149 Humility and Awakening, Bhakti vs Jnana Yoga, Letting Go, Embracing Inner Peace - Q & A

This is a recording of a Live Q & A which has been edited for clarity, length, and helpfulness. 

This episode dives into the core concepts of humility and awakening, contrasting true humility with false pride. We, also, explore the balance between Bhakti and Jnana yoga. We discuss letting go, self-awareness, and embracing both the light and shadow within ourselves as we navigate our unique spiritual journeys. 
• Examining humility in the context of spiritual awakening 
• Distinguishing false pride from authentic humility 
• Sharing personal experiences to open the hearts of others 
• Bhakti yoga and Jnana yoga as pathways to awakening 
• The role of letting go in deepening self-awareness 
• Recognizing the impact of personal drama on our spiritual paths 
• Understanding the nature of trust in ourselves and the universe 
• Embracing the journey of awakening without linear expectations

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.

Chapters

• 0:00 Understanding Humility and Awakening
• 10:17 Paths of Devotion and Wisdom
• 18:08 Embracing Inner Awareness and Letting Go
• 34:28 Releasing Drama to Find Oneness
• 40:49 Navigating Personal Drama With Awareness

Transcript

William: 0:00

Welcome everybody. Welcome to Awakening Together, relaxing into Happiness. I trust you're having a good week. Hey Alice, good to see you all. This is our time to discuss whatever is on your mind. Alice says have you ever talked about humility in awakening? Alice says have you ever talked about humility and awakening? Um, you know, alice? I don't know if I have, let's talk about it. Cynthia says great question, I agree.

William: 0:35

Let's look at humility in some different ways. First, if we look at the opposite of humility, which would be false pride, that's where somebody feels insecure. Perhaps fearful, anxious, frustrated could be anything very strong personal self that is insecure and very finite, that they attempt to make feel better by puffing themselves up and bragging and trying to look very big and powerful when they feel very small and weak and not powerful. The solution there, of course, is to sit still, to feel what's been going on inside, just like we've talked about in the other podcasts, and to let it dissolve, relax, release and let go. If, in fact, a person has done that inner work and they've let their personality relax and release and let go, and they've let go of their insecurities and their hurts and fears, much like Jesus, they are a truly humble person, they have let go so much that the infinite can flow through them. And that's what flows into the world is the infinite, unfettered being of that person. And because that person's not reacting due to their unresolved issues, they're flowing from the deepest depths of their being, which is one with the infinite. And that's why Jesus could say the Father and I are one. He wasn't acting through his personality. As Jesus let go, the infinite or the Father could flow through and appear in the world. And appear in the world just like an awakened person does, just like you do, more and more and more as you let go. There's less Alice. As William lets go, there's less William and there's more room for the infinite to flow through. And because there's less personal self, real humility can be there, because false pride comes through when the personality is clinging and needs to puff itself up.

William: 3:18

False humility would be when we haven't done our inner work and there there is insecurity and we're so insecure we don't allow ourselves to flow because we're afraid of what other people might say and therefore we try to be quote unquote humble. I won't say my truth because other people might think I'm bragging, even though this thing really did happen to me. I'm not going to mention it because I feel so insecure. I'm going to act very humble, I'm not going to offer my true self to the world. That would be false humility and we've all seen and experienced that probably in our lives at one time or the other. And then there's real pride, which is when there's not the personal self looming large, when it has let go and being as flowing. We can feel good about our place in the world, about others' places in the world. We have real pride in our accomplishments, not a bragging pride. We just say the truth. This is what's going on in my life, this is what I've done, and it flows very freely and deeply. That's real pride, and deeply, that's real pride. So I would say real humility. Deep humility flows from a deep inner self, your inner being being very clear and free. I hope that makes sense, alice.

William: 4:59

And on a side note, bhagavan, my guru for nine years. He used to say and encourage us. He said you're going to experience miracles in your life. You're going to see miracles, you're going to awaken and very deep things are going to happen in your life. And he encouraged us to tell other people when these things happened, because he said in general people don't believe. I mean, it's so far fetched in our culture that the fantastic and very deep, almost unbelievable things that can happen on a path of awakening actually do happen. So he said when they happen to you, tell other people. What he was getting at is doing that to open up other people's minds, because they would know who you are. And if you said this happened in your life, maybe they wouldn't completely believe you because it was kind of fantastic. But maybe a little bit they would, or maybe a lot they would, and that would open them up.

William: 6:14

Back in the old days people would say no, don't. Don't talk about miracles or things that happen to you or you're unfolding and opening, because that'll seem like you're bragging and that you're egotistical and you're supposed to be humble. But humility is truth. If you're humble enough to be vulnerable and to tell people the truth, it helps us all. And sometimes in our culture we get confused because the way we've been taught it sounds like if we're telling the truth and it's something very good and deep that we're bragging and that we're not being humble. But it actually was simply the truth's going on in our lives and what Bhagavan was urging us to do was to drop the false humility and simply tell people the truth so that we could all grow and open. I hope that helps and relates to what you were interested in.

William: 7:23

Alice Therese says hi. Catherine says hi. Nina says hi, yvonne hi, jodi Jed hi. So hello to everybody. Cynthia says truth, spoken to me from my mentor, was actually seed planting. That's a good observation, cynthia. I have been in that same position where people speak truth, and I've been in the position where I wasn't even quite ready to receive it, but I didn't discard it and it was a seed and it did grow later.

William: 8:06

Oftentimes the value of reading spiritual books or being with a spiritual teacher is they'll say something that seems maybe far fetched or just beyond us, but later we ourselves have the same experience or a similar one, and then we go, ah, this must be what my teacher meant or this must be what so-and-so meant. So yes, telling the truth plants seeds, and I remember in Austin I was wondering. I thought is it better to tell the truth completely, even if it's way beyond what people around me can accept, because it can be alienating in a way, or should I say things where everybody is? And I think probably both answers are correct. I know teachers dumb things down for me and it helped. But also they would just say the truth and it would kind of bring me up because I would reach up to try to understand it. And I might not even be able to understand it right then, but maybe six months later suddenly it's like oh yeah, okay. So yes, I've had that experience too, cynthia.

William: 9:33

Another thing I'd like to talk about today is several kind of related, maybe unrelated, things. The first is bhakti yoga and jnana yoga. Yoga, of course, means union with the infinite. That's when Jesus said the Father and I are one. That means no Jesus, just the Father. Buddha melted into the infinite. So that's the meaning of yoga how to get to this oneness, the truth that we are one. How to do that, and there are many different approaches. One approach is called bhakti yoga and that's the path of devotion I'd say.

William: 10:17

My guess is, even though India is so diverse, I would guess it's mostly bhakti yoga, where there's a lot of worship and devotion to whichever aspect of the infinite appeals to you. Maybe you like Shiva, or maybe you like Krishna, but something resonates with you and you become devoted. You chant, you sing, you pray, you look at the picture of Krishna or whoever your portal, is your quote unquote way in? Or God? Do you know people? Some people are just devotional. They just are happy, they're loving, they like to pray to God, they like to dance, they like to sing, they are worshiping from their happy self, they're happy, they wake up happy and they sing and they have a good time and they put their attention on their happiness. That's a path of devotion, that's the bhakti path, and in our podcast we've talked about that.

William: 11:30

There are two things going on, two paths in a sense getting to know who we are, the qualities of our being love, peace, well-being, trust, patience, kindness, stillness. And there's also the path of letting go of everything that is blocking that. That would be a little bit more of the second path, which is yana yoga, the path of wisdom, the path of clarity. To see is to be free. The path of clarity to see is to be free. Both of these paths bhakti yoga and jnana yoga include the other within it. When you clear out enough problems, your heart opens back up and you feel yourself as love and devotion. So you become bhakti. If you start with j yana yoga, the path of wisdom and clarity. That's yana yoga. On the bhakti yoga side, you start with happiness and love. You're just sort of a more loving person. But as your heart expands and you stay in devotion and prayer, you bump up against problems eventually, and then that's when the path of yana yoga is helpful how to let go of these problems. So they come together at some point, but they're both very valid paths.

William: 13:02

Ramana was basically a yana yogi. He followed the path of clear seeing, sitting still so that he could see clearly, letting everything go. That wasn't him, and he said that these two paths were very powerful and each equally valid the bhakti path and the yana yoga path. Jesus was on the bhakti path. He prayed, he was devoted to God, he talked about love all the time. Love your neighbor as yourself. God is love. That's where he stayed. He stayed in his heart, perhaps the most powerful expression of oneness that the world has ever seen, jesus Buddha, on the other hand, was yana yoga.

William: 13:50

The Buddhist teachings are very specific Do this, the three jewels, the four noble truths, the eightfold path, do this, do that, do this, do that and you'll clear out your obstacles, your heart will open and you'll melt into the infinite and beyond the infinite, where it's complete emptiness In a good way. A full emptiness, a happy emptiness, if you could say, but you can't really put words on it like that because it's beyond creation. So what are you bhakti Yana? It's a good thing to look at and, either way, if you're really working on, like for me, I had a lot of issues and so I've spent a lot of time on how to let those things go, how to dissolve those things, and, as I've opened up, I've had these amazing bhakti experiences. But I started off well, as a child, I suppose, I was more bhakti prayer to God and Jesus, and then later maybe, I became a little more Hindu. You might say I'm kind of a blend of everything, so that's been my emphasis and there's a lot of that in these podcasts. But now what I'm noticing is my heart is opening and I'm just feeling.

William: 15:16

I remember a time in my life where I couldn't feel love. I remember telling people I can't feel my own love. I could feel your love, but not mine. Now I just feel it because so much has melted off. We are a combination.

William: 15:35

Somebody asked me what is awakening and I'd say that's you, without your problems, the true you love, well-being, peace, happiness, stillness, peace. But you know, in life, in duality, in creation, you can't exist in creation without some separation. There has to be separation for you to be a distinct entity. And to the degree there's separation, there's pain, because when you separate from your true self that's what separation is there's a little pain, there's some hurt, there's some fear. So it's a natural thing. But, as Jesus said, be in the world but not of it, be in yourself but not of yourself. So there's a way to coexist and both realize where the separation is and yet rest, as Buddha said, take refuge in the Buddha, take refuge in your true self, so you can be in the world but not consumed by it. You can enjoy everything but not be troubled by anything. Be troubled by anything.

William: 16:57

So think about if you're a bhakti or if you're jnana and likely you're a blend of both. I would encourage you. You say when you meditate, you sit still. Yes, when you sit still, problems or issues bubble up because you can't repress them so easily and then you can let them go. And that's what we've talked about in our previous podcast. And if you're new to all this and it seems like what on earth am I talking about, I'd say, the best.

William: 17:26

All these podcasts are here on this platform. They're all free. I would suggest starting with number one and working your way forward, because each is built on the previous ones. However, each podcast does stand on its own. So if you see a title that is really calling to you I need to know this now listen to that and then circle back around and go back to one, two, three, and if another one calls for you, listen to it out of order and go back to your sequence and listen to them however they suit you, and if anything doesn't resonate, just disregard that one and move on. Trust yourself.

William: 18:08

So we talk about how to let all this stuff go. So we talk about how to let all this stuff go, and we also talk some about just sitting still and in meditation, both letting things go, but getting used to that part of you that is aware of everything the awareness. What does that feel like? Because that's the true you. When you let everything else go, the only thing that's going to be left is the awareness. So that's got to be you, because you're still here and all that's left is awareness. Same, same. It's you. So it's good to get to know yourself.

William: 18:45

What's the experience of awareness for you? Is it happiness? That's a quality of awareness happiness, peace and well-being. Do you feel yourself as that? When you sit still? Maybe you just feel deep silence and, depending on which chakra you are awakening through at the moment, you will feel the qualities of being, which is infinite silence at its root. But it will come through various chakras and as it bursts into creation, you will experience. If it's coming through your heart, you'll experience it as love. If it's coming through your root chakra, you'll experience it as deep connection and support. And if it's coming through your crown chakra, you'll experience boom, infinite joy and infinite power, infinite energy. Maybe, through your third eye, you'll experience it as clarity. You might experience it as peace, infinite stillness. How do you experience yourself?

William: 19:57

It's not only about letting problems go. It's also, more importantly, getting used to yourself with no problems. Who am I without a problem? How am I in this world when I don't have problems? How do I flow in this world without problems? And in the later stages of awakening and I shouldn't say later stages, because in a way it's later stages, but actually we're all a little bit different and we encompass a lot of different realities at the same time. So some of us will experience certain what I might call later stage things early on and others might experience them later. I guess I'm just referring to me when I say later stages.

William: 20:51

But where I was going with that is, as things cleared out inside of me, I started noticing my basic assumptions that I might not notice at first. For instance, if I was wearing sunglasses and I was used to them, I wouldn't notice that everything was green until I took them off. But what I've noticed is there are some deep assumptions like how do I carry myself? Do I stand up straight? When I wake up, do I automatically start worrying about things? And I don't even realize it. It's just a habit, because I've cleared out the reasons to worry, but I have sort of the infrastructure built through a lifetime of habitually worrying. There's nothing to worry about, but I worry. So it's good to notice. What are my assumptions way out there. They're kind of beyond problems. They're just my way of seeing the world.

William: 21:55

How do you let those go? Well, you kind of see through them. To see is to be free. You notice, wow, I'm holding myself this way and because you're used to feeling yourself, experiencing yourself as happiness or clarity. You don't have to be fixed on this old way of doing things, this old habit, even though it's quite compelling because it's habitual. You see through it and you go I'm not that. And you just stop. You let it go and it tries to come. Just stop, you let it go and it tries to come back and then you let it go. You notice I'm happiness, I'm not worry, and you let the whole infrastructure of worry, the whole scaffolding, and go. You just let the whole thing go. That's quite different than letting the individual problems exude their energy, unwind, melt and dissipate, as enough of those melt out. Then you start seeing your infrastructure and you let it melt the whole building, let the whole thing melt, if that makes sense.

William: 23:13

Somebody also this is related and then I'm going to get to your questions but somebody in a review just recently said they were very happy to see the podcast on PTSD and how that can block our spiritual development and many of us have that and don't even know it and she said it was really changing her life and her spiritual practice and she noticed that there had been a lump inside of her, an emotional lump, a tension that just would not move, and because it needed a different tool to let it go than meditation would offer or some other spiritual practices were would offer. And that's often what understanding PTSD and some of the ways to work with it that helps that kind of stuff melt. For many kind of like a muscle cramp in the brain, it helps it melt and you don't meditate to get rid of a muscle cramp, you do other things. Well, she was quite happy to hear about that and she was wondering about how to let that lump go, that emotional lump, that tension. Emotional lump, that tension. And the work on PTSD does help with that. And if any of you are interested in that, it's podcast 26 through 30. They're here on this platform. But what I didn't put in those podcasts is because it hadn't occurred to me yet.

William: 24:50

When you see that these lumps whether it's with PTSD or something else, some of the final stages of letting it go, you don't have to hold it like it's a solid thing inside of you. Let it be what it truly is once it melts back into consciousness, which is light and peace. Just begin to picture it like that. Hold it like that. I know it will feel in your body like it's everything, but that It'll feel quite solid. It's not going to move. It's been here forever. But in a sense, if you think about it, when you hold it like a solid thing, that's been there forever and now I have to wrestle with it and work with it. When you hold it like a solid thing, that's been there forever and now I have to wrestle with it and work with it. In a way, to work with it, I have to make it a solid thing in my head. It has to be there for me to work with it. And that's valid because, again, these issues span many different realities. On one reality, it is a solid thing that you do need to work with. So you don't skip that step. But on some other level, let it just be light, because in the end it's going to turn into light and it will kind of give it a pathway to do that. When you picture it as light, so you might notice it melting around the edges. Even it's solid on the inside, but light on the outside, it might start to loosen up over time. So add that with the other PTSD information and that can be very powerful.

William: 26:30

And I want to say one other thing. I want you to consider this. Even if you're having a difficult time or you're having a very happy time either way, there's something about you that is deeper and more developed and clearer than any guru, than me or anybody else here. You have something special going on. Even if all the other stuff in your life needs work, there's something in your life that is immense clarity that you may overlook because you're used to it and maybe you know problems can be so painful, so sometimes that takes our attention and that's where our attention goes and we don't consider the depth that we already embody.

William: 27:26

I remember I was in India and a teacher told me said this teacher was fairly psychic. When you sat with the teacher, the teacher could feel everything that was going on inside of you. And this teacher stopped and said wow, there are parts of you that are far deeper than I am, far more developed than I am Now. That, of course, stunned me, because I felt everything but that, and it might stun you to know that, because maybe you feel everything but that, but it was encouraging somehow and it brought my attention back to look at the beauty that we all are, rather than only focus on all the, at the time, overwhelming troubles that I felt, so I wanted to pass that on to you too.

William: 28:31

You, we're all humans and we're all here on our spiritual path, letting the stuff go that doesn't serve us and beautifully embodying all that we are Love, peace and well-being. We each do it uniquely and it's important to the world, to the universe, to the infinite, that you do it in your way and at the same time, you are so deep and clear somewhere, maybe in lots of places, maybe in lots of places, and typically there's a lot of people much deeper than each and every one of us. But on some ways, maybe we overlook the gifts that we have where we're deep and we think, oh, I can't offer much because of this, that or the other, but no, you are deep. Don't overlook your strength, and I suppose that's a little of the bhakti path. If you feel yourself happy, you wake up happy. Put your attention there for a while. Any happiness is the truth of your being. That is who you are Awakening. Is you just let everything else go and all that remains is happy? You're not going to get any happier than that. That happy will simply expand. Maybe you feel very peaceful, or maybe you feel a lot of joy, or maybe you have perseverance. You got a lot of problems like I've experienced that and you stick to it and you have the joy of watching them melt away. That will happen if you stick with it. Do a little something every day, okay, well, I guess that's a lot. So Nina says those are my main two unions. Let go and love. That's it, nina, thank you. That's beautiful. Those are the two main things.

William: 30:47

When I was in college I remember this so vividly I was lying down on a freshly mowed grass, a field on the college campus, and it smelled so good and fragrant. The grass was so green and I was looking at the sky. It was a rich, deep blue, with clouds, beautiful fluffy clouds, and somehow it felt like how I felt. I felt very clear and deep on one level, but I felt so many clouds kind of floating inside and in this sort of metaphor. I suppose the way that it felt to me in that moment was why can't I just let all the clouds go and only be the blue sky, the deep blue sky, my true self? And I was a kid, I didn't know. I don't know how to do that, I don't even know what's going on exactly, but I just, in that moment just wanted to be free of any trouble, because I felt a lot of trouble very vividly, but at the same time I felt a lot of goodness and beauty. And that's the spiritual path. Like you're saying, nina, it's love, peace and letting go, letting go of those clouds and again, for anybody that's new, these podcasts are step by step, how to let go and how to be in touch with the love that you are. Okay, thank you, nina. And everybody has some combination of this letting go of that which you aren't and experiencing and knowing deeply that which you are Love, peace, well-being. You've got to do it both.

William: 32:47

I remember I was in San Diego with a teacher named Tony Parsons and this older man asked Tony. And this older man asked Tony. He said this was like 30, 20, 30 years ago, probably 30 years ago. And he said to Tony he said I have stilled my mind, I have, I don't have thoughts, I'm just, I've gotten rid of all that stuff, but I feel like a desert inside. I am in so much pain and so dry, and and he was like crying in a way, he was crying and he was in so much pain and suffering. He says, tony, am I doing something wrong Because it says still your mind and concentrate and don't have these thoughts and focus. And Tony, with great compassion, he says, yeah, it's completely wrong, because what he was doing was very mental. He was using the mind to completely control the mind. And it's not that way. It's like you're saying, nina, you're in touch with the love that you are and you stay there and let everything else go. You don't, you have to be connected to who you are. He was never connected to who. He was never connected to who he was. He worked very hard on letting stuff go, but didn't really drink in and rest and take refuge in who he truly is.

William: 34:28

Ramana would say when people ask questions hey, ramana, what do I do about my relationship? What do I do about my job? What about this? What about that? Ramana would say well, find out who you are first, before you ask questions about your job or your awakening or your path or your. Who is you? This man missed out on who am I?

William: 34:52

When you sit still, you can also focus on that. Which is watching. Who am I? The one that's watching the problems come up? The one that's watching my mind being incessantly thinking? Who is watching? Who am I, if all the problems leave, all the thinking leaves all of that, what is left? Can I be in touch with that? I mean, that's the one that's watching, that's who I am. So, just as you said, nina, centering and love who you are and letting the rest go. Perfect, catherine. I've experienced oneness but then lost it, hanging on too tight. Catherine, everybody has that experience, by the way, everybody, and there's nothing wrong with it. It's it's. You didn't lose it. You are oneness. Everybody thinks they lost it. By the way, I'm just saying that you're in good company, but what happens is you just had some bigger issues have come up like an iceberg, and they've gotten in the way and they've distracted you from experiencing yourself fully. You're just getting sucked into the problems.

William: 36:12

We're in a TV culture, a movie culture. We like movies, we like stories, we like stories, we like issues. You can't have a good movie without issues. You can't have a good TV program without drama. You can't have an exciting life without drama. The problem is, you become a captive to the drama. It becomes addictive. And I'm not saying to you, catherine, I'm saying all people. It's like a magnet and it takes our attention.

William: 36:44

So we're not used to feeling the silence of who we are, because you can't be in the midst of a TV show or a movie, or my own mental show, my own thoughts I'm making, making my own emotions, my own inner drama. You can't be captured by that and at the same time be feeling who you truly are. You have to let, to the degree you can let the drama go. What's left is who you are. Your attention is not going down the chute of drama, down that funnel, so all you do is you just stop. You continue to do your meditations, you keep letting go, letting go, letting go, and suddenly you'll come back to yourself and awakening will happen. You're right, hanging on too tight, that's a drama, that's a mental action. The mind can't know.

William: 37:45

Awakening thoughts don't think, emotions don't feel. They're simply lenses that we create, that we can shine our light through, and it can direct, like a kaleidoscope, it can direct our light. So we get the experience of the thought, which is a useful hallucination, a thought. We hallucinate them, these lenses, and they can be useful tools, but they scatter our light to the degree we think, to that degree we're separated from ourselves, because thoughts are not us, they're a creation and when we jump into them. They take some of our energy. So you want to stop, and many people say that it's very helpful to cycle through these particular podcasts over and over, because they bring you back to yourself and every time you listen to them again you're a different person, because you've already let some stuff go and then you've let some more stuff go and some more stuff go and you get more attuned to who you are in the process and then you start to rest in yourself and you stay with yourself.

William: 39:01

Nowadays, even when I'm having a hard time, and I can say, oh, I'm feeling this, I'm feeling that I'm having this experience, I'm always feeling the beauty of who I am. At the same time, now, always, I feel deep peace. Always, even when I don't, I do Deep love, well-being, light. I experience myself as light Always, even when I don't. What I mean by when I don't is in my body. If there's a huge iceberg of a problem that's gotten triggered and it's coming up, it can take a lot of attention and it certainly doesn't feel like light, but I can begin to see it as light even while it feels bad. I don't force it to melt. I don't push it, I don't use willpower, but it will melt because it wants to be congruent. All energy wants to be congruent with the infinite energy which I am, which you are, which we all are. So thank you for saying that, catherine, because we all have that experience and I've got to tell you it's normal the deeper you awaken, the deeper your light will expand and it will bump out to the next wall that has been hidden because your light didn't go that far before. And when it gets activated and it starts coming up, sometimes it can be quite intense and once again you feel like, oh, I lost it, because I'm feeling all this release of quote unquote, negative energy. But no, it's just repressed stuff coming up and that's just what it does. You're doing fine, just stay with your practice.

William: 40:49

Catherine goes on to say we fluctuate and float between dualities, and this is okay, I feel, as to be otherwise as painful. Yes, we do, it is okay. We are in this world. It's fine and it's a balance. But you know, if you get too involved in the drama, you're not. If you get too involved in the drama, you're not in the world, but not of it, you're just completely in it.

William: 41:21

It's like a movie actor that's playing his role very well and he believes he is whatever the role is, or she believes whatever the role is To that degree that that person, that actor, is completely immersed in their role. They're not feeling their true selves. They're not. They're not centered in who they are. That's not their job at the moment. Their job is to portray somebody else.

William: 41:49

Well, in our life, when we're caught in our drama, it's not who we are. It's a beautiful drama. The world needs us to play our drama in a sense, to some degree, but to the degree that we're so mesmerized by it that we believe it. We are separated from ourselves. So it's fine to play the drama. So it's fine to play the drama, but to be in our personality, but not of it. Our personality is our drama. That's the drama that we've created to portray ourselves to the world. We can change our personality bit by bit by bit. We can change our role. You know, when I was younger my focal point was hurt, fear and anger. As I become more awake, my focal point is love, peace and well being. So my personality can reorient to express and portray love, peace and well being.

William: 42:53

Nina says listening. Nina says listening, moving towards heart, grounded, curious, open, endless perfect possibilities. Yeah, that's beautiful, nina. All those are qualities of being. That is penetrating duality, duality, creation, being. When it creation is like clay and we are like light, and when we penetrate that clay we're exuding light through a body or through emotions or through thoughts, and there are endless perfect possibilities. We penetrate the world around us and it is malleable, it forms around us.

William: 43:42

So, yes, alice says old habits are comfortable because they are familiar. Yes, they are, alice. Very good observation. And here's a weird thing, maybe not so weird, but when I talked about you see your habits, how you see the world, how you just habitually hold the world. When you let them go, they also will release, just like problems release what they're made of. The habits will release what they're made of and you can feel some fear or some hurt or anger or whatever. It is frustration when you let your habits go because they're held in place as, in a sense, as an organizing principle from which you form thoughts and emotions and your viewpoint of the world. And when you let that organizing principle go, it releases what made it form that way in the first place, whether it's your culture, your family, your country that you live in or some combination of all those things, your own viewpoint as well. Good observation, alice.

William: 45:01

Nina, my icky habit popping up right now is trying to fix, save change. Can you offer enlightenment? I hear your words, just stop. Only you inside you. Yeah, nina.

William: 45:18

Let me say a couple things about that. Nina and I were talking through our review a way back and she brought something up and something I haven't mentioned that can be very helpful is take a five second pause before you jump into a drama. Just take a five second pause and consider can you just let that drama go? Can you just? You know it's a drama if, if it creates any tension in your body at all, any hurt or any fear or any frustration or any anger, because none of those are qualities of being, none of those are. So if it's creating any of that, you got some kind of some version of drama going on, some version of drama going on.

William: 46:20

So if you pause five seconds, you don't have to meditate to let a drama go, to let some of this stuff that formerly would block you. It's coming up, life has triggered it. Take a five second pause, don't get involved in it, but it will feel difficult. Maybe. Let it pass through your body, let it melt. Let it exude the energy that it's trying to express. Don't yell at anybody or inflict whatever it feels like on anybody. Don't do that. But I mean within your body. Let it run its course.

William: 46:56

Somebody cuts you off in traffic and you feel anxious. Let the anxiety run its course, without acting out, without jumping into it. Oh, I could have been killed. I could have been killed. Just let it go. Let it run its course. It will exhaust itself and it will be gone and it will not go into your body. Then it will pull up a lot of related and unrelated anxieties as well and they will melt away because it will trigger you.

William: 47:26

But if you don't pause for the five seconds, you're more apt to get caught in it. You're more apt to get well, to get caught in it. So take a pause and see if you can just let it go. What if you can't let it completely go? But maybe you can let some of it go. Oh, I didn't do the greatest job, but I did better than I would have. Well, to the degree, you let some of it go. It's out of your body and you're getting clearer day by day.

William: 47:58

Life is your practice. In that sense, I hope that makes sense. It relates to what you're saying, nina, because the habit to fix, save and change how does that feel to you? It's the feeling that's behind all of that. That's what you're letting go and when the feeling goes, there's more openness and as you rest in yourself, intuitively you feel that all is okay. You don't have to fix everything. The universe is taking care of the universe. You don't have to. God is taking care of the universe. You don't have to. God is taking care of creation. You don't have to. Depends on what words you want to use. Everything is interconnected and life knows what it's doing. Any intelligence we have we didn't invent it, came from somewhere right. So life gave it to me, gave it to you. The universe did. The universe knows what it's doing. It's been doing fine for millions of years before I came around and it still is doing fine.

William: 49:14

So we start to develop more trust when we take that pause, when we rest in the quality of our being and we feel silence and we feel goodness. Intuitively, at that point we know it's okay and therefore trust is warranted. Everything's okay. It's not just in my heart. I feel it's okay. The whole universe, at its core, feels okay. That's why it feels good to walk in nature. Nature feels okay. Nature doesn't muck up things, it doesn't think, it doesn't come up with its own perspective and try to make nature better than what it is. It's happy as it is. So are we, so's the universe. So when we take a pause and let the icky stuff run through our body, let it go. All that's left is peace and wellness. Everything's okay. Okay, catherine, says.

William: 50:12

You reminded me just now, william, to see our difficulties as gifts. Yeah, our difficulties are showing us exactly what our path is. We get triggered, so we can sit and we can let that go. It's not a needed thing. We don't need that. Life is designed to be difficult so that it can trigger us, so we can see what is blocking us. All there is is light. If you're on the bhakti path, the path of devotion, you wake up, you are singing, you're happy, you feel great. Well, notice if that greatness is ever confined by anything, and what I mean by that. If you've got a problem inside you, it'll bump up against it, and now that's where you can sit still and let that difficulty go. Maybe you don't see it, but you're talking to, you're in a relationship or you're talking to somebody else and they say, oh, the way that you're treating me doesn't feel so great. Well, now you've got something to look at. Is there some truth to that, maybe? Thank you, catherine.

William: 51:28

Alice says feeling overwhelmingly gratitude, even when going through difficult times. Is that a state of awakening? Yes, you are gratitude, even when going through difficult times. Is that a state of awakening? Yes, you are gratitude, alice, your being is grateful because you are joy itself. You are the infinite. The infinite is you. Let's put it that way To the degree we let go, the infinite flows through us and we experience that Our being is one with the infinite. So, yes, you're pure gratitude. Gratitude is love, loving love Is joy, being joyous of joy. It's peace, so happy with peace. It's you're loving what is, and that's what awakening is. Let everything else that's not that go, and then you're pure awakening. You're all awake.

William: 52:26

Beings in this life had issues, but you're pretty pure. Jesus had issues, Buddha had issues. We're all humans. We all have issues. They're not people sitting on a satin pillow somewhere that, once you reach awakening, everything is over. You've got it made. You're in a different world. No, it's not like that. You're in duality. The best you can do is be in this world, but not of it, be in your personality, but not of it. But even so, how pure is pure, how infinite is infinite. It just keeps unfolding and deepening, and deepening, and every time it does there's a little issue that pops up. Otherwise you'd already be infinite. So you're on your way.

William: 53:16

Anyway, thank you so much for your beautiful questions and you all are doing so well. I have to acknowledge your courage, your perseverance to do consistent practice, to follow your heart and do it in a way that feels right to you. Never give up your heart for any path or person. Always stick with your heart. It will take you exactly where you want to go. But you all have great courage and you're doing what you need to do, what is opening for you. You're following your path. So thank you for that and I really appreciate you all. And I see you all Sandeep, catherine, jennifer, yvonne, therese, everybody. I just need to say goodbye, but I want to say hello to everybody. I didn't say Alice, jody, everybody's name, nina, everybody. So thank you so much and you all take care. I look forward to talking to you next time. Bye.