54 - Trust, duality and Oneness

As we continue to deepen in our Trust, we  open and relax into Oneness.  Here we explore the question of why is the world as it is.  It seems that the perfect has created the imperfect.  How can we trust that?  How can we approach living in this kind of world?

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

Hello. This is William Cooper. Welcome to Awakening Together, Relaxing Into Happiness. I trust you're doing well. Our last podcast was a general one on trust, the topic of trust.

I would like to continue to deepen that topic, trust, because there's a lot of simple, but, maybe at the same time complex ways of looking at things and in my tradition, one of the ways of awakening was understanding, or is understanding. To see is to be free. When you understand something, when you see clearly, you can see all the dimensions of it all the way into the common denominator, which is being. Everything is made of consciousness, of being. So, somebody asked me a very good question and I wanted to talk about it to make sense of the world so that we could relax more.

Open and opening is trusting. To see is to be free. Question they asked me was, if our core depth is being, is oneness, all knowing, infinite, blissful, peaceful, harmonious knowing, the infinite and beyond. Why is creation such a mess? Why do we have problems?

Why do I personally have problems? Was the implication. Why do we all have problems? If there's an all knowing, infinite, whatever word you want to use, universal energy, God or beyond God or whatever, why is it such a mess? That's such a good question and I think, probably most of us have wondered about that at one time or another.

Well, think of it this way. The infinite exists, we know that because when we meditate the awareness that is us, that's aware of our thoughts and emotions. It never disappears. Even if our thoughts or emotions or even the room itself disappeared, we would be aware of it. Awareness is always there.

And as we sink into that awareness, we find that it's blissful, it's peaceful. And if we flow down through our world from that vantage point, we see everything as 1. Because it all is 1 and it's all made of that same consciousness which flows from that deep bliss. And everything intuitively, not intellectually but intuitively, feels okay. It feels like everything has a role to play and it's working itself out, including my own development, your own development.

That's what life looks like from that vantage point. But from another vantage point, from the vantage point of separation, the vantage point of the world, everything is cut off, it's separated, it's divisive. And when you're cut off from your true self, you develop hurt, fear, and anxiety. Or, hurt, fear and anger. Separation anxiety, that's the same as fear or you feel abandonment, which is hurt or you feel frustration, why is my life like this?

That's the same as anger. So, we're cut off. And from that vantage point, we become a getting machine. We're angry, so we want to get fulfillment. We're afraid, so we want to get safe.

We're, hurt so we want to get love and well-being. We develop a personality which is essentially a getting machine. So that's how life in duality looks and feels and, lives for us. It's, we feel like we don't have enough. That's why people who have the least want to earn the most.

If I'm very uncomfortable, if my culture is very uncomfortable, then everybody wants to have 5 cars and a bed that's 5 feet thick with so soft, so we aren't disturbed at all. We want to be extremely comfortable because we're in so much pain. We can't take one more, discomfort. And that's true of so many of us because we're so separated from ourselves. So, what's the point of all that?

Why would an all-infinite god, or energy, create a world that way? Well, when we look at it from a sense of separation, it seems very cruel. But when we look at it from a place of expansion and infinite, possibilities, it looks very creative, like a beautiful painting. There are all these features to it, good, bad, indifferent. Let's look at it another way.

One thing I think we've all learned, it's a fact, that human beings love stories. We love TV, we love movies, we love a good joke, we love to talk, we like podcasts, we like interactions, we like relationships, these are stories. Well, we are not separate from the infinite, we are the infinite. We're just one end of a 2 ended stick. On one end is deep separation and individuality, on the other end is oneness.

Or at least it appears it's actually all oneness. We'll talk about that in just a bit, or in another podcast if we don't have time today. But the infinite loves stories too. That's why it created the world this way. How would it feel to you if you got to the end with no story?

For instance, like I said, everybody loves a good movie, right? What if you go into the movie and there is nothing but one big smiley face on the movie and just smiling and laughing and being happy. That's the whole movie. 2 hours of just, you know, one of those yellow faces with a big smile on it, and it's laughing. That's the movie.

How much would you pay to go to that movie and would you go more than once if you could even sit through it one time? No. No and no. Because we're not interested. Well, creation would be that way if it was all, quote unquote, perfect.

There was no drama. There was no, achievement because we already had it all. Right? Don't you feel good about somebody who overcomes, who achieves? Don't you feel good about that in your own life when you do that?

To see is to be free. Don't you feel good to get more information, to get more clarity and feel better and better day by day? Don't you feel good coming from a place of obscurity inside and blockages and meditate and slowly find yourself clearing up and flowing with your infinite well-being and wellness? Doesn't that feel good? Doesn't the process of that feel good?

Well, it could not happen if you weren't blocked to start with. The world itself could not happen unless there was a duality, unless there was a yin and a yang, unless there was darkness and light. You couldn't even have atoms, negative and positive charges. The world itself would not hold together. You couldn't even have a world.

And if it did hold together, it would be like one big smiley face. So boring. But it's not that way. It's snapping with electricity. It's exciting.

There are polarities. So everything is as it should be, especially, and we're talking about trust, you can relax into trust when you know the end of the story. It's all good. You are on a path of awakening. You will awaken even if it's 40 lifetimes or 400 lifetimes or one lifetime.

You are going to awaken. Now these things come obvious to you in meditation because as you sit still, you can't know these things intellectually, really. That becomes a philosophy and maybe you can sort of sort some things out on a philosophical level. But I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about intuition.

You sit still and as you relax into your awareness, as you just are aware of everything that's going on around you and through you, but you're not, captured by it, you're just fully connected to it, but not captured by it. You're resting in your awareness. You'll notice that there's both awareness and things in this world going on. And as you deepen into your awareness, you'll deepen into bliss, well-being, peace, and the infinite. And as you relax into the infinite, you begin to intuit all things and one of the things you intuit is your infinite nature.

And you notice as all of your barriers melt away, you notice that they the reason why they are melting is they're made of, consciousness that's just shaped as a barrier. They're made of bliss that's shaped as pain. But as it melts, it melts back into bliss. So you see that over and over and over. And as you become clearer, your intuition becomes deeper and you see that you are an infinite being.

And then as more and more boundaries melt away, you feel yourself as one with all things. And as you feel yourself one with all things from that perspective, you see that everything's made of consciousness. And because you know the end of the story, that it's all good, you can relax and enjoy the movie that coincidentally you are in. You are the star of that movie in your life. Even if it's a drama you'd rather not be in right now, it can have a good ending.

So creation is going on just as it should. And by creation, I mean all created things. All things that exist, quote, unquote things that exist. Everything that is not a thing is beyond a thing, and you can only know that through intuition because you can only know through your 5 senses those things that exist. Things.

Okay. So that's why there's a world. It's fun. It gives us something to do. It's exciting.

And the whole time we were both from where the world flows and we're what makes up the world because it's our bliss and our consciousness that forms all material objects, all dogs and cats and atoms and molecules. And we can see that. We feel that as we meditate. You can feel it. And another odd thing, I can see, I've mentioned this in other podcasts, I can see this world strobe in and out of existence, I would say a 1000000 times a second, maybe it's a 1000000000 times a second, it's void nothing, black, and then full world and then void black and then full world.

It's just strobing in and out, in and out, in and out. A new world is created every millisecond. It it there's not a continuity, it's only held together because of our group thoughts, our cult, chore, our culture. We hold this world together. So I was talking to somebody and I was curious.

I was really troubled. Well, if that's the case, if in fact it's all 1 and I am the infinite and I am coming into this world and it all forms through me, well, what about through the other person or the other person? And if we're all 1, how come I don't know what they're feeling and they don't know what I'm feeling? And why is it so separate on one end down in the world so separate, but then on the other end maybe all 1? I I I'm confused.

How does that work? Well, an Indian man gave me a very good example. He held out his hand and he held it downward. He spread out his fingers and he said, this is one hand. Yet each finger has different sensory receptors and it will feel things that each other finger doesn't feel.

I could put my small finger on the table and it will feel the table, but my thumb, if it doesn't touch the table, it does not feel the table. Each finger has a separate experience, yet all the fingers are connected through the arm. And so me, the Indian man, as he was explaining, he says I can feel what all my fingers are feeling. I finger feel them all. And I have a wonderful experience of life because I have my fingers, I have my toes, I have all my senses, my ears, all of it I can feel.

But none of them can feel what the other one does. They just all harmonize way down in a singularity, in the, oneness of my core self, my being. Well, isn't that how instead of fingers, we're people or dogs or cats or different things? And maybe I can't feel exactly what you feel, but when I'm clear, when I've meditated a bit and I'm very clear, I start to become intuitive. And in that intuition, I'm in my deep being.

Our deep being. Our oneness. And I can begin to sense what you're thinking. I can feel it. Have you ever just thought about somebody and then they called you that instant?

I just had that happen today. Just a half hour ago. You probably have it happen a lot. Somehow you know things because we all are connected, not on the finger end of things, but the far end of things. Let's call that intuition.

And in that intuition, as we become more and more clear, don't we say our barriers melt and, our blocks melt and that clarity to see is to be free? Well, what is free? To see is to be free. Well, we become more expansive, expansive, expansive and intuitive, intuitive, intuitive. It happens at the same time.

We just know what to do. Somebody asked me once, well how do you know what to do? You know, we can use our mind. It's a good tool. We hallucinate thoughts and we use those thoughts as tools.

We hallucinate emotions and that can guide us through a world when we're really on the separated end of things. It's a very helpful tool. But deeper than that tool is when things open up, we can just know things. We know to turn left or we know to turn right. We know to do this or that.

And it might seem strange. We might our mind might even think, well, why didn't you take that job? You should've taken that job. But deep down inside, we know it's better to take this other job. And then it turns out to confirm itself.

Often, as we're learning, it's a good idea to marry our mental capacities with our blooming and blossoming intuitive capacities because we're not used to our intuition so much. So sometimes we use them both. Anyway, this is how we can be in the world but not of it. We're the fingers in the world, fingers of the hand, but we're way beyond the world too. And if we rest in our complete depth, not of the world, but in it, we can enjoy all the things in the world without being, bound by the world, attached to the world.

That doesn't mean you can't enjoy chocolate ice cream, it can be, it's just that you're not crying if you don't get it every single night. We're in the world but not of it. Why aren't we crying that we because we didn't get the chocolate ice cream? Because what's beyond this world feels so much deeper and better than anything in this world. It's real easy to let go of something that's not so valuable.

As far as attachment, if I work hard all day and I earn a $100, if you try to take it from me, I might resist. But if you assure me and give me a $1,000 bill in exchange for my $100 bill, I'll gladly give you the 100 if I know for sure I'm getting a 1,000. We don't we're not attached when we let go for something deeper and higher. So as we become clearer and we rest in our infinite oneness, in our unity, it's okay to let go of some of the trivial things in this world. So we can be in the world, enjoy every moment of it, but not be devastated if if something takes a turn that we didn't expect.

Okay. So we can relax in this world and we can trust everything that's happening. It's all good. Or at least at this point in our podcast, we can trust the structure of things. I hope they they make some sense and intuitively feel right to you.

Perhaps in our next podcast, still on the topic of trust, we'll just explore a little more deeply, so that we can let go more deeply. And as we let go more deeply, we fall into our infinite, which is called awakening. And then it flows down through our body and heals and opens everything else, which is also a deeper awakening through our body. Okay. I enjoy talking with you, and I hope to talk to you again soon.