E123: How Clinging Creates Ego and Suffering

Michael Singer:  Jai guru dev, jai masters. In order to actually know what it’s like to be a human being. Here’s an analogy. I’ve seen it years ago and I play with it a lot. Take a fishbowl, an aquarium bowl and put it over your head, and then realize inside that bowl are your thoughts. That’s so hard to imagine. ’cause that’s how it is.

Right? And they’re swimming around. They hit each other and they bump and sometimes they’re nice and sometimes they’re not. And they go down and they go up and they’re all swimming around inside that bowl. Where do the thoughts come from? Where do the thoughts come from? Alright. Events happen outside the bowl.

They come in and they make impressions inside the bowl. That’s how the world works. The outside comes in. That’s why you have senses. You’re gifted with a tremendous gift, sight, sound, taste, smell. If you didn’t have those, you in there way inside the bowl, the consciousness, the awareness of being, would not know there was a world out there.

No messages will come up from your census. They have to be sent up. They get picked up. They’re sensors. I told you that. Not senses. They’re sensors like a computer. Sensors. They’re sensitive to light. They’re sensitive to sound. They’re sensitive to taste. They get stimulated when those things hit them, and then they pass them inside.

They come from the outside and they come inside and you live in there inside this bowl. So where do the thoughts come from? That’s the first place they come from. They are the outside world coming in through your senses and manifesting inside the wall, and so you get to experience that. Otherwise you would not.

Okay, fine, but that’s not where all the fishes come from. Somehow. There’s these fishes that happened 15 years ago. Those fishes are still there. Where did they come from? Well, they started out there, didn’t they? They started outside. They came in, threw the ball into the senses. You experienced them. You’re way in there.

You’re way, you’re way back in there. You experienced them, but then you did this very, very funny thing. You didn’t let them go. White lines in the road. You let go trees, you drove by, you let go. People you don’t know, you let go. People speak languages you don’t understand. Who knows what they said? Who cares?

You let all kinds of things go. I want try to estimate, I’m just kidding. At least I would. I don’t wanna say 99%, but at least 95% of every single thing that came in through your senses, you let go of, you are 95% enlightened. If enlightenment means be here now and it comes in and here I am, bring it on and I can experience it, I handle it.

I am living life. Okay? You are easily 95%. Just think about every moment of your life. I know you’re thinking about the girl or the boy or the this or the that, or the clothes. What else was in your field of vision and sight and sound, et cetera, et cetera, when all these other things were coming in, I like to use the example of a snake.

There’s this 15 foot rattlesnake crawling around inside the room. What are you paying attention to? But there’s all these other things. There’s knots in the wall, right? There’s pictures on the wall, there’s outlets, there’s 700 million other things. Nah, and a rattlesnake. Okay, so you pay attention to very little.

In truth, you only pay attention to what you’re distracted by. Now what does that mean? Be here now means everything’s the same. There’s clouds in the sky. Do you see them? Yes. Do you hold onto them? No, but that one looks like grandpa, but it’s not grandpa. It’s a cloud. But if you’re distracted by it. What does distracting mean?

You apply more consciousness, more awareness to that item than to the other items. You are distracted by the snake. You’re distracted by the girl. You’re distracted by what she said. You’re distracted. What she didn’t say. This is the essence of spirituality we’re talking about now. Talk about God, have fun.

You wanna talk about getting to God? Let’s talk. Okay. ’cause this is the problem. The problem is your consciousness, which is way in there. One’s experiencing everything, is being distracted by things that don’t need to be distracted by. Yes, there’s a world out there, it’s all the same. But if science showed you.

It’s a bunch of atoms. Actually not, they’re not even there. You have to get on the quantum level and you find out even those are not there, right? But we’ll stick with atoms for a moment. There’s a bunch of atoms out there. So what do you understand? That’s all that’s out there. There is nothing out there.

These subatomic particles, corks, leptons, boons, waving around and making believe that they’re atoms and coming up and, and you just see them and for some reason you get distracted by them. I used to play with you. I went through business school. I never took a science course in my life, right. But I have a table sitting in my office.

Nice. Good size one. And I love looking at it. It says run on the floor. I didn’t even hang it. There’s, I want it right there, right? Why? That’s all it is. There is nothing out there in here. There’s nothing out there, but those atoms, a whole bunch of them, lot of different ones, but it’s like 103, 108, whatever it is, varieties.

But there’s 700 billion zillion of each. So what is that? Not all that’s out there, yes or no, but you seem to get very distracted by certain things and not others. Show me the male Adam and the female Adam. Show me the proper atom and the improper atom. They’re just atoms put together based on the laws of science that hold things together.

So why are you having so much trouble? And the reason is very simple, because you get distracted and you pay more attention to certain things than other things. And when you pay attention to it, you don’t realize this. When you pay attention to it, you hold it. That’s how things get stuck in your mind. The mind has no glue.

There’s no glue inside there. All the fish that come and they flow, they’re going to God. That’s all. They’re all going to God. There’s just a gift that the universe gave you, that you have sight and sound and you can experience things that need. Alright. But a lot of times you think, I wish I wasn’t experiencing this.

It’s just an experience. You sit on a planet, you’re sitting on a planet in the middle of nowheres. It’s a tiny thing. 1.3 million Earth fit inside the sun. Did you hear that? 1.3 million planet Earth fit inside the sun, and the sun is one of 300 billion stars in your galaxy and there are truth galaxies, and you care what’s going on in that spot over there.

That’s the problem. That’s why you are not merged. That’s why you have not experienced what the great ones have experienced, which is the oneness of all of creation. God, why? Because you’re distracted by these stupid little things, and I’m not gonna say the stupid little things going on out there outside the bowl.

They don’t distract you. They’re just coming in going. They’re Adam and even the garden. That’s what it means. It’s all God. You’re experiencing God and there’s flowers, and there’s this, and there’s snakes. There’s just all these things going on and you get to have experience. What’s wrong with experiences?

Do you like colors? Do you like shapes? Do you like, sounds okay there. They’re, you mean you care? Which one? Gimme a break. A sound is a sound. It’s a vibration. It’s a wave. Comes up here. It could be low, it could be high, it could be, it could be anything. So. Starting there. It’s all coming in at your gift.

What is coming in from outside is the gift that the universe has given to your consciousness. Why? So that you can experience God, so you can experience creation. If an artist paints something and no one ever sees it, there’s no meaning. Let’s at least look at it. But what if it’s the scream? Doesn’t mean it’s the scream.

It looks different than, you know, the butterflies. It is not different. It’s just a bunch of atoms. God, the best analogy I’ve come to, I’ve been using it more lately. You’ll have flat screen TVs. Have you ever watched a movie and gone up close enough right up against that screen to where you realize what was there dots.

They call ’em pixels. They’re dots. They’re dots. They one called dots. There’s a movie. There’s a movie going on there. There’s nothing to be attracted to or apul by, is there? There’s just a bunch of dots. That’s what’s going on out here. Those are the atoms. What are you having trouble with? 1, 2, 3. Nothing. I have no problems.

Never did. I’m just experiencing the dots and they’re dancing around and if I step back just the right distance, they don’t look like dots. They look like a movie. Oh, boy, isn’t that fun? It’s just fun. Wake up to science, wake up to reality. So now this stuff’s coming in and what’s supposed to happen, and it is supposed to happen, is you’re supposed to experience it.

You’re experiencing reality. You’re experie. What are you experiencing? Life. You didn’t make it. How much of what you experienced are you responsible for? Nothing, not to mention if you get off the planet, so basically stuff is going on and you’re given the gift of experiencing the stuff that’s unfolding in front of you.

All the different senses, right? What went wrong? What went wrong is you can’t handle that emptiness, that evenness the great way is not difficult for those who have no preferences. Things are unfolding. I’m experiencing them. Wow, wow, wow. That, I’m telling you, that is where a master lives. That is where a perfected master lives, or I’ve been quoting you lately, I’ll do it again.

And the Gita is paraphrased. Alright. Krishna has a talk to Arjuna and he tells Arjuna his spiritual son, Hey, there’s some high dos out there. He didn’t use the exact words, but anyway, there’s some high dos out there and, and Arjun says, what do you mean? He says, there are enlightened beings. There are beings who emerge with the whole universe.

And Arjun says, wow. I’d like to meet one of them. How will I know him? Wal. He sissy talks the of the man and Christus says to him, you won’t know him like that. He walks, he talks, he sits like any of the man, if you would know him. Enjoys. He’s not overjoyed and sorrows never sorrowed. He lets goodness come and it will and when it will depart.

He walks like a sojo or a stranger in the midst of the qualities of nature. All these apparent changes, just like all the waters and streams of the world pour into the ocean. Leave the ocean as it found. It doesn’t overflow its bounds at peace. Serene content equanimity is yoga. So a great being is able to walk in this world, experience it fully, but when he or she experiences it, it comes in, they fully experience it.

We’ll talk about that in a second. They don’t have close your eyes. They fully experience it as it passes through. Right? You have had very few, you’ve had some experience in your life that are so beautiful that you melted. Mm-hmm. I’m serious. You have even one. Just one. At some point in your life, somebody said something, somebody did something.

The sunset was so beautiful that you just melted away and you used words like it touched me to the core of my being. Have you used those words? I felt like within the presence of God, you were, because you let go of all the garbage and just merged into consciousness, merge into self. It’s a very deep experience.

It’s a beautiful experience. You all try to use drugs to get there, but you’re trying to get there. Do you understand that? In the end, everyone’s trying to get to this beautiful. That’s Nirvana. You’re merged with the universe. Nothing’s stopping you. There’s no thoughts distracting you. There’s nothing distracting you.

Your consciousness is fully engulfed and immersed in the experience you’re having. Music can do that, can it? But not all music. Only the music you like and that’s ’cause you have preferences. If you didn’t have preferences, all music would do that to you. All shape would do that to you. All clouds would do that to you.

Nothing’s stopping it from coming in and touching you to the core of your being. Okay. Alright. We talk where the thoughts come from. Unfortunately, we don’t live there. Why? Because when these images, vibrations come in, some of them distract us, don’t they? In other words, what does it mean? My consciousness was back here, ready to experience whatever comes in, whatever.

Wow. I’m so open. The word is opened. I’m completely open. But what happens is then something comes in and somehow it’s different than something else. It’s not different to a great yogi. It’s not different. It’s all the same. It’s just life. It’s just reality. Here it is. Welcome. Hello. Okay, but. We differentiate with our minds.

Truth is we get distracted. That’s the key. The consciousness doesn’t stay back here, experience what it’s experiencing. It gets pulled down into the experience, and so now it has separated that experience from every other experience. Okay. You said that to me. There’s just words passing through space there.

Little vibration waves. But you said that to me minute. You said that to me. Boom. Where am I? Right there. I’m right there. Holding on. Buddhist called clingy, holding on to that, which was supposed to pass through. Now, you don’t believe me? Was supposed to pass through. You go deep enough and you gonna find out, oh, this was supposed to pass through.

What? Everything, everything. We’ll talk about it. Okay? We’re not there yet, are we? But that’s why, because we get distracted. Now, once you get distracted, you have focused your consciousness on that object. Well, consciousness in yoga consciousness is called chi shati. Conscious energy, and when it focuses, it creates a power.

I’ve been using the example lately of a magnifying glass outside in the sun. You all know the game. If I hold a magnifying glass, it’s a sinus everywhere, but somehow if I hold a magnifying glass, it’s at one point down there and it starts a fire. That’s what happens when you get distracted. The chi shati, the conscious energy.

It’s not just consciousness, it’s conscious energy. You feel it when you focus your consciousness. You use will, you’re focusing, power is being focused. Fine, but then you let go. No, you don’t let go. So if it’s strong enough and it doesn’t take much nowadays, like every single thing of click bait, everything on the web catches your attention and it leaves an impression.

Amazing. And so basically. It’s not all the same. It catches your attention. You’re supposed to pay attention to it, equal attention. Everything’s the same. Man, woman, child, birth, death, their life, aren’t they? They’re not just life, the life on the planet Earth. And I told you how small that thing is. There’s also black holes out there eating galaxies.

It’s all real. It’s all there. It’s all the same. And you’re meant to experience it talking to you very high. You’re not supposed to not experience it. It is supposed to touch you to the core of your being. What if there’s a death? It touches you to the core of your being. What if someone you love with all your heart dies?

It touches you to the core of your being, and you’re willing to let it touch you there. That’s the difference. It’s not that it feels the same as everything else. It’s comes in, it touches you. You feel it. You feel the loss. You’re like, oh my God. Music can be sad, can’t it? But it’s beautiful. Roman and Juliet.

That was quite a play, man. Let’s go see it. You go back five times. Why? Because every single thing has a vibration. Every single thing is part of creation, isn’t it? It’s part of God. Can you experience it fully, willingly, openly, doesn’t feel the same. It’s not that you don’t feel anything. You feel everything.

You feel the depth of your heartbreaking, fully. No resistance, no suppression, no denial. You’re a great being. When you can live like that. Now you’re living, that’s truly living. But we don’t do that. ’cause what happens? The consciousness gets distracted. We can talk about it later. Why? Why certain things do and don’t, but you get distracted.

And when you get distracted ti you god, God’s consciousness focuses on that one object, on that one thought, on that one feeling that amazing. And the whole universe. How many fossil fuels are happening at the same time, and that’s just on this planet. I’m not willing to just stick on this planet. I trained myself 50 years ago.

I’m on a planet spill the middle of nowhere. I’m gonna remember that. Well, it’s the truth. How many things are going on to the same time that that thought passed through your mind and that person said that thing, 700 million, zillion trillion. What would you get upset about that for? I know. Okay, so it distracted your consciousness, which is power, pulled it down to this tiny spot in the universe.

It’s not even a spot, it’s a thought. What happens when it focuses down? It stays. What do you mean it stays? It didn’t stay. It went, it was said 10 minutes ago, I said, said 15 years ago. My mother said something to me. She’s not there anymore. She’s not there anymore. Well, why is it there? Because you held it there.

Because when your conscience gets distracted on anything, it puts power on that and it makes an impression in your mind and in your heart makes an impression on these higher vibration rates inside of you. Do you have a mind? Yes, I have a mind. Are you supposed to have a mind? Yes. You’re supposed to have a mind.

Is mine a bad thing? No. Music’s not bad. Mind is not bad. Emotion’s not bad. The fact that you can’t handle certain ones, that’s a problem. The fact that you have a thought, well, maybe she doesn’t like me, it’s just a thought, isn’t it? But that thought’s inside that bowl, the world’s out there, but mind and emotions, they’re in here with you.

Higher vibration rates, and if you can’t handle it, it distracts you. Why? Isn’t it funny you said I can’t handle it, but what you’re doing is handling it. You’re grabbing it, you’re clinging to it. If you can’t handle it, let it go. Okay, fine. You can’t handle it, let it go. No, that’s not what I mean by I can’t handle it.

I mean, I can’t handle it. You’ve said that. And therefore I’m holding it willfully. I’m focusing my conscious on it, and this is staying inside of me, and that’s where the fish keeps swimming around. That’s why you’re not in the state that you should be. That’s why you are this thing called a human. What’s a human fallen?

God lost God. So as a fall from the garden, okay, you’re a very great being. What do you mean? I don’t feel so great? You are a great being. How great you are, fully enlightened. You’re the highest ever walked, the face of the earth where Christ was. You are there also. He said, so did I sit with the throne of my father, so used to sit by my throne.

And these things were, I do do these and even greater things. And so basically. You have this problem, the problem called distraction, that your consciousness, instead of staying merged and experiencing the universe as it unfolds, at least the part that’s unfold in front of you, you get pulled down into it and you say, this is more important than that, and then you start building.

What do you build in there? You build this thing called an ego. Just take a breath. It’s not hard, you know, take psychology, you’re, it don’t, don’t worry. You know your ego. What does that mean? It means the stuff didn’t pass through. What? Stuff didn’t pass through certain stuff. Some stuff did. Mo I told you 95, 90 9% did pass through the trees, the white lines, the clouds, the sounds, it all pass through, but the one thing didn’t, and you held onto that.

Well, why’d you hold onto it? Because I didn’t like it. As her preference comes in, I didn’t like it. I couldn’t handle it, so I held onto it. I think it’s very funny that you hold onto that, which you don’t like the worst things that ever happened to you. You made sure you remembered why you don’t have to.

There’s no law that says something happens to you. It’s not pleasant. Let it go, but you won’t, so you focus on it. So now that becomes, we call it yoga, we call it samskara. Now, you don’t have to know the word. It’s all right. It’s an impression made upon the mental plane. The mind is completely open. It can experience anything, but it’s an impression that got made on there and state.

An impression means it made an impression, okay, well what do I do with it now? Now you have a problem. ’cause now the world is coming in and at the same time it’s coming in, there’s these little impressions floating around from the past and all of a sudden, believe it or not, they screw up your entire life.

One of them, one would screw up your whole life if you were completely open and one thing came in. You saw a snake was crawling by one day? Uh, no. I don’t like snakes. I don’t wanna snake. Well, you have trouble ’cause a rope could look like a snake. A baby’s rattle could sound like a rattle. You don’t want to go to the zoo where they could have these, you know, amphibian, snakey things.

Reptiles, you hear me All of a sudden that one thing. Starts distorting your perception of all of life. Have you seen that one thought? What do you think of traumatic experiences? An impression that is so strong. That it won’t leave you alone. It keeps coming back up. It happened years and years ago. I dream about it.

You look like her. See what I’m telling you when I’m teaching you this is what’s going on is you hold onto this thing and then it stays in there and so now when the outside comes in, it always, always will distort what you’re saying. Not sometimes it can’t, not. And that’s big ’cause you believe what you think you see, this is what I like.

There is no like and dislike. Go study Buddha. Now that line from the Thursday patriarch, the great way is not difficult for those who have no preferences. Then you look at me. Why would I not wanna preferences? ’cause then you can’t experience reality. You can only experience what you want and what you don’t want, and then you judge everything.

It gets so messy, and then you can’t live with yourself. Never been depressed. You are not depressed. You’re looking through a psyche that’s depressed, and then when you look outside, it all looks dark. It all looks like that, or it looks like gold. It’s not. It looks like, oh my God, they get exactly what I want.

This is just what I always wanted. That’s a problem, not a solution. Well, I guess it isn’t what you want. What you want is merger with God, and this is very distinct from that. It’s just a little, couple little thoughts within the mind that form this thing. That’s where the deep teachings are like and dislike.

The constants and views, right? So basically what happens is we don’t have a choice right now. We don’t have a choice. We are so full of it, and we are, what are we full of ourselves? And that’s a true statement. You’re full of what you stored in there. You are not full of what happened that passed through.

It just passed through. You experienced it. You can bring it back. You have a memory. You can bring back a memory, but it’s not charged. Now when you bring these, some scars, they’re charged. When they come back, they have all kinds of emotions and problems and stuff with them. Memory doesn’t do that. Memory bring, oh look, my father was my mother school, this and that.

But if you had trouble in school 23 years ago and somebody hurt you, that’s coming back. So it’s different. Some scars, different in memory. That’s what swimming around in there want you to understand. Now what happens is you pick a few of ’em, they get stuck in there, I’m telling you, and people don’t understand it, that you can’t even have one without screwing up your life.

I’m afraid of flying. Okay, you can have one fear. No, you can’t. Now you can’t see your grandkids and they think everyone is stupid. They can’t on the TV ’cause there’s accidents. And the flying accidents, they can’t read the newspaper. Guess what? If you are afraid of flying, when you look through the newspaper, you look for plane accidents.

I mean, there are people, and I’m not judging, I’m really not right that they read the obituaries. Why? Maybe I know someone so I can feel bad. Maybe I don’t know anybody, but if I’m in New York, that’s a lot of pages. Oh my God, what’s the probability I’m gonna be here tomorrow? What are you doing? You are ruining your life with what?

With the stuff you stored in there. You’re not ruining your life with your experiences of life. Your experiences of life are gifts from God. Every single experience is a gift. Do you understand? No one has ever experienced with you. Experience. The moments you experience are unique for you. Nobody sees ’em at the same angle and nobody sees the next one the same as you see the next one.

You have the sequence of tiny moments passing through your entire life that no one else has ever had. You are unique, aren’t you? You’re special. Not only no one ever had ’em, no one ever will ’cause it will never happen again. And you think you’re missing things. Don’t think you’re missing is being here now.

You’re missing experiencing the experiences that are being given to you. Why? Because there are ones you like and ones you don’t like. I only want the ones I like. Good luck. So you build this model inside your head, made outta the stuff you couldn’t handle. That entire ego is just a collection of thoughts of things you held onto.

Why’d you hold onto ’em? ’cause you couldn’t handle ’em. And then you built a house inside this aquarium, inside this little fishbowl, and you put this together and that together, together, this together, and then you try to live in there. This is who I am. What do you mean? This is who I am? I’m the person who likes this.

The person who doesn’t like this, and the person this happened to. The person that, no, you’re not. You’re the one who had the experience. You’re not the experience. A single experience you had that you are, you’re the one that had the experience. I saw something who did me. What’d you see something there?

Subject, object. Okay, wake up. You’re a great being lost in this fishbowl, aren’t you? And that fishbowl is full. The only thing is full of what you like and dislike. That’s why you held onto it. It distracted you and they decided, this is what I want. This is what I don’t want. Well, what if something starts to come in from outside Right here?

I have body language, okay? I, I always make believe it. Make fun of this right here. I’m sitting with body language. I know why you’re sitting like that. You don’t like me? No, I have a stomach ache. What are you doing? Why do you even wanna know why somebody’s sitting like that? Because you’re not okay. ’cause you’re in there inside that fishbowl with that mess swimming around in there and you can’t handle well yourself.

You can’t handle yourself. You have to try to make things be the way you want them to be so that you can be okay when they come in. I’m gonna repeat that ’cause I said it too fast. You have to try to make the outside world be the way you want it to be. So that when it comes in, it feels good, don’t you?

Wow. Quite a job. You took on the answer bigger than you on this planet, right? And you are gonna make everything be the way you want. I’m so excited. I’m gonna get what I want. I’m sort depressed. I never get what I want. It’s not about getting what you want. It’s not about avoiding what you don’t want. It’s about saying, did I make a mess in here?

Holy mackerel. I held onto everything that ever bothered me for my entire life, and now I’m afraid it’s gonna happen again. Well, why did you do that? No. No. No one ever told me not to. My parents forgot to gimme the manual. There’s an owner’s manual, it’s gonna be here. No. You are born, you die. It happens to everything.

You are born, you have these experiences and you die. But what? I don’t like the experience I had. That’s a problem. Why? ’cause you had it. That’s called reality. How do you define reality in the new book? Living in Tether? I did in one sentence. Reality is that, which already happened, but I didn’t want it to happen.

It happened. That’s the most important. Understand it happened, but I wanted something else to happen. I’m sorry. I really am. You have to be in harmony with, remember we said it comes in. You don’t even want it to come in. You’re trying to stop from coming in. That’s what denial is. Suppression. It didn’t happen.

Yes it did. It happened. Why? Because it happened. It’s like the kid says, why is the sky blue? ’cause it’s blue. It’s still complicated to answer thing. You really wanted me to answer. Why did it have to happen? Why’d you have to get divorced? Why’d your mother have to treat you like that? You know how long it’s gonna take me to explain that to you?

I gotta get into her psyche and her mother’s psyche and everything that ever happened to her. Everything ever happened to her. Everything happened to the husband, the wife, the thing, the kid. Every single thing. Led that person to do what they did in this moment. Who’s willing to listen to truth? That’s no way to live.

To sit here and say, I’m not here. I’m not okay. Inside the fishbowl, that’s all. It is a fishbowl. Why She got her fish. She got a fish. Everyone, you know, it’s far out. So I’m locked inside this bowl and I’m not. Okay. Of course you’re not. Okay. You stored every single. Thing that you didn’t like you stored.

And the bigger it was, and the more you didn’t like it, the more you held onto it and kept it. But what if I don’t wanna think about it? And I kept it. There’s a thing called suppression, repression denial, Freud. All that’s going inside the fishbowl. We are yogis. We I outside the box, outside the bowl. I wanna get outside the bowl.

I don’t wanna be inside the bowl. I don’t care what’s going on inside the bowl there. That’s why you meditate. That’s why you do mantra. What’s mantra? Something I can do instead of watching the fish inside the bowl. Go fish. You fish. Go.

Entire spiritual path is get out of there. So you basically, you’ve got the foundation I want you to have. There’s this bowl over your head that has the impressions that you held onto, and now you built a house and it’s unbelievable. I mean, understand what ego is and it’s how big it is. You built a house inside that bowl made out of the things you couldn’t handle.

Look at people now, do you ever get defensive? Do you ever feel defensive? Whatcha defending the fish? Yes, I held onto this fish and I had the right to, and you have no idea how much it screwed me up, and you’re gonna pay for that. What are you doing? You did this. Understand that I don’t want, I don’t take guilt.

It’s not about guilt. He said wisdom. Why are you holding on to the things that bothered you the most? There’s no reason. You don’t have to do it. You weren’t meant to do it. It’s not the way you’re supposed to be living. And what it boils down to is you can get out. You’re supposed to be getting out. The entire purpose of your life is liberation.

And what does liberation mean? Getting to do what I want. It does not. That’s just inside the bowl trying to be okay. You will never be okay inside that bowl. Do you understand that? Why? Because you’re not inside the bowl. You’re a liberated, you’re God, your God. Consciousness expanded throughout the universe, squished inside of a bowl.

That’s claustrophobic. That’s not even fun. No wonder I messed up. And you start to understand, you were sent down here to this, that tiny planet. I know it seems like a big deal. It is a tiny planet compared to 300 billion stars, and yours is one, and you’re circling. And you’re making a big deal of what’s going on all the time.

The purpose of your life is liberation. The purpose of your life is to free yourself from this bowl mess. Can you? Yes. Don’t you dare think you can. No. You don’t understand. I did such terrible thing. It doesn’t make any difference. See, lightning. Come on down. It doesn’t make any difference what you’ve done allowed to tell you that the only reason it makes a difference is ’cause you can’t let it go.

Oh, you mean I should do terrible things, not care. No, I didn’t say it. I said, let it go. Let go of why you did the terrible things. Let go of feeling guilty about them. Let go of your entire past. There’s no karma, not the way you think about it. That’s not what it’s about. Karma’s not a punishment. What it’s saying is if you did an action and it came from a place.

Ill-gotten, you’re gonna learn from that. It’s going to come back, not it’ll come back. You took fifth grade math and you didn’t do good with, you know, algebra, and so now you stay back. Why as a punishment? No. ’cause you’re supposed to learn this stuff. Karma’s a learning thing. Do you understand that? It’s a blessing.

You’re a very great being. Don’t worry about what happened in the past, other than can you let it go. How do you measure whether you’ve let go of your karma? I don’t have to go through it again. Okay? What did you do? Blah, blah, blah, blah. Would you do it again? No, I would never do it. That was so outta tune.

Well then you’ve learned you’d have to go back to fifth grade again. You learned how to do the algebra. That’s what karma is. You see it. You are here to learn. Earth is a place that Soul sent to evolve. And that’s what you’re doing here. You’re having experiences. What they’re supposed to be doing is waking you up in there to look and say, holy mackerel, did I make a mess inside my fish bowl?

The fact that there’s even the bowl. I don’t need a bowl. Just bring on, let it let it be free. Let’s come on in. Why do I need to catch it? And then let it go right here. The experiences happened. I experienced them. They’re just. Oh my God. They’re washing over me. I’m having the experience. I’m learning all there is to learn.

I’m experiencing God in the moment. Got it. Okay. But no. Do you have a bowl over your head? Is it fun? No, it’s not fun. If I get what I want, it’s fun. Good luck. Good luck even trying to get what you want. Causes suffering and then thinking that you might not get what you want, causes suffering, thinking you might lose when you got what you want, causes suffering.

These are Buddhist teachings. That’s why I said all life is suffering. ’cause you’d think what I’m supposed to do is make it fit inside this bowl. It doesn’t fit inside the bowl and it won’t fit inside the bowl. And look at how much trouble you have with relationships. Relationships are not difficult. No, they are not difficult.

Why are they difficult? Because I’m not trying to have a relationship with you. I’m trying a relationship with myself, and you’re supposed to behave in the way I need you to behave so that when you do that behavior, I feel better. Otherwise, why am I hanging out with you? I’m wasting my time. That’s why you change relationship all the time.

That’s why you go through all these things. You go out to the dating sites, which I, it’s fine. It’s wonderful. I love them. Do they ask you questions? Did they ask you questions on those dating sites? What do you like to eat? You’re vegetarian, this and that. Do you like the kind of person? How tall do you want a person to be?

What are you describing yourself? You’re not describing a person. You can’t even find me as a person. Are you not filling out right there what you like and what you dislike? Here’s what I don’t like. Here’s what I like. Well go date yourself. Because that’s what you’re trying to do. And the minute they’re not the way you think you thought they were gonna be, bye bye.

Yes or no. And now you wonder, I have trouble with relationships. It is not complicated. It’s because you’re inside the bowl and you don’t understand there’s a bowl. All you see is yourself. When you’re inside that bowl, all you see is what you want and what you don’t want, and what you like and what you don’t like.

You could turn on someone in two seconds, can’t you? You said, I love you with all my heart. What? What you did, what? You didn’t tell me you had ever done that. No, I can’t do that. Yes or no? It’s embarrassing. All it’s about is what’s going on inside that bowl. Life is not about that. Life is about first understanding that you do not have to be inside that bowl and they will not teach you that.

In fact, the only thing they teach you is how to get what you want, how to get what you want, and avoid what you want. How to win friends and influence people. Why? Because I’m not okay, and if I can figure out, I wanna be psychic. One thing I learned very early, I don’t wanna be psychic. I don’t wanna see the future.

Well, what the hell are you gonna do? See the future worry. That’s what you’ll do. Oh, I see a car accident in your future. I don’t know how far in the future could be tomorrow, but it’s gonna happen. Why would you wanna know such a thing? What you wanna do is experience your life, not protect yourself from it.

Are you listening to me? This is serious. I talked to you at this level, right? You can get rid of that bowl. It’s of course not easy. Why? You’re married to it. You are not married to it. You literally define yourself as the bowl. Who are you? I’m so-and-so’s wife. Well, were you chopped liver before you met him?

I don’t understand. These are my children. Well, what if you didn’t have children? No, I wouldn’t exist. Yes. These are experiences you had. Who are you? Don’t you dare to define yourself as your ego. This is what I wanna do with my life. This is what’s gonna happen. This is what I see, right? No, be here. Now you’ve heard the words be present and open, and where do you see what happens?

What will happen? It’s called the dao. What Love Sue wrote with the Dao is so deep, so beautiful, but all he was trying to capture is if you are not in there doing this. What is unfolding is God, is the universe, is harmony, is reality, and you want to experience that. Why? If there’s something in you that isn’t done yet, you want it to hit you.

The Gita is another line of the’s. So beautiful. That which is the darkest night to the man of the world, is the light of day to the yogi, and that which is the light of day to the man of the world is the darkest night to the yogi. What does that mean? Just what it says. You want everything to be the way you want.

You want everything to fit within your fish. The kids are supposed to be a certain way and this a certain way. You’re supposed to do this. You have this life opportunity. Every single thing’s supposed to be that which you made up in your fishbowl that you want to happen, but you don’t live like that. You know, he said, they said, while I’m doing that, that’s suffering.

That’s ridiculous. How can I make the world be what I want it to be? Even these laws of attraction that you all talk about, is there a law of attraction? Absolutely there is. You better watch out. Why? Because it’s not just the things you think you want. You wanna attract yourself. You attract every single, if that’s true, every single thought you have, I don’t think you wanna go out there, lock yourself up.

And the bottom line is you do not want to get what you think you want, what you want. Whole purpose of your life. Let go of yourself. You let go of the personal self. What is the personal self that was within the fishbowl? What’s the impersonal self that which is outside the fishbowl? God, right? We, we bring God into our fishbowl.

We do what is God? That which gives me what I want. Well, what if I prayed and I wanted something and I didn’t get it? I wanted this a certain person and they didn’t love me. And then, then, then, then what? Then there is no God. Wow. Please don’t do that. God is outside your fishbowl. It’s the whole universe.

It’s all the galaxies in there. It’s everything that is no judgment, no nothing. It’s just reality. You can be one with that. You are one with that, but you gotta get rid of the fishbowl. So the purpose of your life. Is to understand. First of all, we talked about you have an ego. Yep. I got one and it got likes and dislikes.

Up. The kazoo, every little thing. I don’t like mosquitoes. I don’t mind some ants, but I don’t like the ones that bite and I don’t like when it’s cloudy. Well, I wanna go hiking and it’s cloudy the night before I get really upset. Wow. How you doing? Having fun yet? No. Then work on yourself. Not work on yourself to get what you want.

Work on yourself to let go of this mess that you built inside yourself. That is saying, I’m only okay if what I want happens, and I sure as heck am not okay if what I don’t want happens and in between, I don’t even wanna think that what I don’t want might happen, but of course it might and I don’t like it.

You hear me? There’s no wind in there. Liberation. It’s beautiful. That’s the word chita. A liberated soul. A being who got out of the fishbowl is very rare, but very great. So how do you do such a thing? Oh boy. I have one minute left. That’s all. It’s, I’ll run over, but that’s all it takes. That’s all it takes.

What do you mean I’m in here? Check. Are you in there? I in there. Have we noticed that? All that stuff going on in there, do you notice that there’s stuff to live with? You notice that you have to force and fight and do all kinds of stuff to try to be okay. Have you noticed? Okay, good. That’s the witness.

You notice they have a choice. Even though I notice that it’s a mess and I know there’s no way everything’s gonna be the way I want it to be. Who knows that yet that not every moment’s gonna be the way they want it to be. Oh, you caught on. So now I’m in here. Can I stay centered? Can I stay seated in a seat of consciousness that is aware that I have all this mess going on inside my fishbowl and in my fishbowl in any different anybody else’s?

And how dare I judge anybody else? Their fishbowls is some of their learning experiences and they’re all gonna be different. So stop this judgment garbage. Just understand, okay, I’m in here. How do I get out? You’re not going to get out by doing what you want. You’re not going to get out by every single time.

Your ego said, oh, I want that. I don’t want that. How what I do, how myself, you said something bad to me, maybe I don’t know, but I’m, what are you doing? If you go with that stuff, you’re reinforcing it. You’re addicted to yourself. So somehow you start this process and I teach it. And in the new book, living Untethered very strongly, you can get out.

I don’t care where you think you are, I don’t care how bad it is, you can get out, but you’re not gonna get out by strongly. The big stuff. You’re not gonna get out by the biggest thing that ever bothered you. You’re not gonna get out by dealing with that. You’re not ready yet. That’s. Post-graduate school.

So what do you do? Can you let go of anything? Can you let go of the driver in front of you? When they’re driving and they’re using their blinker and they keep stepping on their brake and they’re going 10 miles an hour below the speed limit and you’re in a rush, can you let go of the garbage inside your fishbowl?

That is of no meaning. It does no good. It did not change how the driver’s driving. Can you let go of the weather? I’ve been teaching you that lately, so I’m serious. The weather is your guru. You can reach a very deep state of enlightenment. By accepting the weather. What do you mean? I don’t want it to rain.

I’m, I’m trying, it’s not, I don’t want it to rain. It is raining, but I don’t want it to, it’s bothering me. Well, maybe we need to start working somewhere. And that’s where you start working. You start working at the low hanging fruit. These things that are going on inside your head that are bothering you to have no meaning.

Stop it. Ow. That’s your business. Use affirmation. I love the rain. I always tell you, there’s no rain. There won’t be protest in Publix. You like the rain or do a mantra. Right? Play. Play in there. Make it fun in there, instead of making it hell in there. And you do this. Start little by little all the time.

Work on yourself. Work with yourself. Work on freeing yourself from the garbage you stored in there. It’s not about getting what you want. It’s never about getting what you want. It’s about letting go of this process of wanting, I used to teach the following, right? Freedom is not freedom for yourself. It’s freedom from yourself.

Which way are you more free? How would you like to wake up in the morning? And that’s not going on inside of you. You just wake up and full of joy for no reason. Of course you can be happy if you get what you want. That’s your child’s play. Can you be happy all the time, no matter what, because you’re alive, ’cause you’re breathing?

’cause. There’s 35 trillion living cells giving you a body. It ain’t your body. You ain’t doing nothing to get that body. You understand that? You don’t make the breath go in and out. You don’t make the heartbeat do you? And you wake up in the morning and you’re grateful for everything. Oh my God, I’m outta cornflakes.

You just have fun, and you do that by letting go of the part of you that can’t have fun, which you built in there. Ultimately, you let go of your past. There is no reason for you to be holding onto your past. It’s over. It happened. I don’t understand. Why do you wanna keep it going on in there, right? And you just keep letting go.

It’s all about letting go. Your entire path is about letting go of your attachment, being distracted by this garbage that’s inside your head. And people write me from all over the world. They say, Hey, you know it works. Of course it works. Why would it not work? If you stop bothering yourself, you stop bothering yourself and you can get very, very high.

But then I always have the warning. What happens is you’re getting, we will, you’ll start getting high. It’s beautiful. Let go of the car, let go of this having fun. All right? Then all of a sudden, something comes up from the past. You know what Sally did when you were in high school and you can’t get it outta your head, and all of a sudden you say, what did I do wrong?

He’s not nice in here anymore. You didn’t do anything wrong. It, the stuff is in there. It has to come up. It’s not gonna just disappear, but you can let it go and you can learn to let go of big pieces. Not just Sally, but all your high school relationships. You start letting stuff go, but while it comes up, it doesn’t feel so good, does it?

Good. Be willing to let go of the stuff you stored in there from the past that’s guiding your life. Okay, I made a point. Can you get outta the fishbowl? Yes. How? I just showed you. Why do you want these old fish swimming around and they’re causing you trouble? They’ll never happen again. Those things that bother you, the deep ones, they’re never gonna happen again.

So you start letting go. You just start doing this process of letting go of what? Everything. Everything. Yeah. But how will I go of everything? How will I go to work and how will I have a family? Don’t worry. The deer have families. I see the little phones dancing around in there, right? Animals seem to make it.

Everybody seems to, that seems to work, don’t it? Wait, do you see what happens when you let go and then you let go more? Then you let go more? And you let go of all concepts, views, opinions, preferences, hopes, dreams, and you start to become what the Buddhist called empty mind. Doesn’t mean you’re stupid. I mean, you’re not full of it.

And so basically you liberate yourself, and liberation is ecstasy. It’s nirvana. Eventually what’s going on inside of you is just pure ecstasy. You know her name for God is in, in India, Sanskrit sat eternal conscious, ecstasy. Anybody want something? Yes. Alright, God, I hope you understand. Every once in a while do you or do you not have a fishbowl over your head?

Alright? Just remember that and decide you wanna devote your life to what’s inside that fishbowl, or you wanna devote your life to the rest of the universe.

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.