109 Letting Go, Awakening Meditation, Miracles, Spirit Guides - Q & A

In this live Q & A, we discussed Spirit guides and different ways to interact with them.  How they can be helpful but not necessary to one's path of awakening.  For full awakening best to transcend them rather than be attached to them.  Manifestation and miracles, ego dissolution, etc were also discussed.  All in service of becoming clear, letting go of what is not you as you relax and become familiar with You.  Self Realization....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. I'm William Cooper, and this is our live session for Awakening Together Relaxing into Happiness. Can everybody hear me okay? If so, okay, good. Thank you, Jennifer. This is a good time for you to ask any questions or for us to discuss things that come up in your practice, on your path. Perhaps you've listened to some of my podcasts. I think we have over a hundred now. I know we do. And those podcasts are designed to help give you some ideas for awakening, point some things out. And if they're helpful, use them. And then the ones that aren't, just move on and listen to another one. While you're thinking about questions, why don't I talk a little bit about self-love on the awakening path? Because our being, your being is, hi, Joe. Hi, everybody. Your being is love, yet we don't always feel love. Do we? I remember I just was going into a new age bookstore and they had some guy, they had a group of people and you could pay $10 and sit in that group. And there was a man, Don, who was a psychic, and he would tell you something about yourself. So I went and sat in that group and you know what Don told me about myself? He said, you don't love yourself. You need to learn to love yourself. And that really was upsetting to me. I thought I did. And I wondered, what does Don mean? Loving yourself? Well, let's do a little exercise and then we can talk about it. And then we can talk about your questions. Joe's written a very good question. So we'll, we'll talk about those, but let's do this exercise first. I'd like you to just think about if there was one or two or three things in your life that you would be very happy if they happened, what would you most like in your life? And I don't want to limit you to one thing, but we'll do one thing at a time and you don't have to write it down, but just to yourself, think about what you would most like in your life. And imagine if that thing happened, if you accomplished or it was given to you, but somehow manifested in your life, this thing that you really want, person, place, thing, whatever you want, what would it feel like if you had that thing? What would your life be like? If you had that thing, just try it on for size, feel what that would feel like and just drink it in. And once you were fully satisfied and you were so grounded and having accomplished or having manifested or enjoyed this thing that you've really wanted to have in your life, whatever it might be. Imagine now the second most important thing in your life came true and feel what that would feel like. Soak it up, feel how your body would feel. Ah, we're so happy feeling good. And imagine perhaps the third most important or some important other thing happening in your life. Experience that, that also happens and soak that up. All of these things, imagine them being true for you. You don't have to figure out how or why they just do happen and soak it up. Experience it. Good. Perfect. So I want to ask, what does that feel like to you in the moment when you experience what you most would like to have when you try it on for size? What are some words that let us all share what it felt like? Joyful. Thank you, Marissa. A beautiful and sad. Beautiful. Life is very deep and interesting. Beautiful, sad, joyful. Yes. Yvonne, blissful and exciting. Yes. What happened here is you are experiencing the qualities of your being blissful, joyful, exciting. And Joe says, it's beautiful to imagine having them, but sad. I don't really have them. That's true. But for our exercise, we're pretending like you do have them. So we'll leave the sad part off for right now, because our point isn't what's in your life now. And thanks for sharing that Joe. I think that's pretty normal for all of us going through an exercise like that. But what this points out is the qualities of our being just gush out, gush through, they glow like a bright light. They just emanate when the roadblocks are taken away. In other words, when you imagine you have what it is that you'd like, the mind, the personality can't put up a roadblock. It can't block you. So you're more of a light than an accomplishment. You're a light. And when you remove the roadblocks, only light comes out. And that light is felt as joy, happiness, bliss, beautiful, exciting. That's always there inside of you, inside of all of us. It's simply covered up and it's covered up because we would feel the quality of our being since we're always here. And the quality of our being is us. It may logical. We would feel that all the time, but that we've either blocked it or we've distracted ourselves from it. The process of awakening is simply letting those things that block or distract, let them go. Yeah. Jesus, his main teaching was, and we're not going to stick just with Jesus, Buddha, Hindu, uh, the Taoist teachings, I suppose every teaching, but Jesus, his main teaching was let go, let this stuff that blocks you go forgiveness. When I don't forgive, I'm tense. Blocks are made out of tension, right? Hurt, fear, and anger are made out of blocks. They're called emotions. And we're accustomed to them because in our society, in our culture, we're used to them. We live life through our emotions, hurt, fear, and anger. When you cover up hurt, fear, or anger, the way you cover it up is you manufacture a pleasure. I want to do this. It will get my mind off of it. It will give me some relief. I will have a drink. I will watch TV. I will go for a jog. Some pleasures can be healthy, but underneath all pleasures are hurt, fear, and anger. You can look for yourself. And I'm just suggesting these things for observation. So Jesus said, let's get to the root of it. Let go of the stuff that troubles you, forgive. That's another word for let it go. He said, if somebody wants your tunic, give them your cloak as well. All of his teachings more or less are follow me. And what do I do is I let stuff go. That's it. The Taoist, the Tao Te Ching, basically, it's all about seeing life from a completely let go position. The only way you can know the way, the Tao, which is the way, the only way you can know the way is when you have let go enough to flow and see. My guru said and says, to see is to be free. And in that seeing, you let go of those things you don't need. So back to that exercise we did. You picture to yourself what you most wanted in life. You tried it on for size. And in order to do that, you had to let go of everything that got in the way. We just sort of bypassed anything that would get in the way because the actual exercise was imagine if you had it now, what would it feel like? So we just jumped over all the obstacles. And then you tried it on for size. The personality only is around or primarily is around to get stuff. It feels that you don't have. We bypassed it by saying, Hey, you already got it. You already have what you most want. So the personality could relax. Ah, and all that was left is your being flowing. So when Don told me you don't love yourself, that's what he meant. I had tensions inside. I had hurts. Do you have anything inside that hurts? Do you have an emotion that hurts that you carry? And we all do. I still do. But now I'm very aware of them. And like all the masters say, I let them go. And what is a good avenue to let go? There are many use whatever works. But one very powerful one is sitting down, not getting involved with the thing that is telling you you can't have what you want or that is troubling you or creating hurt, fear and anger because it's blocking you. You sit down and you watch it. You just let it expend its energy. That's called meditation. So I call it the awakening meditation. Other people might call it different things. There are a thousand different types of meditation. In this type of meditation, you simply sit still and you watch what comes up. You don't get involved yet you experience it and you just let it expend its energy. When you don't get involved with something, it will release. It's like, let's say you have a rubber band wound very tightly for it to let go. All you have to do is do nothing. You just let go of one end of it. And the rubber band will turn, turn, turn, turn, turn, and it will expend all of its energy and it will be loose and limp. So will you, if you don't hold on to your inner tensions, but simply let them discharge their energy. The reason why people don't like to do that is because all of that energy hurts. When it went into us, it hurt and we repressed it. That's why it's still inside of us. And so when it comes out, it releases the same energy that was stored when we repressed it, which is hurt. Also, our mind starts to race because the mind is away. It's like frozen emotions. When we can't feel something fully, we think about it. So all this happens during meditation. It's very uncomfortable and people don't like it so much. So there are lots of exercises, a lot of spiritual exercises that are designed to just calm your system down, get you out of the pounding surf. Often guided meditations are good for that. Uh, there are guided relaxation or these are very good things to just help you let go or start to. However, in my opinion, you want to get to the root, get to the fundamental sticking points inside of you that perpetually keep you tense so that every day you wake up hurting and you need to do a guided meditation because every day you still hurt. When you get rid of what's underneath it all, there's nothing left to hurt. So you're just flowing through your life. All of life is a meditation. And that's what these podcasts are about. Uh, many of you that have listened know about all that. And it's just very simple. Like I said, you meditate, you let things unwind, release and let go. And there are other avenues to let things go. And many of them are outside of anything I've done a podcast on. I'm not saying there's only one way. There's every way. Find what works for you. Find a combination of things that work for you and let it release. And then where are you left with your, your resting in the quality of your being that exercise that we did, that same excitement is always flowing. Whether you achieve any goal or not, because your being is always flowing. It's only to neutralize your, your psychology or your personality. You need to accomplish some goal. Like when you buy a new brand new car that you've always wanted for a moment, you feel so good and happy because your personality is neutralized. It doesn't have this car that it's trying to get, or this relationship it's trying to get or whatever it's trying to get. It's got it. So it just lets go and releases for 15 minutes anyway. And then it finds something else that needs. You can do that on your own in your spiritual practice and help disengage your personality, love your personality. It's a very helpful tool, but you can do that. So that's love. Maybe next time we'll talk about, um, maybe I'll talk about just, I'm going to maybe two minutes of non-attachment right now, because the question is, okay, why do I cling onto things so hard, so tightly? Why do I find it so hard to let go? That's called attachment. When I can't let go, I'm attached. Well, there are many reasons, but primarily the reason is, let me talk about this in a slightly different way. Let's say you've worked hard all day under the hot sun. You've worked hard all day because you need some money and you get paid a hundred dollars. And the next morning, somebody comes up to you and says, you know, I'd love to get a coffee and stuff. Can I have your a hundred dollars? What would your reaction be? No, I've worked hard. I need this a hundred dollars. I am not letting it go. That's called attachment. There's nothing wrong in this case with being attached to that a hundred dollars. You made a plan. You worked for it. You have it. It's fine, but you are attached to your a hundred dollars. Now you could go through a spiritual exercise. Well, you let it go. You visualize something you want to give to the world. You want to give to this person. This person is you. You're all one something. I don't know. Some spiritual, like you could do that. There's a million of them. And finally, you could give over your a hundred dollars after a hundred, like a year of this exercise. Maybe kind of deep down inside, don't feel so good about it, but you give it because you know, you're supposed to. It's, you know, you're a spiritual person, but that doesn't really, when you meet attachment on the level of where it's coming from the level of the mind or the personality, no matter how many spiritual exercises you do, it's still there more or less, or maybe it's loosened up, but grudgingly it goes. So how do you let go? Non-attachment. What's the answer? Well, if somebody came up to you and legitimately said, look, William, that a hundred dollars you worked hard for, I'd like it. And I go, no. And they say, how about if I give you a thousand dollars right now? No questions asked a thousand dollar bill for your hundred dollar bill. I'll just change them. And I'm convinced it's a real thousand dollar bill. And there are no, no strings attached. You know what? I would no longer be attached to my hundred dollar bill. I would say here, take it. I'm not, no questions asked. I'm taking the thousand attachment gone. That's non-attachment. Now you'd say, well, now you're attached to the thousand dollar bill. Sure. If there were such a thing and somebody gave me a million dollar bill, I would not be attached to my thousand dollar bill anymore. Well, you follow that all the way back. And what's the most valuable thing you can have? It's you. It's being awake, fully experiencing your being. That's the gold. So when you rest in your being, you can let everything go. Like Jesus said, be in this world, but not of it, which means really enjoy the world. You don't have to let things go. It's just that you can, you can enjoy everything in this world, but you don't have to hold it so tightly. If it leaves, you're good. Do you want it to stay? Sure. Why not? I like it. But if not, when you've let go, you're awake. You experience the world as one. You are this oneness. Okay. So the universe is conspiring to give you everything that's best for you right now. So you don't need to be attached when you know that now you can't play that game until you know that. How do you know that you meditate or you do your spiritual practices until you do know that. Okay. So the end of that non-attachment is pure love. Cause you let go of these emotions because you're not attached to them. Like Jesus said, you can forgive because you're not attached to, Oh, you did me wrong. I can't forgive you. Yeah. They did you wrong. When you forgive something, you're not agreeing that somehow they are a great person. You're just saying you let go or in the Dow pretty much you've let go of everything so you can see everything. So once that happens, you naturally minute by minute, second by second, moment by moment, you experience the joy, bliss and excitement you did in that exercise where we kind of bypassed the roadblocks temporarily. The difference is an awakening. It's not an exercise. There are no roadblocks left to bypass in an exercise that is helpful. Like the one we did when you wake up tomorrow morning, you'll still probably have roadblocks because you haven't actually released and dissolve those things that are blocking you. That's what meditation is for. That's what your spiritual practices are for. Okay. I hope that was helpful. Something to reflect on. If any thoughts or questions come from that, that's fine too, but I'm going to go back and just maybe on a slightly or totally different tangent. Just start. Let's talk about some of the things that already have been asked. And Joe, I love your questions by the way. Thank you for, for asking them. Joe says, I'm very new to spirituality and meditation is spirit guides and guardian angels the same. What a great question, Joe. And it's an important one. In my experience, there are many different levels of reality. The deepest is awakening. That's when you are one with everything. God has become you. There is no more. Your personality is still there, but you're arguing over the fact that you're not one with the infinite is over. You know that you are not that you are the infinite, but the infinite is you. That's one. That's the deepest level of reality. But on other levels, there are all sorts of beings. Jesus can come talk to you. He has me. Angels can, they have me guy, guardian angels, a spirit guides. And these are very real. When your intuitive eyes are open, they don't work through the mind so much. So people can argue. No, they're not there. Well, okay. Because you can't see on those realities. The reason I bring up these different realities are that people will label things according to their experience and spirit guides or guardian angels to me are the same. I've had archangel Michael come. I've had spiritual guides talk to me. I personally don't know the difference from where I see things. Other people might get very technical about it and give you a different answer. But for me, because my focus is awakening the guides or angels that come to me and are coming to guide me into oneness. And frankly, uh, even though I've had powerful experiences and I've described some of them on these podcasts, it's not something I think about because really God is me. So God is these spiritual guides to God is Jesus. That's what got Jesus killed. I, the father and I are one. He kept saying, and it bothered people, but it's the truth. So from that vantage point, they're helpful on your path. They can help with day-to-day decisions. Also, they can help give you perspective, but is there a technical difference? Not to me, but maybe somebody else does feel that there is to me. They just are very loving and helpful in my life. Not a distinction that I think too much about. I just take the good advice. My heart opens and I'm happy. So that's, I don't question too. The only reason I knew it was Archangel Michael, as he told me, I didn't know it was Archangel Michael. I had no idea when this happened, I was stunned. You might say really surprised anyway, because that never happened to me before. So I say that to you, Joe, because if it does happen, you'll know what I mean. And maybe it already has. When you look in a certain direction, you see that reality. Many times you actually start to see that reality. Why? Because your attention is focused there. Now, at first you don't, maybe I didn't, but suddenly that reality came booming in on me that morning. I went jogging like I normally did. And I did not know what was happening, but three times I had such massive energy going through me. When I stopped at the end of my jog, I stopped at a stream in Austin, Texas, where I lived for 30 years. And energy came through me so powerfully, I fainted and fell on the rocks. And it happened three times in a row. I put, dripped some of the stream water on my head and I crossed myself. And when I touched my heart, I just, it was like lightning went through my body and I fell to the ground, passed out. And I didn't faint. Later that day, to tell you the truth, I had to go to work and I just didn't think about it because I had to be somewhere. I mean, I thought about it some, obviously, but I went to work the next day, Michael showed up and it was a precursor to that whole thing. Now, does all that have to happen? No, it doesn't have to happen, but it did happen for me. And I didn't put it together until probably weeks later. I didn't know when he said, I said, who is this? He said, Michael, I didn't know that it was Archangel Michael point is when you focus on a reality, you start to see it. It starts to happen. But the odd thing was, in this case, I wasn't looking for anything like this in broad strokes, maybe like you, Joe, I just was interested in spirituality in general and was fascinated and interested in spirit guides and angel. Like what are these? But I wasn't doing anything. It just, it happened to me. Anyway, I hope that helps. Yvonne says, hello from New Zealand. Hello, Yvonne. I bet it's some crazy time for you. Thanks for joining us. Yvonne says that she's very grateful for all my podcasts. I know my efforts to do the meditation. I don't have much coming through and I know there is much to come through. I think I'm filling the space with silly thoughts to stop them coming. Yes, Yvonne, that's, they're not silly. They're just symptoms of repressed stuff that's coming to the surface that is dissolving and they generate silly thoughts and they do distract you because they're there to distract you. You're right about that. And why? Because remember repressed stuff has a little bit of pain to it. Sometimes it's a lot of pain, but what's interesting is it doesn't have to be a lot of pain either. It could just be enough pain that you don't want to deal with it. Very mild pain. When I say we have repressed things, I don't want anybody to think they've got some deep, dark things. Maybe they had a deep, dark life. Yes. But maybe those memories and emotions are no longer deep and dark. They just have a little bit of trouble to them. You know, water, if you, if you just tilt a flat surface, maybe three degrees, it'll run downhill. It doesn't have to be a huge incline, maybe just two degrees. I don't know, but not much. It's the same with troubling feelings. They don't have to be horrible. They just have to be things we'd rather not deal with, you know, more interested in to daydream or interested to watch TV. So in your meditations, just notice how troubling is this feeling? Or what if I don't think these thoughts that are trying to distract me? What if I just temporarily do an exercise and don't think them the best I can? How does that feel? It'll probably feel troubling because now that the distraction's gone, the thing that's fueling the distraction will come up to the surface. Might be anxiety, might be a feeling of boredom, might be who knows, but that's simply a feeling that wants to be deconstructed, deconstructed. So it no longer is blocking your light and your excitement and your joy. I hope that makes sense and fits in with our other podcasts. Good question and observation, Yvonne. Let's see. Trinity says, I didn't read this yet, but she did say, Yvonne, we all experience silly thoughts. Monkey mind, keep practicing and it will come. The practice way. Absolutely. Thank you, Trinity. Joe says, yes, it does help. Wow. I'd like to have an experience like that. Like the one I described. I did not expect it, Joe. I really didn't. I think what happened is the constant is I have been diligent on my spiritual practice. Diligent. And I had been exploring over time people who had channeled. I talked to them. I met with them. I experienced channeling. You know, I was with them when they did a channeling group, I would talk to the guides and so on and so forth. The problem I eventually had with all that stuff is I wanted to become clearer and just know myself. I didn't want an inner intermediary because then I'm constantly running to them. Hey, Jesus, what about this? Hey, Michael, what about that? Hey, Don, the psychic, what about that? Or hey, this person or hey, that person. So even my guru said, it's time for you to go out on your own. Trust yourself. And that was very hard at first, but even Jesus wouldn't talk to me. He wouldn't do it. Nobody would because they wanted to force me to listen to myself. So that was the end of the after you is very helpful to do all this channeling stuff and talk to angels. It's not necessary, but if it's something you want to do, you do it. It's helpful. But in the end, I'll tell you, if your path unfolds like mine, it turns out you're the one you're looking to talk to. And it's just getting clear enough to be able to hear yourself. The only reason you want to talk to an intermediary and I'm speaking for myself is because I couldn't hear myself. Right? Once I could start to hear and I had to hear myself, I had to listen. And if I'm talking to too many angels, I'm listening to them and they're giving me good stuff, but I'm not learning to listen to myself. Meditation. The reason why it's so powerful on every level is again, you can't, you have to sit still and not get all wound up in these things because you're sitting there. You can't do anything. You just have to watch what's happening and experience it. We do it for a certain period of time generally, because we can only take so much because that dissolving, that's how clogged up we are. We just can't take all this, take too much of it at once. And if you've listened to my podcast on PTSD, that's very helpful. If you push yourself too fast, too far, you'll lock up tense up and you won't get anywhere. So it's not a bad thing to go slowly. It's actually a good thing. It's a good thing to take these and little baby steps. Uh, let's see. Joe says, since I wanted it so bad, it may not happen to know when you want something badly, Joe, it will happen to you. Whether all you're experiencing is a fear that's coming up. That still needs to dissolve. Fears aren't real. They're just old habits. That's what the meditation helps dissolve is that fear. And all that's left is yes, it's happening to me. Not through positive thinking is your being knows it will. The reason why you're interested and you want it so bad because your being says yes. Other people, it's not that big of a deal because they're being as interested in something else on their spiritual path, on their unfolding, what awaits for their incarnation. So trust yourself. Uh, Joe said, you're, you said you're in Austin, Texas. Well, Joe, I was in Austin, Texas for 30 years. Joe says, I'm in Houston, Texas. I don't know if you've been to that unity church in Houston, uh, Joe, that big one, it's got a lot of good stuff going on, on lots of good levels. I used to do workshops there through my guru and they, so it's not only what you might consider a unity church. They are open to every possible thing, um, over there and they're very good people. Perhaps you've gone there, Joe. Um, but Houston has a lot of good things happening. I was in Austin for 30 years and we moved Jennifer and I to North Florida. We're on the beach and we really enjoy it. Uh, here more elbow room. I can walk on the beach. Austin started getting a little crowded. Maybe you noticed. It's not like it was 30 years ago. Still wonderful. But let's see. Yes. Uh, you can't hear yourself because you have too much clutter in your head. That's that's right. We, I couldn't hear myself and nobody can when you've got so much clutter. We're there. Yes. Low is best for clarity. Yes. Joe says it's the opposite for me. Anything I want so bad and it doesn't happen. Give it a time. Joe, stay focused. Do your spiritual practice. That's what, where clarity comes and through clarity power manifestation. I'm not chasing manifestation. I don't care personally, but it does happen. I've had miracles. Lots of them happen. I didn't mean for them to happen. They just happened. The clearer I got. And they're always a surprise because we're all human beings. And like a D said, our mental clutter makes it appear that we're not who we are. And when we can't see clearly, it's hard to manifest clearly when we see clearly. Um, and when we flow, we don't have to try to manifest manifesting happens. My experience and my guru, by the way, years ago, like 20 years ago, he said, you know, when you have men, when you have miracles happen, tell people, tell others. Cause the old paradigm was, Oh, if I say it all, it'll be like, I'm not humble or something. But he said, no, no. When you say that these things happen to you, it encourages others. And they think, well, if it can happen for that guy, I, it can happen for me. He's not so great, you know, or whatever, but if it can happen for him, it can happen for me. Oh, oops. And it happened for them. And it happened for them. So let me, um, trust it can happen for me. Okay. Let's see. Yes. Do your spiritual practice, Joe. It'll be a surprise is what I'm getting to. When things start manifesting. It was for me because I was cluttered when I was cluttered and slowly something dissolved away and I was a bit less cluttered. A miracle would happen often. I wasn't looking for one, but it would happen. And I would be surprised just like you would be surprised if suddenly Jesus popped up and started talking to you, you would be surprised. You would be shocked. That was me. I was shocked. I was surprised. I went to a coffee shop once and I had done yoga. I waited in a long line, Austin, Texas. You can do yoga and coffee shops, right? So I was standing in line and the barista handed me my coffee. When it got to be my turn, it was in a glass mug. I touched it. It blew up in my hand. We all were freaked out and just thought that was so weird. And he apologized profusely and he mopped me off and people were like laughing and he gave me a second cup. I took it. It blew up in my hand again. We were just shocked. We did not know what to make of it. Third one. He gave me a paper cup. Years later, I stopped by that same place and he said, aren't you the guy? I said, yep. Another time I had a mala. It turned into ashes. I had it sitting on a picture of my guru and I just thought the picture was getting dirty. This happened over a period of a couple of weeks. I could go on and on. These things happen, Joe, as you do your spiritual practice. There's another guru, Rudashiva Bali Yogi, and he comes to the United States. He's coming to Austin, by the way, I think in the next month. Karuna Maya is also coming to Austin, but they go around the United States and they're different. They don't know each other, but they just, since I was in Austin, I know who comes there. And he was saying, you know, people ask him for miracles. He doesn't even know that they happen, but then somebody will tell him like a month later, a day later, a week later, whatever I asked for was miraculous. It happened around you. Thank you so much for making it happen. He doesn't know what happens. Most gurus don't know that it happens. It's just that they're clear and that clear energy manifests. Okay. Anyway, thanks for your question, Joe. See what happens. Dee says you can't ask for a miracle in his or her experiences only as a gift. That's my experience, but I've seen gurus ask for things too. And I've had people ask me, and I had one guy come up to me and he said, I would like guidance. I would like to know whether I should go to college. And if so, why? And he came up to me in a coffee shop in Austin and asked me this. And I had no idea. How's this supposed to happen? And I told him, I don't know. He says, just touch me on my head and focus. And I'll know, I know you can do that. I used to do a spiritual group when I was with my guru that did stuff like that, but I was not confident. But I said yes, because I couldn't say no. So I told him, I just focused on him knowing. In three hours, he was at a registrar's office and he decided, and he knew he wanted to be a occupational therapist out of nowhere. Now, I was more shocked. I mean, I can't tell you how much shocked I was. So I have, I don't have a set answer on that, D. What's happened to me has been gifts. But sometimes I think when you focus, again, I don't, I could care less for myself, but it can happen. I had my guru, the main one, and he said, when people would ask him for something, he would focus on it. And when it stayed in his mind, when it stuck in his mind, clearly he knew it would happen. When he could not hold that image in his mind, he knew it would not happen. So I'll throw that in the mix. And I'm not, there are no pronouncements here. We're just talking. Everybody has their own experience and you know what you know, and you have to work with what you know. You have to come from your heart. Nobody else's heart will do it for you. I'm just saying what my experience has been. Let's see. Ama, join late. Hope my question is not redundant. What do you consider the most important spiritual practices? Great question, Ama. The most important to me at this point, I'll answer it in two ways. Double talk. The most important is what speaks to you today. Is it taking a jog? Is it reading a book? Is it patting your dog? What opens and helps you let go today? What brings you clarity today? Is it listening to a particular speaker or a particular guided meditation? Or I don't know, is it mantras? You try them all on for size and see what works for me today. That's the most important spiritual practice you can have, because the only one that can live your life is you. Buddha awakened, but so what? What does that do for me? Now, he gave a lot of good guidance and that does help me. But when I try something on and it doesn't work, I discard it until it does. That's my first answer. So here's the double talk. From where I'm coming from now, the most powerful is the awakening meditation I talk about in my podcast and I describe and practice it with you. It's around podcast number six. They're free. They're available to all of you. You probably have listened to them, many of you, but I would go back there. It's somewhere around six and here's the meditation. It's very simple. You just sit still. You experience thoughts as they come up, but you don't jump into them. It's like watching your glasses, but not looking through them. You see the object of the glasses. You see the thought, but you don't live life through it. You just see the thought trying to think and wanting to think and wanting you to think it, but you just let it expend its energy. You feel the emotions emoting, but you don't jump into them. You just watch them. You let them emote. Now, after a while, all these thoughts and emotions want something. They want love, they want peace, or they want wellbeing. I don't know what the particular ones in the moment want, but they all want one of those three things or some variation of them. So at some point, the thought can stop. It's stuck in time. So it can stop and it can just look around and soak up. Hey, it's with you. And the part of you that's watching the real you that's observing the thoughts that is being, that is awareness. And it can soak up that awareness, which is made of the qualities of America. Awareness are light, love, wellbeing, qualities, such as that piece for this, for your experience of your own being to become strong enough after you meditate for some time, long enough to let some of these emotions, just for you to have some distance and not be captured by them constantly. Because for a while you will be, but notice the part of you that's watching doesn't have any problems. It doesn't have anything it's trying to get. It's just fine. It's quiet. It's simply watching. And if all those emotions and thoughts and feelings disappeared in a blink of an eye, you'd still be here and you'd be watching that. So by process of elimination, you're not your emotions. You're not your thoughts. You're not your experiences because if they disappeared, you'd still be watching. So what's left is you, when you put your attention on the qualities of your awareness, that part of you that's watching and you get to know yourself better. Um, these qualities will become more and more apparent and your intuition will become stronger and stronger and stronger. So meditation, this awakening meditation is a good one, I think, but anything that works for you would be great. Okay. I'm going to skip forward. Irene says it's so helpful to hear your experiences as they resonate and confirm a lot of mine. Yes. It took a while to acknowledge the little miracles as I didn't want to be crazy. Yes. You acknowledge the little miracles. What actually is happening is you're not blocking anymore. The more you can acknowledge something, that means you're not blocking things out. Most of us are trained to block things out, which is part of the problem in a natural flow. Miracles just start happening. And like D said, really, who cares? It's natural. But to get to natural, you have to quit blocking anyway, until it just becomes natural. So yes. And that's the, the, the, the good thing about these talks is they just confirm it. Nobody's special here. None of us were all the same. So by talking, we get to confirm what is already happening for all of us. How do you keep the ego in check with miracles? Well, you do your spiritual practice because ego is made of pain and who wants that? I don't want a mountain of pain in order to, to, to brag about a miracle or two. It's not. So if the ego has something to do with the miracles, it's really happy about it. And it somehow protects me from my pain. If I have miracles, I can talk about, guess what? I still have the pain. So the spiritual path is not about miracles. It's about releasing the separation and in separation is pain. So when you release the separation, when you see through it and it dissolves, you're not in pain. And in my life, I've was in so much pain, overwhelming. I still have pain, but it's about 10% of what it used to be. So still got separation, but not like it used to be. It's a process. So ego naturally dissolves and loosens up in your spiritual practice. Violet says, good morning. Good morning from Australia, Violet. Thanks for getting up early or might be in the middle of the night for you. Slavina, you probably mentioned before William, but perhaps I wasn't there. What kind of guru are you talking about in a church? Are you combining Christianity and Buddhism? No, some kind of churches like there's probably a thousand different denominate. You know what? I Google it. I Googled it. Just this is outlandish, but how many denominations are there? And it's, it said that there were around 40,000 different denominations out there. Now let's just cut that in half. Say they are 20,000 denominations. We're used to mainline ones, but there's a lot of denominations. Some denominations are very open. For instance, the unity church is very open. It is open to all paths. Pretty much. It is Christ centered, but not only Christ it's anything positive. It's called positive Christianity. And I'm not pushing unity church. I'm just answering your question. There's Unitarian that's open to a lot of different avenues. You could be atheist. You could be same in a unity church. I think you could be whatever you want, but there's a lot of different churches that have that are open to a lot of different things. Just like Jesus was, he wasn't a Christian. Remember he was just Jesus. And to get to be Jesus, you have to be very open. He let go of a lot. Forgive them for they know not what they do when they crucified him. That's painful. And he says, forgive them. That's a lot of letting go. That's a lot of openness. It's a lot to ask. Demigods don't like them. Perhaps gurus or spiritual leaders or people that say that you should follow them. They're the embodiment of God. And it's a fine line because God is all of us. We're all one. So in a way we can say that Yogananda said, it's not quite right to say, I am God rather that God has become me. In other words, you've let go of the ego. You know, I'm important. You've let all of your importance go so that you're open and flowing and you are the way as they say in Taoism, as Lao Tzu said, you are the way because you are so open. Let's see. Thanks for explaining the awakening meditation, Irene says. Yes. And Amma, I guess, looked it up and she said, I've read 20,000 plus denominations of just Christianity. There you go. Thank you for checking Amma. See, it's amazing, right? Gary, have you created any new podcasts? What I'm doing now is because I often give a little talk in the beginning of these live sessions. I'm just doing three live sessions a month and then I turn them into podcasts. Those are what I'm doing now. As you know, in the past, I did probably 90 podcasts on specific topics that I found helpful. I've experienced them all. I don't do a podcast unless I've, I don't talk about seeing Jesus unless I saw Jesus or I don't talk about awakening unless I have experienced that aspect of awakening. Right now, Jennifer said you have over 100 podcasts now, correct? Yes, there are 108 now. This will be the 109th. So I often say they all stand alone. But if you want to go through, they're like different little tiles in a mosaic and they paint a giant picture of awakening and they're designed that if you take them in to whatever extent makes sense to you, that as you evolve through them, you become more and more open and awake and they're not exclusive to other people's podcasts or other teaching to do everything. But that's just the path that's running through my podcast. So for that reason, I often suggest start with number one and even if it's a little boring, go to number two and number three and number four and you'll evolve. You'll go through the sequence that I designed them to go through. However, if you listen to the first few and you go, I'm way, I don't even want to listen to this part, then skip forward or listen to something that speaks to you. Always listen to something that speaks to you. Oh, Gary says, I suggest everybody listen to them. Some can trigger, but they are pure information. Yeah. Thank you, Gary. Triggering is good, but it's not always so pleasant. And, but thank you for saying that. Uh, but it's always good if you can stick with it. And I'm somebody who, uh, another guru told me in India, he said, another person in the group said, well, how come you give me William different answers than you give me? Because we ask similar questions, but you give him a different answer. And the guru said, because his nervous system can't take it. He, his nervous systems too weak. So I took the easy route with him. Uh, and then he just had me sit with my emotions and meditate and just feel as much as I could to strengthen my nervous system. So yeah, being triggered can be helpful, but it can be very painful. I know. And, um, Yvonne said, I highly recommend the podcast and Gary likes 25 numbers, 25 to 35 are super helpful. Thank you so much, Gary. Yes. I can't. Oh, I think those are on PTSD and you know, that's something that we can have things, certain things going on inside of us that no amount of meditation is going to help. So there's a different Avenue. Remember I said, we're made of many realities. There's a different Avenue to approach that you want to approach the problem where it actually is. And you don't want to use spirituality to spiritually bypass everything spiritual at certain spiritual practices are very good for certain things. Others are very good for other things. And then other methods are very good for yet other things. And you want to match your methods with the block or the problem, quote unquote problem. That's a bypassing you why you're not seeing clearly at the moment. Okay, everybody. Thanks so much. All right. Take care. Thanks. So for the good questions, take care by blossom by Joe, by Gary Yvonne, by everybody, by D Jennifer. Bye everybody.