E147: The Voice in Your Head Is Not You

Michael Singer:  Jai guru dev, jai masters. At some point, and it will happen many times in your growth. So don’t complain that you think you’re going forward or backwards. You’re going to end up stepping back at least for a moment and looking at the absurdity that’s going on inside your mind.

The question is not, is it going on in there? Because it is going on in there when always it’s just talkie, talkie, talkie, talkie, talkie, right? Sometimes you lost in it. You love it, you need it, you want it, you worship it. It is your way through life to listen to that. Do you understand that? Should I do this?

Shouldn’t I do that? Why did I do that? Oh my gosh. Should I apologize? I just. The talk. Everybody got some? Okay. You reach so many stages as you grow. I certainly did. My first awakening was to notice that voice. It just happened. It just all of a sudden happened one day back in, what was it? 19 68, 69. Heck knows something, and I just noticed that there’s this voice talk inside my head.

I knew it was always there, but somehow I’d never noticed. You just get so distracted by it, so involved in it that it’s you. It’s you thinking, it’s you talking, it’s you making decisions. It’s you angsting, it’s you worrying, it’s you. That’s you. But something happened. There’s just Master’s, grace, whatever, and I don’t know nothing about Masters or God at the time.

Believe me, I had a nice hippie living in Gainesville going to college in the sixties, and so I just popped out. That’s all. Window, no fanfare, noise, things just boom. Somebody’s watching who didn’t use, used to be there watching, but you always knew you were there watching, but you knew that you had gotten too close.

You got involved too much. So that’s a very important stage of your path, and you wouldn’t be here if you had not experienced at least some understanding. That all that talk that’s going on in your mind is not you, that you’re the one that’s aware of the talk. So that becomes really your lifelong journey.

Meditate all you want, go whatever you want. When it’s all said and done, that thing’s in there talking not as much, maybe more positive, not as disturbed, but go meditate and get really quiet. Then come out and see what happens. God, I went so deep. I was, who the hell’s that? I know? I went deep. Why does that have to tell me?

I went deep. And more likely what it says is, I wonder if it’ll happen again. I want it to happen again. How do I make it happen again? Well, that’s happening. You more happen again. Do you hear me? It’s just a solid talk we’re having and so eventually I’m talking about you learn how to work with that voice.

You go through so many stages. Me, it was so. Comfortable watching it instead of being it, it like took all my problems away ’cause it was my problem. I didn’t have any problems. It had a problem with what was happening. I didn’t right, but it made sure I knew it didn’t like it. You understand that? Or that it didn’t like it.

It was very clear about what it wanted and so on. And at first, I’ll share with you, I, I share this in the surrender experiment. I am very serious about this, right? Right from the beginning that thing’s gotta shut up. That’s what has to happen. I was rational. There was no reason for it to be talking. I already experienced what it was talking about.

Why don’t I just deal with the experience I’m having? Why do I need to tell me? Oh, I don’t like what she said. I really don’t like what she said. I know. I don’t like what she said because I’m in here and I notice it. Why don’t you just shut up. Ever feel that way about it? Okay. Well, I’m here to share with you.

55 years later at least, maybe more. Okay. And so it was all about shutting it up. I want that thing to shut up, period. I, it was passion. I want that thing to shut up. I don’t care what it takes or what it is. Well, what you don’t realize is if you’re trying to shut it up, you’re suppressing it, period. There is no trying to shut it off without pushing it away.

And that is a stage in your journey. You can push it away. You can make it not be making the noise, but that is very shallow in, in your path. You’re gonna find out that cannot possibly work. Why? ’cause there’s a reason. There’s a big, great breakthrough. There’s a reason that it’s talking. And if you push away the reason instead of deal with the reason.

It’s not gonna stop. It’ll come back up in your dreams. It’ll all of a sudden come back up. ’cause somebody does something that’s beyond what you could handle. Oh, I thought I was doing well. But then when she, do you understand that when my dog died, or when this happened or that happened, or when I got sick, I was in the hospital.

That that was it. It just, it just wouldn’t, couldn’t handle that. It just talked about it doesn’t, like, it’s not fair, not just, and it, it has something to say about it and it’s very hard to make it shut up. When it wants to talk. Okay. And, but the, the act of trying to make it shut up is suppression. I don’t care what you wanna call it.

There’s a meditation, but meditation’s a lot deeper than that. Mine wasn’t. Mine was pushed this away and make it shut up, and I got very deep. But I got deep by pushing it down and eventually you realize it’s coming back up. There’s a reason it’s talking and unless you deal with that reason, you are gonna struggle with it.

You may have some deep spiritual experiences. But I’m telling you, you’re not staying there, but no way you’re standing there. What did Christ say? Don’t build your house on sand. That’s what you just did. You built your spiritual state by pushing away the party that you think is not spiritual. It doesn’t go away.

1. In truth, it just builds down there. It gets worse. That is not a spiritual path. Suppression is not a spiritual path. It may be that event has taken place and you’re really suffering or getting weird about it, and you need to push it down. You need to get some space. You need to breathe a little bit, okay?

That happens at various times in your path, but a wise person knows that is not the answer. That’s not real. That’s a temporary situation of being able to stay above it. Staying clear enough to let it settle down a little bit, but then you need to come back and deal with it. You can’t sit there and say, just don’t talk about that subject, and I’ll be okay.

You got some of those. Okay. It’s a sensitive subject. Why is there a sensitive subject? I. Life doesn’t seem to care. It does whatever it wants. It has storms and hurricanes and comes up with the sun, with all the houses blown away. The sun comes up the next day. Hi, you’re back. So what are you doing saying that if you push it away, it goes away or shouldn’t I?

My favorite is this. It’s not my fault that that voice was talking. It shouldn’t have happened. That was wrong. It shouldn’t have happened. Can we discuss that? Alright. Wait a minute. It actually happened or you wouldn’t be talking about it and the voice wouldn’t be talking about it. Do you understand that it happened?

So what do you mean it shouldn’t have happened? You wanna talk about mind, the absurdity of mind’s value system and judgment. It happened. Why did it happen? Because it happened. How’s that? It’s very zen. The water’s blue. The grass is green, and the flowers are red. That’s a great zen master. You’d come in to see them to, to go through their dick, show, whatever it’s called, right?

And you sit down and they say that to you gotta go home. Well, whatcha talking about go home. You didn’t teach me anything what I did. Flowers are red water’s, blue grass is green. That’s just the way it is, isn’t it? I don’t want it to be that way. Whoa, who did that? Where’d that come from? Who are you?

Things are what they are. The things that happen happen. I’m not talking about, don’t get weird, I’m not talking about that. You can’t affect them in the future, but you can affect them in the past. There’s no one that has ever changed the past, ever. So to sit there and say that shouldn’t have happened.

That’s just fuel for suffering. That’s fuel for making the voice talk. I’ll prove it to you. It shouldn’t happen. You don’t understand. Okay. You want me to listen? I’ll listen. But it still happened. And your value, judgment about it that it shouldn’t have happened or should have happened? Oh no. She should have gone with me, not him.

She would love me much more. I can’t believe she went with him. Okay, have fun. ’cause you won’t. So this concept of should have and shouldn’t have at some point when you step back is part of your growth. You say, whoa. Is that where a lot of this is coming from? Is that why the voice is talking all the time?

Because I’m allowing it to have something in their heart, into my heart and my past or something that’s saying that these things are wrong and these things are right, and these are not just, and these things shouldn’t have happened. I understand that. You can rationalize that and discuss that and be right, okay?

It doesn’t make it go away. It is never going away. That which already happened. Now don’t matter how much you don’t like it now, how unfair it is. It still happened, didn’t it? And you dealing with it with that voice in your head just makes the voice talk more. That’s what it talks about. It talks about the fact that I didn’t want that to happen.

Talk to the fact that that wasn’t fair. I don’t wanna get sick. Wait, I don’t wanna die. Okay. Have a little discussion with your mind about that. ’cause you’re gonna die right or wrong, right? You get to some deep stuff really quickly. And what we’re talking about again is it’s not about suppressing the discussion, it’s about finding out why it’s there and working with it At the root Buddhists say, work at the root.

That’s what they’re talking about. Okay. We’ve just had a very light discussion you’ll agree with to understand these are Buddhist teachings, the four noble truths of Buddha we just talked to you about. What do you mean? What did Buddha say? What’s the first noble truth? All life is suffering. Doesn’t mean you suffer every day.

You break your bones, right? But in there, you’re, you’re suffering, you’re struggling. Right or wrong. You’re struggling to have things be the way you want. Make sure you don’t have to do stuff that you don’t want, like you struggle. That’s what he means. All life is suffering. Let’s do it another way. Your general life is not about absolute transcendental peace.

How’s that there? Now you get it? Alright. What’s the opposite of that? Suffering. Okay. What’s the second noble truth It. Second noble truth is beginning and end of all spiritual teachings. Everything. You need nothing more. And it’s just a few words. Buddha is a man of very few words. All life is suffering.

Second noble truth. The cause of suffering is preference. Now it gets translated, and I purposely don’t use that translation as desire. You know that you’ve heard that the cause of suffering is desire because the way our western mind voiced, ticky, talky in the head thinks of desire as passion, lust, greed.

Okay, that’s the cause of suffering. No, he didn’t say that, but he say the cause of all commotion, all suffering, all inner disturbance is preference. What is a desire, something you want to happen or don’t want to happen? So preference is what’s underneath it. You have decided, I want this to happen. I have a desire about it.

You’ve decided I don’t want this to happen. I have a desire that it doesn’t happen. That’s what a preference is. It’s basically saying, I am in here, it’s out there. I get to decide what’s going on. Well, you don’t. Things go on out there, but inside you don’t have the ability to be comfortable. With what things that you prefer and things you don’t prefer.

If I understand I’m uncomfortable with things, I, I don’t prefer I get real weird about ’em. Do I worry about them happening? Yeah. There’s a nice thing for the voice to talk about. I have a preference. I’m afraid that it won’t happen. I have a very strong preference and something doesn’t happen. I worry about it.

There it is right there. You see it because you have a preference. You struggle. You worry. You try to make a preference, a positive preference thing you want, does it cause suffering? Lemme may answer your question ’cause you like to, you like to think it doesn’t. I have this tremendous preference. I’ve fallen in love with her.

Okay. Good luck. Why? Why is she talking to another guy? Where’d she go today? Are you jealous? Answer me. What is jealousy? A preference. You have a preference that she’s yours. He’s yours. Have a strong preference, but it’s right. Don’t talk about that. It’s something you’re doing inside yourself. Well, what if, but if you didn’t meet her, but if you never met her, well then there wouldn’t be this quotion going on.

But now that I have this preference, I’ve decided that’s my preference. I have a commotion. Do you have a commotion? When you like something, you want it? Does it cause a commotion? See, doesn’t matter if it’s a negative thing that you don’t want to happen. You got lots of commotion about that. Try to protect yourself from it.

Try to talk about why it shouldn’t. Oh my God, you write essays. This should never happen. It’s wrong. This shouldn’t have existed. Genghis Kahn was wrong. A terrible thing he did. Lemme tell you about it. Doesn’t matter. He did it. You wanna make a commotion about it. You wanna talk about how wrong it was and why it was wrong.

Have fun. ’cause it doesn’t change what happened. It’s like things are what they are. But if you sit there and you never heard of Genghis Kahan, are you bothered by it? No. What if you sit there and you think that it’s fascinating what happened in the past? You’re a pure historian. No judgment, no value, nothing, just, wow.

Look what happened then. You’re just fascinating. You don’t have a preference that it didn’t happen or that it happens again. You did not develop within your mind ’cause it’s all mine. Talkie. Talkie. You did not develop within your mind this system that said, this is what I want to happen or I don’t want to happen and I’m judging what happens.

Or even happened against my system. That’s what a preference is. Something you made up. Life does not have preferences. Life just happens. You get sick, you married, you get divorced. Things happen. You end up with twins. Why? Because you ended up with twins. Okay, everything happens. It just happens. Have you noticed life happens?

We can’t notice that life happens because we want to dictate what is supposed to happen, and they teach you that now, how you should attract yourself, what you want. How do I keep away what I don’t want? How do I get what I want? You know who told you what you want, what you don’t want? In your mind, I guarantee you that voice inside your head told you, this is what I want, is what I don’t want.

I teach it. It is to some of your learned experiences. You’ve had experience in the past. Some of ’em felt good, some of ’em felt bad. I wonder which one you want. No question about it is it? But she wants something different and she wants something different. And tomorrow you want something different. You learn one more thing and all of a sudden your preferences changed.

It’s just mine. It’s just something you’re making up in your mind. Okay. And then what you’re doing is projecting it out into reality. And reality doesn’t behave, does it? Have you noticed? Why is it raining on my birthday, had lots of days to rain. Why it have to rain on my birthday? It doesn’t know it’s your birthday, does it?

How dare you suffer over something stupid like that? And what you’ll notice is you do, and that’s all part of the dealing with that voice in your head that’s talking, right? Because like I said, periodically I hope you pop out and you notice. I’m listening to that. That’s kind of crazy. I watched a TV show and he is talking about it for the next three days.

Gimme a break. It says TV show or a movie, a sci-fi. I don’t know. Why are you talking about that? And the answer is because you are not comfortable in there. And you are taking things that happen and either saying, oh, I wish this would happen so you’ll be more comfortable. Or, I hope this doesn’t happen about a movie, about some stupid book you read.

It talks in there, doesn’t it? I’m trying to show you how that talk inside your head is. It just talks all the time, and what you do with it is you buy into it. Why? Because it’s telling you that if you listen to it, it can be better. It is obviously the problem itself, telling you the solution. Well, if he didn’t do that, or if I make sure that I, I watch to see that they’re not cheating on me or that this problem is a thing or, and, and if I’m getting old and I don’t like the old lines, I can do things, which is fine and then you do is fine.

But I watch to know where he got that from. You, an article in a paper or somebody else did something to her and that voice talking to you about it. And if you don’t do it, you suffer. So Buddhist teaching that the cause of all. Ooh, boy, that’s a big word. The cause of all suffering is preference. I don’t wanna die preference.

I don’t wanna get old preference. I wanna keep looking young when I’m old. Preference just something you made up in your head and now reality is gonna challenge you for the rest of your life all the time. So Buddhist teeth, that’s pretty amazing. In one line, the cause of all suffering, I don’t wanna get sick.

You don’t have to try to get sick. You don’t have to wanna get sick, right? But sometimes you’re gonna get sick. I don’t wanna go to the hospital. Sometimes you end up in the hospital. Is that okay? Is it okay? It better be because the alternative is not only in the hospital, but you’re not okay being in the hospital.

Mm. That’s just that voice in your head. You can go into the hospital and have a fascinating experience. You meet the nurses and the doctors and MRI machines and all these different stuff and learn the latest stuff. You can have a good time with anything if you don’t resist, if you don’t have a preference that it not exists when it already does.

By definition, does everybody see the reality we’re talking about? You are in there, you notice that that garbage is going on in there. You just buy into it. And so basically, and then by the way, the Buddhist third noble truth, like I say, he was a very simple guy. All I suffering cause a suffering is preference, desire to end suffering, stop it.

It literally says to there noble truth to end suffering and bizarre. Well, maybe you’d like to tell ’em how to do that. Maybe that’s the fourth noble truth. It is the eightfold path. Alright. Which is just a particular path of how to work with that. And we’re, we’re working with that right here by talking about it.

Okay? So have you at least gotten to the point to understand that voice in your head’s a problem? It doesn’t mean if you have intellectual thoughts. I need to write an essay. I need to build something. I need to do something. Mine is a beautiful thing. It’s not like getting rid of your mind. It’s not. Using a portion of your mind to build a personal self, to build these thought patterns that are about I, me and mine.

Otherwise, it’s okay. Study the stars. Study anything you want. Study medicine. Yes, learn, grow. Use your intellectual mind. But not to try and define what you want and what you don’t want and how to get it. That’s what’s called the personal mind. See the difference? That’s a big difference. And I’ll tell you, 99% of everything your voice says inside your head all day is about you.

What do you want? What do you not want? Your past? Everybody think about the past at all. Everybody think about the future. Well, they don’t exist yet, but you think about it, okay? I’ll tell you. So of you these things, there’s like revelations that happen inside by themselves over time. So for example, every one of you have a dream about the future, what you want to happen, what you don’t want to happen.

Do you understand that? Okay. Do you understand the future has not happened yet? So anything you think about the future, you made up. You made it up. Well, why did you make up? I’m, I’m afraid. I’m afraid in the future I’ll get sick. Why did you do that? Why don’t just make up. I’ll be happy. Because your past experiences project themselves into your future.

I’m gonna repeat that. Your thoughts of the future. Or a projection of what you’re holding inside of you from the past. Right. God, I hope you meet somebody like George. God, we was so in love and, and then he, he had to leave. And, uh, what are you doing? You’re taking an experience you had in the past and projecting into the future and you make up your future.

Did you ever think about that? Come on, have, let’s talk. Where else do you get it from? A book I read. Sure. That surpassed projected into the future. Okay, take a breath. Why am I talking about all this? ’cause that voice does not have to be a problem. And by learning why it’s doing what it’s doing, wait till you see how fast you grow.

It’s not about shutting it up. It is not about shutting it up because you do your little retreat and do it, which is good. Do that by all means. I guarantee you it’s gonna start talking again. About the same stuff it talked about before he went to the retreat and we were talking about then, I can’t believe we went to a two week retreat, is still talking.

That’s it. Talking about the two week stupid retreat and feeling guilty. You hear me having problems. Alright, so now let’s get down to business. Can it become quiet in there? Yes. Is there a natural quiet? Is there a natural quiet that you don’t have to do anything? It’s not a struggle, it’s not a fight. Can it naturally become quiet?

Yoga, my guru, they said, I never met him. They said that he would get on a train, he was back in, came over in the twenties, 2034, that kind of thing. So they took trains and he would sit down on the train at his seat on a two or three hour train ride, and the conductor would keep walking by and you’re gonna be sitting there.

Hands folded, not sleeping, just sitting there with a beautiful glow of peace across his face. And once the conductor asked him, sir, excuse me, what are you doing? He said, I’m, I’m sitting here feeling the peace. Why did he feel the peace? Because he was done with himself. You know when it stops talking, when there’s nothing to talk about.

Not, I’m gonna suppress it, not I hate it, not I’m afraid of it. So you get clear enough, you start practicing clarity of saying, okay, there’s this talkie talkie inside my head. And a lot of stuff it talks about disturbs me a. It is what disturbs me if I have tests tomorrow, right? And I’ve studied why am I anxious?

Why is there anxiety? It doesn’t help. One si. In fact, it stops your ability to think, to have anxiety and be afraid as of no benefit, no purpose at all. And so why am I doing it? Because you still have stuff that you failed in the past. You had trouble in the past. You’re afraid of people judging you, whatever the heck it is, because there’s stuff in there that you stored.

What if it’s not in there? What if you handled, now I get the root of it. What if you handled every single thing in your life as it happened and said, oh, thank you for the experience. Thank you. Here we go. I’m growing, I’m learning. I’m becoming more open. I’m a better person. ’cause I went through that experience.

You stole from me and you took this away, right? And I got so involved and so promoted and all this kind of stuff going on in there. And eventually over time I realized. It has nothing to do with me inside. It was something that happened outside and you start letting go and you start saying, I can handle things.

That’s the key to that voice being quiet. If you say, I can’t handle this, wait till you see how much it talks. It will talk that I can’t handle it. It will try to figure out how to handle it. It will judge everybody else ’cause it happened. It will not stop talking about it, but if you can handle it, you can sit there and say, alright, that’s what happened, and every life’s rain must fall and I’m okay.

I’m okay inside. It’ll work out. I’m fine. Then it doesn’t talk. It just lets things unfold. It lets things be as they are. So can you imagine if everything unfolded in front of you, your reaction is, I’m okay with that. I can deal with it. I’ll be okay. How would you like to have it say that in there? I can handle this, I can handle this, I can handle this.

I, I would love that. That went on inside your head and said, I can’t handle this. Oh my God, this is terrible. What am I gonna do? I can handle it. I’ll be okay. I would like to have, would say that to you. I’ll be okay. I’d just handle it. Everything comes and goes, doesn’t it all passes with time. Nothing didn’t pass with time.

It all passes with time, huh? It’s okay. It’ll work out. I’m fine. You call positive thinking. That’s okay. What you’ve done at that point is train the voice to be uplifting, but you can’t do that if you’ve got garbage in there. That’s what they call spiritual bi. I like that. Lately people are using this word.

Basically what it says is, I’m not okay in here, but I’ll make believe I am. Well, makes you a nice neighbor. I hope you still live next to me and say hello in the morning when you’re really suffering, but you put a smile on your face, most of the pleasants. Very nice, right? But you miss something here. You need to work out what you got in there that’s still disturbing you so that you can really be happy.

You can really be positive. And so basically you start understanding the reality, which is it takes time. Every single thing that is going on inside your mind, listen to me, every single one of those, personal, personal, mind, intellectual, but your personal mind, all this stuff about, I mean mind, like dislike, right, is actually emanating from the root of your heart.

You have stored stuff that has bothered you or turned you on in the past, and you either don’t want it happening and you’re doing want it happen again, that’s where it comes from, is you stored this down there and I always teach deeply, as most of you understand, shock. The energy. There’s energy inside of you.

Beautiful energy, beautiful energy all the time. Every single one of you, no matter what you ever did. It doesn’t matter. Just get throw karma out the window. Don’t, I don’t want you thinking like that. Anything you did that you can let go of, really let go of and just realize, sure. I was young and I’m sorry I’ve hurt somebody.

Right. That’s the end of it. Hear me? If you can sit there and say, if it happened again, would you do the same thing? You know what you’re saying? Of course not. Then you’re done. What are you doing carrying this like a weight inside of you if you learn from it and wouldn’t do it again? It’s like a, a child that’s learning.

Of course, they fall off their bike. Of course they, they do all kinds of things, but you grow up and say, oh my God, I’m so embarrassed. You get to grow, don’t you? You have the right to grow, and so when experiences happened in the past and you feel I could have done better, the guilt is not the answer. You know what guilt does?

It says I’m staying stuck there and letting it affect the rest of my life does what guilt does, isn’t it? It’s not like I was able to say inside I have remorse. Yes, I, somebody got hurt and I see that I, I could have handled it much better, but I wasn’t clear enough then. I wasn’t where I am now. You now have no right to judge who you were before.

That’s like a tennis player that gets real good at tennis. But every time I step out there and say, oh boy was I bad, I don’t, I don’t know how I’m gonna do good now. That’s crazy. If you got better, you got better. Don’t judge it. No guilt, no shame. Just gratitude for the right to grow. How’s that? I’m grateful when you can take the worst experience that ever happened to you in your life.

And look back at it and say, wow, did I grow through that? That was one of the best growth experiences in my entire life. Thank God that happened, and thank God I had the teachings and the strength to work my way through it so that now when I look back, it says, well. Just something I had to go through. I grew from it.

Now, if you don’t grow from it, but you suppress it and push it away and wish it didn’t happen, and you’re ashamed that it happened, if you face anybody, you get all weird, then, then you didn’t grow, you got worse, and it will come back out again. So that’s what it means. Look, when they say karma, what goes around?

What comes around? That’s because you kept it inside of you and you’re projecting it outside, right? I use an example of you just robbed a bank. Get outside, you feel paranoia. You feel everybody’s looking at you. They don’t know you robbed a bank. Only you know you robbed the bank. You are projecting what you are doing inside out onto something else.

Alright? So of course it comes back around. It all repeats itself, but not if you work it through doesn’t mean to work it through. I see I have this in here. I see that my first divorce was messy or this happened and how I dealt with my kid, whatever. I don’t care. Be as personal as you want. I’m willing to talk about it.

Just whatever situations you went through, can you look at it and see I am now a better person. ’cause I went through that situation. I’m sorry if anybody got hurt, if there opportunity, maybe you apologize. That’s not even the point. They won’t have the same view of it that you did. I love. Somebody came to me once and said, I love aa.

They were doing aa and there’s a point in there, one of the steps where you’re supposed to go to people who you heard or did some stuff to and face it. Right. And that’s very beautiful. Believe me, I’m not talking against it at all. Right. But they told me that they, they were bothered by this for years, that they had hurt this person and done this thing.

So they went and found them and went into their home. Right. The person, oh wow. I haven’t seen you for years. Right. And try to apologize to which the person said, I don’t know what you’re talking about. It had bothered you. They didn’t even remember it. You know how much of that stuff you have in there?

That’s that. It’s stuff that you kept in there and you are big to you. You’re not big to them. They have their own big, so what you did was nothing. They didn’t remember it as a joke. Leave me a break, then you’re embarrassed, right? Just understand. It’s all about working out. What you stored in there and what you’ll find out is if you don’t store stuff in there, what does that mean?

Events happen today. I’m a conscious what this, what means to be a conscious. You’re all conscious. Obviously you wouldn’t know what happened. You’re aware. What we mean by a conscious being is you’re conscious of being conscious. You’re in there, you’re aware that you’re in there. And you start to work with yourself.

From in there, you start to see, you have all this guilt. You start to see, have all fear is very big. Every one of you is fear of rejection. Do you understand that? The people, and we have to see all kinds of politicians and everybody doing this stuff. The people that appear to be the most strong are the weakest.

They have to. Fight every single thing that somebody says against them, they have to fight every single thing that happens that they don’t agree with. That’s because they’re not okay. All they feel is fear. Somebody who’s projecting that strength is the weakest. That’s what the Bible means. He is last, will come be first, et cetera, et cetera.

They are the weakest people. You know what a strong person is? Someone that can handle, he says something I don’t like. It’s okay. I’ll deal with it. Not, you won’t pay for that. You will not talk to me like that. You will not do that. I will control and manipulate everything until it’s the way I want it to be.

And if anything, the slightest thing, everybody says anything against me or anything, I’m gonna protect myself. Why? Why need to protect yourself? ’cause you’re not okay. You’re trying to stop it from hitting your stuff. You’re in there protecting the interstate, which is all your garbage, so that it doesn’t get hit.

And that’s why people lie. And that’s why people steal every single thing. Is that. It’s ’cause you’re not okay in there. Whoa. Be unto everybody else ’cause you’re gonna try to make it be what you need it to be. For you to be okay. Alright? So strength is not that, that is not strength. It’s tremendous weakness.

Strength is I can handle it. I can handle what you said. I can handle what you did, what I do about if I can handle it. You get clear and quiet. You look at the situation, not look at your problem, it’s about looking at the situation itself. Most people can’t do that ’cause all they hear is their own noise about what’s happening.

Your significant other says to you in the morning, before you leave to work, oh, excuse me, we have to have a serious talk tonight. How you doing all day? You, you should be fine. You should sit there and say, good. Let’s find out what’s bothering somebody. If indeed that’s why. Maybe she wants to tell me that she bought a anniversary president, we’re gonna go travel to Europe.

And she didn’t tell me, I don’t know if she’s gonna tell me and I shouldn’t make it up, otherwise it’s in there. The voice in your head saying, oh God, did she find out about that? No. No. Sally says she would never tell her she has to make up some stuff and you don’t have any know what’s going on. Why do that?

Because I can’t handle anything. I can’t handle the fact that I might get hurt. I, I handle the fact that, right. Why don’t you just sit there and say, it takes time to get there. I will handle, no matter what takes place. What does that mean? I will walk into the situation. I will hear what’s being said, not protect myself to diminishing the ministry in a minute, starts talking.

I did not do that. That’s not true. I told you I didn’t mean that. I’m sorry I didn’t. Right away you just have Push it away. Push it away. Why I can’t handle it? ’cause I can’t handle it, I’m afraid. Okay. As opposed to I’m a conscious being and a moment is unfolding in life. This person who I care about and love I share my life with, wants to talk to me.

Is that okay? No. It’s not okay with me. I don’t wants to talk about, didn’t wanna hear about it. You just be happy and don’t tell me in the morning before I go to work that you need to talk about something. I word all day look at you as opposed to. You go about your business, you’ll find out what it is, won’t you?

You’ll find out what it is and you’ll be fine. Well, what if she tells me that she’s not happy with something I did. I will sit there, get quiet and try to make sure I understand what she’s saying. I wanna listen to her, not I wanna stop her from saying it, not. I wanna prove that I didn’t do anything wrong, which is how we are, isn’t it?

It’s called being defensive. Why are you defensive? Because I can’t handle getting hurt. I can’t handle this stuff. Imagine if you could handle it, then we’re gonna teach you how. But imagine if you could handle it and you walk in the situation clear and open, and somebody starts talking to you and you’re actually listening.

It’s a novel thing, not listening to your defense. Do you know that the majority of time that somebody’s talking to you, you are processing that in your mind, saying what you’re gonna say back? Mm-hmm. Wow. I’m sharing with you very deep stuff that you learn over time, right? So somebody sits there and says, well, you know, back then when you did this and your mind from then, I said, well, I didn’t.

I didn’t mean that. She knew I didn’t mean, I told her she’s still talking to you, but you’re listening to you. That’s a real clue. Well, that, that’s a non-starter, isn’t it? You’re not gonna get anywhere with that. And so what if they’re talking to you and you’re listening? It can hurt. It can be uncomfortable, but that doesn’t mean you are uncomfortable.

It means you’re noticing uncomfortable. You’re noticing a tendency to defend yourself, but you’re just relaxed behind it. You stay behind it, right? You understand why? ’cause defending yourself does not fix the situation. Obviously, this person’s having a problem. Don’t convince them they’re not, even if you’re a real good convincer when they walk away.

Huh? I still have this problem. In no way. You’re getting rid of their problem by talking. You can just talk ’em out of it, but you didn’t talk out of why, what it hit down there that was bothering them. Do you understand that? So instead, you do your best to be open, you listen, and then you hear it, and then you look.

And the following is the only thing that your mind says, ready? How can I help? Not, how can I make it go away so it doesn’t disturb me, not how I can manipulate the situation so that I win. How can I help? How can I literally help this person or this situation? And sometimes there’s nothing you can do. And so be at peace with that.

I understand that maybe time will help. And sometimes you realize I have been defending myself. I have been pushing away. And by listening to them. I may literally have it hit something inside of me that I didn’t realize. That’s why my mind was saying what it was saying. ’cause I had this stuff in here.

And then literally in that moment, where do you see how close your relationship can get? If you can see in there, you’re right, you’re right. I, I do do that. I’ve done that. Right. I’m so sorry. Help me, let’s work with this together. Whoa. All of a sudden the love comes back. All of a sudden the openness comes back.

But sitting in there, listening to that voice talk is not gonna do that for you. It does not have the answer ’cause it’s the problem. So how do you get there? It’d be nice to get there, wouldn’t it? So every single thing you’re doing, everyone you’re helping, you’re here to help the situation not help me ’cause I can handle it.

Then how can I help the situation? Alright. And so how do you do that? You notice the voice, do not, not notice the voice. And now you’re gonna notice it more. ’cause I’ve been talking about it. People write me that it wasn’t so loud before. Yes it was. It was so loud. But you were standing there merged in it so you didn’t notice.

Okay. So there it is. Now you see it. Good. Good. What’s the first thing you do when you see it acting up? Relax. No. Yes. You have to be able to handle that. That voice is feeding you negativity or this, or need or whatever it is. It’s talk. It’s talking about the heart. It’s just voicing the heart. The way I always saw it was go to the springs, blue Springs, or one of the springs, right?

And you’ll see if you go diving in there, that there’s a place that the spring is coming from way down in the bottom. But when it comes up, it makes ripples on the top. That’s what makes the ripples on the top. The ripples are nothing. They’re just the result, the expression of the bottom of the spring.

That’s what that voice in your head is. That’s everything I learned. I’m sharing with you. You have stuff in your heart. You have stuff that you stored in there that you’re not okay with. It needs out. It doesn’t stay stored in there nicely, and so it’s trying to push its energy out. And it hits everything in there and it comes up onto the surface as that voice in your head.

That’s why it talks about the past. That’s how it projects the future. That’s why it complains all the time. Every single thing is this thing deep down inside expressing itself. So don’t get mad at your mind that one of the great breakthrough points of my growth, I stopped getting mad at the mine. I’ve had a, I apologized for the mine.

I’m sorry that I locked you up. I’m sorry I pushed you away. I’m sorry that I couldn’t handle you ’cause you are just expressing what I stored inside of you. I’m the one who shoved it down there. I’m the one that couldn’t handle the situation and you’re just trying to release the energy. And I’m trying to shut you up.

No, no, no. And you start completely changing your relationship with that voice in your head. And you literally say to it, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. IS shoved this stuff down there. I’m sorry, I can’t handle that. You’re expressing yourself. So you push the mind away, you push the personal mind away. That’s like claiming it’s not real.

It’s there. You’re trying to make it go away. No, you can’t make it go away that way. So you apologize to it. I say, I’ve grown so much. You literally get to the point where you love it. It’s with compassion. You say, I’m never gonna do that again. I ain’t show me it back down there. If you have something to say, say it.

I can handle it. I’m back here and you stop fighting with yourself. Not to mention everybody else. You do fight with yourself, don’t you? And you just kind of welcome it up. You welcome it up, ’cause it, it’s your Shakti, it’s your energy that you shoved down there, and now it’s being all disturbed. When you release those blockages, the Shakti will just pour through you.

You have no idea. Just ecstasy, joy, love, all the time. Pouring through your whole being. That’s called the open state. But if you can’t handle yourself, you’re not gonna be open. Forget handling everybody else. You can’t handle your past, you can’t handle what you said, handle what you did. I, I always had still a little bit of it, alright, that if I’m having a conversation with somebody and I walk away.

The conversation doesn’t stop. I should have said this. Why did I say no? Hope I didn’t bother them. Yes or no answer me? No, just me. Nobody has that. Okay? Because you can’t handle anything. You sure? You’re afraid of getting hurt. You’re afraid of hurting somebody, you’re afraid of doing something wrong. And so it talks about that ’cause that’s the root of where it’s coming from.

So when you get to the point where you’re dealing with your mind, not by fighting it, not by not liking it, not by blaming it, not by saying This is terrible, but by being able to step back and say, I am sorry. That I’ve gone through my whole life not knowing that I shouldn’t push you away. I shouldn’t suppress push away the stuff that bothers me.

I should have learned to deal with it, and we’ll talk about that in a minute, but it makes much more sense if I can deal with it. It rained on my birthday. Is that okay with you? Of course, Lorraine didn’t know it was my birthday. I told you, go to the UF and study meteorology and show me which books works about your birthday, like be a scientist.

Don’t just be lost in there. I welcome you to be scientists and you’re gonna find out things are because there are. It’s hot. ’cause it’s hot, it’s cold. ’cause it’s cold. Can you handle it? Can you handle it? Can you handle it? And so you get to the point where you start looking at what you’ve done in there.

’cause you made a mess in there and you don’t understand, not you made it in guilt. It’s not about guilt, it’s about understanding. If that stuff’s in there, I put it in there. I’m the one that couldn’t handle. My parents got divorced. I was the one that couldn’t handle my, seemed like my father liked my sister better than me.

I’m the one that couldn’t handle that. My first boyfriend or girlfriend broke up with me. I’ve always been scared. From then on, I did that. You are in there. It’s your will. You are the one that has the power to push that stuff down or let it go. Well, wait, may I ask you this? Who else is in there? Your mother?

No, your father. The priest, the rabbi, nobody. You are the only one who lives in there. So if you made a mess, you made the mess. Well you don’t understand. This is what they did to me and it was terrible. I understand. I do understand. Did it happen? Yes. Do you want it to bother you for the rest of your life?

Do you want it to bother you for the rest of your life? Because if you don’t do something about it, it’s going to alright. And see, just the whole thing is telling you what? I don’t want this stuff in here. Yeah, that’s the problem is not the world. The problem is I have this stuff in here that can’t handle the world.

’cause it’s already decided what it wants and what it doesn’t want and what it likes and what it doesn’t like, and just struggling with everything. So my work, my spiritual work, it’s funny. Your spiritual work is not about believing in God is not about God. It’s about letting go. What’s keeping you from God.

And if you work with yourself, wait to see what happens and work with yourself means. I’m letting go. I can handle what’s happening now, and I’m letting go. What comes up from the past? Mm. How will it hurt? I have a motto stored with pain. Comes back with pain. Have you noticed? Struggle with pain is coming back with pain.

The question is, can you handle it? Well, how do I handle it by pushing it away? No, that’s not strength, that’s weakness. I know it’s a mess in there. I know it’s uncomfortable living in there. You’re sitting on top of a darn volcano, aren’t you? At any point, somebody can say something or do something and you’re not okay, but you have a choice.

You either spend the rest of your life fighting everybody so that they don’t do what you don’t want to happen until it’ll explode or learn how to deal with the energy you’ve pent up inside so that it’s not in there. Call working with yourself, right? Well sudden the relationships are better. We’re about to get divorced.

Now we get along. So of course you do. ’cause you were listening to you, you were listening to all that garbage in there expressing itself, and you learned how to work with it without suppressing it, right? So how do you work with it? The most important thing is what I just said to you. You have to reach the point that you understand what’s going on in there.

And now believe me, you heard this talk. You do. You stored stuff in there, did you not? And it’s trying to come back up. It hides itself. Dreams. The young talks about expresses itself in symbology. It’s amazing how brilliant that stuff is. You all know young, right? Studying psychology, right? What is that all about?

It’s yoga. It’s basically saying you have this stuff in there. We call ’em some scars. It doesn’t wanna be in there. No more than bacteria wants to be in your body. There’s an immune system tries to throw it out. Your mind and your heart do not want that stuff in there. You shove it on top of your beautiful energy, so now you can’t feel it.

And the deep thing. So beautiful to watch deep psychology, right that it system says that expression hides itself in symbology. Like your, your brother died, your younger brother died and really made a big impact on you and so on. Well, you don’t dream about that. ’cause I can’t think, I don’t wanna think about it.

So all of a sudden there’s a hawk that’s flying and, and, and it goes to its nest and one of the birds falls out symbolism and hides it so that you can handle it. When it comes up, the brain is that brilliant. It’s so much, it’s like your body is brilliant with the immune system. It’s quite a system, isn’t it?

All the white core puzzles and all that kind of stuff, right? Your mind system is way more brilliant than your bodies and it does not want that stuff in there and it finds ways to release it while you’re asleep. That’s just blows my mind. It’s just the Shakti’s trying to push its way up. So you can be filled with joy and love and it has to hide itself.

Otherwise, even when you’re asleep, you can’t handle, you wake up with nightmares. Oh my God, I sleep by my brother. No, no, you didn’t. Thought of a little bird that fell out a nest. Everybody listen to me. So you just get to the point where you say, I don’t want this stuff in here. I understand why it’s in there and I’m gonna work with it.

And eventually you love it. You sit there and say it’s in there. ’cause I shoved it in there. It’s not your fault. You talk to your lower self. It. The only reason your lower self is your lower self ’cause you pushed it down there. There’s only one self in there. There’s just the self, but when the self can’t handle what happened, it pushes it away and develops this mess in there.

What you call the lower self. So you work with it. How do I work with it? My Do it quickly. You start with the little stuff. You do not start with the big stuff. You can’t handle the big stuff. What you start with is the simple little things in life that you bother yourself about for no reason. It’s too hot.

Oh my God, it’s so hot. I didn’t wanna live in Florida. What are you doing? You’re making a mess of your life. Examples I always use, they yell at me for you. The same example. They’re good examples. Anybody ever have a problem with a driver in front of them? There is a blinker. They, they stop and go. Their tail light doesn’t work.

They’re driving 15 miles over the speed limit. What good is that doing? I’ll do it better. Has anyone ever talked to the driver in front of them? Well, you are wasting your time because they don’t hear you. The only thing you’re disturbing is yourself. It is not innocent. It is basically the disturbance trying to express itself based on the driver in front of you.

Just pay attention of the commotion you are creating for no reason. So what I do relax, that’s what I found the opposite of resistance is relaxation. And the inability to handle the driver. The heat. What somebody said, what somebody didn’t say. Huh? I ain’t know what you meant that you didn’t say. Right? So you start letting go of that stuff.

How? Relax through it. Just relax. When you feel a tendency to resist inside, fall back, relax, offer it up. Do whatever you want. Just don’t participate in the act of resistance. ’cause that’s how it got down there. You resisted what happened. It has nothing to do with right or wrong. It has to do with reality.

Okay? Can you handle it? No. Well then we need to learn to, so when you can’t handle it, you push it away. That’s called resistance. The energy came in, you resisted it with the power of will. That’s what the power you have in there, right? You do have a power in there. Don’t. You can do things and manipulate stuff, push away thoughts.

You have a tremendous power. It’s called the power of will. You used it to push reality away when it came in, so it got stored in you. So the whole thing is about spiritual purification. Are you willing to purify the garbage you stored in there? And the way you start is by not putting more in there. Such as it’s hothouse, such as the driver in front of you, such it was somebody didn’t say that you thought they really meant to say, just relax.

Just relax how you work with it. Neath work at the root. I’m not fighting my thoughts. I’m letting go inside by relaxing through the process of resistance. And what will happen is you’ll get good at the driver in front of you, you’ll get good at the heat, and you’ll get good at the fact that somebody didn’t say something you wanted him to say.

You just keep relaxing. You can find out if you can relax through those. Then all of a sudden there’s something somebody did say, right, and you’ll find out the process is the same. First, relax. If they said it, they said it. There’s no benefit in shoving it back in their face. There must have been some reason their stuff came up with those words.

Whatcha gonna change them? They have their whole life that programmed them that way, just like you do. It’s really neat. It’s called the spiritual path of non-resistance. You learn to let go, doesn’t mean you don’t deal with it. Once you’ve let go and you’re clear you can deal with it, usually there’s nothing to deal with because the only problem is you alright.

But there may be something to deal with and just basically keep letting go. Keep relaxing. And you’ll find you can do that with bigger and bigger things because you learn how to do it. Okay? If you’re feeling tennis and somebody hits backhand for you and you hit into the net, next time you’ll do better, next time you’ll do better.

It’s not like it’s gonna not get better. It’s the same thing inside. If you can let go of these things that are causing resistance, you will get better at it and pretty soon. I’m close it down pretty soon you’ll get to a point it’s called Becoming Established In the seat of self. You will find that you are so far back there naturally ’cause you didn’t bother getting pulled down to the garbage, that it doesn’t pull you down.

It can be a little bit of feel difficult, this and that. Just relax, just relax. It goes through, and then you start dealing with helping. Instead of manipulating, okay, and then I’ll stop now ’cause I’m outta time. That state, that’s nowhere compared to where the masters went. There are so much higher states than being able to be back centered inside yourself.

Watching without a disturbing you, you’re still there watching. Your consciousness is still separate from the merger of the universe, which is where we’re going. It’s just the first step, the first stage of a great rocket ship. So you understand. That voice in your head better. It is not your enemy, but no more than if you have a fever that’s not your enemy.

Is the body trying to purify, understand, or you get a boil? Oh, it’s ugly. Hide it. No, don’t. Okay. Work with it. Find out why it’s there, and learn how to release it. And what’s beautiful about the inside, the outside, you might be good at tennis, you may not be good at piano, you may not be strong. There’s all kinds of things that are real outside.

There ain’t nothing real inside. Except you, except the greatness of your being. Everything else you created inside yourself to build an ego and a self-concept so you can really do something very great with yourself.

Tami Simon: You’ve been listening to the Michael Singer podcast, produced by Sounds True in partnership with Shanti Publications. For more information on Michael’s body of work and all back episodes, please join us at michaelsingerpodcast.com. Thanks so much for listening. Sounds true. Waking up the world.