Questions and Answers with Aaron

The first part of this session can be read in the September issue here.

Q: What is my next step in helping others to prepare for 2012?

Aaron: To more deeply resolve the emotional body, as I have been talking about. By this I do not mean to stop the emotions but to find greater equanimity with emotions. The reason that this is the next step is twofold. First, that you then serve as a model to others and many look to you to be that model. And second, as long as there is still even subtle self-judgment that is identified with, you’re holding onto this self-identity on a personal level, not allowing the deeper level of your being to be predominant.

That pure heart, that’s what has to lead. The mind and the emotions, they follow. This really relates to manifestation. As long as you are reacting from any place of contraction, even the contraction of trying to combat the judging mind, there’s still contraction. But when you make friends with the judging mind, it becomes like a parrot squawking in the background. You don’t really have to pay much heed to it. And eventually it will get bored and fly away. Do you understand?

Q: Yes, thank you.

Q: I have depression. I would like to know how to live with it better.

Aaron: Do you meditate? (Q: Yes.) What form of meditation do you use? (Q: Buddhist.) What school? Vipassana? Zen? (Q: Some Zen, some to do with the Twelve Step Program.)

There are many paths. The path with which I’m most familiar and I find a very viable path is that of vipassana. I’m certain that there are vipassana groups found in this area. With this form of meditation, we watch how different object arise and pass away. Some are pleasant, some are unpleasant. We watch the whole chain whereby when an object is pleasant, there’s grasping after it and when it’s unpleasant, there’s aversion to it.

Depression is generally a closing-in of the self and one’s energy, and it often relates to trying to suppress certain kinds of feelings. The more you suppress, the more it closes in. The whole energy field gets locked in, the energy isn’t moving along all the chakras and meridians. This state is frequently diagnosed as depression. It has an organic outflow in the emotional and physical. But it can be turned around as you begin to see the experience of depression, just as Barbara spoke of seeing the experience of not-hearing. In not-hearing, just not hearing.

Depression is an uncomfortable feeling. Imagine yourself visiting the beach and being buried up to your neck in sand. Tight, confined. Can you visualize how you might first feel, sitting in that hole up to here in sand, locked in, tense, and how you could breathe and relax and just be there, just somebody sitting in a pile of sand? It still might not be pleasant, it would be cold and damp, or hot, gritty, trapped, but it’s just sitting in sand.

As you relax around it, you don’t need to push against the situation. The vipassana practice starts not with something major like depression but just a twinge on the little toe. Unpleasant. Itch, wanting to scratch. You watch these different sensations and thoughts come and go and begin to see how you monitor and judge and try to control, and just gently to let go.

When you are ready, you begin to work with the experience of depression itself, but not until the practice is stable. Two things are likely to happen. First, what you request, that you start to be more comfortable with depression. It’s just depression. And second, you begin to see the factors that are creating the depression. You begin to allow yourself to go deeper and see the fear, pain, sorrow, whatever might be there, with that same fearless, open heart. Be willing to say, “Okay, this is here, this is here;” you don’t have to condemn the self for any of it. At that point there’s nothing to hold the depression in place anymore.

There are some of my books in there and there are a number of chapters on dealing with depression. I think you’ll find some help from those.

Can you regard fear with kindness? Can you avoid being captured by the stories of fear?

Q: Is my contribution in this incarnation having to do with my new book?

Aaron: There are many levels of contribution and work. There is the outer work in the world and there is the inner work in the heart. I would say that it has less to do with the book itself, although that is a contribution, than it has to do with you using the book as a catalyst to you asking yourself, how do I feel about it? Do people endorse the book? Are they pulling back from it? What are my hopes and fears? What comes up for me as I offer this child out into the world? Because this is a place where you are able to look at the personality self and the stories, the most deeply embedded habitual stories, and release some of it. So the book is a gift out into the world but it’s also a catalyst for the personal work.

Remember that love and fear are simultaneous. So there is the offering of the book out with love and there are also the fears that come. Can you regard fear with kindness? Can you avoid being captured by the stories of fear? This takes us beyond this specific question and into the whole question of how we manifest anything in our lives.

If you have a new endeavor and you are focused on getting it just right, controlling it in some way, concerns—What if this goes wrong? What if that goes wrong?—in a sense you’re planting the seeds. There’s some part of you that is wanting, I would not say wanting but at some level, inviting the possibility of these things going wrong because there’s something that still needs to be resolved around it. So you keep the whole cycle going.

But at that point where you’re able to say, “Okay, this fear is old and I’m not going to enact these stories,” the story might still come, “What if the book doesn’t sell? What if people reject it in some way? What if I get some bad feedback?” Instead of going into that story, “How can I fix that before it happens?” just note fear, wanting so much for this work to be important to people, wanting so much to be liked. That’s part of it, wanting so much for acceptance. Can I embrace this human with all its human qualities? So there’s a commitment not to go into fear’s stories, not to perpetuate the stories. Then there is no longer reason for anything to go wrong. You’re creating a different possibility. So I think this is the more important aspect of the work because what you learn here you will teach others.

I want to see something here. (Aaron walks away from mic to Q2.) May I put my hands here? I want you to take a deep breath. Lower down into the belly. Are you aware of how shallow you’re breathing? Bring the attention to it. The part of you that’s not willing to let the world come into you. I want you to envision as you breathe in, open your eyes — do it for me now, all of you can try this. Breathe in, breathe the whole world into one self. And release. Letting go of the separation, letting yourself remind you it’s safe to bring the whole world in. I think just that act — try that again — I think just that act is going to change your energy. It will be a force in helping to release the depression.

Q: Thank you.

Q: I believe in spirit guides. I want to know how to best work with my spirit guides.

Aaron: Do you have conscious contact with your guides?

Q: No. I do feel a presence every once in awhile.

Aaron: Child, there is no wall between us from our side. From your side, you keep the doors closed. You have to learn, all of you, to open the doors. You all have guides. You all can connect with your guides.

Here’s a very simple exercise with which many people have had success. Begin with a notepad and pen. Think about a question that’s very important to you, something that you don’t as of now have any understanding about. A question like, “Why am I here in this incarnation?” or “What is my next step?”

Putting the notepad down, then--write the question, put the pad down. Sit quietly and state your highest intentions, whatever they may be. They will differ for different people. For some, it could be as simply as, “To be safe and happy in my life.” For others it might be, “To be of service, the highest service possible to all beings. To live my life with love.”

If possible, think of a great Master with whom you feel a resonance, Jesus, the Buddha, some other being. Feel the resonance and the commitment that the way you live your life will be in harmony with the teachings of this Master.

Then, having stated your deepest values, you ask for help. Say the question. “Whatever help may come must come in harmony with my own deepest values.” It’s a very important statement because there is a negative energy out there. You don’t want to just open the door and say, “Free beer!” You’ve got to make certain whom you’re inviting in. You do that by a clear statement of your highest values. Make that statement, pick up the pad and just sit.

When you write, usually your brain thinks of what you’re going to say. Here you’re just going to feel an impulse and just start to write. Don’t monitor it in any way. It could be 3 words, 3 sentences, 3 pages. As long as you feel this flow of energy, just keep writing without reading back or thinking about what was written. Just to try to keep a clear channel. When the flow stops, you’ll feel it, a distinct, “That’s it.”

Then read it. Read it with discernment: does this come fully in harmony with my own values? It may not be something you’re happy to hear. It may be pointing out something that needs work and that’s frightening, something you are working on, but it will resonate as truth.

If it does not resonate as truth, you immediately put it down and make your statement of values again. Make the statement, “This comes with a kind of negative twist to it. This doesn’t feel right to me. Again I’m asking for guidance, for the highest guidance that I can hold, that can flow through me, in answer to this question.” And if more energy comes, write again.

When you feel it resonates as truth for you, if there’s a question that it raises, ask the question. Get into a dialogue with this being, and before you close the contact, ask, “Do you have a name? How can I reach you?” It may simply give the name “Teacher” or “Friend” or it may give a specific name. Very likely it will give certain instruction about raising your own vibrational frequency along with the reply to your question, something like visualizing certain colors and bringing them in to further tune the chakras and the energy field. I don’t know what. It may give very specific guidance.

All of you have guides. You all have at least one and usually several personal guides.

Work with the guidance. What the entity is doing is helping to raise your vibrational frequency so that you can clearly hold that energy, that vibration, so there’s no static on the line between you. You want to connect with this entity through writing 2 or 3, or even 4 or 5 times, before you’re ready to put the pencil down and just hear the thoughts.

All of you have guides. You all have at least one and usually several personal guides. Some of your guides are simply third density beings like yourselves in between incarnations. Some of them are much higher vibrational beings.

I see this, if I may use this as a metaphor, like the university system where you have students, TAs — teaching assistants — who are just out of school themselves. Assistant professors, full professors. There’s a flow from the full professor down to the TA. The student may not even be able to understand the full professor, speaking a different language, so to speak, where the TA speaks the student’s language. So a higher density being is not necessarily a better guide for you than the third density being between incarnations.

People ask me, “How can another third density being know any more than I know?” Picture yourself walking with weighted shoes into the water. You just keep walking. You have a long snorkel tube. Laid out is a maze that you are to follow. You don’t have a mask--once you’re underwater there’s a veil, you can’t see. There are flags on the surface but you can’t see them, you’re underwater. This is the incarnate experience for many people. But your third density guide is sitting on your shoulders with their head out of the water. Eventually you develop the vision to see underwater. The water clears, the veil vanishes.

Don’t grasp at a higher level guide, simply ask for the highest level guidance you can stably work with and trust that as you are ready for a higher vibrational guide, it will be available because they’re part of a family and you all meet each guide in turn as you are ready for them. No one level of guide is best.

Another area to consider here is that some of you say, “I want to meet my guides, I want to learn,” and yet at some level there’s resistance because you’re aware that the guide is going to ask you to look at things in your life that are hard to look at, to clean up areas of your life, perhaps, that you’ve not wanted to attend to.

So if you have a self-image, for example, of being one who is unworthy, and it’s very frightening to see yourself as a powerful being—people get into this, for example, because they have a lot of anger. They don’t know what to do with their anger. They’re frightened by their anger. They feel how powerful and negative that anger can be, so they move themselves into a place of seeming limitation, powerlessness, and feelings of inadequacy. They hold that self-image of themselves because they are afraid of their power.

What if you are open to a guide that invites you to look at these feelings of inadequacy, invites you to look at the reality of your own unlimitedness and power—is that okay? So you’ve got to acknowledge there may be some fear. You’ve got to be honest with your guides and say, “I want this and yet I’m also afraid of it.” YOU are in control. You always have free will. You will never be led at a pace that you feel is faster than you can handle, and you can always say, “I need this to slow down.” Remember that. This is safe. The intention of positively-polarized entities is to help you to realize your own radiance and unlimitedness, never to harm you or force you back into darkness. Ask for the help you need.

Other questions?

Q: What is it that I am to be learning at the present time?

Aaron: To find your voice. Not to be afraid to speak your truth. There is a desire to be loving, a wholesome desire to please others, and sometimes you pull back thinking it’s compassionate to hold silent rather than saying no from a compassionate place. You are here to learn to speak your truth more fully and to learn how to speak that truth from a place of compassion. Do you need to hear more about that or is that sufficient?

Q: Yes, sufficient.

Aaron: As I am saying these things to you, please know that I am saying them with the deepest love and respect, knowing each of your capacity to more fully awaken and radiate that angel that you are. I respect your asking these questions and your willingness to attempt(attend to) this work.

Q: What would be my best career path?

Aaron: What are you passionate about?

Q: A lot of things! Travel? Helping people? Relaxing at the spa.

Aaron: Daughter, you are an old soul, do you understand what I mean by that? You came into the incarnation to do work toward bringing love to the world and opening your own heart in love. This is the primary work, healing the self and that which chastises the self, judges the self. In choosing a career, I cannot tell you this or that is your career path, only that it be something about which you feel passionate. There are going to be times when the work feels arduous or boring. The question is, am I making a choice out of love, not out of any judgment of, “I should” do this or that.

There will always be some balance, part of you that says, “Yes, this!” and part of you that says, “What if it doesn’t work?” or “Maybe I should choose something else.” Instead of getting caught up in the “Maybe I should choose something else,” come back to the “This resonates for me. My heart opens to this.” It’s the same thing we were talking about just a few minutes ago, in manifestation, not getting caught up in the negativity, not getting caught up in the fears. If there is the fear, as there is for many, of “What if I don’t succeed?” then you keep repeating the process of not really succeeding.

When you look at relative reality, of course you’ve got to be realistic. For example, you’re not going to open a spa up in the most northern areas of Alaska. Nobody’s going to come! But when there is a reasonable degree of knowledge or skill about the proposed intention and the heart resonates with this, then whatever fears come up, whatever stories, — “But I might not make it!”, “Maybe it’s not service-oriented enough, maybe I should choose something more creative or more of a gift to people, etc, etc, etc,” just note fear — “fear, fear” and come back to the fingers, come back to the open spacious heart that says, “No, this is what I intend to do and I open to this with all my heart and all my love.” Visualize it succeeding, succeeding in all the ways you want it to succeed. People coming and being truly helped, finding joy or whatever kind of help they may find, better health. Finding yourself adequately rewarded financially that your own life is comfortable. Feeling the enrichment of sharing whatever it is that you’re sharing with people—whatever it is.

I am not saying to abolish fear, you cannot abolish fear without suppressing it. But to be mindful of fear and to know it simply has arisen from conditions and you do not have to get caught up in its stories. The fear is just fear. Use that little, “Is that so?” That really breaks things open. “I might not have enough skills.” “Oh, is that so?” “People might not come.” “Is that so?” These are stories.

So feel the intention to open the heart more and more completely to what you’re pursuing so that you’re pursuing it with passion, with the highest intention for the good of all beings including the self, and with the intention that it add to the healing of the self, the healing of these feelings of inadequacy, the feelings of self-judgment. Does that answer your question?

Q: Yes.

Aaron: Do it with love, that’s all. Do it with love.

Q: Can we elaborate on past lives — well maybe my past lives, and how I can learn from that now?

Aaron: Where relevant in a private meeting, we will offer past life information, but here within the group, the most important thing I can say about past lives is to look at the prevalent habits in this life. If there is a strong ongoing pattern, probably that pattern has existed in a past life. Without seeing the past life, simply invite up whatever intuitively comes to mind. Let yourself simply visualize a being in a challenging situation with the pattern that you see in the present self and its challenge.

And then in your meditation, speak to this friend who has come. It doesn’t have to be an accurate portrayal of that past life, but speak to this person. Somebody caught up in confusion, fear, or anger; somebody who’s reactive in a certain way. Somebody who wants to, and these are hypothetical, not to you, somebody who wants to save everybody, take care of everybody, and feels helpless because they can’t. What would you say to this person? What would you say to this, let’s not call it a karmic ancestor but a friend? As you speak to them from your own soul’s wisdom, you teach yourself.

Okay?

Q: My question is, I’m very concerned about what I see as the political and moral breakdown of what our country was founded on.

Aaron: You are all here to learn. Whatever choices you make, there will be consequences. When a young child is building a pile with blocks, sometimes the child will consistently put a block on out of balance so the pile topples over. The parent comes over and shows the child how to put it on the center. The child puts it back on the side and the pile topples over, the child may even cry that it topples over. But at some level the child understands that he’s not trying to make a pile of blocks, he’s learning about balance. He will need to keep it toppling over until he’s learned what he needs to learn.

I don’t think you’re going to destroy this earth, but you’re going to continue to suffer discomfort until enough of you learn to create a different future.

You are all children in some ways experimenting with how to build the society, the world, that you say you want to build, and how to deal with the individual self, the ego, that fears and says, “But I want my share.” So each of you is trying to learn how to release the ego’s fears and connect with everyone else, and simultaneously to say no to those who are still caught up in self-centeredness and selfishness. Sometimes people have to experience the consequences, the whole world has to experience the consequences. How bad does it have to get before enough people are ready to say no and take a stronger stand to recreate the, I would not call it moral awareness so much as non-dual awareness, the non-separation awareness, that everything, whatever you send out, is going to come back to you. What are you sending out?

I don’t think you’re going to destroy this earth, but you’re going to continue to suffer discomfort until enough of you learn to create a different future. I would not worry about it. Rather I would become active in clarifying the self and the places where self-interest and world interest seem to conflict, and working with such groups that feel harmonious to you, who are trying to do this in the world. These will be groups who are not approaching others with judgment or anger but are truly trying to heal the world with love.

It seems people are getting tired and ready to move around a bit and to stir the energy up. Shall we end, then? If we’re finished, I will release the body back to Barbara.

My dear ones, thank you for sharing yourselves and your hearts with me here today. Please remember that you are angels. Don’t get caught up in the earthsuit to the degree that you forget that you are angels. You are radiant, you are unlimited, you are cherished. And you must care for the earthsuit because that’s where the angel is living right now.

Stop regarding the body as a heavy diving suit that you must lug around and instead begin to regard it with great cherishing because it is the teacher for the incarnation. The physical body, the emotional body, the mental body, these are your teachers. They’re not problems.

I wish you knew deeply how much loving guidance surrounds all of you. You can trust that. You are not alone. You are cherished and your work inspires others, not just on the human plane but on many planes. You are literally teachers of compassion to the universe and yours is the place of learning to deepening compassion. If compassion had an end, could go only that high and that was the limit, there wouldn’t be much point in the work, but we find that compassion is endless and you truly are inspirations of compassion.

When you go to a play and you see a character in the play in a difficult situation, and the character is able to respond in a clear and loving way, that inspires you, doesn’t it? In a sense the universe is watching you and inspired by you, and you have volunteered to come into this incarnation and do this work for your own selves and in service to all beings. Keep that perspective before you and it will make the challenging situations seem a little less weighty, less burdensome. In every burden there is a gift.

Thank you for permitting me to share my thoughts with you tonight. My blessings and love to you all.

About the Channel

Barbara Brodsky is the channel for the spirit, Aaron, a sixth density entity who has evolved through the earth plane, and beyond the need for further incarnation. Eight books of Aaron’s teachings have been published. The newest is Presence, Kindness, and Freedom. She is also a dharma teacher in the Buddhist and non-dual traditions, and an Interfaith Minister. Barbara and Aaron lead meditation retreats and spiritual inquiry workshops worldwide. In Ann Arbor, Barbara is the founding and guiding teacher of Deep Spring Center, www.deepspring.org which offers non-denominational spiritual teachings and practice. She has been practicing meditation since 1960 and teaching since 1989. Her teaching draws from dual roots in the Buddhist and Quaker traditions. Her Buddhist training is in the Theravadin and Dzogchen traditions. She became totally deaf in 1972; living with silence has greatly influenced her life and teaching, as have years of active involvement in nonviolent action for social change. www.deepspring.org