April 4, 1991 Thursday Morning Group
Love, Sexuality, Relationship;The Differences Between Male and Female Energy;Dreams 101
This talk has been reviewed for posting by I. Mook-Jodouin with Barbara’s permission.
Q: I understand that there is no difference between love shared between beings of the same sex and beings of the opposite sex, but I still have some confusion because our “plumbing” is obviously different. It would seem to me that the blending of two beings of the opposite sex would be energetically or vibrationally different from the blending of two beings of the same sex. Can Aaron talk about this?
Aaron: Good morning, and my love to each of you. Your question is understood. I believe the confusion here is that you are considering the body as being the physical body, rather than considering the four bodies. The physical body is the only one that is specifically male or female. Certainly, the spiritual is not. You do learn culturally to view things from the mental understanding of a male or female, but your mind is not male or female. It is only because the mind is in that body that it picks up the cultural conditionings to think as a man or woman. Similarly, the emotions are not male or female.
As you have pointed out, the plumbing is different. Your male and female bodies are made to fit together in a way that two female or two male bodies do not. Yet, this is of importance only when the creation of children is concerned.
What does it mean to love or be loved by another, spiritually or physically, to touch another or be touched with love? This does not necessitate parts that fit together smoothly so much as a willingness of a body to reflect the love of the soul. It must start with the love from this soul. When it starts with the love of the body, hoping to move toward a love of the soul, yes, that’s possible and may be moved toward, but there’s much more intention/attention on the physical that way.
When your physical acts are a manifestation of love felt in the heart, you are immediately past judgment of each other. There’s no anger that arises during the sexual act, no sense of, “I want to be satisfied,” or “I want to satisfy you,” simply two beings that touch each other and move to satisfy each other physically as a manifestation of the spiritual love. At this level, the vibrations are high and harmonious. There is no conflict to be found, regardless of the sex of the body. There can be far more conflict and far less harmony between male and female bodies where you have only the body vibrations without the spiritual vibration. Do you understand? (Yes.) Does that answer your question? (Yes.)
Q: Aaron, what exactly is the difference between male and female energies?
Aaron: Before I attempt to define the difference, let me express something clearly to you. When I speak of male energy, your body does not contain one hundred percent male energy. It almost certainly contains at least fifty-one percent male energy, but perhaps not more than that. For the three women in the room, your bodies do not contain one hundred percent female energy. Each of you is a mixture of both.
(Aaron asks us to visualize the yin/yang symbol and see that they both have a convex and a concave part in them.)
One generally thinks of female energy as being yielding, nurturing, the concave, and of male energy as being dominant, stronger, more convex. And yet, not just that each of you have both within you, but within each of those energies themselves there is both the convex and the concave. There is both the dominant and the submissive, the forceful and the absorbing.
The male energy, as I see it, comes more from a central point, as a sun reaching out in many directions. (Aaron cautions us not to visualize this as spikes as we did in his image of anger, but simply see sun rays moving out from a central point.) I perceive of female energy as more encircling. Neither is stronger than the other, but one moves outward and one touches all the way around.
In a situation, as an example, the male is more likely to simply push ahead doing what needs to be done. The female is more able to do a bit of one task and drop it off, and do a bit of another, and so on. We have the picture here of the nurturing mother, who is often asked to care for children and a home and do many tasks at once, a little bit here and a little bit there, moving around. Often– please remember that there are no absolutes here– this is more difficult for the man. The male energy is more comfortable completing one task and then moving on to another, in a sense is more of a direct line than a moving around.
Obviously, neither is right or wrong. Neither is necessarily more efficient, or better or worse. And neither is absolutely the way the male or female works because you each have some of each energy within you. But the male who is able to feed the baby and stop and pick up the broken glass on the kitchen floor and from there move to the soup boiling on the stove and back to the baby is using what I consider a female kind of energy. And the woman who is able to participate in something that requires a direct thrust of a sort, perhaps to be in part of your military or in a business situation where there is work to be done that must be concentrated on and pushed through, is using that male energy within her.
This is the biggest difference I see in the energy. I am very hesitant to define it as male or female energy because it implies then that it’s not natural to a female, perhaps, to be in a business situation, or not natural to a man to be in a nurturing home situation. And this has created a great deal of difficulty because there’s misunderstanding about it. It’s natural for either to be in either situation because you both have both kinds of energy within you. But they are different.
The nurturing, softness of the female, thinking of that yin/yang symbol, the concave aspect, is only half of it. Beyond that concave softness is a great deal of strength that creates the thrust, but it’s a strength that is, in a sense, hidden behind the softness, so that what one first perceives is the softness and only afterward becomes aware of the strength. In the male, seeing the convex on the top, what one first becomes aware of is the strength, and only later becomes aware of the softness.
I’m trying here to separate what I see as the real differences in energy from the conditioned patterns of the mind brought on by any cultural implications. In other words, you have learned patterns of behavior in your society, which fortunately you’re moving to overcome, of what is male and what is female. Those patterns have grown up from a belief that the being is one hundred percent that, rather than only fifty-one or more percent that.
Indeed for some men and women it is not even fifty-one. These are the beings that begin to move into being more comfortable with a homosexual orientation because, rather than the male being more than fifty-one percent male energy, they’re more than fifty-one percent female energy. So, they view things from a different perspective of that energy. But because none of you are one hundred percent that energy, you truly are all bisexual to some degree.
I understand what you were saying about bisexuality before, Q. In what I said last night, I want to emphasize that while each of you, if you were honest with yourself, would need to understand that you are bisexual, there still may be a preferred sexual orientation to the point that one never acts on that bisexuality. To be honest enough to say, “Yes, I do see some occasional sexual interest in those of the same sex. Although I would never follow up on that, I’m aware that it exists as a feeling within me,” is honest. Those who must say, “I never felt that,” perhaps are being honest in that they have never felt that. But they’ve never felt it because they’ve suppressed themselves to the point of not allowing that feeling. If there was not so much fear about experiencing that, they would have experienced it.
What happens here is that there’s so much fear about experiencing the sexual arousal toward one of one’s own sex, let’s not say sexual arousal, but any sexual feelings, even of tenderness toward one of one’s own sex, that one pulls the door shut and says, “I can’t feel that,” to the point that the door is pulled shut before one allows oneself to feel that, thereby cutting themselves off from human experience. What’s wrong with feeling tenderness toward one of one’s own sex, even if one is very much sexually-oriented toward a relationship with one of another sex?
So, when I say that all of you would need to consider yourselves bisexual, I don’t mean in act. There certainly may be a preference for either heterosexuality or homosexuality, but also an understanding that that preference does not preclude any sexual feelings toward one of the other sex. Do you understand? (Yes.)
Q: In an attempt at an open marriage where honesty is maintained, the assumption is that the learning is the overcoming of jealousy and possessiveness. However, in practice, hurt and anger are experienced. How does one determine how long the lesson is appropriately the attempt in overcoming jealousy and possessiveness and instead the other person must conclude that it is not loving to be contributing to hurt and anger in another?
Aaron: Let me first say here that I am not at all a proponent of an open marriage as a way of overcoming jealousy or possessiveness. Do you decide to starve yourself to overcome greed? Surely there are gentler ways to learn. Throughout your lives you are constantly faced with situations of jealousy and possessiveness. The core of a marriage is trust and love; and for a marriage truly to assume sacredness, there must be that core of trust and love. To put the learning about jealousy and possessiveness ahead of trust and love is a distortion of what marriage can be when both parties consider it sacred.
So, I cannot answer your question as it’s phrased. I would suggest that anyone facing this question must first ask themselves why they are depriving themselves of the depth of trust and sacredness that a marriage can lead to, to the full experience of spirituality and sexuality harmoniously pulled together, because where there is not trust, the sexuality in such a marriage does become just sex. It’s very hard to fully love and accept on a soul level one who has caused you such pain.
Do you wish me to speak more about this? (No.) You are not happy with my answer. I’m not here to please you, but to answer as honestly as I can. Remember I answer only as I see it, but this is how I see it.
There are so many ways to learn about jealousy and very few ways to learn about love. Let me expand that: There are many ways to learn about jealousy and very few ways to learn about complete spiritual and physical love. There are many ways to learn about love, but few ways that you are given to really pull it together. That is all.
I do not want to thereby engender guilt or self-anger in those of you who have chosen a course of a more open marriage, or open relationships with people if you are not married. Remember that you are always where you need to be and learning what you need to learn. Simply, keep your eyes open to be aware of what you’re learning, and ask yourself, “Is this what I need to be learning next? How can my learning be less painful and more joyful? Do I want to learn with pain or with joy?” These are choices that are open to you.
If you are in a marriage relationship where both of you have made the decision to be physical with other people, have you discussed between you the hurt that this causes? Does it cause one more pain than the other? How open can you be in your communication with each other about it? At what point are you able to say, “Stop, this isn’t the way I want to do it anymore. I want us to learn to love each other and to trust each other.”
Each of you has the need for that depth of intimacy, of love and trust. It’s part of the gift of being human, that in your human form you may experience not only the spiritual love, which we experience in the spiritual plane, but the fulfillment of that love through your bodies. Do you want to continue to deprive yourself of that gift? Does your partner wish to? Have you really thought it through? If you do wish to, why?
I’m not saying “Why?” as in terms of “You shouldn’t.” I’m saying “Why do you wish to?” just as a question. Is there that within you which feels unworthy of a deeper love, of a deeper trust, of being raised through your relationship with each other to a height where you truly experience that of God in each other, not just on the spiritual level by looking into each other’s eyes, but through the expression of your body? What fear is there of allowing that? That’s part of the “Why?” Is it just from a viewpoint of, “I don’t deserve it?” Is there some sense of wanting to punish yourself or the other?
What fear gets in the way of allowing it to happen? For many of you it is a fear of its being something you want so much that you’re afraid that if you have it, you’ll lose it; and it’s better not to have it in the first place. It is, perhaps, the most intense of your human hungers to be totally accepted and to totally accept another, to truly dwell in that of God in each other. It raises your sexuality to a divine gift.
It is not necessary that you always express your sexuality in that way. At times, you may wish to express it on a much more animal level, shall we say, devoid of spirituality, and that’s fine. Although, both are possible. To choose only one and not allow yourself the other is to limit your human experience. That is all.
Q: I’m wondering why I feel more comfortable with women than with men as my friends. I feel more comfortable with people who are nurturing than those who are forceful and competitive, whether male or female. Can you help me understand this, Aaron?
Aaron: This is not a question of a male or female energy so much as it relates personally and, in a sense, historically to you in this lifetime. You have equated your father’s energy, especially his angry energy, with maleness, and your mother’s energy with femaleness. Because through much of your life there was so much discomfort at being with your father, this is not to say that there’s not love between you, but there was also a high level of discomfort at the strength of his anger, that you have simply equated that with maleness and avoided it.
You know that you have been exploring the balance of male and female energy in yourself, coming to understand that there’s both and that both are acceptable. Can you understand that the energy that you find distasteful in your father is not specifically male energy but angry energy, and begin to make that differentiation? We are moving into more personal issues here and I would be glad to speak further if you wish me to, but do not want to invade your privacy if your choice would be to continue this at another time. (Q: You may continue.)
You do all tend to think of angry energy as more male and submissiveness as more female. So, I would ask you all to begin to differentiate this: What is actual male or female energy and what is culturally conditioned? What is natural male or female energy and what is either angry energy that may apply to either sex, or submissive energy that may apply to either sex, created through distortions that move one into an unhealthy personality?
I would ask all of you if you could begin to view your friends more as souls. You’ve all learned not to notice what color skin a person has, but to judge them on what’s inside. You have not yet gotten beyond that level of prejudice in seeing what form of body a person is in. If the body is crippled in some way, that doesn’t disturb you. But there is some orientation toward its being male or female, and so will relate this or that way. And that creates limits, for all of you.
It, in a sense, is an invasion of another being’s free will to look at them and say, “Because you come in this male or female body, I anticipate that you will be like this or that,” rather than simply saying, “What are you like? Can our souls resonate together?” And then noticing what form that soul comes packed in? So, I would challenge you to work on this, to begin to notice when there’s an anticipation that you won’t be able to relate as well to a person because you perceive that the body is male or female, and ask yourself, “Can I go beyond that prejudice and find out if I can relate as well?”
There’s another issue here. There is often more comfort with one of the same sex because you have put up a wall against the possibility of sexual involvement with that person, so that you are freer to love that person without worrying about a sexual involvement. This is true particularly if you already have a primary relationship, that if you are trying to maintain that primary relationship without other sexual relationships, and see yourself either as hetero- or homosexual, relationship with a being of the same sex as your partner in your primary relationship becomes more difficult because you feel it as a possible threat. “What if there are sexual feelings? How will I deal with it?” So, you tend to avoid that possibility entirely by simply not becoming close to someone of that same sex.
It is very possible to allow sexual feelings, even the sexual desire and arousal, to know that it’s there between you and another being and not to have to act on that. If you like hors d’oeuvres or candy or champagne and are at a party and trays are being passed, every time a tray comes with something that looks delectable, do you take one? It’s not hard to limit that in yourself, to say, “That looks good, but I don’t need one,” to be aware that there’s that within you that says, “Gee, I want that, but I don’t need it. I’ve had enough.”
That’s not hard for most of you. But you fear that it’s going to be hard when it comes to sexuality. “Yes, I’m aroused by you. A part of me would like very much to make love with you. But I don’t want that. We don’t need that between us. Let’s both admit that it’s there and go on with our loving friendship.” Do you see how hard that is for you? It’s really just that level of honesty, of being able to say that to yourself and the other. But because that frightens you, because you’re afraid you won’t be able to control that, you avoid that friendship entirely.
This also applies to anyone who is aware of their own bisexuality and may find friendship with one of their own sex difficult because sexual feelings arise, especially if the other does not have sexual feelings. What do you do with that? You’re aware that while you might consider yourself bisexual or even heterosexual, there are sexual feelings arising for this being who has become your friend and is of your sex. Further, you’re aware that that being might be very discomforted by your expression of your feelings. What do you do with that? It becomes easier then to be friends with those of the opposite sex, for there’s no problem.
So, it works both ways. It differs for each of you depending on your personal sexual orientation and your life situation. But, mostly, these choices grow out of fear; and the more honest you can be with yourselves, the more unlimited you can be in your choice of who you’re close to, of relating one soul to another rather than one body to another. Are there questions?
Q: How does one deal with strong feelings for a friend when one has a primary relationship? I know that this brings up an opportunity for learning how to create that sense of intimacy with one’s partner, but how does one deal with the feelings themselves so that they don’t detract from one’s primary relationship or cause unnecessary pain to one’s partner?
Aaron: Let’s move back a step. It’s essential to remember that all of this is experience for spiritual learning. Let’s start with that basic fact: This is your schoolroom. Whatever situation you find yourself in is here for your spiritual growth. Seeing the level of intimacy that feels possible between you and another other than your primary partner, beginning to understand that you have a choice in allowing that intimacy with the primary partner, but that it is also his or her choice, that you can allow it, but you can’t create it, let us say, when you then do begin to allow it, if it doesn’t happen, there’s a certain depth of anger that comes up. Indeed, rage.
“I want this. I’m offered this in another relationship, and I’m saying no to that relationship to honor this primary relationship. And yet, I’m deprived of that depth of love and connection that I seek.” So, the next thing that must be faced and accepted is the level of rage. Until you get through that, you can’t truly accept this primary partner for all that he or she is without judgment.
There are two different kinds of intimacy and acceptance here. One is that of one soul really speaking to another. You’ve each had that at some stage of your lives. It may or may not be with somebody that you could live with or marry. For whatever reasons, many of you are married to someone with whom there is not that depth of intimacy. And yet, deep love and acceptance are possible; and they can lead to a very high spiritual connection without that level of intimacy. That level of intimacy can be in another relationship.
What prevents the deep spiritual love and acceptance is the anger that this being is not the one with whom there’s intimacy, a feeling, “I’m now allowing the intimacy and you won’t allow that.” And anger then gets in the way. When you can look at each other totally honestly, understanding what each of your limits are, what each of your fears are, what each of your needs are, can you see that this creates a different kind of intimacy?
It may not be that of one soul which truly knows another soul. That’s a different experience. Instead it’s an experience of total acceptance. This being knows all the distortions within me, all that I’ve judged harshly in myself, and still loves and accepts me. I know all of this being’s unskillful choices. I know all of this being’s pain and anger. Yet, I still accept this being and love this being. Can you see that that’s a different kind of love?
They don’t have to come into one relationship. When I speak of the harmony of body and soul, of one soul needing another and of lovemaking being an expression of that love of two souls, that can come from either kind of love, from the one which is a deeply shared connection, and from the one which grows out of acceptance, a true moving beyond self and other so that you are no longer two, but just one, one being with many pains, many fears, greed, prejudice, anger. And all of that is accepted in yourself and the other. It’s no less beautiful a love, just different. Do you understand me so far? (Yes.)
The question then comes for some of you: Seeing this difference, one might ask, should I continue in this relationship where there’s not the depth of intimacy possible, or should I leave this relationship and move into one where there is deeper intimacy possible? Think about this very carefully. Could that intimacy survive living together? In many cases, it couldn’t. In many cases, that deep connection is allowed only because there is some other distance from each other. And the weeks with the flu or the new roof needed on the house, all of those physical stresses in your life, would close in on that intimacy. Is it really possible to have both?
Someone asked me recently: If one has this intimacy in a relationship separate from the primary relationship, is that not as much a having an affair, in a sense, as if one had a sexual relationship also with that other being? This is subtle. When you truly love that primary partner and do not wish to hurt that being, but just to extend yourself to allow a deep connection with a beloved friend, no, that’s not harmful to the primary partner. Can it be done on a basis of love and trust?
This is where the earlier question of working with jealousy comes in. Can you let go of jealousy enough to know that you don’t need to be everything to the primary partner, that there’s room in each of your lives for loving friendships with others? It’s far easier to trust that and to help each other move past jealousy when you know that your connection with each other, these two primary partners, comes at the center of everything, that neither of you will do anything to hurt the other. And, thus, you’re choosing a friendship with another is not meant to hurt the other, but just as a statement, “This enriches my life.”
If it enriches your primary partner’s life to take a walk in the woods every day, and you really don’t enjoy that, would you deprive them of that and say, “Don’t do it, I’m jealous of that time?” Perhaps you would. But can you look at that jealousy in yourself? What does that walk in the woods nurture in that being? What does the contact, the intimate friendship, nurture in that being? Why do you assume that you must be everything for each other?
When you reach the point where you can deeply trust your love for each other, trust your commitment to each other, and allow yourself to feel, “This being totally accepts me and I totally accept this being,” that’s very precious and very beautiful. But it does not mean that there’s nothing else in your life but that relationship.
So, how do you deal with this in practical terms? I would begin by looking at the anger, nurturing that primary relationship, trying to move those past those places where you can’t accept the other because they are not fully what you need in this or another area, and accepting that you’re also not fully what that being needs in some aspects of its life.
As you come to a deeper acceptance of each other, you find that you no longer need to substitute the fantasy of what it would be like to have a complete relationship with this beloved friend because you have a complete relationship with the primary partner. As that moves in to filling the gap, the other relationship will move into perspective of, “Yes, there’s sexual desire, but I don’t need to act on it. Yes, there’s a loving friendship, and my partner and I can both accept that.” Do you have questions?
Q: I’ve been wanting to ask Aaron about dreams and what his understanding is of what they are and what they mean in our understanding or remembering or interpreting them.
Aaron: Well, class: Interpretation of Dreams 101. I’m surprised to note that we also have not talked much about dreams. As I am sure you’ve become aware, there are different kinds of dreams. For most of your lives, especially before you reach a level of spiritual awareness, your dreams are mostly symbolic, and often mostly forgotten as you awake.
There comes a stage as you become increasingly spiritually aware, and especially when you are very close to breaking through to direct contact with your own guidance, or have actually made that contact, but it’s new and you’re not sure you trust it, when some of your dreams take on a different quality. These are what Barbara has called “teaching dreams,” and I suppose that title is as good as any.
You may actually see yourself sitting and hear a being talking to you. It’s a very different experience than the usual symbolism of a dream. There may be a symbolism where you are in a school or some such place. Many have reported to me that they see themselves sitting on stairs outside or in a courtyard, sometimes as part of a class. In a sense, this is real. You do travel out of your body in your dreams.
Some of you have read Testimony of Light, in which she speaks of becoming part of a class or feeling herself sitting just outside of a class. You do experience that on the spiritual plane. It’s not such a formal class as she identified. She was describing it in human terms because she had no other way to describe it. And yet, there is a sense of student and teacher, or group of students and teacher, or, at times, a group entity, simply telepathic sharing where all in the group are both students and teachers.
You may experience that very directly in your dream. The most common experience here is that of your guide being the teacher and you as a student. Some of you may remember the details of what was taught when you awaken, and others may not. Barbara has related the story of the night we spent with such a dream, and upon awakening, my final words to her were, “You must remember this transmission of the dharma.” And she came to full awakeness asking me, “Huh? What transmission of the dharma? What are you talking about? It’s 3 A.M.!” She never did fully recall it. That’s okay. It’s absorbed at some level. It may take many, many tries for it to fully come through.
Those of you who are newly hearing your guides find it difficult to trust that, and when you experience it as a dream, it’s simply easier for us to talk to you. Your conscious brain mind is not getting in the way. There’s a deeper connection, and you’re allowing a deeper telepathic connection. The more that you write dreams down, or keep a tape recorder beside your bed, the more you’ll get of this.
You also can ask your “dreaming self,” “I want to remember this.” But you can never trust that what you woke up remembering at 3 A.M. you will still remember in the morning. So, if you want to honor these dreams, it’s more important to write them down. The more that you write them down, the more that the dreaming self sees that they’re honored, the more clear they’ll be, the more frequent.
Talking still of these teaching dreams, as you move into a more trusting relationship with your guide and are able to really communicate with each other without the dream, it becomes easier to use this conscious format, and you will find these teaching dreams tapering off. Now, this is not the only time in your life when you will experience these teaching dreams, but it’s a major time.
How about the bulk of your dreams, the symbolic ones? The guidelines here would be first, that every character in the dream is yourself, an aspect of yourself. This is not true of the teaching dreams, and you will learn to differentiate those. But in the normal symbolic dream every character is an aspect of yourself. For the most part, the being of the same sex as your actual physical body represents your conscious mind, and of the opposite sex represents your subconscious mind. This is not always true, but usually so. Or you dream of a child, that may be an immature aspect of your mind, something that’s just beginning to open. How about a dream of a respected elder, a parent or teacher? This is a wiser aspect of your mind, let us say, a more mature aspect.
You have the conscious, subconscious, and super-conscious minds. The subconscious is all that’s been pushed below the surface, the conscious is what you’re consciously aware of, and the super-conscious is related to, but not identical with, the higher self. Rather, the super-conscious mind has all the memories and knowledge of the self, but still has more ego involvement than the higher self. So, you’re attempting to harmonize these, both in your life and through your dreams, to allow all to be open and expressed.
So, you’ve had a dream. What do you do with it? There are certain, very standard, symbols, not standard universally, but standard in your culture. Of course, symbols will change a bit from culture to culture. A vehicle, a car or a bus or a train, generally represents something that is moving you from one place to another; in other words, a new insight or understanding, a new way of processing something. A building with different levels, often the basement will represent the subconscious mind, the ground level more the conscious mind, and the higher floors the super-conscious.
Who are the beings in your dream? Where are they? What are they doing? A useful process here is simply to sit down and write: These are the symbols that appeared in my dream. It might be useful for me to go through with Barbara and make up a list of fifty or a hundred of the most common dream symbols and what they often, not always but often, represent, and to distribute those for your use that you might be able to say, “It’s likely to mean this,” sitting down consciously and writing this.
Now, after you’ve done that. First you’ve recorded the dream, written or taped it. Second, when you’ve woken up, you’ve made a list: These are the people and the situations in it; this is probably what they symbolize. Then sit and meditate. Let go of trying to figure it out. Just allow yourself to be again with the feeling of the dream. Very likely, at that point, it will fall into place: This is what it’s saying.
If it doesn’t fall into place at that point, don’t agonize over it. Pull out what you can, and ask your dreaming self, “Please, I need another dream,” that night before you go to bed. Ask, “I did not understand this dream last night. I would like another clearer dream on the same issues.” If you honor these dreams, by working with them, that aspect of consciousness which allows and creates these dreams will see that it can speak to you in this way and the clarity of them will increase.
Some of you say, “I never remember my dreams.” Well, if you never remember them, you can’t learn anything from them. And so, that aspect of communication within the self has been cut short. The higher self and guides are then trying to find another way around. But dreaming is such a useful tool. Why cut it short?
This is a very brief introduction. There is far more to dreams than this, and I would be glad to talk about it at greater length. We’re both running somewhat short of time and I believe there are questions about what I’ve already said, and I would like to know if you would like to hear more. That is all.