September 27, 1995 Wednesday Evening with Aaron
What Happens When We Leave Incarnation?; A Question on Love
Aaron:I want to begin the evening by talking about something that some of you have heard me talk about before: What happens when you leave the incarnation? (Aaron explains that he is presenting this talk tonight to provide this information for the new Aaron book.)
(Aaron pauses to receive questions on death from the group.)
I am Aaron. First, I want to give you a definition of death, as I see it. The essence of what you are can never cease to exist. The personality self, the ego self and the physical body, of course, can cease; but the essence of what you are simply expresses itself on a different plane. A certain level of consciousness continues, but the identification of the past ego self dissolves–sometimes partially, sometimes thoroughly. Humans see death as a dark tunnel. They see an abrupt doorway and experience the fear of the unknown because they do not know what lies beyond. If death were not safe, if you could not move through it as part of the ongoing process of your being, none of you would be here. If death ensnared, trapped you, harmed you, none of you would be here. To have moved from the astral plane into life, you first have to have lived someplace to move into the astral plane. It’s a process, a continuing.
Within each incarnation, you have certain personality issues that you seek to resolve, certain experiences that have shaped you. Of course, some of this shaping has grown karmically from past lives. Some of you have complained about the system, said, “As we get older and start to figure it out, to feel more stable in our lives, then we get old and die.” My dear ones, you are not here to figure it out, just to live it. If you got it all figured out so there was no more learning to be had, why should you be here? Yes, because it’s enjoyable, because there are flowers and butterflies and children’s laughter, but I assure you that those are present on the astral plane as well. You are here to embrace life, to live it with love and, above all, you are here to learn. How old do you want to get? Life is change. Do you want to be stagnant in a changing universe?This is not to suggest that you choose to leave before it’s time, although some do make that choice and and we will speak to it in a short while. Death is not to be feared, but neither is life to be feared. Embrace it and live!
But then, eventually, you come to that inevitable time when you are ready to leave the body. What you experience before death has profound implication for the way you move through the death experience. I am asked, is there a hell? The questioner says she knows there is light and spirit guides who come to meet you. Is there a hell? Hell is being so blinded by your fear that you cannot see the light, nor feel the presence of your guides. If you cultivate an open heart in your life that greets the unknown, greets change, with a spaciousness–not prohibiting fear that arises, but inviting that fear itself into the spaciousness–then you will be able to move through the process of death in the same way.
Your life is a series of thousands of little deaths, little losses, little places of darkness that you must enter on faith, places of subtle or profound fear. All of your life you are practicing how to enter that which is just beyond the limits of your prior experience. Some of you enter with force, as if jumping from a high diving board, hold your nose and push yourself: I must leap! No joy in that. Others of you leap into the unknown with a sense of dread. But some of you have learned to greet the unknown as a growing experience, something new, something to open me still further, something to challenge me to grow, to be more than I thought I could be. Do you think you could experience anything different in death that you could not allow yourself to experience in life? At least, in that first crossing of the threshold? So, your first experience as you cross that threshold will depend, very precisely, on how you have lived your life.
The light is there. The angels are there. Could you see them in incarnation? If so, why certainly you will see them as you move across into the discarnate state. Did your fear serve as blinder for knowing spirit while in incarnation? Then it is still going to do so. The spirit will always be surrounded by loving energy and by light. It may or may not recognize that light, or may even find it intolerable if all its life it has preferred darkness. The plane we speak of has no linear time. Therefore, we can’t say it takes thirty days or thirty weeks or thirty years or three thousand years. It will take as long as it takes. If your heart is shut, how long does it take to open it? If you’re surrounded by loving energy, how long? It will take as long as it takes.
Those of you who are present tonight, those who have dedicated their energy to doing inner work, purifying their energy, living their lives as lovingly and skillfully as they can, those who have made real effort to move skillfully with their fear and be open to the light of the universe, such beings will feel this light immediately. Others will create their own dimness, darkness or hell, carrying their isolation and fear with them. Here is a difference, though. While those who cling to the past, to the ego self, cling to the old methods of safety they’ve devised by walling themselves in, while they may not experience the light, the veil of forgetting of the incarnative state is gone. There is nothing to prevent them from knowing that light except their own fear, and they are surrounded by so much love, such deep caring energy that it’s very difficult to maintain that fear for, in your linear time terms, a long time.
Upon awakening from that darkness, a very real grace is that, even if it were in actuality many centuries of your time, it would seem but an instant. One is aware of it as an extended darkness as it passes, but the instant one wakes up, even just a small bit, to the presence of light and of love, the pain is washed away. It’s so clearly seen as illusion. It’s like a nightmare: In the light of the next sunny and clear morning, the dream doesn’t grip you anymore. You see clearly, “The darkness was a dream and here I am in the light.”
The first stage is this opening into light and truth–not fully opening perhaps, but shattering the illusion of the ego self and opening one’s energy to the brilliant love of the universe. However long it has taken, it will take. At this stage, the being will begin to review the life past. It no longer identifies with the ego, with the old self in terms of holding to that, but it still has a clear memory of having been that, of what it’s hopes and fears were. With its own guides and loving teachers, it looks at what one might call a blueprint that it had created before the incarnation, a blueprint based on intention and karma: What am I hoping to learn in this lifetime? In what ways do I hope to grow and to serve myself an others? Then it overlays on that intended path what it actually did. It sees where, perhaps, it had no intention to learn deeply about desire and generosity, but it did that–a room it had not thought it would build. It had really learned to let go, not to hold on or be afraid that its needs wouldn’t be met. On the other hand, perhaps there are rooms that it had hoped to build and did not build successfully–perhaps learning material sharing and letting go, but not emotional sharing so that it is impatient or angry often. Thus, it begins to see what was learned, what was not learned, to understand the karmic directions it created for itself and how the impulse of that continuing energy creates the map for the next incarnation. For some beings, this whole process is very fast, may happen in what would be a matter of your days. For others, it is years before they are even ready to begin the process. There is no rush.
After looking at this blueprint and understanding how the life unfolded, one begins the process of letting go of that life. At first one sees oneself still clothed in the body and, often, the usual clothing of that lifetime. One sees one’s guides in similar bodies and similar styles of clothing. But, of course, these beings are just energy, just light, as you are. Usually, one maintains the image of self longer than one maintains attachment to seeing one’s guides and peers as human. In other words, this that had come clothed in familiar face and body, as you become familiar with its energy field, you cease to need the outer mask and, suddenly, you realize that you have identified as your beloved friend or teacher this swirling energy of light. And then, ahhhh, you look at yourself and say, “It’s time to take off the costume. I am also light.”
What happens next depends on the individual. Some beings may race into a new incarnation very quickly. Those who have died sudden traumatic deaths at a young age are more apt to move into an incarnation quickly. Some may choose to spend a considerable period on the astral plane. There are–I can only use the analogy of universities. Each of you has special areas of focus, special areas of interest. Some of you have been musicians in many lifetimes or dancers, scientists, healers. You’re not stuck there; you can be many different things. But there is that which you most deeply want to learn and will carry some understanding of into the new incarnation. And so, that energy, that light which you have come to understand yourself to be, light and consciousness, moves into a learning/serving phase–never just one or the other. You may stay there as long as you need to. In ways I will not detail in this talk, your energy and karma eventually pull you back into new incarnation. You always have free will. You are not pushed into incarnation, but move into it as you are ready for it.
Some beings choose to stay on the light plane for what, in your linear time, would seem a very long time. Fear or love may be the impetus for that stay. When I say fear, some beings are aware of what they need to learn on the incarnative plane and that it is going to be very hard to maintain the clarity to learn it. They’ve karmically boxed themselves into a hole and they must be responsible for that and for the moving out of it. They will always be given all the help they need. No one ever moves into an incarnation in which the learning they hope to do is impossible, but, clearly, if, for example, one has been a murderer in many lifetimes, has beaten and abused others, one is going to have to move into a lifetime that helps them understand what it means to be compassionate. It doesn’t mean directly that they must move into a lifetime where they will be abused in turn. This is a false understanding of karma. Rather, the patterns of self-absorption, self-centeredness, which caused them so seriously to misuse others out of fear…. On the astral plane, those patterns are understood, but then one must come into the incarnation. The difference between reading a book and then trying it, like learning to swim from a book. You read how to do the strokes and, eventually, you’ve got to jump in the water. It is very different to experience it within the water than it was sitting on the shore, dry with book in hand. So, you understand it on the astral plane, but you have set up such a habitual pattern that, when you move into incarnation, it’s very possible you’re going to move back into that same pattern. You choose the incarnation which seems most to address itself to awareness of the pattern, thereby allowing you to change the pattern.
When I say there is always free will, there’s not a conscious decision, “I’m going to change this pattern,” which carries through into the incarnative state. Rather, because the energy has habitually patterned itself in certain ways, it will simply repeat that pattern. Karma is habitual–one of the characteristics of it. For simple example, if somebody spits at you and you move into a rage and spit back, and do it again and again, your energy has set up a certain pattern that when you are pushed you contract and push back. You move into a new incarnation. You may be treated lovingly, you may treated cruelly. In either case, that self-centeredness and fear, “I will be hurt,” which caused the pushing back will still maintain itself, leading you to begin to look at the question, “What is this self that I’ve assumed to be so solid?” Sometimes, the individual seems to need to be hurt quite badly before it is finally willing to let go of that solid and separate self and begin to investigate the myth of it.
So, you stay there, no longer identifying with the incarnation, fully letting go of it, learning and serving in various ways. You are surrounded by loving energy. The guidance you need is always at hand. When I say that you dwell in the light, please understand that there are degrees of light. You dwell in that light which is comfortable and tolerable for you. The frequency vibration of the light body is most comfortable in a certain light or vibration and seeks that vibration out. As the vibrational frequency rises through learning on the astral plane, you seek out higher vibration. It’s all light, differing degrees of light. No one feels better than because they have a higher vibrational frequency. There is profound respect for the work that each being is doing at whatever level.
In answer to some specific questions, how long is the being newly moved to the astral plane available to you? While it lets go of its identity with the past incarnation, it may choose to become a guide to you. Its choice. It knows itself to be energy and light, but makes the decision not to move into incarnation, either temporarily or throughout your entire lifetime, to serve as guide to you. In that case, it will be available to you at any time. If it does not make such a choice, it may be available to you for a short time period in your awareness of a few days or for as long a time as a year perhaps. While it is deeply in darkness, should it find itself there, it is not available to you. So, it becomes available during that time after it has begun to look at the blueprint of the past life and before it lets go of the solidity of the past incarnation. It may still be subtly available once it has let go of that solidity if it chooses to remain a guide to you; but, otherwise, it will then move off into its own direction. This does not mean you cannot experience its energy, only that it will be less immediately available, truly of a different vibrational frequency.
I want to make it clear as I talk about this continuation of awareness that, as the being moves into this light phase of its being, there is an increasingly pure awareness which parallels the state of pure awareness, pure heart-mind. The identity with the old self is cut. One sees oneself as an inter-dependent energy, part of everything and not separate. There is its own stream of awareness, but personal consciousness fades except as it is maintained as useful tool. For instance, one who has been a healer, moves into this light phase and works with certain techniques of healing, will maintain enough of a personal consciousness to retain the intention to carry those techniques back into a future incarnation as much as it is able. But it’s not the same person. Person A died. It exists no longer. The incarnation is not a continuation of person A; it’s a new being which retains the karmic stream and certain level of awareness of person A. Included in that karmic stream is everything: the loving and the closed and frightened choices of person A. Nothing is ever lost, including the loving deeds and speech.
What of those who leave the incarnation by your term, suicide? First of all, when they first begin to open to the light, however long that takes, they will experience some sadness that they let go of the opportunity for learning, not in anger at the self, just a sense, “Here was a learning opportunity and I turned my back on it.” But, along with that response is a certain respect for the being that was just past, an awareness, “Now I see from a bigger perspective and I see that I could have stayed there and learned.” But that being did what it felt it needed to do. There is an acceptance, “I am responsible for that being’s choices, that being that I was.” But there’s not a condemnation anymore, but a growing compassion which helps the being move off further into the light and, eventually, into a new incarnation with a sense of hope rather than fear.
Sometimes, when you hurt too much you just need to come home. Have you ever been sick far away from home? Sick with a high fever or a belly-ache? How much you probably wanted to come home. Sometimes it is the kindest thing to do, if the sickness feels overwhelming and you feel, “I cannot move through it.” Just because a being dies does not mean learning ceases. There can be profound learning on the astral plane, sometimes learning that was not possible during the incarnation because you were so blind and caught in your own misery. But, of course, there is still the loss of that opportunity–a very, very, very precious opportunity–to be human and to learn in incarnation.
So, the being who has committed suicide will usually feel sadness but, also, deep compassion, and is very likely to move into a profound learning experience. Not so sometimes with a being who was killed through the anger of another. If that being carries its anger over, the sense of rage and blame may entrap it, hold it in darkness for a long time. The suicidal being who has intended no harm to another nor been harmed deeply by others, but simply chosen that path out of fear and misunderstanding, seldom stays locked for long in darkness. But the being who raged and blamed may find itself in considerable darkness. But, always, at the end there is light, learning, healing, growth and readiness to move back again, back on stage. Give it another try, here are your lines, here is your part. Draw the curtain. You’re on! That is all.
Q: What about assisted suicide with someone who is terminally ill?
Aaron: I am Aaron. It’s very much the same situation. Perhaps learning was possible. Perhaps if one could have tolerated of that state, made more space for one’s pain, a certain opening of the heart would have been possible that was not permitted. On the other hand, there is a kindness and sense of compassion toward the being, the human who found its situation intolerable. So, there may be a sadness but, also. a letting go, a resolve to look with compassion at the being that it was and simply let go and move ahead. I pause here. Does that answer your question?
Q: Aaron said that a soul doesn’t leave a human experience one moment before or after it wants to and that includes suicide. Does it also include murder and all kinds of accidents?
Aaron: Yes.
Q: Even murder?
Aaron: Even murder. Some of you are going to be uncomfortable with this. When there is a murder, at some level, the one we think of as victim has agreed to participate in losing its body. Please remember that there are many planes of being. The conscious level might scream, “No!” You really don’t know what’s happening. So many experiences you think you’re doing something and what you’re really doing is something very different. There is a deep soul level intention for a certain kind of learning. On a different plane, there is an intention to be safe, to be happy. Sometimes these intentions conflict. Safety means different things at different levels. On the fully relative human level, safety means not being harmed. On a deeper level, safety may mean participating in something that may seem traumatic because the spirit is always safe. “Safety,” in this case, resides in learning what you need to learn, resolving the karma that in the past has led you into directions of unskillful choices and pain. Safer to learn. So which “safety” are we following, the soul’s safety or the relative human’s safety? The relative human thinks it knows what it’s doing, but it’s not running the show. I pause.
(Aaron ends by quoting an old advertising slogan, “Why not take the bus and leave the driving to us?!”)
On Love
Q: What is the difference between detachment and love?
Aaron: I am Aaron. To love is not to possess. To love is to let go. The ego possesses. The soul loves. In meditation you learn how the ego self solidifies, how fear leads the ego self, the personality self, into desire to possess. As you bring compassion and kindness to those fears, you find more spaciousness and less need to grasp. You begin to see the deepest interconnections between yourself and the beloved, and, also, the uniqueness of each of you. As you appreciate both similarities and differences, as you cultivate a spaciousness that works skillfully with its fear, increasingly you approach the beloved with a sense of deep reverence, and from this space, this egoless space, you truly begin to love unconditionally and to let go. Does that answer your question? I pause.
Q: I experienced a sense of Divine love through heart opening and I’m not sure how that relates to emotional detachment.
Aaron: Divine love comes from and to the soul self, not the ego self. This is an aspect of the being in which there is no heavy emotion. There is joy and sorrow, but there is no fear or acting out of fear. This level of love may flow between the being and that which it considers the Divine as Ultimate Divinity, or it may flow between the being and what it considers to be expressions of that Divinity. In other words, another human or a flower. It’s the same Divine love. When I use the word “love,” in a sense I am implying Divine love. This is not to say that love is impossible on the relative plane, that love is impossible for the ego self. But it must be separated out. When you look deeply at what the ego self considers to be love, you find one level of Divine love and another level of fear and grasping, loving the reflection it sees of itself in the other, loving the way the other cares for it, loving the sense of being somebody who cares for another, how that inflates the self. But when you take all of those out, you’re just left with what I could only call Divine love, egoless love. I pause.