January 11, 2023 Wednesday Evening with Aaron
I Can Do That; Q&A
(This talk has been posted without review by Barbara and Aaron by request.)
Barbara: Good evening and love to everybody. Happy New Year to you all! It’s a joy to see all your smiling faces. I pray that this is a beautiful new year for all of us. There is so much destruction in the world—these huge floods in California, murderers here and there, the situation in Ukraine, our beloved House of Representatives, and all the anger and hatred going on.
I had a lot of time over Christmas to do some very deep meditation. I had an interesting experience. Last summer my back was hurting me. It hasn’t hurt me for a few years. A number of years ago, I had something called spinal stenosis, where the nerves that move through the openings in the spinal cord were being pinched, because the bone had grown to pinch the nerves.
I had the option to do a major surgery here at the University of Michigan hospital. It was something like an eighteen inch incision on my back and six months in a body cast. And there was the danger that they could nick some of the nerves as they did the surgery, because it was so tight. They said that it probably would be fine but they couldn’t guarantee it. It could leave me paralyzed.
Well, clearly, given the option of going to the Casa and having the entities work on me— Dom Inacio is the Portuguese for Saint Ignatius of Loyola, who is, let’s call him the lead doctor there in Brazil. For those of you who, when I speak about Brazil, raise your eyebrows and say, “Oh, John of God!” Well yes, he did some bad stuff, very bad stuff. But my relationship was never with him, never at all. My relationship was with the Brothers and Sisters of the Light, who do such beautiful healing there. That relationship continues; it doesn’t matter whether I’m in Brazil or here. They are very loving entities who are very well equipped to do healing.
They did, I think, five surgeries over three years. And when I say surgeries—literal surgery, although there is no incision, it’s all energetic, but somehow they do it.
So, after each year I went back to the surgeon at U of M. He looked at the new pictures. He said, “Well, it’s getting better.” And finally, after the third year, he said, “You’re dismissed as a patient. I don’t want to see you again. It’s all better.” He kept looking at me, “Where’s the incision? How did they do that?” Anyhow, my back was truly better for about four years.
This summer it started hurting again. In meditation, Dom Inacio came and said, “If you will give me two weeks, one week for the intervention and another week just to be quiet afterward, I can work on this again.” I said, “Great! Thank you.” And he told me to tell him when I had that two weeks.
Well, I didn’t tell him. The weeks went by. I knew that I couldn’t take two weeks off.
Then, the day after Christmas, I found myself literally knocked out. Those of you who have been to the Casa remember what the anesthetic feels like. You’re there, you’re awake, you’re present, and suddenly, boom! You’re just totally knocked out.
So, I spent six days in bed. I had what seemed like a little bit of a cold. That’s all. No fever, no other symptoms, just exhausted. I probably slept for twenty-two hours a day, for those five or six days. But it wasn’t sound sleep for twenty-two hours; I spent a lot of time just lying there in bed with my eyes closed and with a lot of very deep conversation, which I cannot remember the details of, about healing—personal healing, the healing of the world. Different entities speaking to me. Aaron kept promising me, “Don’t worry, you don’t have to write it down. We’ll fill it in later. Don’t try to remember it. Just take it in deeply.”
Then, at the end of seven days, they did a surgery review, and he said, “Okay, you can get up now.” And suddenly I had energy. I still was sleeping fourteen hours a day but had more energy. I started to write some of it down and to talk to various entities more, especially Aaron, looking at the linear and the ultimate level of healing.
Healing is something linear. Aaron asked me to go back to my body in whatever way I could remember it when I was a baby and try to remember how that body worked. As a very little baby, learning to crawl, learning to stand up, and that there was no pain standing up. My muscles were weak; I was a baby. I had to learn how to use those muscles, but there was no pain. Growing into the perfect body.
And then he asked me to remember times when I fell and injured myself, and to see how I keep replaying those injuries when I ask my body to do something that’s a little challenging. Movements like skiing down a hill and knowing how to do those parallel turns. And yet, one bad fall and suddenly, as I come to a new turn, the body freezes up instead of flowing, because the body remembers how it felt to become injured.
And we do that emotionally in the same way, opening up our hearts lovingly to somebody or to situations. And then there are those times where we trusted, and the trust was not honored and we were hurt, traumatized. And when we come into a new situation, instead of flowing with that love, we close up. When we close up, the chakras close and the energy can’t flow through as it needs to for us to respond in a totally open way. We can’t give our full presence to it so we limit ourselves. If the chakras are closed and we close up on the physical, the emotional, the spiritual, we close up on these levels, we also close up in terms of our care of the world.
So, as I was lying there in bed, one of the things Aaron asked me was, what are your own goals in terms of being deeply loving in the world and to support the healing of the world, the healing of the environment, the healing of the hatred in the world? And could I see that if I can’t do that for myself, I can’t do it for the world? What does it mean to keep myself back, closed down? Am I ready to stop doing that?
So, this is some of what I was doing there for hours each day, lying in bed, meditating and reflecting on that and doing small and big exercises with Aaron and other entities. I was falling asleep and doing it in my sleep; waking up again and doing more of it.
It was an interesting two weeks, because I think I probably slept an average, through that whole two weeks, of fifteen hours a day, very little awake time. And yet I realize it was all awake. The whole time, I was doing various levels of meditations, just being present. Really stating at a deep level in myself not, “I want to do this”—I don’t know how many of you read that short letter that came out on Monday— but “I can do this.” Not “I want to,” not “I’ll try,” but “I can.” Coming to that place that knows that we can.
Sunday, I channeled the Mother for Remembering Wholeness. I still slept most of the day, Monday, up a little bit more. Yesterday and today were my first, I wouldn’t call them normal days; a long night’s sleep and still an hour or two nap. But I am coming out of this and back to myself.
My back is strong; it doesn’t hurt. My muscles are weak. I’m working on strengthening those muscles, because, of course, that’s up to me. They can do the work to heal the distortion on a linear level, but unless I’m going to put my energy into strengthening my body, the body is going to be weak. So, I’ve restarted physical therapy, and I have all these sheets on physical therapy exercises. And I can become strong.
For three years I have not been able to walk in the woods in the early spring and see the trillium. I can’t do it with my walker. I have to be able to use my walking sticks. I can walk in the woods this spring, in April, and see the beautiful trillium. Maybe some of you who live in Ann Arbor will go and walk there with me.
So, that’s just a bit of background. Aaron will come in now and talk. I just wanted to share with you what I’ve been experiencing.
And a lot of it was also geared to the Healing and the Ever-Healed annual workshop that comes January 21st to 28th. I love that workshop; a lot about non-duality. We’re going to focus on supports to linear healing and the supports to opening to the ultimate ever-healed, such as joy and gratitude. Knowing my power, trusting my power, claiming my power.
We have a good ‘human’ teaching team and a great ‘spirit’ teaching team— Aaron, of course, Father John, Dom Inacio, Yeshua and Mary, and some others. And my colleague, John Orr, will be doing the meditation part of it, Tavis Taylor doing some of it, and several other people doing different parts of it. My Feldenkrais teacher/friend, Dale Jenson, who I find absolutely wonderful, will be talking about how… I find the practice of Feldenkrais really helps the body to reconnect to its innate balance and clarity. So, he’s going to be teaching some of it. A student named Lauren is going to be leading one segment of it with some work that she does with light and energy. Others may also participate.
What I hope for from all of us is the connection, how we can learn this through our own bodies and then bring it out into the world and really support the healing of the Earth on one level, and the fullest expression of wholeness of the Earth, of the environment, of non-hatred, of loving kindness, how we can support this through our own hearts and work.
Okay, that’s enough from me. I’m going to get quiet now and let Aaron come in and speak.
Aaron: My blessings and love to you all. I am Aaron. I love seeing all your beautiful faces here on the screen. It brings me a lot of joy. We used to do this in the living room. Now this Zoom screen has become our living room, and we can literally be scattered throughout the world. I find that important, because it’s good to have this clear, loving energy and intention throughout the world. Clustered in one place, that’s good, but spreading it worldwide has more power.
A new year. Beings often offer New Year’s intentions. For many of you, your intention was to clean up your act a bit, to let go of the old habits that were hurtful to you and others, and to invite in new habits. But you cannot keep these resolutions if it’s only on a brain level.
Barbara spoke of “I can.” Think of something that you either resolved to do or would like to do; not necessarily a physical doing but a heart-opening, a connection, a way of being.
As you think about it, can you feel some subtle bit of resistance? Think about it. Barbara said: to walk into the woods to see the trillium. And yet for three years she’s been hoping to do that, and each spring the body is not strong enough to support her walking there. So she says, “I can!” And yet there’s this little bit of contraction. “I can—maybe. I can! I wish I could. I’ll try.” Can you feel the lessening of energy with “I’ll try” as distinguished with “I can”? Knowing: “I can.”
In her letter last week, Barbara spoke of reading a fiction story in which there was a very endearing five-year-old boy with cerebral palsy and newly an orphan. He had only his mother, and she had died, so he was alone.
His mother’s will had him living with her best friend, and her best friend loved him and tried to support him. But his mother was gone, and he was only five years old. He wore leg braces. He had no father, no extended family.
He had not learned to avoid his deep truth. So, when he was asked, “Should we take the leg braces off today and see if you can walk across the room?”, he would say, very honestly, “I’m not strong enough to do that yet.” Or, perhaps he would say, “Yes, I can do that.” There was no middle ground. He knew what he could do. He was very self-aware.
But when he was able to say, “I can do that,” he found that he could do it. He was such a lovable character because of the deep self-knowing and honesty he portrayed. There was no feeling sorry for himself, no trying to please others, just, “I can do that.”
I’d like us to explore together that “I can do that” energy. I’m going to choose a topic that I think all of you would support: healing of our Earth environment. Are you ready to help support healing of the Earth environment? Or, phrased differently, helping the Earth express into its ever-perfect form? What happens in you, when I say that? Is there a little pulling back of “I’ll try”? I’m not asking for a show of hands here, but I wonder if anybody was able to come to that request with a strong “I can do that.”
It’s a very hard statement for the adult to make, because you know all the conditions that have to be met in order for you truly to do it. So much old thinking to overcome, old self-doubt, old experiences of failure. Are we ready to heal the Earth this year, or, phrased differently, to help the Earth emerge into a much more healed expression of itself? Are we ready? “I can do that. I can do that.”
Can you feel the difference in energy when you say it that way? “I can do that.” It takes you past doubt. It doesn’t mean that you’ll be able to do it fully. It’s more in the attitude and the energy, the opening of the chakras, the heart opening, the presence.
“I can do that” is a way of moving past so many old failures and limiting beliefs. It has to be said with honesty. If you don’t feel you can do it, then, as our little boy friend in the book said, “I’m not ready to do that yet. But that will become a goal for me, to be ready to do it.”
So, you might say to me, “I’m not ready to do that yet.” Well, be honest with yourself. Not, “I’ll try,” because you’re not really trying if you can’t be honest with yourself.
There is so much hatred in the Earth. Are you ready to try to help this Earth come back into its pristine essence of love? Not a place where there was hate, and hate, and more hate. If you say, “Yes, I can do that,” it means you feel ready to look into your heart at the pockets of fear, prejudice, old limiting beliefs in yourself, and say, “I am ready to step past this. I can do that.”
And then, of course, there must be mindfulness so each time that limiting belief blocks the progression you stop and see it. “Ah, I was giving way to that limiting belief. I do not choose to block the way anymore.”
So the question might become, “Am I ready to drop off limiting beliefs? I can do that,” only with mindfulness, seeing how they emerge and how they block you. When we see a limiting belief—”I am not good enough, strong enough, loving enough, wise enough,”—we can’t say, “No. I’ll fix that.” We’re not after linear movement. I want you to wake up to the part of you that knows your innate wisdom, your innate love, your innate power, your innate purity.
One of the ways we can come to that is with awareness of beautiful mind states, like joy and gratitude. Let’s try this, then, with a simple exercise.
I would invite all of you to think of something recent about which you feel truly either grateful or joyful. When I asked Barbara to do this a few days ago, what her mind came to was the enormity of love she felt herself held in through this intervention on her back. She just felt herself enveloped with love, held in love. She felt complete trust of the spirit doctors who were doing this work. It wasn’t maybe they’ll be successful, especially because they had been successful in those surgeries six or seven years ago. “I put myself in your hands. I relax. I know the body’s wholeness is there, and that you can help support its reopening. I can do that.”
And the feeling of love, joy, and gratitude, in which the chakras were open so that the energy field was full. Without that fullness of energy, it’s like a hose being pinched; you have a supply of water, but it can’t flow through because the hose is kinked and pinched. That’s when you get into, “I will try,” or “Maybe I can.” Open the hose! Let that energy flow through you. Know the innate wonder of yourself. You don’t see yourself as I do. You are amazing beings. Human is such a beautiful life form.
You are given free will, and that means the free will to close yourself off and say, “I can’t. I’m afraid to. I don’t want to. I’m too angry to. I’m too hurt to,” or to come back and ask yourself, “What do I truly choose? I can do that.”
I’m going back into an early memory of Barbara’s—not that early, but fifty years ago. She was newly moved to Michigan. She had begun to work at a stable out near Jackson, teaching riding and training horses. So, she was training some horses to help them get over their own limiting beliefs about their ability to jump. The local Hunt Club where people had horses and sometimes had horses which would balk at the sight of a jump, or shy away from it. They would turn the horse over to Barbara to take it over the outdoor course where there were different kinds of jumps.
There are two parts to this story. Once, the horse balked in such a way that she was not completely ready for it and she went off and injured herself. It took a week or two for the injury to heal. The next time she got on that horse, ready to try it again, as she was approaching the jump, she saw the tension in herself and immediately—this was before she could consciously hear me, but she knew, “I’m stopping the horse. I’m conveying my tension to the horse. Unless I can come to the horse with that ‘I can do that; we can do that,’ how is the horse to believe that he can do that?”
So, she spent some time just riding around the field, relaxing, jumping over very small jumps. Finding the joy of the movement and being one with the horse. As I recall, she actually took off the saddle, so that she was bareback and could really feel the horse under her, feel the movement of the horse while cantering around the field. Feel the horse’s muscles and strength. Taking little jumps, maybe eighteen inches. Feeling that movement and being one with the horse. “We can do that.” And the horse picked it up. She started to see that in order to train a horse, she had to— I don’t want to say train her own mind, but overcome the doubts in her own mind and know, “Yes, we can do that.” And then it became a joyful thing.
And, as I look on this scene—and as I said, of course I was there with Barbara, but she was not aware of me back fifty years ago—but as I look at this with her, that shift of opening energy, which conveyed itself to the horse, is it any different than your opening energy that can convey itself to the environment? You are, in a sense, riding the environment, present and part of it. If you don’t believe that that wholeness is real right here in this moment, how can you convey that wholeness to the environment and invite it to express itself?
In your life you are constantly touching both living and inanimate objects, but everything is living in some way. Planting her garden, as Barbara turns over the soil, adds whatever nutrients she might add and plants the plant, she envisions this little tomato seedling growing into a beautiful tomato plant filled with ripe, very nourishing tomatoes. She thanks it and says, picturing this, “Yes, we can do that. Yes, we can become that. Yes, we already are that.”
It’s not really a matter of becoming; it’s knowing what you already are. Because on the one level, yes, human life is linear, and on another level you’re already everywhere that you’re going to be.
As an infant, you were conceived with innate perfection and probably with certain DNA weaknesses, genetic weaknesses through many lifetimes. But they don’t limit you. They only limit you if you believe in the limitation. “Yes, I can do that,” or a very honest, “I’m not ready to do it yet.”
If you plant the tomato thinking of all the blights and kinds of insect damage, and the deer eating the tomato and all of that, why would you bother to plant the tomato? You have to know the wholeness of the plant. You have to know the wholeness of this Earth. Through your voice and your heart, “Yes, we can do that. Yes, we can clear the environment. Yes, we can turn things around.” Because this the power of the human with free will choice. “We can do that.”
Now, feel that energy. “We can do that. We can change this Earth.” Really feel it in yourself. Say it aloud or to yourself. “We can do that.” Not for selfish reasons, but out of love. This is the power of the human. “We can do that. We can end hatred, greed, bigotry and all kinds of negativity on this Earth. We can do this.”
I have sometimes invited you to think about what blocks that, and that’s useful reflection. But it’s important not to get caught up in, “This blocks it, and I have to fix this, and this, and this.” But to just say, “Yes, these things block it, and I do not intend to carry these blocks with me anymore.”
I come back to Barbara with her horse. First of all, it was her livelihood, and she loved doing this. She was at that time teaching sculpture at the University here, and that was part time work. And then, three or four days a week she would go out there and work with whatever horse or horses she had been asked to help. It was such a joy to her to see the horse responding to her positive energy and moving past its own limiting beliefs and the way the horse would respond with joy. Not approaching the jump with (expression), but (expression), so happy, literally filled with joy because it loved being in motion. She was helping the horse to fulfill its own destiny and its own free will choice.
You are helping the Earth to fulfill its own destiny and free will choice. This Earth was co-created by spirit and everything else to become a realm of radiance and light, of love, of the answer to negative polarity. Think of that. The power of this Earth and all sentient beings on the Earth as the response of positive polarity to negative polarity. Not to become caught in limiting beliefs. And the Earth is able to manifest this through you, through your own personal practice at “I can do that.”
These pictures we’ve been saving: boulders rolling down hillsides, rivers and creeks overflowing their boundaries, earth washed away, homes being washed away, and cars, and humans. The destruction.
But the Earth was co-created with so much love to be a plane of stable change. Change, yes—everything is constantly changing—but stable change in which nothing is harmed, and in which each element of the Earth lives up to its potential, its power. The power of the water, air and earth elements. The power of growing things. The little seedling growing into the immense redwood forest. The movement of Earth for eons upon eons that changes a level plane into a mountain. Imagine if Mt. Everest, as it was being carved out and built up, said, “No, I can’t do that. I can’t be that big.” We can do that, but it starts with your own personal practice and commitment.
I want to bring some attention here to the mingling of the linear and the ultimate. On the ultimate level you are already perfect. Barbara’s spine was already perfect. Barbara and I talked about this a bit, during those two weeks. She said, “Aaron, what are they healing, if everything is already perfect? Isn’t the distortion some kind of perfection?” And I said, “The distortion is perfect in its ability to teach you not to get lost in the distortion and claim it, unless you truly want to live that distortion. And who wants to live a distortion of pain, of fear, of anger, forever?”
Seeing the distortion and recognizing it as a distortion, one immediately can shift to the undistorted. What do I mean by that?
There has to be an ever-perfect template for everything—for your body, for your emotions, for the Earth, for the tomato plant, for the redwood tree, for the mountain. It will be constantly changing, but that template, that essence, it’s there.
On the relative level, you hold that in your mind and keep working toward it. But you can work forever and, in a sense, pull back from attaining that perfection because you have some kind of belief that you have to keep working.
Have you ever had a moment where you felt totally joyful and content? I think most of you have. It may have been brief, but in that moment everything was just as it needed to be. And you felt totally at home in the universe, heart open, expressing your magnificence, the Divine Plan out of which you took birth, your innate perfection.
Energetically, as a human, you really cannot carry that idea constantly or it becomes an idea and there’s grasping. But if you pay attention, you’ll feel those moments when you say, “Ahhh, this is it.”
Slicing the bread, cooking the bacon, slicing the tomato, you feel, “Ahhh, here’s the perfect BLT. Ahhh, it doesn’t get better than this.” And then a minute later, the bacon feels a little bit too greasy, or the tomato is a little bit less sweet than you’d like it. But you know there is that innate perfection. And I can trust that innate perfection. I invite it to express.
An important thing here is that moment of joy and gratitude, “Ahhh. It’s perfect.” What is your own innate perfection for your body, for your spirit? The place where you feel totally connected to everything, feel totally in the flow with joy, with ease? “I can do that.”
It was interesting for Barbara, back decades ago, working with horses, because the horse is such an immediate reflection of your own attitude. If the horse balked at a jump and Barbara contracted, approaching it again with fear, “He may balk again,” of course he will balk again. When she circled around, approached the jump and said, “Yes, we’re going to soar over this,” honestly, without fear—and it had to be honest. She couldn’t say, “I’m going to push the fear aside,” but “I know we can do this.” And she might have to go back to an eighteen inch jump so it became easy, and do it again, build up to that three and four foot jump. “We can do this,” she said, honestly assessing both her skill and the horse’s skill. “We can do this.”
And it always astonished me, really, to see how the horse responded to Barbara’s knowing and trust of it, and to its ability to approach that jump again and again, a little bit higher each time. Barbara was not pushing it but inviting it to do its best. The horse was developing confidence in itself. And then, a joy of movement, so that the whole thing became fun for both of them. “We can do this.”
So, all the pollution and environmental disaster in the world, these are, let’s call them the jumps or hazards. They’re real, and the innate perfection is real.
You need to start slowly to trust the potential of the world to meet your invitation to increasingly, literally, heal itself and ultimately come back to reflect the innate perfection. To trust the sentient beings of the world to grow past their fear and negativity, which results in hatred and wars and destruction. No being willingly chooses hatred and destruction unless it feels it has no choice.
Again, using this method, if Barbara kept pushing that horse with some fear over a high jump, and the horse kept balking, and she kept falling off and hurting herself, you can see how this would build up more and more into inability to believe that it could be done.
It takes patience and kindness. It takes mindfulness to observe the blocks, and a willingness to say, “I pull back a bit. I look mindfully at what’s happening. I choose love. I choose my body to be whole and express that wholeness. I choose my heart to be whole and express that wholeness. I choose my world to be whole and express that wholeness. And yes, to know I have the power to make that choice.” Because this is what we were given at the start, the innate perfection of everything, which gradually works its way into distortion.
So, you have the opportunity here to see distortion when it comes up—”Ah, contracting, fear, distorting. This is not what I choose.”—and to remember the perfection.
I know athletes are often trained in this way. You give them the baseball bat, and they’re not trained to think, “I can maybe hit it,” but literally, as they get ready to swing, to visualize the ball soaring over the far fence. To know it. How can it happen if you can’t know it already happening? What holds you back from that knowing?
(break)
(A question was asked but not recorded.)
Aaron: I am Aaron. It’s hard to look at the Unconditioned because we can’t really see it. But many of you in meditation have felt the dissolution of body and ego, felt yourself shift into an awareness that knew itself to be vast and infinite, part of that infinite ground of being. From that position, there was no personal ego-driven need or thought. How does it feel?
Q, I know you’ve experienced this. What is aware there? You’re not blacked out; there is some kind of awareness. What is that awareness?
It’s not you. It’s not personal. It’s a place where you rest in the vastness of being and the power of light and of love. “I am That.” There’s no sense of limitation. There is no, “I want to. I’ll try.” There is the fullest expression of that light and love that is your true being.
That expression has intelligence. This is not human intelligence, like in studying the encyclopedia. This is a—how can I best phrase it? — a divine intelligence, the intelligence that sees how everything relates to everything else, sees all the infinite passageways, and how this leads to that and this leads to that, literally knows how it all goes together.
And it knows if it holds itself in that center of love, everything that expresses out is grounded in that energy of love, is grounded in that light, in that high vibration. Within that vibration there are no separate beings, no separate things. Everything is seen as related to everything else, so that each thought, each movement, each decision of any aspect of this vastness touches everything else. And there is within that vastness the deep intention to do no harm, to treat every portion of this expression of divinity with reverence and respect. It is this that knows.
This doesn’t mean that you have to be one hundred percent into that space, because many of you have never experienced that deep knowing. But gradually, as you trust yourself to open into that deepest expression wherein the personal self dissolves and the divine self emerges, you become more and more skilled at moving and speaking from that divine self rather than ego self, and increasingly able to distinguish which one is speaking at the moment.
To back up, when the ego self is speaking, you say, “No, that is not the choice,” and come back into the divine self.
That’s the closest I can come to it, Q. I would be glad to speak further, if it leads you to another question.
Q: I have this experience—it’s not the experience you talked about, but of the Unconditioned. I have the experience of something not quite so elevated as what I consider to be the higher self, which is a state where I feel the inner divine awareness, but I also feel a certain sense of identity for myself. I’m not everything. So, this is how I navigate the world. I could never navigate the world from the Unconditioned.
Aaron: Just stay mindful and watch when the personal self comes, and say, “Hello, personal self. Take a seat,” and come back to center again, and again.
Trust your intention to live from this center. Intention precedes the doing. Watch the intention to protect, to armor, to withdraw and move into the ego. Just note it and say, “No, thank you. Take a seat there. No talking.” Come back to center. Just keep doing it; gradually it will come. You can’t make it happen—that’s just ego. But when you rest in that flow, it can happen.
For any of you who have played some kind of sport—tennis, perhaps, or playing the violin, or dancing, or painting—you understand that experience of being outside of the personality self, the energy flowing and co-creating. Hold that as your intention and stay mindful of when it is truly co-creation and when the ego steps in, and just say, “No thank you. Take a seat.” And then come back again to center.
This is the most beautiful practice. You can just keep doing it and doing it, without force, without harsh judgment of the self. Even thank yourself that you are slowly evolving into greater ability to reflect that divine center, rather than backing myself off into the ego. Gentle, patient, kind, “Thank you.”
This is why I keep inviting you to practice and practice and practice.
Others?
Q: Aaron, were you describing the akashic field earlier, when you were talking about the Intelligence that knew everything and how everything was connected?
Aaron: Are you asking if I was describing the akashic field? Yes.
Q: You also used the phrase “based in love,” that all of those expressions were based in love. Lately, I’ve been wondering what the relationship is between love, which you have told us is the first expression out of the Unconditioned, and the akashic field. Can you talk about that?
Aaron: Love as the first expression. First, there was just everything, this vastness. Love expressed. Love is the weft and warp of the field; it’s the fabric that holds it together. Everything is love, but then there are dark colors and light in this weaving. There are soft areas and sharp areas, but it’s all within the field, and nothing is inharmonious to the field, unless for the human with free will that particular thing brings about contraction and separation into “This is good and that is bad.” When it is seen as, “This has a potential to create harm if I let it get away, if I let it build up. I choose not to. I choose not to create those distinctions.”
It’s hard to talk about this because the arising of hatred, for example, has a strong potential to create harm for beings. And yet hatred in itself is just a contracted energy grounded in the small self. It’s not bad; it’s just the outflow of conditions. Greed is just a contracted expression of energy caught up in the small self and in fear.
When we can see these so-called negative expressions arise and not react to them, we cease to give them energy. Then the akashic field stays open.
When the akashic field contracts—think of threads, here. Instead of the threads running smoothly, suddenly there’s a knot because you are holding the knotted energy and giving it the power to become a knot. Otherwise, it’s just some sort of distortion flowing through.
This is why your vipassana practice is so powerful. Because when something arises that is known as unpleasant, and out of that unpleasantness there’s a contraction, and the contraction is seen as a contraction, immediately it releases. The akashic field stays open. There is no rebound energy that changes the flow of things and can create something hurtful. Does that answer your question?
Q: That went beyond my question, and it was very helpful. Can I ask just one more?
Aaron: Let me ask you to go back to Venture Fourth and read the notes about the akashic field. They should be on the website somewhere. Your further question?
Q: So, the expansiveness of the akashic field is…. A person is using supramundane consciousness to know that expansiveness. And you said just now that there are threads within the akashic field. So, I’m thinking that you mean that there are what we know through mundane consciousness —
Aaron: Energy threads. You can use the idea of fabric, but these are not tangible threads but energetic threads that come forth open or tight, contracted.
When you notice the contraction, you can just take a deeper breath and say, “This is not my intention,” and come back to what is your intention.
Use a situation in which there is some part of the body that is expressing distortion, like a bad headache or a broken limb. “Ah, this happened as a result of conditions. It is not my intention to perpetuate this.” And, right there with meditation, you can begin to visualize the ever-perfect where there is no headache or no broken bone.
This is not going to heal it immediately. It could, but probably you’re not yet ready to invite it to heal immediately. But it sets the movement into motion, it sets the action in motion where that which was distorted releases the distortion and opens back into the ever-perfect, because you’re not holding it with fear, trying to fix it, but simply resting in the knowing of it as perfect.
And that perfection sometimes involves the broken bone. What is the broken bone teaching you?
Barbara was reflecting earlier today on—You’ve probably heard from Ram Dass the words “My stroke of grace,” how he referred to his stroke. She had the opportunity some twenty years ago to spend some time with Ram Dass, just the two of them talking about this. There was an interpreter there for Barbara and there was an assistant there for Ram Dass, but it was a discussion between the two of them. Barbara was talking about her deafness and Ram Dass was talking about his stroke.
The stroke was real. It severely limited his physical abilities in the world. Barbara’s sudden deafness was real and severely limited some of her abilities in the world. How can you relate to this not as—excuse my language — “Darn it! That happened! I have to fix it! I’m so angry!” or “Ahhh, somewhere in here there is grace. And if I can connect to my trust that there is grace, to my knowing that there is grace, and say, ‘Thank you,’ I open.”
This opens the whole akashic field. Everything becomes available in that spacious “Thank you.” The actual physical ailment may not change, but the way it’s experienced changes, and it changes everything. I hope that’s somewhat helpful to your question.
Q: That does lead to something I have wondered about. It sounds like you’re saying the consciousness of something painful can dissolve, but it doesn’t mean that the thing is reversed, the physical injury is healed. You’re just changing your consciousness of it. Is that right?
Aaron: Correct. Barbara remains deaf. Ram Dass, until his death, remained experiencing the results of that severe stroke. It’s the way you carry it in your experience, so that instead of feeling like a curse, it feels like a blessing. The energy of that blessing spreads everywhere. And Ram Dass was so beautifully able to express this as he talked about—he used the terms “My stroke of grace” and “fierce grace.” What is “fierce grace”?
Remember, this is just one lifetime. Ram Dass did not have a stroke, Barbara was not deaf, in other lifetimes, nor will she be in future lifetimes. It’s just one lifetime. Keep the perspective about it.
What is this offering me to learn? And am I able to take it up on that teaching and keep my heart open? That’s where the “I can do that” comes in.
Sometimes it will lead to actual physical healing. It can. You’re not a failure if it doesn’t.
Let us move on.
Q: Hi, Aaron, I just have a quick question. There was a quote from the Center this week about us becoming like air purifiers to take out the negativity in the system around us. Are there a few words on this that you could share to enlighten us, please?
Aaron: Thank you for your question, Q, and I’m happy to meet you.
There is negative energy. It exists. It’s real. There is positive energy; that’s real.
If you come into a room and everybody is angry, you can feel the anger in the air. Who knows what was spoken before you entered the room, but you can feel that thick tension in the air.
Now, if you’re able to come into that room, feel the tension, and just stop and breathe: “Breathing in, I am aware of the tension. Ahhh, breathing out, I hold space for the tension. Whatever beings in this room are feeling pain, I offer them love.” Not to fix them, but simply because I offer them love. So in a sense you are becoming an air purifier. Your loving energy is able to change the tension, literally.
If you come into a room where there is a strange dog who snarls at you, it’s expressing a bit of fear and his own way to react to that fear is to snarl. You don’t want to walk right up and pat him; he’s liable to bite.
But if you sit down a few feet from him and just talk to him lovingly, acknowledging, “I see you’re a bit afraid of me and you don’t really want me to be here. It’s okay. I love you. You are a good dog. There’s nothing bad about snarling at me. I hold space for your fear and your discomfort.” Talk to the dog for a bit and gradually he’ll lie down and rest head on his paw and look at you, and the tail will begin to wag.
That’s all I meant with that quote. I welcome further questions.
Taking what I’ve just said a bit deeper. Q mentioned the akashic field. Somewhere in the past, in classes and perhaps in Venture Fourth, a several year program, we moved deeply into understanding the akashic field. I’m not going to try to explain it now. I feel certain that there is some reference to it on the website. If not, I’ll be glad to talk about it in the future. And we will be talking about it as we move into second semester of the Awake class.
So, we’re going to start in semester two with looking at who reacts to difficult situations, as Q asked. Who or what is it that reacts?
We can see the personalized self reacting. We can see the old habit energy reacting. But mostly we don’t take the time to look and say, “Who is this illusory somebody that’s caught up in this old reaction?”
So, we’re going to be talking about bringing the ox home. The non-duality: self and ox are one. The self remains a self, and yet the self and the ox are one. There is nothing separate. The Russians destroying Ukraine and you are one. The air pollution and the clear pure energy of the Earth are one.
But things do arise from conditions. Our practice is to learn that we already have the ability to respond more open-heartedly to those conditions. Not to say yes to destruction and bombing, or that we invite the destruction of the environment. It is not to say that. But to say, “I see that these conditions have led to this. I, as every man, every woman, I as the heart of love choose to shift this, knowing I can do that.”
In the case of the environment, find a plant in your house that has a few blemished leaves and just spend some time loving it. Give it appropriate sunlight and water. Hold it in the loving heart and watch how it changes things. And offer this plant energy to heal the whole world; co-create with the plant to do that.
When someone has said something to you that brought up anger and pain, note that there is your anger and pain and the other person’s anger and pain. This is not about right or wrong; this is about different perspectives.
Acknowledge wanting to be right. If the other person is very hateful and destructive and hurting people, you may feel very sure, “I am right!” And yet, “This person has their own view, and I invite myself to deeply hear their view. Not to agree with it, but to hear it. To keep my heart open with the intention to dissolve oppositionality; to invite deeper hearing and being heard.” It’s at that point so much dissension can dissolve. When people feel heard, they often are able to back up and listen. They can’t listen until they are heard.
And so in this way we can change the world through our personal choices. But that personal choice is both this human’s choice, largely from the human brain and ego, and it’s also every man’s choice, every woman’s choice, from the place of love, from the intention to truly listen and hold everything, because I am everything—every man, every woman.
In the words of that beautiful prayer by Saint Francis, “Not so much to be heard as to hear.” To deeply hear and hold, without self-righteousness but with love, and thusly to invite the power of that love to spread out and to touch everything.
You might ask me what I mean by the power of love. Go and talk to that growling dog and see what happens.
Are there further questions?
I suppose that’s it for tonight. I’ll give Barbara back her body. I hope to see many of you in class next Tuesday.
I love you all. Thank you for giving your time and energy and attention to be with us tonight. I am so deeply encouraged that people are asking these questions. The sentient beings in this world can heal, can reflect the light more fully, as long as you show up asking questions and are willing to practice with the answers.
I love you. I am Aaron.