Hello,
This is William Cooper.
Welcome to awakening together,
Relaxing into happiness.
I trust you're doing well this week.
After over 50 years on the spiritual path.
I'd like to share a practice with you that for me simplifies the awakening process.
What is awakening?
Awakening is you without your problems.
Who are you?
You are love.
Peace,
And wellbeing.
And you know that if all your problems were to disappear,
All your stress and hurts and fears and angers,
If they all disappeared,
Wouldn't you feel better?
Wouldn't you feel peaceful?
Wouldn't you feel happy?
Wouldn't you feel joyful?
Yes,
That's who you are.
That's how I experience myself,
A radiant light,
Which exudes peace,
Love,
Happiness,
Well-being.
That's who you are without your troubles.
So what is this practice?
That's so simple.
Not always easy,
But simple.
Well,
The first part of it.
Is if you let go of your troubles,
You won't be troubled,
Right?
Well,
How do I let go of my troubles?
There's lots of different ways that we've explored step-by-step in the previous podcasts,
But they all boil down to when discomfort arises,
When stress arises,
Hurt,
Fear,
Anger,
Frustration,
Whatever it is,
Don't get involved with it because that will solidify it inside of you.
Instead,
Watch it and just let it flow through you.
Let it unwind its energy,
Exude its energy,
And it will radiate out,
Release and let go.
How long will that take?
I don't really know it.
We're all different.
And sometimes when something comes up,
It brings old stuff with it.
And that takes a little bit longer,
But just watch it.
Experience it,
Feel it,
But don't get involved in it.
Just let it flow through you.
Once it flows through you,
It has released.
And it's gone.
And then it's not inside you.
You don't have that trouble.
But what about all the other troubles that we carry through life?
Don't worry,
Life will find them.
Let life do the work.
What do I mean by that?
Well,
Let's say you're going through the day and somebody says something nasty to you.
You feel angry.
Well,
You've located anger.
Let it rise.
Watch it.
Let it radiate through your body.
Let it unwind,
Release its energy until it dissipates and goes.
Well,
What if I don't do it fully?
Don't worry.
Life will find another excuse to trigger you later.
And it will come up.
Unwind,
Release its energy,
And go.
It will dissipate.
It will release,
Relax,
And let go.
Maybe somebody cuts you off in traffic,
Or maybe somebody doesn't pay you back for something,
Or maybe this,
That,
Or the other will happen.
In fact,
I can guarantee it will happen.
That's what life does.
It stimulates and brings out all the hidden troubles that we've buried inside,
That we've repressed.
Why do we repress them?
Because we're overwhelmed and we can't deal with them when they happen sometimes.
So we repress them.
We never repress happiness,
But we only repress those things that are troubling us.
So later life can find them.
Trigger us,
And we can let them go.
Done.
As we let our troubles go,
We become clearer and clearer and clearer.
We become less troubled.
And the trouble that was wound tight as it releases flows back into the basic building blocks of life,
Which are love,
Well-being,
Peace,
And happiness.
There's only one substance of life,
And that is consciousness,
Which is made of love,
Peace and well-being.
That is,
Life is made of consciousness and consciousness is that.
You are consciousness.
That's why you experience yourself as love,
Peace,
And joy.
And yes,
You're beyond consciousness as well.
You're consciousness in this creation,
But beyond that,
You're awareness and beyond.
Which is,
Since it's beyond creation,
Can't be explained because we can only explain created things,
Things in existence,
Such as experiencing our beingness in existence as love,
Peace,
Joy,
Consciousness.
So.
As you continue to let your troubles go and unwind,
Your radiance grows stronger and stronger and stronger.
And you're not obstructed by all these internal stresses and problems and troubles that previously perhaps you've been viewing life through.
And now you've become clearer and clearer and clearer.
And so you become better able to cope with life or to address life,
Or be present with life,
And your relationships,
And your work,
And everything.
Let your troubles go and you won't be troubled.
You'll be clear.
Okay.
And there's a second part of this practice as well,
Which is in addition to letting your troubles go,
Rest in who you are,
Peace,
Love,
Happiness,
Gratitude,
Well-being.
Stay centered and rest in who you are.
How do you do that?
Well,
Anytime you feel happiness,
Peace,
Well-being,
Joy,
That is who you are,
No matter the reason for why you feel it.
You get a new car or a new relationship or whatever.
If anything in life opens you up,
Then what's behind the scenes,
Who you truly are,
What's been obscured by your troubles,
Will flash out.
It will be love or peace or well-being or happiness.
There is only one happiness.
It's not due to your relationship,
Although.
That's a good thing,
Or it's not due to other external circumstances,
Although good external circumstances can happen,
And I hope they do.
But there's only one love,
And it comes from your center,
From who you are.
You are love.
You are peace.
You are joy.
You are well-being.
You can never let those things go.
You can only obscure them or block them or cover them up with troubles.
And those troubles you're now releasing.
As you give attention to releasing your troubles,
Doesn't it make sense to also give attention to who you truly are,
Who you've always been,
Under the surface forever.
How?
Well,
Again,
As you go through life,
If anything stimulates well-being or happiness or peace or something like that,
Allow it to do that.
For instance,
If somebody says thank you to you,
Take a moment and feel it.
Let it in.
That's who you are,
That good feeling.
If you feel gratitude for something.
Take a moment.
Feel it.
Connect.
Let it spread through your body.
That's who you are.
You're opening up to yourself.
When.
Somebody said to Jesus,
Good teacher,
He would say,
Who are you calling good?
There's only one good.
It comes from God.
It's the same thing.
Peace all comes from your highest self.
Love all comes from your higher self.
Well-being and joy all from your higher self.
So let it,
Let it shine through.
As your troubles start to part,
There'll be more space for it to shine through,
And it will become easier and easier and easier.
Just like you're letting life stimulate and trigger your troubles to come up and out,
You can also let life stimulate you to show you your innermost self,
Love,
Peace,
And well-being.
And you can take a breath,
Relax,
And let it permeate Let it spread through your being,
Through your personality,
Through your body.
It's very healing.
It's very opening.
Let it.
Nature can do that.
A smile can do that.
A friend can do that.
A pet can do that.
A good relationship can do that.
A sunset can do that.
There's so many places that can do that.
So let it.
They're already happening.
So let them.
Let them spread,
Let them in.
Because often in our culture,
We're accustomed to blocking things out.
Have you noticed somebody says,
Thank you,
And you just sort of,
Oh,
Thanks,
Or you're welcome.
But you just kind of don't really let it in.
You just move on to the next thing,
Perhaps.
Linger.
Let it spread.
If all we did was to let in and enjoy peace and happiness and love and joy.
And let everything else go,
We would be awake.
We would be experiencing ourselves as happiness,
Love,
Peace,
And joy.
But often that doesn't happen because we're distracted or we're troubled or we're feeling covered up with all of our troubles that we haven't yet released and we might feel blocked.
So as you go through the day,
Let life both trigger all of our troubles as we let them go and let life trigger or reveal the love and peace and well-being that we are and let's let it spread.
Let the good spread and let everything else go.
That's the practice.
Simply live life.
And let life do all the work.
Let life reveal who you are.
And let life release all that you're not,
Your troubles.
You are a bright light.
Awakening is you,
Such a bright light that radiates peace,
Love,
And well-being.
That's you.
Let life reveal you.
And let it trigger all your troubles that have been blocking you from experiencing you.
And release them,
Release those troubles.
That's the practice.
That's simple.
Releasing your troubles and resting in who you are is basically what most other spiritual practices focus on in their own way.
I wanted to boil it all down and make it very simple for this podcast.
So you could know what's behind all the other practices,
Or most of them anyway,
And you could let life help you.
Let life do much of the work for you.
Let life help you.
Let grace help you.
So what we've talked about so far is about awakening,
About your well-being.
And having said all that,
I would like to alert you to one other thing.
That it's good to know about.
And that is that this is an awakening process.
It's not about problem solving.
Problem solving would be something specific,
Like how to draw good boundaries,
Or how to communicate with others,
Or how to solve a specific problem,
Or how to do this and that or the other.
Problem solving is different than awakening.
Yes,
As I become clearer and more radiant and know myself better and better,
My behaviors flow from clarity.
So they do change.
And I do learn how to solve different problems in different ways.
But that's a longer process.
And that is something completely different yet related to awakening.
I bring this up now Because it's possible that as you're in your awakening process and a problem outside arises,
You focus intently on how to solve that particular problem and you get more worried and worried and engulfed in it and anxious and pressing yourself and pushing yourself.
Well,
Those emotions,
Anxiety and perhaps even anger or fear or frustration or hurt,
All of those are feelings that if you step back,
It's life showing you through that problem that you have some more troubles to release.
So you can use even problem solving just like you do with everything else that life triggers.
Use that to reveal troubles that are yet to be released.
But know that the problem solving skills themselves rest in a different bucket than awakening.
So for now,
Keep them in that separate bucket.
Just do the best you can with them.
If any worry or anxiety comes up through trying to implement a problem that's maybe not working or is frustrating,
Let that frustration go.
Just observe it.
Let it unwind,
Release its energy.
And relax out of you just like everything else.
I say all this because if it's not realized,
I remember times as I was opening up,
Opening up,
And then a problem in life would occur.
I would suddenly abandon ship,
Get involved in that problem.
And not realize that all that worry and anxiety that was coming because I didn't have good skills to solve that particular problem.
And suddenly I would be re-engulfed in all of the troubles and blockages that I had been experiencing before.
So just know that it's okay to awaken or deepen on your process of awakening without having to know how to solve every problem out there.
You won't.
It's all a process,
Both awakening as a process and the very different process of problem solving.
They're two different things,
Yet related.
And lastly,
If you want more guidance and instruction and information and more step-by-step processes to fill out the awakening process,
You can listen to the other 170 podcasts that I've done here.
They're all free and they're all available right here.
I would start at podcast number one and work my way forward step by step because each is built on the last.
I did these podcasts because way,
Way back.
I didn't have the guidance.
It wasn't so easily available.
And so they're the podcasts that would have been helpful.
To me,
And they're what I've found to be most helpful over the last 50 years in my process.
If some of them don't resonate with you,
Just let them go and move on to the next one.
But hopefully they will.
Most people like them a lot.
I feel that the process that we've talked about in this podcast can be very powerful and helpful to you regardless.
Thank you so much.
And I look forward to talking to you again soon.
Take care.
Bye.
