January 18, 2022 Tuesday Evening with Aaron
Choosing Light and Co-Creativity: moving away from entrapment in darkness
Language and the terms ‘creation’, ‘destruction’; Imaginal cells; Choosing light; Flow; Stepping out of the raging river with awareness and intention; Becoming aware of patterns; Is that so?; Allowing emotions to flow; Q&A on stabilizing in awareness and clarifying the nature of the higher self
(Colette’s portions of this session have not been reviewed.)
Barbara: Tonight, we’re going to do something different—not totally different; I think we’ve done it before, once or twice, but basically different.
This has always been Open Night with Aaron. We’re expanding it tonight Aaron and Friends, because of course, Aaron has friends, just like we do.
For this past year, Aaron and I have been meeting regularly, a couple of times a month with several others in our Deep Spring community who are clear mediums. We’ve had some wonderful dialogues with Aaron and other entities. What comes through has been profound. And these people have developed—were already developed before I knew them, perhaps—but ever more fully developed into clear mediums.
I have a lot of love and respect for the entities they’re channeling and for what comes through. You probably know the two people I’m going to introduce. Colette Simone, who has been channeling Yeshua, and Mary, also, and Julian Dean, who brings through what is called a social memory complex—not a being that’s lived on Earth. It’s not a being, it’s a complex of beings: A’ton. So, A’ton speaks from a slightly different perspective. Many of you have read my book with Carla Rueckart,The Aaron/Q’uo Dialogues. A’ton is similar in a way, to Q’uo.
We’ve had a lot of fun tossing ideas around. We’ve learned a lot. Aaron feels it’s a good time to share our gatherings with a wider audience.
We met last weekend to talk about what are we want to present on Tuesday night. I brought up the idea—I’m reading here from the transcript:
…Looking at pain and suffering and what helps the human to move out of the entrapment, out of the drama and the darkness, and to make a choice for living in a world of light and co-creativity without denying the existence of the darkness that does permeate much of the earth.
Continuing here from the transcript of that day:
…a reflection on how we as humans right now— Earth, 2022— how can we best support the raising frequency of Earth? How can we best respond to the negativity and pain? What can we as humans do for our own growth and that of the healing of the Earth?
Aaron and I had pulled that question together. I tossed it out to the group. And then we passed it around in the group to see what others had to offer.
I want to thank Colette and Julian for their willingness to participate in this. They do so willingly, with a little bit of, “Who, me? You wantmeto dowhat?” It’s a little challenging when you’ve been channeling just with a few friends to suddenly channel in front of a whole class.
But I know our dear friends A’ton and Yeshua, Mary, or whoever comes through Colette, I know they’ll speak to your hearts as they do to mine.
I can channel Yeshua. I can channel Mary. But it’s a little hard to have a conversation with myself. Well, it’s not myself—it’s one body first channeling this, releasing that entity, then the other entity taking over, and then the first coming in—it’s hard. It’s much easier to get into a really lively dialogue when others are channeling.
All of you have the aptitude to hear spirit but not necessarily to vocally channel. Some people can play video games, some people can play baseball, some would rather play violin. We all have special skills.
Being able to develop into a clear channel takes a deep commitment to service, and trust—trust that “Yeah, I am hearing, and wow, okay, I’m just going to let this entity use my body and speak.” Well, that takes trust, and it takes practice. I want to thank Colette and Julian for the work they’ve done to come to this point.
(Welcoming newcomers)
At this point, I’m just going to get out of the way and let Aaron speak. Then he will invite whoever wants to speak next.
Aaron requests I share a bit more. I was reading from the transcript of the other day, as we were discussing tonight’s direction. I had asked, how can we best respond to the negativity and pain. A’ton came in and said:
We join in this conversation. When we listen to Barbara introduce the topic, we notice the language referring to paying attention to the pain and suffering. We would like to move the lens of the focus from the pain and suffering toward the illumination and the awakening. When the attention is with the pain and suffering, the attention supports and furthers the pain and suffering. When the attention is with the illumination and the awakening, that energy then supports the regrouping of the energies so that the contraction of the pain and suffering begins to re-form into the opening, the awakening, the expansion, of that which is the new. The new moves beyond the pain and suffering and into tremendous creativity for the greater good.
The other thing that caught my attention previously, when we met to talk about tonight, was spirit talking about us present humans as builders.
How many of us have come into the incarnation with the intention not to destroy but to build? What it means to be a builder, a co-creator. And to release duality, because we can choose to build or to let go from a place of negativity or of love.
Further, somebody brought up a term, which really lit me up: imaginal cells. Like the word ‘imagine’— imaginal cells. And that these are the cells that a caterpillar uses to metamorphose into a butterfly.
To what degree do we all have imaginal cells? I don’t know if this is scientifically valid. But what if we truly can imagine and co-create and metamorphose from a world that’s constantly at war and filled with fear and hatred into a world that’s filled with love?
So, this really triggered a wow! in me. Anyhow, that’s a little bit of what we may get into tonight. I don’t know, I really can’t predict what spirit is going to want to talk about.
So, having started this, I’m simply going to bring in Aaron, let him speak and then pass it to whoever chooses to speak next, either through Colette or through Julian, and we’ll pass it around. I hope you enjoy it as much as we have.
Aaron: My blessings and love to you all. I am Aaron, and I greet you with so much love. I’m very happy to see you here upon my screen, looking at 48 of you.
We used to sit here in this house, in the living room around the fire with first half a dozen, then a dozen, then 20. We stretched out the walls of the living room, then moving into this room where I’m sitting now. We were all local. Well, not me; I can’t say I’m local. But we did not have internet. We would print the transcripts and—we didn’t have email—we would put them into a newsletter, some of the highlights of the transcripts so we could share a bit of it with you.
Now, close to 35 years later, how amazing that we can share it worldwide and instantly. All of you can be here in our living room. It brings me joy.
I have loved speaking, sharing the platform and passing around ideas with A’ton, Yeshua, Mary, and sometimes others who have come in. It delights me to create this open flow of ideas.
When we spoke on Saturday, a new word was presented to me: imaginal cells. I’m not a scientist. I understand co-creativity. I understand how it works to co-create, what the human is doing to co-create. But that it really does come down to a cellular level, how fascinating!
When we co-create, we start with an intention of love, of non-harm.
You all came into this incarnation truly as volunteers with the intention to help co-create an Earth in which there could be more loving kindness and a great diminishment of negativity. You’ve been at it through many lifetimes, practicing this intention.
I love the term ‘imaginal cells’ because it asks us each to imagine what would it be like to live in a world in which there truly was non-harm to any being?
I don’t know if you’re familiar with the very beautiful Metta Sutra.
This is what should be done by one who is skilled in goodness
and who knows the path of peace.
Let them be able and upright, straightforward and gentle in speech
Humble and not conceited, contented and easily satisfied
Unburdened with duties and frugal in their ways
Peaceful and wise and calm and skillful, Not proud and demanding in nature. Let them not do the slightest thing that the wise would later reprove.
Wishing in gladness and in safety, may all beings be at ease.
Whatever living beings there may be;
Whether they are weak or strong, omitting none,
The great or the mighty, medium, short or small,
The seen and the unseen,
Those living near and far away,
Those born and to-be-born,
May all beings be at ease.
Let none deceive another or despise any being in any state.
Let none, through anger or ill will, wish harm upon another.
Even as a mother protects with her life Her child, her only child,
So with a boundless heart, should one cherish all living beings;
Radiating kindness over the entire world;
Spreading upward to the skies, And downwards to the depths;
Outward and unbounded, Freed from hatred and ill-will.
Whether standing or walking, seated or lying down
Free from drowsiness, one should sustain this recollection.
This is said to be the sublime abiding.
By not holding to fixed views, the pure-hearted one, having clarity of vision,
Being freed from all sense-desires, Is not born again into this world.
What if we can truly each imagine that true loving kindness and hold the intention to co-create it; to release some of the natural mammal impulse to close off into a separate self, to protect the separated self?
Closing off into that separate self has only ever created more separation and more suffering.
What if along with the deep knowing of our non-separation that comes at deep times in meditation, we can truly imagine a world where we are one? Are totally connected. This is our co-created beautiful butterfly, where I cannot be happy unless you are happy. I cannot ease my suffering unless your suffering is eased. What if we can imagine that?
The imaginal cells must work not just for the individual but for the whole earth.
(Reviewed to here by Barbara)
My background is dharma; you know this. In my final human lifetime, almost 600 years ago, I was a Theravada meditation master in Thailand. Through lifetimes of such dharma practice, that being that I was back in the 1500s, fully awakened.
He began to truly know things as they are. By that, I mean he began to know that there was no separation, nothing that could even remotely to thought of as a separate self. That we were all fingers of one hand, and one finger cannot cut off another finger.
In the world today there is so little recognition that we are all fingers of one Divine hand, so there’s competition, there is fear, armoring, separation, and intense suffering.
So much of the path that I have taught through these thirty-plus years is a path of awakening into the true self. It’s in a sense more of a linear path, coming from the confused and conflicted separate self into awakening into knowing the true essence of everything and living from that essence.
I love these dharma teachings. They do give us a way to awaken out of the nightmare of separation and suffering. They provide hope.
But since my passing as that monk, long ago, I’ve had a chance to learn about and practice other paths. Certainly, you don’t think learning stop just because you are awakened and then the body passes away? We keep learning. I’ve had much more opportunity to learn what I might call a direct path of resting in the awakened mind, arrived at by practices like Pure Awareness. Arrived at by practices of the open heart.
When A’ton suggested to work with these imaginal cells, to invite them because they’re already present, as soon as—well, for me, yes, I’m already awake, but as soon as I thought about it—oh yes; if these imaginal cells are there it gives people a direct path to that which is already awake. It doesn’t mean we don’t also practice the linear path, but we can bring them together.
A’ton, Yeshua, and I spoke more that day about this question—I am reading it again— “…What helps the human to move out of the entrapment, out of darkness and out of drama, and to make a choice for living in a world of light and co-creativity without denying the existence of the darkness? And that darkness does permeate much of the earth.”
You’ve all heard me talk about this in classes, in nights like this, so I’m going to open the floor here to the sharing of ideas from these beloved, for me, what I consider dharma brothers and sisters; whoever would like to speak, and in no special order, and not only limiting it to A’ton, Yeshua, and anyone else coming through Colette, but I think Ariel may choose to speak through Barbara as well. We’ll just see where the discussion goes. I step back and offer the microphone, as it were, to whatever friend would like to come in and speak. And it’s fine to go off-topic a little bit. I’m setting the stage here, but maybe you want to bring in new stage sets and background. I pause.
Julian: Thank you, Barbara and Aaron, for the brief introduction of A’ton. A’ton is a collective entity comprised of many who have evolved beyond individuation as we think of it.. But you can address A’ton as you would an individual. Simply be aware that A’ton often refers to “we” because there are multiple attentions that serve the communication. As Barbara said, like the Q’uo group, A’ton is a group.
A’ton(through Julian): Hello, I am A’ton. I greet you in love and light of the One Infinite Creator. May blessings be upon all. We greet you in this collection of people today.
Our attention is generated to Julian as an instrument in images, in sensations; not so much in words. We are not of words. So, unlike Aaron, who has had much practice with words and the referencing in third density Earth, we offer images with considerable force and then they have to be translated into words. Julian and another intermediary work that process.
What we would like to share is that in your language there is much talk of a description of duality and the wording of separation from the One.
There is the language of separation involving destruction and creation. We would like to offer that you play with language now in a way that perhaps you never have.
There is a considerable obedience to the language. People in a particular society speak in a language with a given historical framework, like Latin and the languages that derive from Latin it. People follow the familiar language quite rigidly.
When one speaks to another human that has a different language, there is a struggle to communicate. This is the nature of third density, which is designed as an opportunity to play with the concept of separation and differentiation. Initially, it was intended only as opportunity toplaywithconcepts. It was not necessarily intended to focus with separation as a suffering but rather separation as a playground.
So, we would like offer, for instance, that when thinking of the choice between creation and destruction, play a bit with that and allow the notion that those who may be judged within your mental framework to be involved with destruction, such as a soldier who goes and destroys a building or another person’s incarnate life, begin to play with that in a language sense as creation.
Those who are labeled as destroying are actually creating. They are creating from their intention, from their desire, from their resistance, from their fear. But they are working to do something with that. And in the process of raising the gun and firing the shot, or flying the airplane and dropping the bomb, they are in an act of creation.
So, if we begin to play with language in our own individual thinking in the moments of the day, and notice how we are speaking and how the speech is a pattern that one has engaged since childhood and learned from the other people in the community, and how the speaking creates energy. Every word that is spoken, every phrase, every story that is told creates a very real energy of color, of vibration, of impact.
And so, to pause and think: these people are trying to create a different type of society, a different political direction. These people are trying to create a different government. These people are trying to create the exit of this social group from this community or this landscape, expel them. These people are immigrants moving away, trying to create a different language of experience in their life.
So, we encourage that you open the topic of conversation to how we are so historically fixed with labeling, and how we—and the word here ‘we’ is referring to the humans—how we can begin to observe what we’re doing with our language.
Aaron talks about the metamorphosis from one phase of existence to another, where the change is a transmutation, it’s exponential. It’s not a shift or a step-by-step process. It is a transmutation into another life form, as it were.
To begin to look at how the language of the daily life, the definition of the words, and the self-identifying with the meaning of the language that is used, what a powerful instrument of awareness that is.
Thank you. We pause.
Aaron: I thank you, A’ton. As you were speaking, something I’ve been reflecting on recently, as we speak of creation and destruction. And yet, positive polarity is capable of both creation and destruction. Cells need to slack off and fall away for new cells to be born. Ideas need to fall away for there to be space for new ideas. Creation and destruction are a cycle, like winter moving into spring and summer, and then the leaves fall, to allow the new growth to prepare.
It feels to me is that we also need to regard the ground, the intention behind any acts of creation and destruction and whether the core intention is for the highest good of all beings and without harm, or whether it is more for the highest good of the self and moving more into the idea of the separated self out of which we will inadvertently harm others. If we don’t understand that we are so intimately connected, we will do harm.
This to me is the most important part of the awakening experience. I pause and pass this on.
Yeshua(C): Beloved ones, I am Yeshua, and I greet you in love. It is my joy to be here with all of you tonight and my joy to be with my friends in spirit—my beloved Aaron and A’ton.
This is such a rich conversation— the concept of metamorphosis, and the concept that both destruction and creation are needed, they are part of one whole.
It is a human way, as A’ton beautifully expressed about language and concepts, that we put those two energies, I will call them, and intentions in two different categories.
And in doing that, it’s easy to not only look at yourself and judge yourself but to look at others and make judgments about whether they are positive or negative, creating or destroying, and in that way, create more polarization and separation.
This is a very deep subject, and we cannot go all into it this evening. But it is the beginning of a rich conversation.
But I would like to now bring these general concepts back in a more focused way into the personal, at this moment.
We take the concept of imaginal cells. As the caterpillar is getting ready to go into the cocoon to begin this transformation, there is both the destruction, if you will, or the fading away of the old body of the caterpillar and the imaginal cells that create this new body, this new form, that will come into the being of the butterfly. It is an interactive process; it is not an either/or.
Now take this concept of imaginal cells and think of yourself in your daily life as a human being who walks this world. Gets on Facebook, or listens to the news, or reads the newspaper, or hears of tragedies, or maybe experiences tragedies in their own community or within their family, and then becomes so entrapped in the fear of all of that that their whole energy field contracts in.
It is not that what you would call destruction or horror or chaos or bad things are not happening in the world; they are, because you have this world where beings are choosing the focus of where they would want to go.
There are those that wish to have connection and goodness and abundance and peace for all. There are those who choose to explore the path of separation and power and control over others. Those both exist.
The reason I bring this up is because when you are so aware— because your media only shows you a small amount of what’s happening in the world and tends to focus constantly on what is traumatic— that you can become energetically trapped in the trauma—I will say that: energetically trapped in the trauma– of what you perceive is going on on the whole earth.
And if the media is where most people get their information (except what’s happening to you in your own personal circumstances), you become so embroiled in it you become contracted. You forget who you are. You forget the power of co-creation. You forget the power of the energies that you emit as thoughts or as words or as actions.
In our conversation Saturday I used this imagery of, imagine you see a raging river. There have been massive storms. There’s flooding. The river is running quickly. It is pushing stones. It is just a torrent of energy and violence and turmoil. And you see this going by, and it’s as if you become entrapped in that. And you look at that and you think, “This is the world. This is the life. Everything is going to”—you’ve heard that term—“to hell in a hand basket. Everything is falling apart.”
And you forget to look up. On the banks are meadows, and are forests, and are flowers. And there’s beauty there.
And yet when you become so entrapped in what you see as the darkness occurring, you forget that the other also exists alongside of it. You forget to take yourself out of the river or away from the banks of the river and say, “I will withdraw. I will take myself to this place of peace and centeredness.”
I wish to develop this further, to ask you: What world are you responding you? What world are you living in? Because out of that comes the energy and the thoughts and the actions you bring into the world, and whether they are contributing to enforcing the trauma or beginning to bring forth imaginal cells of creation.
But I will pass this back to whoever wishes to speak, and I will be happy to return and speak further on this. My love to you. I am Yeshua.
Mary(B): I am Mary and I thank you, my beloved Yeshua, and A’ton, you are also beloved to me, and all of you.
I came to this earth 2,000 years ago with Yeshua. He modestly does not say to you he came to help bring in the power of light, to reawaken the earth into its light essence.
And I and all of you, all of us together, came to nurture the earth; to give it the power to sustain this light so it would not immediately fade away.
Each of you has been carrying this light in yourselves in incarnation after incarnation, sometimes with more radiance and sometimes with less. Sometimes forgetting who you were; other times remembering.
The work of earth and humans now as I see it is to remember that you are light. And that if you are to transform this earth to allow it to manifest into a planet of love, you need to trust that essence of love in yourself. To know that youcanbring it forth, you can help to sustain it.
Aaron teaches you this in a very beautiful way with vipassana. Noting something aggravating that comes up— the bee flying around your head, or the dog barking across the street, or the person who is angry at you—you may watch how contraction arises. You observe the possibility of non-self-identification with that contraction; opening your heart to yourself and to the catalyst for the contraction. And knowing that you’re working together to help illuminate each other, to help draw each other out of the oppositional stage and into living your connection.
If I may speak from a totally non-scientific space, I would guess that the imaginal cells are at work in helping this to happen.
If your earth is going to move into a truly radiant and awakened Eden, it will need each of you to look at the arising of oppositionality and to say, “No, that is not my choice.” To remember, “Each is my brother or sister. Each catalyst that comes up is my teacher.” And not to be afraid of the catalyst; thereby not to contract into separation but to stay connected; and thereby to more deeply plant the seeds of love and light so that the earth remembers why it was created, so that the earth itself begins to open more space and light.
Then when the catalyst that comes along that you see as negative or as destructive, instead you begin to see it as teacher. And yet to learn how to say no to it if it does try to destroy n hurtful ways. But that “no” does not have to be from a place of separation from the catalyst but of embracing the catalyst, working with the catalyst.
It’s much the way you work with children. If the child is a two-year-old having a temper tantrum, you don’t yell at the child; you embrace the child, and you embrace the catalyst that provides the teaching to help the child open its heart more fully and come into non-separation.
I will pass this on.
A’ton(J): This is A’ton. We would like to celebrate the conversation and share an image to further support what Yeshua, Mary and Aaron have been offering.
That is, again, we are focusing on the long habituated reference with earth incarnation of struggle, of differentiation, of distinction, and of judgment.
We would like to encourage flow; that which moves, changes, mutates, and evolves—and to bring this into the daily practice with meditation, with vipassana awareness in the moments of the day.
As part of this practice, notice when the mental activity and the behavioral activity is focused on struggle, judgment.
Judgment is a very important function. One will judge in the moment whether one wants to eat this or that, or turn left or right or stop or accelerate.
However, judgment can run amok; become a noise in the thinking mind.
Notice the difference between judgment as discrimination and judgment as noise.
In terms of separation, struggle, and flow, begin to observe: Where is the flow in this moment? Am I in a stop and struggle? Am I entangled in a struggle, like I’m trying to get out of a spider web, in this moment in the thinking?
Open to the flow. How can I open to the flow in this moment?Iopen to theflowinthis moment.
The flow then is illumination. It’s where the light that Mary speaks of comes forth. “Oh! In the flow there is light!” And then one can flow with the light without trying to think too carefully. One can begin to open. And this is where the heart opens into a flow of inspiration, of being available in the moment to intuition, to insight.
In that aspect, the joy of experiencing the flow, one discovers that one is primarily inclined to the service to all, to the greater good.
In that moment the ‘all’ may be the self, and also the three year old child that the self is with at the moment. That’s the ‘all’ in the moment. The ‘all’ may be a thought about several people making a decision in the workplace. That is the greater good of all in the moment.
So, we’re simply suggesting and encouraging that one brings into the daily practice an attention, with a distinction between struggle and flow. We pause.
Aaron: I thank you, A’ton. I am Aaron. I have seen in the past few days of the destruction from the volcanic eruption and the tsunamis, the rising of the seas.
The seas do not have an intention to destroy; they are simply following the outflow of certain natural laws. If there’s pressure, this is going to rise. One cannot say that volcanic seas, huge seas, are worse and calm seas are better. It’s simply the outflow of the way things are in nature.
But you do have certain choices. And I’m speaking here of the seas, but the same thing applies to a situation of war, let us say, of that kind of service to self or fear-based destruction.
These imaginal cells, I’ve been looking into this, A’ton, since you brought this up the other day, learning about them from friends. It’s so much a part of co-creation. You have come to the earth to learn, to grow, to learn not to become caught in fear but to hold your heart open to the true experience of co-creation through love, through grounding in love and grounding in the true self. And yet, fear and negativity will arise.
With mindfulness you observe them arising, and each time you just pause and say, “No, thank you; I’m not going in that direction.” Not riding off in the current of fear. Not lost in the river, as Yeshua talked about it, that’s violently pouring down, tossing rocks and such. “I’m going up on the bank. I’m going to sit amongst the flowers.”
So much of this earth plane experience for you is learning how to find that place of clear choice in yourselves, not getting swept away by the drama, by the old fears, old karma. Just to say, lovingly, “No. Enough.”
I could picture a group of schoolyard bullies; this group fighting with that group, banging into each other. You’re down there in the schoolyard getting knocked about. At what point do you look at them all and say, “That’s enough for me,” and just go climb the hill and sit amongst the flowers? If they want to fight, they’ll fight. Eventually, they’ll also learn it’s not very useful to perpetuate that fighting, that energy of separation and pain.
Where I’m leading is that I think it’s very important that you realize that in this movement of earth creation— as Mary said, the intention to ground this earth with love and with light— you have a choice each time you find yourself caught up in the drama to note it and say, “No. I pause. I’m going to sit up on the bank with the flowers. I’m going to see the hostility that exists around me—this political party to that one, these people who believe in vaccines to those who don’t, even the virus itself as something outside of me and something that needs to be controlled—I’m going to see this, and I’m going to reground myself into that which is awake, that which knows that the hostility, the virus, the confusion, the pain, that these are not separate from me, and that I have the ability to transform them.” In part, using these imaginal cells. In part, using the meditation practice that knows right there with pain is that which is not in pain. That which is aware of fear is not afraid. That which is aware of anger is not angry.
Come back to that awakened part of yourself, because it is there that the imaginal cells can open, flourish.
I pass this on.
Yeshua(C): Beloved ones, I am Yeshua. Thank you, A’ton, for bringing forward the concept of flow and returning to the present moment, and to you, my dear brother Aaron, for reminding that we can come back into that awakened place and the awakened heart, and within those places it’s possible to choose mindfully how you wish to live or respond in the moment.
I would like to add another way of conceiving this, and that is, you have probably heard in the popular literature there’s a phrase, “Is that so?” I don’t remember who has come up with that phrase, “Is that so?”
But it has been used, for example, say if you were in self-judgment and you are beating yourself up about all your perceived failures, to stop and say, “Is that so?”, as a way of breaking that thread that you’re on, that treadmill that you’re on of judgment, to just say, “Oh, wait a minute— is that so?”
That’s just an example of shifting out of the pattern, or whatever you’re stuck in, and to put a little pause there to reframe that or re-conceive that.
So, the question I would like you to ask yourself when you are embroiled in fear or trauma, anger, all the strong heavy emotions that can be easily triggered— and in a sense, realistically so, from what is going on in the world—is to take a pause there when you notice that contraction. Whatever emotion is coming up for you, whether it’s anger or fear or others, or anxiety about yourself or your relatives, or feeling vulnerable, like how are you going to get through the rest of your life in a world that seems like it’s crazy. When you notice those things and you attune to contraction within yourself—fear, anxiety, these heavy emotions—step back, and, in a sense, instead of saying, “Is that so?”, take a step back to say, “What world am I living in right now?”
And when I say, “What world are you living in?”, I’m not talking about physically living in, I’m talking about what world are you emotionally and psychologically and energetically living in and responding to?
Because if you are trapped in the river, as I explained before, then your perception of what is possible or not possible or how you have to live your life is being entrained by those energies of contraction and fear.
If you step back and you realize, “Oh, I’m responding to what is on the news, or what’s happening here, or what’s happening there,” be aware that that’s what you’re responding to. But then, as Aaron and A’ton mentioned, come back to this centered place. Come back to the exact moment and say, “In this moment, what is my experience?”
Now, it could be that you’re in an experience of difficulty, and that needs to be dealt with. But then you can be present with that particular difficulty. Instead of reacting to this mass of trauma that you feel you’re exposed to every day, and chaos, what world am I responding to right now?
And then to ask yourself, “But is this what is the real experience in this moment for me, in this moment? What is the real experience?”
Perhaps you are sitting in your living room having tea, and there’s a beautiful snowfall, or sunlight, or your cat is purring, or someone just sent you a text of appreciation. Tune into those little things within your space. Open your energy field. And then when you can center in that you can choose how to respond.
But so often I think what is causing even more suffering is that with all that is available that’s coming to you constantly from the media, is to get so attached to that. To be constantly checking it, reading this, reading that, checking those statistics. What’s going on with the virus? What’s that? So that becomes the world that you are energetically living in and responding to, not the world you’re actually living in in that moment.
And if what you are living in in that moment is a difficult situation, then with mindfulness you can open and make choices how to respond.
So, I guess if I were to put it in very practical words, I would say, look at what you are automatically responding to. Take a break and ask, “What world am I living in—the one that I’m really experiencing or the one that is being shown to be constantly through the media?”, and then you’re walking through your life so distracted that you cannot find the flow, you cannot find the present moment.
So, I just offer that to you as another way to conceive of putting that mindful break in there, such as, “Is this so?” Coming to center. Awakening your heart. Finding the flowers and the beauty, whatever is there on the banks of that river.
Because if you jump in the river you can be of no assistance to anyone, you’re just carried away by the deluge. You need to step back and go on the banks and center yourself, and then make choice about how you can act within the sphere of your influence.
So I pause, and I pass this back to whoever wishes to speak. I am Yeshua.
Barbara: Thank you, Yeshua. Just a few words, here.
First, Aaron says, “Is that so?” is a practice that he has taught for a long time, and he learned it from you! So, roundabout.
My question to you, Yeshua: It seems to me as you’re speaking that this practice of, I would not say, “not jumping into the river”— it seems to me from my perspective that you were very willing to jump into the river, but you were able not to get trapped in the river. You kept part of yourself up there on the river bank and you knew how to get yourself out of the river. Have you any thoughts to share with us on how you did that in that lifetime as Yeshua?
Yeshua(C): Thank you for that question, Barbara.
When I walked as Yeshua, that time was very chaotic in those communities in that part of the world, with the Roman Empire and all that was going on politically. It was not a safe world to live in. Of course, there was not a global awareness of all the things that were going on on the earth (then) because that was not available technologically. But it was a very dangerous world. You children could be taken away if you as a farmer didn’t pay the tax. There was slavery; there was crucifixion; there were people killing each other in war. It was not a peaceful world.
I experienced that obviously in the way that they attempted to take my life at the end through crucifixion, although you are aware that I did not totally physically die, but yet I went through that process of the crucifixion and so did many others at that time; that wasn’t unique to me.
So, it was a practice to be able to be in that place, aware of all of the fear (in) society around me; the fear of those who would come to listen; my own fears, at times, when I would jump in the river, so to speak.
And how I did that was basically what we’ve been describing. First, with awareness. If you do not have awareness of what you’re responding to emotionally, psychologically, in your actions, your patterns, then you cannot step out of that river and move back, center yourself, and make a choice how to act in a way that you deem is for your highest good and the good of others.
And, as Barbara mentioned, there may come a time when you step out, you step on the bank and you ground yourself and you say, “My intention now for the highest good of others is to jump back in the river and grab that person who is being washed away.”
But that’s different than being entrapped and entrained and controlled by the river. Or making a choice to go into the river, either literally or otherwise, which was the choice I made in coming into that incarnation. Knowing that things may be difficult, but that you come with intention.
If you do not know what your intentions are, and you do not know how to gather your energies and center that and seed that light into the earth, you then may have a general intention to be of service, but you have no awareness or mindfulness of how to make choice about how you may act.
I don’t know if that fully answers your question, my dear Barbara.
Barbara: It does. Thank you, Yeshua.
A’ton(J): This is A’ton, and we greet you. We would like to offer a deepening of the perspective, perhaps.
Much of this conversation is about the practice of awareness; coming into presence. This is about the immediacy of awakening in the moment so as to be in choice rather than in pattern reaction. And much of what we hope to communicate is the importance of observing pattern.
In the third density realm there is much attention on pattern. There is much study of pattern and then much naming of pattern. This then becomes rule, and rule then becomes habit. And habit then becomes confinement— confined, to contain.
So, we encourage freedom. And when speaking of the metamorphosis process of caterpillar into butterfly, the caterpillar becomes in a liquid state and then re-forms into the butterfly. So it moves out of pattern and into new generation and creation as an enthusiasm, as an excitement, as a service to the greater expression of beauty, of freedom and flight.
So, what we would like to encourage is the attention with daily life of patterns of thinking. Patterns of self-identification. Patterns of thought that we call habits. Patterns of belief. Patterns of “This is right; that is wrong.” Patterns of judgment on other people for the purpose of downplaying the value of another.
So, in the practice of awareness with vipassana one observes the physical senses, and then observes the manner of the thinking mind, which reveals how the thoughts are patterned and predictable.
And then observing how, in that moment, to practice inviting one’s expression, one’s experience, to feel the expansion of light from within the heart; the expansion of opportunity to move into a flow, to move into a more fluid state of presence so that one can begin to choose out of the ordinary.
And in that process in the moments of daily life, one then begins to accumulate unusual experience, that which is unusual to the patterned self.
We simply encourage that so that the engagement, metamorphosis, can occur.
One may think of serving the birthing of that which is undefined but eager to express, that serves the greater good not because it’s noble, but because it’s exciting.
We pause. Thank you.
Aaron: I am Aaron. I love the, dare we call it a dialogue, when it comes through different parts? Is there such a thing as a trialogue? I love this conversation.
In my final human lifetime, you’ve heard me tell of being trapped under a thorn tree. Rain coming down; my face in the mud. A tiger snarling, trying to get at me to eat me.
All the old human habits came up; fear, anger, separation. But there was no place to go. I could not conquer the tiger; I could not move the thorn tree.
Just to be present with things as they truly were in that moment, which included pain and suffering. A’ton, here, I do bring in the truth of suffering, not because it’s the only truth but because it’s one truth of human experience.
And, for the human, an important way to awaken from that truth is to pause the stories of the suffering and truly see the conditions out of which it’s arising, and that you do not need to be bound by those conditions anymore.
It’s only then that the human can fully open into the potential of the human, which is to be the one who is awake— as you all are, you just have not remembered it yet. But to be that one who is awake. To live from that awakened place.
All your practice can support that opening but not unless there is deep commitment to do no harm. This is why in the dharma teachings sila is taught as a base. As long as there is putting the self ahead of others in a deep way, you’re still creating separation and thus the grounds for suffering.
But lying there, under that tree, that tree and its thorns and the tiger, the rain and the mud and I were all one. The flowing river and the banks with grass are one. If the rain did not fall on the banks allowing flowers to grow, and pour into the river, the flowers couldn’t grow. The flowers need the river. The river needs the flowers.
Vipassana and Pure Awareness weave themselves together in this way. At some time, being very present, watching objects arising and passing away, not from the perspective of a self; just awareness watching it, then the sense of somebody who is aware completely dissolves and there is just awareness, no longer somebody who is aware, only this awakened essence of you. And this is so beautiful.
Then you begin to see the ten thousand stories in which you’ve been caught, throughout however many lifetimes.
You’re able to step back— as if you were looking down at the river, seeing your past self caught and drowned in that river countless times, and just saying, “That’s enough. I climb up on the bank.”
But you are no longer creating a duality between river and flowering bank.
I pause.
Yeshua(C): Thank you, my beloved brother Aaron. I am Yeshua.
Before we wrap up this evening I wanted to add one more part to what we’ve been talking about—coming into awareness; coming into the moment; coming into that spacious place where you can then make choice how you wish to be in the world—and that is to talk about emotions.
Emotions are very powerful, no doubt. And there is a cultural, I would say attitude, especially in American culture, that at some level you shouldn’t show emotions. Anger is okay! But, you know, tenderness, or vulnerability, or grief, or all of those kind of emotions, that you should either be able to manage them, ignore them, put them aside—but just keep going and functioning in the world, no matter what’s happened. And if you feel contracted or trapped in your emotions, that there’s something wrong.
Emotions are simply a part of human experience. Just as we have been talking about, looking at conditioned patterns of behavior, or thoughts, or self-judgments, it is just another component of that.
But you can hold your emotions also in spaciousness and allow them to be, because in and of themselves, emotions are simply energy.
And when you contract around those energies, whatever they are—they could be, you know, even joy or happiness. Sometimes people cling, looking for that, looking for pleasure, not always necessarily unpleasant emotions.
But you can befriend your emotions. When you come into spaciousness and realize this heavy emotion is here—a pleasurable one, maybe, or a not so pleasurable one, or, grief is here, anger—if you can just say, “Ah, anger,” and feel it and let it move, as A’ton said, come into flow, and let the anger just dissipate with no intention to use it for harm or any way. Let it flow through you powerfully. If it is deep grief, let it flow through you powerfully. If it is fear, let it flow through, let it move.
When you cling to it, contract around it, that’s what turns it into a knot and makes it heavy.
And then the tendency is to push it aside, pretend it’s not there, or to let it control your life.
So, I just wanted simply to bring in that one aspect as you’re thinking of all of this— coming into the moment; having awareness of conditioned patterns, your thoughts, all of this; to just let your emotions flow through. You do not have to do anything with them. Let them be and they can move through.
And if you are in grief, you may have waves of grief that come, and maybe repetitively. But allow that to be as well in the spaciousness.
I know it is not easy. But as you befriend and have awareness of everything else, consider your emotions as well.
I am Yeshua. I pause.
Barbara: Thank you, Yeshua. I would just add here that me, as a human, when I’m able to note my emotions, to dance with them. To just let them be and know that they’re arisen from conditions, impermanent, will pass away.
I come back to that, okay, who am I? These emotions are here. They’re not MY emotions. Who and what am I?
I start to see how as a human I’m connected with the emotions but not being the emotions. Just noting them and holding space for them, and knowing they’re impermanent; they’ll arise, they’ll dissolve. Just let them be. But also, there’s care to be responsible to them, that I don’t do any harm because of them.
Yeshua(C): Yes.
Barbara: Does anybody else want to speak? I know Yeshua just spoke, so I’m passing this especially to A’ton. But I also want to open the floor to questions and answers from people. A’ton, do you want to say anything first?
A’ton(J): This is A’ton. We greet you, and we have nothing further to offer. We feel fullness with the images that have been offered. And we can respond to questions. Thank you.
Barbara: So, I will let the host run this. Are there questions?
Q: When the experience of awareness without a sense of self arises, is there any guidance or teachings that might help us to stabilize that experience?
I think many of us may have at times in our lives been in that state. But, I know for myself I always very rapidly fall back into a more typical state for my incarnation. Thank you.
A’ton(J):This is A’ton. We greet you in gratitude for the question and for the opportunity to offer.
The image that you work with of the bridge, where you have the dharmakaya of the ascended or unconditioned realm at one end, and at the other end, the nirmanakaya, of the incarnate realm of sense and conditions, and then the space which bridges those two conceptual arenas referred to as the sambhogakaya.
So, when you speak of moving into awareness or pure awareness, as in a meditative process, you can imagine being on the bridge and that your energy is opening to and flowing into the dharmakaya reference.
Then when you speak of not being able to linger there with much duration, one finds the self in a sense sliding along the bridge toward the nirmanakaya, and it’s like, “Oh, I want to stay longer,” being the awareness, the freedom from identifying with this third density ego self.
Consider that practice, and that there’s no great trick or secret, other than what Aaron may be able to offer, or Yeshua.
But from our perspective, the more there is a desire to be able to experience the pure awareness, the freedom, and simultaneously experience the incorporation of nirmanakaya, one is then moving around on the bridge in a flow.
It’s not a this or a that; it is not an either/or. It’s not, again, a separation. But it’s moving into a fluid kind of presence, so that it’s not, “I am in a pure awareness mode, and oops, now I flick the switch and I’m back innotpure awareness mode.” We’re struggling there with differentiation, separation, with labeling either/or.
Again, as we move into fourth density, there is moving into fluidity. This is beginning to experience more and more moments in daily life freedom from identification with this or that.
We offer that as an introduction to your query. We pause. Thank you.
Yeshua(C): Thank you, A’ton, for that imagery of the bridge and the aspect of flow.
I would also like to add to A’ton’s imagery another imagery, and that is, there is this tendency for the human to, in this particular instance, come into this state of pure awareness or the ultimate stillness of Source, that place of non-separation, of total unity, and to want to grasp that, stay in it, as if it can be made a solid thing that one can say, “Oh, I am here and I can stay here.”
But that place of pure awareness, that Source of ultimate stillness, the Creator, that is ground. That is always there. It is pervasive.
So that another way of thinking of it is, not so muchgoingto this place of pure awareness, so to speak, or
And then you may lose that, and the human will go, “Oop!” And then you open back into it. It’s always there.
So it’s like you’re phasing in and out, phasing in and out. And as you become more comfortable, you give up attachment to which one you’re experiencing, you might just find the whole thing opens and there you are.
So, I just offer that as another imagery. Thank you. I am Yeshua.
Aaron: I am Aaron, with gratitude to my beloved friends A’ton and Yeshua.
We call meditation practice ‘practice’ because from the human perspective it’s useful to practice.
You do not practice from the self that says, “Now I have 30 minutes and I will practice this,” like practicing the violin.
Rather, you practice holding the intention to rest in the part of you that is one with the Divine Creator, with the earth, with the grass, with the flowers, with the brothers and sisters. With the negative emotions. With the political fighting. With the virus. You can’t be one with this and not one with that.
It’s helpful during the day to ask yourself, am I polarizing myself, putting myself apart from this or that?
You don’t have to figure out why; it’s just habit. Simply pay attention. Notice, “separating”. It’s a very simple term. “Ah, separating.”
If possible, look out a window up at the sky. Ahhh…. That which is aware of separating is not separating or separate. Just coming back again and again.
It’s really a matter of non-meditation. Just resting in the deeper truth of things.
I am not putting vipassana aside; it’s very important. Without vipassana you don’t have the memory of the intention to stay present or awareness that presence was lost for a bit.
But with vipassana one can note “non-present, getting caught, contracting,” and then just come back. “Separating—ahhh…” Find the spaciousness that’s right here in the heart. Ahhh… Look at the sky. Look at the trees. Look at your child’s face. Ahhh…
You practice to remember that you can rest in that non-self spaciousness. Gradually, it becomes more stable. Gradually, you stop grabbing at the mundane world and allow yourself to free-fall, floating in space. It does become easier. We pause.
If no other comment from Yeshua or A’ton, we’ll open this to another question.
Q: Aaron has talked to us about the higher self is a combination of the spirit body and the mental body. So, there’s something I would like to be clear on.
Sometimes we’re told that that message came from your higher self. And it sounds like it’s something separate, so to speak. But it feels to me like the higher self is just the true self that can connect to all, but just also has a mental body to use. So it’s not something separate. You don’t talk to it—it is YOU.
So, I would like some clarity on that.
Aaron: Thank you, Q. I am Aaron. We look at the physical, emotional, mental and spirit bodies. They’re all tools of the incarnation. They’re useful. They are not self.
The higher self uses all these tools. I want to distinguish higher self from pure spirit body. They’re similar. They’re not identical. The higher self holds together and uses all these bodies to help the individuated expression that is here in this incarnation, to help it to grow, to learn. It doesn’t prefer this mental body or that emotional one or that spirit one or that physical one; they’re all tools of the incarnation.
But as soon as you take one of those tools and make it the self, you’re simply confirming an illusion of separate self.
The pure spirit body is spacious. It’s probably closest to the higher self.
But the higher self within the human still needs a way to articulate its ideas. It needs a mental body. It learns through an emotional body. And it’s present on earth because there’s a physical body. So, we don’t disregard any of it.
I think A’ton or Yeshua may like to add to that, so I’ll pause.
A’ton(J): This is A’ton. We greet you, and enjoy the conversation. We notice in listening to Aaron the beautiful description of the elements being referred to as tools, and we realize once again that Aaron is so facile with the language of third density. Our reference is much less distinct, less practiced in third density language.
As Aaron describes the tools, we think of the word ‘instrument’. And we imagine these tools also being conceived of as instruments of the higher self, like you would have a quartet, and there would be a violin and a percussion instrument and a wind instrument. And one would be the emotional body, the physical body, the mental body, et cetera. And these are all instruments that the higher self has created to basically do an improv concert, where all of these instruments are combined into a unique expression known as Q (name).
And Q is now in the arena where she gets to improvise with all these various instruments, and so Q is going to play a musical, in a sense, presentation, perhaps combined with dance and such, that’s different than any other human. It’s composed of these instruments that are designed and in a sense put into creation, into the expression of third density, to have concert.
We are somewhat—pardon the expression—amused with the preoccupation of third density wanting to define and categorize and place not only every thing, every physical object, but also every mental concept, mental creation.
There is the notion of the emotional body, and there is the study of psychology and psychiatry, that wants to categorize it and take it apart.
Like brain surgeons take apart and identify the different aspects they find within the brain, psychology practice wants to take apart this imaginary emotional/mental body and define all of its parts and then predict how the parts are going to interact and behave, when in fact it’s all a beautiful free-flow design doing improv.
And again, we’re encouraging to recognize one’s inclination to define and separate and understand that this does this, and that does that, and do I have that correctly?
As we move into fourth density, all of that metamorphoses into—instead of definitions and pieces of a puzzle—it becomes more of a flowing expression of collaborative co-creation, with excitement and enthusiasm for discovering new territory, of generating wonderful experience together.
Thank you. We pause.
Yeshua(C): Thank you, A’ton. I am Yeshua. I so appreciate and enjoy the idea of the instruments and the symphony and the co-creation. I know our time is up, so I will just add one other way of envisioning or conceiving of this relationship to the higher self, and that plays upon what A’ton was speaking about—as we do in this third density realm want to define and separate and analyze and see how things function.
I will not go into who, what is the higher self. I will just say you are part of this beautiful consciousness that has had multiple experiences. Your higher self has awareness of all that and all the expressions you have been.
And you can communicate with your higher self. And not just, say, in a telepathic way to ask for wisdom and have these thoughts come to you, but realize the physical, the mental, the emotional, the spirit bodies can speak to you.
Tune in to what your body is saying to you. What sensations do you have? How does it relate to the environment? Tune in to what the spirit of the world around you brings you.
Perhaps at a certain moment your intention and request, even unspoken, brings a bird across your path, who sits on the perch next to you and sings, and something in that unlocks something for healing in your soul. Tune in to things that may come to you in dreams.
So just in a sense open, open to exploration and receptivity. Trust your intuition. Your higher self can speak to you constantly but maybe not in words, or in any way you would define as that coming from your higher self.
So, that’s all I will say tonight. I pause, and I thank my brother Aaron and my beloved friend A’ton for their contributions, and for all of you for being here tonight. My love to you. I am Yeshua.
Mary(B): I am Mary. What a wonderful grace this is to share this all together. Such a rich conversation. And I hope you have enjoyed it.
I appreciate what Yeshua and A’ton have just said. I want to remind you that your work as a human is not to get rid of the human but to rejoice in the human. To rejoice in the richness of the sensations of the physical body, of the music in the heart, of the emotions that are sometimes painful and sometimes very joyful, of the richness of the mind.
The important thing to remember is that all of these are servants. What are they servants to? Who are you? Who or what is this awakened self that can rejoice in the service of the physical, mental, and emotional bodies? Can thank it but not take it so personally, because all these bodies have arisen from conditions, and all the experiences of these bodies arise from conditions.
So that if you slid down the bank from the flowers and suddenly, you’re into the tumbling rapids and river, and you say, “Oh no—I’ll drown!” — “Oh no I won’t. I’m in charge here. I can either make the decision, oh, I’m going to drown and see what that’s like, or I can stop and grab a tree branch and pull myself up and climb back up on the branch and then up the hillside to the flowers again, and say, hmm, that was interesting; what was that about? What am I learning by tumbling into the river? What am I learning by believing I might drown?” Because truly you cannot drown, not in the ultimate sense.
I thank you. Is there further comment? I pass this back to my beloved Yeshua and my dear friend A’ton.
A’ton(J): This is A’ton. We greet you, and we thank you for this opportunity of sharing. Jai.
Yeshua(C): This is Yeshua. Thank you, my beloved Mary, for adding that perspective, as we wrap up this evening. I love you all. I have nothing further to add. I am Yeshua. I will release the body to Colette.
Barbara: Mary has released the body to me, Aaron and Mary. Well, I have the Otter transcript, but I really have no idea what we talked about. But I hope it’s been interesting to you, and we will all enjoy the transcript.
I really want to thank Julian and Colette for jumping into this. I caught big pieces of what Yeshua and A’ton said. And my heart just sings with it all. So, thank you for your willingness to do this.
I guess that’s it. Much love to everybody, and we’ll say goodnight.