E127: Unconditional Well-Being — The Practice of Non-Closing

Michael Singer: Jai guru dev, jai masters. When it comes down to it, all the spirituality. It’s about the same thing. We make it so complicated. So many rules, so many concepts, views, opinions, beliefs, preferences, hopes, dreams, rights, wrongs. Oh my God. No wonder you’re drowning when it comes down to one word. Shakti, if you don’t know what Shakti is, it’s not true.

Everybody knows what Shakti is. They just don’t pay attention to what’s going on. So for example, have you noticed that if something very exciting, preferred, desired, expected takes place, you get happy? Anyone knows that? If you notice, if something happens that isn’t what you want, it isn’t what you expected, doesn’t give you what you’re looking for, that you go anywhere from not being happy to being disappointed to being depressed.

Have you noticed some points in your life? Okay, well that’s a nice thing to notice. I wonder which one you prefer. That in one tiny moment of understanding, explained your whole life and everybody else’s life, that’s why every single thing in this world and you complain about it all is the way it is. Why?

’cause everybody feels that way. They get enthused, turned on excited. Love energy, upward energy when they get what they want and they get down depressed low when what they don’t want happens or when they don’t get what they want. As such an easy thing to understand. Nobody doesn’t understand that. Here’s how it gets complicated.

No. Two of you want the same thing. I don’t care what you’re telling me. No. Two of you want the same thing. You may tell people you want the same thing ’cause you’re trying to get what you want from them. But in couples, in relationships and jobs and finances and everything, nobody. Looks at it ex, I mean, for maybe one thing they’ll look at the same, but not the whole thing.

Nobody looks at the same as everybody else. Now, I have tried to explain that to you over and over and over again. How do I know that’s true? What, right? Do I have to sit here and say that no two of you wants the same thing? I can go to Rush and say, no, two of you want the same thing. I go, China, no. Two of you want the same thing, period.

Whoa. That’s a pretty bold statement, isn’t it? And I know it to be the truth. I know. It is absolutely a fact. Why you don’t look at what you want, you look at why you want it. Why’d you decide what you want? Why’d you decide what you don’t want? We all agree that if you’ve already decided and you get it, ah, whoopy whoopy.

If you decide and you get disappointed and you don’t like it, alright? The base is to get to the root. Doesn’t a Buddhist say work at the root? The root is. How did you decide what will turn you on and what will turn you off? I understand if it turns you on, you want it. It’s, it doesn’t take Einstein to figure that out or Freud does it, and if it turns you off, you don’t want it.

So how come people can’t get along? Because no two people want and don’t want the same thing. How do you know you have experiences during your life? How many, every single nanosecond of your life you’re having experiences, inner experiences, thoughts, emotions, outer experiences, I can’t list them all to too many.

How many experiences can you have? You know how many? You can have one at a given moment. You can have one experience. Well, why can’t I have them all? I’m sorry. I’m not gonna answer you. You can’t have them all. You can have one pick an ice cream. You can only have one flavor at a time. So your experiences happen and you experience them and to make a long story, short experiences come in and they program you this experience of you coming up to me and telling me I’m the greatest person I ever walked the face of the earth.

You’ve always loved me since kindergarten is a really nice experience, unless my wife is standing right next to me. When you do that, things feel different. Don’t they? And depending on how they feel when they come in, they program you, program you. How if the person who came up to me there was no spouse and said something like that, and if I happen to like them, next time I see them, I get excited.

That’s not a natural impulse, that’s not God. Given you’re programmed by the experience that you had in the past. If it was pleasant, I guarantee you wanna have it Again. If it was unpleasant, I guarantee you don’t wanna have it again. So now you understand that because every one of you has a different experience, every single moment of your entire life.

No two people have ever had the same experiences. I mean, at a moment they do, but not the sequence of experiences. Who has ever experienced everything you experienced? Who that ever lived or ever will has experienced everything. Exactly. You’ve experienced it. Obviously nobody, therefore your program uniquely because of the experience you had.

And then you take them with you into your next moment, the next moment, the next moment. And you build this concept within your head of, these are the ones I like and these I don’t like. And if I don’t like ’em, I don’t want to happen again. So much so that if I even remember that I had the experience, I don’t like I get upset.

It doesn’t have time again, does it? And if I think about, or dream about some experience I had in the past and it was pleasant. It turns me on. I wanna, it reminds me of how much I liked it and I looking around. That’s it. I’ve taught you every single thing you ever need to know. The next time you sit there and say, how could you do that to me, the answer’s very simple.

I didn’t have the same experience as you. It seemed perfectly reasonable to me to say what I said to you. You were brought up one way, and right or wrong, how can your politics be the way? How could you think like that? You can’t possibly think like that. Wanna bet? How much do you wanna bet? There I have communicated something.

Now let’s do what you wanna do, but who’s right? That’s ridiculous. You’re programmed by the experience. If you grew up in a neighborhood where there was a lot of guns and shooting and different things, you don’t freak out if you see a gun. You grew up a knob hill, who’s right? You can make up whatever you want.

It’s not about right or wrong now. I mean, some are more sociable, most are more comfortable. I’m not questioning that. I’m just saying psychology says that man is the sum of his learned experiences. You’ve heard that first, it’s not true. You are the consciousness that is noticing that. What you’re looking at is the summary learned experiences.

Are you aware that you like things and don’t like things? Who’s aware? There’s somebody in there that’s aware of what’s going on in there? The trouble is they’re so devoted to it that they don’t hang out with the one who’s aware that hey, or the one who wants it. Whoever wants it to happen again and doesn’t wanna happen again.

’cause you don’t stop with being programmed by what you want and don’t want. That’s silly. Why would I just, okay. I know what I want and don’t want, but I don’t do anything about it. No way in the world I’m gonna go out and do every single thing I can to make it happen. Aren’t I? If I love you and you don’t love me and I’m really attracted to you, I don’t think I’ll just sit there and think I’ll do things like rent a Ferrari to pick you up or a Tesla, whatever I think will turn you on.

And so I, and I’ll go out there and try to make things happen, which things the ones I want, and try to make things not happen. The ones they don’t want. Who’s guilty? Anybody. I’m telling you, it explains your entire life. That is what you have done your entire life. And if you’re not careful, that is what you will do your entire life.

Try to get what you want and avoid what you don’t want. I waited said, how did you decide what you want? Past experiences. You did not make this stuff up, but I didn’t have the experience. I whole movie experience, read a book, experience. I heard music experience. Their experiences that you’re having in the moment and then you carry them forward, you store them inside of your mind and your heart.

Both. They affect your heart, don’t they? Okay. Just think about someone who you’re in love with when you were in, in, in junior high school and you’re 62 now. You can feel that love again, can’t you? We do that, don’t we? We try to recreate the things that made us feel good and make sure that don’t happen. We don’t make feel good.

Alright? That alone makes you so busy. Pay attention. You now have to think, okay, this is what I want. Trouble is just competing things. There’s different things that turned on. Things turned you off. Oh my God, I have to do this thing called, oh, you have so much trouble with this word. Decide there’s nothing to decide.

The world is unfolding. There’s atoms, subatomic particles that are creating every single thing you look at, and you’re trying to decide what you want to happen. Okay. Like the deep teachings are, the world is a, an amazing place. There’s stars and moves and galaxies and it’s so big and you’re, you’re thinking land landline, and you think not just what do I want?

How do I make it happen? And then you’re got neurotic. You go neurotic, right? I’m not sure what I, how you have trouble with decisions. What does that mean? I’m not sure what I want. I’m not sure what I don’t want. Second, okay. I decided this is what I want. I wanna get into this college. I want this type of job.

This is what I want. Great. You have to worry about or think about it anymore, right? How do I make it happen? It’s not enough to decide what I want. Then you sit there and try to figure out, how can I make this happen? You’re doing that all the time. All the time, every minute. What I wanna do tonight, what are you asking?

What will turn me on? I don’t wanna do that. Why? Last time I, I didn’t like the dinner. I don’t wanna go there ever again. It’s totally unreasonable. It’s just random things are happening and that happened to hit you a certain way. If before the person talked to you, their father had died, they’re not gonna be the same person as if they just got married.

You think your first impression is so important? It’s meaningless. Do you see why I say that? He says, whatever happens to it just happened. You meet this person and you’re also in a bad mood. They’re in a good mood. I don’t know. It is so stupid. I don’t call it complicated. It’s stupid. Yet you devote yourself to it.

You devote yourself to whatever impressions got left from the moment that unfolded in front of you. I want him to happen again. I wanna happen again. How do I make that happen again? Why can’t I have my way? Why does that have to be his way? You get crazy. Spirituality is simple. It cuts through all of that.

Why? You have to go deeper. What does deeper mean? Why do you feel turned on about something? What does it mean to be turned on and turned off? You do get turned on and turned off, don’t you? I’m telling you a one word, Shakti. What is that? There is energy inside of you. That’s why sometimes it comes up and sometimes it doesn’t.

Sometimes you have that energy. I fell in love. I got the job I wanted. What is that? That’s this energy. This energy’s flowing. I’m high. I feel high. I just, I’m so excited and enthusiasm, excitement. Shakti, it’s energy. Einstein said it was all energy. He’s right, but it’s a subtler energy than he was talking about.

Okay, there is energy inside of you. Is there not? Well, people say, well, no, it’s ’cause of the food I eat really. I, you know the story I tell an unt, tell the soul you’re dating somebody, you’re in love with ’em, and they break up with you and they dump you, and now you’re all depressed. You don’t wanna get bed, you just can’t even talking nothing or showering a mess.

It’s been like that for weeks. Phone rings. He didn’t wanna answer it to phone. Okay. Oh, I’ll answer that. And it’s her or him. Hello. Oh, please don’t hang up. Right? That’s what she’s saying to you. Please don’t hang up. I am so sorry. The biggest mistake I ever remember in my whole life was leaving you. I didn’t realize how much I love you until you weren’t here.

And then I started realizing no one comes close. Oh, how you doing? Answer me. Feel a little energy. Phil with me, yes or no? You weren’t even able to wake up. You laid in bed the whole time and all of a sudden I say, she says to you, can I come over? I wanna apologize. Please let me come over. You are outta that bed in the shower cleaning everything up.

You talked all night. Yes or no. That was not the fuge. The pizza didn’t do that. What did that you opened? Yeah, use that word, don’t you? I feel very open. I’m open. That’s exactly the right word. Open to what? The flow of Shakti. You’re open to the fact that there is a natural energy inside of you every single moment, and you are either closing your heart or closing your mind so that you can’t feel it or you’re opening your heart and opening your mind.

What do you think love is? Oh, I know I might be romantic. Love is Shakti flowing through the fourth chakra. You feel it happen? Oh my God, my heart burst open. There’s energy in there, and if you open, you feel it. How fast can you close your heart when it was open? Somebody doesn’t do what you expecting them to do.

Somebody does what? You didn’t expect them. I didn’t think you would do that. My God, we’ve been dating for months. I, I didn’t even know you would even think like that. Oh my God. It took one second for your heart to close. Yes or no? Okay. This is what’s happening. I’m gonna whisper. All that’s happening is there’s this energy in there, and if you close your heart and your mind with me to close your mind, I don’t like him.

I don’t like what he said. I’m gonna think about, that’s a negative close thought. I like him a lot. I’m really glad he said. That’s an open thought. Which one feels better? And the same thing with your heart. I, I don’t, this doesn’t feel right. I don’t know. I don’t like the vibe at all. Right. Okay. Well, you’re not gonna open, you can protect yourself.

I don’t trust them. I don’t trust them. I don’t, I don’t. Okay. Versus you, the love of my life, I don’t care what money you have or don’t have, doesn’t matter to me. Yes or no? Okay, so there’s this thing called being open. There’s a thing called being closed. But what does it mean? It means there is a potential of this energy flow and when you open, it comes rushing up inside at one level or another.

And when you are closed, it does not, what does it mean to be depressed? You are so closed that your mind is saying, I’ll never be able to open. Nothing ever goes the way I want. This is terrible. Why should I even bother living? I don’t know if I want to. You’re not depressed. You’re looking at a closed heart.

You’re looking at a closed mind. You’re staring at the thing and wondering why you don’t feel good. And so you catch on that. It’s all about the Shakti flow. I’ve started there. Well, what do you mean there’s energy in there? First I told you, you do know about Shakti. There you have it. You deal with it every day.

I didn’t even mention the one that I never talked to you about. Therefore, you know what I’m talking about. Hey Jar, it’s a little bit of energy. It can change in a billionth of a second. You see a picture or a photo, somebody walks by. Whoa. There we go, man. Number one in Hit Parade. Why? It opens that chakra.

It opens your energy. Even though people, I don’t, can’t talk, I don’t like to talk about it, it’s ’cause it’s so funny. You know? I don’t like to talk about it ’cause you can’t handle it. You can’t handle the topic. You can’t handle anything about it. Why? Because it, it is just like, wow. All of a sudden, boom, all this energy going on, right?

And then you look, oh, who are you? Who, oh, I don’t, I wanna go home. Okay. You’re talking about the flow of the Shakti. What opens it? What opens your centers, your chakras, your center corner, whatever you want to, where the energy can come up and flow through. When it does, you feel wonderful. And it doesn’t always last.

Could be like a quick bonfire, gone one night stand, whatever the heck it is. Everybody knows what I’m talking about. You just won’t let me talk about it. Has it caused trouble in your life? What about food? I forget about that food. Can food turn on? Can you sit there and say, oh my God, this truck is unbelievable.

That ice cream is unbelievable. Can you keep eating it until you’re sick? Of course you do. You have to discipline yourself not to do it. Things turn you on and things turn you off. What does that mean? It means you open and therefore you can feel the energy. What if you’re sitting there eating the ice cream and you really like it a lot, and you’re sitting there talking, oh my God, how dark it is?

Really? That is a roach. That ice cream, how are you doing? Did it stay open? I wonder how long did it stay open? No, just kidding. It’s not a road, just chocolate. Please listen to me. You actually tolerate this. You live with this. You make decisions based on this. You do every single thing you can because of Shakti.

If it’s flowing, you go follow, do whatever, who nobody get into, right? If it’s not flowing, you run. You run tour, you run away from it. But nobody understands what they’re doing. They’re just like a machine. There’s like Skinner’s rats. They’re running after someone run away from something. So you wake up at some point and you, I want you to, I, I doubt this talk with you, but I would like it to.

I’m amazed how many people ride from all over the world, and in essence say, since I read The Untethered Soul, I understand what you’re talking about. My whole life has changed. Yeah, because you understand that it’s about the shocks. I didn’t have to use the word. You understand that you’re chasing an energy that’s inside of you, but it’s conditional.

It’s depends on what’s happening outside. For you to feel that energy of energy you catch on and say, no, it’s not. It’s all going on inside. You’re the one who closes and open. There’s no doors out there. Go close your heart. How do you feel? Open your heart. How do you feel? So you just come to the point, you understand, oh, goodness me, there’s this energy in here.

And it feels really good when I feel it, doesn’t it? How about I here? I’m be really bad. You hear me talk non romantically, but it really is romantic. You don’t think so? Ready? Okay. When you say, I love you to somebody, I love you so much. You lied. No, I really do. No, you do not. You love the feeling you feel in their presence.

Take the feeling away inside and see what you say to them. I’m bored, I’m gonna find somebody else. That is not what I expected from life. What you love is the experience you’re having inside. When the Shakti’s flowing, is it okay if I tell you that? So it’s very honest and beautiful to say I love what I feel in your presence.

That’s beautiful. I mean, it’s still conditional. ’cause you’re kind of saying, I won’t feel if you’re not my presence. I want you to get past all of it. Let’s get straight where I want you to go. Right, Freddy, I wake up in the morning. Hi. I’m back. What are you gonna do? I don’t care. I’m gonna do something.

I’ll take a shower. Why not? It is fun. The water falls over you and you’re that way every single moment, every day of your life, and it will never change there. How about if I want that for you, unconditional wellbeing. That’s spirituality. Unconditional wellbeing is not dependent upon anyone or anything.

It is just there inside of you, flowing inside of you, and it only stops when you stop it. Well, if I get sick, how can I feel that? It has nothing to do with being sick. Sick is going on down there, the energy’s coming up here, What if I have a relationship that’s not working out so well have fun. Enjoy trying to make it work.

Enjoy your life. Will you please? You’ve dropped down on a planet. I always tell you this, I’m sorry. I get in trouble for using it all the time. 1.3 million Planet Earths fit inside the sun and you’re freaking out of what’s going on at the particular spot where you are at that moment. Well, maybe that’s silly.

Maybe we could take the attitude, Hey, this is a nice place, but like what he said. So what I told you, you know how to get around what you don’t like, what people say. There’s a little knob in there. There’s really not a little knob in there. And if you turn it. It changes languages. Alright, now say what he or she said, but turn the dial to a language you don’t speak.

Okay. It doesn’t matter, does it? It’s just noise. It’s just a sound passing through the the air. Okay. Well what if you go to France and you don’t speak French, but French. French, a very beautiful language melody, audition. There’s a beauty to it. I don’t know if you’ve ever noticed that. Right? So you just sit there and say to whatever the person says to you in French.

You say, gosh, melts my heart. Well, they told you something really nasty. It sounded really nice. Wake up, you are doing this. You are deciding to close. You are deciding to open. And now when you’re being silly, you’re saying, okay, I like when I’m open. I don’t like when I’m closed. Now I have to figure out how to get open.

I have to figure out how to stay open. I figure how to trust everybody. I have to figure out how to not have things happen that I don’t want. Now. You’re so busy, you’ll never be open. All you’ll do is worry and be neurotic. Oh, once in a while you’ll be open. It doesn’t, not very often is it. Why not sit there and say, why don’t I just stay open?

Who said, I can’t stay open. Who said that? I can’t be in a relationship? And there’s some issues going on, and you see it as fun. There’s a challenge. Doesn’t mean you’re giggling, right? But it’s like, wow, these relationship things are fun. Okay? There’s different things going on and they may work out, they may not work out, but boy, am I gonna learn stuff?

Am I gonna be a better person for having gone through this? Why can’t you say that? And we all talk a little bit later about why you can’t. But the truth is there’s no reason you can’t, there’s no reason you can’t enjoy your life on this planet. Would you rather go to Mars? There’s nothing going on but dust.

I’m just still here. I have a good time. But the net result is. You can’t have a good time here. Why? Because you were programmed by your past experiences and some of them didn’t feel good, and you didn’t know how to deal with that, so you stored them. Did you know that you store every single bad experience you ever had inside of your heart and your mind?

Did you know that? Isn’t that a funny thing to know? I had a bad experience. I ain’t letting this thing go. This thing will come back up the rest of my life when I’m sleeping. You look like my mother. No, no. I don’t look anything like your mother. Yeah. You do your lips and your nose and your eyes. I don’t know.

I say, look how you looked at me. Mother used to look at me like that. I’m sure she did. It just keeps coming back up, doesn’t it? And then you have to do everything you can to not stimulate the stuff that bothered you before. And how do you do that? I, I can’t even think about it. It’s absolutely ridiculous.

Don’t you go out of your way to not have bad things happen? How did you decide what’s bad? Why don’t you just sit there and say Things happen. Things happen, they unfold. Sometimes they feel good, sometimes they don’t. Is that okay with you? A great being doesn’t always have nice experiences. They just enjoy and work with and accept and honor and respect the experiences they had.

So you just stop being afraid. It’s all about fear, isn’t it? I’m afraid to get hurt. Oh, can we analyze that? What does it mean? What does it mean to get hurt? I’ll tell you what it means. Listen to me. There is the Shakti flow. I thought that was nice. It’s nice when it’s not blocked. It’s not nice when it’s blocked.

What do you mean it’s trying to come up? Always, always Shakti’s. Always trying to come up. And your heart is closed. Why? ’cause you stored that stuff in there. That’s the only thing you can close your heart is the stuff you stored in there from before you kept it in there. So now as Shakti comes up and guess what it does?

It hits that stuff. Well what? What causes rapids? Water hitting rocks and water flying. It’s like you just cause a disturbance. Because the energy can’t flow. It hits the blockages. That’s what tell you. You don’t want to hear it. That’s what your emotions are. Ever figure, emotions shoot out. That’s what your emotions are.

They’re the energy hitting the blockages and then trying to get past and shooting out and going all around and all kinds of stuff. I, I always wanna talk about this and I don’t wanna talk about it ’cause I know you don’t wanna hear what happens if you’re in a relationship with somebody. You’re very close.

Somebody, something happens and they’re not there anymore. You don’t feel good. You feel lost. You feel say dying. Somebody’s been with a long time, they die. You feel a lost, don’t you? You feel hollow. Could you describe all the feelings that go on in your heart during that time? Sorrow loss, sadness, all this emotions come up and do this.

And they’re not, they don’t feel good, but that’s what they are. Do you know what they are? The fact that when you connected with that person, listen to me. What does that mean? We connected, you did literally connect. The energy that came up inside of you because they were so special and beautiful and all the nice things about it, managed to open your heart at least to that level.

You know there’s higher chakras, wrong going there. It opened to that level and did what you connected with that person. Your energy flowed out of your heart into theirs. Ever feel that? Ever feel sitting there with someone you really love a lot and you can’t even talk. You just both sit there and stare at each other ’cause it’s just so warm and beautiful.

And I didn’t want to talk. I wanna do anything. I hope the answer’s yes at least once in your life. You could cut it with a knife. What the energy flowing between you, it literally is flowing between you. The same energy that comes up as Shakti is flowing out through your heart and connecting to them. And then what happens is when it’s missing, it has to readjust.

The energy has to readjust. And some people can’t let it readjust. They say things like, no, I’ll never be the same. No, no, no. That was my one love. That’s not true. You’re filled with love, you’re filled with joy, you’re filled with Shakti. The problem is it’s conditional and it was conditioned upon this person being there and behaving.

You’re used to seeing them all the time, and now I don’t see them. So yes, it has to adjust. No saying it’s gonna instantaneously be fine. It has to go through a period of adjustment. In the Jewish tradition, they have, I think it’s seven days of Shiva. Seven days of Shiva, right? Yeah. You sit Shiva. Well, why do they do that?

Some of these traditions have meaning. It basically says you’re going to feel this loss. Your energy, your heart, your mind is going to have trouble because there was a break in the relationship of what you used to have. Give it some time, let it work through. Let friends come and visit. Be yourself.

Whatever you need. All right? But then let it go. Why? It’s the rest of your life. It’s not true. You’ll never be okay the rest of your life. You’re in here. You’re a conscious being. You’re whole and complete within yourself. Yes, a connection got made. It doesn’t feel when it gets broken, but that doesn’t mean you reinforce it by saying I’ll never be okay for the rest of my life.

That was the one love of my life. I’m talking tough with you guys. But do you understand it’s all Shakti. Every single thing we’re talking about is understanding the energy flow. Chinese, they call it Qi when the energy comes into the system and flows alright, but yoga, we call it Shakti. And so a wise person took, make a long story short.

I don’t wanna make it short. I want you to get it. Alright. A wise person says, you know. I know what it feels like to be open. You know what? I like it. Okay, good. Should I renounce it? No, you should not renounce it. That’s not spiritual to renounce the beauty of your openness. But what should I do? Try to make it happen again.

I guarantee you, if you try to make it happen again, it will not. Go to a restaurant and have everything exactly right. The music is right. The people that are in there are right. You came with just the right people. The specials for the evening were exactly right. Don’t go back ’cause you have an expectation.

You didn’t have that expectation when you were the first time. Everything was a surprise. You were open to everything. Now you want it to be the same as it was. You can’t win that way. By trying to make what happened before that made you feel good happen again. Even in relationships, people say, yeah, we used to be madly in love.

Now we’re very close friends. You should be friends. That’s wonderful. You should also be madly in love. All you have to do is be open. Yeah, but you know, we had the kids and they had problems, and then we had the financial, remember we had those financial problems and by the time we went through all that kind of stuff, it’s like, yeah, we get along and we’re staying together because of the kids.

And you think that’s okay? Yeah, it’s okay if you wanna be human. I don’t want you to be human. You are a being of great energy. That’s what you are. And you know it ’cause you have time in your life. You have felt God, you’ve felt like the, okay. How hard is it to have the following experience at some points in your life?

I was driving down the road and it was just, my mind was talking. I was going through my stuff and worrying about stuff, and I turned the corner. OMG. Beautiful. Oh, the colors of the sunset. I’ve never seen such a thing. It touched me through the depth of my being. I swear I felt like it was in their presence of God ever had such an experience.

How many times you have five fingers? I, but you don’t need ’em all. How about it should always be like that. Period. Why was it like that then? ’cause it surprised you. All the garbage that you were busy with, that you stored tide your mind about what you like and what you don’t like, what you want to happen, and what happened yesterday and why did he say that and what am I gonna do if this happens?

It went away because it was so shocking. It was so, change your chakra open, the center’s open and you felt all this energy shoot up. Don’t worry, it’s not gonna last. You know what your action would be. Look at that house on the corner. It’s for sale. Maybe we could buy it and I could have experience all the time.

Don’t bother. Don’t kid yourself. Unless you learn to stay open, you’re not going to stay open. That experience that opened you, including relationships, love at first sight. It’s a wonderful thing. Does it happen? Of course it happens. Does it last? You hear me? You have to of some point say it’s not about the sunset, it’s not about the person, it’s not about the job.

Those are one of, don’t renounce, don’t, don’t even think about it. But it’s not about those, it’s about the effect those had on your openness. And so you sit there and say, okay, I’m gonna find a job that makes me open. It’s not gonna always open you. Some boss is gonna give you something to do. You don’t wanna do, someone gonna to criticize what you did when you thought you did fine, and all of a sudden it’s not so much fun anymore.

You did that. The boss did not do that. The coworker did not do that. The spouse did not do that. The lover did not do that. You are in here doing that opening and closing based upon your past experiences. So what does that mean? Well, it depends on what you want. If you wanna go out there and work your butt off and try to get what you want, have fun.

’cause it doesn’t last does it? Come on. When’s the last time you got what you wanted and you never wanted anything else? It is like that hamster running on that cage. I’m getting there. I’ll get there. I’ll get there. No you won’t. Well, guess there is no there. ’cause what you’re telling me is if every single thing opens me, I’ll be fine.

It’s not going to open you. You have all these past experiences that taught you how to close and even if it did open you right. I, you know, I went through degrees in economics. You don’t know that about me. There’s a law in economics. It’s called the Law of Diminishing Returns. Ever heard of it? Yeah. It’s an economic law.

You go to go to school, economics business, you learn the law of diminishing returns. That might tell you something. The law of diminishing returns. The more you get something, the less you care about it. Maybe you know something about that. You’re fighting reality, and so you sit there and say, it’s not about getting what I want.

It’s not about avoiding what I don’t want and all the work it takes to get what I want and all the work it takes to not get what I don’t want. You understand that that alone will wear you out. What’s it about? Could it be about staying open, not having something outside of you open you? The openness is inside.

Your heart is inside. Your mind is in. Are your thoughts inside? Are your emotions inside? Okay. Well, why don’t we work with those directly? Why don’t we sit there and understand that there’s such a thing as opening your heart. There’s such a thing, right? You’ve not had a chant door of my heart open. What I keep for the, he won’t get mad at me, but here’s the real chant door of my heart.

I took it off the hinges. There isn’t a door anymore. That’s what I want from you. Unconditional, unconditional wellbeing. Rumi had a saying. I won’t get it exactly right, but basically, right. He said, it is not for you to seek love. It is for you to seek and find all the obstacles you have put in her place.

That’s a totally different game in it. I’m not looking for something to make me feel love. I’m looking why I don’t feel love. And you’ll find it. Believe me, you would have any trouble every single day of your life finding out why you don’t feel love. All the time you judge everybody, they’re not the way you want.

They didn’t look the way you want. Oh my God. They got older, they got gray hairs on. What? What are you doing? You’re sitting there saying, I don’t wanna feel love unconditionally. I got all these conditions. What if you didn’t have all those conditions? Okay, now I’ll be you, but I do because you’re programmed.

You can release that programming. You can break habits, can’t you? You can stop drinking. You stop doing drugs, you can stop yelling. You have things you can learn to do. How about learning to stay open? That’s the ultimate. Somebody once said to me, when I give a talk of this, I don’t understand. How do I stay open?

Ready? Are you ready? Don’t close. And you laugh as hard as you want, and you’re gonna find out that is the only way to stay open. If I tell you, open right now open, you don’t even know what to do. Where’s the handle? All right. But I say I’m talking to you. Don’t close. You can feel yourself starting to close, can’t you?

You feel that tension. You feel that pushing away, resisting, closing, let go. Now we’ll get down to what works. We talked about the whole time what doesn’t work. All right? What works. You are here in the world. Someone’s talking to you, having a conversation, and you’re closing. I don’t, why are you closing? I don’t like what they’re saying.

I believe what they’re saying. I don’t trust them. And you close. Why would you close to protect myself there? I said it. I closed to protect myself. Well. Maybe if I don’t protect myself, the risk of not protecting myself is worth the love that I feel unconditionally. ’cause I’m telling you, if you’re busy and protecting yourself, protecting your heart, protecting your thoughts, protecting your beliefs, your hopes, your dreams, your constantly views, you can’t going anywhere else ’cause nobody’s the same as you.

I told you that every person you meet had totally different experiences when they showed up. They’re not gonna match your expectations. Why do you think relationship is so hard? That’s why relationship is so hard. ’cause you expect somebody else to be like you. How can you, they had totally different experience.

How many experiences did they have before they met you? But they didn’t count. They programmed you. So now just because you ships happen to cross right now and they’re kind of getting along, you’re not gonna stay that way. Why would it? Next thing you know, you mention their mother, they get weird. Well, you never told me about that thing that happened to you.

I didn’t tell you about 700 million things that happened to me. ’cause every single second, something that happened to me before I met you, right or wrong, and eventually you catch on. You know you’re not the same as me. And guess what? I’m staying open. I’m staying open. In fact, not only am I staying open.

I’m going to use my relationship with you to practice being open, but what if they, this person does something I don’t like, let it go. Why would I let it go so he can stay open? Uh oh. You’re starting to understand, right? What? What do you mean? Which would you rather have that the person behaves the way you want them to, or that you feel love all the time?

Because I know which one I’ll choose. I’m gonna handle whatever happens. It’s not easy, but the process of handling it is your teacher. I’m learning how to stay open. I had the tendency to close. I didn’t like what you said. You’re not going to talk to me like that. What if I sit there and say, I took a vow.

I’m gonna close. I’m not gonna close to the best of my ability. What is the purpose of closing? So I don’t feel love, but what if I don’t close and I feel love and they take advantage of me? Well, if you define what you wanted, was love constantly flowing inside of you into you’re a state of complete divine ecstasy.

How exactly do they take advantage of you? This is how a great being thinks it. It’s not how humans think, but you sit there and say, if I wanna feel love all the time, if I wanna feel excitement and enthusiasm and everything all the time, I can’t close. ’cause anything I close about, by definition, I’m not open and it’s not very easy to open.

Again. It takes one second to close and it could take lifetimes to let that thing go. You’re closed over, I forgive you, but don’t you ever do it again. Well then you didn’t forgive them, and three years later you told me you weren’t gonna do that again. And here you are doing it. You never forgave them.

You never let it go. You kept it story, oh, you letting me talk like this? You better stop me. Does anyone understand? It means you stored it. You did not let it go. What does it mean to let it go? They asked normal Kris. Great master, great enlightened master. I remember I was in the twenties, I reading his life story and I was shocked Later when I heard this question that got asked him.

In the answer they said, master, and he was a master, enlightened master. Does an enlightened master ever feel anger? And guess what the answer was? Yes, but it’s like writing on water. As the energy comes up, it passes right through. If you write on water, can you read it later? That’s what he’s talking about.

There’s nothing wrong with emotions. There’s nothing wrong with thoughts. There’s something wrong with clinging to them and building an ego in a house inside of you that says it has to be this way for me to be okay. You understand that? You’re sitting there owning these things that you couldn’t handle.

So you, you learn to not do that how you practice. You don’t just start by saying, well, if my husband dies, I’ve been married for 50 years, okay, no, that’s not gonna happen. And even if I teach you that really what you’re feeling is a loss of connection, it’s still is overwhelming for you. So what do you do?

You take something simpler. I swear to you, this is the path. You take something in everyday life, like it’s raining out and I don’t want it to be raining. It’s raining out and I don’t wanna get wet. I don’t wanna get out. Okay, how about we work with that instead of death of the loved one? How about we sit there and say, I bet I could’ve learned to handle that.

I bet I could probably not close over the fact that when I’m getting in my car, how do I get the umbrella into the door without it all getting wet? Right. Okay. How about if I make it fun? How do I sit there and say, I like the rain. I like it. It’s really neat and I like trying to get the umbrella. They make umbrellas now.

I tried it once. It doesn’t really work that well, that close the other way. You ever seen ’em, right? They just close out that way. When you close ’em, they’re thin instead of big, that what they do is collect water and then you pour into your car. Don’t believe them. It doesn’t work. But have fun. Have fun.

What the heck’s the difference? If you get wet, you get wet every morning in the shower, you start changing the way you look at things. Why? So I can learn to stay open. If I sat there and it was raining in my rain, I don’t like it. Plus it’s my birthday. Why is there no rain on My birthday always rains on my birthday.

It doesn’t know it’s your birthday. You stop that. Crazy mic you’re doing with your head. You sit there and say, I love the rain. I love getting wet. I love trying to figure out how to get the umbrella into the car. It is just so much fun. All right. And you just start playing with life with small things first.

The two examples I always use, everybody yells me if use the same example, I don’t care. One is the weather. It’s hot. Oh my God, it’s so hot. It’s almost be a hundred degrees out, right? Okay. How you doing? Terrible. Because of the weather. You are willing to give up the joy of life to be like that. About the weather I told you.

When I was young twenties, I was in my twenties. I moved out here to be alone. It didn’t work. Alright, and, and I had a VW van. It was a hippie and a VW camper, and it was not air conditioned and my house was not air conditioned, so it got hot out here in the summer. And he would be like that. One time I stopped him.

I’m encouraging you to do this. I just stopped him, said, Mickey, Mick. Hello, Mick. Hello in there. Hello. What’s the problem? He’s hot. Why is it hot? I swear this happened. Why is it hot? He said, ’cause the sun, the sun’s making it hot. I said, you call it the sun. What really is it? Mickey a star. I mean those things that twinkle out there at night, one of them is close enough to you that you’re complaining about the heat, and I ask him, I swear to God, I had this conversation with him and he never bothered me ever again, ever for the rest of my life.

I was like 23 years old. I said, how far away is that storm? Okay, 93 million miles. 93 million miles. How far away is Miami 360? If the entire city of Miami caught fire, it would not change the temperature. One degree up here. That thing is 93 million miles away. And why are you not just saying, how big must that thing be?

Why, how hot? It’s like, wow, that neat? And next time you stand up there and you, I do it every time. If I walk out, I feel that sun. I turn right toward it. I say it’s a star. If that star wasn’t shining and if it wasn’t raining, there’d be no protest in Publix. What exactly are you allowing yourself to close about?

And eventually you say nothing. I. There’s no reason to close and I don’t wanna close. I get to not close. How’s that? And you just escalate it little by little. Not fast. Don’t go fast. So we’re gonna start with the weather. Then we’ll start with the driver in front of you. I always talk about that, right?

Which one of you has ever talked to the driver in front of you? Come on buddy. Look at the speed limits. 10 miles. What are you doing? Why do you keep turning your blinker on? Why didn’t you turn your blinker on? Nice blinker, buddy. Like, no one’s hearing you. What are you doing? You’re closing and you don’t feel good about it, by the way.

And so you just wake up and you start practicing being open. I swear that’s all this path is about. If you do this, wait to see what happens. Then all of a sudden you can handle the sun. You can handle the heat, you can handle the rain. Then you can have somebody saying something. Somebody says something to me and I wasn’t sure what they meant, but I’m not sure I like it.

Why don’t you just like it? You don’t even know what they meant. Just say, oh, that’s neat. I’m glad they said that. Who said you can’t do that? We executive orders nowadays for everything. I’m giving you an executive order. You are allowed to stay open. You are allowed to sit there and say, I’m not sure what they meant.

So all thing is nice. I’m glad they said it. In fact, I know what they said. I love it. Learn to stay open and you will start to practice and practice and practice and wait till you see what happens. Like I said, they write me from all over the world saying, I practiced the teachings. I am so happy. I’ve changed.

My whole life has changed. My relationship changed. Of course it has. You stopped closing. That’s all the teaching, by the way, is stop closing. How the net result is, the only thing you need to do is to decide, I am not gonna close. I ain’t like that, but what if it hurts? You do your best, but what if I don’t succeed?

You try again. It’s like learning a sport. First time you pick up a tennis racket or a ball, you, you hit the net, didn’t you? Okay. You’d get it right. Play the piano you never played before. You start with the scales. Practice being open exactly the same as you practice an instrument or practice a sport.

This is a sport. Practice being open. I dare you. Well, what happens if I do that? Okay, I’ll give you one minute, A one minute course on getting high. If you do that, your energy will flow up more. Why? ’cause I didn’t close. Well then what? Then it’ll flow more. Why? ’cause I didn’t close. They’ll flow up even more.

Why I didn’t close? Then it will start flowing up so much that you can’t stop it. It will start flowing up so much that all day you just feel this rush. In the Bible, they call it the rush of holy waters. Okay? That’s what they’re talking about, this energy rushing up inside of you. Right? It’s funny to talk about.

I’m nice Jewish yogi in, and the Bible’s teachings are really beautiful and the Bible Christ said. Man does not live bread, bread alone, but by every word that leaves the mouth of God. It means you get some stuff from outside. Somebody turns on, they say some nice stuff. Bread. There is a natural energy, but by every word that leave with the mouth of God, that’s a shakti.

And living off of that. And it just keeps going up and eventually it won’t stop. It could stop if you close it. Alright? But you’d be stupid too. And then what? For whatever. It keeps flowing up and you feel joy all the time, no matter what happens, alright? Then you have no trouble going back down. You have no trouble going down.

You can handle life, you can handle all kinds of things. Well, then what happens? Then it gets even higher. Well, fine. Then what happens? Then it gets so high that you can’t handle it. Now. Yeah, we can’t handle the down stuff. How would you like to not handle the high stuff? Some of you by the way, can’t handle love at that level.

Do you get scared to death? No. No, no. I gotta go slower. I, okay, but this is, this keeps going up. You’re going up and eventually it challenges you. Who’s in there to let go? To let go of what everything to let go of your resistance, and at some point the great ones teach you that it breaks through and you merge.

Merge with what Your little drop of consciousness that’s experiencing all this falls back into my following ladder. One, you fall back into the high states. This is a very special path. You’re a very special being. You’re filled with light, filled with love, filled with joy, but you close so you learn to stop doing it.

How’s that? Will you do that for me? Are you willing to feel love and ecstasy for the rest of your life and then merge with God? Mayor BA said, my consciousness was like a drop of water. It fell into the ocean. Find it. Find a drop of water that fell into the ocean. You’ll never find it. It merged. That is what yoga means.

That’s what these high states are. Merger, oneness, union there that went from the bottom to the top. We took a big trip today. Alright.

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.