Two Guided Meditations: Arising vs. Creation, Dissolution vs. Destruction, Working with the Elements and the Akashic Field; Q&A on Healing/Working with the Ever-Whole

November 24, 2020 Tuesday Evening, Dharma Path III Class

Two Guided Meditations: Arising vs. Creation, Dissolution vs. Destruction, Working with the Elements and the Akashic Field; Q&A on Healing/Working with the Ever-Whole

Barbara: I’ve heard from some of you about the feelings of sadness, a Covid Thanksgiving, everything different; the ways people are feeling isolated.

I’m sure a lot of you are familiar with Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet and his words, “Your joy and your sorrow are one.” For me, the practice recently has been how to hold them together; to not get lost in the stories of sorrow or to try to push myself into feelings of joy that are not authentic, but to find the authentic joy and to honor the sorrow. I learn to hold my heart open to myself and all beings who are feeling sorrow. I think that’s a challenge for many of us right now. And It’s a very important part of our practice, this space of non-duality, holding space for whatever is authentic in our experience without getting caught up in the stories.

When I can be authentic with myself in that way, I can feel my joy more, because it’s real. Aaron talks about everything arising out of conditions and passing away, something that’s going to be part of his topic tonight. When we center in on what arises—not even what arises, what is there when the clouds pass away, as ultimate level experience, it’s a very different experience of what’s authentic. Just, this is Essence. Very different than that which fleetingly arises out of conditions, is impermanent and passes away. When so much of that passes away, what remains?

I’ve started asking myself first thing, first thought in my head when I get up in the morning: What is the core of my heart’s experience right now? The sorrow is there. The tiredness, real levels of exhaustion, frustration—all of these are there, but they’re not the center of my experience.

The center of my experience is, – often I look out the window. My bedroom window faces east, and I see the first glimmer of sunrise, the sky turning pink through the evergreens in my yard. Joy; a new day.

So as Barbara, I wanted to share this with you. I hope this Thanksgiving will be a happy time for you, along with being sad or frustrated or lonely, or whatever it may be; that you can find true joy in whatever may be there.

Dare I say, as a laugh, that on the TV news I was watching with Hal an hour ago, there was Trump pardoning a turkey! (laughing) May we all be pardoned. May we all feel that love of feeling the pardon of the sun and the moon and the stars, the kiss from the breeze.

Okay, enough rambling from me. I will bring in Aaron…

Aaron: My blessings and love to you all. I am Aaron. Much of my opening talk tonight will be as guided meditations, probably one running into the other, to some degree.

Barbara and I had a deep discussion this week about arising and dissolution versus creation and destruction. Perhaps immediately with my words you can feel the subtle difference. Arising versus creation; dissolution versus destruction. None are good or bad, better or worse, but it is useful to explore the distinction.

Rather than try to explain these differences in words, I want to simply lead a guided meditation and see if you can begin to feel the differences. We’re going to look at the distinction between objects arising out of the All Ground or the akashic field, out of the Unconditioned, and there being a somebody with intention that creates or participates in, or even merely invites the arising of creation and destruction.

I’m going to invite you to get into a comfortable position. I’ll break this meditation up into at least two parts with a stretch in the middle; maybe more parts so that you can work with them one at a time when you re-listen to them. So, please become comfortable. Eyes open or closed, as you prefer.

Visualize the following scenario. You live in a valley with the mountains high above you. You grow many crops for your own use and some to sell, and these crops are dependent on adequate rainfall, adequate water. In the mountains high above there are vast snowfields. There is a river that runs off very full and large, most years, in the spring, coming down the mountain and meandering many miles through your valley; retained finally as a 10-mile-long, shallow lake held back by a dam before it descends back down further into the valley. From the lake are many dug channels carrying water to the upper fields.

For a number of years there was inadequate snowmelt and the level of the lake dropped. There was an intention to store more water, so the dam top was raised, new concrete built across it so that more water could be stored before it poured over into the lower valley, where there is always an abundance of water from other distant peaks.

So, please picture this if you can. You have your fields, and because there has been some degree of drought, the higher fields and the earth are parched. Food supply is at risk.

The dam, with its new, added height, holds back the lake with more water, higher shoreline, so that in theory there will be enough. And there’s still water flowing over the dam to supply the crops downstream. But the lake is low.

There is a meeting of the citizens, everybody talking about the parched earth and the need to bring more water in, because as summer progresses the water in the dam will fall lower again. Many people want to create deep channels from higher up in the mountains to further fill the lake. While these ideas come from loving intention, can you feel a sense of imbalance, trying to push Nature this way or that way?

For now, we’re going to look at the idea of creating—the plan to create adequate water for the farming needs, and to make sure there is still adequate water flowing over the dam for the needs of those further down the valley. It sounds like a loving intention. Is there perhaps a bit of fear behind it, or is there just wisdom? Can you feel a subtle bit of contraction, “Our needs may not be met so we have to do this.”?

Some of you may feel that contraction; some not. It’s fine either way. We talk a lot about co-creating but there is the question: who co-creates? And how is that co-creation invited?

I want you to think of this plan now as if you are the farmer with many hundreds of acres of foodstuff that will grow, and with cattle, sheep, goats and other livestock. See if you can feel even the most subtle bit of contraction of, “Will our needs be met?” And I’m phrasing that specifically as our needs, not just your needs.

Can you feel how you might then come together with many neighbors in a meeting and say we should do this; we should do that. “We should more fully control the flow of water over the dam to keep the reservoir water level high. We should put in a network of pipes way up the mountain to catch more of the runoff so it does not flow away from us, into other directions. We should bring irrigation pipes from the mountains, more fully out to the fields.” You can hold this in your heart and say, “We choose to co-create this for the highest good.” And yes, this can be skillful; I’m not talking about skillful versus not skillful. We’re talking here about co-creation that includes the earth, water, winds and fire, includes all sentient beings that need the water too, and need all the elements.

When you co-create, it works best when you are doing so from the Unconditioned, rather than as a conditioned entity making or even gently inviting this or that to happen.

I’d first like you to just spend a minute or two envisioning this scenario and any subtle bit of, I don’t even want to call it ego, but unfulfilled need, confusion, that wants to act or even just to invite it to be different without consulting the largest picture. For example, the elements themselves; and going into the field itself and finding out what is available or what blocks that availability.

Let’s take Step One first. I’ve painted the picture. How are you going to create to supply the water needs for yourself and your neighbors? Are you going to call a meeting and plan additional piping? Hold back water from the dam? How are you going to do it? Maybe you’re going to do a rain dance—who knows? Just think about it for a minute, the question: What will I do? And WHO is doing it?

I’ll be quiet now for a minute…

(long pause)

This is one path of creation, co-creation, and there’s nothing bad about it. But there is a subtle bit of efforting from the self. Perhaps you can feel that.

Everything in this conditioned realm arises when the conditions are present for it to arise. It takes a lot of trust to invite wholesome conditions–which is another form of creating, yes, but you’re not creating the conditions, you’re making space for the conditions that already exist– and trust that when the conditions are present, you can invite what is for the highest good.

To allow something to arise, to invite it to arise, is to step into the Unconditioned with open arms, into the All Ground, akashic field—these are not synonymous entirely, but it’s not worth our attention at this point to get into the semantics of the differences. Some of you understand these words one way, some another, but let’s consider them similar enough to lump them together for now.

Everything arising out of the Unconditioned, out of the akashic field, out of the All Ground. This settles into a knowing that what you aspire to invite to arise, already is. The conditions are present for it to arise. It lies dormant. It simply has not yet fully arisen. You invite it. If it is unwholesome, yes, the conditions are still there but since your emphasis is on, “for the highest good,” you are not inviting it. Your invitation is a vital part of this arising,

There’s a certain relaxation and trust here that’s very different from, “We have to do this, do that, do the next thing.” I think the difference is a certainty, “It already is.” You don’t have to do anything to ensure that the sun will arise tomorrow. If you have some special need of sunshine you might hope it will shine through the clouds, but you can’t push the clouds away, you can’t turn the earth. The conditions are already there, and the sun will rise, even if you may not be able to see it because of heavy clouds.

Everything that you need is there within the Unconditioned. Sometimes you have to just get out of the way of your need or fear and allow it to show itself.

Let’s look at this whole need of water in a slightly different way, then. You’ve noticed how low the lake is, and it’s still spring. You go out and feel the earth. It’s very cracked and dry. It’s been a dry winter. It has been very cold in the mountains. The small amount of snow is all up in the mountains; not too much water has come down into the valley.

Sit, now, with your friends, your neighbors and really feel the earth, the earth element. Feel the dryness of the air. Observe the enormous snow piles up high in the mountains. But it’s already June and they should be melting, should have been coming down and filling the reservoir. It is too cold in the peaks. Fire element is lacking. But too much fire element would cause other challenges.

So, the earth element is lacking in water—we could phrase it in that way, but we need to go deeper. Just as an experiment, let’s use each of our own bodies as a metaphor for the earth. You can feel this better in your own body. What is the earth element like in your own body? Does it feel heavy? Dry? Hot? Or perhaps it feels muddy, marshy, unable to hold onto more water, so water is just flowing through, not connecting to the earth

How is the fire element in your body? Sometimes when there’s fear the fire element can be very high, so it dries up the water element, leaving you with a very parched, compacted earth element. Or the air element may be out of balance, the wind, creating a solid mass in which fire cannot thrive. Air element restricted, thus fire element restricted. In a subtle attempt to create balance the water pulls back, sensing the imbalance, lack of air and fire. And then the earth is left hard and cracked and dry.

These are some things that could be happening in your body. It’s your body, you’ll have to look for yourself. My work for you is not to spell out an answer but rather, to invite you to look and ask, where is balance? Then, Ahh, opening…

Just gently hold the intention and invite, at first inviting just the perception, “What more is needed here to bring this whole physical body into balance?” You practice on your own body before you practice on the earth body, to learn the skill. What is needed? It will differ from one to another.

Start with the intention, “I choose for this heavy vibrational body to be balanced – earth, air, fire, water, and energy. I invite understanding of what may throw it out of balance. Whatever may be lacking, I invite it.”

Yes, subtly you’re creating, I understand that. But you’re also stabilizing the conditions that are necessary for that which you invite to manifest, to arise. When the conditions are present, it will arise.

If there’s not enough water or movement in the body, energy becomes stagnant. Then grasping can come up, wanting to fix it. And that grasping creates more constriction, and on it goes.

What does this body need to become more fully balanced? What needs to further arise, or to release? “I invite this body in all ways, to become balanced, open, so that there may be fire’s energy, so that there may be an earth to hold it together, a flow of water and air keeping everything in motion. I invite this.” Take a few minutes with this, and I’ll talk more…

(pause)

If you find any imbalance, it’s not necessary to try to fix it. But instead, go through to that which is already balanced and see it as it is. “Thank you for this balance, thank you.”

But perhaps you discover ways in which balance gives you power, and maybe there’s some fear in that power. Is there something within you that resists inviting balance? Not creating balance; that assumes it doesn’t already exist. Inviting the opening of the balance that is truly there. I’ll be quiet…

(pause)

Thank you. Now let’s take this another step. I’m basically breaking this up into four parts, and you can work with any one part or all of them together.

Whatever has the nature to arise has the nature to cease. When the conditions cease, it will cease.

An imbalance in the elements within the body, within the world, this has arisen from conditions and it will dissolve.

I want you to feel the difference between natural dissolution of that which is unwholesome or imbalanced, and destruction of something to get at something else. There is nothing to destroy and no one to destroy it. Its existence is in many ways an illusion, although a very powerful illusion. Fear, hatred, disease, hunger, drought—very powerful illusions. In your mundane world you must treat them as real and take care of them. And yet, if you fixate on that reality you hold it in place.

Then sometimes you believe, “This is not wholesome. I must get rid of it.” Then you bring in a contracted energy as if to destroy it, rather than attending to the conditions and finding that which is already balanced within the Unconditioned, within the akashic field.

And then letting go of what has arisen. Holding the intention to invite dissolution of that which is unwholesome, not to maintain that which is unwholesome in the self and in the world. To truly visualize the possibility of a world of love, of harmony, of joy. And ask gently, “Anything block this?” If you see something, just hold space for it and invite its dissolution. You don’t have to destroy it.

Right now, there is a great deal of hatred and fear in the world. How would you destroy hatred and fear? What does it mean to allow it to dissolve? In other words, to see deeply to some of that which holds it in place and know that it can be let go.

While it’s a very powerful illusion—fear, hatred, greed—it’s still an illusion. But when you move to destroy it, you give it energy. When you rest there, really at the edge between—let me put it this way. We’ve shortened our bridge. Instead of a long bridge, we have a bridge where the edges of relative and ultimate come together, nirmanakaya and Dharmakaya, and you rest right at that point. Deeply grounded in the Dharmakaya, watching the mundane world rising and falling away, rising and falling away, and the myriad efforts from so many beings either to hold onto that which is somewhat contracted and in service to self because of personal fear and greed, or to get rid of it because its presence makes you uncomfortable, because you want a world that’s loving.

But the world that is grounded in love, this is what you started with; this Earth deeply grounded in positive polarity.

From Aaron’s as yet unpublished book Teachings: he has asked it be included here.

Aaron: Of course I was not here. I do not speak from personal experience. My understanding of it, from my present experience and my teachers, is that the infinite truly is infinite. It did not begin with a “big bang”. There has always been energy. One can conjecture that that energy was neutral in its polarity and through its increasing experience, moved toward positive polarity until it became the model of positive polarity.

. . .

In one sense, we would not say that this (All that Is) is only neutral. It is positively polarized. We cannot say it no longer contains negativity. If that were so, there would be a duality. It is in its essence neutral with the free will decision to enact its positivity and not to get caught in the stories of its negativity. This power of intention is very important. It is not an intention enacted through force, control or further negativity, but an intention enacted based on lovingkindness.

This All-That-Is in the ultimate sense does remain neutral. But increasingly it chose to express its positivity and to release its negativity without expression. I think it is merely a semantic question whether one will call it neutral or positive. Suffice it to say that it is neutral, expressing positivity.

In the beginning, perhaps it played with both expressions of its being. To be true to its non-dual nature, it saw that to express its negativity was to injure itself and to reap the karma of that injury. I would perceive that it understood immediately that as soon as it acted in a dualistic way, it brought itself into the field of karma. Only when it acted resonant with its true non-dualistic nature could it continue free of karma.

Let me talk less for the moment, give you a bit more of the meditation. We’ll conclude the meditation and then I’ll talk some more.

So I want to invite you to really straddle that line, Dharmakaya and nirmanakaya. Feeling the power of love, of intention to service to all beings and harm to none. Truly knowing the possibility of a world that is so much in balance that there is never any need for fear.

From that vantage point, watch as the Earth contracts, unbalanced. Heavy cracked clay. Watch as beings come running through, equally contracted, their bodies—physical, emotional, mental—as heavy, cracked clay.

For yourself, for others, simply hold out your arms and say, “Pause, please. Here is everything you need.” Everything balanced arising out of conditions, and that which is imbalanced out of fear and contraction, simply dissolving and passing away. What remains?

You might picture here, as you’re sitting in your valley, thousands of people suddenly appear, running in from another valley. They are bleeding, they are gaunt, they are terrified. “Demons are following us!”

Your job is not to destroy those demons but to help yourself and others move to the point where the demons dissolve. You may count yourself as one who is speaking to those fleeing the demons or as one who is fleeing the demons, and asking, “Where do I go from here?” So, speak to the others or speak to yourself. Again, I’m going to be quiet…

(pause)

Can you feel the difference between destruction—a slightly, even very slightly contracted self, trying to get rid of something, even for loving reasons—versus allowing what has arisen to dissolve as the conditions for its presence dissolve in the loving heart, as you come back to that which is innately balanced and grounded in love?

(pause)

If we had another hour of class time, I would leave 15, 20 minutes for these meditations. But I think with the recording you can follow and give yourself the time you need to explore.

We invite, we open the space for that which is wholesome to more fully arise out of the Unconditioned. We invite and open the space for that which is more narrowly in service to self, and not for the highest good of all beings, to dissolve, leaving that which is wholesome in its place. There’s a beautiful flow here.

(pause)

Everything in the conditioned realm will arise when the conditions are present for it. Your work is to get to better know what those conditions are. As these terrified people passed through, could you feel that your heart did know what to say to them? It truly did. You didn’t have to get out your weapons and chase the demons, but to rest in the place where the demons do not exist, and to know this is so.

I’m going to give you a few minutes to stretch here, and then there’s more I want to say about this. So we’ll take a 5 minute pause here so you can stretch a bit, then come for me to say a bit more, and then hear your questions. I thank you.

(break)

Aaron: I am Aaron, inviting you to come back…

A few more thoughts from me here, this outside of the guided meditation. Your Earth has been, for quite a while, in the process of transition to a higher density planet. Many of you as human came here to support this transition. The transition is not going to happen without you.

We see some very uncomfortable things that are happening in the world—environmental destruction, a virus that is killing so many people, strong political oppositionality and rage. There’s that saying that’s probably familiar to many of you: If you’re not part of the solution, you are part of the problem. Which way is it going to be?

The image that comes to my mind is that of a group of people that have lived inland from the sea, in somewhat parched conditions. Someone says, “We’re going on a long hike to the sea.” They walk and they walk, and they have no real concept of the sea. They reach a high hill, and miles away in the distance they can see the ocean. People scream, “No!! I’m not going there! Too much water!” Some humans—I’m not saying you, but some humans—are saying, “I’m not going there—too much freedom, too much responsibility.” Well, make up your minds.

There is nothing to create, there is nothing to destroy, there is only the power that is inherent in your essence, which is the essence of All That iIs, the power of love that is able to fully invite that which is wholesome and release that which is unwholesome.

To create and to destroy are third density concepts. Invite to arise and allow to dissolve are fourth density concepts. Are you ready for it?

At this point, I’ll open this to sharing and questions.

Q: I’ve long had the vision that as 4th density develops, humans will be able to gather in small groups, join themselves in a vibrational exercise of conscious joining, and then invite environmental conditions to bring rain or sun or whatever is required to bring balance into that arena at that time. Is that correct?

Aaron: Absolutely. That is 100% correct. And many of you already understand how to do this. I think you move into old patterns of fear because you are afraid of being that powerful to be able to co-create in those ways.

Many of you have heard me speak of lifetimes where I lived in what are considered very primitive areas of the world—the Australian Outback, for example, aborigines. Where if a group were running and somebody’s foot went into a hole and they broke their leg, the group would gather around that person, seeing both the break and that which was not broken. Obviously, with a compound fracture they would need to be pulled so that the bone ends met. Just that. If a simple fracture, not even that.

And then the group as a whole, envisioning the perfectly knitted bone, the ever-whole, would sing, toning and singing to that bone for a few hours sometimes, while the person with the broken leg lay on the ground absorbing that energy and visualizing the leg healed. Within 2 or 3 hours at most, the person would be able to get up and run again, the bone knitted. The break was an illusion, though a temporarily painful one. Usually the group, unless it was vital for it to move on, would rest for an overnight period to make sure that everything was released that needed to be released and drawn together as was needed. But there was no idea of break or distortion, only as a temporary condition.

In a similar way, in my lifetime as Aaron (before my lifetime as Nathaniel in Yeshua’s time) I lived—I cannot give it to you in years, but many, many hundreds of years, by moving into a situation where with the help of others I rested and revitalized the body, and helped the body to remember its original form, its original and perfect expression. Releasing any illness, releasing any damage to body parts. Rejuvenating the body. This was a known practice among certain people in those days. And then taking on an age which I wished to present the body. I didn’t want to go back and look like a 6-year-old. But often I would choose an age in my early 20s, a vital body, and strong.

Within the community, people knew that we did this. People would look and say, “Ah, you revitalized yourself!” But because we lived with other people around, often we would choose that time to move to another community where we would not be known, because those who did not have these skills were suspicious of them, frightened by them.

You have so much power. We’ve talked about the changes in DNA long ago, because you had not yet come to a place where you could trust yourself not to enact the heavy emotions. Finding yourself as human, the heavy emotions did arise, and if you had the power that you had before the shift in DNA, you could truly destroy. But now, so many of you are rekindling those DNA linkages. You are ready to enact your power.

This is not to create so much as to invite. What does that mean to you?

Q: Your vision of people toning to heal is interesting to me. I’ve been toning for a number of years as part of self-healing for all kinds of things. But I broke my knee about 10 years ago. The surgeon who saw me said it was the worst break she’d ever seen. I pulled the ACL right off of the bone. She said she wasn’t capable of doing the surgery, so she sent me to another surgeon, who I couldn’t get in to see for a few weeks. So I toned into my knee for that time, and when I went to the new surgeon and they did the new x-rays, it had healed itself.

This is true, it’s all true, and it’s documented. But I find myself doubting it and am embarrassed to tell people. So I just wanted to say that.

Aaron: I honor you for trusting in yourself and in your own inner guidance, and in inviting, I would not call it the healing but the return to ever-healed of the knee.

Barbara experienced something 10 years ago with her big toe. The x-ray showed it broken. She was not able to do any treatment for it immediately. I suggested she simply sing to it. Within 3 days she was walking on it without pain. She never went back for further x-rays, it seemed pointless, so she doesn’t have the proof that it healed, only that the first x-ray showed it broken and 3 days later it was pain-free.

You can do this, you truly can. Others?

Q: We’re talking about physical healing of the body, but what about emotional healing, relationships. I’ve gone through a divorce, and as a result of that divorce I’ve lost every family member that I’ve known… So there’s a lot of pain that I carry. When I sit, I send metta and sympathetic joy, I enter the abodes of the heart. And I’m seeking to send healing and comfort and compassion to my former husband and…. I’m wondering about the capacity not to get things the way I would like them to be, but to hold the highest good for all of us, because this just seems so harsh and outcome of a divorce. Could you speak to how we can heal relationships in this same way?

Aaron: I hear your question, thank you. Healing a relationship is harder because it involves another person, and they may not be as fully ready to let go as you are. You can heal how you relate to this loss, but you cannot necessarily force another person along with you.

Healing the emotional body is actually harder than healing the physical body. I think you all have the ability to imagine the ever-whole, healthy physical body more easily than you have the ability to imagine and know the emotional body free of pain, of fear, of grief. These emotions grounded in fear and loss are the habit of so many lifetimes. I can only invite you to trust the process and know how many beings have healed of very severe emotional pain, have become truly radiant beacons of light to the whole world. But it takes much courage and persistence, and the support of a sangha, as you have here.

I would like, just as a show of hands—and we can only see half of you on the screen, I guess—but how many, I’m not saying have experienced complete emotional healing, but how many of you have experienced in some way in your life very profound emotional healing? So Q, I hope that can help support you, support your trust.

Q: Thank you. I feel like I’m on the way to healing myself because of the teachings. But I’m concerned about my (former family members), and so I guess I just keep sending metta and holding my former family members in my heart. That’s the only thing I know to do.

Aaron: And it’s really all you can do, and it is enough, Q. You may not even see results in this lifetime, although I would pray for you that you do. But you may not. But karmically, as you are no longer involved in whatever tangle but have found true healing in yourself, it offers the conditions out of which their healing can come.

Q: Thank you.

Aaron: Trust your loving heart. Trust your practice. You’re doing fine. And that does mean no pain. I know there can be enormous pain.

There’s a story I’d like to share here. This is told by an acquaintance some years ago, actually Stephen Levine. Many of you have read his works, at least; even if you have never met him. Stephen told a story of a friend who was in a wheelchair. It was raining, it was at night. He had gone out of his house to pick up something to eat or whatever, on a rainy night. His wheelchair went off the edge of a curb and fell on the ground. It was cold, it was dark, it was raining. There was nobody on the street.

He lay there in pain and crying. Not badly injured, not physical pain, just angry and frustrated and a bit bruised, saying, “Why me? Why me? Why me?” An hour or two passed and gradually the question became, “Why not me?” And with that “Why not me?”, really understanding that his pain was as the whole world’s pain, that this is the human condition, he then began to say, “All right. I can’t get myself up, but it’s up to me whether I suffer or not from lying here on the ground. I’m not badly hurt. My ego is wounded a bit. I have a few bumps. I’m a little damp. But how many people are suffering so much more than I am tonight, with helplessness, lost in war, hunger and cold? Why not me? I am all beings. I hold this in love.” And this man experienced so much healing from that. No, it did not get him up out of his wheelchair, but his heart was healed.

Let’s hear from others, questions or things you’d like to share.

Q: When things are expressed out of the akashic field, is it the elements that are expressed into the various forms that we see and feel here?

Aaron: The elements express both in form and through the emotions, in thought—the elements express in every different way, form and formless. But I would say that everything that expresses out of the akashic field first expresses through the elements and then takes whatever kind of form it will take. Anger is a kind of form, a broken leg is a kind of form, and so forth.

Q: So when we work in the akashic field and co-create, we are working with the elements?

Aaron: Correct. It’s not always necessary to think about it in terms of the elements, but it’s often helpful. Because usually when something is arising in a distorted way it’s because there is some imbalance in the elements—earth, air, fire, water, energy, all of these elements.

On the ultimate level, nothing is ever unbalanced. So when in meditation you can begin to see how you have held it at a level separate from the ever-perfect, you can begin to understand why this may be happening. You may begin to have some insight into the karma of it. Or it may simply be enough to say, “I choose to release this. I choose.”

Barbara has been working with this, the scar here. It’s a long scar from right below her ear to all the way down there toward the shoulder, and quite deep. It’s often healing and then becoming inflamed again and painful.

She’s been looking at this, at the way she carries the chin this way and her body that doesn’t permit energy to flow through. She’s been looking at it in terms of, if I am sick, I have an excuse for backing away and not having to take responsibility. What does it mean to take responsibility? The whole idea of “I should be able to fix things.” And I said, “Is that so? Let it go.” Come back to the ever-perfect, nothing to fix. Just inviting that which is the most wholesome for all beings and with love. As she works with energy in that way, gradually it’s healing better. Just one example.

Q: I wanted to mention that the work with the toning in small groups, this is something that Wiccans do. They get together and they create an intention in a circle and do what’s called raising a cone of power, to then release that to whatever healing, or changes <for the positive> that they want to make as a group, as a coven. I also found that that is the kind of work that we did working in the healing group, where we do healing circles, except that it wasn’t necessarily toning, although that was sometimes used, and drumming. There’s a lot of working through the akashic field with either elements or with guides or devas.

Aaron: Yes, thank you for bringing this up. In many shamanic traditions, journeying, drumming, these are all intended to invite balance, to invite the consciousness of the ever-present balance right there with the illusion of imbalance, and to know, “I choose the balance. I invite it.”

For some of you it will be helpful to work with the elements; for others, not so helpful. It may be too precise, and it may be more helpful to see the resistance to allow space or energy and just come back with, “I invite. I choose. I open to. Where is the ever-healed?”

January 23-30, John, Barbara, and Tavis Taylor will be leading a weeklong workshop on healing and the ever-healed, in which we’ll be looking at a lot of these principles. Other spirit and I participating, also.

Others?

Q: I have an appointment in about a week to see an orthopedic surgeon about having a hip replacement. This would be to correct a condition that I’ve been sort of nursing along for maybe almost 10 years. Hearing what was said tonight, I feel like, I don’t know, should I wait? Should I attempt to learn toning? I’m just, I don’t know, I’m just kind of puzzled, I guess, at this point. I feel like I don’t know how. This is all relatively new to me, this possibility. I guess I would just like some guidance.

Aaron: There is no “I should”, there is only “I choose.” I choose to invite the highest possible healing for the highest good of myself and all beings. I choose to understand what may block the highest expression of healing. If this damage comes as a teacher, which of course it always does, am I learning what has come to me to learn? Can I open myself further to that and understand it, see where resistance to that learning comes?

Once one is ready to open to the reality of healing, there are many possibilities. It still may take surgery; it may not.

Many years ago, Barbara through various conditions developed a severe hernia that caused a lot of pain. The tissue, the intestine, kept popping out through the tear, causing very severe pain. She worked with it for almost a year using various friends helping with different kinds of energetic support, through meditation, through toning. Finally, she felt inwardly, “It’s time for the surgery.” When she went to the doctor who had said, “I can’t operate yet. It’s too severe, it has to settle down a bit,” he finally said yes.

He thought she would be in the hospital for several days, that he would have to put in a big mesh patch. He did the surgery. She woke up maybe an hour later in the recovery room and was told it did not need a patch. It was almost completely closed up on its own. “You can go home.”

So she needed the surgery to finish the work; she couldn’t quite do that. That’s okay. But energetically so much of it did heal.

Q, what I suggest to you is to talk to Isabel in Brazil and see if she can take your photograph to the Casa. While Joao is not there, the entities are still there and doing surgery. See if a Casa intervention would be helpful. Use the time of the intervention, that whole week, for time to reflect on:

What is this hip damage about? In what ways am I reluctant to bear my own weight, for example? That may or may not apply; just tossing it out.

What is the reality of this hip other than simply the conditions of aging and wear and tear?

How can I bring it back to a more wholesome place where if surgery is needed, perhaps it will be a much less invasive and difficult surgery?

So just consider that as a possibility. I don’t know if Isabel is on tonight, but you will have her email in the class list, so you can talk to her that way.

Q: Thank you, that’s very helpful.

Q: As I’m hearing this, and the pieces do make sense, I’ve been struggling with this thing of humility. I don’t want to say I get stuck—no, I do get stuck. Let’s be real about it, I do get stuck, between the balance of humility and the following the faith of what you’re saying. Could you just speak to the role of humility, please.

Aaron: Q, were you in Venture Fourth? (Q: No.) I’m going to ask Barbara to send you a lot of materials about humility versus pride, with which we worked extensively in Venture Fourth. Taking this and other seeming opposites. (this is attached)

Humility and pride are first felt as separate. We want them to come together. Pride over-inflates the self. Humility, though, can deplete the self. Where does it come together?

When a thought comes of, “I’m not good enough,” there’s often an accompanying thought, “I want to be good enough,” or “I am SO good enough,” or a sense of pride, “Look how good I really am,” and then shame about that. This insight is a wonderful mindfulness practice.

We drew this out of the Mussar Jewish teachings and I elaborated on it. If Barbara can find it in a concise way—when I say concise, it may be 20 or 30 pages, but it must be in her computer files, and I will have her send it out to all of you for you to use it or not as suits you. It’s not just about humility and pride, it’s about all these seeming opposites—intelligent or dull; creative or not creative; patient or not patient; generous or selfish. These are wonderful mindfulness practices.

Q: Thank you.

Q: Just to clarify on the humility, it’s not a matter of putting the self down but just an accurate self-assessment. You know, acknowledging what we are good at, what we are capable of, and not getting down on ourselves, or making ourselves less than we are. It’s the true view of who we are.

Q: May I add, not to jump in too fast, but in the time that I have spent for years in AA meetings, there is one of the 12 Steps that talks about having humility, which is difficult for a lot of people to hear and process at first. I was told to think of humility as, simply to define it as open and teachable. That it has nothing to do with ego.

Aaron: Thank you, Q. Very sensible, very clear.

Q: One of my sticking points in creating, and I had it in the exercise tonight, is having the discernment to know what is for the good of all and what is an expression of my ego. In the exercise tonight I asked the question, what would Nature want? What was happening with Nature? Rather than how do I get water. And I don’t know if that’s—I’m still at the very beginning of learning how to do this, so any guidance would be appreciated.

Aaron: I think that’s a very sensible approach, Q. I would phrase it a little differently because here you’re talking just about nature. But asking either what does the least harm, what does the greatest good. The brain doesn’t have to understand this, just, “I choose. I invite, holding tight to the intention to do no harm, to do only good. And I allow myself to be the place wherein that highest good can flow.” This is humility. It may sound like, “Oh, me, I can do that.” But not at all. It’s rather to trust that I, and you and you and you and you, each of us together can be the place that love shines through.

A beautiful poem from our friend Karen many years ago, familiar I guess to some of you.

I am the place where God shines through

For God and I are One, not two.

I need not fret nor will nor plan

God wants me where and as I am.

If I’ll just be relaxed and free,

She’ll carry out her plan through me.

I’m curious what some others of you experienced in these meditations.

Q: I felt and understood my being to be more of a vessel, a conduit, connected to the earth and to the highest intentions. I only wish I could remember that feeling more often, but the meditation really gave me a clear sense of that conduit that the human is. Thank you.

Q: What I came to see very clearly, kind of like what Q said, is that the dissolution is very much a letting go, a letting go of expectations, a letting go of results, which I saw very clearly was an ego-based wanting to control. So that’s what I saw tonight. Thank you.

Q: What I experienced was feeling that I couldn’t do it. This has happened to me a lot this semester with the meditations—it hasn’t brought me to a place of opening, it’s brought me to a place of fear and feeling like I can’t do it, and shame. Feeling like I don’t belong, like I’m never going to be able to do it, or it’s really far away. So it’s been really challenging.

Aaron: I’m sorry to hear it’s been so challenging for you. And yet I think, based on hearing of that challenge, you’re moving closer and closer to some very openhearted results. I would like to ask you to trust the practice. I know you’re somewhat newer to vipassana than some in the class.

Going to the full screen here where we see all your pictures…asking for a show of hands. This is for Q. How many of you at some points in your years of practice have felt as she is feeling, “I can’t do it.”? Feeling ashamed, feeling stuck… And how many of you have found yourself moving beyond that?

So Q, I hope that may be a little bit helpful to you, just to see that you’re not alone in this. And to ask you, based on the experience of others in the sangha, to trust, “I can do this. I choose to do it. I choose to open in these ways. I choose to grow,” because of the deep commitment you have to living in a higher consciousness, to healing, to loving.

I would invite you to do loving kindness meditation for yourself regularly. Holding the child who has felt shame, perhaps since a very young age. Just holding her in your heart and wishing her well, and telling her how much she is loved. Can you try that?

I see that it’s 2 minutes to 9pm, so we need to stop here. I’m going to release the body to Barbara, as she may have a few final words.

My love to you all. I wish you that your hearts hold so much for which you may be thankful this week. That your hearts truly open with joy. May you be well and happy. May all beings be well and happy.

I am Aaron. I release the body…

Barbara: Thank you, Aaron… I wish you all a happy Thanksgiving, as Aaron says he just wished you. For me these past 2 months have been tough. I haven’t been able to exercise because of the stitches in my body, both energetic and physical. I haven’t had much energy. I haven’t eaten well because I haven’t had much energy. I’m falling apart!

So I made the decision, with Aaron’s support: I will be here next week for the small groups and in two weeks for the Dharma Path class, but that’s all; that’s the extent of the work I’m going to be doing for the next 20 days or so. I think I have one personal meeting with someone tomorrow. Other than that I’m just going to be on retreat.

So hold me in your hearts. And I expect to see you again feeling more energized. Much love to you all.