In This Episode…

Spiritual awakening is the discovery of a sacred dimension of our own being that is unconditional, meaning it’s not dependent on something else. We’re discovering that life, existence, our very own being, who we are in our essence is sacred, divine, extraordinary, and beautiful beyond comprehension. When we accept that that’s what this life always already is, it transforms our entire experience of being alive.
—Craig Hamilton

In this episode, Craig dives deep into the true meaning of happiness. Our happiness usually seems to fluctuate depending on our circumstances or how we feel. But what if genuine happiness didn’t depend on anything outside of us?

Imagine being so deeply aligned with the fundamental “Yes” at the heart of life that nothing could overshadow your profound sense of well-being. This radical possibility, which Craig refers to as “unconditional happiness,” is the essence of true spiritual freedom. He explores this concept, showing how meditation can help us move beyond the fleeting highs and lows of conditional happiness into a stable awareness of the inherent goodness of life itself.

Toward the end of the episode, Craig guides you through a short meditation, helping you to step directly into this experience and align with the deeper truth of spiritual freedom through your practice.

If you’re interested in exploring more of Craig’s approach to meditation, you’re invited to tune in to a 90-minute online workshop Craig will be hosting called Meditation 2.0 – The Miracle of Direct Awakening. Register for free at: FreeMeditationWorkshop.com

Discover More about Craig’s Awakened Life Membership Program

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

The practice of “being an unconditional yes” sounds very simple. But as we get into it, we find that we encounter an unquestioned belief or assumption that is really core to the entire human condition—the idea that circumstances are what make us happy. And as a teacher of spiritual freedom, I find this idea deeply problematic.

As the assumption goes, circumstances are what need to change in order for us to be fulfilled, fully alive, content, happy, enlightened, awakened, and free. We somehow believe that whatever we’re seeking or hoping to attain is currently blocked by circumstances of some kind.

And I mean “circumstances” in a really broad way. I have found that this belief holds whether the goal is relative peace and contentment, a profound spiritual awakening to the glory of our true nature, or anything in between.

Believing that External Circumstances Will Make Us Happy

I’m talking about external circumstances such as: “I don’t have enough free time. Or I’m not in the right primary relationship. Or I don’t have enough emotional support. Or I’m too financially insecure. Or I’m not in the right job. Or I’m not living in the right kind of place.” It could be any kind of external circumstance that we imagine.

We think, “if it would only all line up in my outer life, then I would experience spiritual freedom. Then I would be truly happy.” We don’t necessarily think this through in a rational way. Rather, at the bedrock of human existence and human striving is the belief that somewhere out there is this better moment when I’ll be able to fully let go, fully give myself, and release all of my neuroses and self-doubts and self-concerns and fears. Then I’ll be able to fully live a much greater life and specifically a greater inner life, which is how we envision spiritual freedom.

Convinced that Internal Circumstances Must Line Up Too!

There are all those external circumstances that we assume to be obstacles to the great possibility of our life. It can also be that maybe it’s not so externalized, but we have internal circumstances that operate in the same way.

We do not necessarily imagine this consciously. We wouldn’t necessarily write all of this down if we thought about it. But if we look at the unconscious operating system of my human psyche, perhaps we still feel stuck, or we are plagued by self-criticism and self-doubt, or we’re still too afraid to really give ourselves fully.

Often in meditation we think, “Well, my mind’s just too active. I have a monkey mind, and therefore I can’t really fully meditate until I figure out how to get this mind to quiet down.” Our inner circumstances can be our thought patterns, our emotional patterns, and our relationship to our thoughts and emotions.

It makes sense if we look at it. It seems plausible. We think, “Well, happiness is a feeling. Happiness is feeling good. And how could I feel good if I feel bad?” That’s rational, right?

It sounds like a totally reasonable proposition. So we think, “Well, I have to stop feeling bad in any way in order to feel good in the big way, which will be my spiritual freedom, my spiritual awakening and fullness.”

It’s as if this higher possibility of an illumined consciousness, an experience of great and profound inner freedom—and the joy and the bliss that comes with it—could only exist in the absence of things like anxiety, tension, grief, doubt, fear, etc. So clearly, we believe the inner circumstances I have—meaning my emotional habits and patterns—are definitely an obstacle to that very positive experience of life. How could it be any other way? It seems like that must be how it is.

Spiritual Freedom Means Being Free in Spite of Your Inner Oscillations

I’m saying that many of us on the spiritual path can at least start to challenge the idea that our outer circumstances are what need to shift in order to experience spiritual freedom. We can at least start to say, “Okay, if it’s really about spiritual freedom, I must be able to do it no matter what my outer circumstances are. Otherwise, it’s not free. It’s still dependent on circumstances.”

So, we can often get there in our inquiry. But it’s a further step to get to the place where we can say, “What if there is a depth of spiritual freedom that is also independent of all of my inner circumstances?”

I’m talking about things like how I feel, how I’ve been conditioned to react to things, my emotional ups and downs and reactions, my monkey mind, my negative thought patterns, and whatever else composes our whole inner world. “What if none of that was an obstacle to my unconditional happiness at being alive?” That’s a harder one to swallow. But honestly, both of them—inner and outer—are hard to swallow.

Discovering that Life Is Miraculous

A student of mine was asking, “How can I be a big yes to negative circumstances or how can I see life as fundamentally positive, even amidst really difficult negative circumstances?”

That seems like a reasonable question. Yet when we begin to spiritually awaken and have even a glimpse of our true nature beyond the mind, inherent in that awakening is the discovery that life, existence, consciousness, this whole event, being alive, is already an utterly positive event. “Positive” doesn’t do it justice. It’s a beautiful, miraculous, extraordinary thing—just existence itself.

The experience of life itself—the life force that’s flowing through us, the evolutionary force moving in the cosmos, this amazing event that is happening right now, always, in every moment—it brings tears to our eyes when we see it for what it is. We see that this is why words like sacred, holy, and divine were invented. None of the secular terminology can do it justice, it’s so extraordinary, and its discovery is so utterly transformational.

We’re discovering something that is unconditional, meaning, it’s not dependent on something else. We’re discovering that life, existence, our very own being, who we are in our essence is sacred, divine, extraordinary, beautiful, beyond comprehension, and that that’s what always already is, this experience of being alive.

Rooted in the Perspective that Nothing Is Missing

It’s not the only thing we realize. There are many aspects of spiritual freedom and awakening that we could talk about for a long time and will continue to talk about for a long time. But just to keep the point simple, like all of the practices I’m teaching, it’s rooted in spiritual awakening.

It’s not rooted in unenlightened consciousness and a conventional relationship to life. It’s anchored in the other side. In the goal. It’s anchored in the possibility and the realization of spiritual freedom. And we’re trying to practice stepping directly into that realization through our meditation practice, aligning with this deeper truth through how we practice.

Just take the position of assuming for a moment that this moment is it. There’s nothing missing from this moment. This moment is already whole and complete. Nothing is missing from it and nothing about it needs to change. It’s already got everything you need. We’re taking that position in meditation and stepping into that perspective. And we’re exploring our experience from that perspective of spiritual freedom instead of from the conditioned perspective we already have.

How To Short Circuit our Limited and Conventional Convictions

This more conventional perspective is that “Well, of course not everything is great, and of course I’ve got all kinds of circumstances, inner and outer, that could be better.” Of course, there always could be much better circumstances than these.

Because we’re creative beings who sense possibility, and can sense into higher, profound possibilities, we therefore are always comparing the way we experience this moment to those higher possibilities. We think, “Well, I’m not there yet, that’s for sure. This isn’t it. This couldn’t be it, that’s for sure, because I know, I can see how great it could be.”

During this practice, we’re short-circuiting all of that circuitry. We’re taking the position of, “No, just right now, in this moment, this experience, there’s nothing wrong and nothing missing on a fundamental level.” Take the position that even if things are very hard for you, or even if you’re having a really hard time, fundamentally that’s still not an obstacle to spiritual freedom and the deeper knowing of something that makes us unconditionally happy in the face of everything.

That might sound very naive. As in, “Well, spiritual people are very naive. They’re saying that you can be unconditionally happy even when things are really bad. You’re just cutting off, dissociating, engaging in spiritual bypassing, Pollyanna thinking. You’ve got to face the gritty bad realities.” Life is full of gritty, bad realities that we do need to face, and work to change and improve about the world, and our own lives, for sure.

But could we continue to be human beings who are working to improve life for ourselves and others in all kinds of ways, even as we remain rooted in the fundamental knowledge that on an essential level, that in terms of that which is truly fulfilling and liberating, that on that level nothing is missing, nothing needs to be added, and nothing needs to change?

Spiritual Freedom: Discovering a Big Yes to Life

That’s the inquiry question we’re exploring here: “Could I be a big yes, no matter what’s happening on a relative level, from one moment to the next?”

I want to end my brief talk here with a story from my recent experience, because I’ve been teaching this for a long time, and it’s been the ground of my experience for a longer time. But I’m a human being, and I always wondered how strong would my big, unconditional yes to life be in the face of a true life tragedy.

Saying Yes Even in the Face of Death

Then a close friend of mine was diagnosed with a kind of cancer that they said was very hard to fight. He was determined to fight it, of course, and I really encouraged him and supported him to do everything he could to try to win his cancer battle. But he deteriorated quite fast, and as it set in, he was faced with this exact moment.

It was so amazing to me to see it all play out. This is a spiritually awake person who really has lived his life as a big yes. Someone who has been true to everything I’m speaking about here, rooted in spiritual freedom and the unconditional happiness of his true nature, independent of all the changing circumstances of life.

He wholeheartedly said, “Wow… well, I don’t know what death is. You know, certainly to my mortal self, it doesn’t sound great.” And there’s always grief, and letting go, and all kinds of things, but he just so fundamentally said, “I don’t know where it’s going, I don’t know what it is, but it’s part of this mysterious, beautiful thing of life, and this universe, and this whole phenomenon of existence that I’ve been a part of, and been able to experience. It’s never let me down before, and I’m not going to lose faith now. I’m not going to decide that somehow this means life is negative, or that circumstances are negative, or that now I can’t be unconditionally happy because I’m dying.”

He stayed rooted in that awareness for the remaining months he had, as he withered and deteriorated. He was still firmly rooted in wanting to live, and trying to live, and exploring all the approaches he could, but he was just completely surrendered, and a 100% yes to dying, because it was a part of life.

Watching him go through it added a dimension for me to this whole reality that I’m trying to teach, about what it is to be an unconditional yes. I think just to capture it, it was that insight he had: Whatever this is, it’s not separate from the miracle of life and existence.

We don’t know where death goes. It’s not about believing I’m going to live forever on the other side, or I’m going to reincarnate and therefore it’s going to be okay. It wasn’t that at all. It was more like, “I know it’s going to be okay, and I’m going to live on in some form.” And it was the recognition that, “Well, that doesn’t take away from the glory and miracle of what this life has been, and what it continues to be.”

He died that way, and I was there the day he died, and there was a three-day vigil after he died where we sat with him, with the body. It was part of his spiritual tradition. That’s something they did. The presence of positivity and sacredness was just overwhelming for the three days after, where it just felt like he was moving on to wherever he was moving on to, and that place he had stayed rooted throughout the process was still there, as a testament to the big yes of the cosmos.

I just wanted to share that because I know some of us get into a practice, and our mind is going, “But what about all these bad things that are happening? Clearly these aren’t a big yes.” Well, yes, on a relative level, of course bad things happen and that’s why we’re here to help evolve the world, and change it, and improve it, and elevate it.

But in its essence, this moment is already shot through from end to end with something so spectacular that we have to say yes to it, exactly as it is.

Guided Meditation: Spiritual Freedom & Unconditional Happiness

I’m going to take us into practice now. I invite you to settle into your meditation posture.

For this practice, I want to invite you to relinquish the idea that there’s a better future waiting for you, and fully invest everything in this moment right now. Nothing about your circumstances needs to change for you to be unconditionally rooted in the positivity of your true nature right now.

Nothing about your outer circumstances, and nothing about your inner circumstances, meaning your thoughts, feelings, sensations, your inner world. It’s all okay. It’s all included.

This is the moment you’ve been waiting for. Embrace everything about it. Nothing is in the way. Nothing is in the way.

Take a moment to notice if there’s any aspect of your experience right now that you are feeling shouldn’t be here, or shouldn’t be happening in meditation, doesn’t belong. Maybe there’s a tendency toward distraction that you wish would go away. Or maybe some unsettled feelings or tensions that seem antithetical to meditation practice. These could be very subtle, or they could be more obvious. But see if you can stop rejecting these parts of your experience. Or let go of the idea that they are somehow an obstacle to meditation. See if you can include them in your embrace of this moment as it is. And not to sort of begrudgingly accept that these experiences are here, but really see that they’re not a problem. Really see that nothing that’s happening is an obstacle. And really see that nothing’s missing.

I now want to invite you to gently begin to let go of the meditation. Move your body, look around, notice the quality of your consciousness here as we come to the end of our time together.