Day Two continued (Section 16)

Barbara: There is a wonderful story about a Tibetan saint, Milarepa was his name. He was sitting at the mouth of his cave meditating when the demons of anger, greed and pride appeared. They were gruesome. Their skin hung in shreds over their bones, bones sticking out. They exuded a foul odor. Their faces were fierce, ugly. They had bloody knives and swords.

Milarepa took one look at them, so the story goes, and said, 'Oh, I've been expecting you. Come and have tea.' 'Aren't you afraid of us?' they asked. 'No. Your horrible appearance only reminds me to be aware, to have mercy. Come! Have tea.' Throughout your life these figurative demons are going to appear. You can learn to invite them in for tea. In that way you can be with them and cease to need to react to them.

I would ask you to sit for five minutes and reflect on what I have shared and then we will open the floor to questions and answers. I pause.

Question: I have been aware of fear for many years. In the last few months it has become more intense, especially when I wake up every morning. When I notice it in the morning I concentrate on love, because I think this will make it go away. The fear is always there. Aaron says you hold it in your hand and let it go whenever it's ready to go. What if it never goes?

Aaron: I am Aaron. I hear your question. My answer is directed at two different levels of experiencing fear, but it is relevant to both. As long as there is the desire to be rid of fear, you're caught in a relationship with it. Yet, very naturally, it's so uncomfortable that you do want to be rid of it. The first phase is to make space around that discomfort. This is not space around the fear itself so much as space around the discomfort, the fear of the fear. Then the later work with the fear itself can be done with more openheartedness and less with the tendency to attack and destroy.

First, simply work with how uncomfortable the fear is, how much you want to be rid of it, offering love to the being who finds itself living with this heavy cloud and seeks the way to be free of it. Let the poignancy of it touch your deepest heart as if it were your child who were living under some kind of heavy cloud. Feel how much love you would have for that child in his or her situation.

In this way you begin to make more space for your discomfort with the fear. It is the discomfort that is predominant. If it were not uncomfortable, then you would have no aversion to the fear. There is much discomfort. So, first, you acknowledge the degree of discomfort with great kindness.

As you are better able to just be there with the fear, then you are going to find that you can move into another level, which is to move deeper into the fear instead of away from the fear. The natural tendency is to withdraw from something that is discomforting or painful. Acknowledging that natural tendency and using the sources of inspiration that are available, such as the practice of clear comprehension of purpose, one can find extraordinary courage to go deeper into the fear and really come to understand it. By going into it in that way, it begins to break up.

You are not going into it to get rid of it. You are going into it simply to understand it. The fear arose from conditions, as did the desire to be rid of the fear. The discomfort arose from conditions. To attend to the fear and discomfort, you must tend to the conditions. This is what I call moving deeply into the fear. Here is where you begin to understand the conditions.

So, the first step is to find equanimity with the fear through embracing the human who observes herself so discomforted by it, acknowledging the degree of discomfort. Once there is a little equanimity with the fear, then the second step is to go deeper into the fear.

As you go deeper and begin to understand its roots-and I don't necessarily mean in a psychological way, although that may be part of it-you really understand how all humans want to be safe, want to be loved, want their needs to be met. Specific memories of how you did not feel safe or loved may arise, but they may not. It's okay either way.

As you begin to go into the fear, you begin to understand its elements better. The fear doesn't go away because you want it to go away. Fear goes away because there's nothing left to nurture it. As you begin to see how fear arose, for example, because you felt unsafe or threatened, then you realize, 'This is old. Right now I am no longer threatened.' You may begin to see that fear protected you from something.

We often speak of anger protecting you from fear, that if you weren't feeling anger, you would feel how afraid you are. It can work the other way. Sometimes, if you are not feeling fear, you would feel how angry you are, or sad, or out of control. There is no consistent pattern. Each person must look for themselves. The question is simply, 'If I were not feeling fear right now, what might I be feeling?' and 'Can I give myself permission to feel it?'

As you permit yourself to feel what is there, not drowning in maudlin self-pity, not clinging to emotion, just seeing clearly, space will open. And you will soon reach a point where there's enough space around your fear that if it wants to stay, you simply let it stay. We begin to come to some of these mind states with an 'Oh, you again. I've been expecting you. Come in and have tea.'

All this work takes you to still another fruit of your practice. Once you are able to 'have tea' with the difficult mind or body state, the 'self' itself becomes transparent. In relative reality, somebody is feeling pain, but it ceases to be your pain and becomes, instead, the pain of all beings, the pain we all share. The heart we all share is big enough to carry it!

Does this sufficiently answer your question or may I speak further to it? I pause.

Question: I get very much involved with Barbara. I understand her work, but when I listen to Aaron I hear him as Barbara's guide. Then I want to know about the past and the future and want to get involved with that through him. Talk about why you teach together and what the differences are in what you teach.

Aaron: I am Aaron. I hear your question. Before I answer, I would address your comment about past and future. There is no past or future. There is only now, this moment. I want you all to try something with me. Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out. With the next in breath, at the top of the breath and before you exhale, I want you to notice that there is a pause. We are going to elongate that pause just a little to emphasize it. Breathe in. Pause. Breathe out. Breathe in. Pause. Breathe out.

Of course, there is also a pause at the end of the exhale. We can work with either, but we'll just work with it this way. Now, I want you to do this silently. Breathe in. Pause. Breathe out. I'm not going to say 'pause' anymore. I want you to experience that pause, that aperture in the breath, as it is called. Please do it.

(We do.)

With the inhale, you're coming into the breath. Then, there is a pause which is now. With the exhale you're letting go of the breath. When you speak of past and future, please remember that every past was once now. Every future will be now. I exist fully in now. Of course, I can see into the past in terms of your linear time. I can see many probable futures, but I do not predict the future. The past contains the conditions out of which the future may arise, but it is your presence in this now that determines which future will unfold. The way the future will unfold depends on now. In each moment you make choices, create karma or free yourself of habitual karma, and these choices create the future.

Barbara is a human. While she has found much freedom from reactivity to the emotional and physical bodies, she still gets stuck sometimes. She's still human. She lives in the balance of the relative and the ultimate, which is just the way she needs to live for a human. This living from the open heart is what she can best teach.

I am spirit and I come to you from my perspective as spirit. While I speak to all of your bodies, as a spirit I speak especially to the highest self, to that mental and spiritual body. I don't really teach you anything, rather I remind you of what you already know, for you all have this wisdom deep inside of you.

So, yes, there is a difference in the way we teach. Part of the reason that we both teach, rather than only one or only the other, is that it does provide this balance in our two perspectives. I may speak of fear with memories of fear from my past lifetimes, but from the perspective of a being who literally no longer experiences fear. Barbara speaks of fear from the perspective of a being who still does experience fear. The balance is useful. That is all.