85 Creating your own God

You can't connect deeply to a God you fear.  Bhagavan suggested that there are two paths to awakening, Spiritual practices or simply praying to God to do the work and awaken you.  For you to ask God to awaken you, you have to be able to connect to that God.  Since God is infinite, God can be seen in a way that bypasses your psychology.  So if you love women and are afraid of men, have a female God.  The growth formula, prayer, gods, etc are discussed.  I think this podcast will make a lot more sense once you have listened to it than it likely does now.  See what you think.

These podcasts are here to support your personal path of awakening whatever that might be. I feel they are most powerful when listened to in sequence from podcast one forward because each is built on the last. Though they, also, all stand on their own. If anything does not resonate, please disregard it and follow your heart. All my podcasts and website are free. Enjoy!

Though I am a psychotherapist, and these podcasts are offered to be spiritually helpful, they are not psychotherapy. If psychotherapy is ever needed, please reach out to a psychotherapist.

www.williamecooper.wordpress.com for more support. You may, especially, enjoy the short contemplations and the resource page which gives you some supportive material.

Transcript

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Hello, this is William Cooper. Welcome to Awakening Together, Relaxing into Happiness. I trust you're doing well today. When I was a kid, I used to pray every night. My mother would come up and tuck me into bed and we would pray every night. And as a child, I had a childlike faith that if I prayed to God, God would answer my prayers. I thought that prayer really was a powerful conversation with a good friend, God. And as a result, if there was ever something I really wanted, I prayed for it. And when I prayed, I think a hundred percent of the time, whatever I prayed for happened. Powerful. The direct prayer from a child's heart is very powerful. I didn't have any reason to believe it wouldn't happen. I knew that God could do it. I knew that God could give me what I really, really needed. And he did every time. So much so that by the time I was a senior in high school, I remember I took a philosophy class and the professor asked, who believes in God? Please raise your hand. You know what? I was the only one who raised their hand. It was probably 30 people in that class. And then we broke up into small groups and the assignment was to talk about why we believed in God or didn't. So people would ask me, how do you know that there's a God? And I said, because God answers my prayers. I wasn't sophisticated in thinking about all this. It just was my experience. I thought that was the answer. Of course, they didn't like that. And it was a philosophy class and it went downhill from there, but I had a very pure heart and I believe that God would answer my prayers and God did. Now, why am I bringing this up right now in a series of podcasts about awakening? Well, fast forward to, oh, somewhere in the, let's say 2010 area. I was in India and Bhagavan, my guru at the time and good friend now and friend then too. He said, you know, I have a lot of followers and we're all moving towards awakening or you all are. He already was and is profoundly awake. And he said, the problem is for most people, it's very difficult for them to do what they need to do to relax their blocks, to meditate, to see through the things that they're blocking themselves with, to become clear, to do their spiritual practices. It's just difficult day in, day out. And there's a lot of pain that's released and a lot of troubles and reorienting yourself to your true self is hard. It's day by day hard because we've had perhaps lifetimes of building up troubles and problems and for them to unravel and open is difficult. So he said, there are two paths to awakening. One path is you do your spiritual practices. You meditate. You, if you like to do mantras, you do mantras. If you like to do yoga, you do yoga, et cetera, et cetera. There's so many spiritual practices, all of them designed to unite you with your true self by both bringing your attention to who you are and letting you experience who you are oneness and also dissolving everything that would say otherwise. Every vested interest we have in saying, no, I'm not that. I'm not one. I'm, I'm, uh, in pain. I'm not happiness. I'm not joy. I'm not peace. I'm anger and fear. And to be able to let all that stuff go and see through it can be hard. But he said, that's one path. Do your spiritual practices. The second path he said, which is much easier is connect to your God fully, clearly, profoundly, and deeply and pray for awakening. Now that's where I was as a child. God was my friend and my heart was totally open and I got what I prayed for. My heart's desires were granted. I didn't know about praying for awakening back then, but that's interesting. Isn't it? Bhagavan said, it's a very powerful and much quicker path to pray for awakening. We do every other spiritual practice. Why would we rule that one out? So let's talk about that. Praying for awakening. He went on to say that if you choose this path and you want to pray for awakening, you want to be very connected and open-hearted to God, your God. You can't be open-hearted and deeply trust your best friend, God, if you're scared of God, or if you're angry at God, or if you're jealous of God, or you don't trust God or all the things that humans do. How can you be open-hearted? As a child, I was open-hearted, but as an adult, we project onto God and most religions, many of religions, let's just put it that way. You know, there's fear. God's going to put you in hell if you make a wrong step or uh, there's guilt. Ooh, I shouldn't have done that. What's God going to say? My prayers are now blocked from God. God hates me. Or I'm not really a Christian because I don't completely trust and believe that God even that Jesus even lived or how do I know for sure? Or it's in the Bible's wrong or what if it's made up or, but if I don't believe then God won't answer my prayers. I've got to believe in order to, for God to answer my prayers. And I'm sure there are versions of this with Buddhists and Hindus and Muslims. People are people and we block ourselves. We block our prayers. We've talked about manifesting before, and we've talked about how when we come from a pure energy, our highest energy, we can create and manifest. But when we come from our divided self, our fear, hurt, and anger, that is what comes back to us and blocks our manifestations. Kind of like that with prayer too. I remember Bhagavan talked about the growth formula and in the growth formula, it's about manifesting. He would say, find something that you're passionate about, that you really want. That's what I did as a kid. Find something that you're passionate about, pray for it or visualize it. But whether you pray for it or visualize it, do that in a way that you've already received it. You pray for something and you visualize it as already having been given to you. So that way you're not putting out an image of you're waiting for it, waiting for it. I hope it happens. I hope it happens. Instead, you're seeing what it is that you're praying for or visualizing. I am awakened and you see yourself as awakened or whatever it is that you're praying for or visualizing. And then work hard, work very hard for it. When you work hard, that sets into motion all of the universe to help answer your prayers. And then he said, God or grace will jump in to do the rest. It might appear like you're doing so much, but in fact, you're not even doing 1% probably. It's the universe swoops in to answer your prayers. So back to the question, what if I don't trust God? What if I'm afraid of God? Well, that's a problem. You're not that open hearted child. Remember Jesus said, if you have a faith as a child, you could, I don't know, move mountains or something. He was saying that those kinds of prayers are very powerful. The ones that come from children, like how my prayers were. Well, God is infinite. The infinite is infinite, right? But we project onto the infinite and we project our fears and our problems. And that's what blocks us. We block ourselves. In certain religious systems, they have a ways around this. For instance, Catholics, if they don't trust God because he's mean, he'll put you in hell maybe. And maybe you don't even trust Jesus that much. Well, you could always pray to mother Mary, right? She's nice. Because you're praying to one facet of God that you trust. Now your heart can open and you can connect. And that childlike power can clearly move mountains. The Hindus, there really is only one God in their system, but they're the smaller gods. And it's the same thing. You can connect to, well, maybe you're scared of Shiva, but Ganesh is nice. Ganesh, he's had a hard life. He understands. He got his head cut off and his father sewed an elephant head on him instead. So he looked very strange, socially unacceptable. And instead of having a chariot to ride around with, he got a little mouse. This is an elephant headed person on a little mouse. So his life was hard, but he overcame all of his problems. And you pray to him when you want your problems overcome. And you trust Ganesh because he's had a hard time. He's not going to judge you. Krishna, he's playful. He's happy. He loves you. You can pray to Krishna, right? Everybody loves Krishna. There's a thousand gods in the Hindu system. So you pick the ones that you connect to where you can have an open heart and pray. Same with the Buddhists. The Buddhists ultimately don't even believe in God because the oneness is so beyond God that it melts into what's beyond existence. And gods exist. So what melts into beyond existence can't be a god because it doesn't quote unquote exist. Same for the Hindus ultimately, depending on which Hindu system you're you're working with. But they have, as you come into creation, they also have gods. They have nice ones. They have mean ones. Hey, if you need a god to get after your enemies, maybe you make friends with a mean one and you pray to the mean one to take care of your enemies and you trust that that mean one can do it because he's mean. He's like a big hit man or something. So that's how they get around. That's their work around. In the West, Bhagavan said, okay, why don't you create your own god? Don't continually be praying to a god that you fear, a god of fire and brimstone, if that's tripping you up or some other version of that god that you or your church has created. Instead, make a god that you can open up with. Picture your friend. Let that be the god that you pray for. Remember, God is infinite with infinite facets. So there's a friend in there somewhere, right? That's not the one thing that God can't have as friendship, everything else, but not friendship. No, there's a friend in there. So make your god, make a friend. Or if you were close to your mother or are close to your mother and you feel good about women, make your god a woman. If you're scared of men, do not make your god a man, right? So you get the idea. Design your own god. How do you get away with that? Well, God is infinite. So you're not really creating God. You're simply finding an interface with God in that infinite. God is what you're praying for. It's in there and that's how you connect to God. Once having connected, Bhagavan said, okay, now pray for awakening. Pray that God will move you to awakening. And just like the growth formula, if that's your passion, that's the first step. The second step is you still work hard. You still do your meditating or whatever it's your, whatever it is that you're doing, but you let grace bring you to awakening. You let God do 99% of it. You do your 1% that mobilizes the universe, just like the growth formula says. And then you let God do the rest so you can relax. And guess what? It's good for trust. You can begin to trust. And in the end, when you do awaken, it's all one. And all there is, is trust. You don't have to work hard at anything once you've awakened. Or I should say, you don't have to work hard at trusting. Let's say that, because you still are moved in life to work hard. If that's how you're guided, that part's fine. You don't care either way. But as far as trust, you're there because you're one with all things and you trust yourself. It's beyond even having to think about. Everything's open and flowing, vibrant, connected to all things. Bhagavan also said something else interesting. He said that prayers are very powerful when either one of two things are happening. One is you're praying from great pain or angst. And I remember on the front end of my spiritual journey, I felt so separated. I mean, I really was separated and there's a lot of pain and separation. So I accurately felt it. And I had existential angst that you would not believe. And I had all sorts of other pains and abandonments and fears and anger. I had it all. Oh, I had the guilt and the fear from the fire and brimstone. I had been a conservative Christian and that was very difficult. I had it all really. I had a lot anyway. So from there, I prayed for help. I prayed daily, maybe every hour, maybe every minute I was praying because I was desperate. It worked. So prayer is very powerful when you pray from a place of pain and suffering. It will change the universe. The second powerful position of prayer is when you pray from love. You love a prayer of devotion. In awakening, there's automatic devotion. There's not a God to pray to because God is you. I mean, that would be God praying to God. And it's inherently happening all the time. That's called gratitude. That's called joy. That's God's prayer to God is called joy. It's what it feels like is joy. There's a continual prayer going on inherently in God and in God as you. Always. So you don't have to quote unquote, I over here have to pray to you, God. It's going on all the time in your vibration, in awakening. But before awakening, devotion, you're devoted to your God. Maybe you pick a Hindu God. Oh, I love Shiva or I love Krishna or maybe a Christian God. If you're Christian, I love Jesus. Jesus was my friend. Jesus still is my friend. And this will sound strange, but once Archangel came by and never happened before. So I'm saying it casually, but it was fairly momentous. And he had me set up a meditation room and he told me just how to do it. And I did it. And he gave me a deadline. He says, you've got to get all this done in three weeks. The rug has to be a certain color, all this stuff. Remember this never happened to me before. So suddenly he's doing it. And I didn't even know it was Archangel Michael. I just knew it was somebody named Michael. That's all I knew. And I didn't even conceive of any Archangel Michael. I found out that only later, but in the midst of our conversation, he says, Jesus said to say hi. And I couldn't figure out. And I laughed. That sounds so ludicrous. And I said, well, how did he come into this conversation? And I was just surprised. And Archangel Michael, as it turned out to be, said, oh, well, you were his friend before he was famous. Very strange. So I, you know, I didn't know what to do. I set up the meditation room, move out all the old furniture, make it a meditation room. I did. Three weeks later, Jesus came. And what surprised me, we had quite a conversation. And what surprised me was there was no judgment. And when at one point my life flashed before my eyes, he was like an old friend. And it felt like I was the only person in the world. And he said, what have you been doing? It's so good to see you. And, you know, like an old friend, deeply an old friend. And my life flashed before my eyes, my whole life as he asked, what have you been doing? I could he could see it because it was flashing. But before both of our eyes and when I came across embarrassing parts, things that I was ashamed of, he just would start laughing so deeply. That's what surprised me. The laughter of Jesus, so much laughter, no judgment, just laughter. What were you thinking? He would say, that is so funny. I can't believe you did that. Wow. He would laugh and laugh and laugh. That surprised me. And somewhere in that conversation, he said, you know, you and I are no different. And he showed me his nervous system and he showed me my nervous system. One was overlaid on top of the other. And the only difference was I had about four little tiny black dots, the size of maybe a pinhead. He said, that's the only difference between you and me. No, I'm telling you this because we're all the same. All we have is about four black dots. And our spiritual practice, it's not a big thing. It feels like a big thing. And we're here on earth where everything gets magnified and seems so big. But that's so we can work on it so we can see it because these dots are so small. If you weren't in a place where you could really magnify them, you might miss them. They're that small. So what stands between you and awakening, between you and purity, you and infinite happiness is just four little black dots. He never told me how to get rid of them, but he was confident that I would. So this is Jesus. And the reason I talk about the laughing is we have preconceptions of what God is like. I would have never pictured Jesus as a laugher. And so I spent so many decades feeling so guilty about judgment and he has no judgment. This is what we do. So when we design our own God, we bypass that. We bypass that. We picture, we pray to somebody we feel comfortable with. And by the way, in my podcast, I mentioned Hindus and Buddhists and Christians. It's all to me the same. So I know a little bit about Islam, but not much. And that's the only reason I don't mention it that much. It's just because I don't know so much. But I'm sure it's a wonderful, I know the Sufis and Rumi and some of the poets are quite beautiful. So create your own God and pray, pray for awakening. Don't avoid that. Do that too. Let grace open you up into awakening until you experience yourself as the grace that's been opening yourself up. Okay. I've enjoyed talking with you and I look forward to the next time. Take care. Bye.