September 12, 2020 Saturday, Covid-19 Workshop, Part 2
Yeshua Speaks on Liberating Ourselves and the Earth into Higher Consciousness; Q&A on the Non-Duality of Giving and Receiving, and Working with Painful Catalyst
Yeshua: My love to you all. I am Yeshua. I love you very much. Thank you for allowing me to join with you today.
When I took birth on your Earth 2,000 years ago, your Earth was really in a similar time of upheaval. There was a great deal of cruelty. Many of your so-called rulers on the Earth were grounded in greed and selfishness, not caring about the people that they purportedly served but only about what they could gain for the self.
There was a lot of illness. The expected lifespan was less than half of what it is today. Simple illnesses and accidents—broken bones, burns, and so forth—often meant death. People lived in fear. Their sense of vulnerability led them to close up into a tight armor, “For me. For me. Forget you.”
I came to speak to that sense of separation, to help beings wake up and remember who and what they are, the deepest truth of being THE awakened ones. As Love said, you are love. Truly being that.
Now 2,000 years have gone by, and you’ve been inching forward into knowing this truth, but not ready to fully embrace it.
The only way you are going to survive—I don’t say this as threat, simply as wisdom—the only way you are going to survive not only Covid-19 but other viruses and bacteria, the deterioration of the environment, the forces of greed and hatred that are blossoming on the Earth are by knowing who you are.
When I say these are blossoming on the Earth, the seeds have been there. Now, you have come to this time in human history where you are ready to say, “This is Earth, the Eden we have been promised, where all shall flourish with love.” It means stepping past your personal fears and any sense of smallness you have created within yourselves.
I do not see this time on Earth as something inflicted on you, but as something that you have invited because you are ready, as Aaron has said. You have come, all of you here, come into this incarnation by free will choice, knowing, “This is the time of turning and change, and I am up to it. I choose to participate. I choose to find the one who is awake within me and live from the awakened heart, live from that radiant, divine self.”
In that final lifetime 2,000 years ago, there was much despair on the Earth. There was so much brutality, so much sickness, so much greed. So many of you heard my call. The choice is yours to perpetuate this illness of lower vibration on the Earth or to wake up. Two thousand years is not a long time to wake up. You have been given so many tools, including for all of you in your sangha—deepening wisdom, meditation practices, deepening into trust of the power of loving kindness, of gratitude, of joy.
Barbara will speak more about some of these supports later today, so I won’t go there. But I see many of you wavering back and forth, remembering who you are and starting to gain confidence. And then something happens, like these highly destructive and painful fires and the smoke on the west coast, and people pull back into their shells. Now of course, if somebody blows fire and smoke at you, you’re going to close your armor. That is wisdom. But not to stay there forever!
Aaron has talked often of the distinction between shielding and armoring. It’s appropriate when there are flames and smoke coming at you to put up a bit of a shield to make sure the fire goes around you and doesn’t harm you. My challenge to you right now is to ask yourself: in what way am I putting up armor that keeps me separate rather than allowing me to connect into this heart of love, rather than just assembling an appropriate shield, a temporary shield? How does this process of shielding allow me to move forth, blooming into divine consciousness and the fullest expression of it?
I am with you. I understand your pain; I understand your fear. I do not criticize you. But you come to me saying, “Yeshua, help us.” I will not do it for you, but I will walk with you and help you to complete the journey you have aspired to, to liberate yourselves and raise this whole Earth into higher consciousness.
At this point, I assume that it’s possible for people to ask questions. Is this correct? (Yes.) I invite your questions, my dear ones…
Q: How can I liberate myself when so many people are suffering? That really bothered me all time—how can I enjoy the gifts of life when so many people are suffering out there in the world at this time? That stops me from enjoying all the lessons of the life.
Yeshua: Thank you, Q, I hear your question. I am Yeshua. Daughter, imagine us going for a walk together 2,000 years ago. In your imagination in this story, you come from a very comfortable family with an abundance of food, of comfort. I have come into your town and you’ve said the same question. I’ve said, “Come with me, daughter. Here we have a beast of burden. Bring whatever food or blankets or whatever you wish to share.”
We go out into the countryside, you and me and numerous friends. We come to a place where it looks like there is great poverty. The people greet us, welcome us, and you say, “I have brought food and blankets and other things to share with those who have need.” These loving people, they smile at us and they say, “Thank you so much for your generosity, but I think you’ll find that a family a distance down the road, that they have real need. Bring your things there.” They serve us something to drink, and we go on our way.
Half an hour later we come to that small household, farm-hold, and we offer the same question. “We have some food here and blankets, warm clothing. What do you need?” Perhaps the mother of the household says, “We could use an extra blanket, but that’s all. There are people much more needy than us further down the road.” So, we go on down the road.
Wherever we go, people say, “Go here, go there. They have more need than I do,” because these are all people who have learned to trust their circumstances, to take what they need and give away the rest.
We do come to a few households that look like they have plenty. We do not ask them if they need anything, but they eye what we have and say, “Are you giving that away?”
“It is not for you. We are giving it to people who truly have need.”
“Oh, I have need of it!”
“I don’t think so.”
I agree with you, Q—there are people who are suffering desperately right now—hungry, in pain. But what identifies true need to me is neediness of spirit. The being who deeply feels, “I do not have enough. My needs are insatiable; they can never be met.” This is true suffering. And giving of material goods can never alleviate that suffering.
Well, what will we do with our goods on the burro that accompanies us? Let us come into this leper colony, enter the central square, unload everything onto a blanket, and make the announcement, “Please come and take what you need,” and watch what happens.
Very few people come forth to take anything. But then one person comes up and picks up a blanket, and walks to the household of a neighbor and says, “I’ve noticed your child has been cold. Please take this blanket.” Another comes up and takes a basket full of rice and takes it to another neighbor. “Why don’t you enjoy this rice?”
What I’m trying to say to you, Q, is that if you take what you have to give, whether it be material goods or simply loving energy and prayers, and offer it out, in a sense wherever this can do the most good, can you then trust, “The highest good will be served.” For some of you, I think there is fear, “I cannot do enough,” because there is some sense—shame is not the best word, but disapproval of the self because there is still fear, “Will my needs be met?” Pushing away. When you fully open yourself, knowing, “Everything I need will be given to me, and everything I don’t need, I offer out,” receiving and giving, receiving and giving, this raises the consciousness. This drops away giver and receiver and creates a climate in which all beings’ needs are met.
You ask, how can you liberate yourself when so many people are suffering? Does your lack of liberation help their suffering? Of course not. Does your limiting yourself in any way help alleviate suffering? Rather, we want to go to the heart of the giver and the receiver and eliminate that duality.
Whatever I have, everyone has. Whatever I lack, everyone lacks, and I choose to fill that lack, for the highest good of all beings. No shame in filling that lack, because as I bring more into me, there’s more to flow out. Releasing the whole idea of separation—no giver, no receiver.
I hope that’s helpful, Q. Let’s turn this to another question… (Q: Thank you so much, thank you.) My blessings to you, daughter.
Q: I’d like to go a little bit deeper—I didn’t understand something about your answer. Maybe I missed something. My question is, I understand, but how can there be no giver and no receiver? How does one really grasp that?
Yeshua: Q, I hear your question. Aaron would probably be a better one to answer this, but I shall attempt it.
Above all else in my life as Yeshua, I came to free you from the illusion of the separate self; to help you know the eternal that is in yourself, the God/Goddess/Divine Consciousness. Does God divide itself into giver and receiver?
When you feed your hungry child, is there a giver? Remember your days of feeding your children when they were infants. Holding them in your arms. Watching the joy of that infant as his sobs subsided and he began to fill himself with the nourishment that you offered him, and how much joy there was in holding him in your arms and feeling him receiving. Was there a separate giver or receiver, Q?
So this is where we’re going. On the relative plane, of course there is a giver and there is a receiver. I know you’re going to be in Dharma Path 3, and part of what we’ll be exploring there is this non-duality between giver and receiver. But for now, I would simply ask you to imagine each time you give something, anything, to anybody, even just a smile to a friend, try to put yourself at both ends and feel yourself both offering and receiving. See how when the duality between giver and receiver dissolves, how deep that connection is. Rght there is the point of raising consciousness. As long as there is giver and receiver, there is still a lower consciousness. In that moment where giver and receiver fall away, there is connection.
I hope that helps with your question.
Q: Yes, thank you very much, Yeshua.
Yeshua: Others?
Q: Every day I see objects and people that are associated with and remind me of very painful experiences. How do I manage seeing these people or objects that remind me and bring me back to painful experiences, so I don’t get caught up in the story?
Yeshua: I am Yeshua. I hear your question. Again, Aaron would be a better one to answer this, perhaps, but I will answer it in my own way.
You manage with compassion and forgiveness. When that pain arises in you, that is the point to come back to the self with compassion. Compassion does not come by avoiding the pain but by going into the depth of the pain and embracing the human who is experiencing this pain.
But so often in human experience there is the desire, perhaps the training, to be an ego managing the pain. That leads to closing one’s heart to oneself. “I should not feel pain. I won’t feel pain.” Where is the compassion there?
Compassion. Love. Forgiveness. In this case, not necessarily yet forgiveness for the person or object that caused the pain, but fully embracing the self that there was still a small self, a personal self, that experienced pain from the circumstance. “I cherish myself.” Work with the compassion meditation Aaron has taught you. Or work with a very simple forgiveness meditation. “However I have come to harm and pain through this person or these circumstances, I will find the grounds for forgiveness.”
Forgiveness is harder, so it’s more helpful, perhaps, to start with compassion. “I will find the grounds for compassion for their pain and my pain that brought us to this painful space.” And then the reverse: “However I have harmed others, I ask forgiveness.”
This is what the world needs right now more than anything else: learning to rest in the truth of what you are, the loving heart, the divine expression of Father/Mother/Love. And to know you are that.
What separates you from that knowing? Fear—I think it’s fear of your vastness and power. Are you ready to own the enormity of what you are and stop keeping yourself small? The one who feels fear and pain and shame wants to armor itself, and it’s understandable; I am not in any way condemning you for that. But I think you are ready to start to make a more conscious choice: “Here is fear. And I choose to not become caught in the stories this fear brings, because I am love. I take Yeshua’s hand. I walk with Yeshua, with Aaron, with Love, with the Mother. I am part of all of this, and this is why I came to Earth.” Remind yourself of this.
It will happen a little at a time. It doesn’t have to be a vast, “Wow! I’ve got it! I’m now changed forever!” You are truly not going to be ‘changed’; you’re only washing away the hard crust so the eternal soft heart can shine out.
Other questions?
Q: When we do not react from fear, when the heart is open and there is light coming in and then the reaction is a more loving reaction/action, does that mean that what’s coming out is not of the separate self? Because love can come from the separate self, “I will be kind,” right? “I will be kind.” Or, “Oh, I notice this reaction and I want to react with kindness.” There’s an “I” there thinking that it’s doing something. So what is the difference between love coming from that open space or love coming from a separate self?
Yeshua: I hear you, Q. Let’s imagine that we are a large group of us in a cave. The temperatures have fallen below freezing. Everyone is cold. It’s dark night. We are around the corner, the cave making a 90 degree “L”. And we are in the bend of the cave, trying to get away from some of the cold breeze, cold wind.
You have come forth with skill and lit a fire. You had the foresight to gather wood while it was still daylight. It’s very gracious of you to share your fire. You build it up as big as you can, to warm as many people as you can. But there are hundreds of people, and some cannot get the warmth from the fire yet. And there is the danger we will run out of wood. It is a relative plane warmth.
The wood is running out. People are beginning to shiver. You think, “We should go out and collect more wood,” so you ask people to go around the bend and outside. And they coming running back and say, “It’s daytime! The sun is out, and it’s warm outside!”
You think, “But I’ve built a fire!” But everybody gets up and starts to go outside. “Ah, sunlight! Sunlight! Yes!” Here’s the ultimate warmth. And then remind people, once they’re warmed up, “Please collect a lot of wood and bring it back inside so we’ll be able to stay warm tonight also.” The relative plane warmth.
Whatever you contribute from the self, and it’s not necessarily an ego that built the fire; it could be a deep place of love, but let’s say that it’s ego that says, “I’m going to build a fire. I’m going to save everyone.” Well, it’s still done a lot of good. It saved people from freezing. But remember, the sun is out there. Nobody needs to light the sun. Love is out there. When I act in ways of kindness to another, this is one expression of love of which the ego is capable. And I can do it almost from a place free of ego, or I can do it from a place of contraction and ego. “Is it enough? Did I warm enough people? What about the people in the back?” Tension. Or simply, “I offer the fire and it’s up to people to figure out how to take turns. That’s not my business; my business is just to keep the fire lit.” And then the sun comes out.
It’s never all this or all that. Simply coming back to the loving heart and the clear intention to be of the highest service to all beings, toward the elimination of suffering. I choose this.
The “I” that chooses is not a separate self. We could substitute the words, “Love chooses this.” For the human it’s never going to be 100%, but you can begin with your vipassana practice to feel the contraction. “Am I doing enough? Is it good enough?” Ah, contracting, contracting. Right here with the contraction, where is spaciousness? Opening into the spaciousness, the question “Am I doing enough?” fades away. “Here is fire; help yourself. Out there, I’m told there may be sun; help yourself. My intention is to keep the fire going for those who need it. If people will bring me wood, I will keep feeding the fire.” There is nobody feeding the fire, just loving kindness feeding the fire.
Thank you for your question. I see it’s 12:13 so I think we’ll stop here.
Remember, although you turn to me, Yeshua, and say, “You are the model of awakened love in the universe,” but it is not me, it is you. I did not come here to be somebody but to help you wake up to know who you are.
When I took birth 2,000 years ago it was not to bring somebody special into the world to make something happen. It was to bring a reflection of the truth of divine love that you are, into the world and hold it up to you are a mirror. You are awake; you are love. Whatever I can do, you can do. I am not empowering you in that way; I am reminding you. You do not need me to say you can do it, just to remind you, “You can do it.”
Aaron has told some stories like this. I remember one in which he, as Nathaniel, was trying to light a fire because we were very cold. He was older than me. He was said to have the skill that I as a younger boy did not yet have. So I watched him stumbling with this for a while, and holding a very infant lamb that was shivering. And finally, I said, “That’s enough, Nathaniel,” and turned to the fire circle and lit the fire. He said, “How did you do that?” I said, “We’ll practice it. For now, warm up.” And then, once we were warm and the lamb was warm, we put the fire out and Nathaniel practiced lighting the fire until he remembered how to light the fire!
You know how to light the fire. This is not for me to do; this is for you, to remember your divine essence, to remember who and what you are. You are love. You are divine. And you are beloved, so beloved.
Thank you, and I will have a chance to speak with you more later today.
My blessings and love to you.