122 "Why Aren't My Blocks Dissolving? Christianity Fear, Angels, Trust" Q & A

In this Q & A somebody asks why their Blocks are not dissolving in meditation, they are afraid of Christianity, want to talk to angels.  We also talk about letting go in general and the importance of trust and how to experience trust.  Another asks if they have to experience their negative stories in order to let them go.  Etc.
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. 

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

0:00

Hello, everybody. Welcome to Awakening Together, Relaxing into Happiness. I'm William Cooper. How are you doing today? I trust well. Good morning, Blossom Violet. Good to see you all the way from Australia. Blossom has some beautiful music that she writes and plays from her heart from an awakened state. You might check her out. Hi, Jennifer. Yes, it's good to see you all. Today, as in all of our live sessions, is a time for you to ask any questions that you'd like concerning your practice. Hi, Nancy. Welcome. So, if you have a question or thought, it will guide our discussion. While you're thinking of your thoughts or questions, let's talk a moment about you, you in your awakened state. You without any problems, you without any suffering, you without any tension, you without stress. It's the best of you, what you feel like today without any troubles and more radiant because there are no troubles blocking you. You feel more radiant love, more radiant peace, more radiant wellness and health, love. These are your innate qualities. They're there all the time. That's the quality of your being and you're here all the time. So, take a moment and imagine who would you be without your troubles? Just imagine what that would feel like. You without any trouble, nothing blocking you, nothing that you've got to fret over, no problems. I don't know about you, but I spent so much time releasing troubles that I didn't have much time to enjoy the peace that I am or the love that I am or the wellbeing. It's what propelled me to India 14 times. That's why I became a psychotherapist because I was working on my troubles. So, imagine for a moment who you would be without your troubles and notice how good that would feel. You radiant, happy, loving, and nothing you have to do. It's just who you are. These podcasts were on around 122, 122, but the whole series is about letting go of your problems and remaining as yourself. We call that awakening. It's in the title. The title is awakening together, which is what we're doing, right? And then relaxing into happiness. So, that's the how, relaxing into happiness. So, how can you awaken? Let's talk about that for a bit. And as I said, it's all through the podcasts that I've done. The first thing is to be aware of who you are. Sometimes people would come up to Ramana and say, Ramana, what about my life? What about my relationship? What should I do about my job? And Ramana would say, well, first find out who you are before you ask questions about what you should do. Who are you? Ramana was a very powerful saint in Southern India. Jennifer and I just got back from seeing him earlier this year or to his ashram. He passed away in 1950. So, who are you? You're the one who's looking out your eyes. You're the one that's hearing everything. That doesn't require thoughts. It doesn't require emotions. Your being is very quiet and peaceful and therefore often overlooked. See, I can put my hand up and you can see it and it doesn't require any thinking. It doesn't require any emotions. What's seeing my hand? You are. I can remove my hand and you're still there. Likewise, you could remove your thoughts. You could let them go for a moment and you'd still be here. So, you're not your thoughts. You're not your emotion. The problem is where do our troubles come from? They come from a twisting up of our thoughts and our emotions. We are worrying. We are concerned. We are angry. We are hurt and all this is in our emotional and thought body. It's in our personality. So, how do we let that go? We, the one looking, when something triggers us, we feel all this emotion or thinking or worrying. Just stay and watch it. Notice you're not your thoughts. You're not your emotions and let them process through your body. Just let them flow. Let them release. If you had a rubber band and you twisted it very tightly and you let go of one end, it would spin and spin and spin and it would release all of its energy. The same with your personality. It's all twisted and very tight, wound tight. That's where suffering comes from. When the knots of suffering come up, when you feel worried, when you feel hurt, when you feel angry, just watch it and let it release its energy, which it will. It doesn't feel good because when it was repressed, when it was pushed inside of us, it hurt. That's why we repressed it. Nobody represses happiness or peace, only things that hurt. So, when it comes flying out, when something triggers you, your family or the driver in front of you, perhaps even the weather or friends or people at the store or even a long line at the bank, whatever it is that triggers you, you'll feel some discontent. If you feel anything but peace, love and happiness, you're triggered because you are peace, love and happiness. So, anything other than that is not you and it's triggered. So, just let it flow. Just let it happen. Don't repress it again. Just feel it. As you feel it, it's releasing its energy like an ice cube releases coldness when it melts in the sun. Your emotions, when they melt out of your body, your troubles, when they melt out of your body, release what they're made of. They release hurt, fear or anger. So, let them, let them just release it. You just watch it. Buddha said, take refuge in the Buddha. And what he means by the Buddha is you, your being. There's only one. The Buddha and you are one. Jesus and you are one. Jesus said, the father and I are one. You too. It's all one. So, it's very simple. It's not always easy, but it's very simple. Just watch what's happening. When you're triggered, when you feel hurt, fear, anger, worry, anxiety, anything like that, just let it flow through your body and out. Don't push it. Just let it flow naturally. It has its own energy and it will unwind itself. Just like the rubber band, when you release one end of it, you don't have to do anything. It just unwinds on its own. Same with your emotions because your natural energy wants to flow. And the reason you're feeling all these obstructions and blockages is because you've planted all of these old repressions inside and your natural energy can't flow easily. So, it's bumping up against them. And like big boulders in what would be a quiet stream, big boulders in that stream create lots of turmoil. You see lots of splashing and turbulence in the water. Remove the boulders and the stream is very quiet and peaceful once again. That's what you're doing as you're letting everything come up, release, relax, and leave. Do that enough and the layers of trouble get less and less and less until you're in your awakened state. Simple, right? The hard part is, of course, all of the difficulties as they release, they don't feel good. So often we don't want to stay with it. Hey, if you're getting worn out, if you do this for a while and it's just too much pain, all your repressed stuff, and you need to take a break, take a break. There's no formula that you have to just stay at this day and night until everything's released. When you've released something, it's gone. So, the next time you release things, you've got one less thing to release. So, take care of yourself too. You can't wear yourself out or stress yourself out or you won't be good for the long haul. Okay. Does that make some sense? You can ask me questions anytime you want and we will clarify, but I'm just seeing a question right now. So, let me get to this. Oh, and by the way, Joan, welcome. Jen says, hi, William and everyone else. This is my first time joining. Oh, hi, Jen. Welcome to you too. I've been working through the podcast and now I'm around number 60. Oh, good for you. And I have two questions. One, I have been listening to your podcast, including the one on meditation and read your website about it, but I'm still having difficulty. Thank you for asking. My understanding is to focus on observing and in that way being detached, being a part of the oneness. Would it be okay if I sent love to all my thoughts to help me stay focused? I have not been able to get to the point that everything unwinds. I get to the point that I feel detached, but I can't maintain it. I have no doubt I have a lot to release, like I start seeing mandalas or feeling love, but that may be me just trying too hard or not being detached, passing judgment. She's saying she might be passing judgment. And then two, I also have a question about connecting with angels. I have a hang up from traditional religious systems, good, bad, patriarchal, et cetera, but would like to get past this to feel more support that it is present available and around me. I hope this makes sense. And thank you. Yes, Janet makes perfect sense. And those are two incredibly great questions. Let me start with the first about the meditation, and it may answer some of the second question too. What's going on in meditation is in meditation, the kind that we're talking about right now, later in the series of podcasts, I'm going to mention a number of other kinds of meditation. But what you're referring to is what I find is the most powerful of the series of meditations. And that's called the awakening meditation. And in that meditation, you sit still and you just like we were talking and that which you are, that which is aware of everything, but is very silent. It's also aware of thoughts and emotions as they come up. And you just sit still and you're aware and you experience, you feel any thoughts and emotions that come up, but you don't do anything with them. You just let them come up and release their energy and dissipate. And you're saying that you have noticed that they're still not dissipating. Okay. This is a common experience, one that I've had quite a bit myself, and I think every single other person has. So thank you so much for asking. There's a number of things that are going on. Possibly the first, if you're like me, you've repressed things fairly deeply, and you've repressed a lot. Most people have. So it's like an iceberg. It may not seem like it's moving, but the tip is melting and then it's exposing what's underneath it. And then that's melting and then it's exposing what's underneath it. But this could go on for a long time. And then it is connected to perhaps other icebergs, other repressions. I'll tell you from personal experience, the load gets lighter and lighter and lighter, and you have less of these quote unquote icebergs clogging you up as you meditate. So at first it doesn't feel like a whole lot's happening, but it is happening. The second thing is, for these thoughts and emotions to release, they usually go through two, three, or four phases. The first is they come up, they express themselves, they start releasing their energy, they hurt, they hurt, they hurt, they hurt. Generally, they start on freezing to protect yourself. Your psychological system may shoot up into lots of thinking, which is motivated by these thoughts or daydreaming or just spacing out. Getting away from the pain is what's going on in all of these instances. So that's quite common. You just return and continue to observe it all. Observe the emotions, observe the thoughts, observe the daydreams, observe everything. And if you space out, that's fine. Just return again and keep observing once again. That continues the melting. After some time, and I don't know whether that's 20 minutes, five minutes, three days, or a month, I don't know. Depends on how big this particular iceberg is. But after some time, it will loosen and release and begin to relax. One of the things that can help it do that is for it to be able to receive what it wants. Often what some of these repressions want is love. They want to receive. They expend energy and they're sort of frozen in place, so they're expending energy. And then they're ready to take a breath in and to receive. And what they're wanting, as you're alluding to in your question, or even outright said, is often they want love. So yes, let them connect to you and let them receive love. Let them breathe in love. Let them relax because they won't totally dissipate generally until they have received. It's like this. If you have a muscle tension and you go to a masseuse and they rub your tension, it may exude pain. Ow, ow, ow. That hurts. And then it begins to eventually be able to loosen and receive relaxation. When it receives enough relaxation, what happens? It releases, it relaxes, it dissipates. And then where is that tension? It is totally gone. It does not exist anymore in that place. It's gone. Same with these thoughts and emotions. The thing though with thoughts and emotions is they might be quite large, so it might take some time for them to leave. Where you have to trust your intuition, and this just takes time, is when you get too involved with thoughts and emotions, you actually can freeze them in place. You make them more real. If you think about it, thoughts and emotions, let me put it this way. When all thoughts and emotions disappear and you're just simply watching, you'll see that you're watching nothing and you yourself are very quiet. So you'll have a very peaceful state. And when you continue to put your attention on that peaceful state, it may actually start to glow with love and peace. But those are not thoughts. It'll be very peaceful, loving, happy. No thoughts. The way that thoughts come about is they're tools that we create. And we create them by focusing our attention and we turn some of that consciousness into thoughts or emotions. The reason I'm bringing this up now is because if we turn our attention too much on these melting repressions, we also are creating or keeping them in place because we create things through our consciousness by focusing our attention on things. Like we focus our attention to make a thought, to hallucinate a thought, or to hallucinate an emotion, to make them. If we put too much attention on these thoughts and emotions that we have previously made that are causing us problems that are coming up in our meditation, but we focus too much thought and emotion on them, we continue to create them. We continue to interact with them and freeze them. So you don't want to do that because you're wrestling with them for too long and keeping them in place. Instead, what you're suggesting, and that's what I'm saying, yes, absolutely. Let them ask for what they want. Oh, I could really use some love. I could use some peace. Maybe I'm anxiety and just hug them, give them what they want, but you're not monkeying around with them. You're just allowing them to receive, just like the masseuse allows you to receive relaxation. It's a fine line, but there's something different about that. You'll know that it's different because you will feel the thought and emotion release, relax, and let go. Underneath all thoughts and emotions or in the middle of them is attention. So finally, even that tension has to relax and take in well-being. So any way that that works, there's not a formula. The formula for spirituality is do whatever works for you. So I'm just pointing out some various aspects of it so you can keep your eye on it, but listen to yourself and do what works for you. Before I answer your second question, I hope, okay, good. Uh, Jen says, thank you. That was very clarifying. I hear in your speaking, the work ahead of me and being still. Yes. A complete receptive observer. I feel I can do that now. Um, yes, but it's a little different than that. Actually. You're very close, Jen, but the way that I would say it's a little bit different is let's say I have a piece of paper and I crumple it up and I'm observing that paper. I'm not the paper. I'm observing the paper. And in addition to that, when, whatever I'm observing, wherever my consciousness is going, starts to take in the characteristics of what I'm observing. So I start to take in crumpled up paper, a crumple crumpled up paper. If, if I saw a tragedy or an accident on the side of the road and people are really hurt. And my attention went to those people and I saw them, it would affect me emotionally, mentally. It would affect me in my body because my attention, my consciousness was focusing on those people, but I'm not hurt, but yet I would feel hurt. I'm not crumpled, but if I have a lot of empathy and I'm really connected with that paper, I mean, it's possible. Some people would feel crumpled, but with human interactions, it's easier for this example. If you saw that tragedy on the side of the road, you would feel pain, but you're fine. Your consciousness is fine, but when it connects to emotions or thoughts that were made and created that hold suffering, you start to feel suffering. So it's not exactly, let me add a second part to that. If you put your attention, instead of putting it on the, on tragedies or thoughts or emotions that are suffering, instead, you keep it, your attention on that, which is watching awareness, aware of itself. Let's say for a time, you just put your attention on you and you don't even put your attention on those thoughts. Now they likely wouldn't dissolve, but you would see, you would experience the qualities of your being more and more and more, just like you experienced the tragedy of the people being hurt, or you experienced the crumpled paper. When you put your attention on yourself, you experience love, happiness, and peace more and more and more. So it's not really being detached. What you're doing is from your full self. The part of you that is observing the thoughts and emotions, you're very connected to yourself and you're simply letting the, this other energy, these hallucinations that you've put together in the past, because these thoughts and emotions are things that you've constructed in the past. You're just letting them unwind and you're experiencing them fully. You're just not interacting with them. You're not adding to them. Oh my, I'm so, I'm really hurting. I'm really hurting. I feel so bad. No, because you're staying within your center. You're watching and that radiance, and it may not feel like radiance at first. It may simply just feel quiet because of where you are right now. But from that quiet, you're experiencing fully the suffering being released by the thoughts and the emotions. You're just not getting involved with it, with them until they've unwound and they've done a lot of thinking and maybe they've started to run out of steam and then begin to open up. Now, what they need to do to relax is to breathe in. They need to receive what they're looking for. They need to receive wellness. You can just look around the room when you're meditating and just the thoughts can look around and you can ask them, are you okay now? Maybe they're, they're afraid. Maybe they were formed under a time when you weren't safe and they can look around the room and you can ask them, are you safe now? You weren't safe when you were made, but does it feel better to be here now in the present or back during that suffering in the past? And just ask a very simple question, a yes or no question, more or less a binary question. And they can look around and go, oh, well this is much better here cause I'm safe. Then you say, breathe it in, receive the safety, receive it. Does that feel good? Yes. Breathe it in. Soak up a drop. You'll notice every drop they soak up and you don't want to force anything. You just want them to receive naturally, which might only be one drop today. You don't want to force it down your thoughts, throats. You just, whatever they can take, you just let them take it in and to the degree they can take it in, they will relax and to the degree they relax, they release and completely dissipate in the part that did relax, that was able to relax. It might only be a little bit right then, but, um, that will eventually open up into a lot. So it's not completely passive or detached. It's not detached at all. It sounds that way. So I'm so glad that you asked the question, but it's not. I'm going to say a little bit more that you didn't ask and then we'll get to the angels eventually in complete letting go in complete releasing as you let your troubles go for them to let go. They expand their energy and then eventually they breathe in wellness. They realize that they're okay for them to realize ultimately that they're okay. And for all the troubles to relax out of your system, ultimately we have to bring up the word trust. You have to develop receiving the ability to receive. Like when somebody says, thank you, are you able to take it in? When somebody gives you a compliment, can you take it in? That's a beginning, but ultimately, can you receive the wellbeing and love that is all around you in the universe, the wellbeing and love in life itself? Because in total trust, there is total relaxation. Eventually it's a process, but there's total relaxation and in total relaxation, there's total letting go. And in total letting go, there are no boundaries and everything becomes one. Now, in order to trust life, how do you do that? Because it might not seem so trustworthy sometimes. You have to do that in my experience in little steps. You meditate and then because you're letting go and you're safe right now in the now and you receive that, you open up. And because you open up, you can trust a little bit more. When you can trust a little bit more, those obstructions that dissolved are no longer there. And so you can see a little bit better internally. You have more clarity. And because you have more clarity, you have more access to your intuition. And because you have more access to your intuition, you begin to sense that ultimately everything is okay. Now this becomes clearer and clearer and clearer as you move through your path. One thing to keep in mind though, is you always exist. You're always here. You're here now and you're aware of what's going on. Your thoughts may disappear, but you will notice they disappeared. Your thoughts are not permanent. Your troubles are not permanent. You are not your thoughts. You're not your troubles. You're not your problems because when they disappear, you'll still be here. So process of elimination, you're not them. Point is, until they dissolve, they are here. Just like you can see my hand and you're the one that's seeing my hand. You're not my hand, but you are seeing my hand and my hand is there. So in the interim, as you're awakening, some thoughts will be dissolving, but you'll have a lot more left that haven't dissolved yet. Some stresses will have dissolved, but you'll have a lot more that won't have dissolved yet. So you'll have both. You'll have both some clarity, some peace, some love, some wellbeing, which is your innate nature and hurt, fear, and anger. Some hurt, some fear, and some anger. So you'll have a little of everything going on. You don't have to wait until every stress is gone before you can relax. Relax right now, right now, notice yourself now the best that you can. And also notice, Hey, I'm fine. And I sure am observing. I've got a lot of trouble. I also feel pretty bad, but I'm fine. But yeah, all this trouble that I haven't cleared out yet, it's doesn't feel good. So I feel both things. It's good to know that you're not your problems. You're just have the ability to experience these problems. And the process that we're going through is about dissolving them. Jen, you are at number 60 in the podcast. You will notice as we go on in the podcast, I talk more and more about this receiving. You'll also notice that in around podcast number 30, I think I talk about actually the parts of you that need to receive love and you give them love. And there's a whole system built around that in psychology called internal family systems. And though none of my podcasts are psychotherapy, I am a psychotherapist. If you need a psychotherapist, find one in your area. They can be very helpful to help you let things release, but you'll find a lot in these podcasts can help you too. And so you suggested on your own to receive the love. I would go back to around podcast number 30 and re-listen to that and see if that supports that. Also in the later podcasts, I'm going to support that receiving a lot more. So you're sort of in the middle of it all and you've, you're doing great to have gone as far as you have already. I think it was Christine wrote a email today saying that she's going her second time through all these podcasts and is suddenly hearing things she didn't hear the first time around because there's so much in these podcasts. I want to continue with this trust though. Have you ever been around an awakened person? I've been around so many and they emanate masses amount of energy of love, peace, and wellbeing. And that is who you are. So you can see yourself in them. They're just you without the problems. The energy is so beyond what we're used to. I've described it many times where it's so powerful. Some people literally become paralyzed in bliss and they can't move. They can't get up out of their chairs because they're feeling their innate presence so powerfully in the presence of these awakened beings. What happens with an awakened being is their clarity allows their being, which you're one with cause it's all one to override your troubles. So you feel yourself supported so powerfully. Now when the being leaves, you feel your troubles again and you're back to your old self, but at least you get a glimpse. I like the picture of Ramana Maharishi that you can Google Ramana, R-A-M-A-N-A. The picture of the face shot of his, that picture exudes what it feels to be around an awakened person. The picture kind of expresses it in his face. You can see it. It's so powerful. Also, if you want to look at a place that exudes awakening energy, and there's so many around the world, but one of them is Googled the tiger's nest in Bhutan. When I was there, it just is so powerful and it feels like it looks in the picture. If you want to read something that will feel like awakening energy, you could read some Rumi and, or you could read the Tao Te Ching. It's 108 verses T-A-O-T-E-C-H-I-N-G. Read a few of those verses and what you feel is how you are without your troubles. But I was continuing. So with Ramana, and we're still talking about trust, Ramana said this, whatever is destined not to happen, will not happen. Try as you may, whatever is destined to happen, will happen. Do what you may to prevent it. This is certain. Ramana had total trust in the universe and he felt the universe serving him in every dimension. And so he just sat still and let go of everything. And he trusted that quote might seem a little fatalistic, but actually he trusted the universe to serve and provide whatever was needed. Jesus said a similar thing, Luke 12, 24 to 34. He said, take the carefree birds as your example. Do you ever see them worry? They neither grow their own food nor put it in a storehouse for later. Yet God takes care of every one of them, feeding each of them out of the abundance of his love and goodness. Isn't your life more precious to God than a bird? Be carefree in the care of God. Does worry add anything to your life? Can it add one more year or even one day? So if worrying adds nothing, but actually subtracts from your life, why would you worry about God's care of you? Think about the lilies. They grow and become beautiful, not because they work hard or strive or clothe themselves, yet not even Solomon wearing his kingly garments of splendor could be compared to a field of lilies. If God can clothe the fields and meadows with grass and flowers, can he not clothe you as well? You who struggle with so many doubts. I repeat, don't let worry enter your life. So that's what we're talking about. Stay in your center, observe and let go. If a trouble arises, if worry arises, just let it flow through your body and move through your body. Let it release. One more thing about that. Sometimes people say, well, and they wonder, I think we all have, how do I know that life is loving? You're presuming life is loving, but how do I know that life is loving? If we're all one, how do I know life is going to take care of me, that it's loving? Well, you're loving and you're a part of life. It's not like I'm the only loving thing, like life doesn't love, but I can because I'm life too. So I don't have a corner. If I feel love, it's coming to me through something and it's coming through life, through me. Well, how do I know that life has intelligence enough to help me or take care of me or do anything positive for me? Well, you're intelligent. You ask the question. So you're intelligent. Well, again, I don't have a corner on intelligence. The universe isn't intelligent, except for me, who is part of the universe. I'm intelligent, but it's not. I'm the only intelligent one in the universe. All the intelligence of the universe is me and me alone. No, it's everywhere. It flows through the universe through me. Now, I know that deeper as I have more clarity as I awaken. I know that. And because I know that it's all one, I know that because it's one, the universe is going to help itself, which is me too. I'm part of the universe. You're part of the universe. So that is the direction that trust takes. And that helps as slowly, you don't believe this all at once, but slowly you find this out to be true for you. So you relax. So these troubles that need and want love or peace or wellbeing, they can relax into the energy of life all around you. Now, I hope that answered the first part of your question, Jen. The second part about the angels. Yes. Later in my podcast, you'll see a title that's saying something like letting go of Christian guilt and fear, something like that. That podcast is what you're asking, Jen. And yes, I can't get into it in a few sentences, but it's been atrocious. Jesus had no, he wasn't a Christian. So the Bible was written over, let's say a thousand years or so. And different parts of the Bible were written from a different vantage point when they wrote what they wrote. So the church has been built on a lot of that and it's been really difficult. So listen to that podcast that I did. That will help clear some of that out. Another podcast, when I had a guru in India and I was with him so powerful, his name is Bhagavan, for about, I'm thinking 15 years until he told me to go out on my own. One of the things they did at the ashram is said, create your own God, because you can't let go into God if you don't trust God. And the old patriarchal system that you allude to, Jen, was very harmful and there's no way you can trust a horrible, terrible being that was portrayed in the Bible. Often, not always, Jesus didn't portray that, but others did. So they said, create your own God. And in Hinduism, they have a thousand gods. They only believe in one being, one God, but they have a quote unquote, a thousand different small gods, because you might not be able to connect. Let's say if you have a fear of men, you might not be able to connect to a male God. So don't connect to a male God. In Hinduism, you just pick out the ones you can connect to and want to connect to. You might connect to Lakshmi or Radha or Sita or somebody else that's a female. Maybe you don't even like to connect to people. And all of these gods are simply portals to the one. It's just an entryway into the infinite. You might connect to animals, like there's Nandi. Nandi's a cow or a bull that worships Shiva and Nandi is so loving. So Nandi is one of the most revered portals in Hinduism. Everybody loves Nandi. They even have a Nandi day. Nandi day is on Monday. So what you're saying is quite understandable. You don't have to take in all of this religious stuff. We're just talking about our heart here. One final thing about religious stuff is in 2 Timothy 3, 16. If we're still talking about the Bible, Paul writes his protege Timothy, and he says, all scripture is God breathed and useful for teaching. Well, that distinction is very important. There's a lot of stuff in the Bible that is not God breathed. Do not take it as scripture. Like my friend Bob said, I said, well, Bob, how do you read the Bible? He was, he's an awakened man. Okay. And he became a Christian and he said, well, I look at it. And if my heart resonates, if it glows, if it, if, if it opens my heart, I take it as coming from God. If it doesn't, I just cross it out. What he intuitively knew is to resonate with the God breathed portions. I would go with the Dowdy Ching or, or the Bhagavad Gita, uh, less complicated, but there are some beautiful passages in the Bible too. Jesus was maybe the most wake and being in my estimation that's ever lived. Maybe he wasn't, but he was up there. And so I wouldn't overlook him. Now, as far as these angels, you'll see in some later podcast in one of these lives, live sessions, somebody asked me what it was like when Jesus came to talk to me and Archangel Michael, it was quite a surprise. And I talk about it in that podcast. It'll be in the title. There are all these realms in existence. We're not the only realm right here on earth. And it's just not the way it is. There are lots of realms and there are lots of beings and some of them are helpful. And some of those beings may not be helpful. Angels can be helpful. They can communicate to you. Jesus was very helpful to me and he'll talk to me anytime I want. And we're good friends. But the funny thing is I don't really have the urge because Jesus is me. Buddha is me. We're all one. So the answers that we're looking for are inside each of us. We don't need Jesus. We don't need Buddha. However, when we're still very cloudy, they can be helpful as a bridge to give us information to help us a bit. The downfall of that is if we rely too heavily on that kind of stuff, we quit listening to ourselves and quit working so hard to clear out our blockages because it's easier just to talk to my pal Jesus or to Archangel Michael or somebody. So it's a double-edged sword. And really Jesus as well as Bhagavan encouraged me to go out on my own. Jesus for a long time wouldn't talk to me either. They wanted me to go inside of my heart. So that's something to take into account. Yet they've provided me with so much helpful guidance, Jesus and Bhagavan and Archangel Michael and others. But now not so much. Sometimes, I hope that helps. Sorry it's taken so late to get to you, Nancy. Nancy wrote, I did a meditation recently that had me bring up a past negative story. It had me sobbing and brought up so much emotion. After that, it expressed love for me and I was safe and not broken. Felt good afterwards. Is this the way to release the stories? Do we have to bring up the actual negative stories? Such a good question, Nancy. Let's go back to whatever works for you. That's what you should do. However, as a general principle, no. What I do is I sit still. I let stuff come up. It generally is painful. I just feel pain or tension generally welling up and then I let it flow through my body and let it release on its own and then let it breathe in goodness all around. If it wants me to know something, if it has a negative thing that I need to know, it will reveal it to me. I don't go looking for it. Suddenly, a picture will come into my mind or the whole story and I'll just watch it and I'll let it exude its energy, maybe such as you did, and then let the whole intricate web of thoughts, emotions, tensions, physical sensations, let them all flow, let them all do whatever they do and let them release out of my body and then breathe in. Let them notice themselves, not me, because I'm fine. The problem is the story has the problem. Let it look around. Let the whole story look around and receive and see that it's okay now. It may just do that naturally. It may just notice everything's fine now naturally and breathe in naturally, but I don't go looking for it. This stuff just happens spontaneously. The stories just come up and out spontaneously. I hope that answers your question and I want to say if it works for you and you're in therapy or seeing a psychotherapist or even on your own and it's working where you're bringing up stories and that sometimes that helps. Sometimes that does help. So with spiritual stuff, you got to be careful. I, we all do not to get too black and white. Follow your heart and see what actually does help you today. It's one thing and tomorrow it may be another thing. I'm simply giving general principles, but you tailor, make your healing process to fit you and it will evolve and change as you evolve and change. Nancy says, okay, that does help. Thank you. Thank you, Nancy. And Mia, hello from Wales in the UK. Hello. And oh, Heidi says, you don't rely on deity so much now. And why is that? Well, because as I open and as I clear out more and more, just as you, just as all of us, just as Jesus said, just as Buddha says, we are one with the infinite. The infinite is us. Yogananda says, it's not quite right to say I have become the infinite. Better to say the infinite has become me because I've let go of all those blockages. That which is looking out of my eyes and that which is looking out of your eyes is the infinite. That's the simple thing about it. You can find the infinite right now. Just it's looking through your eyes. There is no you. There's no me. It's, it's only because we have developed a personality that sometimes we think that there's a me or a you, but there's really not. It's only one. And it's only the infinite coming through all of us. And I know that can sound like a lot of gobbledygook sometimes, but it's true. And as you let go of more and more and more, you have that experience. And so because I don't need to be separate from a deity, the deity becomes me. The infinite becomes me. In fact, also to answer your question a little more thoroughly and Jens, if you go to a realm where there are a lot of angels and you're talking to them or Jesus or all these other beings, you're still separate. You're talking to other beings. So you're not, you're opening. That's a good thing in the process of your awakening, but you're still seeing yourself separate from them. I'm talking to Jesus. Jesus is over there. He's smarter than I am. And I'm over here and I'm talking to Jesus. So I'm maintaining my separation. But when Jesus said, be still, be silent. Don't talk to me anymore. When Bhagavan told me that, don't talk to me anymore. They were guiding me into, I don't need anything. I am everything. Not in an egotistical sense. You don't realize that until you let more and more of yourself go. You can't hold onto yourself and be one. So you can't have, the more ego you have, the more separate you are. So you have to let that go. That ego is made of pain. If you have suffering, you got ego. The more and more bliss and wellness you have, the less and less ego. You can have both and egos can be helpful to get us through the day, but the clearer they are, the better. So as you let more and more go, you, you realize the father and I are one. And in the Bible, when it talks about God, or when I use the word father, really it's beyond that. The father melts, God melts. It's just one. And it's beyond even this creation. It goes into everything that's uncreated. You're also that. And you experience it intuitively. That's the only way you can, because it's beyond the five senses. Char asks, what is the ego good for? I might be using the word ego incorrectly. I'm, I'm using it the same way as I'm using personality. And you know, you learn to drive a car. The very first time you tried to drive the car, it was hard. You had to learn to shift and break and do all these things. After a while, it became automatic. Well, a personality holds our habits so we can get through life so that I can remember how to speak English, how I can interact with you, how I can walk down the street, how I even know how to walk. So the personality can do that. So the personality isn't a problem as long as it's expressing who we are. The problem is most of us have come from separation and the personality has learned from who we aren't are separated self. And when we're separate, we feel fear, anger, and hurt. And so our personality has been formed with fear, anger, and hurt. Now that's the stuff we're letting deconstruct and dissolve out of us so that we can form a healthy personality and it can reform around our center, which is peace, love, and well-being rather than hurt, fear, and anger. Hope that makes sense. Okay. I think we're about out of time. Thank you, Nancy, for that generous donation. By the way, anytime anybody donates, it goes to feed the children and the orphans in Bali. My portion goes straight to them. So thanks from me and thanks from them. And Char says, I hadn't thought about personality as ego. That's a chunk to examine. Yes. To examine. Uh, yeah, we are not our personality and we are not our ego. I think they may be the same thing. Everybody says, thank you. And I say, thank you to everybody. Thanks so much for your great questions, everybody. Talk to you soon. Bye.