Awakening Together, Relaxing into Happiness with William Cooper, Master of Theology, Licensed Professional Counselor
Experience Awakening....Relaxing into your Being and, therefore, Happiness. William earned a 4 year on campus Master of Theology from Harding Theological Seminary. He was a Unity board president and, later, a Oneness trainer. In 1994 he went into private practice as a Licensed Psychotherapist. He has been to India 14 times averaging 3 months per visit to explore awakening with gurus and awakened beings. Also, Bhutan, Nepal, Thailand, Brazil, etc. In this series, William attempts to encapsulate and convey what he feels to be most important in his 50 plus years of direct experience on the path of Awakening. This series explores the hows of awakening and encourages the direct experiencing of the flow of your Being, (love, peace, happiness, fulfillment and joy). A practical blending of East and West. Meditation, yoga and Energy meet psychotherapy and awakened Beings...and beyond All. For more info and writings on the subject, www.williamecooper.wordpress.com
Awakening Together, Relaxing into Happiness with William Cooper, Master of Theology, Licensed Professional Counselor
13 - You are a Love Explosion
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We connect to who we are. How is Awareness (Being) experienced in clarity? Like a rainbow. One end stretches beyond creation in what might be called empty/fullness. As you come into creation there is an explosion of Light then sound, then bliss, joy, love, happiness and peace. This is what is aware of everything else in meditation. Thoughts and emotions are just structures we have created. They don't think or feel. Once their job is done its best to let them release the energy with which they were created back into their original energy of love, peace and happiness. This is why we meditate.
These podcasts are meant to supplement your personal path of awakening whatever that might be. They are a compilation of what I have found to be the most helpful over the last 50 years on my path of awakening. I feel these podcasts 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. Since we are each a bit different, if anything does not resonate, please disregard it and follow your heart. All my podcasts and website are free. Enjoy!
Though I am a psychotherapist, and these podcasts are offered to be spiritually helpful, they are not psychotherapy. If psychotherapy is ever needed, please reach out to a psychotherapist.
www.williamecooper.wordpress.com for more support. You may, especially, enjoy the short contemplations and the resource page which gives you some supportive material.
Hello, this is William Cooper. Welcome to Awakening Together. I trust you're doing well. You are a bright explosion of peace, well-being, happiness, love, beauty. That's you. And I understand if you don't feel that way. I never used to feel that way. I simply felt pain. I was too blocked. I know what you are because how I experience myself. It's also interesting that this has been described before. It's a universal description of our being. I remember I was in India on one of my trips and I was walking down the holy mountain of Arunachala and it empties out into the Ramana Ashram, one part of it. So I was walking through the Ramana Ashram and I overheard a class in English and they were talking about the Yoga Vishistha. They were describing who we are, the qualities of being. And it really stunned me because that's what I had found myself to be. And they were saying it in very precise words that was describing exactly what I was experiencing and had been experiencing for some time by then. And let me tell you what I had been experiencing because I can guarantee you it's who you are too. And it's helpful to hear somebody else talk about it even if you don't feel it yet. It's okay. Remember it's all about your direct experience and maybe this is what I'm about to say is how you experience yourself. But if it's not, then me talking about it is just a belief or just a thought. But it gives you an indication of maybe what to keep your eyes open for. So this is how I experience myself. It's the best way I can say it's a continuum. It's an explosive continuum. Now one end of the scale, one end of the rainbow of this continuum is infinitely empty. What I mean by that, it's beyond creation. It reaches into the infinite. And the reason why everybody finds it so hard to describe is because when you step out of creation, when you go beyond all created things, language doesn't apply. Because language and senses and thoughts and emotions only connect and apply to that which is created. So if you get confused sometimes because you're feeling quote-unquote empty, there's no problem. You're just going into the deepest part of your being. This part of you can be known through intuition only, beyond thought, beyond mind. Only intuition can know that. And when people talk about it as emptiness, it's a very full emptiness. Everything that exists comes from it. So it's not this despondent, despairing emptiness. It's simply beyond creation. So this quote-unquote empty fullness comes into creation and it's my being. Our being comes into creation and it's explosive light like a nuclear bomb going off. The big bang. Boom. That's us. The big bang. Explosive light. And that light then congeals into a little bit slower moving sound. The sound of OM actually. Also high-pitched sounds. It's a variety of sounds, but the sound of OM is just people imitating what the sound of your being or the sound of existence sounds like. As that moves a little more slowly, it turns into bliss and love and peace and calmness and well-being. Those are the things we feel most easily in our body. So it's like this continuum, almost like different realities, but they're all connected. The better way is it's sort of how a rainbow feels or looks. So on this level, it's love, peace and well-being, happiness. That's why the title of the podcast, relaxing into happiness, because this awakening to who you are, your being equals happiness on that level. You are infinitely happy all the time, like an explosion. That powerful. If you're not feeling that like an explosion, then no problem. You're just still kind of covered up some crusted over and you're cut off from yourself still a little bit. That's your indication. If you don't feel bright and happy and explosively loving and well-being, then you're crusted over. That's all. Don't worry. As you stop and let everything boil off and dissipate all the covering and the crust, you'll be shiny and bright again, because you're that way all the time. You are being right now. Right now, you're being right. You're here, you're listening. So you're being. Now, we talked in the last podcast about coherence therapy. You can't hold two truths at the same time. When you sit and meditate, that means you stop distracting yourself. For the most part, you're just stopping. You're sitting. So you can't run to the refrigerator and eat a pie or do a bunch of jumping jacks or watch three movies or you can't distract yourself. Except if you get into your thoughts, thoughts can be very distracting. That's why in meditation, you sit still. In the awakening meditation, you sit still. And from awareness, from that part of you, that being that is explosively clear, love, peace and well-being, even if you don't feel it at the moment, that's what it is. But from that place of being, you simply observe your thoughts, your feelings. And because you don't get involved in them, they will start to unwind and dissipate. Because by not getting involved in them, you're no longer supplying them energy and they just start to fall apart. Thoughts don't think. They're just tools that we create and we animate them with our life force. But thoughts themselves don't think they're like little prisms that our light goes through and make some sort of image through it. Emotions don't feel. Again, they're tools that we create. So when we simply watch them, these structures called thoughts and emotions start to fall apart and dissipate. That's what happens in meditation. Why is that important? It's because in our culture, we've created so many thoughts and we haven't withdrawn our energy from them. So they still exist and they're piled up inside sky high. And they're distracting us and cutting us off from ourselves because there's so many of them. We're no longer simply creating them as tools to help us, but they've kind of so much stacked up, but it's out of control and we've lost touch with ourselves. That's a problem. So we'd like to let them clear out. It's like cleaning out your computer of all the files that you no longer use because your computer won't run. It's too bogged down. Well, that's how often we are in our own heads. So when you stop and you meditate, all this stuff begins to fall apart. Of course, it doesn't always feel pleasant because it's been rattling around in like a tight rubber band as it disperses its energy. We feel it. And often that feels like hurt, fear, anger, incessant thinking and emoting and things like this. So, but it's not going to kill you. It's going to hurt. Anybody is just is discharging. It's pent up energy. So from who you are, the part that's aware, there's a, remember, there's only two things, that which is aware and everything else, everything else that it's aware of. So only those two things. So in meditation, from awareness, what I mean by that simply, you're aware of your thoughts as they happen. You just don't get involved. You're aware of your emotions. You just don't get involved from that place. Everything that's covering you will start to fall apart and disperse. And then you will start to feel the power of your being the beauty of your being because it's no longer covered over. There's nothing you have to do. No willpower involved because that would just create another thought or action, which would further cover you up. You simply relax and do nothing except be aware because your radiance is always there. Your life force is always there. There's nothing you have to do to make it or create it or anything like that. So being you're a beautiful being and let's continue to uncover and enjoy. I will say goodbye for today. And I look forward to talking to you soon.