Year of Light

The Year of Light

Aaron channeled by Barbara Brodsky Transcription: January 11, 2017. Monthly Dharma Talk (Not yet reviewed by Barbara and Aaron)

 


Transcription, video is also closed captioned:

 

January 11, 2017

The Year of Light

My blessings and love to you. I am Aaron.

When I look out the window, I see light. Radiance everywhere. But some people turn themselves away from the window and they say, “No, the world is dark, Aaron.” We each have a choice whether to recognize the innate light that floods everything or to carry ourselves in a place of darkness.

I would like to name this year, “The Year of Light”. I think I have done that before, but let’s carry through deeper on it this year. What does it mean to recognize that you are Light?

There is a beautiful poem by the Sufi poet, Kabir. I’d like the share the beginning stanzas.

The Guest is inside you, and also inside me.
You know the sprout is hidden inside the seed.
We are all struggling; none of us has gone far.
Let your arrogance go, and look around inside.
The blue sky stretches out further and further.
The daily sense of failure goes away.
The damage I have done to myself fades.
A million suns come forth with light
When I sit firmly in that world.

We all sit firmly in that world. This is our innate place of being. We are light. What prevents us from recognizing that light? What keeps us lost in the darkness? Let’s explore that a bit together, but with a reminder that you always have a choice to be the light that you are or to disclaim that light and say, “No, I am darkness, I am limited.”

The world surrounds us with catalyst, sometimes challenging; words and actions that bring forth pain, fear, and anger, that lead you to feelings of limitation and helplessness. There is so much habit energy in being helpless and small. Why are you afraid to be big? I am not suggesting that you allow the negativity in you to be big, but that you can allow the love within you to be big. What if it bursts forth and shines everywhere?

So much of this is simply habit, the habit to remain dim and small. For the spiritual seeker who aspires to live life with love and non-harm, I think the habitual pattern to stay small is an outgrowth of discomfort with negative emotions that you recognize have not yet been fully resolved.

This one pushes you. Anger arises, wanting to lash out at the other person. Then, “Oh no, I can’t do that,” and you diminish yourself and your energy. The pattern is unconscious. What if, when you feel that push and you feel that (gesture), want to lash out, you just remind yourself, “This not my highest intention. I am light. I am love.” But remember also that light and love are powerful. This is the ground of compassion.

So you have that push, anger, and then, “No, I will not respond from the place of anger.” And saying to the other, not anger (hits screen), but, “No, you may not speak to me that way. No.” Let your light shine forth, and say this compassionately, yet very powerful “No.” I can’t guarantee you that the other will stop what he or she is doing, but you have not contributed any more negativity to the situation, only kindness.

If the other is greeted with that “No” often enough, eventually something will shift in him or her. How many times can somebody push you, be met with, “No,” push you again so you fall over on the ground, and you pick yourself up, dust yourself off, walk back up to them and say, “No.”? They may punch you, they may try to beat you up, because they’re so afraid of the power that you wield when you say, “No.”

But something else can happen, and it’s so beautiful. Eventually that “No” brings forth a remembrance of their own. At some point they will catch your eye, and your radiance will draw forth their own radiance, and something in them will reverberate with your light. They will begin, just begin— the “seed inside the sprout.” They will remember, “Oh, I am also light.” It may not be a conscious thought, but the anger in them will diminish a bit. They’ll start to look away.

Barbara tells a beautiful story. This is probably 1960 or ’61, somewhere in the Deep South with a group of others, integrating a small southern restaurant. They sat in the restaurant meditating. Everybody had gone out except the manager. An angry crowd was outside. They knew that people had been badly beaten trying to integrate this restaurant in previous weeks, so they knew there was real danger. They were prepared to accept that danger because of the strong intention to bring light and love to the situation.

They meditated, the four of them, for half an hour. All seemed to be ready at once. Barbara could hear then, she could hear the anger outside. She knew there would be people with rotten fruit and wooden clubs and stones.

The four of them came to the door. She was so filled with compassion for these people— not pity, not anger; compassion. These were people deeply in pain. Their beliefs and way of life were being threatened. But the light in her was willing to say no to this. The power of satyagraha, soul force. Gandhi coined that term, soul force.

So they walked to the door. And one of her most powerful memories is coming out and looking at people in the eye, seeing the anger, the fear in their faces, and being able to greet it— no words, no “No,” just looking in the eyes of one person after another. And they could not meet her gaze. Eyes dropped. The weapons in their hand dropped. It wasn’t shame that she was drawing forth, it was a memory that they also were light.

She was not shaming them; their own recognition of who they were caused them to feel some shame about the person they had become. So they dropped the weapons, they stepped back, and the four people walked through to the waiting car and drove away. She remembers this as one of the most powerful memories of her life, the one that really taught her the power of inner light and love. You are that.

Many of you have expressed concern, with the coming inauguration, of what the next years will bring with a leadership that seems more inclined to give voice to negative thought and hostility toward others. I cannot say I’m delighted that this man will be your president, but I think it’s perfect, because he is a mirror for you. He is the angry crowd gathered outside and you are the person walking out the door, and able to walk out, not with hostility and anger in yourself, but with full confidence both of the light within you and the light within him. I do not imagine that this man is going to easily be transformed to know his inner light, but that could happen.

But it’s not about the president-elect, it’s about all of the people in your society who are feeling so much fear and pain and anger, like the crowd drawn outside that restaurant, that they are looking for somebody strong to fix the fear and anger that they feel in situations that elicit it. These are the people to whom your light can speak. But it cannot speak to them until you uncover it in yourselves and let it shine forth.

This light is your essence, you cannot lose it, although you have temporarily lost track of it a bit. What does it mean to keep yourself small? What if you are that light? What if you are all-powerful? And yes, you have not yet resolved your negative emotions. It means that you must be increasingly responsible to any negativity in yourself, able to experience that negativity as arising thought, arising energy, and simply hold space for it until it resolves. You can practice with this on a daily basis. The itch, wanting to scratch— can you just hold space for it? The angry words that somebody said to you— I’m not saying don’t respond, but don’t respond until you hold space and it is not anger and ego responding but love. So each of you has the ability to go deeper and deeper into the essence of love and light within you. You cannot lose it, it is your essence. The darker it gets, the more important to remember your light.

Imagine us entering a cave through a big doorway. The sun is behind us shining light deep into the cave so we easily walk in. You’ve been told there is some cherished treasure— now I’m not speaking of gold here but something really important, something beautiful, that you will find deeper within the cave. So we walk in together. 25 yards, it’s still lit up; 50 yards, 75 yards— it’s beginning to get dark. But you can still turn around and look over your shoulder and see the sun shining through the doorway. So no matter where you are in the cave, you can always turn around and find the doorway. That’s step one.

Eventually, in every life, the cave turns and you lose sight of the doorway. Here we are at that space where the cave turns a corner. Pause here. I am light, I am love. We are light. We are love. Can you feel it? We are light. We are love. We will not be diminished.

Now join hands and let us walk around the corner. Notice that moment of fear, suddenly pitch black and you don’t know which way the cave mouth was. You knew you turned right, but could you turn the correct degree of right to go back around the corner and out? Fear. Ahhh…breathing in, I am aware of the fear, breathing out, I hold space for the fear. Opening, opening… feel the increasing spaciousness, and literally feel the light that you are shining forth. All of you, holding hands, creating a circle of light. You can never lose that light, it’s your essence. Within that light there is enough to retrieve perhaps a lost child in the cave that’s fallen to the floor unconscious. There he is. You go in and pick him up. You lift him up, and your light is enough to turn you back around and walk around the curve, and there is the sunlight again. Emerging into the sunlight.

You really have to be in the darkness to know the power of your light. When you’re in the sunlight, it’s easy, you rely on the external light. But when you are in the darkness in a place of grief, of fear, of confusion, your inner light is vital. When I call this the “Year of Light”, what I am asking, inviting, really, is each of you, especially when it becomes dark, to take the time to remember: I am light, I am love. And that light can never be diminished because it is that light of the Guest within me and you, the Divine within me and you. It can never be lost. When I speak from that light, I transform myself, those around me, and the world.

This is the power you have, in these somewhat shaky times in the world, not knowing what the future will bring in your country. Aware of the increasing violence throughout the world, with the seeming increasing hatred in the world. I invite you to find the source of your power, which is not yours, but the power, of love. And remember that you are undefeatable when you rest in that power. But it is never a power that you can use for your own personal gain or to harm others. It is only the power that all beings have that speaks from the loving heart. And it’s such a joy to rest in that space. …”A million suns come forth with light when I rest firmly in that world.” This is your birthright. Enjoy it and use it well.

Thank you.

Scroll to Top