March 2, 2021 Tuesday Evening, Dharma Path III Class
Finding the Heart of Light in the Darkness: What is Heaven (For You)?; Heaven and the Brahma Viharas
Barbara: Tonight, we don’t have a new guided meditation—we’re still working with those from the past 2 classes—but rather, a big-picture talk from Aaron, and a little bit from me first. Mine is mostly background for what Aaron will talk about.
I’ve had an interesting couple of weeks—not just these 2 weeks but maybe the whole month—of deepened learning about the densities. I’ve been looking at the big picture of our work on Earth. Aaron and other entities have been talking to me a lot. I’m not going to talk too much here, mostly leave it to Aaron. But we all keep asking, what is this crazy plane of suffering about?
Many of you, and me included, came to dharma practice with the idea, “I’m going to find liberation, maybe not final liberation but well on the way. I’m out of here.” And of course, as we’ve matured, we’ve learned it doesn’t work that way.
I don’t usually find strong visual images when I meditate; more, it’s just spaciousness and quiet, objects just arising and passing away. And then that whole movement of arising and passing away stops, just stillness. Little blips—I’m not in a dissolution experience, usually, but strong access concentration.
But repeatedly over a couple of days, an image came to me. Usually, I would note it as image and let it go, but I decided to follow it. I found myself in the bottom of what seemed like a deep well. ‘Well’ is probably not the right word—it wasn’t a narrow shaft, it was big, but I could see a little circle of light at the top, and I was way, way down at the bottom.
There was a long ladder hanging down. Now, this Barbara body can’t climb such a ladder. I could have when I was 10 years old, but not now. But in the meditation, it became simple—okay, just take the ladder one rung at a time, feet and hands, and begin to climb.
This is in a sense the reverse of our Entering the Cave meditation. I found myself at the bottom of a deep cave hole with a light at the top. Around me I could hear beings crying out in pain and fear, loneliness. It was a kind of eerie crescendo of pain. Grab the ladder—”I’m out of here!” Now, wait a minute—I can’t really do that, can I?
Standing at the bottom, my heart was saying to those in pain, “There’s a light up there. It’s up to you; I can’t carry you up the ladder, but that’s the way, up the ladder.” And then it was no longer a ladder that could only hold one person at a time but multiple ladders. Beings were climbing as I pointed to the light. Some beings saying, “Oh no, I can’t climb.” Or getting a little way up and saying, “No, I’m gonna fall.”
I could feel my sense of responsibility, “I have to get them all out of here!” And then a, “No. Only they can get themselves out of here. I can’t do that for them.” But I can stand here in the darkness knowing the non-duality of light and darkness and just stand here and hold this space of love and point to the light at the top.
I also found myself encouraging when people could not climb the ladder, to say, “A little bit more practice and you’ll be able to do it.” Giving people hugs. We do what it takes! A little assistance, a little push for those who couldn’t quite do it. A hug and reminder, “When you try it again, it will be a little easier. Keep flexing your muscles, your spiritual muscles.”
So that was Step 1, that meditation that repeated itself several days. I found myself increasingly at ease. Again, the non-duality of light and darkness. The light up there is right here in my heart, even if I’m at the bottom of my ladder. And the darkness is still up there. Not creating a duality out of it.
Part 2. Increasingly, I found myself in a kind of odd situation of speaking into several different, 4 or 5 different 4th density groups, social memory complex groups. Speaking to who, I don’t know—a representative of the group, but distinct groups. They didn’t define themselves, just said, “We are this group,” and gave a name. “We are this group,” “We are this group,” different groups.
They were each 4th density groups who had never been in 3rd density. And they were asking me—not challenging me, really wanting to know—”Why are you going through all that mess and pain of 3rd density?” They weren’t trying to convince me not to. It was fine with them if I wanted to. But they couldn’t understand it. “We’ve been through 2nd density and now we want to go on up into the light.” And I found myself repeating to them, “You have to learn compassion first.”
There’s no shortcut to spiritual awakening. We have to go through this heavier density 3D plane and then move onward from there. It’s not that we don’t gain wisdom in 3rd density, but that’s a kind of an afterthought. The most important thing is the growth of compassion. The opening of the compassionate, loving heart, and really grounding ourselves in that, what I think of as awakened heart.
It’s been interesting, because they’re not really arguing with me. I’m not telling them, “You have to do 3rd density.” I’m just explaining as quietly and lovingly as I can why I find it important. It’s clear that I have their attention, because they come back and ask again and again. They’re really trying to figure it out. “Why would you want to go into that place of pain and darkness?” It’s not that I want to, it’s that I choose to because this is a viable path.
I’ve heard from some of these entities, “Our path is fine,” and seen how they’re approaching 5th density. I can see clearly from where I am that they can go as far as 6th density, perhaps, but they can’t go any further. They’re going to have to come back to 3rd density because they’ve left out a big step. So, I can see it, but there’s no need to convince them of that; they’ll find out.
But it’s made me so deeply appreciate our very challenging 3D experience. It’s made me deeply appreciate all of us, all of you, who are willing to walk through this 3D experience many times. And I also had the deep insight that probably most or all of us are only going to take a quick blinking glance at 4D before we go through, because right now, here we are; this is a 4D social memory complex—all of us together, here we are! So we’re getting the 3D and the 4D at once. It’s so beautiful, the power of the sangha, the power of all of our loving hearts to do this work together.
Okay, so that’s a bit of background, and I think Aaron will speak now…
Aaron: My blessings and love to you all. I am Aaron. I love you all very much, and I am so deeply inspired by the work that each of you is doing, each at your own level.
This cave meditation has called out great opening in some of you. You are finding yourself increasingly able—each as is appropriate to you—increasingly able to go into the places of darkness, fear, pain, confusion, and to keep your hearts open.
It is only when you are willing to look into the darkness that you find the heart of light right there in the darkness. Where else would you look? If you look at the sun, it’s blinding. If you look in the darkness, then you can see the true light. And they are non-dual.
Each of you has worked so hard for many lifetimes to avoid this darkness. And now, you are allowing yourself to experience it, finding that you are not pulled down by it but rather, buoyed up as you experience love in the darkness, light and clarity in the darkness.
As Barbara spoke in her description of her meditation, it is only from the darkness that you can support the world moving toward the light. To simply stand up at the top of the mountain, saying, “Light is here—come on up,” and then go and sit in your lotus position at the top of the mountain, well, it’s an inspiration to others, but they will say, “I can’t do that. I’m just here at the bottom of the mountain.” But when you get down there at the bottom of the mountain with them and are willing to climb that hard climb with them, it’s an inspiration to all.
I want to share an image that was given to me by one of Barbara’s sons who is a writer and filmmaker. Where he lives in California they were doing some work with disabled veterans who had lost lower limbs, taking them mountain climbing on their artificial legs. Some of these men felt deep despair, deeply wounded in their physical bodies and in their hearts. So, a group of people were taking them first simply on hikes and then climbing mountains. Her son got to know some of these men. Then came a time for a much bigger effort. They were taking a man with two artificial legs to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro. The asked Davy, “Will you come along and photograph this and write about it?” The team had been training for this very large mountain; Davy had not. But he said, “I’ll come.”
It was to be I think a 10 day hike, gradually elevated until the final few days climb when it is steeper. I don’t know what it is—20,000, feet. Davy was not a young man but 40 at the time of the hike. He loves to hike and climb mountains but due to the late invitation, had not done the heavy advanced training. .
A few days in he started to feel, “I can’t do this.” The man that he was there to support would turn to him and say, “Come on, Davy.” This man with two hiking poles and two metal artificial legs was climbing over steep rock. “Come on, Davy, you can do this.” So inspiring.
On the mundane level you do not have to be whole to climb the mountain and inspire others. It’s fine to have “artificial legs” or whatever other distortion you perceive, when you know deep within that you are whole. It’s even more inspiring when others can see both the distortions and the wholeness in you, and when you can see it in yourselves.
Using Davy’s climb as metaphor, to climb a mountain in that way there must be compassion. You are all climbing the mountain of human experience. You have come from so many different planes, some of you fully of the Earth—first density mineral; second density, small plants and then plants of increased complexity, and animals. At that point you had the courage not to say, “Whoops, 3rd density is next—I’m getting out of here.” You said, “Okay, 3rd density—let’s do it.” And you were, most of you, on these artificial legs, that you didn’t know how could carry you. But you found the courage for yourself and the compassion for yourself and all others to climb the mountain.
Now, many of you are gathering in the higher elevations. As you approach the top of the mountain and look up, “What’s next?”
What’s next is wonderful. I’d love to give you a small picture of 5th and 6th densities—not as a promise, “Oh, just a few more steps and then you’ll be there.” It may be many lifetimes. In part, it may be many lifetimes because you did not come to climb up that ladder and out of the hole and wave goodbye to the ones at the bottom. You came with a willingness to stand at the bottom and help others to find that light, to make that climb.
Some of you ask me, what happens after transition? You will meet with your guides. You will be warmly drawn into the heart of your loving families, eternal spirit families. You will have time to rest. You will look at the incarnation with clear eyes, seeing where you succeeded and what you did not quite finish.
On the chance that you perceive that there is no more unwholesome karma to be resolved, you will have the opportunity to make a decision. “There are still those at the bottom of that pit, and now within increasing awareness, I am willing to go back again and again.” And even if there is still some unwholesome karma, much of that can be resolved in higher densities. But there are constantly younger souls— do we call them ‘souls’ or essences?—whatever name you want to use, they keep coming and they are suffering. So many beings wishing to move forth into a higher vibration, to wake up.
This is the path of the bodhisattva, the one willing to come back again and again. And yet, there is never force to do that. You are the one that invites yourself. And because you have deepened in compassion, you feel perfectly comfortable to say, “No, I’ve had enough.”
You’ve come into this plane, perhaps as 1st and 2nd density beings from this heavy density planet, or perhaps as material or quasi-material energy from other planes. I know a number of you know yourselves as wanderers.
If you’re a wanderer, why did you come here? What did you have in mind? You never come to the Earth as punishment. It is an honor, and every honor is a responsibility, also. But that honor and responsibility must be grounded in compassion for the being who says, “I just can’t do any more. I’m feeling overwhelmed.”
You have free will. To feel overwhelmed does not mean to die and say, “I’m leaving 3D.” That won’t do you any good. To have free will means to co-create a life of less suffering for yourselves and those around you.
And this is where so many of you high vibrational 3D humans are right now, looking at how to co-create an earth plane experience that is not so deeply grounded in suffering.
Most of you understand the roots of that suffering through your meditation practice, how craving and clinging and strong aversion create suffering. How opening the heart with presence to things as they are leaves you in a place where there will be pain. As long as you’re in a human body there will be physical and emotional pain. But you don’t have to suffer.
As with Davy’s, let’s call him ‘guide’—although he was there to support, theoretically—the friend ahead of him with metal legs, turning around and saying, “Come on—it’s not much further,” in these ways you inspire those who are more stuck in 3D suffering than you are.
You don’t do that by lecturing to them, you do that by living your life with compassion for yourselves and others, radiating love; just holding space with peacefulness, with kindness.
Recently, I had the opportunity to hear a talk by a woman, perhaps she was in her 90’s, who had been in Auschwitz. One of the things that moved me was when she was asked how she survived it, and she said, “Kindness.” The kindness of all beings around.
There was abundant hatred and pain. One can focus on hatred and pain with blinders and lose the fact of kindness, or one can say, “I choose to be aware of kindness.” This is why we’ve focused these three years also on practices like gratitude, generosity, peacefulness—these beautiful traits that so deeply support you. Simply remembering you are not here to force your way through 3rd density to “get out of here!”; you are here to take the time to look around, to grow in compassion, and to trust that there will be an end to it.
I do not predict the future but what I presume will be the case is that, as enough of you wake up and bring the whole Earth up into a higher vibration, the causes of suffering, which are hatred and fear and separation, these will fall away and this earth plane will gradually become the Eden that was promised—the Eden that is already here, if you can remove the blinders.
It’s easy to love in heaven; how do you love in hell? That presumes you truly are living in hell. Light and darkness—if you see only the darkness, then it’s hell. When you remember the light and the power of that light, it opens a doorway to heaven.
In this, what some of you experience as “hell realm”, where is heaven? In that cave we’ve been entering in meditation, in the darkness, where is the light?
You carry heaven in your own awakened heart. What is heaven? Let me toss this out to you: What is heaven? (silence) Nobody experiencing heaven? What is heaven?
Q: I don’t know that I have that answer, but I just wanted to share that recently I went through a very difficult time and had the experience of feeling like my whole body shut down, closed off. I’m quite sure that I wasn’t fully inhabiting my body. So I was experiencing it like a rock, my whole being felt like a rock. I was trying to open it by going into my heart, but that wasn’t working for me.
I’m not sure why exactly, but in order for me to find spaciousness and light again I had to start at my feet and bring myself into my body slowly and gently. And then I was able to connect with that feeling of spaciousness and light internally. So it makes me think what is heaven is something to do with presence, being present with love, and hell feels like the opposite of that to me.
Aaron: Thank you, Q. Being present with love, and to be present with love does not mean that there will be no darkness or hatred or fear, only that one has to look a little harder to center in on and stay connected to love, which all of you are learning how to do.
Are there others who would like to speak to my question?
Q: For me, heaven is feeling kindness in my heart going out to others, and others’ kindness coming towards me. It’s like it makes my body hum at this vibration that’s very… warm and happy and… grateful and—it just makes me smile. It just makes me happy to experience kindness going out and coming in, that cycle. That’s it.
Aaron: Thank you, Q. Others?
Q: I think one aspect of heaven is non-attachment, which allows spaciousness for whatever is arising. Thank you.
Aaron: Thank you. Others?
Q: For me, heaven is the place where I am completely non-reactive and can address all the events and challenges in my life with love and compassion and clarity and equanimity.
Q: For me, heaven is the place of non-judgment and…accepting whatever is, with love and peace and joy, the moment those moments come. And then whatever life brings, I’m there in the moment with peace and joy. Those are the moments I can experience heaven.
Q: For me, I asked to have an experience of the Divine. Somehow I attracted that, and so there was this interplay of really grace coming into me from a Divine Source and my effort to walk that path. And it usually finds fulfillment in the sense of unity of myself and that Divine Source. It’s like a marriage, being married to the Divine. I don’t know if this is heaven for me, but it’s total fulfillment for me.
Barbara: This is Barbara. Aaron has given me back the body so I could hear this and enjoy this rich sharing. Please go ahead, continue…
Q: For me, heaven is my pure mind.
Barbara: When you say it’s your pure mind, I understand what you mean exactly—or maybe I don’t. But can you describe to people what you experience as that pure mind, how that feels?
Q: It’s very open and spacious. There’s no contraction. Or if there is contraction, there is seeing that contraction as an object that arises and ceases. It’s resting in the heart of love. It’s essentially resting in my awakened nature. And it is something that I have a relationship with, so I can become attached to it, in which case it no longer becomes heaven! But when I become attached to it or any meditative state then I see this relationship between the darkness and the light, because that attachment is a form of darkness.
Barbara: And as Aaron would say, that which is aware of the attachment is not attached.
Q: Yes. And that awareness of the attachment helps to center me again in that pure mind, pure awareness.
Barbara: I experience that the same way. To me, that experience of spaciousness, of love, of light, without any attachment to it—there’s no reason to attach at that level. When I’m experiencing that, there’s no reason to attach because it is. I can never be separated from it. And then as soon as the separated self comes up and says, “No, I’m me, I want that,” it’s outside of me. But when I just rest there in that awareness, I can’t lose it, and there’s a shift.
I want to read to people from Hong Zhi, a Zen master from around the year 1000. There are different short pieces in this book, Cultivating the Empty Field. A number of you have read this.
Simply Drop Off Everything
Silently dwell in the self, in true suchness abandon conditioning. Open minded and bright without defilement, simply penetrate and drop off everything. Today is not your first arrival here. Since the ancient home before the empty kalpa (that’s a space and time), clearly nothing has been obscured. Although you are inherently spirited and splendid, still you must go ahead and enact it. When doing so, immediately display every atom without hiding a speck of dirt. Dry and cool in deep repose, profoundly understand. If your rest is not satisfying and you yearn to go beyond birth and death, there can be no such place. Just burst through and you will discern without thought-dust, pure without reasons for anxiety. Stepping back with open hands, giving up everything, is thoroughly comprehending life and death. Immediately you can sparkle and respond to the world. Merge together with all things. Everywhere is just right. Accordingly we are told that from ancient to modern times all dharmas are not concealed, always apparent and exposed.
***
Is there someone else who would like to share?
Q: I was trying to boil it down, I guess. Contentment was one word that came to me. But equanimity, I think, is probably more what I mean. And an openness, an acceptance without judgment, peaceful state. I guess that’s it.
Barbara: Thank you, Q.
Q: I think for me it would be simply, “I Am That.”
Barbara: That says it!
Q: I think for me heaven would be never tiring of being awed.
Q: The first thing that came to me was: no pain, that’s the first thing. But the second thing was, being one with all, much along the lines that Q mentioned.
Barbara: No pain, or no suffering? If you’re going to try to get rid of pain, that just extends/expands the suffering. But for me, at least—and I think this is probably how you understand it too—when I’m willing to endure the pain out of love rather than hating the pain, that changes it.
Q: Yes, thank you.
Q: The word that came to mind for me is alignment—when my physical body, my emotional body, my mental body, and my higher self are aligned and it feels like there’s a flow, like everything is happening the way it’s meant to be happening.
Barbara: Thank you, Q. And Aaron is saying in response to that that we can’t hold on to that experience; we can only delight in experiencing it, and knowing in this heavy 3D earth plane we’re just going to touch on that now and then. But we can’t really hold onto it. And if we try to hold onto it, we’re no longer in heaven, we’re suffering.
Q: So heaven is right here, right now, and it’s here whether we realize or don’t realize. It’s here whether we have equanimity or agitation. It’s always here. And it’s always accessible. We just get more skillful at doing it.
Barbara: Exactly. Q, I’m curious. You have a new background—what mountain is that behind you?
Q: That’s Mt. Kailish. It’s the home of Shiva.
Barbara: Thank you. Others? Anyone else?
As long as we keep believing that this heaven is going to be somewhere—when I become enlightened, or when I no longer have to be in 3D experience, or this or that—it’s not attainable. When I recognize the non-duality that right now in this moment, where is heaven?
Aaron will incorporate if he needs to in response to a question, but he’s saying for right now, what he wants to do is invite people to stop and meditate for 5 minutes and see if you can find right here with any contraction or confusion or angst of any kind, can you find a slice of heaven? Where is heaven for you right now in this moment?
So let’s take 5 minutes of silence…
(sitting; John leads a Tibetan chant “Om Ah, Hung, Vajra, Guru, Padma, Sidhi Hung. )
Barbara: Thank you, John. It’s interesting—I can’t hear that, which sets up a bit of craving, but also, energetically I can feel the music, even though I can’t hear it, just watching your face as you chant. I really enjoy that.
So, passing this back to you all again. Did the chanting create more spaciousness and open a little doorway to heaven? I don’t know how else to phrase it. But please, tell me your responses to that. What happened as you listened, and you yourself chanted?
Q: There is a song, I think the title may simply be “I Believe”: “Every time I hear a newborn baby cry, or touch a leaf or see the sky, then I know why I believe.” What the chanting does to me is it embodies that experience. It just is a witnessing of something, not even a thought of it. It’s as though the words are singing me and I’m being sung by the words. I really appreciate John and the gift of chants.
Barbara: Thank you, Q. I love that song, “I Believe”. The interesting thing is we can’t try to grasp at being in that space or we’re back to suffering. How do we allow ourselves to remember that we’re always resting in that space and come home to it? That’s part of what I read from Hong Zhi, the whole idea of presence, bearing witness.
Others?
Q: For me, chanting brings in a balance, which is I think for me partly chakra alignment. I just feel that equanimity and that flow with All That Is.
John: This is John. Sometimes when I chant it kind of opens me to heaven. It opens me to my pure mind. The chant kind of leads me there. In what we just did, which was to meditate and rest in heaven, or rest in pure mind, it felt like the chanting after the meditation was coming out of the pure mind. Or, it was coming out of heaven. So for me, it works both ways. The chant can lead me kind of into heaven, or I can be in heaven already and the vibration of the chant is operating within that spaciousness of heaven.
Barbara: And if we don’t chant—I can’t hear the chanting, I don’t chant, but if I make soup, or feed a baby, or just take a walk and see the trees, the snow glistening, the snow on the branches, it brings me into that same space.
Doing anything—not ‘doing’, being present in pure awareness, resting in pure awareness and allowing whatever is proceeding to proceed through us, however esoteric or mundane it may be, can take us back into that space. Others?
Q: For me, there are two types of chants. One is the mantras that John was just reciting and saying. For me, it just took me right inside to a point inside my heart. The vibration of it just took me right inside. And then there’s another type of chant that we do which is more like singing, with a melody and rhythm, and is usually devotional, and that’s like a different type of feeling. It really kind of opens my heart. So I think they’re just a little bit different. The chanting of mantras is different than the singing of devotional songs.
Barbara: Aaron is saying that a primary thing he’s after for all of you here is to help you remember that heaven is right here. And the only reason you can’t experience it is because you’re off on a tangent thinking I have to do this or do that, or push this or that away, or I don’t deserve it, or there should be something different or more. What is the experience of heaven in this moment?
So I’m paraphrasing him here, not channeling him directly. But he’s asking you to reflect in these coming two weeks, regularly just to pause, take a deep breath, and ask, “Right here in this moment, where is heaven?” If I don’t experience it, what is separating me from it? And if I can be fully present with compassion with whatever is separating me from the direct experience of heaven, however you want to name that heaven—resting in awareness, the open heart, love—right here, can I just invite it? How does it feel when you do experience it, he’s saying. So just explore it a bit in these two weeks.
Others? Things you’d like to share?
Q: I want to say that all week long that chant has been going through my head, but I didn’t actually have the words. I only had the last three words, but I had the rhythm and the heart. And I thought it was a chant to the Mother, and that’s how I was humming it all week. I kept meaning to go to the chant book, and I thought about texting John and asking him to tell me the real words. So it’s a very big blessing to me tonight to have the right words. They just open my heart. It is a heart-opening chant for me. It just expanded what was already happening from the meditation. Thank you.
Q: I’m thinking that the journey might be better than the destination. The sangha trying to get to heaven might just be as close as I get to ever getting to heaven.
Barbara: What Q just said reminds me of an old song that some of you probably know. (singing) “I’ve got a harp, you’ve got a harp, all God’s children got a harp. When I get to heaven gonna play on my harp, gonna play all over God’s heaven. Heaven, heaven, everyone’s talkin’ ’bout heaven—ain’t going there. Heaven, heaven, gonna sing all over God’s heaven.” Excuse my off-tone voice!
Aaron is asking, let’s shift from heaven to contentment. Are they the same for you?
John: This is John. There is an element of heaven in contentment, for me. For me, contentment, it relates a little bit more to my mundane existence. And as was mentioned before by someone, there’s equanimity for me in contentment. And so I say that it’s more mundane in that there is equanimity in what is arising and ceasing in my experience.
However, that equanimity with arising and ceasing is not separate from heaven, is not separate from my pure mind. It is happening within the realm of my pure mind—in other words, I’m in touch with both. I’m in touch with both the relative and whatever is arising, and having equanimity with that arising, and at the same time connected—or that’s non-dual or not separate from heaven or my pure mind.
Barbara: Thank you, John—I find that very powerful. Thank you.
(Barbara asks John to facilitate temporarily)
John: So one question that we might kind of contemplate right now is, how are the Brahma Viharas—how is loving kindness, compassion, joy, equanimity, forgiveness, gratitude—what’s the relationship between these Brahma Viharas, these Divine Abodes, how is this related to heaven for us in our experience? How is the experience of the Brahma Viharas related to our experience of heaven?
Q: It breaks down our feeling of separation. So when you’re sending loving kindness or compassion or joy to another person you’ve kind of merged with that person. So any sort of barriers between you kind of fall away. When there’s that unity, there’s heaven.
John: Thank you, Q.
Q: It seems to me that the Brahma Viharas act for me as a portal or a gateway into experiencing the presence of heaven. So they form an access for me.
John: Thank you, Q.
Q: I have found that the Brahma Viharas stabilize these states, where before I was very intentionally practicing the Brahma Viharas I would find myself in those places of connection and clarity, especially where the hindrances would fall away and be replaced by the virtues that are the supports. The Brahma Viharas allowed that. It is almost for me being on the bridge with one hand in one and one hand in the other. Some of the tai chi practices, there’s a hand that goes up and a hand that goes down. It’s almost as though that’s the felt sense. In my practice the Brahma Viharas have been a stabilizer, a place of familiarity that just made that readily accessible, the way you would get a habit, just like asking grace or whatever you do regularly.
John: Thank you, Q.
Q: I’m not sure exactly how to describe it, but when I’m meditating with the intention of co-creation and I’m in the pure mind, the intention for all beings, the four Brahma Viharas are not separate from each other. They become the energy, the light to extend that well-being for all. So that’s the way I see it.
John: Thank you, Q. I see it very similar to that, in that it doesn’t matter so much which Brahma Vihara I’m experiencing—practicing intentionally or spontaneously experiencing it as it arises, such as compassion, for example. But there is that element of loving kindness within that compassion. There’s equanimity within that compassion. There is a quiet sense of joy in compassion. So I very much relate to that sense of the connectedness of the Brahma Viharas in relationship to each other. Thank you.
Q: Are there any specific lectures on Brahma Viharas?
John: I would recommend Sharon Salzberg’s book, Loving Kindness. The focus of that book is on the Brahma Viharas, so she gives in-depth description of all them, including forgiveness also, gratitude also, perhaps, and also some guided meditations at the end of each chapter related to that specific Brahma Vihara. So that’s a good resource to work with, with Brahma Viharas, the Divine Abodes.
Others—your experience of the Brahma Viharas and how that might relate to what we’ve been talking about this evening in terms of our experience of heaven, but also of hell. When I’m experiencing pain, whether it be physical pain or emotional pain, sometimes I feel it very helpful to do a Brahma Vihara practice, to do a loving kindness practice for myself, or compassion.
Sometimes when I’m in a place of deeper pain and I’m feeling more enclosed in that and not feeling so much connection to heaven, sometimes it’s hard to do the vipassana practice at that time. For me to do some kind of heart-centered practice—and that might include chanting or a more formal kind of compassion meditation—that feels more helpful for me at those times when I feel more enveloped by the darkness. Sometimes just touching my heart and feeling that physical connection of the hand to the heart and allowing myself to just be present with my heart in that way, sometimes even without words, is a way of kind of connecting to loving kindness in a more visceral way.
So how do we use the Brahma Viharas in our practice in ways that are helpful for us?
To give an example of that, when we had the intervention and I was experiencing a lot of emotional pain, a lot of anger, that in the midst of experiencing the pain of that anger, feeling gratitude for, for example, the intervention, the work of the entities in supporting the intervention, our sangha practicing together and intentionally opening to the darkness, as we have been in Dharma Path, and as some of us experienced in the intervention. That that gratitude really helped to create that little bit of space and spaciousness and light, so I was not so caught up in the anger that I was experiencing. Again, it helped me to find a little bit of spaciousness, a little bit of equanimity with the anger. So that’s one way that the Brahma Viharas can help.
Q: I think the Brahma Viharas always help, no matter what. When Aaron taught me the Brahma Viharas he said if you really just practice loving kindness, you get to the point there’s this unbroken flow of loving kindness coming from your heart. So, I don’t see how practicing any of the Brahma Viharas can ever not be of help.
John: Thank you, Q.
Barbara: Let’s let Aaron come in for a few minutes before we must end. Thanks, John. (pause) I’m waiting for them to decide who is going to speak—give me a minute…
Love (B): I am Love. We have met before. Can you feel my energy? But there is no “my” energy, it is just love. It is not “my” love or “your” love, it is love.
‘Love’ is somewhat a poor word for it. It is the essence of awakening. It is the fully awakened heart that encompasses everything, and it is nowhere but within each of you.
I think the worst suffering is to feel separated from that heart. And then you grasp after it. “Where is it? How do I get it back?” But it is never gone from you.
To rest in that Love is heaven.
To not quite be able to get there is a part of the 3D experience.
If you can, relax and say, “Oh, yes, I forgot—I’m a human for this period of earth time. I am a human and so it is normal for me to feel separation.”
There is a beautiful quote that Aaron has used, “Don’t believe everything you think.” Just because you’re experiencing or have the thought of separation doesn’t mean there is actual separation. How could we ever be separate?
Now just be with me for a minute. Feel my loving embrace. Feel your heart and my heart as one and try to remember that experience at the times when you’re feeling separation. And remember, “Oh, yes, this is 3rd density experience. I have compassion for this human thusly experiencing.”
Remember, you are love. WE are love.
The work of 3rd density is not to try to escape 3rd density but to live 3rd density, with all its joy and sorrow, with all its darkness and light. Can you fully live it with a tender heart?
Aaron began tonight by talking about compassion as the most powerful lesson of 3rd density. When you can’t experience heaven — it’s somewhere out there — can there be compassion for the human condition? And remind yourself, you are doing this for all beings. You are waking up for all beings. You are releasing the armor from around the heart to experience the connection grounded in love for all beings, and compassion because it’s not easy.
You’re 7/8ths of the way up the mountain. Your hands are bleeding from grabbing the rocks.
Just stop. Pause. Sit by the fire and warm up with some good soup and a song or two.
I love you very much. We are helping you. You are not alone.
I’m going to give the body to Aaron…
Aaron: I am Aaron. Thank you, Love.
Please do some practicing with the things we’ve mentioned tonight, the Brahma Vihara practices. Pause now and then to just ask, “Where is heaven?” or phrased differently, “What is beautiful and heart opening in this moment?”, even if there is pain, even if there is confusion. Right here, for what can I be grateful? That’s a good place to start—just that question, “Right here, for what can I be grateful?”
Gratitude is another wonderful practice—not one of the traditional Brahma Viharas but it will always lead you home.
If we can call on John one more time, perhaps he will lead us with the chant “All I Ask of You…”
(chanting)
Barbara: Thank you, everyone, and good night. We’ll see you next week and perhaps some of you this weekend. We’d love to have you come and meditate with us. Much love, goodnight.