68 Does The Unconscious Exist? Best Way to Meditate - Q & A

Does the unconscious mind exist?  What happens in meditation?  What's the best way to meditate?  What dissolves in meditation?  How?  This is an edited version of a live Q & A with these and other questions discussed supporting past podcasts and/or one's individual path of awakening.

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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Welcome everybody. My name is William Cooper. I have the podcast Awakening Together, which is on most platforms, definitely on Insight Timer, and that's where this live session is. The advantage of this live session is it supports the previous 65 or so podcasts that we've done on awakening, as well as your awakening process. So our goal is to support your path, your awakening, and this is your time to ask questions, whether you've listened to the podcast or not. Maybe we can discuss a little bit and see what is helpful. In the meantime, while you're thinking about questions, I would like to talk a little bit about meditation. I remember, oh probably 20 years ago, hearing Krishnamurti in some interview on YouTube, I think, say that there was no unconscious mind. And as a psychotherapist, and I've worked with 25,000 people using hypnosis, working with the unconscious mind, I was a little shocked. It's not what I ever heard. And by the way, psychotherapy is not awakening. I realize that, but it is helpful to unstick and clarify some things that often keep us from awakening. So in my own process, what I've noticed is probably what you've noticed, and I realize many of you are way more advanced than I am, and some may be a little bit less, but it's a mix. But here's a light. This is what we look like unobstructed. This is my experience of myself, my ultimate self, unobstructed, and it's yours too. Beyond this creation, it's not light. It's undifferentiated potential of all things, you might say, and you only know that through intuition. And we've talked about that a lot in the past, but when you know it, you know it. But it's not something we can know through the mind because the mind works with the five senses. So at first there's the so called nothing, which is everything, and it comes into creation, and as soon as it hits creation, clear light. Now, that light as it slows down is felt as joy, bliss, well-being, happiness. And those are often the qualities of awakening. Well, they always are because of the qualities of being, and that's what we experience. However, as that light flows through, when it gets caught up and snagged up in things we've created, let's say we've hallucinated some thoughts. For instance, I want to think of a car. I just picture a car in my head. That's me hallucinating the image of a car, and now I have created this object of a car that is now in my head. If I tie it with emotions, I hallucinate emotions, and put those together, I get a very solid object in my head, a car. Maybe I got in a car accident, and so I didn't even have to hallucinate hard. I just physical and mental and emotional all come together, and now I have the trauma called a car in my world because I got into a car accident. So I've created this object. Well, if I don't discreate it, now this object is here, and it still exists. Well, the light that is me shines through, but it's a little bit blocked by that object. Maybe it even gets involved in the story of the car, and it creates a 3D movie, and that uses up a lot of light, but even if it doesn't, it's still a little bit blocked by the car. Even if it's observing the car, it's going into this world. There's a little blockage because the car is there. Now, I'm never blocked because this light is always flowing, but to see into the world, I've got this car in the way. Well, if I create a lot of these, let's say this is my mind. Normally, it's clear, but for this illustration, I'll take a piece of paper, and let's say I have a lot of objects on it. It's just a lot of objects I've created, and they're there, and I haven't discreated them. In meditation, we discreate them. That's the power of meditation. That's why they discreate, and we'll talk about that in a minute, but let's say we haven't gotten that far, and we haven't discreated them. Well, some objects that we create are very nice, picturing flowers and trees and clouds, and that's really nice. I like that. I don't want to discreate that, but others are painful. It's trauma. It's the car accident. It's my childhood. It's who knows what. Things that I don't want to deal with. I don't want to think about them, right? So what do I do? Using my willpower, I shove them over to one side of my mind, and I fold that under so I can't see it. I kind of put it underneath. That's called repression. That's what we all do. It's not that we all do it constantly. That's what, in fact, any kind of willpower trying to get away from hurt or fear or something uncomfortable is repression, right? I don't want to feel it, basically, so I start thinking how to solve it, how to do this, how to do that. Well, in the end, I'm just shoving it under here, and it's now this is my unconscious, what I call the unconscious mind. Just like Christian Murti said, it's not really a real thing. It's just basically a place I don't want to look, and he talked about that, too. I just don't want to look there. I don't like it. I don't want to deal with it at all. I just put it there. It's still there, and if I could just push all the troublesome things that are in my mind over to that end of the piece of paper and fold all of them under, then I don't have to feel any of them. That's great, or at least I think it is, but the problem is something happens. A dog looks at me funny. It's a rainy day, or somebody says something that I don't like, and all this stuff comes up suddenly, and now I'm screaming and yelling, and we see that so often. Sometimes when awakened people have become awake because they've cleaned this part so clearly that it's like a clear glass, and this light of being shines through on the conscious mind, they emanate great peace and well-being, but then you say something like, you know, you don't look so good today or something, and then all of this unconscious comes up, and that hasn't been cleaned, and then that awakened person, so-called awakened person, starts screaming at you and yelling, and you read about this all the time, all these troublesome things that happen with quote-unquote awakened people. Now, they are very awake. They are, but not completely is the problem. Not completely. So in awakening, and we're going to get to the meditation part of it in a second, a few minutes anyway. I'm just trying to lay a groundwork, but in the awakening, I remember a monk telling me to do anything is to do too much, because here we are, and if we do anything, we're often trying to use our willpower to get rid of something. Well, maybe I'll do a mantra and get, you know, push it like I don't have to think about it, or maybe I'll do a guided meditation. I'll feel better, and I won't have to think. I'll put it on a leaf and let it go down the river, and I don't have to think about it anymore. It's down the river. It's gone. It's gone. No, it's not gone. I have now hallucinated an image that pretends like it's gone, so I feel better, because this part truly can get clean. This part of our mind, the large part of our mind we call the conscious mind, that can get clean and clear, and we do feel better, but we haven't dealt with this. The hurts, the fears that we've tucked under, we've folded under, that we've repressed. So, what are some ways to... Do we need to clear all this to be awake? No, we don't. We can be awake, which is being in touch with who we are, this light that we are, and we can totally know that. The problem is, if our mind is not clean and we're covered up with objects, first of all, it's often very hard to get in touch with ourselves, because we're so clouded with objects, but secondly, as we shine into our life with our light, we hit all those objects, and we can't even walk down the street without being in extreme pain. I've had a very unique experience. I met a guru who became my friend, very powerful man, and he actually for 10 years gave me awakening, really very powerful awakening, through his energy. So I saw what it was like to be awake. Now, the problem is, my consciousness went through his energy, and I saw the world from a clear place without resolving all my messed up things. I did resolve some, but not all, because I was thinking I was awake, because I was flowing through his energy. Later, after 10 years, he said, look, you're doing great. You're very open and awake, and you've become one with me. Now, it's time to go out on your own and awaken on your own, which I did. He took away all that power. It used to be so powerful that people would, I would have maybe a hundred people around me, or I would have, I could touch people, and they, things would happen, or they couldn't, some of them couldn't even be around. They'd have to go in another room. It was so powerful. Now, it wasn't my energy. It was his energy coming through me, but his energy was that powerful, and I got that experience. So, when I talk about this light, that's what it is. Now, on my own, yes, I'm clearing out those repressions of mine, and I feel light every day, and so my current status is, I'm in my center most of the time, in my light. I'm not getting all wound up in all these other thoughts and twists and turns. Some I am, but less and less. I'm more like this, not folded under, but because my unconscious mind has now come to the same level as my conscious mind, but because it's on the same level, I feel it all, and there's a lot to resolve of all that old stuff that has been buried, but it's resolving because I'm doing what that monk said, and the monk said to do anything is to do too much. What happens if you do nothing? You're not repressing anymore. Everything is coming to the surface because you're not repressing it, and you're observing it. Now, when you're observing it, isn't that called meditation? You sit still. You don't turn your head. You feel everything that you can. You connect to it, and you observe it. It's not only observe. It's not only observe your hallucinations. We call them thoughts, but it's not only observing your thoughts and emotions. You connect to them. You connect because it's that connection that dissolves them. They are just a part of life. There's nothing to avoid here. Even if they are painful, when you're resting in your center, it's not so painful. It's still painful in the body, but you connect, and that light that comes through, that is you, that connects to those thoughts and emotions that you have hallucinated, that you've created, and those objects begin to dissolve. They begin to fall apart. They melt like an ice cube under the hot sun. They melt, so that's meditation. The reason why meditation is so hard for people sometimes is because when they fall apart and melt, they release everything that's been holding them together, which is hurt, fear, and pain. That's why they were repressed. That's why they have stayed as objects and were not discreated because that trauma still remains. I've never been able to sit with it and observe it and, very importantly, connect. See, as you connect, you do feel you connect. You become one with that thought and that emotion, and that part of you that has been tucked under, it connects with you. It's a two-way street. That emotion and thought connects with you, and it breathes in. It almost feels like a separate entity because it's kind of been twisted off, and that's what we often call our personality. Because the part of us that's observing isn't a personality, is it? It's just quote-unquote emptiness. There's nothing back there. There's everything back there. Yes, it's beyond everything. It's where everything comes from, but it doesn't feel like anything. So, you become more and more familiar and connected to yourself, to your real self, as you sit there. And as you connect to these thoughts and emotions, they begin to melt under the sunlight, under the intensity of your awareness. Very powerful. That's meditation. So, why do you do meditation? So that you can be free. What do I mean by free? You're already free because you are that bright light. But I mean free to move in this world without being blocked by millions of objects that you haven't just created. Oh, Lynn asked a good question. She's confused. Do I try to relive the experience you want to let go of? Well, it is confusing, Lynn. It's a very good question. Because there's so many levels to this, that's why it's confusing. Because all the answers are correct. Do you want to relive something? Kind of. What I mean is you want to be connected and not repress it so it will relive itself, more or less. If it is alive in you, it will relive. Do you want to just delve into it, embellish it, make it more intense, less intense? Some people find that helpful because it helps them connect and it helps bring what's repressed up. What's been denied, it helps bring it up. This answer is going to be very intuitive for you, for you, for all of us. Because what you're looking for is what does this part of me that has been deprived need? It needs attention. It needs some kind of something. You ask it. Now, this is the basis of family systems therapy. You almost act like it's an individual personality and you ask it, what do you need? What do you want from me? What do you need? I'm your friend. Now, it may not trust you at first and you may just sit with it. Hey, I'm just going to sit with you. I feel this pain, I'm just going to sit with you. Now, what does that do? You're really not two people. There really isn't a personality there. But you've kind of created one, a false one, but it's there in that sense. And for it to dissolve, it needs a connection. And sometimes that connection requires you to talk to it, to feel it, maybe look at life through its eyes because often this twisted off part has not updated its files. It still thinks it's three years old, getting beaten or whatever the problem is. So it almost needs to look around from its perspective and notice, it's okay now. I can relax. And once it realizes that, you might invite it. Does that feel better or does it feel worse to you to notice that you're safe? Oh, I feel so much better. Talk to it. Ask it to respond to you. And it'll seem like a game in your head, like, oh, I'm just imagining making up stuff. And kind of is, but the whole thing is a game in a traumatic sense. It doesn't really exist, but it does. You're not really talking to somebody, but you are. You know, you have to go by the rules of what's been created. So you talk to it and ask it, does it feel better or worse to notice that you're safe and you're not being beaten? Do you realize that you're not being beaten? Yes. Does it feel better or worse? It feels better. Well, then let's enjoy it. Take it in, soak it up. Can you enjoy that? Well, when attention, when a trauma starts to fully take in peace, well-being, love, joy, safety. What happens? Poof. It's gone. It melts. It is gone. And it reemerges with you. You don't have that twisted off personality anymore. So sometimes if you just observe it without doing a little connection, sometimes it stays solid and you'll notice after 20 years of meditating, it's still there, you know, because you never really connected. You thought you were, but maybe you weren't. Now, other times, here's the intuitive part, other times you can just connect to the emotion, connect to what's going on in meditation without going through that other kind of connection that I just described and you'll feel it melt and you know it's gone when it's gone. I mean, it really is gone. It's not nothing. Well, I need to think about it. I need to work on it. I need to, you know, do this every day and make it go, make it go, make it. It's gone. You don't have to do anything anymore when it's gone. So that's an excellent question. I hope that answered, Lynn. I hope that answered what you needed. If I didn't quite or if what I just said is a little off kilter or confusing or we need to talk a little bit more about it, let me know. Ask me. And if any of the rest of you have something that you would like to ask, okay, yes. Lynn says, yes, I have a few experiences that just keep coming up. Helpful. I will try. Lynn, this is the human condition. Let me assure you, it is not just you. Everybody listening. This is why I'm talking about this now. Everybody listening has this going on. Everybody. Very rarely. There might be something, maybe one person today doesn't have that. There's another thing. Let me add to this. When something has been very traumatic, it gets even a little more stuck and that's called PTSD. Now, we often think we have to be in a war to have PTSD or somebody's got to do something horrible to us, but it's not exactly that. There's many kinds of PTSDs. There's complex PTSD, which means just a repetitive something like somebody keeps putting you down day in, day out, day in, day out for days and days and days and months and months and now you have PTSD. It wasn't any one trauma. It was a lot of things. Now, society can be like that. Our culture can be like that. You can get this complex PTSD depending on where you live in the world just by where you live in the world. So, PTSD, I'm going to add this one part to it. Because it gets stuck, it's more like a muscle cramp and there's no way. It's very hard to meditate that away. I mean, if you have a muscle cramp, you just don't sit with it and meditate, maybe you stretch your leg a little bit or move your muscle or massage it. Maybe that's a better way to go. You use your intuition, but I think that's going to help. Then go back to your meditation. Now, with our inner traumas, when we have a complex PTSD, what we want to do is be a little more gentle and what we've already said has been very gentle. And by the way, if I arouse anything here and anybody needs to see it, please see a therapist. If you need to talk to somebody, please do. They can be very helpful. I'm telling you, it's not usually awakening, but it can be helpful to unclog things. But back to this complex PTSD. So, you're very gentle and what you do is it's a slow or easy rocking motion. You connect to that personality that's traumatized. Wow, you really feel bad, don't you? You really feel or I don't even know what personality is, let's say. I just feel hurt. I'll just talk to the hurt, you know. Oh, you feel hurt. I'm sorry. But then you rock gently from the hurt. You let the hurt rock gently and say, do you notice the beautiful yard here? Does that feel good? Yes, I'll take it in. And then you let it rock gently back. Oh, but I heard, I heard, I heard. And you just do this back and forth. Do you notice the flowers? Yeah. Do you like them? Yeah. Feel it. And then you rock back, let it rock back. Can you imagine what it would feel like not to hurt? You ask this one, this traumatized part of you. No, I can't. I understand. I'm with you. Okay. But if you could, let's imagine what life would be like not to be traumatized. Have you ever felt non-traumatized? No. Okay. Well, I have. Why don't you? Let's just imagine that. Feel some of my experiences for just three seconds. And then let's rock back to your hurting self. Anyway, you come up with any kind of thing that feels good. Be creative and just rock back and forth and let this take as long as it takes. It could take months. It could only be a day. But you don't just keep pounding and pounding and pounding it because that part's very hurting. It's hurting. So you're careful. But that's how you unloosen PTSD. Stuff that's really like feels stuck in there, blocked in there. Okay. Thank you, Lynn. Great question. Great comment. And it benefits everybody because everybody experiences these things. Anytime anybody asks a question, everybody benefits. Amanda, as I work through, I find thanking those feelings helpful. Yes. We don't want fear, hurt, and anger, but we create them to keep ourselves safe. It's very clearing and powerful just to say, I know you're trying to keep us safe. Thank you. Very good comment, Amanda. Yes. Absolutely. They're trying to keep, these personalities are trying to keep you safe. They're trying to be safe. And the reason why they got repressed is another safety feature. It's not just to be tricky or to be devious. They're underneath there because it's keeping the rest of you safe. They're bearing the hurt that otherwise I would have to feel, right? So when these come up, now I'm accepting some of the hurt from them and letting it offload until the whole thing melts. And when things melt, that's what turns into peace, love, and well-being. That's the mechanism happens. When you say, thank you, those parts of us, like little flowers, they get some rain and they open, they feel appreciated. They can relax a little bit. When they can relax, they can open to you because you're being nice and they can get some relief. And when they open, then they can offer you their pain. And when they offer you their pain, you can connect to them. You can love them. You can talk to them. Anything that helps them, you can do. You can ask them, what will help you? And they can drink it in just like we've talked about. But Amanda, that's excellent. Yes. Thanking those feelings is very powerful all by itself. Even if you didn't do anything else, that's powerful. That will move you forward. That will loosen things up and that will help them not have to be repressed because you can see them and you can admit them to your consciousness. As I was saying in the beginning, there's not really an unconscious mind. It's all, say if this sheet of paper represents the mind for any people that came in a little bit later. When I fill it with objects, thoughts, and emotions that I create through my hallucinations, I just picture them and I create them. Now I can't see through my mind. I'm overwhelmed. And the bad things I really don't like that have all the hurt, I'm not thanking them. I'm trying to get rid of them. I'm trying to push them to this end of the sheet of paper or my mind and then fold them under so I don't see them. Put them under the carpet. Sweep them under the carpet. But when I thank them, they can come out and they can be. Now I'm whole. I might be a little blocked, but I am whole. I might be hurting because now I'm feeling these twisted off parts, but I'm whole and I do thank them. Now as I meditate a lot, the part of me that's beyond everything in the mind is personality. It's not who I am, but it's the personality that I operate in the world through. Just like I'm not the car I drive. I'm the driver and not the car. I'm the driver of the personality. I'm not the personality. I don't want to start thinking I'm the car and I don't want to start thinking I'm the personality. But if I want to drive through life nicely, I keep my tires inflated. If I have done things to the car, I try to fix the car. If I've done things to the personality, I try to love the person. The way you fix the personality is you love it, ultimately. When I said connect to everything, that's love. That's giving it peace. That's giving it safety, right? You love yourself. Love yourself. That's how you do it. You love yourself. You'll also notice a variant. This is what I notice. I think probably you all already notice this, but when you come from yourself, you're the light, the light that you are. And I'll show this flashlight to illustrate it. The light that we are. When we come from there, suddenly when we come into our personality, we'll notice some things don't fit anymore because our light, when we truly connect and feel ourselves, is made of peace, love, and well-being, right? And then I get into my personality. I notice I'm responding with anger and irritation and this and that and hurt and fear and, wow, that's not who I am. So I'm driving a car that's not driving. The car was created when I didn't know myself. That's why the personality was created when I didn't know who I was. That's why it was built the way it was. When I'm cut off from myself, I have, when I'm cut off from myself, I have separation. Because I'm cut off, separation, anxiety. I have hurt. I feel abandoned. I'm alone in the universe. And I have anger. I'm frustrated. Life isn't good. I'm cut off from myself. It's terrible. So from that perspective, I build a personality. Why do I build it? To get the things that I've lost when I cut off from myself. I don't feel like I have love. I'm cut off from myself. I've been abandoned. So I have a personality to get love. Will you love me? Could you love me? If I'm really good, if I make a lot of money, will you love me? That's what personalities do. They're getting machines. Oh, I'm afraid. So I have a personality. I can do this and it'll keep me safe. I'll lock all the doors. I'll lock the windows. I'll do this. I'll do that. I'll be safe. I'll be safe because I'm afraid or I'm angry. I'll make you do. I'll be strong. If you do anything against me, I will overwhelm you. So that way I can both be safe and get the life I want. I can make a fulfilling life. Maybe I'll get a lot of money and I'll buy stuff too. Uh, so that's how we have made our personality to start with. Now, as we've connected to who we are and we start to flow in the world from there, we're more flowing intuitively rather than reactively. Personalities from separation react. Why? Because we're cut off from ourselves. How can we be intuitive? We're cut off. We're just, we're using our mind. We're hallucinating stuff and we're reacting because we're cut off. Um, so as that opens up, which is the natural effect of meditating, that's why it's good to meditate every day. Even if you don't meditate, but five minutes, maybe meditate twice a day, maybe meditate 15 minutes in the morning and five minutes in the afternoon. Or if you want to be hardcore, meditate an hour in the morning and an hour in the evening or two hours into, you know, whatever, you know, you've got a job too probably. So, uh, so meditation clears all this out. Um, yes, Lin makes another good comment that I will guarantee is true for all of us. Every person here. Uh, she says that frustration comes up a lot, especially at her job. Well, now there's so many layers. Again, we fall back on our intuition, but there's so many layers and I'm just going to answer this question generally because that's all I know. Uh, but, and it applied to a lot of people, but this light that we are and beyond light, but in this world, first thing is light as we come into this world. Um, and that's the way it is every second of every day. Always. You don't have to become it. That's what it is. Always. If you don't feel that as real and that is not your experience, then there's a little blockage going on somewhere. That's all more meditation. We'll clear that. If you get stuck, maybe go see a therapist just to unstick that thing, but don't stay in therapy forever. Just do it. Get unstuck. Keep meditating. So, but this light is very powerful and you can think something and it creates it. What is this light? It's one with all things. It is the power of the universe. That's you coming through your body, through your incarnation is the power of the universe. As your blocks fade away, we call those your personality. As your personality lets go, the universe becomes you. It comes through you and your personality reforms around it. You become kinder, gentler, nicer, but at the same time, more powerful because that light is unobstructed and it feels good. That you know at your heart intuitively, you know beyond even your mental knowing, you know that's true. So when you hit this world and you're blocked, it's frustrating because normally if you think something, it happens. Boom. And you know that's true. You know that's how it could be. So it's frustrating when it's not that way. And then when we get into something that's a job that's maybe we feel is blocking us because we feel that we have to do, that we would prefer to be doing something else. That's frustrating because now we really feel blocked, right? We feel very blocked. So this is normal. What happens as you meditate, this frustration, we just kind of see that even in our daily life when we're not quote unquote sitting still meditating. We are always kind of meditating. And when we see frustration, it doesn't match who we are. It doesn't match. It's like that doesn't, it's not me. So you just sort of see it. And like the monk said, to do anything is to do too much. You don't try to change it. You're just with it. And as you said before, you might even thank it or talk to it. But be with it and let it be with you and let it dissolve. It will dissolve over time because it's not you. We have talked about a previous podcast and by the way, all 65 and I do one every, I keep adding to them. They're all free. They're all available. Go to any platform, Awakening Together, William Cooper, go to Insight Timer, William Cooper, just type it in. They'll all be there. And we do these live sessions roughly every two weeks. So if you follow me, you'll get a notification on Insight Timer and you won't miss it. I think the next one will be at 10 o'clock, two Saturdays from now. But the reason I mentioned the past podcast is in one of the podcasts, it's entitled, I think, coherence therapy. In these podcasts, I try to address at least one topic, at least enough to get you down the road where maybe that's all you need to know, just what's in the podcast. You can research it more if you want. But I try to kind of address every big thing that would be helpful for you to know that I'm aware of. Now, everybody's different, but I do my best. But one of them's called coherence therapy and most of them are not about therapy, but some are. Coherence therapy says that when you come from a deep place, let's say the light of your being, that's your truth. And then you match it with something else, like not match it, but at the same time you hold and you're aware of something else, like in this case, frustration. So it's me watching frustration arise within me, or I'm sitting down and meditating, the light of me connecting to the frustration. What happens in coherence therapy is when you put two things side by side like that, the discordant one, the one that's not the quote unquote real one, dissolves and disappears. That's exactly what happens in meditation. That's exactly what happens in your real life. When frustration comes up and you connect, you see it, you're at your job and you're frustrated, frustrated, frustrated. The frustration melts. And Lynn says it usually comes up when she works with other people. Well, now the problem with working with other people, let me rephrase that. The reason why it's good to work with other people, how about 180 degree turnaround, is because I've got to jump into my personality to connect to them. And all I have is what I've built in the past. I may be connected to the experience of myself as a true light, but my personality was built years ago. So I connect to that person using the only tool I have. And that's my personality. And it brings up what's in my personality. If I feel something, it's in my personality. Why? Because I'm feeling it. I'm the one feeling it. It's in my personality. So I can, people elicit that because, you know, people, they got their issues too, right? And so when I connect to them, you know, there's issues going everywhere. So boy, they have a way. And so I connect to them. My issues come up and stay. This is the practice, little bit by little bit, learn to stay with yourself, learn to be yourself, the light in all circumstances and watch these emotions as they arise in you. It's not about the other person. It's about you, the personality, the frustration that arises in you, that arises in me, that arises in all of us. And it does. So interactions with other people are very, very, very helpful for us. Yes, but other people's personalities, Lynn goes on to say, and that is part of it, other people's personalities. Yes, it is. That is, you're right, Lynn. And that applies, we all have that experience. Awakening is not always easy, right? What is awake? Now, when your emotions have dissolved, what's the problem? You're just looking at the person going, wow, that person's got troubles. What can I do to help? And I mean, you're sincere because your issues are gone. My issues are gone. I'm not looking at them with frustration because that's gone. I'm not looking at them with anxiousness because that's gone, or anger, it's gone, or hurt, it's gone. Stress, it's gone. When I've done my work, all that's gone. So what's left is just me observing the person. And now all that's left is love and peace. And I'm just thinking, wow, this person's wound up. What can I do to be helpful here? In India, they have a very strange saying, it's better to be kind than truthful. I'm not going to debate that right now, but there is some truth to it. That person is losing it in front of you and all your stuff is gone because you've been meditating for a while. You might just kind of go with him for a little bit. Yeah, that is a problem. Oh, I'm sorry. You know, stuff like that. Oh, and that's very helpful. Now, Jay just said something that I resonate with also, as well as all the other stuff we've talked about. But Jay says, I resonate with this 100%. Thanks. Michael Singer says that whenever you feel closed off, try to open your heart and be present. Yes, I like that for two reasons. One is Michael Singer lives down the about three hours from me and I love his book, Untethered Soul. Oh yeah, Jennifer says she just started one of his books that she thought it was that she likes it. So I recommend that book, Untethered Soul, Michael Singer. It's been on the New York Times bestseller's list and Oprah loves it. Anyway, it's a good book. So now what happens as we connect to somebody, as we open our heart to them, what happens? Why can't we do that? Or why isn't that happening automatically anyway? There's no law that our heart has to be closed. They have the problem, not us. You know, why are we upset? They're the ones suffering, not us. To any degree that we're suffering is our problem. That stuff we haven't resolved. So when we're open to another person, you know, maybe on one level we think, well, that's good. We're being so loving and kind, but notice what happens. It reveals why we weren't loving and kind. If there's anything left in us, when you try to open to somebody that's been kind of mean to you or upset or whatever, you'll feel your stuff and you feel like, oh, I'm not going to go there. I'm not going to go there. I'm not going to go there. I'm good because I'm being open. I'm being open. I'm being kind to this hurting person, which is a good thing to do. Michael Singer's right. That is a good thing to do for two levels. One, it helps the person. Two, it helps your relationship. But three, it reveals everything inside of you that you did not thankfully engage, but yet is still there. You're hurt, you're fear, you're stress, you're anxiety. Now you got something to just let it unwind. It's like a rubber band releasing its energy. You'll feel it inside. You don't act on it, but you'll feel it just twisting, twisting, twisting, and until it's loose and limp. Now your anger is gone. Now your frustration is gone. So yes, when you feel closed off, try to open. Yes. Now, at some point in all of our awakening experiences, the thing about awakening is every answer is correct somehow. On some level, different answers are more appropriate than other answers. And yet, at some point, doing nothing, not even trying to do anything. There's no trying even. That's doing something. I'm trying. That's a doing. At some level, you just do nothing. When you do nothing, what happens? You're not blocking out the other person because that would be doing something. So you're connecting. Well, you can't connect because all of your stuff is coming up. Well, you don't block that either. You connect to your stuff and the other person, maybe 10% to the other person, 60% to your stuff, 1% the fact that you're light, you know, 3% to the dog barking at the side. Who knows? But doing nothing, you connect to everything and everything by doing that receives the energy of light and it starts to melt like a snowball on a hot skillet or in the sun and everything comes to equilibrium and openness. The stuff melts off. Thank you, Amanda. Amanda says, I don't remember which podcast it was, but I love William's advice to watch those strong negative emotions with curiosity. Yeah. Oh, there's no problem here. Like you said, they're trying to help us. You thank them. The only problem is, this will sound strange. This is what a guru told me once. And I'm not sure I liked it at first, but I knew it was true. He said, you've just got a weak nervous system. You're a weakling. You just can't feel strong emotions. That's why you try to repress them. He was talking to another guy, came up to him. He was a German guy. So, you know, another German came up to him and said, how come when I ask a question, that's the same as the question he asked, you're hard on me and you're easy with him. And he said to the other guy, he said, well, he's, he's not very strong. He can't take much. So I'm just, I'm nice to him. But you, I, you can do it. So I talked to him and that got me going. And so I talked to him again after that. And he says, yeah, you just have to sit still and be with your feelings so that you can withstand them. Because what happens is your nervous system is like a rubber band. It's elastic. And mine was so tiny. It was like muscles. It was like, I was like a guy that never worked out. You know, I just noodle arms, but then you start working out and the spiritual world working out is meditation. It's not avoiding your feelings. Well, I should do this. Like if I say mantras, I won't feel it. Or if I do this, I got a meditation. I won't feel it. Or if I, if I go for a jog, it'll get it out of my mind. Well, all those are good things and they have their place. And we'll talk about mantras. They help keep you centered and they're good things, but to do them, to avoid things, that's a weak nervous system. You just sit there and watch. You don't have to be, I don't say in being hard, horrible to yourself, do it in little chunks, do what you can handle. But it's like working out when you work out, you don't work out all at once. You don't do, you know, a thousand repetitions the first time. You sit for, you work out short, a short time and let your muscles build up. Same in meditation. Five minutes, start with five minutes. In India, maybe you go to a guru, he wants you to meditate five hours. That'll kill you. Meditate five minutes, work it. We're in the West. We don't have muscles. We're five. We think we have outside muscles. We have anger muscles. We don't have, some of us have strong spiritual muscles, but some of us don't. And I was one. Maybe I had a little both, but I need a lot of work, still do. So you sit and be with yourself and do what you can take and back off before it gets to be horrible. If it gets horrible, then you get adversive reinforcement. And it's like, I never want to meditate again. I hate it. I can't. No, I, even if I think I'm going to meditate, I find a reason not to. So you want to back off before it gets horrible. And if that's five minutes to five minutes, if it's six minutes to six, and you slowly inch your way up. Jay asks, what kind of meditation do I recommend? There's a lot of meditations. I'll tell you. Good. Great question, Jay. Everybody. That's a good question for everybody. Short answer is that every, any meditation is a good meditation. However, to your point, different meditations sometimes do different things. Kundalini meditations open up energy paths. You know, guided meditations sometimes begin to get to a deeper place to solve fundamental things and let them go. But other times they're just to help you relax. It's like, I'm not ready really to go there, but I can put all my troubles on the leaf and let it go down the stream. And I'm good for today. That does help me feel better. And as my friend Bob said in the beginning, it's just best to get out of the pounding surf so you can think straight. So some meditations are good just to give you a little relief. You find what works for you, but the kind of meditation I prefer at this point, and it's not to exclude the others, but you asked me. So what I recommend, and I have it on my website. You can go to any platform and usually they list my website. I think always just go there and look under meditation. I call it awakening meditation, but I'll tell it to you. And also in my podcasts, I think I have a number of podcasts, number three, four or five, somewhere in there. I'm talking about meditation, but let me just tell you right now. It's very simple. I just stay present with what is. I just sit down and like the monk said, to do anything is to do too much. So I just sit down. I close my eyes often, not always, not required, but it does cut down distractions. Get in any posture you want, anything that's comfortable. Don't spend your energy on trying to perfect any posture. Just get comfortable, close your eyes, and do nothing. Just watch what happens. A thought may come up. You don't try to avoid it. You don't try to alter it. You don't try to make it better. You just watch it, watch it and observe it and connect to it by connecting to it. I mean, it often will have an emotional component and just feel whatever it offers you. Don't push it. Don't because that's doing something to do. Anything is to do too much. Connection is normal. What's unnormal is not to connect because we're all one. It's all one big connection. That's normal. When I don't connect, I'm doing something. I'm blocking. I'm actively blocking. I might get so used to it. It doesn't feel like I'm doing anything when I'm blocking, and it might feel like I'm doing something when I'm connecting, but it's really opposite. It's really when I connect, I'm not doing anything. So connect to the hallucination, which is the thought and the emotion, the hallucination that you've created before, or it might be a cultural hallucination that you've accepted into your body. It could be a hypnosis that you took from somebody. When somebody says something repetitively or with force, that creates hypnosis. So it could be any of that. The fact is it's blocking you. So just watch it. Let it fall apart. Well, erase that. Don't let it fall apart because it'll do whatever it does. It might run for months. I don't know. But you just watch it and start to get to know you, the one that's watching. How do you know it's you, the one that's watching? How do you know you're not the emotions? Well, if you went to a therapist and then you talked to them and those emotions disappeared, you'd still be here, right? I mean, that's why people go to therapy. If you went to a psychiatrist and he gave you a drug and your emotions disappeared, you'd still be here. That's why you took the drug. So we're not our emotions. If you got amnesia, you'd still be here. Well, I can't remember anything, but you'd be here. What would be here still? It's the part that's observing. Because even if everything disappeared, you'd notice, well, there's nothing there, but you'd be here. So as you observe, two things happen. One is you can start to be aware of the awareness that's observing. That's you. Now, and that's you very close to straddling beyond creation and creation. So there's not a lot there because when you're beyond creation, there's nothing there. So don't look for a lot of stuff. What you're observing, the part of that's observing will feel like nothing, pretty much. But as it comes in and it observes, you might slowly start to feel light or love or well-being or peace or something like that, because as it comes into creation, that's the first bit of your creation. And all of that is connecting and observing the hallucinations, the thoughts, the emotions, the personalities. Personality are made of thoughts and emotions, right? So it's the same thing. So it observes those and they start to throw off their energy and unwind and untwist and melt. They melt because they're melting under the light of awareness, that which is observing, that which is you. That's why you're so powerful in the world because you are the one that's observing. That's the power. And as stuff melts, the power goes out into creation and creates other things other than the hallucinations we call thoughts and emotions. You can create things in your life, healing and well-being and good events and things like that. You can use your energies for that. So that's how you do it. You just sit still and you connect. That's the short answer. Sit still and connect. Feel what you are, the light and beyond. Get to know yourself. When people would ask Ramana, what do I do? He would say, just don't worry about what to do. Figure out who you are first, then come back to me with a question. So anyway, that's the meditation. You just sit still and observe, connect and everything will become right. The unconscious mind will become conscious. You can't repress stuff when you're sitting still and observing. It will all come up and it will dissolve and you will be a clear vehicle. Okay, I've enjoyed it so much. Thank you for all of those great questions. If you want to go back to the previous podcast, they're hopefully very helpful. All great questions. Thanks so much. Take care. I hope you all have a great couple weeks. Bye.