August 3, 2013 Saturday AM, Trainings Workshop Two

August 3, 2013 Saturday Morning, Trainings Workshop #2

Aaron: Good morning. My blessings and love to all of you. I'm delighted that many of you who had originally signed up for just the first weekend decided to continue this work, that you're finding it valuable. To me what we are doing here is very vital to the opening of the whole  universe into a higher consciousness, each of you participating in the ways that you are able. Each of you is willing to pick up that responsibility to the degree that your maturity, skills, and readiness present.

Imagine, if you will, a water tower ten times the capacity of this room, a huge amount of water. There are different kinds of hoses and tubing, everything from something the size of a straw with a tiny valve on the end to a huge fire hose that takes four men to hold. If you want a cup of water, you're going to have to turn on the tiny hose. You do not turn on the fire hose valve if you are not trained in its use, because that is an immense power. But if a house is burning down and people are screaming for help from the top floors, and if you are trained in its use, you and others thusly trained will take the fire hose and open that big valve. In the fire you ignore the little valve.

What you don't yet recognize is that each of you has the capacity to be the fireman or woman, to handle that immense power with love and responsibility, from a place empty of ego, a place intended to service. Not to strut afterward and say, “Look what I did, I put out the fire!” but simply to do your work.

There are fires blazing all over your world, wars big and small, environmental disasters, people who are starving, and much more. There are pockets in your world where people are of a very fundamentalist consciousness, very deeply imbedded in the idea that they have the only right answers and everyone else is wrong; that the world must be convinced, even with force, to embrace their answers. This is simply a stage of human consciousness.

No state or stage of consciousness is better or worse than any other. You do not expect a two year old to reason with you. You do not expect an infant, let's say twins and they're both howling with hunger, you don't expect a two-month-old to understand when you say, “Quiet. I have to feed your brother or sister first.” The human hopefully will move through these levels of consciousness: archaic, magical, mythic consciousness, rational consciousness, on into the vision logic level of consciousness in which most of you are right now, and on beyond that into the various levels of Causal and Non-dual consciousness—Christ consciousness, Buddha consciousness, Non-dual consciousness.

Every human being who has evolved into a higher level of consciousness contains within them also the early levels of consciousness. I won't call them lower levels; simply, the earlier levels. You cannot remember learning how to walk, but each of you at one point finally got up from your bottom, stood up holding a chair, took one step, took a second step, plopped down, tried it again and again until you could walk stably. What a wonderful gait the toddler has, swinging from side to side! And then you learned to walk faster and more smoothly. And then you learned to run. Now that you can run, you think you have left behind the toddler. But the toddler is still within you also. How does it feel to walk on unstable ground?  When you look at a toddler, you don't say, “This is an inferior human being,” only, “This is a learning human being.”

So all over the world there are beings that are suffering enormously because they are caught and not evolving beyond a certain level of consciousness. And because of this situation, there's not clear dialogue between countries, between religions, between cultures, partly because many of you think that they should be where you are; “Us” and “Them.”

If you have a 3 year old and a plate of cookies, 12 cookies and 6 children, and the 3 year old comes in and grabs 3 or 4 cookies, you say, “No, put them back. You may have two.” “I want more!” You can explain to the 3 year old, “Two for Susie, two for Johnny, two for Patrick, two for...” etc., etc., etc. And the 3 year old will look at you with some degree of understanding, take her two cookies, and then repeat, “I want more!”

You can be very clear with that 3 year old, “Two is all you may have. I hear that you want more, but we're going to share. I know you don't want to share. I know you want more. Susie wants more, Johnny wants more, Patrick wants more, everybody wants more, so each is going to get two.” You can even engage them in a dialogue. After they each have two, each of them saying, “I want more,” then trying to talk about, “How could we arrange it so that we would have more?” They might even come up with a scheme to spend the afternoon baking cookies, and they can all work together to create a new batch of cookies so everybody will get two more. But you don't force it on them. You don't belittle them because they don't yet understand. You help them to understand.

In these remaining three workshops we are engaged in helping you to move smoothly through the three levels of vision logic consciousness, which I'll explain later this weekend, so that you are at a point where you can hold the whole spectrum of consciousness, understand who you are addressing, get your ego out of the way so that the heart can address the 3 year old saying, “I want more!” or “You're wrong! My god is better than your god! My country is better than your country!” How do we speak to people like this without any tone of self-righteousness, truly any experience of self-righteousness? How do we invite them up this evolutionary ladder without feeling better than them or asking them to feel inferior?

A major part of this work is getting out of the small ego into the bigger self through meditation and also through our work entering into and becoming stable in the akashic field. Because it's from within that akashic field that you are able to hold the whole picture together rather than only seeing small segments.

We talk about remembering, not learning. I fully trust for each of you, because you have chosen to participate in this workshop, that you have come to remember something that you have known forever, which is how you are all intimately connected-- not two connected, not a thousand, but One. You are remembering what that means; remembering how to live from that place of interbeing with compassion. You are remembering how to say no from that space of connectedness, not allowing others to abuse you or to abuse others. How does love say no? Would you like to remember that? I think so.

I'm reading here from the list I gave Barbara. We're working...

-To acknowledge our readiness to participate responsibly and joyfully in carrying our share of the power.

-To be present with our minds and body, not to be reactive to what arises.

-To hold our intention for non-harm and service to all, and intention to know and act our oneness with all.

This is the ground on which we will build the skills we now aspire to remember; awareness that each person is in a different place in the spectrum of consciousness, not better or worse. We are learning communication with respect.

How does this hand communicate with this hand? I reach to pick up something. The thought comes into the mind to pick up the block. (sounds of squabbling hands, I want it! No, I want it!) That doesn't happen, because the body and mind communicate and the mind easily knows which hand to reach for it. You are all hands of the same divinity.

At this point all of you have had some vipassana, or considerable amount of vipassana, instruction and practice. The word passana in the Pali language means seeing, to see. Vipassana, to see deeply, to see deeply into the nature of all things. This is a vital foundation of everything else we will do.

Many of you have practiced vipassana for years. A few are newer to the practice. At least a dozen of you came here with D two weeks ago on a Sunday morning by the lake and had a wonderful introduction to vipassana. Today, D will meet with that sitting circle and anybody else who feels they would benefit from more basic instruction.

There are also several opportunities at Deep Spring Center. I don't have the details, Barbara probably does. But I believe there is a half-day of meditation instruction at Deep Spring on August 10 from 1 to 4, On September 7th is a full day of offerings form Deep Spring  teachers, including introductory meditation, held at Interfaith Center by Deep Spring teachers, a full day of vipassana and related topics. The first morning talk is Vipassana Instruction. See the Deep Spring website at http://deepspring.org/

for more information So, there are many opportunities to learn and practice vipassana. Ongoing classes to be offered in September too. .

All right, enough talking about vipassana. Now let us do. I'm going to keep you all together here for this. We'll have some periods of sitting, some broken up with instruction.

Vipassana instruction and sitting:

Sit comfortably in your chair, feet on the floor, hands on your lap, arms resting comfortably. We can use many different primary objects but for now we'll use the breath. Feel the breath coming in through the nostrils, a little bit cool as it touches the nostrils and upper lip. Don't follow it all the way in and down to the belly; just touching. Feel the sensation, touching, touching, breath. And then, breathing out, a bit softer touch, a little warmer.

Breathing in, and breathing out. Focus the spotlight of intention, of awareness, on that touch of the breath at nostrils and upper lip. Have you seen the headlamps that people wear with a little flashlight in the middle of the forehead? Wherever you turn your head, that's where the light goes. Right now, the light of our awareness is simply touching the flow of in breath and out breath as touch, sensation.

(pause for practice)

Those of you with more experience may notice that there's a small gap between the inhaled breath and the exhaled. This is called the aperture, the opening in the breath. Don't make an effort to try to find it, but if you notice it, just notice that pause. Breathing in... and the touch... pause... lack of touch, stillness; and then breathing out and that soft warmer breath. Then comes another pause. You may notice that one pause is longer or shorter than the other. You're not trying to control the breath in any way, just to watch the breath breathing itself.

(pause for practice)

Something such as a sound may pull your attention away from the breath. Like in this moment, my voice, and “hearing, hearing.” You are not trying to stay with the breath but with whatever is predominant in your experience. If my voice is predominant, just be with it, “hearing, hearing.” When my voice stops, return to the breath.

(pause for practice)

This body I presently inhabit has the sensation of a soft cool breeze in the back, neck, and shoulders, a strong enough touch, strong enough object, that the attention would move from the breath to touching, breeze. It's not a constant breeze. The breeze stops. It is Aaron meditating in this body. Barbara is not here so it's me doing this, Aaron. When the breeze pauses, I bring attention back to the breath. That's my base. Suddenly, a breeze again—breeze, touching. Just that fast, and then it's gone. Back to the breath.

If you have clogged sinuses or whatever and cannot breathe through the nose, you may breathe through the mouth. If you can breathe through the nose, try to do that.

(pause for practice)

Feeling an itch, perhaps, noting itching, itching. If it persists, simply stay with it. If it dissolves or moves someplace else, come back to the breath.

(pause for practice)

There might be a different kind of sound, an unpleasant sound (rapping, rapping). Hearing, hearing. If it was unpleasant, know it was unpleasant. Or perhaps a more lovely sound (bell, bell). If it is pleasant, know it's pleasant.

This is the foundation, to be present in the mind and body with whatever arises. Body sensations are perceived by the body senses, such as ears, eyes, nose, tongue, and the body itself, touch. Mental objects arise and are perceived by the mind—a memory, a thought, a plan-- thinking, thinking. Maybe a judging thought or a grasping thought.

Whatever arises will either be pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral. This is our base. You are not trying to hold onto the breath but to use the breath as a resting place to which you return after you have noted some other object, held it spaciously until it dissolved, and then, in that quietness, returned to the breath.

Let's do this now for about 5 minutes, and then we'll add another step.

(longer pause for practice)

Aaron: ...Begin to notice more deeply now that some objects that arise are pleasant, some are unpleasant, some are neutral. It's not so much dependent on the object, but how you relate to it. If you were in a very still and peaceful place as I just began to talk, this voice might come as an intrusion and be felt as unpleasant. If you were restless, asking “What next?” then this voice might come as a very pleasant interruption. “Ah, something different that can entertain me, Aaron's going to talk.” It's the same voice, the same words.

Ask, “What is arising in this moment in my experience, in the mind, in the body? And how do I relate to it? Is it experienced as pleasant, as unpleasant, or as neutral?” If it is unpleasant, can you feel your body move into a tension that wants to push it away? If it's pleasant, perhaps birds chirping in the woods, very lovely sound, or the breeze blowing in the trees, hearing, hearing, pleasant, can you feel any subtle grasping? You don't want to hear my voice, you want to go back and hear that bird. It was such a beautiful sound. There's a mix of aversion and grasping, pleasant and unpleasant. Two objects, the pleasantness of the bird, the unpleasantness of my voice breaking in and interrupting your listening to the bird. It's experienced in the body as tension. You don't really have to call it grasping or aversion, just tension. That tension becomes the predominant object.

Take one hand and put it over the primary area of tension. It may be held in the jaw or in the belly or in the throat, or even in the back of the neck or shoulder. Just breath with it and know tension, tension, until it resolves. And then simply come back to the face, the breath moving in and out. If the tension resolves completely, put your hand back on your lap and just breathe. If the tension builds, know that.

Every object that arises does not bring tension. Hearing the birds, hearing, pleasant. Hearing my voice may also be pleasant, the whole body open and receptive, no tension. Sitting in the chair, comfortable, no tension. And then an itch comes up and persists, unpleasant, unpleasant, tension. Put your hand right there where the tension is held in the body. Breathing in, I am aware of the tension. Breathing out, I hold space for the tension. As the tension resolves, the itch may still be there but it's no longer grabbing your attention. It's just a background sensation, so come back to the breath.

Hearing a loud bird, hearing, hearing, pleasant, and then other birds. Attention is no longer on the breath, it's on hearing. A woodpecker—rap, rap, rap, rap, rap! Unpleasant, and then it stops. Hearing musical birds again, pleasant. But eventually the bird sound just fades into the background. Mind begins to wander, thinking, “What kind of bird was that?” Thinking, thinking, noting thinking. Come back to the breath.

If the bird sound begins again and pulls your attention away from the breath, note hearing, hearing. If mind begins to think, maybe a judging thought, “They should have closed the windows so the bird sound wouldn't intrude. It's too noisy.” -“Ah, judging, judging.” How does that judging energy feel in your body? Does it stay there when you bring attention to it, or does it gradually diminish and resolve? Even if you still hear the birds, come back to your breath, just touching base with the breath. If the sound of the birds pulls your attention away again, note hearing, hearing. If it's pleasant, know it's pleasant. If it's unpleasant, know it's unpleasant.

When attention is present in the mind and body we begin to see the interplay of mind and body experience. The senses touch an object; contact and consciousness of the object; the sensation of pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral; it is all passing by.  And then thoughts or opinions, tension, may arise around that object. And the activity of the mental body becomes predominant. Just watch it.

There is nothing you can do wrong here. If attention wanders for a few minutes, when you find yourself having wandered in that way, daydreaming or planning, simply note it and come back to the breath. Be gentle to yourself. But if criticizing, or self-judgment, comes, simply note judging. Ah, here's another object.

Begin to see what kinds of objects are habitual, such as a self-judgment “I can't do this right.” or a preference “I want it to be still.” Watch the contraction that comes with “I want it to be still.” Is it my voice that's interrupting your stillness, or is it your wanting it to be different that interrupts your stillness?

Again, I'll be quiet here and let you sit for 6 or 7 minutes.

(sitting)

Our focus here is becoming stable and returning to a non-contracted state. When there is some kind of pain, discomfort, or tension, to do that you begin to recognize the non-contracted state right there with the contraction. Some of you have found that spaciousness, some not. We're going to do one brief exercise here and then spend a longer time in meditation.

I want each of you to connect with a person sitting next to you. If necessary, 3 join hands in a  chain. Simply take the hand of the person... Now I'm going to ask that you to begin to practice with the breath, and then one of these people holding hands give a sudden squeeze or jerk of the hand, something a bit distracting. Don't keep going with it repeatedly but intermittently. Do it once and then pause for 15 or 20 seconds. Then Person 1 may do it again, or the other person may.

I want you to feel the tension that you may be feeling, anticipating another squeeze, any feeling of “I can't meditate now because somebody may squeeze my hand.” Tension, tension. That which is aware of tension is not tense. With no denial of the tension and of anything that's unpleasant about being pulled out of a meditative state by a sudden jerk or squeeze, can you also find that centered awareness, perhaps offering metta to the self and to the other?

Breathing in, may I be happy.

Breathing out, may all beings be happy.

Breathing in, may I be free of tension.

Breathing out, may all beings be free of tension.

Holding this person that's holding your hand with love. You may or may not know the person. They may be a stranger to you. That's okay.

May we all be free of tension.

May our hearts open and flower.

May we be happy and find peace.

What I am asking you to do is not to stop the tension, but to find an enormous spaciousness in which that tension can float, so that you can more easily touch back to the place of peace, joy, and stillness, to your own most vibrant and spacious being, while still noting with some tenderness and compassion the annoyance, irritation, of this human, who just as he or she is getting settled suddenly has the hand jerked or squeezed. Not a friendly squeeze, a hard squeeze. A little unpleasant, distracting, disturbing. Ahh...

Both are present, the feeling of irritation and the spaciousness. Remember your highest purpose here, to live your life with greater love, with harm to no one, in service to beings, with joy. Just remind yourself of that. Remember, what I'm asking of you is something of which you are capable: to find both the spaciousness and acknowledge the tension; to rest in the spaciousness without ego saying, “I won't have tension!” or trying to fix the tension. Anger, irritation, whatever comes, just holding it in loving spaciousness.

Let's try this for 3 or 4 minutes. Then I will invite the bell just once, and then we'll release the hands and just sit quietly for another 10 minutes.

(exercise; then meditation)

Barbara: What did you experience? What worked for you? What was hard for you? Any questions, also. Aaron is asking a specific question. When there's tension, contraction, and you remembered spaciousness, what happened? What happened to the contraction?

Q: I was noticing how I was caught and wanted to get rid of it, and then it just simply becomes a sensation in the (body/mind).

Barbara:  Can you feel a different sensation of the spaciousness, that awareness that notes, “Ahhh... Just because my mind is saying, ‘Get rid of it!' doesn't mean I have to pay attention to the voice. Just shhh, shhh, it's okay. ‘Don't like this.' It's okay.”

Q: I noticed so much tension in my neck and throat. And when I remembered to allow it to be there and allowed spaciousness around it, I continually needed to take deep breaths, and it felt like it was melting at those times.

Q: I found it unlike how tension arises in real life, life outside here. I found it to be fun, actually, kind of fun to do. And instead of feeling the kind of stiff tension that I feel when tensions arise or come at me in life, I felt in this practice kind of warm fluid surrounding it.

Q: It was easier for me to feel the contrast between auditory—I'm not sure what the word is. I hear a noise, someone coughs, the squealing of Barbara's little table—the contrast was more apparent to me in the auditory than the touch with my partner's hand.

Q: I could deal with the squeezing irregularly at times, but I couldn't get past the freezing cold wind blowing in the window. (it is a cold morning!)  I spent considerable time wondering if it was designed that way? (laughter).

Barbara: When you wondered that, did you note thinking, thinking? The thoughts are just another object.

Okay. In this next six or seven weeks before Workshop 3, I would like all of you to meditate every day for at least 10 minutes, longer if you can, but at least 10 minutes with the practice that we just did. Ideally be mindful at other times during the day. Like if you are stopped at a long traffic light and you're impatient, wanting to get somewhere, breathe and begin to note the experience of impatience and look for the spaciousness that's there with the impatience. You're not trying to get rid of impatience; only to recognize, right here with impatience is that which is patient. Where is it, in this moment? Right now, where is patience in me? Ah, can I open to that?

Use some of the practices such as...we spoke last time of clear comprehension. What is my highest purpose? Is it to build up a lot of anger? Or is it just to calm down and arrive at my meeting or wherever I'm going with spaciousness and kindness? If that's my purpose, then perhaps I don't want to enhance this, “This light is too long. Why don't they fix this system?” Okay, anger, impatience. It's okay. “I shouldn't be impatient! Look at me, I'm going to a meditation class and I'm impatient!” Okay, that's just more judging, judging, judging. Ahh...

Did we offer the story of Milarepa at the last workshop? I don't think so. A lot of you know it. The Tibetan saint Milarepa was meditating at the mouth of his cave when the demons of anger, fear, impatience, greed, all of these demons appeared. They were hideous. They had a foul stench. The flesh hung from the bones and gore dripped out. The bones rattled underneath. The demons were carrying bloody knives and swords. Milarepa, eyes wide open, looked at them and then he said, “Come in, I've been expecting you. Come, sit by my fire, have tea.” They asked him, “Aren't you afraid of us?” “No, your hideous appearance only reminds me to be aware, to have mercy. Sit by my fire, have tea.”  So we're all inviting our demons in for tea. My demon is not going to be your demon. We all have different demons.

I've had a lifelong fear of spiders. A strong vow not to harm any living being, but... spiders! About five weeks ago, actually the weekend of the first workshop, I got a big spider bite that itched, and then it formed a big scab. It was very sore. The doctor who looked at it said she thought it was a brown recluse spider, which theoretically do not exist in this part of Michigan. But apparently they do, because I seem to have ... whatever kind of spider it is, an infestation of that kind of spider, that I found yesterday in my cabin. Well you imagine I didn't get much sleep last night! I spent about an hour before bed plucking these off the wall, getting up my courage. I killed some, others I dumped into a container and threw out the door. I sprayed with bug spray, Cutters insect repellent, which was the only thing I could think of to spray with. Got in bed. Slept for about two hours, and Aaron said, “One of these spiders is on the wall near your arm. Please get up and remove it.” This happened about four times during the night. My demons!

So every time I got back in bed after killing the spiders, I just lay there doing metta meditation to all the spiders in the room. May you have peace. May you have well-being. May I have peace. May I have well-being. And I found after a few minutes of doing metta I could relax myself back to sleep even with these spiders around me. It's wonderful what the human heart can do. Inviting the demons in for tea.

Now, I'm going to do a major clearing out of spiders, spray with spider spray, on Monday. It looks like over the weekend I'm going to live with them. How do we make peace with our demons? How do we open our hearts to ourselves? If they are brown recluse, they are, well, reclusive. They're not supposed to be aggressive. Theoretically I can simply live with them there. The fact that I've been in this cabin for 15 years, and only one has ever bitten me, says something. But there's still a big wound where the spider bite occurred five weeks ago. I don't want another bite.

So, opening our hearts, inviting our demons in for tea. As I said, this is my demon at this point. A spider is not going to be your demon. Yours might be the judging mind, judging oneself or others, feeling impatient, wanting things to be different, or aversion to body pain. Whatever the demons are, in this next six weeks I want you to work with not getting rid of the demons but finding that within you which is truly openhearted, spacious, loving, and can be right there with whatever it is. Ahh... Breathing in, I am aware of self-judgment. Breathing out, I smile and hold space for the self-judgment. Breathing in, I am aware of anger. Breathing out, I smile to the anger. I am not going to get a stick and try to chase the anger away. That's just more anger.

So in meditation practice we have an opportunity to just be present with ourselves and with things as they are, and to find this very deep, stable, loving, clear aspect of ourselves that can hold space for whatever arises.

Work with it for these six weeks. I promise you in six weeks you're really going to see a difference, even if you only give it ten minutes a day. Give it longer if you can, but promise yourself now at least ten minutes a day for these next six weeks, okay?

We'll break now for 15 minutes and then we'll move on.

(break)

Aaron: We continue. I am Aaron. I am spirit, you are spirit. The trees out there are spirit. The flowers, beautiful flowers, they are spirit. You are spirit expressing in a human form. Everything is spirit expressing, often in material form, but not always. When I speak through this body, I am using this body, but this is not my form. Barbara is simply generous enough to share the body with me and let me come in to talk. The trees have tree spirits. Barbara spoke about the spider. There are spider spirits. The spider is the temporary form in which spirit is expressing. The tree is the temporary form in which a certain spirit is expressing.

My point here is that spirit is all around us. If you think that you do this or that, separate from spirit, you're losing a big part of your power. That you is just the ego, not the essence. You all have guides. You each have a higher self. Besides those guides, there are many loving master teachers, all of whom would be happy to come in and support your work. How many of you have read Barbara's book Cosmic Healing? Most of you. So you read in the beginning how she met me, and said, “Who are you, and what are you doing here?” There was a  little bit of alarm. But she found I was able to be very helpful to her.

The next segment of our morning is about co-creating with spirit. Some of you spent three or four days, a workshop we held here last year, one day a month, going deep with this. We of course cannot cover that depth in one hour, but I want you to at least get started with it, to connect to the plane beyond the ego self. Somebody suggested to Barbara, at her cabin, to ask the spider devas to leave. It didn't occur to Barbara. It might have, with her background and experience, but she was so intent on getting rid of them that she forgot to communicate with them. She was sending them loving wishes but not asking them to leave.

There's a basic routine that we use to connect with spirit, whether it's your higher self or your guides or whatever loving energy, especially if you're going to come to that loving energy with questions. I am going to go through the routine that we use, and then invite all of you who were at that multi-part workshop to go out and work out for yourselves in groups of 4 to 7 people... You may remember at, perhaps not even the final session but the next to final session, we formed groups where you raised a question amongst the group and you asked spirit to offer responses to the question.  When I finish talking now, doing the guided tuning, without any talk, those with prior experience will leave the room and form your circles Will all of you who were part of that Co-creating with Spirit workshop series please stand up? I want to see exactly how many and who you are... You seven as one group, you eight as one group. So you don't have to do any talking afterward. I want you to be able to go out of here quietly. You will ask spirit to speak forth. Invite whatever guidance wants to come in response to questions presented by the group. You understand how to do this. (yes). 

So let's start first with a short guided chakra meditation, opening the chakras and energy field. Please envision a cylinder of red light above your head. Radiant, spinning. Breathe in and draw it through the crown chakra and straight down the body to the base. Feel it spinning there. Breathe in red energy and feel it filling you. As you breathe out, feel it expanding through your body, pulsating red light centered in the base chakra. With each breath, let it expand.

(pauses between each step)

Now move attention upward again and see orange light. Hold the intention to invite it into you, to the spleen chakra. Pulsating orange light, spinning; with each in breath, draw in more orange light. With each exhale, feel it expanding through the body. Drawing in more and more. Filing the whole body with orange light. Now gently draw it in to a small spinning orange jewel, resting just above the red one. Base chakra, spleen chakra.

Draw in yellow light. Breathing it in to the solar plexus. Drawing it in with each breath, and with the exhale, feeling it spread and fill the whole body. More yellow light with each inhale. Expanding through the body with the exhale. Everything in you filled with yellow light. Now gently draw it in to an intense yellow ball in the solar plexus. Visualize these three balls now in a row—red, orange, yellow, spinning, sending out energy.

And now bring in green light through the crown, third eye, throat, down to the heart. Breathing in and feeling it expanding, filling you. Breathing out. Invite in more green light with the inhale. Green permeating every cell of the body until the body cannot hold any more of this green light and energy. Invite it in to a spinning jewel in the heart. All of that green that filled you, coming into a deep concentration in the heart, spinning above the other three.

Blue light coming through the crown and third eye to the throat. Breathing in, draw as much as you can of it in from out beyond you. With the exhale, feel it fill your whole body. Intense blue, growing with every breath. Filling the body. When you cannot hold any more blue light, invite it to concentrate itself at the throat, a spinning jewel connected to those below it.

Now draw in indigo light, a blue-violet light, through the crown into the third eye. With the inhale, letting it fill the body down to the toes, out to the fingertips. Breathing it in and then letting it fill you. Centered in the third eye but spreading everywhere in the body. Invite it into a spinning jewel in the third eye, and feel the connection down through the throat, the heart, the solar plexus, the spleen, the base, all of them spinning.

Invite violet light into the crown chakra. Breathing in and filling the body with violet light, radiant, filling every cell of the body. Breathe in more. Let it expand. Inviting in more, again. Asking every cell of the body to be filled with this light. Now invite the light to form itself into a small radiant jewel in the crown, joining the others, each sending energy up and down, to and from the others.

Above the crown, now, see a spinning white light. With each inhale, watch it grow larger. Drawing in more and more white light, and with the exhale, seeing it expand just above the crown. Radiant white light. And now invite it into that jewel, linking itself with the others, all of them spinning. You may see them as nuggets or flowers, each one pulsating with its own energy and color. Perhaps if you attend to one or another, you'll also hear a tone from it. Don't worry about that, though. Just feel their energy. Sitting straight so the energy can flow from the base up to and above the crown.

I'm going to describe the next step to you first and then tell you when to do it. Envision a multi-colored fountain and how it would look if the water from that fountain with different colors all burst out, in this case through the crown, opening up and showering around you.

So now, with them all spinning, invite all of that light and energy to rise up through the body, all connected, pushing their way up through the crown of the head. You can touch the crown chakra if it would be helpful. Pushing up to the crown of the head and then bursting out, a huge fountain of light flowing up above you and gently coming down, surrounding the body, touching the body.

Just rest in that light. The chakras are still spinning within you, you've simply released anything excess, and felt the joy of that light pouring over you, touching you everywhere.

I now ask you to reflect on your highest intentions. To live your life with love, in service to other beings. To not be reactive to negative sensation or thought or any catalyst, but to respond appropriately and with love. Add any personal intentions here.

Speak with me; “Knowing that I can benefit from the support of wise and loving entities, I invite my own higher self, my personal guides, those beloved masters such as Jeshua, the Buddha, Mother Mary, Kwan Yin, and so forth, all beings on any plane who are deeply dedicated to my values of love, harmony, non-harm, and service. I invite your help. I invite you to be present with me. Let me hear you in whatever ways are most appropriate for me. I offer this body through whom you may speak if you wish, or simply to whom you may speak, sharing your thoughts with me.”

Whatever entities may come, challenge based on your own highest values. Here I will offer the challenge that Barbara always uses, but please personalize this in whatever way is appropriate for yourself. Raising three questions:

Do you come for the highest good of all beings and in service to all beings?

Do you come grounded in love, the very highest principles of love in the universe? Uncontracted, spacious, unconditional love?

Do you come in fullest harmony with the Masters I most revere? Jeshua, the Buddha, whatever others you may wish to add.

If so, I invite and welcome your presence with me. I repeat my intentions to myself. I ask your support to release whatever blocks those intentions, to help me most fully live those intentions.

At this point, and please, without any discussion or personal talk except as is absolutely necessary to decide where you will go, the two experienced groups may go out and find a place to continue their work.

(they depart)

Those of you who remain, let's work together further for a bit. First we ask, what does this energy feel like? Not like anything special. Have you ever hugged a tree or simply held a beautiful flower in your hands? Energy is energy. I believe all of you here are aware of my energy when I incorporate, that there is some something here that we call Aaron that's coming to you, talking to you.

(walking around) I'm going to walk down the aisle. I'm just going to send out energy. I invite you to feel my energy. Don't get caught up in, “Do I have it right? Is it really Aaron's energy?” Breathe, open your heart. Just be with me, connected and loving with me. I love you. Can you feel me, even just a little bit? (smiling at people and looking into eyes) That's what energy feels like. Very hard to put a label on it. I assume it's loving, embracing, warm, caring.

If you're not sure, don't worry about it. Just note, “uncertain.” For those of you who are uncertain about my energy, how it feels, at lunch time I would ask you to go outside and find a tree you can hug. Just walk up to a tree and put your arms around it and ask for the tree deva to connect with you, to share energy with you. Go down to the lake. Ask the lake energy to connect with you. Hold a flower. Feel the love and energy in the flower. Everything has energy.

Now from this place of deep connection I would invite you to ask a question whose answer you really are uncertain of. I don't mean, “Should I buy the red house on 3rd Street or the blue house on 4th Street?” kind of question. “How do I open my heart to this person who serves as such a painful catalyst for me? How do truly find compassion for this person?” Or, “How do I release some of my feelings of unworthiness and start to know and cherish myself?” How can I make more space for this pain in my body, be kinder to my body? How can I more fully trust my choices, or this relationship? Or, how do I find work which is truly suited to my karma and intention? It might be simply” how can I hear my guide or higher self more clearly?” Ask these kinds of questions.

Go inside yourself now and raise a question.

(pause)

What is it your heart most wants to know in this moment? We invite in whatever loving entities and guides there may be, with clarity that anything that is negatively polarized may listen in but may not speak.

I would ask you now to break into small groups, 3 to 4 in a group. Let's do this first and then I'll go on.

(continuing in groups)

Now take hands in the group. “As a group, we invite any loving spirits that wish to come through us to address this group question or personal questions.” Let each group make that statement, that invitation. Whatever comes through must be resonant with this group's highest values.

Because I am supervising—this is me, Aaron—I have invited Jeshua and also some other high level entities. We're protecting you so nothing negative can come in. I also literally surrounded this building this morning at the start of our work, inviting the guardian angels—Ariel, Gabriel, Raphael, and Michael—to each take a corner of the building, a force field of radiant, loving energy. Every being has free will. We do not force anybody out, but the power of the force field is such that anything very negative would feel too uncomfortable to come through it. If they choose to come through it, they may. But they may not speak. They may listen. So I feel confident that anything that chooses to speak through you will be loving and positive.

Just sit. Continue to hold hands. Feel the energy moving between you. If you feel a presence within you which wishes to speak, let it speak. Just open yourself. It may be your guidance or a master teacher. It may be your own higher self and wisdom, that small still voice within. Whatever wishes to speak.

Ask the question. As a simple example, “What do I do with the things that really bother me and bring up so much anger, or even hatred?” Just raise that question. A voice may come through with something as simple as “Love” or it may go into quite a complex explanation. Try to let it come through, knowing that it's safe, that I am watching all of this and nothing negative will come through. Whatever guidance wants to come through you, just allow it. Not the ego allowing; the deeper heart, inviting the fullest expression of loving wisdom.

When whatever voice has spoken finishes, the group can say a silent or verbal thank you, and then just breathe and invite further answer to that question, or to the other questions that were raised. Some form of a dialogue may develop between different entities, or there may be simply deep silence in which each is moved to deeper insight within the self, not a verbal reply. Whatever happens is okay.

I'm going to be quiet now and just let you work with this. Are there any questions?

Q: So now should we share our questions with the group?

Aaron: Share your questions within the small group, or choose one group question, whichever feels most comfortable for each group.

I'm going to release the body to Barbara.

(end of recording)

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