November 16, 2021 Tuesday Evening with Aaron
A Bigger Picture; Being the Ring Bearers: Casting the Ring of Power/Service to Self Into the Fire
Aaron: My blessings and love to you all. I am Aaron. Thirty-two years, and I still forget to push start on the recorder!
Barbara remarked to me today, “I’m still teaching the same things now that I was teaching 32 years ago.” Love and the power of love. The awakened heart-mind that is inherent to all that you are, and how you invite that heart to open, more fully to remember who you are.
Your faces are beautiful, and I love to look into your eyes…
I’m very moved, as I look around here. Thirty-two years ago, we had 10 or 20 people sitting in the living room—all local, of course. Now we have people from all over the United States, some from Canada, sometimes we have friends from Europe and other continents. It’s midnight or 1am for Europe, so most of them will listen to the recording.
I find this so exciting, because this is not a national endeavor to bring in light, it’s a universal one. Well, we’ve not yet figured out how to Zoom this out to other planets, other universes. We’ll have to stay with this one for this time period. But this is in essence what I want to talk about. There are other universes. Some are grounded in light, and some are grounded in darkness.
Barbara, while reviewing… Aaron do you mean other galaxies, or truly other universes?
Aaron: I said what I meant. Other Universes.
Barbara: Aaron asked me to “try to imagine a large box, longer and wider than it is thick, all edges becoming soft and undefined. Now try to imagine another box intersecting the first one, cutting though it. Each box is only visible and experienceable while you are within it. But it is possible for a sentient being to slip from one box into the other, an alternate universe.” He said there are numerous such alternate universes.
Barbara said, “I’m teaching the same thing that I was 32 years ago.” You are love. You are light. And you are here to hold that love and light and make it available to the world.
But it’s not quite the same thing because, as you become more… ‘sophisticated’ is not really the right word—more aware, and as your heart energy grows, you’re ready for a clearer articulation of some things.
My intention tonight is to paint a bit of a bigger picture for you.
I was speaking with Barbara earlier about the trilogy,Lord of the Rings. I would assume many of you have read that years ago. Frodo, of Middle Earth, is given the mission to carry the Ring of Power, which can so easily be misused for personal power, and which the forces of darkness were attempting to possess for personal power of darkness.
He undertakes the Hero’s Journey to carry that ring and put it into the fires of the—pardon me if I don’t remember the details—the Crack of Doom? Something of that sort. A place where the fire burns so fiercely that it would devour this ring so that its power can no longer be misappropriated to do harm. His doing this would be an enormous blow to the forces of darkness.
You all took this as fiction when you read it, but it is not fiction. Oh, the part of Frodo is. There are beings who resemble Frodo, but nobody named Frodo Baggins.
But there are innumerable beings like yourselves who are committed to serving the light and helping to bring forth the power of light and unconditional love in this world, this earth, so that the earth may flourish and become a holder of light in the universe and in the many universes. By recognizing and releasing darkness in yourselves, you are dropping the power of darkness into the fires wherein it may burn away.
This is what you have committed to—no less. You see it personally, individually to be more loving, to hold more unconditional love. Youdidnot need to see the big picture, and that’s why I never talked about it. But now it becomes increasingly valuable to at least get a glimpse of the bigger picture and how the work you are doing fits into that big picture.
There are many universes. Just as you think of a Supreme Being, God, Goddess, Awakened One, Heart of Love—however you might name it, who holds a center to this Earth in this universe, so there are beings of unbelievable—to you—negativity who only want self-power. And they do not care how much they destroy. They delight in fear and hatred.
Eons ago the Brother/Sisterhood of Light gathered to ask, how do we answer this call to hatred, fear, and negativity? It was understood that while there is ultimate light and love, there is no such thing as ultimate negativity. It can be extremely negative but nothing that we can call ultimate negativity.
Thus, the answer that the Brother/Sisterhood gave is: Speak love to that negativity. Hold the space of love. Come to know the love and the light in yourself and offer it out. Because no matter how much negativity there may be, that negativity is not an ultimate reality. Everything negative in every universecanandwillyield to love and light in the long run.
The Brother/Sisterhood then put out a call: the idea of co-creating a planet deeply grounded in love with heavy density beings. This was unheard of. Something grounded in light and love that was not physical, that could hold that high energy—yes; but to create a physical planet with physical beings and hold it as light, how do we do that?
Those that you think of as the Guardian Angels of Earth—Gabriel, Michael, Raphael, Ariel, et cetera, these deeply loving beings came forth and said, “We will give our energy to ground the Earth in positive polarity. We will hold a structure of positive polarity within the Earth, a vibration of positive polarity that people may anchor to and depend upon.” And these wonderful beings have been doing this ever since.
I know some of you have heard Ariel speak through Barbara. Ariel, one of these high angels, is my direct teacher, one for whom I have so much love and admiration.
These beings of such intense love, they are here and holding the vibration of love on this Earth, making it available to you.
Earth came into being as a heavy density planet, a physical realm wherein could live sentient beings. And then physical beings came into being upon this heavy density Earth.
A basis for Earth is free will. How could there be a positively polarized planet without free will? If there is someone cracking the whip and commanding you, it is not a positively polarized planet. It is not grounded in love. No matter how well-intentioned the director is, if they command rather than invite and co-create, there is not free will.
Through eons of time the Earth has been developing, with so much support, into a positively polarized planet with at times a higher or lower vibration. It comes and goes, but always moving toward that high vibration.
The Earth came through different periods. First, Lemuria, which really preceded Earth, planted seeds for the Earth. Atlantis. There have been many different civilizations all over this Earth, some more successful than others in holding the high vibration of love.
To hold that vibration does not mean that you will never be afraid, never be angry, never feel despair. It means that you are so deeply grounded in the light that you do not lose that light, at least not for too long; that you keep opening to the deeper truth of love.
Now you are in, I guess 21st century Earth, and of course, that’s just by your own recent time accounting.
Everyone in this Zoom room holds the intention to live their lives with love. But it’s so hard to hold that unconditional love when there is fear, is pain, is distortion around you. But this distortion in fact is your teacher, because without the distortion, how would you learn to relate lovingly to the distortion and to hold the still space of clarity?
In the years that I have been connected consciously with Barbara, we have met many deeply loving people. There have been two who especially resonated for me as beings of unconditional love.
The one I would put highest there is the Dalai Lama. Barbara had the opportunity to attend a Buddhist teacher’s conference with the Dalai Lama probably close to 30 years ago. When he walks into the room, so much light shines out from him. You think of what trauma this man has experienced in his lifetime, but he does not lose the power of unconditional love.
One would ask: what allows this for a human being? Now, he is awakened, of course. I would imagine he doesn’t create dualities. I have not spoken to him about this; I’m conjecturing, here. But sitting in that one room with two hundred dharma teachers, feeling and hearing his response to people’s questions and people’s pain, his heart was so present with each person. There was no separation at all between him and anyone else in the room. It was quite remarkable to see. I know at times he must have been a bit weary, or thirsty, or uncomfortable in his physical stance, but the light never wavered.
The second person, coming almost to that degree of unconditional love, was Thich Nhat Hanh. Barbara was in Plum Village for some time close to 30 years ago, actually before the time that I mentioned with the Dalai Lama. She was there during their winter retreat, which in those days was a much smaller group of people, mostly the resident monastic community, with only a few guests. He had that same radiance and ability to connect himself to everyone and everyone to each other, to hold the space of unconditional love.
For both humans, they were doing this not despite but supported by the horrors that they had experienced in their lives, which generated deeper compassion.
It is wonderful that your earth offers such examples of awakened beings who are capable of unconditional love. You might think to yourself, “Well, it’s fine for them, but I can’t do that.” Ah, but you can. And for them, some lifetimes earlier they might have said, “I cannot be unconditionally loving.” And then, as they gradually became more awake, unconditional love flowed out of them.
There are others in the world, of course. I am speaking here only of those two that I know from firsthand experience to be totally grounded—or, nobody is totally grounded—very well grounded in unconditional love.
All of you, you came as volunteers. You were asked only the question, “Do you come to commit yourself to service to the light, for the highest good of all beings and harm to none?” And you said, “Yes. I so commit myself.” You probably said, “I don’t know if I can do that.” But fear didn’t get into the way because of the deep commitment that you have.
What would have happened in the last book ofLord of the Ringsif Frodo and his company, seeing the Orks and other terrible, demonic-appearing beings, said, “Oh, we can’t deal with this. Let’s get out of here.”?
Are you willing to carry that commitment, to carry—I’m going to use the literal words—the Ring of Power? But it is the ring of personal power, distorted power that would control for the good of only the self. Are you willing to commit to carry that ring and drop it into the fire, where it will burn away?
The deepest awakening experiences cleanse you and release any last vestiges of negativity and intention to service to the small self; are you willing to commit to that journey to release of identification with the small self? Will you join me with this? I know your answer is yes. I know you all, or almost all, and I think your answer is yes.
But then you say, “I’d like to commit but I don’t know how to do it, because I am in pain, and I am afraid, and I feel lost. And I feel outraged for the state of the world. And I cannot love unconditionally.”
Right now, you can’t. In some past life, the Dalai Lama could not love unconditionally, and he learned to do so. In some past lives, the essence of the one who became the Buddha could not love unconditionally, Yeshua could not love unconditionally in early incarnations. They learned to love!
You are no less than them. The tiny sapling two feet tall does not yet have the stature of the eighty-foot tree, but it is not any different than the tree; it just needs to grow. That is why you are here.
The interesting thing is it’s not going to take you 80 lifetimes to grow into that, a foot a year, because you have been on this path for a long time.
Think back to where you were 10, 20, 30 years ago and how far you have come in being able to open to your commitment to service to the light and to trust your ability to participate in that service. Each time you make a choice for the light and for love rather than back into darkness and fear you take a giant growth spurt.
And there is so much help around you, invisible help. They are there, nonetheless.
You might think, why me and why now? Now—the world has been coming to this point for eons upon eons, coming to a readiness. You have come to participate!
You all know the biblical story of the Garden of Eden. That Eden where everything flourished in love. Where there was no duality, no idea of separation, no fear, no hatred.
Some of you have said, “Well, why couldn’t it have just stayed that way?” Most of you have heard me address this question. It was given to you that way, presented as the ultimate reality. But you on this heavy density realm needed to undertake the work to co-create it, not only on the ultimate level but also on the heavy density level, because there are throughout many universes so many places that are not living in that ultimate reality, that are living in pain, in extreme suffering, in hatred, under the power of that “Lord of Darkness.” (I am not talking about one being, here, but in each realm its own different Lord of Darkness.) They exist to serve themselves, to extinguish the light.
And so the challenge was offered to Earth: Can a realm of heavy density beings on a heavy density planet truly open to the light? How is that possible?
As I said, the Guardian Angels stepped forth and said, “We will ground it.” We create a planet that is of light, but because there is free will, we cannot prevent darkness from coming into this planet. Each being decides for itself. But only in that way can there be growth and the shift from serving the darkness, from serving fear, greed, and hatred and that which is only for the self, to serving that which is for all beings and grounded in love.
Many of you jumped on that idea from the very beginning and have been around and doing this work literally for eons, consecrating yourself again and yet again, lifetime after lifetime, to service to the light. It is hard work.
The universe has its own timetables, so to speak, phases. I’m not going to go into a lot of detail that you don’t need here.
But in the time before time, there was an understanding that in this period that you think of now as 21st century Earth, there would be a transition where the Earth would move itself fully into the light or fall back into the darkness for again many thousands of years.
So many of you stepped up and said, “Now is the time. We’ve been rehearsing, dress rehearsals on stage after stage through millennia, and now it’s performance time. Now we come onto the stage and open the curtain.”
Have we learned to hold darkness in a spacious way inside of ourselves without hating the darkness and without yielding to the darkness?
Early Christianity gave this experience of darkness a name. They called it ‘sin,’ to live in the darkness. I call that simply “Sinking Into Negativity”—S.I.N..
You came to commit yourself to cease this sinking into negativity. You and millions of brothers and sisters on this Earth learning the power of love and committed to bringing it forth so that this Earth may become a shining beacon of the truth of light and love.
Of course, the more powerful you get within that light, the more hatred is tossed upon you. The bullies come up saying, “Ah, I bet I can take them!” “No, you can’t take us because we stand united with love.”
That beautiful song, “Just like a tree standing by the water, we shall not be moved…” You can do that. You are doing it.
There have been wonderful teachers along the way. Back in the times of Atlantis there were very advanced beings from other civilizations, other places and even other universes who came to Atlantis to help bring light more firmly into the Earth. The light the Guardian Angels had brought here was wavering, and needed support. Those beings from Atlantis were deeply committed to service to the light, and they had many extraordinary practices. But it was not enough, and Atlantis eventually collapsed.
I was not there in Atlantis, of course. Well, let me say it differently—I, as Aaron, was not there. Those aspects of me that were in Atlantis, I saw it differently because I was not so mature at that time.
But when I look back on what I’ve learned of Atlantis, there were still subtle ways of distrust in these beings who had great clarity, toward those beings who did not yet have clarity. There was not quite a willingness to allow people to make errors, perceive their errors and self-correct by holding to the light for the direction.
So, beings began to come in and control a bit too much. From my perspective and Ariel’s, as well, this is what brought about the demise of Atlantis.
There have been other civilizations of great light on Earth and elsewhere. The heart of inviting light to flourish, it seems to me, is that we learn to trust ourselves and each other, which can only come by knowing the light in ourselves.
Last weekend we had a retreat, just a three-day retreat. There were two groups; one with more experience and one with less experience. Instead of one-size-fits-all instruction, in each group we went around, each person sharing their practice, their pain, what they hoped to learn at the retreat.
The first day there was such deep pain from that more beginner group. They were looking for something to hang onto to pull them up, and what was offered was the dharma and the love from the group and the teachers. Nobody came to them and said, “This is how you fix yourself.” The clear message is, “There is nothing to fix. You are already awake. And there are practices that can help you to open to that awake state. We trust you and we will support you, hour by hour, day by day, to open your heart and invite deepening in these practices. How different that is from, “Oh, you’re suffering so much—let me fix it for you!”, which doesn’t empower.
And with the senior group also, so much deepening; a willingness to look at the places of pain and darkness in themselves and to work very lovingly and skillfully to step past those old holdings of darkness. Whatever level you’re at, you can do this.
I think Atlantis was doomed because there was still not trust of the divinity in each being and the power of each being to move itself into opening into that divinity and knowing themselves as divine and radiant and whole.
Jumping forward quite a bit from Atlantis, let me speak of the Buddha. There are other great teachers. I cannot take time to talk of all of them, but because my path has been so much the Buddhist path, I’m speaking of the Buddha. His focus was just this: “You are already awake. There is nothing broken, nothing to fix. Here is the path, the Eightfold Path, that can bring you into knowing your awakenedness.”
Then, fast-forward five hundred years to Yeshua’s birth. Yeshua came with the light and power of divinity, to bring it back to Earth because it had been slipping away. It was always there and grounded in the Earth, and yet because beings were so long in darkness, they needed to be reminded of Light’s presence. Beings needed something to ground them, and the Earth itself to be grounded. Yeshua came to ground the light on the Earth once more, as it had been previously grounded.
That grounding of Love was beautiful. But not everyone was ready to take those steps and acknowledge, ‘Yes, I am already awake and I will live that awakenedness. I already am unconditionally loving, and I can and will live that.” People needed time, now two thousand years.
As the Earth approaches this time of transition into a positively polarized or negatively polarized higher density planet, so many of you have stepped forth and said, “Yes, I am ready to bear witness to this awakened Earth, to this awakened heart-mind that is me, that is all of us. I am ready to unconditionally love.”
What does it mean to love unconditionally? It takes a lot of practice and commitment.
We have the Covid virus. Can you offer it unconditional love? That doesn’t mean you give it permission to take over, but can you give it unconditional love?
If there are beings filled with hatred, you do not give them permission to take over, but can you give them unconditional love?
Gandhi used the term satyagraha, soul force. As you practice, you are finding that soul force in yourselves, and finding that when you are connected to that soul force you are connected to everything and everybody on the Earth, every sentient being of any size or shape. And you are inviting them, not mistrusting them and saying, “I don’t believe you can do it,” but looking at them and saying, “Yes, you are also divine, and I put this transition in your hands.” It takes so much trust. “I put this in your hands, that you can do this work and shift yourself out of this pull of negativity.”
Now of course every being won’t be able to. It does not take 100% of beings as positively polarized for the Earth to shift into higher density positive polarity, just about 51%. And yes, you are doing it.
When you look at somebody who says or does something that is disturbing to you, can you first stop and hold their pain in your heart? Know that they’re coming from a place of fear and pain and are addressing that fear and pain in the only way they know how. As you hold them in your heart, as the Dalai Lama did with his enemies, “My enemies, my teachers,” he said. He did not hate those who took his country, and yet he held firm, “You may not kill.” To survive he had to remove himself from his country, but still, he did not hate.
It’s going to happen a different way here, I believe. Those who are of negative polarity, who cannot shift, will move on to a more neutrally polarized third density planet that is being prepared for them, and those of you who are ready will move into a positively polarized higher density planet.
Look at the places of fear and distrust, where the negative story rambles on, and move beyond. Frodo standing there, saying, “But I can’t carry the ring!” — “Yes, I can carry the ring. I am committed to carrying the ring, to dropping this ring of hatred and fear and negativity where it will burn away forever in the power of love.” This and no less than this is your commitment.
Yeshua came to plant that power of unconditional love into the Earth, and it’s been growing for 2,000 years. Now there are many other beings supporting this power of love. Yeshua, of course, remains with you and supporting it, and others, like Mary Magdalene and other great beings of that time. They remain with you to support you.
Butyouare now the ring-bearers. And you have everything you need to do this— except perhaps the confidence! If you don’t believe you can do it, then assuredly you cannot do it. I can’t make you believe it; that is not my job. I only hold you in my heart and say, “Yes, we are here with you, and you have come so far. Don’t back away now.”
Be the vastly loving and awake beings that you are, and bring this Earth through into a higher density, positively polarized planet, not just for yourselves and the Earth, not even just for this universe, but as a blazing star— well, you’re not a star; you’re a planet— as a blazing light that gives confidence to all who are still in darkness. A heavy density beingcancarry this high vibration. It is possible. And you are doing it.
Many of you, as I look at you out there, are in The Eden Project class. You’re doing the different practices we have offered. You’re working within your meditation. You’re looking deeply into yourselves to come to know the light that is there within the still-remaining darkness.
You are not trying to destroy the darkness, which would be a negative reaction—“Get rid of it!” You are just opening to the darkness, and moving through that opening, to help the darkness bloom into light, outward, and outward, and outward.
It’s very hard work; I understand that. This past two years have been very hard on many of you. The pandemic. The feelings of isolation. For some of you, loss of income. Trying to live a sane life with work to do from your computer and little children running around the home who cannot go to school. Living with fear for yourselves and your loved ones—we could die. Living with uncertainty.
When you hold metal into the flame, it tempers the metal. It makes it strong. You are being tempered by this pandemic. You are finding your strength, finding the strength of the loving heart within you.
What next? There’s no easy answer. I do not predict the future. But as each of you commits to returning loving kindness to negativity, and also to finding the power within you—grounded in love—to say no to negativity with love, the kind of no you’ve heard me describe that came from Yeshua, when in that lifetime as Yeshua he encountered people being brutal to each other. He didn’t just look at them and say, “Aw, be nice to each other. Come here; I love you.” He said a resounding, “NO! No, you may not destroy each other.” He awakened in people the true power of love through demonstrating that love. There is nothing more powerful than love.
I do not predict the future. But I see each of you growing and becoming stronger, not just this group but thousands and millions around the world, that my entity peers tell me, in the groups that they work with, everybody is growing more open to Light and becoming stronger and more ready.
Yes, it is time. Let us do this together. Let us do what we committed to so many millennia ago: to help bring this heavy density planet into the place of a holder of light. Let us offer proof of light, of unconditional love, as the most powerful force that there is.
Remember, you are not alone. There are so many helpers around you.
So, let’s gather Frodo in here, and the ring bearers, and all of us carry this ring of hatred, of service to self, of despising of others—let us carry it into that fire and let it burn away forever.
This is what the potential is, maybe not in your lifetime, but maybe so. I can’t talk about that; I don’t know. But in the foreseeable future. We’re not talking 10,000 years from now because the Earth is right there on the brink of transitioning. Let’s bring it forth, this positively polarized radiant light, to give hope to universe upon universe.
My friends the ring bearers, I love you all.
We’ll pause here, take a little stretch, and then I’ll be happy to answer your questions. My love to you all.
(break)
(Reviewed to here)
Barbara: As Aaron was talking to me today about what he was going to teach tonight, he was talking about why Atlantis collapsed and this whole idea of teaching with that subtle lack of trust.
He pointed out to me, when I taught my sons to ride a bike, I didn’t run behind them for a mile, hanging onto them and saying, “What if you can’t do it?” I waited until they were mature enough that it seemed like they were ready. I made sure they had a long sleeve shirt and pants to protect from inevitable scrapes. I said, “Yeah, you’re ready to do this.” They said, “What if I fall?” I said, “Well, people do fall when they’re learning to ride a bike. You’ll fall a couple of times. It’s okay. Go!”
We trust ourselves and others in that way. Instead of constantly saying, “I don’t know if I can do this,” we trust that we’ve been getting ready for this lifetime for a long time. All over the world we’ve been getting ready for this transition for a long time. We don’t really need anybody holding our bike to stop it from falling over. We’ve got the balance, now. We can do it.
More important is that beings like Aaron are not saying, “What if you can’t do it?” They’re saying, “Yes, I know you can do it.” They’re saying, “It’s up to you, but I feel you’re ready.” No one can promise us success, only to trust the power of love.
Aaron will come back, and we’ll have time for questions. Aaron will incorporate when we have a question. Now not just questions but any discussion too. You don’t have to have a question for Aaron; you might just wish to share something, and that’s fine.
Q: I’m sorry for this sounding like a beginner’s question, but I have recently retired, sold everything, moved to<>, and we’re here much closer to the grandchildren. And I have approached this time when the oldest is three and is facing that new challenge of sharing. It seems that when the insecurity, that fear that naturally arises in a three-year-old, the fear or insecurity that is underneath that fear of sharing, she is quite sensitive to any correction or guidance. And when Aaron was talking about holding the loving space with that fearful energy and coming from that place, I was hoping Aaron could give some guidance in that situation. And perhaps the reason I’m noticing it so carefully is I remember my own mother talking to me about how she was always despairing about needing to correct me because I was so hard on myself. Is this some kind of a karmic thing? Is this just a three-year-old being a three-year-old and I’m overbalancing everything?
Barbara: Thank you, Q. Let’s let Aaron incorporate and speak…
Aaron: I am Aaron. Thank you for your question.
There are many different attitudes among three-year-olds. It’s not just how they were raised but it’s also their karma. Of course, I have parented many children through many lifetimes, and my way of dealing with that stage was always to make it a game. To sit down with the child in a quiet place with a few interesting objects. To pick up something that interested you—not give something to them, just pick up something and start to look at it. And the child will obviously reach out quickly and say, “I want that! Give me that.”
So then you model it. You say to the child, “I’d be happy to give this to you. Okay.” And you pick up something else. The child looks at you, puts down what you just gave them, and says, “No, now I want that!” “Well, I’ll give you this and you give me what you’re holding. We’ll trade.”
Then you pick up a third object. You put down the first one, pick up a third object. The child is looking: “Oh, I want that!” You don’t say, “Well, you’re playing with something else.” You say, “Of course, I’d be glad to give you this. You give me what you’re playing with, so I have something.” If you have four or five objects, you can just keep it going.
Finally, you might point out to the child, “You’re so busy asking for what I have that you’re not really playing with any of it. Why don’t we take one of these toys and play with it together?” And see what happens.
Just a suggestion. No scolding. No trying to teach the child. Trust the child’s ability to learn and understand. Just present them with an opportunity to learn.
I was just observing Barbara’s grandson playing with his parents with a toy called a marble roll. It has different chutes and holes that the marble drops through; you construct it, drop the marble in, and it runs through and comes out.
This is not recently, this was a few months ago. He wanted to do it so they backed up and said, “Fine.” But then he became frustrated because it wasn’t doing what he wanted. They said, “Would you like help? How doyouwant it structured?” And they helped him make it sturdy so it wouldn’t topple over.
Well, at some point he said, “It’s better when you do it, Daddy.” And Daddy say, “It’s not better when I do it; I just know how to make it hold together better, because you haven’t learned how to do that yet. So, you design it and I’ll help you to put it together, and we’ll do it together.”
In this way you’re helping the child to value cooperation and co-creation and the fun of playing with another. You completely disengage with “Don’t be selfish” or any questions of that sort. This is obviously much easier for you to teach the child than it is for him to learn it with a peer who has not learned it yet. But you’ll find that as this grandchild learns to play co-creatively and cooperatively in this way, she will seek out friends who can also do that and with whom she will play very well.
There’s a bigger story, here, of course; this isn’t just about a three-year-old. Have you seen that t-shirt, “Plays Well With Others”.
Do you play well with others?
Are you trying to control other people?
Are you always sure, “I know how to do it.”?
Are you patient with other people’s rambling and testing and trying, rather than trying to take over control with the idea, “No, we have to get moving on this, and I know how to do it right.”?
Learning comes from doing it in different ways and seeing the results, whether they’re three years old or thirty or ninety.
Thank you. Other questions?
Q: Aaron, thank you for this very inspiring talk. When you talk about Frodo carrying the Ring of Personal Power and putting it in the fire of awakened consciousness—inspiring— can you give us some idea of how we do that? Is that the path of sacred darkness? Can you illuminate that more for us?
Aaron: Thank you for your question. I’m coming back to the issue of trust, and what I was speaking at length to Barbara about, the disintegration of Atlantis, in part because those who deemed themselves to be wise did not trust others to learn from their errors.
Now, there are errors upon errors. You don’t give a young child matches to see if they can learn how not to burn a house down by learning how to be careful with the matches. So, one obviously considers the breadth of the situation.
Here on Earth, there are beings who are not yet very awake, who are very caught in their own fear and negativity. You don’t give them control of the nuclear bomb. You talk about basic situations with them and help them to see through trial and error: “If we do it this way, this can be the result. If we do it that way, there can be a different result.”
I have had friends amongst you who were in the Peace Corps, who related to me when they went into their villages as The Teacher, started with all kinds of knowledge and skills to impart, it wasn’t very successful.
But when they went in and said, “We’re trying to get better quality of water here, in your village—where does your water come from now?” and really watched for a few days. “The water quality, well it’s not safe water; sometimes it’s polluted. So, what we need to do is find a way to bring unpolluted water into the village.” Not, “This is how you do it,” but, “How might you think of doing that, if you had everything you needed?” People would come up with ideas of creating conduits and so forth.
Then the Peace Corps friend would say, “Okay, I know where we can get the conduits you need. How will we get them here? How will we transport them?” Let them give the ideas.
It encourages and inspires people to grow and trust themselves. If you come forth as teacher, everybody else is the learner.
Coming back to your question. “When you talk about Frodo carrying the Ring of Power and putting it in the fire of awakened consciousness—inspiring— can you give us some idea of how we do that? Is that the path of sacred darkness? Can you illuminate that more for us?”
I’d say the path of sacred darkness is empowering yourselves by being willing to go into the darkness by, instead of taking a true, tried path, which is lit but limited, being willing to open into the unknown, which contains the darkness. To trust the darkness as teacher. Not to endanger yourself and others with the darkness, but to understand we are constantly learning, and the darkness is not bad, it’s simply the unknown.
As I open myself to trust the darkness, I can make wiser choices within the darkness. In other words, if it’s a pitch black cave, I’m not just going to walk forward when I know there may be steep drop-offs; I’m going to test ahead of me. When I come to the drop-off, I’m going to stop and consider, what is this drop-off? How do I go into it in a way that is safe and will not destroy me? And of course, this is both metaphor and literal.
I’m thinking back to a long-ago lifetime that I lived in the Outback of Australia. A foreigner came and was to walk with us. He was sturdy and in good shape. We walked. We really began to run, because we never walked through the countryside, we ran. It took him many days to be able to keep up with us.
We were getting quite far from any civilization and he was a little worried. “What happens if someone gets hurt?” “We’ll take care of them.”
So we ran, and we stopped and ate and rested, and we ran again. And then this man fell into a hole. He did not break his leg, he sprained his ankle seriously, pulled tendons. He was in pain, but more than that, he was terrified. “You don’t have communication. They won’t be able to come and get me. I can’t walk; what will happen to me?”
“Shhh, calm down, relax. We live here. We know how to help people who have injured themselves.”
He said, “What are you going to do?” Well, the first response to his question was, “We’re going to sing to it.” But several of us realized that won’t make sense to him. He won’t trust it, and thus he won’t permit the healing.
So we said, “We have our methods of healing, just as you do, so we want you to just lie down and close your eyes so you can’t see what we’re doing. We’re going to take care of your ankle. You’ll hear us singing, but we’re doing a lot more than just singing. Just relax.”
He began to relax. It took him about an hour to be ready to receive, and for his ankle to heal itself based on the high energy we were offering to it, for it to be ready to receive that high energy and heal itself.
Another hour passed as we did this, and then we stopped. And he said, “Thank you. It has stopped throbbing. Now what will happen to me? Do you have crutches or some way to carry me?”
“Well, why should we carry you? Stand up and walk!”
He said, “I can’t—I just sprained my ankle!”
“Try it. Just try it.” And of course, he could walk perfectly.
Other questions?
John: Can you speak more about the difference between love and unconditional love? For example, the Dalai Lama, I understand in loving and forgiving the Chinese that have invaded his country, that he’s being more unconditionally loving. But I’ve always had difficulty distinguishing between these two, love and unconditional love. Can you speak of this, please?
Aaron: Thank you, I understand your question. I think the main difference from my perspective is that love always involves a self. “I” love you; “I” love this or that. Barbara “loves” chocolate. Love, frommeto this.
Unconditional love drops off the self. The unconditionally loving being moves past any self-identification with the aggregates and moves into the awakened heart thatislove.
The flow from that which is here(the heart)and that which is the heart of the other, is one, so there is no sense of separation, no tiniest thought of, “If I am kind and loving to you, will you get this settled so we can go ahead, so we can do it my way, or at least we can proceed?”
Just, “I feel your pain, your suffering; how you are trapped in old conditioning, as I may be also, and how painful it is to you. I do not blame you for this. I hold you in love. Nevertheless, I will not tolerate your using that old karma and old conditioning as a way of harming others. Because if I did, that would not be unconditional love.”
Does that answer the distinction for you, John?
John: Yes. So the primary difference is that in unconditional love there is no self in it, that one is dwelling deeply enough in the divine love and unconditional love that there’s no self and other.
Aaron: Exactly. And that does not mean there is not, from the small ego self, sometimes impatience or sadness or fear. The aggregates are still there, but known for what they are, not in control. Pure Awareness holds the space.
Barbara heard Thich Nhat Hanh speak of this very eloquently at that time when she was in Plum Village. Now remember, he was speaking in Thai, and somebody was translating into English, and then somebody was signing it for her. So, I cannot say that this is what Thay said, only this is what she understood.
He said that as he watched anger arise in him because of the situations when people were threatened, even killed, and he held space and compassion for his own anger, that anger lost its power to do harm to another and open the way for unconditional love and total compassion.
That compassion allowed space for his sadness for himself, without having to enact that emotionally, physically, or in any way. Does that clarify it?
John: Yes, thank you.
Q: My question is about loss. At this time, well at any time, there is the experience that we have of loss. We can lose a person in our life through a death or through a separation, like a divorce or someone saying, “Don’t talk to me anymore.” We can have a loss of a limb, of a physical function of the body. We can have a loss of a home, where we are thrown out of our home for one reason or another. We can have a loss of objects, where someone steals things from us. And there’s a lot of drama with this going on, all kinds of loss right now in the human landscape. I’ve had my own losses recently, and so I’m interested if you can address how I can and we can approach loss in our practice. Thank you.
Aaron: Thank you. So much drama—you humans are such dramatists! I don’t say that accusatorially, only, if you’re going to invite drama, you’re going to experience the drama.
Your practice does lead you to a place where you can watch the contact and consciousness, the feelings of pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral as something arises, and then how story emerges from that— “I should” kind of story, or “I don’t want” kind of story, or “I feel helpless,” or “I hate this,” or “How do I fix it?”—they’re all stories.
You’ll find ease as soon as you begin in your practice to be able to see the story emerging and immediately to say, “Ah, story. Here comes suffering.”
Not “Get out of here” story, just, “I am going to hold space for this human that’s caught up in a story of loss or helplessness or fear, loving this human unconditionally, holding space, but holding the firm commitment not to let the story keep running.”
We practice with this with a question, what is the direct experience of fear with no story? What is the direct experience of loss with no story?
Whois experiencing loss, or fear, or anger, or helplessness? Can you find anybody there, or just the outflow of conditions?
Where is the awakened self in all this, who is able to observe the experience of loss, for your example, and the anguish, the grief, without negating the human that’s feeling grief, but also, at the same time, seeing this grief is arising because I truly believe that I have lost something. And on the surface, mundane level, I have. But on the ultimate level, what have I lost?
It takes a lot of practice. It’s very challenging. All of you have lost something this year. You’ve lost the freedom to walk around outside without masks. You’ve lost the freedom to hug strangers. You’ve lost the freedom to feel safe walking down the street or sitting in the park. You are all grieving because you feel that you’ve lost control, to some degree.
So, let’s ask, then: What have you gained? I’m going to toss that question out, asking a couple of you to answer me: Is there anything you have gained from the pandemic?
Q: I think I’ve gained permission to live a quieter life.
Aaron: Thank you, Q. Others?
Q: I believe that I have gained more comfort with recognition of things that I didn’t really need, therefore it wasn’t a loss (as I would have seen it before).
Aaron: Thank you. But it took time to arrive at that understanding, yes. Thank you. Others?
Q: I think for myself what I’ve gained is there seems to be like an acceleration in my spiritual growth as a result of leading a quieter life. It really has been quite a blessing, actually.
Aaron: Thank you. I know others of you have response, but due to time let’s move on.
So there has been loss and there has been gain. The mind that creates stories out of fear spins out the loss, moving into grief and grasping. The mind that is more settled in practice and sees how the stories arise is able to stop and say, “Wait a minute—these are stories, and they do have a mundane reality. I have lost the ability to hug strangers or sit in a restaurant, but that’s not the end of the world. I don’t have to build fear and anguish and to perpetuate the stories. What do I get out of the stories?”
When you ask yourself, “What do the stories protect me from?”, usually there’s some level of grief or fear or anger that you’re not hearing in yourself.
Here we go into path of sacred darkness again. As you become willing to hear these places of pain in yourself compassionately, with unconditional love for yourself, they lose their power over you.
Now for those who have lost a loved one, for example, there’s still going to be grief; of course there is. Sorrow, missing that person. But it’s a very different experience, free of the stories of, “I could have fixed it. I should have fixed it. Why did it happen? Not fair!” —story, story, story! Excuse me; I’m not diminishing the stories when I say that, but they’re just incessant.
You have the power to stop and say, “What is this story protecting me from? If I were not experiencing this story, what might I be experiencing? Can I open my heart to that experience?” And you may find that the stories of grief and loss are so compelling because what’s beyond them is scary and you don’t trust yourself to go deeply into it. But you are ready to go into it. You can do that.
I don’t mean to be harsh. Each of you is working very hard and learning so much.
On this conditioned realm there is always going to be gain and loss, gain and loss. There is going to be pain. If you put your hand on something hot, it hurts, it burns. If you lose a loved one or lose a limb from your body, there’s going to be a real feeling of loss.
You do have the courage to hold space for that compassionately, not telling yourself, “I shouldn’t feel loss,” just, “Here is loss.” And finally, when you are ready, “What does the perpetuation of the story protect me from? Am I willing to see that?”
Does that sufficiently answer your question?
Q: Yes, you gave me everything I was hoping for. Thank you.
Aaron: Good—take it!(laughing)If I had bits of chocolate candy, those m&ms, and you were here live, I’d toss them out to you! Joy! Rejoice you are alive! What an amazing experience to be here in a body on Earth at this time. What an opportunity. So don’t just struggle through it—enjoy it.
I see it’s 9pm. It’s time for us to stop. Thank you all very much for your participation here, for coming and listening to me say some of the same things over and over. I hope it’s helpful to you.
With enough of us working together we can throw that Ring back into the Crack of Doom, or whatever it was called, where it will burn up and become something new, perhaps become light and love and hope.
Next month, December 14, will be our Christmas Stories. I hope you will join us.
My love to you.
(announcements)
Much love to all of you. I’ll return the body to Barbara so she can say good night. I am Aaron.
Barbara: Thank you, Aaron. Aaron is asking me, he says he knows it’s 9pm, but he would like me to speak for just two minutes. He’s asking me the question, “How did you deal with the loss of your hearing, free of stories?”
Aaron, you’re asking me that! —I did not deal with the loss of my hearing free of stories! I was filled with stories for ten years probably before I got past the stories. And then I realized the stories were creating more suffering and it was time to let go of the stories. And then I had to learn how to do that. There’s a path of meditation to doing that, to seeing the stories for what they are and letting go of them.
He’s saying, “Do you still experience the deafness as a loss, like the cutting off of a limb?” I experience sadness sometimes, Aaron, when I see the birds and I wish I could hear them singing. When I see my three-year-old grandson and I wish so much I could hear his laughter and his talking. When I know there’s beautiful music playing. Ahh, I wish I could hear that. But it’s okay, there’s no grasping anymore. Just, it would be lovely to hear that.
But I’m so aware of the ways I do hear—not birdsong and my grandson’s laughter and my music, but your hearts. I hear so much. I guess it just was a gradual process of letting go of the whole idea that something happened to me that was unfair and asking, “ how do I fix it?” and just coming to okay, this is how it is.
I don’t want to be trite, but how do I make lemonade out of these lemons? —Not how do I make lemonade—where is the already existent lemonade and can I enjoy it?
Aaron says, Enough. I assume that question was relevant to your discussion earlier.
So that’s all. Love to you all. Happy Thanksgiving to everybody. I assume for many of it’s going to be a bit different, as it is for us—just me and Hal, his caregiver of that day, and a small turkey!
Happy Thanksgiving!