Michael Singer: Jai guru dev, jai masters. People sometimes ask, how do you live a spiritual life? Fortunately, or unfortunately, the answer and the depth of truth is very, very different from what people think and what people live. It is both simple and extremely difficult to live a spiritual life. Why was that about in the end? It is all about ego, but we all mean different things.
By ego, I mean ego, but any ego, but any ego. If you are dealing with ego, you’re not dealing with God, period. Ego is the antithesis of God. What you all call evil is ego at the extreme. It’s ego that says, I don’t care if I who I hurt. I don’t care what’s going on. This is what I want. In fact, I like to hurt people.
Well, that’s the devil. There were people like that. I don’t want you to meet them. Okay. They’re just ego. They’re God descended, expressing itself through ego, and that’s the truth. You know that they say that Lucifer is a fallen angel. What do you mean a fallen angel? Where did it fall into the ego, ego, uncontrolled unmonitored undealt with is quite a force.
It’s an unbelievable force and it can cause tremendous destruction. In fact, it will cause tremendous destruction. Not it can, it will. The question is what degree families fall apart. Children get screwed up, people commit suicide. There’s all kinds of stuff that goes on. All gets ego. It’s all ego. It’s all ego.
None of it’s not ego. It’s all ego. Alright, you wanna talk about it? Okay. I mean, that is the truth, not ego. Is God. All right. What does that mean? What is ego? Where does it come from? Why does it cause so much trouble? Or what? What’s going on? Okay. You are God. Not your ego. Don’t you dare think of it that way, but you, the consciousness, you who’s in there, you who’s aware that you’re in there, you that knows that you know that you’re there is God.
Consciousness is God. That’s what God is consciousness awareness of. Being aware of what? No, just awareness of being. If you start saying aware of what you’ve immediately creating an object that is other than pure God, pure consciousness. Just I am that I am. How do you know? I know that. I know. There’s no answer.
Do you know you’re in there? How do you know you’re in there? Don’t even think about it. Don’t pollute it with thoughts. You know? You’re in there. How long you been in there? Were you in there yesterday? We were in there last week. Were you in there 10 years ago? Of course you were. You’re in there. What you looked at was different.
What you experienced was different, but the consciousness, the awareness of being is not different. It’s just aware of different things. Just like you can be aware of a picture, you can be aware of, of a painting, you can aware of a person, but still you that’s aware of it. There’s just one of you in there, period, and that is your consciousness.
Which is not enlightenment. We’re not there yet. Maybe we’ll touch it at the end. It is a seat of what’s called witness consciousness. Objective observation. It means I’m in here. I’m not thinking I’m in here. Like that’s a thought. Are you aware that you have thoughts about yourself and what you want? Yeah.
Are they you? No. They are thoughts about me. It’s always subject object. It’s always the consciousness is aware of what it’s aware of. Maybe it’s aware of nice things, maybe’s aware of not nice things. Paton said it beautifully when the yoga sutras very deep riding. He said, when you’re awake, when you’re aware of what comes in through your senses when you’re asleep, the exact same consciousness is aware of your dreams.
Do you have dreams? How do you know? ’cause you’re aware. Don’t think about it, don’t analyze them. You can if you wanna, but the result is you are aware potentially challenges. This is what happens in deep dreamless sleep. Are you not conscious? Are you conscious of nothing? And that’s when you start to understand the deep teachings.
That’s why you wake up and you say, I slept so deep. I didn’t have any dreams. It was so peaceful. How do you know? How do you know that there were no dreams. He must have been there. And that’s what he is talking about. So in dreamless sleep, it just means there are no objects of consciousness. You’re just there.
Calm, aware. Nothing’s disturbing. That’s why sleep can be so deep. Not rem sleep, deep sleep. ’cause it completely it. Peace. Okay, but that’s not enlightenment. That’s true. I, I don’t wanna go off topic. The Yogananda used to talk about consciousness, subconsciousness, semi superconsciousness and superconsciousness.
They’re just about what you’re aware of. You are awareness. You are the highest thing that ever existed. You are the reason for creation. What is the purpose of creating? If you don’t experience it, it little has no purpose. You’re not conscious of it. If nothing is conscious of anything, there’s no creation.
Consciousness is the beginning and end of all meaning of existence. Because when you’re conscious of it, it may not be nice, but it has meaning. You’re aware of it. So you come back to what’s called pure consciousness. That’s who you are in a state of witness consciousness. That just means I am aware that I am aware.
You’re not enlightened. You’re still there. You’re still aware that you’re aware of what? Of these thoughts? I’m not in the thoughts. I’m not lost in the thoughts. I can see that there are thoughts. It’s not that there are not thoughts. I see there are emotions, but I’m not being drawn down into them. That’s witness consciousness.
You’re witnessing. Your consciousness is in a state of witnessing what you are aware of, but still it’s what you are aware of. It’s not pure awareness itself. We’ll get there maybe at the end. I like to put the cherry on top at the end. Right? But what’s the purpose? If you can’t enter witness consciousness and you’re being drawn down into your thoughts and you are, you know, you are, you’re being drawn down into your thoughts.
You mean drawn down into your emotions, you being drawn down into what’s distracting you in the world, in front of you. Then you pull down, that’s the fall from the garden you pull down. Your consciousness is pulled down into the objects of consciousness. Okay? Now what we’re dealing with is a spiritual path, a spiritual path.
In the beginning, in the end, its entirety is of liberating yourself from that draw down into the object of consciousness. So you end up in this amazingly beautiful state of awareness, of being. That’s where you are. First, I wanna say is awareness of being neutral. No, it’s not. It’s described as ecstasy.
It’s described as nirvana. It’s described as sat heranda, not just ecstasy, eternal, conscious, ecstasy. That’s what the great ones realized when they let go completely of what of the world know of themselves. They let go of being here, I don’t wanna call it that. They let go of being the. The force that’s pulling them down into their thoughts, into their emotions.
Is there any wrong with thoughts and emotions? No. There’s nothing wrong with the rocks. There’s nothing wrong with person. Nothing wrong with anything. But if you’re being pulled down into it, then it becomes who you are. You start identifying with it. This is my husband, this is my wife, this is my child, and they’re doing drugs, and what should I do?
Oh my God. It’s like you’re just drawn down into the drama of what’s in front of you. Who is your true being, your true self? I point back here because you’re back here someday. You learn saying you’re not out here. You look out here. Why? Because you’re not out here. I can look at a picture. It’s way over there, but I’m still the one who’s looking.
So eventually you realize spirituality is about liberating yourself. Period. That’s what it’s about. Don’t make it about anything else. That’s what it’s about. Now, the path for doing that is very interesting. It’s a long and windy road, and we can talk about that, but don’t ever doubt that what liberation means is freedom from being pulled down into these lower aspects of your being until you’re just in so much ecstasy that you can’t get pulled down anymore.
That’s what happens. Wanna hear about it. Okay? That’s what happens. There’s this constant upward flow of Shakti, of spirit, whatever you want. It’s always flowing up. It’s never flowing down. And as it flows up, it pulls you up into it. There can be a tendency, somebody says something you don’t like. You’re afraid of this.
A tendency to be pulled down into the lower vibrations, but the rush upward is so strong that it can’t do it. It just keeps pulling you up. That’s a very nice ascending force. That is the ascending force. You can’t go by yourself. Why? Because you’re identified with what you’re looking at. You’re identified with yourself as a person.
You’re not a person. You’re not an ego. You’re not your emotions. You have them. You can learn to deal with them, okay? But in the end, the upward rush, the upward pull is way stronger than the downward pull. And so it keeps elevating you up. It keeps pulling you up. Eventually you’ll catch on. You don’t walk this path.
It pulls you up into it, the real spiritual path. It’s not something you do. It’s not hours and hours of meditation and this and commitment. You have to do all that. Otherwise, the forces are pulling you down. But eventually it get to the point you understand you’re not doing anything, and literally that’s what you’re doing, not doing anything.
So if there’s a force that’s pulling you down, are you capable of letting it go? It’s always about letting it go. It’s not about doing anything, about getting anything, about being anything. You’re not, oh, I’m a teacher, or I’m this, or I’m a husband, I’m a wife. You’re just there. You’re there, can you just be there?
Or are these forces of your concepts and views and opinions and hopes and dreams and values, all this mental stuff that you’ve become attached to, does it pull you down into it? So while it’s doing that, you are on a spiritual path of learning to let go of that, of learning to not have it pull you down.
Is that the same as renunciation? I don’t like the word renunciation. It’s so misunderstood. Renunciation basically says, I have a pull down, but I’m not gonna do it. Okay. Hope you’re having fun because you’re not gonna, it ends up blowing up and screwing everything up. Suppression doesn’t work, but I don’t understand if, if I have these drives and I have these impulses and don’t suppress them, they’re gonna happen.
No, that, that’s not true. The truth is if you’re very committed, but it means very committed, and I’ve met very committed people in, in fact, I’m shocked the, the questions and the writings that we get from people about how some of them are so committed, they caught on, they’re so committed, it’s unbelievable.
Committed to not having a bad thought, no, committed to not doing their, no, committed to understanding. And if the forces are pulling you down, there is a way to relax, to relax through them, to not get pulled down into them or renounce them. You’re not suppressing them, you’re not saying no and doing anything.
You’re just constantly letting go of the pull downward. And I hope you understand the pull downward. Anybody understand the pull downward has, anybody knows there’s a pull downward? Anybody knows it’s kind of hard to live in there and not get pulled down. It’s as simple as that. Okay? It’s like I, I used to talk about, you go to talk to somebody who you’re not getting along with, so well, let’s say, but you want, you committed.
You’re not gonna talk about that subject. We’re gonna have a nice conversation, right? I used to work. 10 seconds. I’m pulled into it. Back in the seventies, I just noticed that holy mackerel, you literally have to bring this decision. You weren’t gonna talk about that, right? It’s, and you do, don’t you? Right.
There’s this tremendous pull downward. Alright, so first of all, let’s find out. Why is it meant to be that way? It is not meant to be that way. Does it have to be that way? It does not have to be that way. Why is it that way? What happens is your consciousness, which is God. It’s God. It’s just pure consciousness gets distracted.
It gets distracted by certain things. What things? I don’t know. A rattlesnake. I don’t know. Somebody yelling at you. Do you get distracted? Do you find that your consciousness hangs out with being yelled at? Do you find that if you have a conversation with somebody, even a friend, that the kinda mind say, oh, I should have said that.
I don’t know. Oh my God, I hope I didn’t insult him. Anybody at all have anything like that going on in there? Anybody not? Why? Why? Because you, that got pulled down. The conscience that got pulled down. It gets lost it. It starts identifying with what it’s looking at instead of identifying with the one who’s looking.
That’s the essence of spirituality. It identifies with what it’s looking at. Instead of identifying with the one who’s looking why those questions are so deep, go ask the master. Okay. You just ask me the question, what’s the original sin? Why did they fall from the garden? That is what you’re talking about.
It’s like they’re just in God and they’re experiencing creation, and God loves creation and experiencing creation, and there it is. It’s all beautiful. It’s just beautiful. There’s oneness or oneness, but at some point. Something happens in the lower vibrations that you are not the right word is evolved enough, but that’s, that’s a whole nother discussion.
Your consciousness, your soul. What is a soul God individualized. Alright, I’ll give you the example. Take a magnifying glass out to the field when the sun is shining. Do you notice the sun’s everywhere? Isn’t it a shining absolutely equal everywheres until it shines through the magnifying glass? What happens?
It becomes a point that is so focused that it can start a fire that’s you. That is your relationship with God. You are the light, the sun. Shining through this focus instead of being whole and complete in one, you have focused the consciousness down to a point and it starts fire it. It is a perfect example.
If you don’t understand the relationship between the word soul and God, soul is concentrated God down to a single focus. That’s who I am. I think this way and I think that way. Okay, so basically you’re a great being, but you got lost. You focused on yourself instead of focusing on the whole. And if you focus on the whole, you’re your God, you feel you won this, you’re there, you are, you’re enlightened.
But if you focus your tremendous consciousness down to a point, and that point is ego, that point that you focus on is what you like, what you want, what you don’t want, what you believe in, what you hope, what you dream, what you think is right, what you think is wrong. It’s basically, here I am, come and get it.
That is what a human is. God focused on this tiny little thing called your mind, your emotions, what you believe in, and so on and so forth, and it’s, it’s God focused on you. Is it God? Yeah, but I don’t think the behavior’s gonna be that way. So now you are focused on you. Have you focused on you? Do you ever think about yourself?
What you want, what you don’t want, what you like, what you don’t like? What you believe in, what you don’t believe in? What you think is right? What you think is wrong. Well, come on. You guys serious about the right and wrong stuff, aren’t you? It’s just God, everything is not even here. We’ve discussed this over and over again.
Go study quantum physics. Well, I’ll tell you, it’s not here. There is no such thing. There are no atoms. There are vibrations, agitations in a field that when those agitations make wavelets, they make electron and protons in people and things, right? It is not Here. Take a breath. I love that your physicist.
Tell you it’s not here. It is not the way you see it, period. It’s just an illusion that you’re seeing. Einstein said it. He said The whole world is just an illusion, albeit a very persistent one. Every one of those wavelets that make up the quantum field interact together to make up these forces which end up making electro protest six.
And they do it the same. So they wake up in the morning, your room is still there. That’s ridiculous. But you don’t think twice all you care about, oh, I forgot this. I don’t know. Let’s say you’re tremendously caught in yourself, and that’s the antithesis of the spiritual path. The spiritual path is how do I not be caught in myself?
If you’re not caught in yourself, you’re with God. Mayor Bubba said, man, minus mind equals God. That doesn’t mean you have no mind. You come back and interact just fine like anybody else, but you don’t have to. You’re able to just span the entire difference. Alright? Okay. Why do you get pulled down? Far as I’m gonna go is say you get distracted.
What is distracting me? That you focus on something has never distracted me. I got distracted. I was focusing on this. Now I’m focusing on that. And that what it means to get distracted what not distract your consciousness. Your awareness of being got distracted, and that’s what happens. The original distraction of where you’re with God, you’re merged with the whole universe, you’re in ecstasy and just, God, that’s all.
That’s what it is. Just one that original distraction whereby all of a sudden. You’re not in that oneness. You’re focused on your body, your thoughts, your emotions. You’re, whoa, you are everything. Now. You’re this tiny little thing hanging out there thinking you’re something that you’re not. What do they call the ego and psychology?
You’re self-concept. That’s a self. It’s the concept of yourself. It’s what you made up about yourself, and then said, that’s who I am. It’s not who you are. I’ve been the example I’ve been using lately. I love them. You get in a relationship and you’re madly in love with somebody. You need ’em in real life, mostly need not love.
You need ’em tremendously and so on. And they say to you, no, we’re we’re done. What comes outta your mouth is so embarrassing. No. No. Tell me how you want me to be. I can change. I swear I can change. It could be anyone you want me to be. Just tell me. Please tell me. What are you saying? I made myself up. I made myself up.
I can make up a different one if it works better for you. Yes or no? Ever done it? Yeah. Okay. You’re saying I’m the self, but I’m so lost in the emotions and the needs and the fears and all this junk that I’m just gonna make up a different ego and you can do it. I’ve met people that do it. They can change overnight.
I’ve met people that change overnight. They have some kind of thought, or they get attracted somebody or repulsed by somebody and they’re a different person. Ever seen it? What’s that telling you that’s not who you are? You are the consciousness that gets sucked down into focusing on this set of thoughts, set of emotions You have, things you believe in, don’t you?
Things you don’t believe in, don’t you? Things you like. Don’t you see? You don’t like. Don’t. That’s what I’m talking about. Don’t sit there and say, you’re right. How can you be? Right? Everybody’s different. Now you get down to how did you decide what you like? Who wants to have a serious discussion about spirituality?
Do you have things you like? Do you have things you don’t like? How’d you decide? You did not decide. You had experiences that left impressions on your mind. You watched a movie, you watched this, you read a book, somebody talked to you. You didn’t like what they said, you liked what they said. It made impressions on your mind and you held onto them.
And then you built this whole concept of yourself in your mind based on those experiences you had. And if you doubt that, please learn to meditate. Because you’re gonna watch it happen. You watch it happen all day. You watch yourself find, then somebody walks up to you and doesn’t say hello or says hello in a way that doesn’t sound right.
And then all of a sudden you got all these concepts and views and opinions about that person, about who should say what and what’s wrong and what you, yes or no. Okay? So you just, they’re in there having these impressions put upon you, and eventually you get to the point where you realize that if you wake up, that that’s stupid.
How can I live my life that way? Do you have trouble making decisions? Of course you have trouble making decisions. Why? What are you trying to decide? What will make me feel better? That’s not the question. The question is, why don’t you feel good? Not what will make you feel better? That’s already starting with the position.
I’m not, okay. I’m already screwed up. I got all these problems. So what will make me do better then? You think this way? No. Maybe. Oh, maybe. Of course you’re indecisive. The whole principle of what’s going on is absurd, which is I’m not Okay. How’d you be? Not okay. Things happened to me that I didn’t like when my whole life.
Well, what’d you do with them? I stored them inside. It’s called suppression, repression. I stored them inside of me. Why? So I can remember how bad they are. Do they come back up? Pay attention to what’s happening. You hear me? And so you end up building this ego inside your mind, and then the consciousness gets sucked into it.
And most people, it doesn’t get out in their entire lifetime. They have no idea what’s going on. They just know I’m not okay. And what do I need to do? Be okay? Everything I can do and what do I want? What do I not want? And who are my friends? And you just build this whole mess and then you live that. And are you okay?
Of course not. You’re trying to be okay. Have you noticed? You’re tried to be okay. You’re trying to have things you like happen, trying to have things you don’t like, not happen, but it’s very simple, but you can’t figure it out and they don’t always end up the right way. Anyways, eventually, let’s just get there.
You wake up and you realize, I did this. I. I did this. I stored this stuff inside of me. I built this ego. I built these concepts and views and opinions and preferences and hopes and dreams and fears. I did this. Otherwise, what happened is the world unfolded in front of me and it went right through. Ready for the next moment.
Ready. Ready for the next moment. Here it is. It’s gonna happen. Here’s the next moment. No, I’m not ready for the next moment. I’m too busy with the ones that happened that didn’t away. Okay. And then that’s what be here now means you are doing that. You actually here now. Good luck. You know what? You are there then.
Well, your mind and concepts and all that stuff’s the past. It’s gone. So spirituality is about what I’m talking to you about. It’s not about what you wear and what you eat and what you believe or this or that. It’s about, have you caught on yet that your consciousness is absorbed and distracted by you at a level that’s incomprehensible by this you, you built in there by.
Okay. And you just keep doing it. This is my husband, this is my wife, these are my children. Well, they were my children, but I announced them. I don’t know what you’re gonna do. We’re weird. Okay. And you’re just basically saying, I’m just gonna build this thing in here and then try to make it work. It’s never worked.
I can’t work. This is not who you are. You’re the consciousness itself looking at that garbage. And so eventually you catch on. I don’t wanna do that anymore. I dunno how not to. But I don’t wanna do that anymore. That’s a spiritual path. When you wake up and you realize this is not gonna work, there’s no way.
There’s no way that every person I meet is gonna treat me the way I wanna be treated. ’cause you meet new people all the time and you’re afraid. You’re afraid, am I wearing the right thing? Did I say the right thing? What should I do? And then blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then you’re just living inside this mess.
You do not have to live inside that mess period. Ever. Period. Now getting out’s another story. But you do not have inside that mess. You are not a mess. You the highest me. Walk the face of the earth. You’re filled with ecstasy, filled with joy, filled with light. It spreads all over the place. That’s who you are.
Well, why I’m not that way. I told you why? ’cause you built this castle inside yourself called me. I am. Me Mine. And you’re clinging and holding and resisting and fighting to try and make the outside world match so you can be okay. Eventually you wake up and you sit there and say, I don’t wanna do that anymore.
I don’t wanna be neurotic anymore. I don’t wanna worry anymore. I don’t wanna be afraid anymore. I don’t wanna be desirous anymore, that I might not get what I want. In other words, they have a name for it. In India, a liberated soul. You in there are not doing that anymore. Does that mean you don’t get married?
Has nothing to do with it. Does that mean you know children has nothing to do with it? Doesn’t mean you don’t make money, has nothing to do with it. It has to do with you in there. Not what’s going on out here and just to let the cat outta the bag. When loud, Sue wrote the Dao. He tried to explain to you that you can live in this world.
And not be a mess. How? By just honoring and respecting that you’re in here, you’re experiencing the unfolding of reality and you’re at peace with it. It’s not about doing or not doing, it’s about being. You’re in there. You, yes. You get married. Yes. You have children. Yes. You make money. Yes, you don’t. It doesn’t matter.
It has nothing to do with anything. The planet has been here for 4.5 billion years. How long gonna be here? 80, 90. A hundred out of 4.5 billion. And you’re making a big deal out of your little chuck of, Hey, 90 years. You make a complete neurotic mess of yourself. You drop down on the planet. Things are unfolding, things are happening.
You deal with them out of clarity, out of love, out of compassion, never out of what I want, what I don’t want, who cares? You’re not gonna be for any length of time. Why are you putting all this weight on yourself and all this stuff? You just wake up and say, okay. I mean, here the W’S unfolding and what the DAO is teaching you is that I’m teaching Y and y.
There are opposing forces. There’s light and dark, and there’s happiness and sadness, and there’s good and there’s bad. It’s just always opposing forces. That’s how everything works in this universe. How do the planet stay in orbit? He just sits out there and floats. There’s no strings attached in any way, shape or form.
Oh, centrifugal force and gravity. Opposing forces. Everything’s that. And that’s what lasu tried to teach you. It’s all in harmony, but you’re not. Why? Because you have a way you want it to be. You have a way you think it’s supposed to be, don’t you? Right. Instead of it is the way What, what does the Dow mean?
The way, the way, the way it is reality. There’s birth and death. There’s good and bad. There’s right and wrong. There’s dark and light. Yes or no. I don’t want to be dark. Okay? You’re gonna screw everything up completely and screw everybody else up to, that’s what happens when you come out of harmony with the, with the reality.
So we’re talking about the spiritual path. What is the spiritual path? Let go of yourself. How do you let go of yourself? Okay, let’s talk about it. How do you let go of yourself? You step outside in the morning and you notice there’s something going on. What? Who cares? Something’s going on everywhere.
There’s something going on. Every moment of your life, there’s something going on, and what you’re gonna see is you have preferences of what’s going on and what’s not going on, and the preferences aren’t even about now. They include everything that ever happened to you for your whole life. I didn’t want what to happen That shouldn’t have happened.
I can’t believe it happened when, when you were five, 50 years ago. That’s not gonna work out alright. You can’t bring all that stuff. It’s never gonna change. It’s never gonna change. It is what happened. It happened. And you start to realize, I have made a complete mess out of every moment in my life. How?
By not letting go. How do you know? In a scientific experiment, you take out a variable and you watch what happened. Okay? What if I take out your preferences? I’m gonna take out your preferences, what I want and what I don’t want, what I like, and what I don’t like? What’s gonna happen? Peace. The great way is not difficult for those who have no preferences.
That’s the beginning line to one of the deepest zen teaching that was ever written. Well, is that true? Buddha taught that take out desire, take out preferences, and what’s left is peace. But we don’t know how to do that. We. We don’t know how to do that. We, we worship our preferences. We think that the most important thing, what I like and what I don’t like is the meaning of my life.
Good luck. It is not the meaning of your life. The meaning of your life is you in there. But I’ve been pulled down into this ego, into hopes and dreams and concepts and views, and opinions and preference and hope, everything. And so it’s very, very confusing. And so I struggled to be okay. I don’t want you to struggle.
You don’t need to struggle. That’s absurd. You just wake up and you say, I’m gonna be here for a few years. I can handle it. Handle what? Reality. That is a very powerful word. Reality. What do you mean that Which is the doubt. That’s what the do means. In, in the latest book, living Untethered, I had to define reality.
You could write a book on reality, right? Oh, no, no, no. It was one sentence that which already happened. It ain’t gonna change it. It ain’t ever gonna not have happened. It’s reality. Can you handle it? Of course. I can’t handle it. I didn’t like it. I don’t want it that way. I want it to happen again. You can’t handle reality.
Well, the spiritual path is about learning to handle reality. That’s how simple it is. But it’s raining out. I don’t want it to be raining out. What am I gonna tell you? You just admit it’s raining out. That’s what it’s doing. So you have a choice. Be okay. Honor it. Respect it, enjoy it, appreciate it. Worship it or resist it, hate it.
Get ulcers and neurosis. I’m going to Arizona where it doesn’t rain as much. Let it run your life. That’s your choice, isn’t it? The only choice you have in life is accept. Resist. And when you resist, which is what we do, you get ulcers and tension and anxiety. That’s what causes all that. The world does not cause anxiety.
Your resistance to it causes anxiety and causes tension. Tension is too opposing forces. You can’t have tension with one force. They’re opposing forces. Well, what are the opposing forces, me and reality? Well, why are they opposing? Because I said they’re gonna be, what if something happened? You changed your mind.
Then they’re not opposing. How long did it take? How long it take before they’re not opposing anymore? 1000000000th of a second. Just change your mind. I decided like this. I hope you’re laughing because eventually you wake up and that’s the spiritual path. You wake up and you realize, I don’t wanna live like this.
I don’t have to fight for everything, be the way I want it to be. I don’t have to be afraid of everything, but fear’s terrible. You have fear. I’m not talking about physical fear. Talking about psychological fear. Where’d you get that from? I made it up. That which scares you, doesn’t scare her at all. That was scared you yesterday.
You’re excited about today. You’re just making this junk up in your mind and then it’s ruining your life. And so eventually you wake up enough to sit there and say, okay, I get it. I don’t wanna live like that. Do you have to live like that? Of course not. Why would you have to live like that? Why do you have to make stuff up and make yourself neurotic?
You have to do that. But what you’re gonna find out is it’s not so easy. Now we get down to the path. Now you understand what spirituality is. Ego’s gone. You’re not buying in to what it wants and what it doesn’t want, and what it believes, what it doesn’t believe, what it hopes and what it dreams. That’s just your mind.
It’s just you made that up, I showed you, and I don’t even like to talk like this. It can change in a minute. So when it starts to walk up to you, you don’t feel comfortable. I don’t like their vibration. Right. And then they sit there and say, I’m sorry. Since kindergarten to me, you walk on water. I’ve been embarrassed to walk up to you.
I just thinking the most beautiful being that I ever walked the face of the earth. I’m honored just to talk to you. How you doing? How you doing? You feel a lot of resistance and feel like the guy anymore. That’s pretty fickle stuff, isn’t it? That’s all it takes and you just wake up and you realize, I want out.
I want out. That is spirituality. I want out. I don’t know how to get out, but I want out. What are you gonna do with your life? Get out. I don’t understand. Your parents are talking to you. You have to do something with your life. I am going to, I’m gonna get out, seek you first. The kingdom of God, righteousness and all things should be added unto you.
That words, you’re gonna his favorite quote from the Bible. It doesn’t mean be good and you’ll attract the money. You tract of abundance. It means seek he first, the kingdom of God and his righteousness. And you just get to realize what it means is empty out, clean out, empty that garbage inside of you.
Seek he first, the kingdom of God and his righteousness. And eventually you catch on him and you start doing that. And you do notice say yes. Things are very different ’cause you’ve come in harmony with life. Alright, so how do you get out? Can you get out? Yes. Can everybody out? Yes. But what if I’m deeply depressed?
You’re not. You’re staring at a psyche that’s depressed. The self is not depressed. The self cannot be depressed. The self is in a state of ecstasy, but it chose to stare at the darkness of your psyche, and it got so lost in it that it can’t get out. Do you see the difference? Do you understand that? Well, having a serious talk.
So how do you get out? You make it the meaning of your life, okay? Period under, you don’t see it. No one else sees it. Underneath it all, every breath, everything you do, every decision you make, everything. You’re in there, you’re in there. I’m getting out. It may take some time, but I’m getting out. I ain’t gonna live this way.
I don’t care if for one minute at the end of my life. I get out. That’s enough. I’m not gonna commit myself to this absurdity of fighting and struggling, needing and wanting, and oh my God, I’m being afraid. Afraid, afraid, afraid. Come on guys. You do not have to live in fear. I I I used to do this ’cause I’m not psychic.
I like to make believe. I am. I know what you’re afraid of. I’ve never met you, but I know what you’re afraid of. Ready? You’re afraid that something will happen that you don’t want. Did I get it? You’re afraid that something won’t happen, that you do want. That’s it. Both that’ll be afraid of that’s reality will happen.
No, you have decided to be afraid. You made something up. Never afraid it won’t happen. You made something up and you hope it will happen, but then you’re scared that it won’t, and then when it does, you’re afraid it’ll go away. Come on. It just builds constant fear and tension and anxiety. Alright. How do you get out?
You decide. I want out. There’s no other purpose in my life. There’s no other person in my life. You said I could get married. Marriage happens. The deer have babies. No, they don’t get permission. You should see them. They’re kid is adorable. They do it all the time. There’s some natural
unfolding of
Speaker 17: life. Has nothing to do with right or wrong or good or bad
Michael Singer: or don’t.
But what if I don’t get married? Then you don’t get married. No. There you go. Well, what am I getting Married? I don’t like the first I got married to. Huh? I’ve heard about that. What are you doing? Has nothing to do with what you like or don’t like and what
Speaker 17: you want and what you don’t want. There’s only one thing you want out.
Used to be a song in the sixties. I don’t sing very well. We got to get out this place if it’s the last thing we ever do there. There’s your song. Alright, um, getting out. I don’t care how long it takes. I don’t care what it is. It’s not gonna be all at once, but I’m getting out. I am going to experience the nature of my being in truth, how do you do it?
Every journey starts with the first step. You look at it and you say, do I cause myself problems? Do I cause myself problems? Well, I dunno what you mean. The driver in front of you has a driver in front of you ever bothered you the way they drive? Okay. Did it help? Do you talk to them? Did it do any good?
I’m a businessman. We have a thing called cost benefit analysis. A business person takes the factors, puts ’em down, draws the charts, and ands a cost benefit analysis. Here’s your cost benefit analysis of getting upset about the driver in front of you. 100% cost, zero benefit. That doesn’t sound very intelligent.
Don’t tell me spirituality. In his faith, there’s no intelligence. Oh, no, no. Be intelligent. I want you to be intelligent. The weather. Have you ever, now you look at me. Have you ever complained about the weather? Have you ever in your life complained about the weather? What good did it do? You are causing yourself suffering.
So your starting position of liberating yourself is stop it. Then I call it the low hanging fruit, the simplest stupid thing I’m causing myself to suffer. Why? Maybe I shouldn’t do that. We’ll work at it. How? Practice? I said so funny. You practice a sport, you practice an instrument, you practice, all kinds of things.
You practice. If you practice, you get better. Practice not bothering yourself. Things will happen that bother you. Lots of big things. We can leave those alone. Don’t worry. You have plenty of time for those. I would just start with, and you’re conscious, work with yourself that you find a way to stop bothering yourself by the things that make no difference what your mother said to you 43 years ago.
Is completely irrelevant. She’s dead. And you probably misunderstood anyways, and it doesn’t make any difference. What difference does it make? I, I jumped The simple ones are the weather and the car, right? And then I jumped right away. To me the most important, how can you be bothered by your past? Are you bothered by your past?
How can be bothered if this, it’s over. It’s done. It happened. Whatcha doing? Let’s figure out what bothered us and bring it back again. Why? Why would you do that? It’s done. It’s over. He had a divorce three years ago. It was tough. Yes, it was tough. Are you still getting divorced? The point is, why are you bothering yourself of us?
Something’s not happening. It doesn’t make sense. Does it make sense? Does it make sense to store what bothered you and then keep bringing it back up so it can bother you some more? But I’m justified. You should see what happened to me. No, I don’t even want to hear about it. I’m sorry. You don’t care about me.
Yes, I do care about you. That’s how I care about you. I wish you would not care what happened to you in the past so you can live in the present and have a good old time. The past does not matter of what benefit is it. But you don’t understand what happened to me. I understand, but it’s not happening anymore.
It’s past tense. Let it go. And you start practicing. You start with the small stuff, kid right in front of you, and then use this blinker and you still realize, my God, I am really bothering myself. I’m meaningless stuff. Now, how can you be okay if you’re bothering yourself about meaningless stuff all the time?
You can’t. You see how simple it is? This is spirituality. It doesn’t sound like it. Oh yeah, it does. You wanna be liberating, you wanna be free. You wanna feel joy all the time. You have distract to flow up instead of down. Stop pulling it down. Stop deciding. It’s worth it for me to get upset. He didn’t use his blinker.
My God, if people don’t use their blinkers, how do they know where they’re gonna go? You’re supposed to announce where you’re gonna go, for God’s sake. Somebody couldn’t run in. Whatcha doing
Michael Singer: that Was seven blocks away. Are you still doing it? Please, please. They beg you to listen to me.
Speaker 17: Alright? You can free yourself from this mess.
And what happens? You start with the small stuff. And then you realize, okay, I, I can do this in the new book and Living untether, I give you techniques. Make it fun. Life can be fun, but none of it’s not what I want. Make it be fun. Sit there and say, I really didn’t want that, did I?
Michael Singer: Look how it happened exactly the way I didn’t want it to.
It was perfect. It was perfect. Guess what I wanted? And look how much it upset me. Oh, this is so neat.
Speaker 17: You’re welcome to do it. Nothing’s stopping you, and I guarantee you’ll be happier. You don’t need things to change, for you to stop bothering yourself. Yeah, know what’s gonna happen. The little things will happen and you’ll start having fun with them.
Please have fun. Your ego’s a toy. Don’t be afraid of it. Don’t be afraid of it and don’t let it run your life. It’s something you built in there that’s on autopilot. It remembers everything you didn’t like. It’s afraid of anything that might happen, right? Look at the damn thing. It’s AI and steroids. We don’t need that.
Right. That’s what they’ll end up building. Ai. I wanna build an AI that’s just like me. No, you don’t.
Michael Singer: You really don’t want look at worries just like I do. Look at where’s exactly what I worry about. Look it. The neurotics just like me. I’m so scared. Look, it’s talking just like me. Throw this thing away. You don’t want it.
Okay. You just basically wake up and realize I can be fine.
Speaker 17: How by being fine, but it rained on my birthday. You, you literally say it. Why did it have to rain on my birthday? Ready? New slash it doesn’t know it’s your birthday. It doesn’t have any idea and you’re all upset about it. Why’d it rain on my birthday didn’t rain two days before.
God doesn’t like me. What did I do wrong? What are you doing? Hear me? You do not have to be like that, do you? So you start doing this thing called working with yourself, working to free yourself, working to raise yourself, and don’t ever forget it. Remember every morning when you wake up, that is the meaning of my life.
The meaning of my life is to work with myself. Otherwise, in my life’s full of it, it’s just ridiculous. Any moment it could fall apart, any moment could look promising and then change yes or no. I don’t want you to live like that. I care about you. And the worst part is I know you don’t have to live like that.
That’s what I, if you look up compassion a Webster’s dictionary, forget it. Alright. Compassion is what I just said to you. You manage to a degree to get out and you see people suffering for no reason. That’s compassion. You don’t yell at them. It’s the understanding, but it’s suffer for no reason and you don’t have to.
Now you bring compassion and understanding into the situation. Alright, anyways, so basically you start by working with yourself, but what about the big things? But don’t worry about ’em. Don’t worry about it. If, if you can’t do it, you can’t deal with it. You fall down. You fall down, fine. That’s what happened.
Get up as soon as you can. That’s all. Brush yourself off. Do the best you can. Just do the best you can. There are gonna be things that happen that are bigger than the driver in front of you, and try to do your best to deal with them, but at least deal with the smaller ones. And then what you’ll find is just if you play tennis and you practice, you’re gonna get better.
Will you be a professional at tennis player? No, probably not. But will you get you answer? Will you get better if you practice? Does practice make you do better? Having an instrument? If you practice, will you do better? This is just like that. Practice being better. Practice is not getting upset. Practice doing better.
Practice not being bothered by stupid little things. Catch yourself let go and you are gonna get better at it. Whoa. What does that mean? It means that something bigger is gonna happen. And I swear to you, I promise you won’t get bothered by it. ’cause you learn to not be bothered and then all of a sudden you, something happens.
Somebody doesn’t say hello to you. They were your friend and you called out to them. They didn’t have to say hello to you. I know it’s a MedOne, but it’s a major problem. Right? But someday you look at it. And I swear without doing anything, you just say, is she probably gonna hear me? You understand that?
You just let it go. What’s the difference? If she really didn’t like you again, she’ll be, it’ll come back up, don’t worry. Right? And guess what? You won’t care. Well, how do you not care what people think about you? Oh, I don’t have enough time to talk about that. There’s 8.3 billion people on the planet Earth.
One person didn’t say hello and you’re getting upset, and you just made up in your mind why it happened. Don’t you probably ’cause of this. Did George tell her so? Oh, oh, we didn’t tell her that. What will I do? Should I call whatcha doing? Being neurotic. If somebody didn’t say hello, you just eventually get to the point.
But that’s not what your life’s about. Life’s about not getting neurotic. ’cause somebody didn’t say hello and you’ll let it go and you’ll think next time you see her that, that she’ll say something and then no one will say anything. And you realize it was nothing. It was me. 95. Really? 99. I’ll be nice. 95% of every single thing you bothered yourself throughout your life did not happen.
It didn’t unfold the way you were afraid it would. What are you doing? Stop it. And the only way to stop it is you say, the meaning of my life is liberating myself from the absurdity I’ve gotten caught in. And that’s how you seek God. And eventually what will happen as you let go and let go, and you start realizing, you know, I can do this, I can handle these things, even big things, fine.
They happen. We’ll have fun with ’em, the best of my ability. And eventually you get high enough, I mean, liberated enough. The energy starts flowing up. I guarantee it. Just start. I mean, literally you feel it flowing up and it will not stop until you decide it’s gonna stop. No, this is important. This is important.
You don’t understand. I wanted to do this and I didn’t get to, okay, come on, goodbye. But I didn’t want that to happen. Goodbye. And eventually you realize no more. I didn’t do that anymore. And what happens? That’s the cq First thing is somehow you come in harmony with life and, and as it comes in harmony, it doesn’t mean everything goes the way you want it to.
You don’t have the way you want it to. You just peacefully and openly deal with the situations they unfold and it gets higher and higher, and all these things happen beyond your comprehension. I mean, to me, and I, I don’t wanna talk about it, right? Things have happened in my life that to me, are just as absurd as the Red Sea splitting.
I’m not kidding. You know, I’m an intelligent person, right? They’re just like, are you kidding? How did that happen? I just realize that anything can happen. You just come in harmony with life and life. I dunno where I read that once. I said somebody wrote that. When you come in harmony with life and you realize that it’s playing a tune and it’s not out of tune.
It’s a symphony and you start hearing that symphony, you start surrendering to it anyways. It’s hard for me to stop ’cause I care about you so much, but do you see you are causing your own problems then blaming everybody else? Do. Including blaming on yourself. I’m no good. I always fail. I’ve never done anything right.
How dare you talk about yourself that way and then go out there and expect people to prove that you’re wrong. You just stop it. Just realize I’m here on this little tiny planet in the middle of nowhere for a few years, and there’s only one thing I’m gonna do. From this moment forward. I am going to free myself.
Period. Every moment in my life, if I want something really bad, I’m letting it go. If I don’t want something really bad, I’m letting it go. I’m just constantly letting go of this absurd personal noise. Who’s willing to do it? Who’s willing? Yogananda, he’s so beautiful. He used to get on the stage. And he’d get people riled up.
’cause he gave all these talks, powerful talks, right? And he’d say, God, you know, it’s the most beautiful things waiting behind you. All you have to do is work with it and work with yourself and this, that. And he’d stand up there and he’d say, alright, facing this audience, the thousands of people in Carnegie Hall and so on.
And he says, who will go? Who will go? Who will come with me? Who will go? I’d look around, he said. None to go then I will go. None to go. I will go and you turn around and walk off stage. Can come with me, would you? Alright, come on man. Free yourself.
Tami Simon: You’ve been listening to the Michael Singer podcast, produced by Sounds True in partnership with Shanti Publications. For more information on Michael’s body of work and all back episodes, please join [email protected]. Thanks so much for listening. Sounds true. Waking up the world.
