40 - This Too Shall Pass

If your having a difficult day, this podcast will be very powerful for you.  We discuss one of the most powerful spiritual truths that, "This Too Shall Pass".  No matter how bad things seem right now, it can be so encouraging to know that they will pass...absolutely.  In fact one of the four noble truths is that all things are impermanent.
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These podcasts are here to support your personal path of awakening whatever that might be. I feel they are most powerful when listened to in sequence from podcast one forward because each is built on the last. Though they, also, all stand on their own. If anything does not resonate, please disregard it and follow your heart. All my podcasts and website are free. Enjoy!

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

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

Transcript

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Hello, this is William Cooper. Welcome to Awakening Together, Relaxing into Happiness. Let me ask you a question. Have you ever felt really sad or very anxious and afraid, maybe in deep turmoil, doubts, troubles, maybe troubles in your relationship as well, or business, maybe troubles everywhere. Have you ever felt that? Of course you have. As humans, we all have felt that. Maybe you feel that now. If so, let me share a very powerful spiritual truth with you that might help. It's the phrase, this too shall pass. This too shall pass. Feel into that for a moment. You know, it's true. This too shall pass. Take a breath. And by take a breath, what I mean is take the kind of breath that feels good to you. Connect to yourself, maybe the part that's hurting or that's anxious. What kind of breath does it want to take? Maybe just a little one or maybe a deep one, but connect and take what you want. And as you breathe at your own pace, you can notice that on every inhalation, it's like an acceptance of something good, air. It's there for you. And on every exhale, there's a release. You're letting go, right? And even the simple act of breathing helps stabilize the situation. Do you know how that phrase came about? This too shall pass. Well, it is a story that was told by a Sufi poet, Atar of Nishapur. And he tells the story of a very powerful King who talks to his wise men. And he was sad and he asked them, make me a ring that will turn my sadness into happiness. They returned with a ring inscribed, this too shall pass. Feel into that truth. This too shall pass. You know, it's true on a deep intuitive level. And that's what gives you hope. You know, as bad as it is now or has been, this too shall pass. In the Dowdy Ching, verse 23, it says, no storm lasts all day. No storm lasts all day. Let's take another breath. Breathe in at your own pace. What feels good? Do it that way. And out at a pace and depth that feels good to you. That breath is for you. As is all life is for you. You receive. And as you exhale, you release. It's like walking in nature. You receive freely from nature and you release as you walk through the trees or through the forest. No storm lasts all day. How do we know that's true? No storm lasts all day. How do we know that intuitively? This too shall pass because everything in the internal world, as we've talked about in other podcasts, melts into oneness, which is bliss, peace, and well-being. The source is bliss, peace, happiness, and well-being. And everything else melts away. Isn't that what we do in meditation? We sit still. And because we're sitting still and not being involved in perpetuating everything, it all melts away. The thoughts that we've been maintaining melt and release, melt back into oneness. The emotions melt back into oneness. And what is that oneness? That oneness is the part of us, the real us, beingness that's observing the thoughts and feelings. In that quiet awareness, the power of awareness melts our thoughts and emotions and all that's left is peace. Stillness. Well-being. So even our thoughts and emotions shall pass. They do, don't they? This too shall pass. Let's try something. If you can, if this is a good time for you, tense all the muscles up in your body, all the way from the tips of your toes to the top of your head. Just tense them up. Tense, tense, tense, tense, and let go. And just feel that rush of relaxation move through your body. Enjoy it. Because without the blocking tension, relaxation moves through your body very effortlessly. Peace, happiness, well-being moves through your body. That's your natural state. And all that tension will pass. Look, it's not that sturdy. We just tensed and relaxed and poof, it was gone at least until we created again. Sure, we have old habits and we often will maintain that tension through the day because that's our habit. But through meditation, we see better. We see clearly and to see is to be free. Awareness is curative and we melt it. We melt that tension out of our body. We melt our habits so it no longer forms. The Tao Te Ching is an ancient Taoist text and it's got 81 verses, perhaps the clearest and most poetic verses ever written about our core, our source, our spirituality, and living in this world. In verse 16, the Tao Te Ching says, among other things, returning to the source is stillness. When everything passes, there's stillness. And so this too shall pass all the turmoil, all of the depression and anxiety, all of the relational problems, business problems, this too shall pass. Let's take another breath and feel it. Just enjoy it. There's no hurry. This too shall pass. You know, the second law of thermodynamics, entropy, says that everything comes to rest. It falls apart and comes to stillness. Whenever there's work in a system, it creates something like you work to create a thought. You have to hallucinate a thought or you have to hallucinate an emotion. You have to work to create one. Even habits that go automatically, it might not seem like you're putting in work, but you are behind the scenes. And when you quit putting in the work, entropy says it comes to rest, stillness, the source. This too shall pass. It's the second law of thermodynamics. Just like gravity, it's inevitable. Just like happiness, it's inevitable. Just like resting in your source, it's inevitable. When you meditate, you simply stop and watch and everything comes to rest. Sure. It takes a while and for a little while, all of the repressed stuff rattles around very violently and meditation is difficult and painful maybe because thoughts are running incessantly. But when you sit down and stop, everything passes. Even a storm doesn't last all day. Even thoughts don't last. Even depression doesn't last. Everything fades away into happiness. It's inevitable. It must happen and will happen. That's good to know when you're in the midst of what seems to be never ending problems. And remember the external world reflects the internal world. So as you meditate and everything comes to stillness on the inside, the outside starts to calm down as well. This too shall pass. Perhaps you've heard the Chinese farmer story. I'll tell it to you just in case. Once upon a time, there was a Chinese farmer whose horse ran away. That evening, all of his neighbors came around to commiserate. They said, We're so sorry to hear your horse has run away. This is the most unfortunate thing. The farmer said, Maybe. The next day, the horse came back bringing seven wild horses with it. And in the evening, everybody came back and said, Oh, isn't that lucky? What a great turn of events. You now have eight horses. The farmer again said, Maybe. The following day, his son tried to break one of the horses and tame him. And while riding it, he was thrown and broke his leg. The neighbors then said, Oh, dear, that's too bad. And the farmer responded, Maybe. The next day, the conscription officers came around to conscript people into the army because there was a big war coming. But they rejected his son because he had a broken leg. Again, all the neighbors came around and said, Isn't that great? Again, the farmer said, Maybe. Isn't life like that? It comes and goes ceaselessly, always. That's the nature of life. In the Bhagavad Gita, chapter two, verse 14, it says all these things are transitory. They come and go. That's life stillness. The Bible Psalm 46, 10 says, be still and know that I am God. And who is God? Yogananda says, it's not quite right to say I'm God. Better to say God has become me. As we meditate and let go, we just melt into oneness. Oneness is us. Jesus' way of saying it was the Father and I are one. God has become me. And he said, I'll show you the way. This is true in Hinduism, true in Buddhism. I think every religion or most of them is we become the source or the source becomes us, I should say. Stillness. That's the source. Happiness, wellness, fulfillment. Everything comes from the source and the source is this happiness. It is the joy. It is well-being. As I've said before, as you quiet down, as you stop and feel yourself, you'll notice that you are even beyond creation, infinite, beyond even silence, beyond existence. And you come into creation as a bright light, turning into a vibration, into bliss and wellness and happiness and joy, turning into atoms and molecules and flowers and cats and dogs and everything. Everything is made of you. Entropy. Everything relaxes into you, into silence. This too shall pass. Every external thing, including anything we can look at is not us. Our thoughts are not us. We make our thoughts, their tools. We've talked about that plenty in the past podcasts. We're not our emotions. We look at them. We're aware of them. We're not our relationships. We're not nature. We're not everything. Everything melts into us. So everything is transitory. This too shall pass. Everything is okay. Right now, let's receive a breath in the way that feels good to you. Enjoy it. Let's receive life, the coming and going. That's all it's doing. It's coming and going, yet it's all made of good. If somehow we become snagged in a story that would say otherwise, well, this too shall pass. Doesn't Buddha and the Four Noble Truths say that everything is impermanent? We don't need Buddha to tell us that. We can just look around and underneath it all, we intuitively know it's okay. Jesus in Matthew 6, 25 and on says, don't worry. The lilies in the field, the birds, they're all cared for. Aren't you more valuable than them? No worries. You'll be cared for. You are being cared for. Anything that would say otherwise, this too shall pass. We talked in our podcast about manifestation that life brings us things because the external reflects the internal. So the external brings us things to show us where we're caught, to show us where we can grow and heal. So what appears to be trouble and a problem is a gift. Nonetheless, and even so, this too shall pass. So I enjoyed our time together today in this podcast, and I look forward to talking to you soon. Take care. Bye.