April 4, 2012 Wednesday, Cosmic Healing Class

Aaron: My blessings and love to you. I am Aaron. Welcome.

Bring awareness to whatever you use as a primary object. It may be a mundane object like the breath, or sensation in the body-- the touching of the buttocks on the seat, for example-- or it may be a more supramundane object like nada.

(pause)

Objects come and go, sometimes pleasant, sometimes unpleasant. If the sound of the traffic becomes predominant, a big truck rushing past, and pulls your attention away from your primary object, simply note it as hearing, hearing.

(pause)

Be aware of the texture of the hearing experience. Is there a strong experiencer who is experiencing? Can you come to a point where it's just awareness watching this whole flow of arising and passing away?

(longer pause)

We're going to talk about the states and the stages of consciousness tonight. Be aware as you watch in the sitting what stage of consciousness is predominant. For example, is it a rational consciousness? A somebody who says, “Now there is this experience. I will watch it. It will pass. Then there will be another experience. I will not get caught in these.” This is the rational mind, based on your early training.

Is it a higher stage of consciousness that's able to see how all of these different objects are simply exploding out of conditions, one object after another, and watch them without getting caught? It's like watching a parade going by. You may even be enthused about some of the objects in the parade, or disdain other objects, but you do not take them personally, feeling, “I caused this object,” or “This object doesn't like me so it won't stay here with me.” It's simply arising and passing away. So, that is a higher stage of consciousness, vision logic consciousness, moving into subtle consciousness.

You may find in the sitting the entering into a vast field of awareness that some of you have come to know as access concentration. Just resting in spaciousness, objects coming and going and really no sense of a solid self at all, just awareness watching the passing show. So here is a different stage of consciousness.

I am not asking you to label these stages of consciousness so much as to become discerning that there are different stages of consciousness, and that if you are caught in the, I don't want to call it lower, but lower vibrational stage of consciousness, you can lift yourself out by inviting more spaciousness. As soon as the observer looks at this so-called self, what happens to the self? Can it stay solid under that observation, or does it dissolve?

Enough words. We'll sit for 20 minutes.

(sitting)

(class discussion and sharing on stages of consciousness, not recorded)

Aaron: I am Aaron. My blessings and love to you. You are that. You are that divinity, that radiance, that high vibration. The only thing that stops you from knowing it is your fear: what if I really am that high a vibration? What if I really am unlimited?

So many of you aspire to be loving and to do no harm in your lives and yet you still do experience negative emotion: anger, greed, jealousy, and so forth. I think there's a strong fear in many of you, “I am not able to control that emotion. What if I really am that powerful? I could destroy.” So you cut yourself back and limit yourself with the belief, “I have to hold myself in these small confines because I do not yet trust my ability to observe the arising of negative thought, of emotion, without enacting it.” But this is all that's called for. It's not so much learning not to enact it but learning to trust that you already have the ability not to enact it, grounded in your deep intention to do no harm.

If you were deeply self-centered, what we call “service to self” and the whole world revolving around you, you wouldn't be in this class. Trust yourselves. You are all old souls with an intention to love. It doesn't mean you're never going to be angry, but when anger comes up it's simply an object. You know how to make space around it. You know it's impermanent. It will dissolve. Let it be.

Chasing anger away with a stick is just more anger. Denying the anger with an “I won't be angry” is just more anger. Can you just take care of the anger, or fear, or greed, or whatever has arisen, neither denying it nor enacting it, but simply holding space for it until it dissolves? And meanwhile, while you're holding that space, rest in this radiant, divine awareness, which is the truth of your being. There's no denial there that certain conditions are not yet purified, so that certain objects like anger will still arise. But you're not going to purify them by denying them or trying to chase them away, only by knowing this deepest truth of yourselves and cherishing this truly unlimited, very high vibrational entity that you are, boundary-less, interconnected. You are love.

That's all. Just wishing to inspire you a moment, and to remind you of your essence.

May we take hands and simply make a circle, here. Come in close; join to a complete circle. You can sit so you're comfortable, if you wish. Sit or stand as you like. I want you to feel the energy of the group.

I am love. We are love. Together we hold the highest intention to manifest this love throughout the earth, to literally transform the earth through this expansive and uncontracted vibration and open heart.

Feel the energy passing around the circle. Consciously draw it in with your left hand. Let it run through your heart center and pass it out through your right hand. Keep it going, new energy coming in constantly through the left hand and passing out through the right so it's spiraling counterclockwise around the room... With ease, with joy.

My sons and daughters, learn to trust yourselves and the radiance and beauty of YOU, singular and collective.

Through your inner work, through your meditation practice, your sincere yearnings toward maturity and growth, toward living in a higher vibration and a world where all beings are happy and safe, may you each find the healing that you seek, and may all sentient beings everywhere find peace.

Thank you.

I will release the body to Barbara. Hold the circle for a moment, if you will, until she comes back, so she experiences it.

(Barbara returns)

Barbara: Thank you.

Homework. Please watch these stages of consciousness come and go in yourselves. You're not trying to change or fix anything, just  bring an awareness. When you shift habitually into a lower, fear-based stage of consciousness, become aware of that and that it doesn't fit with your highest intentions. The clear comprehension practice we talked about earlier: is this stage of consciousness suitable to my highest intentions? If not, without trying to get rid of this stage of consciousness, can I - like the teddy bear I was talking about with the canisters - can I simply put one foot into a higher stage of consciousness? Can I reconnect to this higher vibration? Just keep inviting yourself to do that. See what happens. We'll share some of it next time.

That's all. A couple of announcements...

(recording ends)