October 27, 2014 Monday Morning, Geneva Retreat
Opening Talk at Geneva Retreat on True Nature
Aaron: My blessings and love to you all. I am Aaron. For those who are not particularly familiar with me, if I simply look like Barbara and you think,”I don’t see an Aaron there, it’s just Barbara,”don’t worry about it. I have no need to prove I’m real. If what I say is useful to you, use it. If not, discard it. That’s all you need to know.
I want to begin by welcoming all of you. I see so many dear friends, as has been said, from all different parts of our lives, from many retreats–east coast, west coast, north and south–from the Casa, people we’ve known for less than a year, people we’ve known for 20-plus years. It’s such a joy to have you all here together.
When we considered this workshop, at first Barbara said,”Only advanced students.”I suggested,”Why would you cut people out simply because they don’t have a practice in vipassana? They have a deep spiritual practice or they would not be called to the retreat. Trust and let them come. We’ll handle the vipassana, which I consider to be a vital element of this week.But even more important is their deep commitment, their deep aspiration to live with increasing love and wisdom; to find the roots of confusion, of hatred, of fear, in themselves, and the possibility, I don’t want to say so much to release these but to go through them.”
This last is like the sun. If the clouds come in thick, you don’t think the sun has disappeared. Where would this awakened nature go? What we’re doing is breaking through the clouds to find the awake part of you, the radiant heart, and help you learn how to live from this heart, living from your true nature.
This first part of the retreat happened because, while we were at the Casa sitting around a dining table– a number of you were there–we talked about the retreat from Wednesday to Sunday, and several of you coming in from far away asked, could we do something Monday and Tuesday also? But what? And then later that week, sitting at that table, people began to ask me about aging. They said,”Aaron, you have aged in so many lifetimes. How do we do this skillfully?”Then somebody asked, can we make that the focus of the first two days? Ah! So here we are.
So we’re really continuing this conversation from that pousada dining table. We didn’t have that much time there and I don’t incorporate there at the Casa in this way, so I’m very happy to be able to carry on this discussion more directly.
The inner work that we do to age with consciousness, I call it becoming an elder, not elderly. You’re all going to become elderly. Some of you are going to become elders. What is an elder? To me it’s a person who is able to live from their deep wisdom, a person who has deepened in compassion in their life and is able to respond compassionately to the various catalysts that come to them, like mud thrown in the face. How do we respond with a compassionate heart? How do we then act with wisdom?
Eldering does not have to do with age. You are an elder whether you’re 30 or 90 if you have developed the heart of compassion and the ability to be present with what you’re experiencing in each moment. So this is one option for these 2 days. There are those of you who really want an opportunity to develop a vipassana practice; I deeply value that. John is here to do that with you today and tomorrow. You are free not to come to any of the work we’re doing with aging. But you can also find some balance in yourselves. This afternoon John will be giving instructions and finding out where those of you are, who have little experience.
Further on, I think this happens tomorrow so we’ll give these out tomorrow, not today, but we’re going to be looking at three areas of reflection. These you will take back to your vipassana practice.
Where have we matured, and where have we resisted maturation? Exploring resistance and closure. (I’m not reading the whole thing, just a few pieces.) What is my resistance to being fully present? What are my distractions? What are my fears? How honest is my self-inquiry? Where do I not want to look? Where do I hold back from love? Where do I grasp for it? That’s one portion.
Exploring opening. What supports my ability to release the heart’s armor and be more vulnerable and tender? How thorough is my forgiveness of others, of myself? How deep is my gratitude? How generous is my heart? And so forth.
And the third portion concerns moving forward. Am I ready to set aside judging and attachment to negative thought? What helps me to experience the presence of spirit? What keeps me from living in that presence?
These questions are going to be with us tomorrow and also through the week. A lot of the exploration of them will be in the small groups that sit at the table, at a meal once a day. I’ve divided you into small groups that I think are suitable for you. Not just advanced groups/beginners groups, because then the beginners wouldn’t have the support of the deepening wisdom of the more experienced people, and the experienced would lose the “beginner’s mind” but more mixed groups. This is an opportunity for you to sit and dialog about one or another of this series of questions in your small group.
We’ll do this here also with a method of dialog for 20 minutes, perhaps, and then silence for 10 minutes to reflect, not just talking and talking and talking. So those of you who choose the”just meditation”are welcome to do that, or welcome to use these reflections as you meditate, or welcome to join in for some of the discussions and be with John at other times. And I’ll leave you and John to talk about that, each of you, and work out your needs, and what feels most appropriate to you.
We are at a time in this earth where there is a great deal of pain, of violence, of hatred. It has happened before on earth. I find it different today because there are so many more of you who are deeply committed to moving into a higher, let’s call it non-dual consciousness, that is able to feel compassion for others and also to say no, firmly, from that place of compassion, rather than being swept away by fear and anger.
If somebody is abusing you, it’s kind to say no. You all have an intention to do no harm. It’s harmful to others to let them abuse you. It’s also harmful to others and to yourself to have them abuse you and scream at them because they’re abusing you, to hate them. How do we keep our hearts open with the myriad pushes and pulls of the world, the enormous pain?
This is really what my book Human is about. Would somebody hand me a copy ofHuman, please? There are very few words on a page, one or two sentences. I’m going to read you the first 6 pages. I actually thought of making this assigned reading for the workshop but we didn’t have it published in time. So here we are.
My friend, you are human and yet you are also spirit.
To be spirit is to rest in the core of being that is birthless and deathless.
To be human is to contemplate the cessation of your conscious existence.
To be spirit is to live fully in the heart of love.
To be human is to know fear.
To be spirit is to offer everything.
To be human is to experience the fear expressions of greed and clinging.
To be spirit is to know divine compassion.
To be human is to know the fear expression of judgment and anger.
To be spirit is to know your completion.
To be human is to hunger for it.
Yet to be human and to be spirit are not at all incompatible, for you are not incarnate to abolish fear and its expressions but to learn to draw them into the heart of love.
Walk by my side for a while and I will teach you.
So here we are together; I have you walking by my side this week, and I’m delighted, because we’ll have an opportunity to explore these issues. It doesn’t matter what the catalyst is– the body aches and pains, memory failing, loss of loved ones, aging, everything that happens as the body diminishes–it’s a big push. How do we respond with love?
Q, will you come up for a minute? You know what I want you to do. Just stand sideways for a moment.(pushing arms exercise is demonstrated)Q pushes at me and I push back hard. That’s how we usually live. Or she pushes at me and I collapse. We’re here to learn how to dance with life’s pushes. She pushes, I just let it go and I can keep talking. It’s very little effort. No matter how hard she pushes, I dance with it and then I give the energy back. I let it come in and I give it back, until we’re dancing with it. Thank you.
So we’re going to learn these two days how to dance with a push of aging, of the diminishments of body and mind; how not to take them so personally, not to be caught in punching, or running from them in denial. Through the rest of the week, we’ll be doing much of that, too.
We will have the opportunity starting with the Mother on Thursday–how many of you have not met the Mother? Most of you have. People ask who is she? She tells us she is a mix of expressions of the Divine Mother: Mother Mary, Kwan Yin, the Black Madonna, Kali, a variety of expressions of the Divine Mother. She comes forth more in one expression or another individually, to the expression that you call forth in her from your need.
What she does is simply (calls Q up to assist)–I am pretending I am the Mother. She simply takes your hand and looks into your eyes. Thank you.
But of course I’m not the Divine Mother, and her energy is different than mine, and so filled with loving radiance. You see yourself mirrored in her eyes, as she knows you. It’s very hard to believe in your brokenness when you look in her eyes and see her love reflected. It doesn’t mean, for example, you suddenly cease to be deaf, or can go dancing out of the room instead of using your cane. When I talk about moving through the brokenness, it means non-self-identity with it; knowing the self that is whole, as you see yourself reflected in her, and choosing to live that wholeness. That is the path to the healing with that which seems to be broken. As long as you believe,”Well I’m broken and I have to take these steps to fix it,”you’re not going to get there. But when you remember,”I am whole,”then you have the opportunity to choose to live that wholeness, and mindfully to understand why you may not be fully inviting it. What are you backing away from? And then our questions: How honest is my self-inquiry? Where do I not want to look? How well am I able to be with unease, disappointment, and suffering? And so forth.
So what we have planned for you this week is a mix of vipassana, reflection, and inquiry, dialoging with each other, and also some good times: singing, dancing, walking on the beach, whatever appeals to you.
I have overrun my time. Actually I have under-run my time, but the time was shortened as we started late, so time to stop. My blessings and love to you. And I’m very much looking forward to this time with you.
The Mother says she wants to come in just to say hello for a moment. She will not spend much time with you.
(the Mother incorporates)
The Mother: My love to you all, and again as Aaron said, if what you see here is simply Barbara and now she says she’s the Mother, what matters is not even what I say. It is not my words that matter but my energy. Is that helpful to you?
(to someone arriving) Ah, you’ve made it, broken car and all! Come, daughter. Our retreat supplies and bearer have arrived.
So, while Aaron’s darshan is more about talking, mine is more about simply sharing energy, more about loving you until you are so convinced that you are loved that you forget about how bad you think you are. Can you let go of it? How long does it take sitting on the Mother’s lap in her embrace before you let go of all these ideas of wrongness in yourself? You are beautiful. I love you.
We’ll release the body to Barbara…