May 16, 2017 Tuesday Evening, Human Class
Final Class Year Summary: Suffering as a ground for compassion; the end of suffering as attainable for all
Final class of the year; Aaron’s book Human was our text.
Aaron: My blessings and love to you all. I am Aaron. I hope this year has helped you more fully embrace the wonder of your humanness, and you have learned to live with a bit more love for yourself and for all beings, more compassion, more ease in this human body.
Imagine, and this is a fictitious scene but it could have happened this way, imagine that sometime before your births, on another realm, we all sat in a circle together with you and your guides, with me and other teachers, other friends. All of you were voicing the commitment to return to human form, seeking deeper insight into the work you would do in this human form, both for yourselves as learners, for your own personal growth and the resolution of personal karma; and as teachers, as those who might bring love to this heavy density planet. Each of you understood the mission a bit differently, because each of you has your own unique karma and reasons for being here. But there was agreement among all of you, “I will go to practice love, even when it is hard to love, and to begin to understand the difference that love can make in the whole vibration of this planet.”
So, imagine, then, after a lengthy conversation, or several, you all hugged one another and, one by one, you came into the incarnation, with some idea that you might meet again down here. I said this is a fictitious account, but for each of you this is an accurate account, only all of you did not happen to come together in one group. But most of you knew at least several others of the group, on that higher plane.
The important thing here is the intention to overcome the negativity, the fear, the anger, the contracting emotions and self-centeredness in yourself, and to learn how to hold space for those experiences on the Earth without contracting around them, without fear of them, but bringing love where there has been darkness, spaciousness where there has been contraction.
In the book Human, I tried to address the needs of such a group; how you might find yourself on this heavy-density planet with some bewilderment. What do I do about the emotions? About the body? About loss? About all the things that are uncomfortable? How do I relate lovingly to pain, to confusion, to fear? I hope the book has provided some guidance for you and will continue to do so. As you know, I remain available to you. It is my delight to have the opportunity to talk to you, to share with you.
I know many of you have come to love me and to trust me, but it is important that you not make me the authority, because each of you is a radiant, beautiful and wise spirit. The essence of you knows everything that I know. The work for you, really, is to learn how to access that deep wisdom and compassion, and to trust it.
It is a great joy to share these thoughts with you through the whole semester, through the whole year, really, since we started in September. I hope many of you will join us in the fall as we move on from here. Barbara suggested to you, taken from Barbara and my own discussion about it, that we simply have a class we might call “dharma potluck”, sometimes using a book or reading for one or several weeks; sometimes just picking up the subject at hand for that night. What is pressing for you right now? The question always being, how do we live with more love, more compassion, more wisdom? How do we begin to live from the true self, the awakened self, that which is already awake within the sleeper, and to trust that awakeness?
Some of you already trust that; some not quite so much. But yes, you are already awake on the ultimate level. The more confidence you develop in your own love and clarity, the more you can carry that into this world of suffering. There are no beginners here. You are all old souls. Some of you say, “No, Aaron, I’m not a very old soul. I get so confused, so upset.” You are old souls. I trust that; can you learn to trust it yourselves?
We have focused this year on something I feel is very important, which is how to relate more openheartedly to the strong negative energy that is in your world today. And how truly to say no without fear or hatred, to say no from a place of love.
You know I do not predict the future. No one knows what will happen with your Earth in the next 6 months, year, decade. But it seems to me there may be increasing challenges, as I see how much strong negativity is being aroused due to the positive energy that so many on your Earth are now holding. They’re afraid, this loyal opposition. “We’re not going to get our way, here. We may not be able to turn this Earth into a negatively polarized planet.” No, they’re not going to be able to do that, because there are loving people like yourself ready to say no. There’s a lot of work to be done individually and universally. I know you are all ready to do that work. The most important element is the loving heart; working with your own pain with compassion, and working with the world’s pain with compassion. This is perhaps the strongest “no” that anyone can make to the negativity in the universe and in your world.
Your vipassana practice is a vital tool. Moment to moment mindfulness lets you be aware of what is arising in your experience and how you are relating to it as it predominates. Metta and other heart centered practices help guide you to relate to what has arisen in a kinder, wiser way; responding, not reacting. And yet of course there will be reaction. You are human. The fact that you are human, as I have told you many times, is the ground for learning compassion on this plane. If you were already here fully awake, fully evolved, with nothing provoking fear, anger, or discomfort in you, there would be no catalyst for all-inclusive compassion. As you find compassion for yourself with uncomfortable experiences, there’s much more access to your innate compassion for others who are experiencing those kinds of catalyst.
I want to be careful not to be misunderstood. Certainly, the Buddha, who was fully awake, was deeply compassionate. Certainly Jeshua, who was fully awake, was deeply compassionate. Because they were fully awakened –through realization in the Buddha’s case, and as he fully matured to his awakening; and in Jeshua’s case, because he came knowing who he was and not fully forgetting, though remembering more as he matured – these two great masters did not suffer in the ways that most not-yet-awake humans do. They emitted the power of love. They emitted compassion. But because they did not fully experience human suffering as a human does who is totally caught in it, there was a different relationship to suffering.
I would conjecture that both of these great masters in those lifetimes fully understood the power of the loving heart to create change, because both were so evolved. But I think it is different; it’s something you must live through, to feel the suffering yourselves, and to see what heals the suffering on mundane human terms, so you can bring that healing to a larger group of people or to the Earth itself. The Buddha and Jeshua taught wonderful paths of healing, and brought enormous energy and light to the Earth. And yes, of course at times in their lives they each suffered; the Buddha before his enlightenment, and Jeshua at times when he was younger. And in past lives they suffered. But both had a different relationship to suffering in the lifetimes for which they are best known. They were not caught!
I’ve talked with Jeshua at times about this, that even as I watched him growing up he was so awake, so present. Yes, experiencing anger at times, confusion at times, as he matured, but only briefly. His energy was enormous, radiating love. But I can remember conversations with him. For example, a story you’ve probably all heard from me, about the time when my wife died, and I came to him seeking help for my enormous grief, and broke my leg on my journey to him. I knew he could have healed my leg instantly, and he did not do so. I was angry at him for that. But he said later, “It was your heart that needed healing.” And he was right. The leg healed, but the heart also healed. But I’ve said to him, “Jeshua, for all your enormous love and compassion, I’m not sure you completely understood from the human perspective the enormity of my suffering.” And he said, “Conceptually, yes, but at some level, probably not, because we cannot fully experience something in the moment that we have not directly experienced. And in that lifetime, I did not directly experience it. How could I experience loss, who knew there can be no true loss? How could I experience fear? In other lifetimes, earlier lifetimes, yes. As Jeshua, I felt your pain; could understand it conceptually and take some of it onto myself, lightening it for you, but my heart did not suffer with grasping or fear.”
I don’t have the same access to the Buddha. He is fully an arahant, no longer here or available to us except through his wisdom and his path and the beauty of what he created. He has moved off beyond 8th density. He no longer holds a mental body. I can’t talk to him. But I think it might have been a bit different for him because he did suffer before his enlightenment. He did know how the suffering felt as a young man before his enlightenment. I can’t talk to him about it so I don’t know; purely conjecture.
But with Jeshua, he confirms the importance of human birth to deepen compassion. And that although he took human birth, he never forgot who he was or why he was here, so he did not suffer in the same way that those of you do who have forgotten who you are and why you are here. This in no way lessens what he came to do or has done. I have only the deepest love and reverence for this spirit. But for you, the human birth is such a gift because it is the ground for your compassion. And each of you has the capability to awaken, just as the Buddha did; to love totally and unconditionally, as Jeshua did; to know your power and trust your power to transform yourselves, your world, and the universe, and to bring love and light into this universe. This is why you have come. It does not liberate anyone to remain caught in the suffering! It brings me such joy to see you coming to a class like this, attending retreats, doing the inner work you are doing, growing in the ways you are growing.
We on the spirit plane cannot transform this Earth. We can only offer guidance. You have the power to transform this Earth into the Eden that has been promised. So, go and do it! And do it with joy and wonder. And, I understand, also with suffering. But that will gradually diminish.
At this point I want to just pass the class period to you. I’d like to hear from you. When you are stuck in human suffering, what helps you most? When you are feeling more freedom, more joy and light, what supports that for you? What helps? While these stories are private and personal to each of you, because you are all human they overlap. And coming together as sangha like this, as friends, you can so deeply each support the others.
If there are questions for me later I’ll be glad to come back, but for now that’s all I want to say. My blessings and love to you all.
(recording ends)