant professors, full professors. There’s a flow from the full professor down to the TA. The student may not even be able to understand the full professor, speaking a different language, so to speak, where the TA speaks the student’s language. So a higher density being is not necessarily a better guide for you than the third density being between incarnations.

People ask me, “How can another third density being know any more than I know?” Picture yourself walking with weighted shoes into the water. You just keep walking. You have a long snorkel tube. Laid out is a maze that you are to follow. You don’t have a mask--once you’re underwater there’s a veil, you can’t see. There are flags on the surface but you can’t see them, you’re underwater. This is the incarnate experience for many people. But your third density guide is sitting on your shoulders with their head out of the water. Eventually you develop the vision to see underwater. The water clears, the veil vanishes.

Don’t grasp at a higher level guide, simply ask for the highest level guidance you can stably work with and trust that as you are ready for a higher vibrational guide, it will be available because they’re part of a family and you all meet each guide in turn as you are ready for them. No one level of guide is best.

Another area to consider here is that some of you say, “I want to meet my guides, I want to learn,” and yet at some level there’s resistance because you’re aware that the guide is going to ask you to look at things in your life that are hard to look at, to clean up areas of your life, perhaps, that you’ve not wanted to attend to.

So if you have a self-image, for example, of being one who is unworthy, and it’s very frightening to see yourself as a powerful being–people get into this, for example, because they have a lot of anger. They don’t know what to do with their anger. They’re frightened by their anger. They feel how powerful and negative that anger can be, so they move themselves into a place of seeming limitation, powerlessness, and feelings of inadequacy. They hold that self-image of themselves because they are afraid of their power.

What if you are open to a guide that invites you to look at these feelings of inadequacy, invites you to look at the reality of your own unlimitedness and power–is that okay? So you’ve got to acknowledge there may be some fear. You’ve got to be honest with your guides and say, “I want this and yet I’m also afraid of it.” YOU are in control. You always have free will. You will never be led at a pace that you feel is faster than you can handle, and you can always say, “I need this to slow down.” Remember that. This is safe. The intention of positively-polarized entities is to help you to realize your own radiance and unlimitedness, never to harm you or force you back into darkness. Ask for the help you need.

Other questions?

Q: What is it that I am to be learning at the present time?

Aaron: To find your voice. Not to be afraid to speak your truth. There is a desire to be loving, a wholesome desire to please others, and sometimes you pull back thinking it’s compassionate to hold silent rather than saying no from a compassionate place. You are here to learn to speak your truth more fully and to learn how to speak that truth from a place of compassion. Do you need to hear more about that or is that sufficient?

Q: Yes, sufficient.

Aaron: As I am saying these things to you, please know that I am saying them with the deepest love and respect, knowing each of your capacity to more fully awaken and radiate that angel that you are. I respect your asking these questions and your willingness to attempt(attend to) this work.

Q: What would be my best career path?

Aaron: What are you passionate about?

Q: A lot of things! Travel? Helping people? Relaxing at the spa.

Aaron: Daughter, you are an old soul, do you understand what I mean by that? You came into the incarnation to do work toward bringing love to the world and opening your own heart in love. This is the primary work, healing the self and that which chastises the self, judges the self. In choosing a career, I cannot tell you this or that is your career path, only that it be something about which you feel passionate. There are going to be times when the work feels arduous or boring. The question is, am I making a choice out of love, not out of any judgment of, “I should” do this or that.

There will always be some balance, part of you that says, “Yes, this!” and part of you that says, “What if it doesn’t work?” or “Maybe I should choose something else.” Instead of getting caught up in the “Maybe I should choose something else,” come back to the “This resonates for me. My heart opens to this.” It’s the same thing we were talking about just a few minutes ago, in manifestation, not getting caught up in the negativity, not getting caught up in the fears. If there is the fear, as there is for many, of “What if I don’t succeed?” then you keep repeating the process of not really succeeding.

When you look at relative reality, of course you’ve got to be realistic. For example, you’re not going to open a spa up in the most northern areas of Alaska. Nobody’s going to come! But when there is a reasonable degree of knowledge or skill about the proposed intention and the heart resonates with this, then whatever fears come up, whatever stories,-- “But I might not make it!”, “Maybe it’s not service-oriented enough, maybe I should choose something more creative or more of a gift to people, etc, etc, etc,” just note fear–“fear, fear” and come back to the fingers, come back to the open spacious heart that says, “No, this is what I intend to do and I open to this with all my heart and all my love.” Visualize it succeeding, succeeding in all the ways you want it to succeed. People coming and being truly helped, finding joy or whatever kind of help they may find, better health. Finding yourself adequately rewarded financially that your own life is comfortable. Feeling the enrichment of sharing whatever it is that you’re sharing with people–whatever it is.

I am not saying to abolish fear, you cannot abolish fear without suppressing it. But to be mindful of fear and to know it simply has arisen from conditions and you do not have to get caught up in its stories. The fear is just fear. Use that little, “Is that so?” That really breaks things open. “I might not have enough skills.” “Oh, is that so?” “People might not come.” “Is that so?” These are stories.

So feel the intention to open the heart more and more completely to what you’re pursuing so that you’re pursuing it with passion, with the highest intention for the good of all beings including the self, and with the intention that it add to the healing of the self, the healing of these feelings of inadequacy, the feelings of self-judgment. Does that answer your question?

Q: Yes.

Aaron: Do it with love, that’s all. Do it with love.

Q: Can we elaborate on past lives--well maybe my past lives, and how I can learn from that now?

Aaron: Where relevant in a private meeting, we will offer past life information, but here within the group, the most important thing I can say about past lives is to look at the prevalent habits in this life. If there is a strong ongoing pattern, probably that pattern has existed in a past life. Without seeing the past life, simply invite up whatever intuitively comes to mind. Let yourself simply visualize a being in a challenging situation with the pattern that you see in the present self and its challenge.

And then in your meditation, speak to this friend who has come. It doesn’t have to be an accurate portrayal of that past life, but speak to this person. Somebody caught up in confusion, fear, or anger; somebody who’s reactive in a certain way. Somebody who wants to, and these are hypothetical, not to you, somebody who wants to save everybody, take care of everybody, and feels helpless because they can’t. What would you say to this person? What would you say to this, let’s not call it a karmic ancestor but a friend? As you speak to them from your own soul’s wisdom, you teach yourself.

Okay?

Q: My question is, I’m very concerned about what I see as the political and moral breakdown of what our country was founded on.

Aaron: You are all here to learn. Whatever choices you make, there will be consequences. When a young child is building a pile with blocks, sometimes the child will consistently put a block on out of balance so the pile topples over. The parent comes over and shows the child how to put it on the center. The child puts it back on the side and the pile topples over, the child may even cry that it topples over. But at some level the child understands that he’s not trying to make a pile of blocks, he’s learning about balance. He will need to keep it toppling over until he’s learned what he needs to learn.

You are all children in some ways experimenting with how to build the society, the world, that you say you want to build, and how to deal with the individual self, the ego, that fears and says, “But I want my share.” So each of you is trying to learn how to release the ego’s fears and connect with everyone else, and simultaneously to say no to those who are still caught up in self-centeredness and selfishness. Sometimes people have to experience the consequences, the whole world has to experience the consequences. How bad does it have to get before enough people are ready to say no and take a stronger stand to recreate the, I would not call it moral awareness so much as non-dual awareness, the non-separation awareness, that everything, whatever you send out, is going to come back to you. What are you sending out?

I don’t think you’re going to destroy this earth, but you’re going to continue to suffer discomfort until enough of you learn to create a different future. I would not worry about it. Rather I would become active in clarifying the self and the places where self-interest and world interest seem to conflict, and working with such groups that feel harmonious to you, who are trying to do this in the world. These will be groups who are not approaching others with judgment or anger but are truly trying to heal the world with love.

It seems people are getting tired and ready to move around a bit and to stir the energy up. Shall we end, then? If we’re finished, I will release the body back to Barbara.

My dear ones, thank you for sharing yourselves and your hearts with me here today. Please remember that you are angels. Don’t get caught up in the earthsuit to the degree that you forget that you are angels. You are radiant, you are unlimited, you are cherished. And you must care for the earthsuit because that’s where the angel is living right now.

Stop regarding the body as a heavy diving suit that you must lug around and instead begin to regard it with great cherishing because it is the teacher for the incarnation. The physical body, the emotional body, the mental body, these are your teachers. They’re not problems.

I wish you knew deeply how much loving guidance surrounds all of you. You can trust that. You are not alone. You are cherished and your work inspires others, not just on the human plane but on many planes. You are literally teachers of compassion to the universe and yours is the place of learning to deepening compassion. If compassion had an end, could go only that high and that was the limit, there wouldn’t be much point in the work, but we find that compassion is endless and you truly are inspirations of compassion.

When you go to a play and you see a character in the play in a difficult situation, and the character is able to respond in a clear and loving way, that inspires you, doesn’t it? In a sense the universe is watching you and inspired by you, and you have volunteered to come into this incarnation and do this work for your own selves and in service to all beings. Keep that perspective before you and it will make the challenging situations seem a little less weighty, less burdensome. In every burden there is a gift.

Thank you for permitting me to share my thoughts with you tonight. My blessings and love to you all.

(session ends)

Copyright © 2008 by Barbara Brodsky