True Power Lies Within
E29

True Power Lies Within

Summary

The power of liberation, understanding our creative potential and free will. Discovering and realizing your true power, as the creator of your own life.

The Union Path Podcast - True Power Lies Within
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Liberation is a self originated, self-produced process.

It's kind of a funny concept when we think of it. When we think of liberation, when we think of our own freedom, what sort of ideas does this bring up? What sort of examples do we think of? Through stories, through popular culture, I think an idea gets perpetuated, gets implanted, that our liberation lies with someone or something else.

A lot of the examples we see, or the paths that we follow, seem to be predicated on the idea that if only something would happen, then we would be free. If only we could escape some current circumstance. If only we could get help from some particular person. If only we could be in some different place, some different time. If only we could find some secret knowledge, some secret peace to a puzzle we're trying to solve.

And through the seeking, we search and we search and we search. But in my experience, we very rarely, if ever, actually find. We seem to be led about from possibility to possibility, only to have what seems like success actually be pretty incomplete in the long term.

We find such and such enlightened person. We find such and such enlightened book. We find the ability to put ourselves in new circumstances, in new places, in new environments.

Yet oftentimes, if not nearly universally, problems hang around. That liberation isn't quite complete. That change isn't quite totally made manifest. And so we seek more. We read more books, we try new environments. We alter and make modifications, in lots of areas of our life. But nothing ever quite really delivers the goods. Nothing ever quite gives us what we're looking for.

I believe this is because, if we're looking for our liberation, if we're looking for our freedom, and we're looking for it outside of ourselves, then there's a bit of a paradox there. If it's some external circumstance, if it's some external resource, if it's some person, place or thing that we're looking to deliver our freedom, then we're not really free. We're transferring our sense of bondage, our sense of captivity, onto whatever this external resource is.

We may feel trapped, we may feel put upon, we may feel stuck by our current circumstances, but if we're looking for new circumstances to save us, well that just sets up the equation all over again. That just sets up the scenario all over again to then be trapped by.

That's why so many of us are let down by accumulating and storing the trappings of a "successful life", at least looked at from a physical material perspective. Our possessions, our relationships, our social standing, our work, our organizations, however we define ourselves externally,

can never really fully make us whole, can never really fully make us free. Because even if we attain these things, then pretty immediately after that attainment, we move into a mode of protection.

That we've garnered and sequestered these resources, and now it becomes time to protect them. We can see this all around us, if we look.

We can see it in most every human endeavor. when they're striving to achieve some sort of success that's completely externally derived and defined, that when that success seems to be achieved, the energy shifts, and moves from a creative mode into a protective mode. Goes from creating and being something new, to maintaining and protecting what is.

It becomes defensive. It becomes focused on things like, risk and vulnerability and danger. And in these times it's really easy to lose the thread of the creative impulse that was there originally. Lose the reason why we were doing things in the first place. And oftentimes these solutions can end up creating the same problems, ostensibly, they were there to correct. It's a loop, it's a cycle. And on and on we go.

But it seems to me that a lot of this is by design. That the external is meant to fail us, to encourage us to look a little deeper, look somewhere else. That when we've exhausted all of our external saviors, then at a point we naturally shift to start looking for our saviors internally, looking for our saviors within ourself. To start to ponder the question, maybe I'm not as incomplete as I think I am. Maybe what I'm looking for, I already have. Maybe this treasure map with this big X on it is actually leading me on a wild goose chase, and I'm just spinning in circles. Even though my circumstances may change, my situation may change, I still kind of feel the same.

This itch isn't really being scratched. This question isn't really being answered. I seem to be just being led along to seek more and more and more.

But again, this seems by design. This repetition seems benevolent. Because embedded in it, underneath it, is an incredibly powerful, fundamental truth.

That a lot of times when we find ourselves stuck in loops, we find ourselves dissatisfied, we find that maybe all of this external accumulation and achievement, it isn't really all it's cracked up to be,

then were led to a more internal path. A path more based on self-awareness, on consciousness, on truth. A "spiritual path".

We're being led home, we're being led back to ourselves. We're being led back to the fundamental truth that, we are already as complete as we need to be, right now. It doesn't mean that change isn't required. But it does mean that in any present moment, we are already complete, we are already whole.

And when we start down the spiritual path, what's so gratifying about it, what's so validating and reinforcing about it, is that we can actually start to experience that. We can achieve moments. Sometimes very brief, fleeting moments, of peace, of wholeness, of calm, of equanimity.

We can find the wholeness and the peace and the fullness that already exists within ourselves. We can know that in any given moment, if we can really connect, with ourselves, really fully, connect with the present, really feel the fullness that already lies within us. A fullness that for whatever reason, has been overlooked, or ignored. Or disregarded, might actually be what we've been looking for all along.

That we can let go of our expectations. We can let go of our past. We can let go of our future. And fully get in, fully occupy the present moment, and then realize, we don't actually need anything. All these perceived needs, all these perceived deficiencies, are just ideas.

That when we can get underneath our minds, underneath our thinking. Underneath our preferences, underneath our grievances, underneath our quarrels, underneath our frustrations, we can see who and what we really are.

We can see the eternal glowing beings we really are. We can see ourselves not in want. We can see ourselves in fullness. We can see ourselves past our hungers, past our appetites, past our needs to project ourselves as this or that, and instead fully connect with what we actually are.

And when we do, we find that what we actually are is far more great, far more powerful, far more durable and enduring than anything we were seeking outside of ourselves.

We find our inner glow, we find our inner light, and we realize this is the animating force we've been looking for. This is the fullness we've been looking for. This is the satisfaction that we've been looking for.

But it doesn't stop there. That awareness is really only the beginning. Because at the source of ourselves, who and what we really are on the inside, this light, this spirit, this source, this higher power, however we want to conceptualize it, what it really is is creation.

What it really is, is the energy that animates us, and creates all of our manifestations. It creates our entire physical reality around us. It's what creates the present moment. It's what is the present moment.

And of course, we can bend and shape and alter this energy in any way we choose. We can choose to suppress it. We can choose to use it for our own self-centered ends. But that's our power. That's our agency. It's our expression. Our ability to utilize this spirit energy that flows through us, to create whatever we want.

But what gets confusing, what makes this power so easy to overlook, is that it only exists in the present moment. There's no way to project spirit energy into the future or into the past. It can only be expressed now. It can only be expressed from where we are, from what we're doing now.

And when we realize this. When we come into contact with the idea that all of us are walking around, manifesting spirit energy into our physical world, then we realize something even greater than that.

We realize that, we've been looking for some external source of power, some external means of creating circumstance, of creating a different future. Of expressing spirit energy in some way that feels better, feels more like us, feels pure, it feels more true.

But we're the ones that have to do this, we're the ones that have to choose. We're the ones with free will, that get to decide what form our expression takes. We get to decide how we channel and manifest spirit energy in our own lives.

And when we do, when we accept this as reality, when we accept that we are the ones creating our own lives, then we realize, ultimately, we have the power to create whatever we want.

We don't need anything external to achieve our own full self-expression. Everything that we look at as external, is someone else's expression. There's a big temptation, especially when we're scared, to lean on others. To form groups, to follow this person or that, or this established path or that. But ultimately, all power is derived internally. Everything starts with us.

Everything starts with how we ourselves are channeling and manifesting the energy that runs through us. We're the ones with the creative power. We are the creators. Each and every one of us, equally. No one creator is greater than the other, because they're part of a whole. They're united by this common energy that flows through all of us.

And yes, the manifestations can be wildly different between different people, but that's their choice. Even if they're not making these choices consciously, they're still making them.

Everyone chooses how they express themselves. Everyone chooses their own pursuits. Everyone chooses, in every given moment, how they respond. How they respond through their actions, how they respond through their words, how they respond through their thoughts, their perspectives, their beliefs. Everyone has agency, because free will is absolute. We always have the ability. To choose what we do. We always have the ability to choose our expression.

And again, a lot of this expression can be largely unconscious, but we can gain access to all of it. Ourselves can be fully known. And because expression comes from within, it can be fully known too. It can be fully understood.

Everyone has their own individual path to walk through these types of awarenesses. It's important for everyone to not just believe something anyone says is so, without confirming it for themselves first. Again, that's where bondage comes from. That's where dependency comes from.

In order for truth to be fully known, it has to be encountered, it has to be experienced. We have to know it for ourselves, but that's also why these awarenesses are so liberating. Because when we encounter and experience truth, that can help but change us. That can't help but equip and enable us to do something different, to be different.

And at the root, a lot of the spiritual awareness is the fundamental realization that however we conceive of any sort of higher power, at the root of that higher power is this idea of creation.

Often this higher power is called the creator. Often when we look at people and label them as "creative", we imbue them with almost superhuman abilities. We look at creativity as this idea of some sort of special skill to be able to modify the external, change it, add to it, and make something new, and that's the truth. But what isn't the truth is that this creativity, this creative power, is only present in a select few.

Everyone has creative power. Everyone has the creator within them. Because ultimately, at our most fundamental level, we're all the same. We're all made of the same thing. We're all here to do the same thing, which ultimately is to create. We're doing it all the time, we can't help it.

Every circumstance that we find ourselves in, we're modifying that circumstance by creating something new. Every relationship, every interaction, all the products of us living life, everything from huge, spectacular physical creations, to amazing examples of expression, even down to the thoughts we think,

we're all creating something, all the time. We're all adding to creation, through our individual contribution, our individual expression.

And when we find this within ourselves, when we experience these truths for ourselves, we realize something so fundamental, yet so transforming. That we have the power. We have the greatest power in the universe within us, because we have the ability to create. More than that, not just the ability, but creators are what we are. It's what life is, it's what we're here to do, is to create something.

Create a life, create interactions, leave every circumstance that we find ourselves in a little different because we were there.

And so when we're looking for liberation, when we're looking to be set free, I think it's really important, ultimately, that all of us realize we already are. We already are liberated. We already are free. Nothing external, nothing additional from the external perspective, is required.

What is required is that, however it makes sense for us, we have to experience this for ourselves. We have to experience, and observe, our own creative power to build our own creative confidence. We have to see that the lives that we live are lives that we've created. And these lives are sustained through our further creation. We're the ones who choose our expression, and our expression is our life.

And so if we want to be free, we want to be liberated, we want to be who we really are, we want to live a life that's really ours, we want to escape this world of bondage and being slaves to circumstance,

ultimately, it's only ourselves that can set ourselves free. It's only ourselves to realize that, if we've been living in a prison cell, not only are we the ones who've constructed it, but we never bothered to lock it.

We're not free because we believe we're not free. We're expressing bondage because we believe we're held captive. We're not free because we really haven't fully understood who and what we really are, we really haven't fully understood what life really is.

There is no singular creator. There are no enlightened few who can give our creativity to us. It already exists within, and we have the ability to choose. We have the ability to choose how we utilize, how we express our own creative power.

We have the ability to choose what life we manifest. We have the ability to set our own intentions. We have the ability to walk through life like a lucid waking dream. We choose what we pursue, we choose what we create. We choose what parts of ourselves we identify with. We choose the import of anything external. We choose what really matters to us. We choose who we know ourselves to be. We choose what we create.

And because we choose what we create, we realize we can create anything we want. We can create anything we want, in the present moment, under present circumstances. We can't magically, instantly change our circumstances, but we can always work with whatever's happening to us. We can always accept that, whatever step we're on, is a step on the journey we're supposed to be on. That we're right where we're supposed to be, nothing has gone wrong. We are progressing through our life, we're progressing through this journey, in exactly the way and exactly the pace we're supposed to. We're not too early, we're not too late.

We're not on the wrong path because we're on our own path. It only becomes wrong when we start comparing it with others. But there's a fallacy there, we can never really understand anyone else's path, we're not living their life. We don't know what that really feels like, we don't know what energy, what intents really drive them, we can really only know ourselves.

And when we let go of this comparison, when we fully accept ourselves, when we fully accept our own path, and start living from that place, then we can realize we are where we are for a reason, and we're going where we're going for a reason.

The present moment is exactly how it's supposed to be for us. It may take some time to see this, it may take even longer to accept it, but that's the truth.

We can always get to anywhere from where we are. Our path is never fully blocked. Sure there may be obstacles, there may be sidetracks, there may be loops that seem to last eternally, but they don't. Everything is part of a process. Everything that's on our path, is on our path.

That's the beauty of the present moment. We can always make different choices. We can always choose to be different, we can always try to do something different. We can choose a different expression. We can choose expression from a different place. We can adopt a new set of beliefs, because we get to choose.

We get to choose because we are already free. And the more we realize this, the more we realize our own freedom, the more we can gain and grow confidence in our own creative power. The more we can realize that, we're not actually held down by circumstance. Circumstance is what's happening, but it only has to endure as long as we choose for it to endure. It only has to persist as long as it's the fulfillment of our expression.

We have the power of change, because we are the creators of change. We are the originators. Everything starts with us. We are the source. We are the headwaters. We are the beginning of everything.

All power ultimately rests, ultimately originates, in the individual, in you. And you have the power to choose how you use it, how you express it, what you believe about your place in this world, what you believe about the meaning and the importance of your current circumstances.

You get to choose who you really are. And when you come to the point of knowing and believing that you are the creator of your own life experience, when you can really feel it, when you can really know it,

when you see through your expressions that it's you who have originated all of these ends that are coming to you, it all started with you.

When you experience this, when you know this, when you believe it, when you know that within you is the most powerful force in the universe, the power of creation itself, then you will know, beyond any doubt, that you are liberated. You are free. You are whole, because you are the fullness of you.

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