59 The Process of Awakening, Where to Start? Q & A

This edited recording of first question and answer live event held.  Designed to address questions on our path of Awakening.  It also supports these awakening podcasts, Awakening Together.  Topics include what happens on the path of awakening and what is a good way to start one's spiritual path.  Great information but audio quality only adequate.

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 everybody, welcome, glad to be here. What I'm planning is just to talk a little while and then if you have questions about your awakening process, feel free to ask those questions and hopefully I can be helpful. As far as awakening, you know it's such a multi-level event and you can look at it from so many different perspectives. I remember I had a friend Bob and he used to say the first step is to get out of the pounding surf. You've got to be able to pay your bills and take care of your life otherwise you're being tossed to and fro and you can't really focus that well. And also with awakening, of course anything's possible. There will be, having just said that, you can almost always say the opposite. There'll be somebody somewhere that can awaken in any circumstances. But in general, get out of the pounding surf. Then perhaps another level of awakening, I like Michael Singer's analogy where he says awakening is like a river. And let's say you have a river and you just, and you're the river and you just want to be nice and calm and peaceful. He says don't try to make the river calm and peaceful. Look at where it's, where the rapids are and the, and the, there's termites in the water and remove the rocks underneath the river that's causing those disturbances. Remove the rocks and the river naturally will calm. So there's nothing you have to do to calm the river, just remove the rocks. And we'll talk about any or all of these levels. There's another level that basically, you know, in awakening the personal self dissolves. It's gone. Yes, we still have our personality. We use our personality to get through the day, but our identification with it is dissolved. And from that perspective, from that, the ultimate reality, there is nobody to awaken and the universe is doing just fine. Whether we awaken, we quote our personal selves, awaken or not. Everything is fine. It doesn't need us to run the universe. Everything is in divine order. Everything is perfect. It is as it should be. Even if our perspective says, no, it's not how it should be, but it really is. And on that level of awakening, you don't do anything. You don't have to do anything. Everything is one. However, the one shines through your basic incarnation, your particular incarnation and your intuition guided by who you truly are. The one may have you do certain things. A Zen teacher once said when somebody asked him, is meditation necessary for awakening? The Zen teacher said, no, but I don't know anybody who's ever awakened without meditating. So the meditation is sort of an outward sign of what's already happening. You being interested in this topic, for instance, is an outward sign of what's already happening in your life. You already are deeply on the path of awakening. Perhaps you're totally awake now. And because we have a diverse group, I don't know. Awakening is a continuum. You know, it's being clear, deeply to know who we are. And then it's also to know it so deeply that we can receive it in our body through every cell, through every muscle. So we don't have what we might feel as blocks, as tensions. We just flow instead of motoring through life, through willpower. Willpower is good. It's a fine thing. But ultimately the deepest awakening is more of a flow than a march. So we're all in our own place and it's all perfect because the universe is perfect. So wherever you are right now is perfect and it could not be another way because there is no us to dictate where we should be now. Our deepest self, there is an us, which there's not a personal us, there's a deep us, the one. And that's knowing where we should be. And that's what's coming through our body and our mind. Anyway, I want to welcome you all and I'll start asking, answering some questions if I can. So Christina asked a question and welcome to everybody. There's just so many people, I can't say to everybody, but just welcome to everybody together. Christina asks, what are the signs of being totally awake? How will we know? Does the ego take a back seat as Ram Dass alluded to after his stroke? Yeah, I met Ram Dass and a number of times and he's an amazing person. I love his podcast, Ram Dass. He is so clear and so articulate. He's one of the best. As far as the signs of being totally awake, here's the thing. This is a little confusing sometimes to people because the you that's here right now simply has an overlay of a personality. But the awakeness, God seeing through your eyes, there's a saying, you can't see God because God is doing the seeing. Or another one, there isn't God as me or God and me, it is God as me. God is shining through my eyes. So awakening is simply dissolving and letting go of the misperception that there is a me and God. So everything coming through your eyes, everything that comes through your body, if you just didn't have this perception of, oh, there's a little me, but instead, let's say that disappeared. Let's say suddenly you got amnesia and it disappeared. And you just knew that you were looking out your eyes and the you that knows that you're looking through your eyes is God. So what you feel like in awakening is your truest, happiest self, because every time you get a overlay, that creates a separation. And in separation, you generate as a side effect, hurt, pain and anger. Hurt that you're abandoned, you're alone in the universe because you're separate. Fear, separation, anxiety because you're separate. And anger because you don't feel fulfilled. Why? Because you're separate. Well, all that disappears in awakening. Awakening can be a process. It's not like it can both be an instantaneous. You experience boom, you can see clearly, but you've got all this old stuff, all your old habits. They're still there. That's the second part of it. Those can dissolve away. By the way, I have a podcast. Some of you may have just tuned in, but on Insight Timer, there's a podcast. Just look under my name. I think we're on episode 58. And I go through all these things step by step, just in case if you're not aware of that. Yes. Christina says he is working with us from the other dimension now. Yes. And there's two ways to look at this. I remember when I was in India at an ashram with my guru and they were teaching us the power of prayer. And at the time I was experiencing oneness with all things. So it was kind of an artificial thing. Like, who do I pray to? God is coming through me. That's my direct experience. So all this manipulation, like I need to be a separate person in order to pray to God, who I already am. How does that work? Because they were just talking about the steps of prayer and really wanting us to practice. So I talked to a senior monk and a very awake monk, and I explained my predicament. And he says, well, when you're separate, when you're feeling separate, again, awakening is a process. And once you experience oneness, doesn't mean that you stay there. You might go strobe back and forth for a while. And he says, when you're experiencing oneness, you don't have to pray. You just see. It just comes through you intuitively, what your life needs and what other people need. And that just happens automatically. But on those moments when you feel separate, you feel disconnected. You feel cut off. That's when you pray. Now, why do I bring that up in relationship to your question, Christina? When I'm separate, there's a God outside of me and that God is working with me in other dimensions. I've had different beings appear as probably many of you have. You pray to God or you talk to these other beings, and that's a very real reality. It's very real. Reality has many different layers. On the deepest level, there is no created thing. It's completely the potential of everything. When you're one, you feel all of those levels, depending on your clarity. You feel at least a lot of them and beyond. So at that moment, you God is you. Yogananda said it's not quite accurate to say I am God. It's better to say and that got Jesus killed. Better to say God has become me. Because as your blocks or misperceptions dissolve and you become clearer and clearer, there's a natural flow, a natural radiance, you as God or God as you, excuse me. So we're all in different places at different times. Ultimately, as we become clearer all the time, God is us. There's not this. Oh, and to answer, finish answering your question about the personality. Yeah, you're your full self. When you're awakened, you're God, you are, your experience is you as God or God as you. And you retain your personality because you've got to get through the day. You've got to walk through the day and say hi to people and do your work and so on and so forth. So just like we're not our thoughts, we hallucinate thoughts. They're helpful tools. And hopefully we discreate the thought after we're finished with it. So it doesn't just kind of stack up as clutter. We use it. We discreate it. We use emotions. We discreate it. Well, personalities are made of thoughts and emotions. So that we hold on to that personality structure so that when we shine, it's like a lens, like a kaleidoscope. And when we shine the one light of us through it, we become a quote unquote person. It's like shining a light through a film at a movie theater. The movie doesn't really exist. It's the bright light that shines through it that makes it apparently exist. Same with our personality. Personalities don't think, thoughts don't think, emotions don't emote. They're just lenses that the one light shines through very brightly. But it's a useful lens because it helps us in this realm, the world, it helps us move through the world. We need it. We need it to say hi to people and to enjoy our day and do the things that our incarnation is led to do. Great couple of questions, Christina. Thank you. I hope I answered those in a helpful way. Does anybody else have any questions or thoughts that maybe I could address? While I'm waiting and you're thinking, if you do, I will say this. One of the things I've found, well, I'll tell you two things that I found very helpful. On the deepest love, on our deepest self, we go beyond creation. We're a continuum. And all the way at the deepest self, the divine, thank you, Christina, the divine the divine end is like a stick or a rainbow. And on one end is pure divine, and on the other end is pure human, pure creation. Well, on the far end, you know, they always, you know, you're looking for yourself. Who are you? Who are you? Well, we're all of these things. God is everything. There's not like, oh, there's God, and then there's this bad creation. No, the creation is simply an expression of God. It's the painting that God is making. And even on the continuum, God is an existing thing. We can say the word God, and we can imagine God, and we can talk to God. That means that there is a being that we can talk to. But if you go further down on the continuum, further out, it's beyond creation. If we want to put it in time, it's before creation was created. It's way out there. And it's, you know, what mystics will say is empty. It's not really empty. It's the fullest emptiness that you can ever feel. It's the most profound. It's the potential of all things. Well, we're all of these things, because remember, there's only one, and what's coming through us is the same that's coming through everybody, and every created thing, and every atom. It's all one. In fact, it's all made of this one God, or beyond God. It's the infinite coming through us. So what was helpful to me was I was looking at who am I, who am I, and when you look that far, there's nothing there. So I was looking for years to find something. Now, you can only know yourself on that level through your intuition. So I just want to give you that tip, so you're not looking for a thing, because the deepest you isn't created, and things are created. So we're this continuum of both the uncreated and the created. So there's no you way out there. It's not technically out there, but it feels that way sometimes on the continuum. So that was helpful, and now another thing that, hopefully that'll save, it took, I really literally was looking for a decade, and finally, boom, I experienced myself on that level. So then I knew, but I was looking for something that didn't exist. Myself as a thing, and that didn't exist on that deep level. The second thing I'd like to mention is it's okay to have blocks. Remember, on the deepest level, everything is okay as it is, but you know, when you're on the level, it's not comfortable if you have blocks and problems and issues and all that, and psychotherapy can be a good thing, or other modalities can be a good thing. But what was helpful for me on that level to let blocks go, it's not enough to be me that has a block. I have a block that I am working on. No, no, no. The block is me. I've twisted off a part of my humanness and stuck it somewhere in my stomach or my chest or my forehead to kind of hide it. That is me. So it's better to own it. Wow, I am depressed. I do feel anxiety right now. I feel anxiety. And then let the anxiety, the one who feels anxious, this little sub-personality that I've twisted off to the side, let it look around and update its files and notice, wait a second, today I'm okay because I'm looking at that tree and it's beautiful, or that bird, or that ocean, or that Grand Canyon, and it's beautiful. Let me, and this is the thing, let me receive it. Let me connect to it. Let me take it in because when it takes in the beauty, the oneness, the beauty is made of God. When it takes it in like a dry sponge, and you invite it to do that, and it breathes it in little bit by little bit, you'll notice it relaxes. And what happens when it relaxes? It melts. And what happens when it melts? It's not there anymore because it's, instead of being a twisted off sub-personality over to the side, it's untwisted, it's melted, and now it's dissolved back into the oneness, which is you. So short of that connection and actually soaking in the goodness, if I just simply am aware of the thing to the side, the sub-personality, but I don't soak in the goodness, so what? It's still there. I'm just now aware of it. That's a good thing. That's much better than not being aware of it, by the way. So I don't want to completely minimize that. But if you want to sort of become one within yourself, if you want your personality to reflect your true being, then your personality starts to become one instead of a lot of twisted off little sub-personalities. That's how they reintegrate, one way. So Jennifer, let's see, how to get started. Oh, Jennifer asks, she's very new to this. Do you have any recommendations to get started? I love learning and consider myself spiritual. Well, Jennifer, great question. I'd like to say this, a number of things. With this spiritual stuff, anything will do, by the way. You just get started. Any way that makes sense to you, what resonates with you, do it, because what resonates to somebody else may not be what you need. So I'm just going to talk in general, but listen to what resonates for you on another podcast or this podcast or just in your regular life. The one is coming through you. So you have guidance, and you're like a little Geiger counter, and you notice what feels right when you do it, regardless of what Buddha says or Jesus says or this person or that person. Listen to yourself, because you're the one. And having said that, I've listened very carefully to so many beautiful teachers, and they've helped me out immensely. But then I use my intuition to sort through, and it's a good idea, but does that work for me now? Does that suggestion work for me now? So to get started first, I would be like my friend Bob said, I would get out of the pounding surf, if any of you are in it. You know, if you've got a lot of turmoil in your life to the degree you can get a little respite, or maybe during the day, just a moment to yourself, I would do that. Just get it. You don't have to get out of it completely, but just get out of it a bit. Once you're out of it, and if you can't get out of it, then just go on, even though you're in it. But if you can get out of it, I would meditate every day, at least some. You know, in the East, they might recommend two or three hours a day in one sitting, but in the West, we don't have time to do that. Why is meditation helpful? Well, in meditation, I sit down, and I can't run to the refrigerator to eat a pie, or to get a cake, or to nervously fidget all over the yard. I have to sit there and live with myself, and see myself, and see what's going on. And just like if you put a glass of water full of silt on the table, after a while, it settles out, and it becomes clear. Same thing happens to us. Drinking a bottle of wine is quite different than looking at a bottle of wine. Same with thoughts. If you get involved in the thought, suddenly you're on a hallucination. You're like in a movie drama. But if you watch the thoughts, just watch. There's a thought. I'm not getting involved in it. I'm not thinking it. It thought itself. I'm just watching it. It's an old habit. I'm just watching that thought. And the thoughts have an emotion inside of them that will be very compelling. It's an addiction, really, because you didn't dissolve that thought before. So it will want you to jump into it. It's hard. And underneath that emotion is a tension that's separating you from yourself. There are all these layers, which you'll see after a while when you sit still. And when you sit still, they'll begin to unwind and unravel and let go. So that really is hard to do if you're so distracted in your own hallucinations, or let's call them thoughts. Same thing. If you're distracted by them, it would be like watching TV while you're trying to do something that you have to concentrate on. It would be totally distracting. Watching, being involved in our thoughts is totally distracting. So you watch them so that they can unwind. They're like a tight rubber band wound very tightly. And you let go of one end and it unwinds. And then it goes loose and limp and relaxed. And that's called peaceful. So when somebody first starts to meditate, maybe for the first, everybody's different, but let's say the first year for six months, it's horrible. Mind is racing because all those rubber bands are untwisted. That has to happen for you to ever have peace. Those things have to discreate themselves. Or another way to look at it is the ice cube. That's our blocks or our problems. It comes out when we sit still and our awareness as we watch it is like the sun shining on that ice cube that melts it. Now, having an ice cube in your hand is painful. Having an ice cube in your consciousness is painful. It's there. We've just repressed it so we don't feel it. It's just affecting us. But meditation does all these things. And life teases up problems that when we sit still, it's like this person said this yesterday. Now I'm thinking about feeling worse. I feel worse than ever because I'm not repressing it. But after a while, it will release its energy and you'll feel better. So I would meditate every day. Let's start with five minutes and again, a big group. So some of you already might be doing an hour a day for Western or Western people. They often say, just try started five minutes twice a day, once in the morning, once in the afternoon, work it up to 10, then work that to 15, and then work that up to 20 minutes. Another thing is really I do go through this step by step on the podcast, my various podcasts, and I put a new one every week. So I do them because they might be helpful, just like this might be helpful. So thank you. Thank you, Jennifer. And Karen, do you have any favorite practices to access intuition or experience on a deeper truth? Sitting still. That will do it. That will do it. Another thing you can do and something I used to do and still do is when you have something you're wondering about, just let whatever answer comes to you. Just let it come. And if you have to guess about something, what is this person going to do? Guess. Quote, unquote, guess. That's your intuition. And don't worry about what stops people often as they think, oh, I have to be right or and I'll be profoundly upset if I'm wrong, and that means I don't have intuition. No, you just start tuning in deeper and deeper and deeper and you'll find you become more and more attuned and more and more, quote, unquote, right. Intuition happens automatically when you sit still because those blockages or distractions of subpersonalities tend to melt out. And the one is everything. So, of course, the one knows everything. There's infinite knowledge. So that just starts to come down through you. And it feels more like it's not exactly a thought. It's kind of like and you probably already know this. I'm just saying it for if anybody wonders. It's probably it feels more like it could be an image or just a knowing or it could could also be a thought. It could come into your head. Oh, and you and often you won't be sure about it. You'll just go, well, that's interesting. Or I just had that image and that's interesting. I wonder what that means. But that's your intuition and you'll become more and more confident the more that you. Practice these things. And then there's all sorts of you could just Google it and on inside timer, I'm sure there's a million and one podcast on intuition and they're probably all very good suggestions. Thank you for that question, Karen, Frank. Thank you, Frank. I often wonder if the creator purposely forgot its creation in order to rediscover it as us. Yes, I think so. It makes sense. You know, you have to you go within yourself because remember, you are the creator. You are the one. So you ask yourself what feels right to you. Now, different incarnations, depending on where we are, will have a different slant. It's not like and perhaps there's many different reasons why. One reason, if you don't forget, if you can't have separation and if you don't have separation, where's the drama in that? I often use an example. You know, you have a bright light and it shines through a film strip in the old days, anyway, to create a movie. And it's very dramatic and everybody loves it and they pay lots of money to go. But let's say you and that movie, that film strip is a separation. You put it in front of the light. It has darknesses and contrasts. And when the light shines through that, it forms a it looks like an image. It's not really. It's on the movie screen, but it's just gradations of white light that's being blocked. But it looks like life. Well, that's our world is like that. It's just the one is shining through and it's blocked in some ways to make it look like things are going on. Because if you went to a movie and you didn't have that, would you pay like 15 dollars to just see on the screen a white light for two hours? Where's the drama in that? Where's the fun in that? Where's the triumph? Where's the all the stuff that happens in the movie, which mimics life? So if life was just, hey, everything is cool. No problem. Just be like one big smiley face, one of those yellow smile faces. That's life everywhere. Just one big smile face. You get kind of bored, right? It's like, OK, why do I need that? I mean, I am the one is me. I'm the one. Why do I need to look at a big smiley face all day? So it's like a painting and it's very dramatic and it's got all these things and there's no problem. But you as creator, I think just makes sense when I look at it. That's what you're doing. You're making separation in order to get the things that come from separation, which is creation. You have to have separation to have objects, right? Like there's a tree that's different than the bird and the bird is different than the squirrel. And you're right. There's that part where we rediscover ourselves and that's the deepest, best part, right? We're separate and our incarnation comes back to itself. So absolutely, I feel the same way. That's a great, great, great question. OK, what else you guys got? Any other ideas or questions? While you're thinking about things, let me say this. You know, another path to awakening that kind of encompasses a lot of this is the path of connection. When you connect to something deeply, it illuminates all the things I've been trying to hide, all my repressions, because I can't connect deeply to a tree if I have something in between that I've been hiding. And that's why oftentimes people don't like to connect. Have you ever noticed out there? Often people don't like to connect or sometimes I will just be more reclusive that I don't want to connect to anybody. I just want to meditate because then I can go to my deepest level awareness. But that's not full awakening. Being one with my truest self. Yes, that is huge, but full awakening is being clearly everything, all of creation and beyond. It's not leaving something out because it's it's all one. It's not like the creation is separate from quote unquote God or quote unquote us. It's all one thing. So in that flow, in that connection, when I am totally open and flowing to do that, I have to see my blocks, I have to feel my blocks. And these are all the places of separation that have been created in me or I have created as my incarnation. And because all of you are on the path of, as Frank said, rediscovering ourselves as the oneness as God. And that's an absolute guarantee you are and will rediscover yourself and you know where you are in the process by your interest. You're not just randomly interested in things if you're kind of still interested in the material world. And we need part of creation needs to be separate for there to be a world. So it's fine to be people that are immersed in it. That's fine. But if any part of you is that and probably most of us have some part, that's fine. And that shows where our life is going. But then as that shifts, that shows that we're shifting. God is becoming us. So the fact that you're here and asking these questions says a lot about you. You know, you hear people say that, well, because you're here, that means that you're, you know, that shows that you're going to be awakening. Well, actually, I think it's kind of true. And there's no hurry to awakening because there really is no such thing as time. You know, even physics says that. And again, many levels of reality. So on certain levels of reality, time does exist. And, you know, you want to show up on time to work. So on some levels, time does exist. But on the ultimate level, it doesn't. And this life, some school of thought say that it's an illusion because it's all made of God. And it's just made in these apparently separate shapes. But I think it's better to say that it is a delusion, not an illusion. It is there. It is one part of the divine. Yes, it is in the different shapes. And to believe these different shapes are as real as where they come from is a bit of a delusion. And that's why we can return to ourselves, because as we see through these delusions, poof, we're back in clarity. And when you've been separate for a while, it's OK if everything looks like a big smiley face. I mean, that's OK if everything is joy and happiness and goodness and peace. You know, after all the drama of separation, I think I'm good with that. It's just if that's all there was, it might be a problem. But on our travel back, yeah, it's fine. Feel as much peace and wellness and joy as you would want. And we can stop blocking. So, oh, OK, Frank, let's see. My meditation helps balance between all those these contortions. I see the connection and the mystery of it. Yes, I like that. I'll say again, maybe a little more clearly what you just wrote. My meditation helps balance between all these contortions. I see the connection and the mystery of it. And that is my experience also, Frank, and probably most, if not all of you as well. Because all these things are happening at the same time. Another old misperception I have was I'm here and one day I will awaken. I need to do all these practices and one day I will awaken. No, you are awake right now, but also you are blocked right now. And also you are a human being right now. And also you are pure joy right now. And also you are experiencing the qualities of separation, hurt, fear and anger. And also you're feeling the qualities of being joy, peace, wellness, happiness, health. All these things are happening all the time. And the permanent ones are the deepest ones, the ones that come from oneness, joy, peace, wellness, things like that. From the infinite, when it turns into creation, when it flows into creation, there's infinite light. And when you're still, you can see this eventually. I didn't see it right off the bat, now all the time it's there. Pure light, boom. And then sound, the sound of ohm. Also high-pitched sound that sometimes people mistake for ringing of the ears. And then it slows down into joy, bliss, wellness, health, things like that. Love. Love is resonating with all the things around us that come from the same source. That's what love is. It just sort of it's the energy, it's the same energy that we all are. That's love. So all that comes through. And when we're sit still, we see all of it. We see ourselves beyond all this. And that we can only know through intuition because it's not a thing. So we can't know it through our five senses. And then there's the joy, the peace, the wellness. There's the light first and then all the joy, peace and wellness after the divine sounds. It's all happening at the same time. And then as we slow down deeper and deeper, things turn into dogs and cats and our personality and our incarnation. And we experience that and our blocks and our hurts and our pains and our separations. So really all these things are going on at the same time. So to be clear, we would feel them all at the same time. So Frank, my experience is the same. We feel all these things at the same time. And as we feel them, those things that are a little slower and vibrating start to melt away like the sunshine shining on an ice cube. Maybe some of the fear and the hurt and all that. Some of that starts to connect to the goodness and wellness of everything going on around us and melt away. But we feel it all until it has melted. And another thing, if we try to push it, if we try to will it away, what happens? We make it stronger because we're putting our energy on it and we're freezing it even deeper. So you can't, like I tried probably for a decade, positive thinking and willpower and, oh, I have this thing I shouldn't be feeling. Let me not, let me make a decision not to feel it. Well, I would just freeze it and repress it, basically. Let me be clear. That's better than going around and doing crazy stuff. I'd rather freeze it and repress it than go around and act on it. So there's different levels of things. I mean, you have to keep yourself safe, right? So nothing is wrong here. However you deal with things is appropriate. And if you think about it, you love yourself no matter what you do. Every action you have is an expression of self love, right? Well, what do you mean by that? What if I am mean to myself? Well, if you were to trace it all the way back, the reason why you would mean to yourself, and here's, let me just give you a hypothetical example. Let's say you wanted your mother's love. Let's just say, and I'm not really talking about your mother. I'm just giving an example. Let's say you wanted your mother's love and she hates you. You're bad. She's got her own issues. You're bad. I hate you. You're so stupid. You're so this, you're so that. You want her love. So how do you do that? You agree with her. Yeah, you're right, mom. You should love me because you and I are on the same team. I hate myself just like you hate me. Don't you love me now? Yeah, you love me. I agree with you. You're so right. So why do you hate yourself? It's because you love yourself. That's why you want, because as a little kid, you only want your mother's love because you care about yourself, right? You're doing the best you know how to do at that moment. The problem is as a kid, we don't know how to discreate things so well. So we maintain those delusions and act on them. Thank you, Frank, for that donation, by the way. Oh, and this is my first one of these live things. So I'll get better as I go along. Inside timer says, yeah, congratulate people when they do it. I'll tell you why they do that. They do get a percentage and they're doing so much good in the world. They deserve it. What happens to the rest of your donation, Frank, and anybody else? And I'm good. I don't. All of it goes to feed orphans in Bali. You know, Insight Timer, they're so cool. They give you options. Do you want the money? Do you want to donate it? If you do, how about orphans in Bali or how about this? So your money goes to orphan, mostly is going to orphans in Bali. Some goes to Insight Timer. So it's a win-win for everybody. We all feel good and we do good. By the way, my next podcast, which probably will come out, I think it's number 58 or 59. I think it comes out on Wednesday or Tuesday. There's a live time with Insight Timer. You can't miss it. So you might enjoy that one. The other ones, we just start at the beginning on Awakening, step one, step two, step right after I said there are no steps, but I make steps anyway. So that's what the other 57 or 58 of them are. And it just keeps getting more and more and more and more. So, and deeper and deeper and deeper. So that's coming up on Wednesday. But anyway, again, thank you for the children and the orphans in Bali. Thank you. Well, let's see what else. We could just, thank you. Thank you. You all come. Oh, by the way, I think, oh, we'll have another one of these live, whatever they're called on Saturday, same time, 1030, two weeks from now, which is the 18th. So, you know, Insight Timer, if you're following me, it gives you a little notice. When I post it, I'll post it after this one. So you'll get one notice. And then I think the day of the thing, you'll get another little notice to remind you. But, and you can just click on my picture and you'll get the other podcasts. I think it's something like that. I'm not quite sure, but you, you might enjoy those podcasts. Thank you, Christine, Christine and Jacqueline. Thank you everybody. By the way, I don't remember how long I made this one. I think the next one I'll make for an hour. This one might, I'll just stop at around 50 minutes. How about that? Unless some of you come up with questions and then I'll go as long as an hour on this one. But there might be a lot to chew on already. Anyway, it's very simple. People make Awakening very complicated. Sometimes it's your basic nature. There's nothing you have to do. You're simply letting the things that get in your way. You're letting them dissolve. You're discreating them and you don't have to just create all of them. It's just enough that you see, like Frank said, you have a balance. You see everything. You see, wow, I'm awake. I can, I feel that. Hard to believe, but I do feel it. Yeah. And I also, at the same time, feel all the stuff that is still here. So, you know, you feel it all. Yeah. Consciousness is so chewy. It is. Yeah. And see, that's it. When the Infinite comes into creation, it gets more solid and solid and solid and actually kind of chewy. But it's a rainbow. So on the far continuum, when it's light, it's very ethereal. And there are beings. But you know, those beings are separated from the One also. They're beings. Here's Jesus and here's God. Jesus said, the Father and I are one. That means there is no Jesus ultimately, right? Somebody's got to go. It's not the Father. So Jesus, poof, gone. Um, it's true with all the beings. So all of them have separation. Many of them are very clear. Not all of them are completely clear. Just like you and me. But they're in another realm. And often they are clear. Not always, but often. So you can learn from them if you want to go that route. But ultimately, you got to let the beings go. Poof. You've got to be, you've got to step in your own shoes. The Father and you are one. You are the Father, basically, or the Mother. Old days, that's how they talked about it. Middle East. Anyway, that's how we talk about it in our culture. But now we're changing. So it's everybody, everything. So you guys have been so great. And I really appreciate it. My only, if I was going to say something, I would say, listen to the podcasts. I think they're really good. They're kind of short, most of them. So listen to one or two or three and see what you think. But the second thing is you're already doing it, but meditate every day. And in one of the podcasts, I talk about how to meditate. And also I have a website that talks about how to meditate. There's a million ways to meditate. Bottom line, meditate however you want to meditate, whatever works for you. But ultimately, to me, the deepest and most powerful meditation is when you sit still and you just don't get involved in anything that's happening, but just watch it, experience it, be with it, and let it do its thing. Don't try to coach it. Let it, because it will dispel its own energy and unwind, unwind, unwind, and poof, melt back into you, the infinite. So that's the kind of simple meditation I like. There's a tab on my website. How do you get to my website? This being the first time I'm on Insight Timer, like this particular thing, I don't want to go afoul. I don't think they'd like me to say my website. But if you go to my profile, which is on Insight Timer, click it, and they do allow me to put it there. So click it and you'll see it. I think you get to the profile by clicking the person's picture, I think. So try it, just, it's there. Okay, I've really enjoyed it. Think of other questions next time. We'll be together two weeks on the 18th of Saturday, of, I'm sorry, of June at 10 30 in the morning Eastern Standard Time. Thank you so much. You guys are great. Keep up the good, I know it's not always so easy, but it's true for all of us. Okay. Talk to you later.