Andrew Cohen - Meditation - N° 5 - Spiritual Self-Confidence and the Path to Liberation

So it's important to enter into this meditative context with the mind that doesn't already know anything about what's possible. So you need to approach your own practice of meditation the way you're approaching your own aspiration for liberation which is with an open mind and an open heart with a conviction that it's possible and the belief in your own worthiness. No one can believe this is possible for you. We all have to do this for ourselves. So you have to believe in yourself if you want to be free. If you want to awaken to enlightened awareness, if you want to achieve enlightenment in any kind of stable and permanent way, you have to believe in it. You have to believe in yourself. You have to believe all things are possible no matter what. Believing in enlightenment is like believing in God. Realizing that there is a non-relative or absolute dimension to reality that exists and that is realizable and knowable by you and by me. And we understand from everything we've heard from the greatest realizers throughout history that the knowing of this non-relative or absolute dimension of reality is the source of liberation, eternity, consciousness, spiritual self-confidence. God realization and nirvanic awareness. So it's a you have to believe in heaven, you have to believe in nirvana, you have to believe in God, you have to believe in the absolute. And until you have the experience yourself, when you have the experience yourself, you know that it's real. You know that what the Buddha was speaking about actually exists and it's attainable and realizable realizable by all of us. Spiritual self-confidence is the goal and also you have to have confidence that you've got what it takes and therefore you have to be willing to take yourself and your own spiritual aspirations very seriously. Of course, the trick is that in the modern cultural environment, very few people take spiritual impulses very seriously at all. So, it's a very rare person who is wise enough, spiritually sophisticated enough, awake enough, conscious enough to take their own spiritual aspirations more seriously than they take anything else in life. So in this teaching of evolutionary enlightenment, the foundation is taking enlightenment seriously, which means taking your own aspiration to be enlightened seriously. It's the foundation. Because if you take enlightenment seriously, which means you believe that it exists, it's realizable and attainable, that you can realize it. Whatever is going to happen over the next hour sitting together doesn't really matter because you know it's just a matter of time [laughter] [clears throat] before you arrive at the shore. Not a matter of if, it's only a matter of when if you believe it. About myself, I always believed that I never had any doubt that I was going to make it. I didn't know when. I didn't know how. Didn't know how long it was going to take. But I had no doubt that it was going to happen. I personally am convinced that if you have no doubt, and very few people have no doubt, very few people have the spiritual courage to have no doubt. But if you have no doubt, then it's inevitable. And being convinced of the inevitability of awakening is what opens those met those metaphysical doors that to change everything for us. What's very helpful on this journey is to have moments of transparency, moments of self transparency. These moments are moments when your mind becomes transparent to you. You see that the mind is just a filter. It doesn't really exist in any tangible sense. It has no absolute reality. In those moments, it seems to be a figment of your imagination. So these are moments of when the mind becomes utterly transparent and you can see right through it and you see that it's merely a filter for your experience. In and of itself, it means nothing. That's what gives spiritual self-confidence. Then you realize it's not a matter of if it's just a matter of when. And I know it's my destiny to awaken unconditionally, radically and absolutely and completely in this life. And take in this life part very seriously. Because if you intend to awaken in this life, you have to make room for the unknown, the unimaginable, that which is eternal, transcendental, absolutely real. You have to make room for it in your life. It's not an add-on. [laughter] It has to become the main event, the main initial life, the main thing you're living for. Otherwise, it'll never work. So, take it seriously. Take yourself seriously. Take the non-relative absolute dimension of reality seriously. So if you want to be free, if you want awaken to enlightened awareness in any kind of stable or permanent way, you have to be convinced that nothing else is going to do it for you. That you need nothing else in the end. To be truly happy, to feel full, complete, fulfilled, and satisfied. When you awaken to enlightened awareness in a powerful way, you feel like the luckiest person in the world, the luckiest person that's ever been born. As you become conscious and cognizant of the fact that there is only one self and you are that. And in those moments, it's not an intellectual abstraction, but it's something that you know with your soul. It's a truth that's vibrating in your soul that that you are the only one that exists in the whole universe. Everything is human. When you've realized that and discovered that, what else is there to do? Just to live in that knowing, to live to express that knowing. To live to embody that knowing. to live to transmit that knowing. The awakening to enlightened awareness is the ultimate relief from the burden of existence. Existential angst, fear and doubt. Aligned awareness will set you free, liberate you from fear and doubt from the burden of existence and from the existential angst in a way that nothing else can. But in my way of thinking, you have to put all of your eggs in that basket if it's going to work. Spiritual awakening in the way that I'm speaking about it has to become what you do, what you live for. not a [clears throat] hobby. A hobby is what you do when you've taken care of everything else. [laughter] If you're serious, you realize you can't take care of anything else the right way unless you're enlightened anyway. [clears throat] Because otherwise your motivations in relationship to sex, procreation, work, egoic ambition will be tainted. by God knows what you want. Where you're coming from to be the best place in the universe, which is a place of pure motivation, pure intention, pure aspiration, liberated awakening, inspired intention. So have the courage even if only when you meditate to let go of all other possibilities and imagine that enlightenment is the only thing worth living for and the only thing worth dying for. Make higher consciousness that important to you. Because if you're serious, it actually is. Letting go is the way. Liberation is the destination. So simply give yourself the permission to let go of everything else in your life for a few moments. See what it feels like. You might be surprised to realize how good it feels. So many of the things that you think you need to have need to have in order to be happy are really a burden for your soul. So when you let go of everything not for its own sake but to be free be liberated awaken to non-relative or absolute reality start feeling like you're lifting off dropped all your baggage. It's a feeling of freedom. The feeling of freedom is lightness of being. Enlightenment means lightness of being. Enlightenment means lightness of being. Enlightenment means light is lightness of being. Having nothing, knowing nothing, being no one is lightness of being. As you all already know, the awaken to enlightened awareness reveals to us a deeper truth, a deeper dimension of the real. You experience that depth. You feel grounded in reality and life at a much deeper level. Now I know who I am. I know why I'm here. I know where I'm coming from. I'm not confused because I know who I am and I know why I'm here. I know who I am and I know why I'm here. I know who I am and I know why I'm here. This life is not for me. The life of the small self is very self-centered and self- serving. The life of the true self feels like an infinite embrace of the totality of reality. Living in that embrace. Living in that infinite embrace of the totality of reality. I know who I am and I know why I'm here. Resting in being, resting in that fullness is expressed by through spiritual self-confidence. Unwavering spiritual self-confidence, absolute spiritual self-confidence. Being doubtless or attaining doubtlessness is the way takes courage, renunciation, commitment and certainty. Having nothing, knowing nothing and being no one. Having nothing, knowing nothing and being no one is the way. Having nothing, knowing nothing and being no one. So we want to practice seeing everything and focusing on no thing is the position of freedom. Having nothing, knowing nothing, being no one, seeing everything and focusing on no thing at all. seeing everything focused on Nothing. The truth that liberates lies between all pairs of opposites. Seek for that having nothing, knowing nothing and being no one. Rest in that place after the end and before the beginning of everything where there is nothing in everything. seeing everything. Focusing on nothing. Loving nothing. Knowing nothing. Being no one. Back to before the beginning and after the end of everything. It's allowing yourself to take a leap from which there's no return. A leap from which there's no return. A leap from which there's no return. Always know where you are. Don't allow yourself to get lost no matter what's happening.