Awakening Together, Relaxing into Happiness with William Cooper, Master of Theology, Licensed Professional Counselor

43 - Connect and your Beauty flows!

William Cooper, M.Th., LPC Season 1 Episode 43

Knowing your Being and connecting to all else is essential for awakening.  So often we think the spiritualized mind is our Being and get stuck in using the mind to awaken the mind.  Additionally, we can spend years "watching" the mind rather than connecting with it.  While watching is helpful to detach, connecting is essential to transform and heal.  They are vastly different.  In this podcast we explore knowing our Being as well as understanding and healing through connection. 

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.

Hello, this is William Cooper. Welcome to Awakening Together. Relaxing into happiness. I trust you're doing well. Power and connection. That's what I'd like to talk about today. These are two of the most essential factors in Awakening. Had I understood them correctly, I might have saved decades in my Awakening process. I know everything happens as it should in the right time, but these were big ones that I really didn't understand even after decades and decades and decades of diligent spiritual practice. So I want to pass on what I learned to you for your consideration. Perhaps you already know these things and that's good, but just in case you don't, might be worth discussing. This winter, Austin, Texas, where I live, we had a power outage and most of the city went black. We lost our power and we lost our connection. Once the power and connection was restored, my city lit back up. Lights were back on. And that's the same process in our own Awakening. When we're connected to our power, when we ourselves are congruent and rest as power as the universe and we connect to everything else fully, Awakening occurs. It has to. Let me explain in a little bit different way. Let's say I see somebody starving and I watch them. That's of no help to them. They need connection. They need me to connect to them, give them food, and they need to eat that food. That's a full connection, giving and receiving. Watching does nothing. Connecting does everything. It's not only connecting, I have to give them food. That's the power in this example. So let's talk about our power. Our power is the awareness that shines through us, that which is aware. If all the thoughts disappeared out of your mind, all the emotions, you would be aware of that. It's that awareness that looks through your eyes, that listens through your ears. It's always there. If everything else disappeared, you'd know it. That part that would know it. That part that's always there. That's you. Thoughts aren't awareness. Thoughts don't think and emotions don't feel. Awareness shines through the lenses called thoughts, the hallucinations called thoughts, and the hallucinations called emotions, and it creates an emotion or a thought. There's no power in the thought. It's the power in the light that goes through the thought. So this awareness that is always shining is there all the time. It is you. That's your power. It's silent. When I looked for it, my big mistake is I was looking for something and I could never find it. If you can imagine your thoughts disappearing and your emotions disappearing, that which is left, that which would be left is you because you would still be here. It's silent. The reason it's silent is it stretches from this reality all the way back beyond existence, outside of existence, and anything that's not in existence can't be known by the five senses, and we say that it doesn't exist yet. It's beyond words and it does exist somehow, but you have to know that intuitively and once connected and once becoming clear, you do know that intuitively. Anyway, it's very quiet. All the power in the universe rest in that quietness. So in awakening, that's where you center your attention because that is you. You don't even center your attention, really. You just quit distracting yourself from that. That is you. When you rest in yourself and you don't distract yourself from yourself by following thoughts or getting involved in fantasies or what ifs or this should have happened or my guilt or my this or that caught in the web of our thoughts and emotions. If you stop that, stop getting caught in it, it doesn't mean that you need to stop the thoughts because they might just keep running on their own, but instead rest in the part of you that's aware of your thoughts, the part of you that formerly was looking through your thoughts, rest in that. If you rest there slowly, even though it's very quiet and it doesn't seem powerful, it will start to become very powerful and flow down through your body, your mind, and your emotions. It will light you up because you will be connected to yourself power in that quietness. It's quiet power, but it's the universe resides in that power. So it's beyond atomic power. It's universal power. Trust me, it's the power that miracles flow from, but it's deceptive in a way because it's so quiet. So we miss it. I missed it for decades. I got lost in my thoughts and in my personality and in my emotions and I worked on them and that was a fine thing to do, but it wasn't who I was. I was working. It's like working on a house that you don't own. You can do it great, but so what? So after decades of this and becoming a fine spiritual personality yet not awake and a bit frustrated about that, I had moments where I thought I was awake. I hoped I was, but I wasn't. Once I found who I am and it just suddenly one day dawned on me, wow, I've been missing myself because I don't exist. I know those are the oddest words ever, but that doesn't mean I don't exist. It just means I stretch all the way beyond this existence and then truly down through this existence and in that part of the rainbow of who I am, I definitely exist. When I come into existence, I come from, let's call it full nothing, nothing that contains every potentiality. I flow down from this so-called nothing, which is outside of existence, down into existence, and it's explosive light, sound, and then that, as that slows down, it turns into bliss, happiness, wellness, well-being, and that slows down into atoms and molecules and then objects. I'm one with all things. I can feel it. I can see it. And that started happening once I found out who I was. Now, why is that important? First of all, it's important because it's who you are and who you are is important. You can't awaken to yourself without being connected to yourself. Lost in the fantasy of the personality is hopeless. I mean, it's a fun thing to do. It's a drama. It's like we're a character in our own movie. Great, but it's not awakening. And because we're separated from ourselves in this hallucination, at some level, we feel isolated and we develop hurt, fear, and anger. That's what you develop in isolation when you're cut off from yourself. So we start to suffer and we want to awaken. Well, that's what you do. You center your attention on yourself. It's quiet. It's the one looking through your eyes. That's the best way I can say it. Or even if the thoughts are continuing to go, it's the one that's watching all of your thoughts. And if your thoughts disappeared, it's what would still be there aware that they disappeared. Be in touch with that. Don't feel like you have to get rid of your thoughts. That's a big task at this point. Simply be in touch with who you are. The silence. And I know it may be overwhelmed with thoughts at this point and emotions. And maybe it just peeks through the cracks and crevices and around the corners. But you consent yourself. And anyway, it's what's aware of all the thoughts. So you don't even have to be lost in the thoughts. Just in that sense, watch the thoughts. That's where watching is helpful. It helps separate out the thoughts are over here. It's what I'm watching. And the one watching that's me because thoughts can disappear and I would still be watching. I'd still be here. Anyway, put your attention there. That's the power. That's essential to awakening. Center yourself on the power. You know why that's essential? First of all, yes, it's you. Secondly, since that's where all the power is, that's what needs to connect power and connection. Light up your life. That's what connects. So from your power, you connect to your thoughts and your emotions and your personality. That's a good first step. Connect. What do I mean by connect? It's like feeding that hungry man. You connect, you feel, you experience, you don't block and the hungry man has to eat. So your thoughts, all thoughts of separation and emotions of separation. They're there to get something because they feel separate. So they're trying to get love. They're trying to get peace. They're trying to get fulfillment. I need to get the right job. I need to get the right relationship. I need to get enough money. Why? Because if I get the things I perceive I need, then somehow I'll have security because I don't have it. Somehow I'll get love because I don't have it. Somehow I'll get fulfillment because I don't have it. Well, in your silence, in the power is all fulfillment, all happiness, all well-being and all peace. As you rest in that silence, you'll find it. In fact, if you know about this silence, or if you start to look today and rest there, ask yourself, I'm not talking about the thoughts or the emotions, but the silence itself. Is it relaxed? Does it need anything? Does it have problems? It's just fine. Is it abundant? Yes. Is it bright and glowing? Yes. It's just fine. So since that's who you are, you're just fine. Your thoughts and emotions and personality was formed because it thought it wasn't fine. And it's a big getting machine. Once you connect to it, connection, full connection, where it's feeling the silence, it's resting in the silence. It's giving up its needs and desires because you're giving it food. It doesn't need any more. It's giving up its needs born of separation because you're holding it. You're nurturing it. Thoughts just want love. Your emotions just want love. All that depression that sometimes we feel or anxiety or anger, it just wants to be held. It just wants love. That's what happens in your connection. Power flows down and connects to you, you in the body, you in your personality, it connects to your personality and your personality can drink it in. It can eat. It can get nourished and it will let go once it's nourished. It can relax. And when something relaxes completely, it releases like a tension in your body. When it relaxes completely, it releases and disappears. So then the personality can be used. You can use your personality as a tool. You can flow down into it and walk around in the world. You'll be in the world, but not of it. You can enjoy the world, but not be attached or trapped by it. You can enjoy your thoughts and your emotions, but not be attached or trapped by them. Your thoughts and emotions in a full connection, reorient to who you are. They reflect who you truly are, not who they thought you were in times of separation, so-called separation, hurt, fear, and anger. So your old personality, that's what it was conveying on some level. I need to get because I'm hurt and I'm afraid and I'm angry. So it was formed around those feelings. Now it starts to relax as it's nourished and it reforms and now it reflects the true you, the truth of you, the peace of you, the love of you. You can love others much more easily. You feel a peace, you flow in the world, abundance, you're congruent and you, because this infinite universal power very silently, but very powerfully, very blissfully flows through you. You can create, you can manifest the life that you like in this world. So these are the two things that are very important for me. And I think for everybody in their awakening, know what your power is, know who you are, the silence and put your attention there. Let that be your center because it is your center. Start there and connect power and connection lights up your life. Connect to your old thoughts and emotions and personality and let them drink, let them eat, let them relax, let them reform around the true you. And what is that called awakening? Because you have awakened to your true self, the silence of you and the power of you, the happiness of you, the bliss of you. And you've awakened through your body mind as well in this world, because your own personality is an awake personality. Your body is a healthy, awake body because it reflects as well, this beautiful energy. So, these are very important things, power and connection. If this is one of the first times you've heard my podcast and some of these things seem a little strange, I would say, go back to the podcast number one and work your way forward. And what I'm doing is step by step explaining things that in my opinion are helpful for awakening. So this podcast, even though it rests on its own, is built on all the podcasts before it. Also, you might find the contemplations and writings as well as the resource page and the description on how to meditate helpful. And you can find these things on my website and it's www.williamecooper.wordpress.com. Okay, I look forward to the next time we talk. Take care. Bye.