69 Connect To Awaken

Is it necessary to meditate to awaken? Nope! The common theme of most awakening practices is one of connection. Connecting to nature or your breath or your feelings. Or, best, connecting to everything... life as it is.

Transcript

Hello,

This is William Cooper.

Welcome to Awakening Together,

Relaxing into Happiness.

I trust you're doing well.

Have you ever been around an awakened person?

I keep stressing it because I remember back before I'd ever been around one.

I had certain ideas in my head what awakening was,

And some of them were correct and some of them weren't so much.

But it was a game changer when I was around a very awakened person,

And then a string of them.

The energy was like nothing I'd ever felt in my world,

In the West.

It was so radiant I couldn't move.

It was like being in the vortex of such powerful love and light and peace and well-being.

It was like there was a hum in the air,

Just so much light.

And in the presence of such a person,

My blocks and hurts and problems started to loosen,

Relax,

And begin to melt away.

And I began to be in touch with the light within me because it resonated with the light within them,

Just like a tuning fork will resonate with another tuning fork when it's vibrating.

So they're fully vibrating,

And it brings the light vibration out in those around them.

It's very profound.

Think of.

.

.

It's like an atomic bomb.

And I'll say that,

And again,

People will think I'm exaggerating,

But if you've been around it,

You will know that it is like an atomic bomb.

I myself later had an awakening experience,

My first one,

And it was like an atomic bomb.

Everything was melting,

Turning into light and love and radiance and I didn't have to do a thing.

Everything I was seeing clearly and everything is made of light and radiance and well-being and love.

Everything is made of love,

And so am I,

And it's all the same thing,

And it was boom.

That's who we are.

And if that's not what we're experiencing in each moment,

Then we have to ask ourselves why.

What's going on?

We must be blocking ourselves.

How are we doing that?

And do we want to do that?

Well,

To answer the second question,

Do we want to do this?

I'll just say in my own life,

And I've mentioned this in other podcasts,

We all like stories.

The world is held together.

Creation is made of stories.

The Infinite created the world.

That's a story.

You have to imagine what you want it to happen,

How you want it to happen.

It's a giant story and all of us individually make stories because it's the Infinite,

It's the One that shines down through all of us.

So we all make stories.

The reason I bring this up is we become addicted to stories.

It's one thing to be in the world,

But not of it.

In other words,

Being connected to our infinite light and well-being and let that be our center and then enjoy a story and enjoy a movie,

Enjoy something,

But not hold on to it very tightly.

Often though,

What happens is,

Have you ever gotten involved in a movie where you don't even know somebody's talking to you or you're at the beach and you're watching TV and you're not even going to the beach or you're getting lost in your show or you're in a relationship and you're just watching so much TV you don't even interact much in the relationship.

Have you ever experienced stuff like that where you just get lost in the story?

Now it can be a good refuge at times when we're so engulfed in our pain,

But ironically it's being engulfed in our stories that separate us from our true self because we're so distracted.

That's called separation and because we're separate we start to feel abandonment,

Hurt,

Fear,

And anger,

Separation,

Anxiety,

And frustration that we're separated.

You wouldn't think we would,

But we do because yes,

We can turn off the TV,

But do we turn off the stories in our head?

Do we quit daydreaming?

Do we quit chasing thoughts,

Thinking incessantly?

Those are stories.

They're stories on every level,

Getting distracted in the quote unquote pleasures of the world.

Those are stories.

It's not that we can't enjoy them.

We can be in this world but not of it,

And I mean in it,

Really enjoying the chocolate.

You can enjoy more when you're not distracted by your own mental processes,

When you're just fully with chocolate,

Fully with flowers,

Fully in your relationship,

But when we're distracted by our stories,

We can't be fully present with another.

That's the human condition.

We're normally distracted by our stories,

And that's why we're not radiant because we're distracted.

We're blocked.

That's what's blocking our radiance is our distraction into the stories of the moment.

So what to do?

Should we meditate?

Yes,

I think meditation is a good idea.

You know why?

Because on our own,

We can connect to our true self and to the world fully,

And we'll talk about that in a moment,

But very quickly,

We get caught in a story.

Like say we get connected to a tree.

Then suddenly we're thinking,

Oh,

You know,

I need to do my gardening at home,

And I wonder what the price of soil is at the nursery,

And where's my rake anyway?

I mean,

That's a story.

So now we're not connected to the tree anymore.

We're lost in our thoughts,

And just walk through the day.

Try not to think.

You'll find that you get lost in thoughts.

It's almost impossible because we're addicted to our stories.

How is meditation helpful?

Well,

When you're addicted to something,

It's good to start taking a few moments to loosen that addiction.

When you sit down,

And that's generally what you do in meditation,

As we've discussed before,

Your mind will raise,

You'll feel emotions,

And the point of meditation is you watch them without getting sucked into them.

You just experience your emotions without getting sucked into them.

You experience your thoughts.

You're aware of your thoughts,

But you're not chasing them down a blind alley.

You're just watching them think.

When you do that long enough,

They expend their energy,

They fall apart,

And they turn into what they're made of,

Radiant consciousness that has previously been shaped into thoughts and emotions.

So when you sit down,

It prevents you from running to the refrigerator suddenly and eating a pie or running down the street and talking to your friend,

Which is normally what happens when even under the best of intentions and best circumstances,

We try to stay connected and present.

When you're addicted,

You just can't do it.

It's hard,

And that's where we are.

So yes,

Meditation is important,

I think,

But is it always necessary?

I think it's a good thing to do every day.

But what about other times?

Do you have to meditate or what if you don't meditate on a day?

Are there other ways to awakening?

Yes,

There are lots of other ways.

Fundamental to all of them is staying connected to who you are,

Your radiance and your light.

That's the blinding light that comes through these masters.

It's your light,

Too.

It's all one light.

It comes flowing through you all the time.

24 hours a day it's flowing through you.

We're only blocked because we're lost in our stories.

That's what blocks us.

So when we connect to everything in our daily life,

A beautiful thing happens.

First of all,

It's very real.

We're connected to everything that's going on.

We're present to everything.

We're connected to our light.

Because even on the worst of days there's some part of you that feels some sort of light or peace.

It's an odd thing,

But just look somewhere.

It's there.

Now at the same time,

There's a compelling you feel pulled to your addiction.

You feel pulled to thoughts and emotions and those are troubling,

Perhaps.

Or perhaps they're functional.

You know,

You need to do them because of work,

But we're pulled into them and they're very distracting.

As we've said previously,

Thoughts can be useful tools,

How to do math or how to get through your workday or how to be productive.

Those are helpful.

But to be able to let them go when they're no longer needed is the trick.

When you don't need a hammer,

When you don't need a tool,

Can you put it down or do you need to carry it all day with you?

It's heavy.

Same with thoughts.

Can you put them down?

You'll notice as you walk through the day when you don't have any real reason to think,

Can you just take one minute,

Five minutes and not think?

Just feel your light.

Can you do that?

I'll tell you the answer right now.

No,

You can't.

Likely you can't unless you've been meditating for a while.

Because what will happen is the reason we think is to work out an underlying emotion.

If we're afraid,

For instance,

Let's say that's the underlying emotion.

We're afraid.

We'll want to think incessantly.

Well,

I need to pay the light bill.

I need to do this.

I need to do that.

And if I do this,

I'll be safe.

And if I do that,

Nobody will get mad at me.

And if I do this and I do that.

So and if this person says this,

I need to say that.

And let me rehearse that in my mind.

It's thought we go up into thoughts as a way to deal with an underlying emotion.

In awakening,

We deal with underlying emotions a different way because going up into thoughts freezes the emotion in place.

It's just a fear.

And we keep thinking,

Thinking,

Thinking,

Thinking,

And it doesn't solve anything.

It appears to and it appears to relax us if we work it out in our head.

And so temporarily there's a quick fix.

That's the addiction.

But it doesn't really solve anything.

In awakening,

What we do is we quit thinking for the most part.

You can't do all this.

It's hard,

But just we try to wean off of it as much as we can.

Just quit thinking for a moment.

When I quit thinking for a moment,

I'll feel the underlying emotion.

I'll get panicky.

So that's the feeling.

Panicky.

I got to think.

I got to think.

Or I'll get angry.

Ah,

That person did.

I feel angry.

I need to work this problem out or abandon.

Oh,

I need love.

And I was trying to think a way to get some love.

You know,

The personality is just one big getting machine is trying to get,

Get,

Get,

Is trying to get whatever the underlying emotions are wanting.

Now,

The underlying emotion,

If you simply feel it,

That's where the addiction is.

It will be desperate for you to do something to solve its own discomfort.

Ironically,

What solves the discomfort is for it to disappear.

It's what's blocking you.

An emotion of hurt feels abandoned.

The reason why it's blocked from infinite love,

Which you are,

Is because it's standing in a way.

It's a big object that you created that's blocking your view and experience that all the love in the world is you.

You don't need love.

You are love.

So the way to let it dissolve,

As we've talked about before,

First you don't think,

Then it comes to the surface,

Oh,

I'm hurting,

I'm hurting,

And then just feel it.

Don't do anything.

I had a monk say to me once,

To do anything is to do too much.

Do nothing.

Do nothing.

Can you go five minutes with doing nothing?

Say you just walked down the street and don't do anything.

No thinking needed,

No emotions.

It doesn't take any thought to walk to the corner much.

It's minimal thought,

Being in the world but not of it.

It's not through willpower.

It's through listening to your heart.

Now,

As you walk,

As you're in nature or wherever you are,

Nature is a really good place because the vibration is one of being.

Being shines through nature so clearly with so much bright light that you're influenced by nature just like you are by being around a saint.

Nature's not thinking and blocking itself.

It's just flowing just like a saint isn't thinking and blocking himself.

He's just flowing or she's just flowing.

So,

Being in nature,

You know how cut off we are?

This is funny.

It's a good thing,

But it's kind of funny.

Didn't you see the study that just came out that said it's good for your health and wellbeing and you lessen depression if you're in nature for two hours a week?

Really?

We need a study for that?

That's how blocked we are.

Oh my goodness.

Anyway,

Yes,

If you're in nature,

What you want to do to deepen and to let your blocks go is connect because blocks or thinking or emotions,

They block connection.

So,

When you connect,

You will feel the light that comes through that connection.

If you're with a tree,

Connect to the tree.

You will realize at the same time and experience anything that's been blocking you from the connection.

When you connect deeper,

Deeply,

The deeper you connect,

The more you'll feel what's been blocking you.

For instance,

If you've been afraid and you're connecting to a tree,

You might start feeling uneasy like,

Oh,

I can only do this for about 15 seconds.

This is dumb.

I don't want to do it.

It's making me nervous.

No,

It's not making you nervous.

You're already nervous.

It's just bringing it to the surface.

Or,

Oh,

I feel worse and worse.

I've been doing this for a while,

But I'm feeling so sad.

I don't know why,

But I'm sad.

Nobody loves me.

No,

You're sad because you've blocked yourself from your own love.

You think it's because other people don't love you,

But you've blocked yourself.

In your path to awakening,

One very powerful thing is to connect.

When you walk,

Feel the ground.

Better to do it barefooted if you can.

Feel the ground and feel deep into the ground.

It's only our mind that separates,

And normally you can feel infinitely deep into the ground.

Just start with like feeling six feet into the ground or three inches or one foot or whatever you can do.

Feel your breath.

Just feel it on one end,

Doesn't it?

Don't you feel the vastness of beyond creation?

And then you feel the nourishment of that quiet energy and peace that comes into your body.

Can you connect to it and feel it go through all of yourselves?

That's connection.

That's the beginning of connection.

So connection is the key.

Why?

Because in connection isn't all that's left in complete connection is oneness.

When everything is completely connected,

There is only one.

There is no division.

There is only one.

In complete connection,

You are completely awake.

Now,

I can't say and would not push you to do this like mentally.

It will have no effect.

It's an energy.

So connect where you can feel connected.

Don't force it.

Don't just like this is what I used to do.

I used to get a concept and then I would imagine it and I would imagine,

Okay,

Now I'm connected.

I understand it,

So I am.

And I'm going to look at that ocean and yep,

I'm connected.

No,

That was me just mentally trying to be connected.

Go with the energy flow.

If you feel connected to the fragrance in the air,

If suddenly that's resonating in you and creating a vibration and energy,

Go with that.

That's where the primary connection is in that moment.

If it goes to your feet and you feel the ground,

Feel that.

Now,

Really,

You are connected to everything at the same time and there's two main categories.

One,

You're always connected to yourself,

Which is pure light and love and well-being,

Infinite peace.

That's what's looking through your eyes at all times.

That is the oneness.

As far as a personality is concerned,

We create one and when we look through the lens of the personality,

We think,

Oh,

I'm a William.

I'm an individual self.

I'm an individual.

Yeah,

That's a useful fiction,

But really if I drop the William for a second,

There's just seeing going through my eyes.

I don't need any thoughts.

I don't need any personality.

That's the oneness just unfettered going through my eyes,

Looking through my eyes and feeling through my hands and feeling through my feet.

There is always connection coming from the infinite who is me,

Who is you.

God is us.

That connection is always there whether we're fully blocked or not.

It's simply there and we've also now more connected to blocks so we don't feel the light connection,

But it's all there.

The second category,

As I just hinted at it,

Are the blocks.

Those are thoughts and emotions and habits and things that we get embroiled in.

Oh,

I feel so bad.

I've got so much pain.

We sure can connect to that,

Can't we?

That's normally what we're trained to connect to.

So we're really good generally at connecting to our pain or our thoughts.

I'm going to daydream and I'm going to fantasize and I'm going to then watch TV and I'm going to do this and that.

We can really connect to that side of the equation,

But let's do it mindfully and say,

Wow,

Let me watch my addiction.

Let me watch how I get lost in my thoughts.

Let me watch that.

Let me connect to it.

And at the same time,

Can I feel the light that is actually the one that's feeling all these objects I've created,

Objects of pain called thoughts and emotions and personality and fantasies and horror thoughts in my mind and depressive thoughts and even good thoughts.

You know,

I'm connecting to them.

When I'm in the midst of my pain,

I am connected to the pain.

But who is connected?

Who is I?

That's the infinite.

It's the light.

So I can feel the light and I can feel the connection to pain.

Now,

As I let the pain,

As we talked about before,

I let it come to the surface and I let it bubble up and melt away.

It melts into there's only one thing in this universe and that's God.

It's God in a slow form called consciousness or consciousness is shaped into atoms and molecules and dogs and cats.

But it's love that's frozen into these objects.

There's only love in the universe.

That's all there is.

And it's frozen into different shapes.

So as it melts like an ice cube under the sun of the light of awareness,

Me connecting to my pain,

I let the emotions just be there and I don't get lost and distracted by thoughts.

I just stay with the emotions,

Pain,

Pain,

Pain.

It begins to melt away and turn into the consciousness,

The love that it is,

A blinding light until all there is is light,

Until you're one of those awakened people that other people sit around and they can't move because you're resonating so powerfully with your light.

Now,

Awakened people do have personalities so they use them.

They are in this world,

But not of it.

So you don't disappear.

Your personality doesn't disappear.

It's just it's not a block to you anymore much.

A personality is always a little bit of a block,

But it's not one so much much.

Okay,

What are some helpful thoughts on how to do this?

Well,

If you want to stay connected to your light and not get distracted into your addictions of thinking and emoting and getting lost in stories,

There are some useful techniques.

One,

For instance,

Is a mantra.

You can say a mantra to yourself.

And what I mean is you take a truth.

If it's not a truth,

It's almost like positive thinking.

And that's not a bad thing.

Just saying,

I'm great,

I'm great,

I'm great.

Yeah,

Okay,

I don't feel great,

But I'm just going to say it over and over.

That's positive thinking.

But if you connect to a truth that you feel that it's that energy you feel and let's say in that moment you feel somewhere inside of you some peace and you want to stay connected to that peace,

You could go peace,

Peace,

Just maybe on every out breath or just when you feel like it,

Peace,

Or I am love,

Or God is me,

Or you could say I am God,

But that did get Jesus killed so I wouldn't say it out loud.

It's just we all,

The whole creation is God.

So mantras are helpful.

Conscious languaging is basically a mantra.

You say,

I am whatever it is that you're feeling,

Whatever it is that you both want and are feeling.

I am completely awake.

You feel that energy of awakening happening and just saying I am completely awake keeps you focused on it and it's saying it in the present moment so it opens up the habits of your mind that have been blocking and saying,

No I'm not,

No I'm not awake,

I'm not awake.

Ramana said once,

The only difference between you and me is I know I'm awake and you don't think you are.

Now it's not a linguistic word trick he was saying,

It was just what I'm saying.

It's true.

He didn't have filters that were saying I'm not awake because we all are the divine all the time anyway,

But for the filters we put on top of it.

So he didn't have those and he was pointing that out to somebody.

So you can use these kind of things.

You can just be connected to creation as your mantra.

You know,

Feel your feet on the ground or your breath or some other device.

Most spiritual practices are more or less this way.

They keep you,

They are aiming to keep you connected to your truth and from there you just allow whatever's happening to happen even if it's your emotion and it's painful because in the light of awareness it unwinds,

It unwinds,

It unwinds,

It melts like an ice cube under the hot sun and poof it turns into light.

Do that enough and you're not blocked by a lot of ice cubes of emotion and you're free flowing.

That's called awakening.

To the degree we live through our head we'll stay blocked and separated and in pain and to the degree we live from our heart and what I mean by that is just flowing.

To that degree we'll be awake and it's just being in touch with your light and letting it flow.

We'll be awake.

I remember way back when I was probably 30 I was trying to see do I believe in psychics?

Is there anything to it?

And I decided I would talk to about five or six psychics and ask them the same question and see if they came up with similar answers to just see if there was anything to it.

And I remember I was talking to one and she was telling me about myself and she said I had done all these accomplishments and I had.

I was board president of my church.

I was a partner in the financial advisory firm.

I had just gotten my Master of Theology on and on and on.

I was doing a lot.

I was pretty successful and she said you've got great willpower and the way she said it it just sounded a little funny and sounded good but I just asked her to check it out.

I said well you said that in kind of a funny way.

Willpower that's a good thing isn't it?

Are you saying it's a good thing?

And she said oh yes you've gotten so much accomplished you've made great strides.

It won't amount to anything but you've done well.

When you live through your mind when you live through your goal setting and all that yeah you kind of scoot through life but if life is about awakening and opening and letting go what good is it if you don't?

Right?

And when you do it's a radiant light and when you do there's nothing to get because you are it.

You don't have to get love because you are love.

You don't have to get safety and get a lot of stuff to feel peaceful.

You are peace.

You are safety.

You don't have to get fulfillment.

I need to have this happen and that because you are fulfillment.

And at the same time yes you do honor your incarnation and there are certain things that you specifically on this earth will feel called to do and you don't spiritualize those away like yeah I am love I am peace I am well-being so I don't I really shouldn't have to I won't work hard at this thing that deep down inside I want to do.

No.

You listen to yourself and you follow your incarnation.

The divine is both everything of which creation is made and because everything is made of the divine it's creation itself and there's a reason why you have a deep desire to do something specifically in your life and that would be honoring your incarnation.

I want to be an accountant.

I want to be a lawyer.

I want to be a doctor.

I want to help people.

I want to be a doctors without border.

I want to just work at the food bank.

I want to be a gardener.

Whatever you're called to do,

Do it.

Now I'll say one last thing in this podcast.

I like what Jean Houston said.

She says when she wakes up every morning she pictures what she her highest and best good what it is that she wants for herself and she suggested that everybody do this take five seconds every morning or 10 seconds or one second and just picture what you want.

What is your heart's desire and picture it.

Why because it begins to melt off old habits old filters that would say otherwise.

Now I know when you picture something when you visualize something it itself is a filter a filter of sorts anyway because isn't it something deeper isn't it like the conscious languaging isn't it like the mantras because we're connecting to something deep something our heart desires that's where deep clarity resides what she pictures in the morning is she sees herself as golden light that's what she wants to experience all the time herself as light another person might picture themselves as being a great singer in a way that feels good to their heart or being in a great relationship or loving well or whatever you're called to do.

So that's a wonderful mantra picture every morning what it is that you would desire.

So what are we we're a combination of two things creation and beyond creation the oneness great light and beyond and we're always connected to that and creation which is a creative movement it's a personality it's it's it's thoughts it's emotions and yes I know some of them are blocking and sometimes it's a horror story and sometimes it's a love story but that is who we are we're all of these things and to connect you connect to all of them just the way they are without changing them because that is how they are other than connecting to that we start to fantasize and go up into our head and pretend like it's not that way but it is that way and in that connection things begin to melt and we can be guided by our heart our intuition will unfold.

Jean Houston's intuition shows her as golden light your intuition will show you what your next step is or what your ultimate step is follow your intuition beautiful light or love or a wonderful singer or a wonderful gardener follow your intuition connect to it all you're in this world connected but not of it that's awakening okay awakening through connection I've enjoyed talking with you I look forward to next time I trust you have a great week take care bye

Reviews

talks 68 and this one back to back are perfect together. the talks just get better and better 🥳💪🤩💛🥳💪🤩💛😔🥳💪💛

Oofta. I will need to listen to this again. I kept “strobing” in and out. I wrote a message to you about what is going on but I think it is resolved. ACIM 135 showed up on my “suggestion” list fir a listen and ::surprise:: all is connected. lol! Thank you for all your hard work and providing these lessons to us all. Amazing!

This is Excellent!!! Thanks William. I look forward to your next live session too!
~ Jennifer

Thank you 🙏