Saying No with Compassion; Working with Anger; Q&A

November 14, 2001 Wednesday Afternoon, Seattle Retreat

Saying No with Compassion; Working with Anger; Q&A

This Wednesday gathering was held in Seattle, Washington, where Barbara has come to lead a vipassana retreat this week-end. Skipping introductory comments.

Aaron:I am spirit. You are spirit. You presently are in a body. I am not in a body. Because I’m not in a body I have a different perspective. Also, because I have learned certain things along the way, you may find it valuable to hear them. But I’m not better than you, nor inherently wiser than you. I have simply opened to the wisdom that lies within all of you. And I have learned to open to the compassionate heart, to which all of you also have access.

Each of you has 4 bodies. This is not my scheme; it is a common spiritual teaching, that you have a physical body, an emotional body, mental body and a spirit body. I no longer have a physical or emotional body. I retain the use of the mental body in order to teach but I no longer identify myself by the mental body. I am spirit. You are spirit. I may speak to you as such but I’m also aware that you do dwell in these physical and emotional bodies and that there is an identity with them.

I assume that most of you, if not all of you, are here because whether consciously or unconsciously you are a spiritual seeker. By that I mean you are seeking to know your true self, the meaning of your life, while you are in this body. You seek to understand what this whole process of incarnation means.

The spiritual seeker is in the process of learning that he or she is not the body, not the emotions, not even the thoughts or stream of consciousness. Wisdom about what you are not develops faster than it develops about what you are. If you’re not your thoughts, your body, your emotions, what are you? What is this thing we are calling spirit? What is the ground of being?

Part of your spiritual path then is wisdom, learning to understand what you are not and what you are. But an equally important part of the spiritual path is the development of compassion, compassion for the human who is caught up in an identity with the body and emotions. That identity has not yet been broken. When something creates anger in you, for example, you say, “I’m angry.” There is still a sense of a self, somebody who is angry. The wisdom mind may understand certain conditions arose, served as ground for further conditions, and the result was the arising of this emotion we call anger. Very difficult emotion, unpleasant, but we don’t say, “Conditions have arisen which result in anger in this mind and body,” we say, “I’m angry.”

Slowly you begin to understand there is no self that’s angry, it’s just the playing out of conditions. And yet you are still responsible for the anger, jealousy, pride, impatience or greed, still responsible to take care of this difficult emotion.

I don’t know you but my conjecture is that for many of you, when a difficult emotion arises there may be self-judgment about it, suppression of it, even a feeling of shame that that emotion arose. People have different habitual patterns. Some people will deny the experience of the difficult emotion. Some people will become aggressive and act it out, defiant. But mostly as you advance on a spiritual path, feelings of shame and discomfort arise. “I shouldn’t be angry. I shouldn’t be greedy.” But the fear, the greed, the anger, these are results, the results of conditions.

When such an emotion arises, the emotion is one object and the habitual relationship is a second object. In order to become clearer about your experience and more compassionate with yourself, you first need to see the sequence. It’s not just with emotion; it may be with a physical sensation. You may have a headache or bellyache and say “No, I have work to do. It’s not convenient to have a headache or a bellyache now. I won’t be bothered by it.” Well, to be bothered by it so that you run from it or hate it is one thing, but how can you begin to be compassionate to yourself before you acknowledge there is this discomfort? One must allow oneself to feel discomforted by it, whether it’s the physical bellyache or the emotional anger or fear, to acknowledge, “Right now I am feeling this discomfort and it’s okay to have discomfort. It’s human”.

So you learn that you are human. You open your heart to the human experience. Through your meditation practice and being mindful, present in your experience, you learn to note when there’s a physical sensation, to note when there’s tension that denotes stress or anger or fear, to note when there’s sleepiness or restlessness, and then to note the stories that come up habitually about these, such as, “I shouldn’t be human. I shouldn’t have this experience.” Or, “I’m bad to have this experience.” Or, “I’m a victim. Poor me, I’m helpless with this experience.” Or even “look how wonderful I am to have this experience!” Know the stories as stories. Don’t believe them as truth!

Spiritual practice is about getting in touch with the human experience. It’s not about arriving at some altered space, although that may happen and it can be a very joyful experience. But most of you find it far easier to get out of your bodies than to be here in the physical, emotional and mental bodies. Spiritual practice invites you to be here, to be human, to develop wisdom about the whole flow of human experience, and to develop the compassion that has mercy for the human experiencing these difficult things.

There is a mixed group of you here tonight: people I’ve never met before and people who have heard me talk many times. There’s a talk I frequently give to people who are new to my thoughts, I call it “Angels in Earthsuits”. This human body and its emotions and thoughts, this is the earthsuit, and all of you, you are the angels dwelling in the earthsuits. Not only your spiritual practice but your whole life is about learning how to bring the two together, to deny neither the human experience nor the angel.

Tonight I’m going to digress from that traditional opening talk because there are some old friends here who have heard variations of that talk many times. I’ll be glad to speak more during the question period about some of these basic questions. But tonight I want to talk to you about compassion. Since September 11 it seems that most of our discussions have been about compassion and especially the questions, “What does compassion mean?” And, “When I am filled with rage and fear, how do I allow the expression of compassion? What do I do with that rage and fear so that compassion may be found in it?”

This is not just about terrorism, this is about living your everyday lives with all the subtle abuses you may experience: a raging driver on the freeway; an angry boss or coworker; family members who are upset with you. What does compassion really mean? How do we bring it to every day living?

First, compassion is not weak. So many of you have the wrong idea and think to be compassionate means simply to let somebody run over you. Compassion is strong and able to say “no” when appropriate. Compassion deeply understands the other being’s situation and you cannot do that until you understand your own situation. Compassion does not judge, doesn’t divide the world into good and evil but deeply understands that certain emotions have arisen based on people’s experiences, pain, fear and so forth. But above all, compassion knows how to say no when somebody is abusive and it doesn’t matter whether we are saying no to terrorists on an international level or no to an abusive coworker. It’s not kind to let somebody harm you. It’s not kind to allow somebody to create harmful karma for them selves. Not kind to allow yourself to be hurt.

The difficulty for most of you is that you do not trust your own fears. When you feel attacked, anger arises in yourself; then you have the thought, “I shouldn’t be angry.” You bury your own anger and you can’t respond skillfully to the other person’s anger.

When another person is angry and does something unskillful as result of that anger, and it arouses anger in you, when you can note, “Anger has arisen here” and bring kindness to that anger, the very act of offering yourself kindness allows you to offer kindness to the other person. That kindness is in the form of not judging them. One sees this person has reacted in this way out of his or her own pain. Nevertheless, his or her reaction is harmful. One says “no!”

This is about learning kindness and I think for all of you who are human today it is the primary lesson, kindness to oneself; kindness to others. There’s a lovely story told by a dharma teacher, Sharon Salzberg. She was in India attending an extended “lovingkindness” or “metta” retreat, working with the repetition of certain phrases of lovingkindness. She had to leave the retreat and go to the city to extend her visa. She was riding in a rickshaw when a big man jumped on the rickshaw and tried to drag her off. She thought, “He’s going to rape me! He’s going to kill me!” The rickshaw driver didn’t do anything; he just kept peddling. Passersby didn’t do anything. She didn’t know what to do. He was quite a bit bigger than her. Finally a man did help push this would-be molester away. She got back to the retreat center. She told her teacher, “I didn’t know what to do. I was so afraid and so angry, yet I tried to be compassionate.” She tells that the teacher said to her, out of the goodness of your heart, the compassionate thing would have been to take your umbrella and hit him over the head with it until he let go of you.

Does that surprise you? It’s not kind to let somebody rape or murder you. It is easy to become lost in a false sentimentality that denies experience and is a foe to true lovingkindness. Such emotion is based on old bias that says “I should” and “I shouldn’t” without seeing the situation clearly. . The question is not so much how you act but what motivates the action. If she had hit him over the head with hatred, that would be returning harm to harm. If she had let him kill her, but with outrage and fear, that would also be a doing of harm, in not taking care of herself., not stating her own truth. If she was able to literally hit him with her own umbrella, while literally wishing him well, noting, “This man was raised in such a way, has had such experiences in his life that have led him to think that he can rape or kill a woman. He has had a very difficult life; he must be suffering immensely. If I were raised in that situation, a man in his shoes, I might be just like him. I can’t hate myself. I can’t hate him. But as much as he is suffering now, he is going to suffer more if he kills me. It is not kind to either of us to allow that action. I’ll hit him over the head with my umbrella and tell him, ‘Let me go!'”

Of course, there may come a place where the other does not let you go. A place where somebody in your life is so terribly abusive and nothing that you say or do can stop him/her. You may then have to separate yourself from them. For some it may mean leaving a job or a marriage. It’s very difficult. Can it be done with love? You really have a choice: fear and the enactment of that fear as hatred, anger and greed, or love. That’s all it comes to in the end, fear and the enactment of fear, or fear that arises and a loving response to fear.

When I say there’s a choice between fear and love, I am not saying you can stop fear from arising but you can change how you relate to fear. When fear arises and a strong ego comes in and says, “Uh-oh, fear! Control it, get rid of it,” you separate from yourself, from your own dear heart. When fear arises and you say, “Ah, certain conditions have arisen and brought up fear. Fear is present,” if you don’t separate from yourself but acknowledge your fear with kindness, since you don’t hate your fear you don’t have to hate that which inspires the fear. Then there’s much more space, more possibility. That which makes you afraid may be a terrorist group that blows up buildings. It may be an acquaintance or family member. It may be an illness in your body. How can you relate with a more open and loving heart?

These terrorist attacks and the loss of life, this is very tragic. It’s very difficult that people cannot go about their daily life with peace and in safety. And yet, like anything difficult you experience, it’s also a teacher. If you will allow it, this whole experience can become an enormous healing force in the world.

It’s the same question, separating from your self, separating from others, one points a finger of blame. I am certainly in no way condoning beings who would steal an airplane and crash it into a building, killing so many beings. And yet, where do you point this finger?

Let’s look at a very simple example. Suppose you were walking down the street in a very poor city. There was a fruit stand. You saw a very emaciated-looking little boy come out and grab a piece of fruit. He stole it from the stand, ran off, and you were able to follow him. You saw him get a safe distance away, cut that fruit in half, give half to his equally hungry baby brother. He is a thief; he has taken what did not belong to him; that is our first assessment. And what has been taken from him, what human dignity, what right to live his life with at least enough to eat each day, with love? Not luxuries, just basic human needs. Who has taken that from him? Yes, he has done wrong; he is a thief and for that he is karmically responsible. But others have also done wrong. We are not talking about responsibility but blame. How can you blame this one and not that one? It’s not so easy to find anyone to blame.

Some of you are thinking, “I would blame myself. We in our society take far more than our share.” Yes, you do. And yet, you also have earned that, have worked hard to make the conditions where there is not starvation, where there is more equality.

It’s not so easy, is it? Should you go home and take half the food out of your kitchen and ship it off to Afghanistan? I think the question is not who is to blame so much as can we let the whole thought of blame, and right and wrong, go and come back to the basic questions of human suffering? Blaming is a convenient way of avoiding painful feelings. Beyond blame is fear, lack of control. And then we shift into an us/ them scenario.

The whole creation of an us/them, good/bad, right/wrong duality is your habitual way of avoidance. Can you begin to see that this situation involves a world-wide karma? It is the outgrowth of human confusion, fear and greed. While small actions certainly will not immediately change the international situation, they are all most humans have the ability to do. To offer yourself and those in your life more kindness, to watch the arising of judgment and self-judgment, and not get so deeply caught in the stories of these. By that I mean, if judgment arises, simply know it as judgment. Don’t believe everything you think. If judgment arises, it’s simply more judgment to say, “Here I go again, I shouldn’t be judging. I’m bad,” just another judgment. Old habit. Instead, can one note, “Judgment, here is judgment. Ah, fear must be present in me. Fear is one of the grounds for judgment. What happens if I bring kindness in?” And then you find the ability not to believe this judging thought, it’s just a judging thought. Let it be. It will pass.

That letting-be in itself is an enormous act of kindness, not to become caught in the story of your judgment. Then you can begin to see those in the world who would trespass against you, not judge them, not hate them. Out of that spaciousness free of judgment and hatred, the heart open with compassion, and new and creative ways of dealing with the horrors in the world will appear. I don’t have answers for you. I can’t say, “Go and do this, or that.” Only, as you heal yourselves and allow yourselves back into your hearts, you will allow your near and far neighbors back into your heart and the path will become clear.

We pause for a moment. This little friend needs to settle.(Eddie, the cat, has come to sit on Barbara’s lap)

Letting yourself back into your heart, you begin to see things more clearly and then you know what to do. This is why I call you angels, because within this crystal clarity of the heart is your innate perfection. You need to trust this inherent wisdom and kindness, to trust your own innate goodness that does know what to do. This is where you make the choice, love or fear. If you go with fear and the stories of fear, the judgments, the biases, then there’s no room for compassion. Then there’s no room for hearing another because there’s so much separation and self-protection. But when you open your heart with kindness, there’s the possibility for the healing of the whole world. And this, my friends, is what you came for.

I began my talk raising the question, “Why are you here? What is the incarnation about?” You are here to learn love, to bring light where there is darkness, kindness where there has been fear and hatred. I don’t think I have to answer another why – why should we bring love where there has been hatred? Simply put, would you rather live in a loving or a hate-filled world?

Tragic though it is that so many lives have been lost, instead of being afraid of the current world situation, can you open your hearts even to this as a teacher? Whatever your personal situation is, your own physical illness, sadness, confusion, can you open your heart to that also as a teacher? May I remind you, you are not incarnate to be comfortable. Comfort is fine. I have nothing against it. I wish it to each of you. But if your primary interest were to stay comfortable, you would not have moved into this body. By its very nature the human experience is challenging, and often very uncomfortable. Instead of struggling to be comfortable, can you stop and say, “What is the lesson here? In what way is my heart closed? How can I offer more love, more trust, in this situation?”

Comfortable. Recently a friend’s father was dying. The friend came to us and said, “I don’t know what to do. He’s so uncomfortable. He keeps telling me, “This is terrible, this dying process. It’s so uncomfortable. My body is so uncomfortable.” She said, “He believes in heaven. I keep telling him, “But you’ll be going to heaven.” And he’ll say, “I don’t care. Right now I’m uncomfortable!” So she set out on a mission to make him comfortable. And then she came to me with the concern, “No matter what I do I can’t make him comfortable.” And almost as she said it, she laughed. We laughed together, Of course not. He’s dying. You can fluff his pillow. You can give him sips of water. Can you be honest with him and say, “Yes, dying is hard, very uncomfortable. I can’t begin to understand what you’re going through, but I love you.” I told her, he doesn’t need to be made comfortable, he needs to be heard. He needs to know it’s okay to be uncomfortable. You all need to know that. Don’t be so afraid of your discomfort. It’s a teacher. I am not suggesting that where you could alleviate discomfort, you shouldn’t do so. Of course the pillow needs to be fluffed, the water needs to be offered, and a cool hand to wipe a sweating brow. Whatever kindness can be given must be given, but not to fix anything; there’s nothing broken. You are human. You’re going to defecate and sweat, vomit, bleed. It’s not very comfortable.

Relax, enjoy the beauty of this human experience, for indeed it is also beautiful but you cannot see the beauty when you are at war with the difficult side of it. Relax and let your loving hearts come forth. Then the answers to your human dilemmas will appear because this loving heart does know how to speak with compassion.

I know that there are questions and I’ll be very happy to answer them. Let us pause here and give you a time to stretch. When we come back there will be time to talk further. Thank you. That is all.

(break)

(Reviewed to here)

Q:Aaron has said we must intervene to prevent harm wherever possible. There seem to be fine lines here between intervention and free will and allowing others to learn from experience. If I am present when two family members are talking on the phone and the dominant one loses control in rage and begins to get abusive or cruel (we all know the things we wish we hadn’t said), I can’t just unplug the phone and I can’t get their attention. I can sit nearby holding peaceful space, but that doesn’t stop the direct harm. If it’s family, then is it something for them to work out? I can express how I feel later, but it’s not likely it will matter much the next time anger arises. I know what to do outside the moment, just not in it (to intervene).

Aaron:I am Aaron. I hear your question, Q. Let’s look at a simple parallel. A young baby learning to walk will fall repeatedly. You can put a toddler that age in protective clothing, place the baby on a softer surface. You don’t put them outside on concrete in shorts where they will scrape their knees. So that’s a certain kind of intervention. But what would happen to that toddler if you always insisted on holding her hand to prevent her from falling? Is it harmful for her to fall or must she fall sometimes in order to learn to walk?

If two family members are conversing on the phone and the dominant one becomes abusive, that dominant one is causing pain to the other, but pain is not the same thing has harm. Perhaps the other needs to experience that pain until the other finally is able to say no in an appropriate way.

Now, there’s a difference between speaking in an abusive way that causes pain and taking a stick and beating the other. Intuitively, you know where the difference is, where pain shifts into harm, but I think you’ve got to trust others’ pain and others’ ability to learn from pain enough not to constantly intervene, to allow them to learn from the experience.

There is a parallel experience that any of you who are parents with teenagers would understand. Sometimes the teenager has a lot of homework and his or her mind is not on the work. She wants to talk with her friends. He wants to go shopping or go out and run with his friends, dance, whatever.

The parent says, “No, you must stay here and do your work. If you don’t, you will suffer the consequences.” The parent cannot keep the teenage child tied up at a desk. The parent can’t control the child at that age. The parent can offer certain expectations, “I expect that you will get passing grades. If you don’t, you will suffer the consequences.” It’s very hard to be a parent and watch a child fail at something because the child did not make a proper effort. Appropriate intervention would be to offer tutoring where needed, to offer counseling if the child had a very low self-esteem that prevented that child from doing its work in an appropriate way, to make sure there was no medical cause for the child’s inability to focus. Once those things are taken care of, that child must do it on his or her own. You cannot do it for another person. You can hold the door open for someone; you cannot push them through.

In terms of the question you asked, to hold the door open means to hold that loving space, to speak to the abusive one and let that person know, “I hear you and what you said caused a lot of pain to the other. It is not acceptable to me.” You may speak to the one who was abused and say, “I heard the conversation. It’s okay to say no. It’s helpful to the abusive one to say no.” Then it’s up to them. They’ll play these roles with each other as long as they need to. They are both learning something. Trust their ability to learn. As long as no true harm is being done but what is happening is just pain, stand back. Give them time.

I realize it is hard to decide when it’s harm. Is the abused one led to a place of increasing sense of unworthiness? Is the abusive one deepening a karma of hateful action? Then pain becomes harm. Still, all you can do is to talk to each one of the larger picture you see. Tell them, “When he yells at you that way and says you’re no good, you start to believe it and such belief will harm you. His words do not harm you, but belief in the words.” The abuser is just offering the catalyst. It’s up to the recipient what he/she does with the catalyst. This is the lesson that must be learned. Then the words from the abusive one will merely be unpleasant words. I pause.

Barbara:He’s saying, we’re so quick to want to jump in and fix everything. He says it goes back to being comfortable. Sometimes we have to let people be uncomfortable for a while. That may be what they need. He says, then the question becomes, how do I let people be uncomfortable. He says that’s the tough one. It’s not about them, it’s about you, each of you. How do I let someone be uncomfortable, what do I do with this need to fix that’s in me?

Q: Do our souls age?

Aaron:I am Aaron. I would like to answer simply, they do not age but they mature. But I’m not sure you’ll understand that.

You are eternal, infinite, changeless, at a certain ultimate level of your being. That aspect of you cannot age. What would age mean to that which is eternal? Beyond that ultimate aspect of yourself, there is this wisdom mind. It’s an expression of the soul, not the pure soul. There is the compassionate heart which is an expression of the soul. These mature. Does that answer your question? I pause.

Q:This is more to Aaron about himself. Is that okay?(Barbara: Fine.)Is Barbara the first person you’ve talked through. If not, how many others prior to Barbara? Did the other people/channels also share your wisdom with people? Do you currently channel through another person besides Barbara? Do you know why there are not more people like yourself who speak through people?

Aaron:I am Aaron. The others that I have channeled through in past centuries were prior incarnations of this one you know as Barbara. I’ve never channeled directly in this way, communicating to others, through any other instrument. However, there are other people like Janice here who transcribe the tapes. Janice hears me very well. When she comes to a place where she cannot hear, where the tape is static-y, where there is some overlying noise and she can’t get the word, she asks. I think she’s only half-conscious that she’s channeling me, but of course she is. Usually when she fills in a questionable word, placing it within parentheses so Barbara and I will check it, it’s correct. It’s not just because she made a good guess.

Each of you has a guide. I am Barbara’s personal guide. I said to her at the very beginning when she began to channel that I was happy to serve as a teacher to others, that they each have their own personal guide but I recognize they may not hear that guide clearly. I am happy to teach anyone who wishes to hear me. But I made it clear to her that it was perfectly okay if she chose not to channel me in that way, only to connect with me as her own personal guide. For her own reasons she made the decision to channel me and I appreciate that as do many other beings. Yet this is her free will choice.

There are many beings like myself who would be happy to teach. There are fewer who have learned the ability to hear us. The door is always open from our side. We’re right here. We’re available. All of your guides are available. But the door is closed from your side and you can’t hear us. You can learn to open that door, perhaps not to channel vocally for a group, that’s not necessary, but to hear your own guidance, both your guides and your own highest self.

All of you are familiar with this aspect of being that I’m calling your Highest Self. It comes to you as intuition. When you have an intuitive feeling you can stop and ask, “Is this a guide offering this wisdom? Is this my highest self?” The difficulty is not that you don’t hear us but that you don’t trust what you hear, and that ties right in to a large part of the learning of this incarnation, the learning of faith. This is not blind faith but a verified faith, faith that is willing to take that intuition, look at the response, and see that it’s been sound and wise and loving, and increasingly to trust yourselves. I pause.

Q:Can the spirit be damaged or broken?

Aaron:I am Aaron. Let us come back to the teaching of the four bodies: physical, emotional, mental and spirit. The pure spirit body does not age, cannot be damaged, and is pure. Think of a pure underground spring. Even if the air is polluted, the pollution cannot reach that fresh pure water, it’s underground. As the spring bubbles through the soil, it converts into a small stream. Then it can pick up pollutant: fertilizer runoff from fields, acid rain from the sky. Cattle may wade and muck around in it. 50 miles downstream the water may be rather brown and murky looking. You come to that water and say, “Where is the pure spring? Where is the pure water?”

Can you see that the pure water is right there, right there with the brown muck? Where would the pure water go? You don’t have to go upstream and find the spring itself to find the pure water. Of course, if you want to drink down here where you are then you’re going to have to filter it. But the pure water is there.

The spirit body is like this. There is a lot of confusion in the way the term “soul” is used. In your Judeo-Christian religions, or at least in Christianity, people think of the soul more as this combination of the mental and spirit body. I do not use the word soul in that way but just as the pure spirit body. This combination of mental and spirit body, this is what we call the higher self. There’s still a self to it. There is still some attachment to the expressions of the mental body.

At this level, as long as there is still attachment there can be distortion and damage. The 3 lower bodies, physical, emotional and mental, are conditioned. That means they arise and the expressions of them arise out of conditions. And when those conditions cease, they cease. The spirit body is of the Unconditioned Itself. The Buddha describes this Unconditioned in these terms, talking to monks in one of the scriptures. He says, “There is an Unborn, Undying, Unchanging, Uncreated.” This Ground does not depend on conditions for its existence. Buddhism calls it the Unconditioned. Christianity, Judaism, Islam call it God or Allah. It doesn’t matter what we call it; there is this Unconditioned which is not touched by our labels.

The spirit body or soul is not the Unconditioned. But it partakes of the Unconditioned. When you rest there, there’s nowhere to go for completion. That is divinity. But the individual soul bears the relationship to the Unconditioned that a drop of water bears to the ocean. If you scoop out a teaspoon of water from the ocean and then drop it back in, there’s nothing there but ocean. And yet that teaspoon of water of course is not the ocean, simply a portion of ocean. But there’s nothing lacking from that spoon of water. Everything in the ocean is in that spoon of water.

It’s not just quantity that we’re talking about. The energy of the individual soul is not as powerful as the energy of the entire Unconditioned. And yet, because that individual soul is connected to the Unconditioned, it draws on that infinite power. One teaspoon of water is not the ocean, but many billion teaspoons of water, one at a time, is immense. It’s different because the ocean is finite and we’re talking about the infinite. So on the relative level the soul is less powerful than the source, butt on the ultimate level, there is no difference.

In this human phase of your evolution you are working to find equanimity with physical sensations, with emotions and thoughts. In the beginning when there are unpleasant sensations, emotions, and thoughts, you contract around them. A sense of a self that must fix these objects will arise. Slowly you learn to attend skillfully to sensation, emotion, and thought, but to understand that it simply arose out of conditions and that it will cease. You no longer contract around it and thus you no longer create karma around it. You understand that anger, for example, does not create unwholesome karma in itself, so long as there is no acting out of that emotion. Anger is just a result. What you do with that anger can create unwholesome karma. Greed in itself is just a result. What you do with the greed is the issue.

When you learn to allow the movement of mind and body, to attend to it skillfully and not contract in negativity around it, there’s no longer adhering karma to it. It just arises and passes. Then you come to what I would call equanimity with arising. Emotions will come, and go. Physical sensations will come and go. There is complete equanimity which is capable of responding skillfully and with kindness. At that point there is no longer a need to come back into the incarnate experience. You move on or evolve into the next level of this process. There is no longer a sense of ownership of the body; there’s no “my” physical body any more. There’s no longer a sense of ownership of emotions although they may still exist. There’s no longer a sense of ownership of thoughts, although they exist.

The emotions go first, the attachment to and identification with emotions, and then with thought. But thought still exists and as long as there is any possibility of attachment to it or identification with it, the whole Higher Self, this mental and spirit body, can be damaged or distorted. On the ultimate level, the spirit body can never become damaged. Just like that pure water from the spring, the water itself, the spring water was never damaged. It simply picked up impurities which could then be filtered out. The pure spirit body can never be damaged, and yet because it’s tied in with the other bodies and the filtering process has not yet taken place, there is the semblance of damage.

This simply points out where learning is needed. The task required here involves learning more spaciousness with the mental, emotional or physical body, to understand what they are and not be so identified with them. And then, like a filtering process, the pure spirit body will emerge again, always perfect.

I’ve been asked many times if those who suffer from some form of disease or mental illness, especially some kind of disability like deafness, or one who develops Alzheimer’s or some other mental symptoms, if on passing from this body they will be whole again. Of course they will. This is simply a conditioned situation of this body. On the astral plane, the spirit body or combined spirit and mental body, do not bear that distortion.

However, depending on the relationship with the distortion you may bring a very similar kind of distortion into a number of incarnations until you have learned what it has come to teach. I cannot tell you what it comes to teach you. The lessons that one derives from a specific physical situation will be different than the lessons another derives. For one it may teach patience, kindness. For another it may teach that one to be strong and not give into helplessness. The physical situation is never the determining thing but the attitude about the situation.

An acquaintance tells a very beautiful story of a beloved friend who had Alzheimer’s. They had not seen this friend for a few months. The man was loved by many people. He was a teacher. His students loved him. Friends loved him. He was a kind and generous person. She and her husband were invited for dinner, came to the door, and knocked. He opened the door and looked at them blankly. Then he said, “I’m so sorry I don’t recognize you; this is my illness. But I see you here at the door and I know you must be dear friends. Please come in.”

His body was ill, his mind was ill, but it did not affect his kindness. This is one for whom the distortion is merely at surface level based on genetics, environment and conditions of the body itself. A specific distortion came to that body and it will go and bear no further marks. But, a similar such a one who was bitter about his situation and became withdrawn, frightened, and angry, therein would be a certain karma which would be passed on, not on the astral plane but coming into a new incarnation. There would be a possibility not of picking up the same illness but repeating the relationship with illness. And the specific physical distortions might also manifest. On a cellular level of the body would be an imprint that, because of the negative relationship of the past, because of the intentions, might be led to develop again. The illness in the new body simply provides another opportunity to work with it. Can there be an open heart this time? Less bitterness? Less fear?

Obviously each body is going to age and disintegrate, to eventually die of illness or old age or accident. The question is not if that will happen but can there be kindness about this aging of the body, about the distortions of the body and the mind. Then they have no more hold over you. I pause.

Q:When we feel an urgent need to do something, how can we distinguish whether this is a fear choice or this is intuition?

Aaron: I am Aaron. Let’s try a simple exercise here together. I’d like you to bring into your heart and mind the image of a loved one, living or deceased, someone with whom there was no quarrel, someone whose image gives you joy. Breathe in and breathe out, and be present with this person. Feel a sense of joy and gratitude for their life. Feel the heart opening. Note that the body is free of tension. If the one you brought into your heart is one who has died, and there’s sadness, missing them, then there could be some tension around that sadness. If so, just note the sadness and come back to the living image of the person and that feeling of joy. Can you feel the spaciousness in your body? Tensionless.

Now, release that one and in their place I ask you to invite a difficult person. It may be someone you know personally or it may be some political person in the world. Think of that person and the harm he or she has done, the anger you might feel if confronted by that person. Think of this and let fear and anger arise. Can you feel the body contract? The belly hardens, even if subtly. The breath stops, doesn’t go all the way down into the belly but stops short in the chest. The jaw gets tense. Perhaps the muscles in the back of the neck tense. Each of you are different, the place of tension will vary. But can you feel that tension?

Get to know your body in this way, to know when there is tension and when it is free of tension. When there is a difficult situation and fear arises, and then an answer based on the fear, there will be tension in the body. When there is a difficult situation and the response is truly from a place of love and openheartedness, there may still be fear but the response is a loving response. It doesn’t mean that the fear will be gone immediately. The body may even feel the reverberations of that fear. But there’s no holding in the body, no tension. A faster heartbeat, perhaps, a sign of fear; but the belly is open, the heart is open. Get to know your body; it will tell you. Does this answer the question? I pause.

Q:What can we do to overcome fear?

Aaron:I am Aaron. First, I appreciate this question!

There are two parts to the answer, an ultimate and a relative level response. To overcome fear you must get to know fearlessness in yourself and don’t tell me it doesn’t exist! Without fearlessness there could not be fear. They’re opposite sides of the same coin. You do not need to enact the fearlessness all the time to come to know it. Find that which is fearless, even in small situations and nurture it like a precious seedling, giving it the nourishment and kind attention that it needs. Shine the light of the loving heart on it. If you do not consider fearlessness but only fear, you contract around fear and think you must destroy fear to find fearlessness. Then control becomes predominant and contact is lost with the loving heart..

Meanwhile, on a relative level, when there is fear, get to know fear. What is fear? It’s very interesting. Fear is always about what might happen, not much about what’s happening right now. When you’re present in the moment there may be discomfort, even real pain or sadness, but not a lot of fear. Fear is about your projections.

You can train yourself not to buy into the story of these projections. The mind so easily becomes obsessive. Get to know the obsessive mind. Ask yourself, what is my primary purpose here? Is it to indulge in these obsessive stories for whatever reasons? The usual reason is because it gives you some sense of power. It’s something to do when you feel helpless, even if it’s very unsatisfying and discomforting. You indulge in the obsessive story. You keep playing it again and again as if mind will finally find a solution, but of course it’s just replaying like a broken record. What is my highest purpose? Is it to keep the story going or is it to find space and healing?

Then each time the mind begins to obsess you can begin to remind yourself, “This obsessive mind, this is not suitable to my highest purpose. I’m not going to play this tape again.” Stop. Bring your mind back to the present moment’s experience. Dark, perhaps. Frightening.. Something unknown. Physical discomfort. Somebody’s anger. Your own heart may be beating fast, your breath coming short. These are all direct experiences. When you’re with the direct experience of fear, the story line falls away. There’s just a direct physical experience which we call fear. You come to know fear simply as a result of certain conditioned experience. It’s no different than anger or sadness, boredom, disappointment; it’s an experience.

So the answer it twofold: come to know the nature of fear and make the skillful decision not to buy into fear’s obsessive stories, and come to know fearlessness. Give yourself the opportunity to rest in that spaciousness and joy. I pause.

Q:Can you address the concept of time? Compare it to what we experience as humans on this Earth? Live more than one life at a time, travel between lives?

Aaron:I am Aaron. I hear your question, my friend. And no evening such as tonight’s would be complete without it! Unfortunately while on the ultimate level we have all the time needed, on the relative level I don’t have time to address the question adequately!

Time is an illusion. How could an infinite being ever get caught in time? What does time mean to an infinite being? But because you have the illusion of a separate self which is finite, you create the illusion of time to house that separate being. Know that time is a useful tool, but not more than that, just a tool, a device. Don’t be a slave to it.

Simultaneous time. I like to see simultaneous time as if we put 2 dots together(Barbara puts 2 large dots 6 inches apart on a piece of paper). Here is your life now, here is your life 10 years from now. And yet time is not linear (Barbara brings both dots together, folding paper). We fold it together, it’s simultaneous. Where you are now and where you are 10 years from now are all right there in that one spot, that one moment. As long as you think in linear terms, there is a past and a future. When you cease to think in linear terms, it’s all simultaneous.

What that means is that while you are sitting here in this room you’re also everyplace else and everywhen else, but since this human mind can only grasp one moment at a time (no pun intended!) and then another moment, this whole sense of linearity is created by the human experience. That doesn’t matter. In the long run you’ll find out who and when you are. For now, just be present in this moment because this moment is all there is. Just(loud clap!)now. And then another now. The simplest answer to your question would be to say, What is time? It’s always now. What else is there? I pause.

Barbara:He says this is something people like to play with. It seems to fascinate us. But it really doesn’t matter. He says, the question is not, can I be kind from here through there, but in this moment can I practice kindness? In this moment can I have a skillful response in a situation? And if I do it now and then again now and then again now, the habit builds up and it doesn’t matter whether it’s linear or how it is, just now.

Aaron:I am Aaron. There is so much I could say to you. There’s only time for brief answers here. Some of you have read my weekly transcripts for 10 years and yet you’re still filled with questions. I can’t answer your questions, I can only direct you to the place in your own heart where the answers lie. And yet, such discussions as we’re having tonight are very valuable. You cannot find the answers in your heart until you raise the question. Let us read the next question.

Q:Hello Aaron. Is it an issue of love to help a dear friend I’ve known for a long time to stay in this country through a marriage of convenience, or fear to not do so? How can I think/come clear of this difficult decision and be calm and settled with the decision? I feel it may be my karmic duty to help this friend in a way that I may be able to. I’m afraid that there may be issues I’m not considering. If so, can you help me be aware of any?

Aaron:I am Aaron. There’s no universal answer. Should I or shouldn’t I? Love or fear? Your friend has expressed a need and it’s clear to me you have some doubts about the wisdom of your friend’s choice. Is it kind to help, even though there is doubt, or do you say no because there’s doubt? I think communication is the main issue here. To be able to sit with your friend and make the statement, “Your present choice worries me. Certainly it will allow you to stay here but I think much pain will come out of it, and so it worries me.” Speak to your friend from a place of kindness, acknowledging that both of your highest intention is to do what is most suitable for the good of all. This is not a confrontation, “I think this. You think that.” – right/ wrong, but an opportunity for the coming together of 2 hearts, asking what is for the best for all concerned. If we plant this seed, what kind of fruit will it bear?

When your friend has heard your concerns and truly heard them, then you can ask your friend, “What do you want me to do? Even though I have this concern, I’m willing to help you if that’s what you truly want. But I do need to make it clear that I have concerns.” What does your friend say? What does your own conscience say?

The more you can cut through any fear and anger, not get caught in stories, “Oh, this might happen, that might happen, people will blame me” or simply, “People will be hurt,” the more clarity there will be. One way you can cut through fear’s stories is to just notice, “feeling tension, feeling fear,” how it feels in the body, tight, hot, feeling fear. When you are present with your fear, it will reveal itself. What is the fear really about? Is it about that someone may blame you? Is it about your friend being hurt or the one he or she would marry being hurt? Is it about deceit in some way? Is there a feeling of helplessness there, lack of control? Get to know what the fear is about. Be present with that. The more present you are, the more aware you are, the more you will be able to come in contact with this loving wisdom which knows what to do. Open your heart. At some level you know what to do.

You cannot always discern whether the choice is made from fear or from love. Sometimes we act in ways that do not bring the results we wish for. Sometimes we act in unskillful ways. If that happens, be ready to apologize for what harm has been done, to look deeply at the situation and learn from it, to learn in this situation perhaps that you need to trust your friend, to support his/her choices, or that you need to trust yourself, to trust your own wisdom.

There’s no direct answer, just the ongoing process of learning to trust, to connect with and trust this open heart. Keep connected to the deep intention to do no harm and your wisdom will give you the answers you seek. Is this sufficient answer or would you like me to speak further about it? I pause.

(Questions remain but questioner does not know how to ask them.)

Aaron:I am Aaron. I don’t know you beyond our meeting tonight so this is conjecture. For many beings on a conscious spiritual path there is a deep aspiration and intention not to do harm. The fear of acting in ways that create harm can paralyze you and prevent any action. And inaction can also create harm. I think you need to take it into meditation and bring forth the intention, “Whatever choice I make here my intention is that it do no harm, or do the least harm.” You can’t just walk away from it, that it may hurt your friend. Again, you must distinguish between pain and harm. It’s hard to know. If you say no to your friend, certainly it will cause pain. Will it cause harm? What is harm in this situation?

I don’t give specific advice. I will not tell you “you should do this or do that”. But I think it’s important to ask yourself, is there any deceit here? Does the person your friend would marry understand that it’s a marriage of convenience? Is there an intention that they will stay together or that they’ll separate soon after? What kinds of pain may be caused by these choices? If there’s no deceit and everyone is clear about this situation, is there any reason not to support your friend? If there is deceit, then what action on your part best supports this friend in his/ her attempt to live with love?

It goes back to the statement I made earlier asking what is harm. If a being suffers the results of his or her choices, and that direct result, the discomfort of that result, is what awakens them, leads them to pay attention so they see how actions on their part had certain hurtful results, then there may be learning. You can’t hold the baby by its hand all the time, you’ve got to let go, even if the baby falls down on the floor. You make sure the baby is not walking on concrete and wears padded clothing. You must make sure with your friend that you feel satisfied that he or she understands the repercussions of these choices. Once you satisfy yourself to that, ask yourself, “Am I clinging to some kind of certainty which can never be given? Is there a fear here that wants absolute certainty that nobody will suffer pain because of these choices?”

I think each of you has to ask this constantly. You can feel the tension in the body and you can feel it release. When you make what in this moment seems to be the skillful decision, you can feel it release. Looking back you may recognize that it was not the most skillful decision. Then you’ve learned something.

The primary question here seems to me to be about control, wanting to know the outcome, wanting certainty. I think you need to confront a certain basic helplessness which is part of the human condition. You’re never going to know everything that you need to know. Is that okay? To withhold action because there’s lack of certainty can also cause harm. I pause.

Barbara: It’s after 10; we need to end. Thank you for joining us tonight. I’ve really enjoyed getting to know you.