E178: The Dance Between Mind and Heart

Tami Simon: Welcome to the Michael Singer Podcast, presented by Sounds True in partnership with Shanti Publications. For more information about Michael Singer’s work, access to all prior episodes, and information about upcoming releases, we invite you to join us at michaelsingerpodcast.com.

Michael Singer: Jai guru dev, jai masters. There are so many techniques, paths that people often struggle with to try to come closer — not to God, but to who you are, because that’s who you are. All of them, at some point, deal with the mind. You have to deal with the mind. Why? Let’s say you’re an alcoholic or a drug addict. You’re not gonna go further until you take on that problem.

The mind is the reason that you don’t feel tremendous Shakti, spirit pouring through you all the time. It’s very important to understand the nature of mind, and more important — as important — which we’re gonna discuss tonight, is its relationship to the heart at some point. You wouldn’t be here if you hadn’t.

You have stepped back and realized you are aware of your mind. You are not the mind. You’re aware of your heart’s emotions. You’re not the emotions. You’re aware of them. Otherwise, you wouldn’t know they were there. It’s that simple. The spiritual teacher shouldn’t be very complicated. Are you aware you have thoughts?

What part of you is aware that you have thoughts? You have positive thoughts, you have negative thoughts, you have all kinds of thoughts, and you are the same one that is aware of all those thoughts. And you have emotions of all different shapes and sizes, and you are aware of those. There are no emotions that you have that you’re not aware of.

That’s why you know you have them. But in general, we struggle with them and we think that that is a spiritual path. You’ll reach a point in your growth — which it takes a long time to become mature in your spiritual path — but there comes a time where you realize there’s a reason that the mind is the way it is.

It’s not enough to say I’m gonna stop it, or I want it to shut up for a few hours in meditation or on a retreat. Those are all wonderful, nice things. Go ahead and practice. But there’s a reason it’s doing what it’s doing. Everything in the universe is cause and effect. There’s a reason there are causes.

Why your mind doesn’t shut up, why your mind tends toward negativity — every single thing your mind says, it originally said. Do you understand that? And that is when you’re ready to become a more mature spiritual being. You sit trying to suppress the mind, you’re trying to stop it. Sometimes you have to, a little bit. But you want to understand: where’s it coming from?

Why does it say the things it says? One clue is to watch the relationship between your mind and your heart. Which, again, I don’t think should be difficult. Why do you see it all the time? Your mind just drifts a little bit and it just starts free association. And it sits there and it says, “Oh my God, what? I forgot to turn the stove off.” Where does your heart feel? Fear. They’re in cahoots. They work together, and then that fear increases the mind’s anxiety, and you’re not gonna stop that thought. That’s a very difficult thing to do, and if you decide to stop it, you will be suppressing. You have to push it away.

There’s a reason that that is going on, and what you’ll see — all said and done, and we’ll talk about it — is the heart has been left with many, many impressions over the course of your life, and most of them are not pleasant. Senses of rejection, fear, anxiety, on and on and on. The heart has these feelings.

Why is it natural that the heart have these feelings? Those are deep teachings. They don’t sit there and say that fear or anxiety, jealousy, or any of these feelings in the heart are not natural. They’re natural to the human race. They’re natural experiences in the heart. They’re lower vibrations, but vibrations can vibrate high or low.

Those vibrate low. Then there are other vibrations where you have a thought and all of a sudden your heart opens up. You feel love. You feel excitement. You feel enthusiasm. Those are higher vibrations emanating from the heart. The important thing is to realize, yep, the heart can feel those things — not that they’re wrong, not that you shouldn’t. Do you know what jealousy is? Do you know what fear is? You know what anxiety is. Do you know what insecurity is? Any of you? Of course you do. These are natural vibrations that the heart is capable of experiencing. It’s that simple. But when you get to the point that you see it as that, you’ve had a major breakthrough, because then you’re not judging them as wrong or as bad or anything like that.

They’re just what’s there. And if you can see them as just what’s there, you can start to see past them. But first, you have to be able to not get caught in the mind’s expression. The minute it starts to feel jealousy — right, let’s just pick jealousy — the minute it starts to feel jealousy in the heart, and everyone knows what that feels like, the mind starts. What should I do about it? Is it real? What should I check? Should I hire an investigator? It just tells you what to do. It gives you advice — good advice, right? It just sits there and thinks thoughts that are about what the heart is feeling. And by the time we’re done with this talk, I hope you understand that it is thinking thoughts about what the heart is feeling.

So if I have to go and give a talk tomorrow — school or something like that — and I feel anxiety, I feel tension, wait till you see what your mind talks about. What do I do about it? Should I change the topic? That was such a stupid talk, I wish I hadn’t picked that. Do you understand that? You just say those are my thoughts. They are not. They’re the expression of your heart expressing itself in your mind. The root of the mind is in the heart, and what you’re gonna see if you get quiet enough, you can. What happens is, if you walk up to an eight-cylinder engine and it’s running full speed, you can’t see the pistons, you can’t see the crankshafts, you can’t see the timing belts, you can’t see a single thing.

It all happens at the same time. A lot of you guys — in high school, auto mechanics, right? — don’t realize that that thing, that tachometer, that you look at — you know there are two dials on there and sometimes it goes to three, four, 5,000 — that is revolutions per minute. 6,000 revolutions per minute. RPM. That’s pretty fast, isn’t it? Those pistons, they go up and down 6,000 times in a minute. You’re not gonna see anything. If you slow it down, you can start to see what’s happening. You see the pistons in harmony, or in different sequences moving up and down, and the valves operating. You can slow it down and see it.

It’s the same thing with your heart and your mind. If it’s moving too fast — and it’s moving fast — you can’t see the relationship. You can’t see what’s happening. But meditation helps, surrender helps, letting go helps, working with yourself helps. And at some point you’re gonna see your heart has an issue.

Your mind, like the big brother, is trying to solve that issue. You don’t really wanna listen to what it says. But if you watch, you’ll see: I have to give that talk here. I feel anxiety. I have to give this talk. And the mind sits there and says, “Well, maybe you should call in sick.” Why would it say such a thing as a potential solution to what the heart is feeling? And I clue in when it says maybe you should call in sick — the heart, for a moment, feels a little bit better. Understand that your mind, even though what it does is not good advice — I’m not talking about judging it — I’m telling you, all that noise in your mind, that is what’s going on.

All the time. But it’s so subtle and so fast that you just listen to what the mind has to say. You think those are solutions. Spirituality is about understanding. Quiet it down a little bit — why is the mind giving you the advice it’s giving you? There are people, let’s say they take a class and they think they deserve an A, and the teacher gives them a B. So they don’t feel good about it. Watch what that mind tries to come up with. I’m gonna challenge it. I’m gonna look at everybody else’s papers. I’m gonna see what the average is. It starts challenging what isn’t the way they want it to be, and so they try to figure it out with their mind. Is that bad? Is that good? I don’t wanna talk about that. I just want you to understand that’s why the mind is going a mile a minute, and that’s why you can sit there and be having a problem and then it comes up in the mind and the mind comes up with a potential solution. “Oh wow, I could call George and find out whether Sally said she liked me or not.” All of a sudden you feel a little bit better, and then they say, “No, no — I don’t want George to know I care about that. That’d be embarrassing.” And all of a sudden it sinks back down. Anybody know anything about such a thing? Come on. I’m sharing with you something very deep — that is what is going on.

And let’s say the heart feels open and it feels love, and the mind comes in, but you feel some insecurity. I’ve gotten hurt before. And the mind tries to think, “Well, don’t go too fast. Don’t rush it. No kissing on the first date. Don’t — I’m telling you, don’t.” Where did that come from? Well, does the mind know about what should happen? It doesn’t know anything. It’ll say one thing one minute, another thing the next minute. It’s trying to solve the particular problem that the heart is experiencing, positive or negative. It will talk that way.

So the root of the mind is in the heart, but that is not where we live. We live lost in the mind, trying to come up with solid solutions, and that stuff isn’t — watch. “Oh, I see it. That’ll do it. I’ll go to California first, then I’ll go over there.” And you feel there’s some solidity. Then all of a sudden, the bottom falls out and the mind says, “Well, what if I don’t like it there?” Do you understand? That’s what you’re dealing with, and you will never solve it in your mind. You will never, ever solve that problem with your mind, because the problem is not in the mind. The problem is in the heart. And so you go the next level down. You should — and you will, spiritually, at some point — you will reach the point where the heart is as clear as the mind. You can see what the mind is saying and you can see what the heart’s feeling. You see them both the same, even the subtle, tiny little things.

People say to me, “Well, how do you make decisions?” You should not have trouble making decisions. The question is, why do you wanna decide? What’s the problem going on in there that the decision seems so important? Should I live in California or in Florida? And there’s all this stuff that comes up. The heart goes, “Well, that’ll be fun.” But then it says, “Yeah, but I’ve had that situation before.” I’ll give you an example — I don’t need to give you examples, you live in them.

So you get to the point where you understand the mind is not evil. It does tell you to do terrible things, but it doesn’t do it on purpose. It doesn’t want to. It’s trying to find a way to release the bad energy that’s existing in your heart. There’s no chance that your heart is doing wonderful and your mind is disturbed. It doesn’t work that way. If the heart’s emanating love and beauty, the mind tends to talk about it. But something will happen. Something will bring up a past scar, a past pattern, and all of a sudden — how fast can the love go away? Look at me in the eyes. Just like that. All of a sudden one feeling, then the mind starts talking about it, and you’re not sure anymore. “I really felt sure yesterday I was gonna propose. I’m glad I didn’t.” And the next day, “Oh my, I can’t believe I didn’t propose.” It’s just the heart.

Now, why does the heart be the way it is? We’ve been through this, but I want you to understand it once and for all. Your heart is naturally open. The natural state of your heart is open. You don’t have to do anything. It’s filled with love, filled with inspiration, filled with joy and love, and it wants to express it. That’s what it is. It’s just a beautiful, beautiful instrument. What happens? Things have happened in your life that ended up hurting the heart. Things happen — it’s a happening place. People betray you. People die. Things happen. And the next thing you know, you store patterns in the heart that are closed, and the heart doesn’t wanna be closed. And so it’s always pushing up, trying to create thoughts that will help it feel better. But because the thoughts are coming from a core that’s negative, that’s hurt, that’s got problems, the mind is going to have problems. And by the time you’re done, that’s all that’s going on in there.

There’s a whole bunch of noise and issues, and most people don’t feel their heart. I remember once, after a circle — we had our Sunday services — a very beautiful man came up to me, very sincere. He said, “I’ve been practicing yoga and meditation for years.” He was a professor. He looked me in the eyes and said, “Mickey, I’ve never felt my heart. I’ve never felt my heart.” And he read The Untethered Soul, or whatever it was, and he came back weeks later. Now I see it. I see why intellectuals don’t wanna go there. The heart is emotional. The intellect is pure. Pure intellect is beautiful. The trouble is it is affected by the feelings of the heart. Very rarely can Einstein have pure intellect. There are those. There are those scientists that had pure intellect, but still, you look at their lives. Look at Beethoven’s life. Look at even Einstein’s life — his family life. I love the man, right? He did not do good with his children. He did not do good with his wives. He did not do real well with relationships. Because it takes a lot to work with the heart. And what we do is hide in the mind. You understand that? That’s what scientists tend to do. They hide in the mind so they don’t have to deal with the heart.

But you wanna deal with the heart. The heart is pure, the heart is beautiful, the heart is filled with love. The question becomes not, why is the mind doing what it’s doing — you know why the mind is doing what it’s doing, because you stored garbage in the heart and it’s trying to release it. That’s what it boils down to. You push stuff down there when you suppress. Yes, it shows up in your mind, but you suppress it into your heart. When you push things away that you don’t wanna experience, you are pushing the energy of the event down so that it doesn’t come up into the mind. But it does go down to the heart, and you didn’t want it in the mind. You sure as heck don’t want it in the heart, and so you just keep pushing it further and further down.

Have you ever been in there pushing something down? Something you don’t wanna feel? Something somebody said? Don’t you have this tendency to push away? I want you to feel that. Do you or do you not push stuff away? The heart’s not feeling what it wants. “I can’t handle this.” You can’t handle it. Now what do you do? I don’t wanna experience it, but you are experiencing it there. That’s the basis for suppression. You got that? That’s the formula. “I can’t handle what you said.” Trouble is, you said it, and I can’t make it not have been said. But I don’t like what it feels like in here. So what do I do? I push it away. Push it away from what? Push it away from my center of experience, my center of self, my center of being. I don’t want that coming in here. So I have this tendency — some of you do it so much you don’t even know you’re doing it — to push it away, push it away. You’re pushing that energy down into your heart, down into the core of where the energy comes from.

Like the spring — if you go to the springs, you’ll see that way down low, there’s a rock that’s opened up and this stream of water’s coming up, and it pushes up and then it surfaces. That’s what’s happening with your heart. It’s all happening down there, and it surfaces up and it bubbles into the mind. That’s what your personal thoughts are. That’s what all the neurosis is. I don’t want you to be afraid of it. I don’t want you to judge it. I don’t want you to hate it — it doesn’t do any good at all. It’s happening because of the natural forces. You shove stuff down there and it doesn’t want it down there.

The heart does not want that stuff down there. Anything you shove down there, the heart does not want it down there. How do you know? Because it keeps trying to come back up — 30 years later, it’s coming up. You stored it down there and you pushed an energy, a blockage, on top of an energy flow. And that energy flow is the Shakti. The energy flow is bliss, is love, is beauty, is a natural expression of the heart. But you pushed this on top of it, so now it’s blocked. The heart doesn’t want it to be blocked, so it keeps trying to push it back up, and you keep pushing it back down. And that whole dance between the mind and the heart — the mind tries to figure out: “I got divorced years ago and it still bothers me. What should I do? Move. Don’t stay in the place where things remind you. Stay away from anybody who has the same name as that person.” It’s just giving you advice on how to avoid what you got down there, what you stored down there, and you of course listen to the advice. And it’s not wrong, by the way.

Psychologists will tell you, if they’re working in therapy with somebody who had a bad relationship, had a divorce or something, and it’s been a fair enough time for it to cool down and they can’t — they drive by a restaurant they used to go to and it bothers them terribly, or they hear a song, and it’s like, “Oh, they’re playing that song.” You stored that stuff down there and it’s gonna come up as negative. So they may advise you to move. I’ve seen them do it. “The only way you’re gonna get around this is to get away from it.” It’s fine. All things are fine. But I want you to understand what’s going on. You shoved it down there and it keeps trying to come back up. Things trigger it. You say, “It triggered me.” What does that mean? It came back up, and you have to learn to deal with it. Spirituality is not about pushing it away or avoiding the outside that brings it up. Eventually you get to the point where you want it to come up. That’s how you learn to work with your heart.

I’ve been through the stages with you. At first, you can’t handle it, so you push it away — fine. But you see it comes back up, and it can ruin your whole life. Your entire life can be ruined because you shoved the stuff down there and you’re making decisions in the mind based on the fact that you’re trying to avoid what’s in there. And I’ve talked about that before. You’re trying to avoid yourself. You’re trying to create friends that agree with you and never say anything you don’t like, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. You don’t want anything touching that stuff down there. I actually heard people say it once: “Don’t talk about that subject. Your father can’t handle that.” What’s wrong with daddy? You got some stuff down there, eh? Well, I’m sorry for that, because you’re not supposed to have stuff down there, because you’ll never feel full love if you have stuff down there. Listen to me. It is not okay that you pushed that stuff down there. It is not okay that the stuff is down there. You’ll never ever feel fully alive while you’re protecting yourself from yourself. It will determine the decisions you make. It will determine what you like, what you don’t like, who you like, who you don’t like, where you live, what you eat — every single thing. That’s how it happens. It’s not you — it’s because you stored this stuff down there and the mind’s trying to figure out how you can be okay. “I’ll be okay, but never meeting this kind of person or that kind of person.” Your heart got disturbed, so now your mind’s got it all figured out. That is how it leaves the impressions, and then you have to deal with it.

So you start to come down to understanding it’s not about the mind, it’s about the heart. But the mind is causing disturbance in trying to solve the problem of the heart.

Alright, let’s take something more down to earth. People have babies. If the baby is crying and doesn’t seem well, that mind will not stop. “What could it be? Did I feed it wrong? Did I do this wrong? Is there something bothering it? Maybe the diaper’s too tight.” The mind will go berserk because the heart is not comfortable with what’s going on. I’m not saying it’s wrong. But you do admit it’s happening, isn’t it? As opposed to what a wise being does — a wise being doesn’t play that game. A wise being sits there, gets quiet first. Quiets down the heart. “I can handle the fact that something seems to be wrong.” Can you handle that? If you can’t handle it, you’re gonna try to solve it with your mind, and your mind doesn’t know anything. Do you know that the mind knows so little? It only knows what it’s experienced before. So maybe a sister of yours had a baby and they found out, “Well, if you feed it licorice…” and the next thing you know you’re sitting there shoving licorice into the kid. You’ll grab anything, won’t you? That’s because the heart’s not comfortable.

So the first thing a wise person does is get comfortable — the opposite of what your tendency is to do. I’m not trying to solve it, I’m trying to see what’s going on. And you quiet the mind down and you look at the heart and you see all that anxiety, all that tension, all that fear. Does fear make good decisions? Fear doesn’t make good decisions. It makes terrible decisions, because it’s just based on — I want the fear to go away. I don’t wanna solve the problem, I wanna do something that makes the fear go away, because I can’t handle feeling like this. Anybody listening? That’s what it means to work at the root, to work at a deeper level. And this is how you work with the mind, even though I’m talking about the heart. The root of the mind is in the heart. So when you get high enough, clear enough, that you can just — yes, the mind is gonna do this, isn’t it? Can the mind be neurotic? Can the mind jump around like a jumping bean, just go from one thing to the other? Yes, it can do that. Is there a solution in that? No, there is not. Maybe — you know what they say — like twice a day a broken clock reads the right time. Maybe you hit on something. But no, that is not a reasonable way to behave. That’s what’s meant by neurotic. That’s what’s meant by a troubled mind.

But the problem is not the mind. The problem is the heart is not able to handle — using a very simple example — the child is crying a lot and can’t go to sleep, a young baby. You’re not okay with that. And don’t tell me you wouldn’t be either. I understand. But I’m talking to you — you better be okay with it. Why? Because it’s happening. I teach you that all the time. If something’s happening and you’re not okay with it, you’re the wrong person to deal with it. You’re not trying to solve the problem, you’re trying to solve the fact that you can’t deal with the problem. You’re trying to erase the disturbance that you are feeling, as opposed to putting your energy into actually finding a proper right action. We call it right action. See the difference? And I’m telling you — I took 50 years before I saw this stuff. You’re not trying to solve the problem. You’re trying to come up with something to make you feel better about the problem. Maybe the licorice thing is still a stupid example, but who cares.

And so now your sister-in-law tells you, “Oh yeah, we use licorice and it stopped the baby from crying,” and all of a sudden you feel better. “At least I found something. I can try it.” You understand that? You’re just trying to get yourself to feel better so you can try it — as opposed to what? As opposed to realizing that fear, anxiety, insecurity, jealousy — these feelings that try to express a solution in the mind — are never the solution. What you’re trying to solve…

Okay, we get more real. Jealousy. You’ve all felt jealousy at some point in your life. What does your mind tell you to do about the jealousy? “Leave them. I can’t trust them. I don’t wanna live with somebody.” Oh, there’s a good one. Let’s go do that, since you kind of weren’t sure if everybody’s doing anything. Or, “Challenge him. Don’t be afraid. Be powerful. Confront the situation.” That’ll be real good for the relationship, especially if he’s not doing anything. Your feelings that you’re trying to get rid of are not the solution to the problem. The problem is you can’t handle the feeling. What if I can handle the feeling? All of a sudden I become objective. “I’m not sure there’s a reason to be jealous — it’s just something that is happening inside of me.” So that’s a much nicer way to approach the situation. Is there a way I can approach the situation that is trying to solve the problem for all of us, for the whole thing, not just for me?

And you’re gonna find out that when the mind quiets down, because you quiet the heart down — why? Because you can handle the situation. You always want to be able to handle what the heart is emoting, because if you can’t, you’re gonna do stupid things.

Let’s talk about anger. Is anger an emotion? Ever felt anger? You wanna hear what your mind tells you to do about the anger? I don’t wanna hear what your mind tells you to do about the anger, because you don’t know what it’s talking about. It’s only gonna talk about, “How do I get rid of this feeling of anger, of turmoil that I can’t handle? What do I do? Throw pots and pans around? Say some really evil stuff?” It makes you feel better for a moment, but go have fun — it’s never the solution. The expression of anger — how can I make good decisions? Come on, guys, you’ve been on the block. So what you’re saying is, “I feel anger and I can’t handle it.” But then what you’re gonna do — you’re gonna get rid of it. You can find a way to either suppress it because you can’t handle it, or express it. And you don’t wanna be around when expressing it, you hear me? It makes a mess. What’s the alternative? Quiet down in the face of the heart’s experience of anger.

Or fear, or jealousy, any of them. Can you stay seated in the seat of self, consciousness, awareness, and notice that your heart is having a problem with anger? And if you can, you win the prize. Like a video game, you get to the next level. First level is mind — you’re going after it. Second level is you control your mind some by holding it together, something like that — better than throwing it out, but it’s not gonna solve anything. Third level is you start seeing why it is the way it is. You start seeing this stuff in your heart, right? And then you sit there and say — not, am I gonna express or suppress? Why is that in there? You gotta be really — meditation will take you there, or deep spiritual practice will take you to where you’re there all the time. It’s called becoming established in the seat of self.

You’re in there. Something happens, no matter how big — you start feeling fear or anger coming up, and you’re a seasoned spiritual aspirant. You notice what it is and you sit there and say, “Where’s this coming from?” And you can find out that other people can handle the situation. There are people whose house catches fire and they’re very clear. They get the children out, they do this, they do that, they call. You hear me? Other people just freak — completely freak, unable to handle this, yes or no? So you get to the point where you learn that you can handle this. You don’t want to, but you can handle it. And then what’s beautiful is you’ll see deeper inside. The next layer is there are patterns that you stored inside yourself — because of a movie you watched, because something happened — and these patterns are coming up. Maybe it’s just a little fire and you can deal with it easily, as opposed to you freaking out because you watched a fire movie. You’ll see you stored stuff in there that caused you to behave a certain way out of the situations.

And you realize — and this is when you’re going very deep — that every single thing that ever happened to you, and every single thing that comes up from your heart, is for your growth. None of it is a punishment. None of it is karma — that kind of karma, “Oh, you deserve it.” No. There’s no such thing. You are here to grow. And growing means the ability to handle reality. If stuff is going on inside and starts to come up and you can’t handle it, learn. And we’ll talk about how to learn to handle it.

Eventually, you’ll get to a point — very, very peaceful, very deep — that no matter what happens, your first impulse, your first reaction, is to step back, not to step in. You don’t get closer to it. You first step back behind it, find your center — call it being centered. You find your center and you look and see what’s happening. And in general, you’ll find out that from that seat of consciousness, of awareness, of witness, that things aren’t as bad as they looked. You go to the next level.

It’s not about whether to express it or suppress it. You realize at some point, deep in your life, that every bit of that energy can be transmuted. What does that mean? Instead of pushing it down so it stays and builds up inside of you and blows up like a volcano, and instead of letting it all out and making a mess of yours and everybody else’s life — it’s energy. Energy pushed down causes a problem. Energy released comes out, causes a problem. Why can’t I channel the energy up? Why can’t anger turn into love?

You’ll get to a point where you’re centered enough that you step back. Your first reaction, when the energy gets weird, is to step back — not to push away, and not to express, but to step back. And then you’ll see: I am stopping that energy from being able to go to a higher center. I’m unable to handle it enough to let it burst through, to go from the third chakra to the fourth, from the second chakra to the third and fourth. These energies can move. The reason they stay in one center or another is you hold them there. And little by little, understand that every single one of these emotions, every single one that ends up creating all these weird thoughts that are difficult to deal with — it’s not that you don’t let them express that way, it’s that you couldn’t care less.

Come on. You’ve seen your mind go berserk crazy for no reason at all, and you step back and say, “Okay, fine, do your thing, man, but I’m not gonna hang out there.” I don’t have to push it away, I don’t express it — it’s just something that’s going on. It’s like, you know, you got a boo-boo. Fine, I got a boo-boo, I can still play ball. You can deal with the fact that the mind’s having some issues. But you look at the heart, and what you’ll see in the heart is this energy that’s causing the issues. And you go down in there and you step back: Can I handle that? My heart is having some issues. If you can’t, you’re gonna express it or suppress it, and then the mind will go with it, and it’s just a complete mess. “They’re sensitive, they’re reactive.” You step back, and you’ll see — if you step back — there’s room for you to see the energy as it is.

And anger — you never wanna go with anger. Anger is not a meaningful emotion that does any good at all. It just causes damage. It just causes bad decisions. It causes turmoil and suffering for you and everybody else. But I have anger. Yes. But if you step back and do some work with yourself, anger’s a natural expression. I’m not judging myself, I’m not freaking out over it. But I don’t have to get involved in it. I can give it room. You give it room — not to get into it, but give it some room to release. How? I’ve found the word is relaxation. You relax, or release. And when you feel it, you’re gonna wanna tense against it and either push it out or push it down. Instead, you relax. Can you relax in the face of anger? Relax in the face of jealousy, relax in the face of fear. You better be able to. Otherwise, if you can’t relax in the face of it, it’s gonna express itself. So you relax more, and the next thing you know — over time, it takes time — you’ll find out that each time you go through something and you give it relaxation, you give it the space it needs, you will go higher and you’ll get stronger, become more capable of handling more powerful emotions.

So it’s not that they’re wrong. They’re not wrong. They just need to be brought up higher. And the only reason they’re lower is because you blocked them — in a past life or in this life, you pushed stuff down on top of them. So now they’re coming up disturbed. Otherwise they come up pure. They come up beautiful.

I told you once that my yogini, Shakti, who gave us the Durga statue — a beautiful saint — she passed many years ago. One time she leaned over to me out of nowhere and she said, “Nikki.” I said, “Yes, mother.” She said, “Don’t you just love when they yell at you? There’s so much energy.” And her eyes lit up when she stopped, as her disciples got mad at her and yelled at her. You can go there too. You understand that it’s just energy, right? But that’s a very high being.

You can channel those energies to that level, but you are a high being. You can handle anything. You’re in there — it’s just an experience. What’s anger? Something you feel. It’s like a mosquito bite or something like that. But you can’t handle it. So it leaks out. Either you push it down and it makes a mess, or you let it out. So you learn to work with your heart. That’s my hope for this talk.

You’re not trying to stop the mind from doing it. If you wanna work with a tree — we have these, I don’t like them — the carnations, those peppermint colors, you know what I’m talking about, right? They don’t paint them and they don’t inject stuff into the root system. They just pour the color down in the water, the roots suck it up, and they become peppermint. Same thing with you. You work at the root. It’s happening in your heart. And it’s not — there’s fire in there, isn’t it? Passion and fear and all that — that comes as strong stuff, right? And you just learn to relax and release, little by little, in the face of those energies, and you’re gonna find out your mind changes completely. The day you can handle anger, it doesn’t make a lot of noise about it. Literally quiet. It’s quiet. It has space, and the next thing you know, you’re sitting there, you’re channeling it, you feel fine. You channeled it up, and you look outside and you see what’s actually going on. What are the forces that are interacting together that have created this disturbing situation? Because the solution doesn’t mean you are okay — it means you raise the whole situation.

It doesn’t do any good to yell at somebody who yelled at you, they apologize, and that whole cycle is absurd. They yell at you, you yell at them, and they scream and yell and say, “You apologize or I’ll never forgive you.” And then all of a sudden they apologize. You didn’t solve a single thing. Next time somebody does something, it’s coming right back up.

And you understand you have to be able to deal with the energy — how? By relaxing. If you can relax in the face of the energy, you can step behind it. It will pull you in. You have to tense to get pulled in. That act of relaxation gives it room to find another channel. It won’t happen all at once, but this is what it means to evolve. You’re talking about serious growth here — that you can handle things you should not be able to handle.

A beautiful situation — you maybe visit your parents, or an ex, or something like that, and you’re fine. They say something that used to trigger you. There’s nothing to trigger you to do anything. In fact, you feel compassion. The Buddhists say the highest stage of compassion. What does that mean? You go visit your parents, you need to get along with your ex, something like that. Then the next thing you know, they’re behaving the way they used to, and you don’t feel a single thing. Absolutely nothing happens. And what you look at, what you feel, is: “They don’t know what they’re doing. They’re just throwing their stuff around.” And so you feel compassionate, you feel understanding. You don’t wanna fight. You don’t need to fight back.

So this is what it means to be able to look into your heart and see what’s going on in there, and make a commitment. Your commitment is: I’m gonna work at the heart level. I’m gonna notice that all that noise in my mind is my heart trying to find a solution for the disturbed energy that it’s feeling. And I am gonna breathe and look at it — not just in meditation. That’s what I learned. I used to meditate six hours a day, which is wonderful, it’s fine, do it. But out here on the battlefield of life — that’s what you grow. You’re going about your business and all of a sudden this stuff comes up, and you just use every moment of your life, every moment. There’s not one moment in your life that’s not about spiritual evolution. And you start seeing where it’s coming from, and you do your best to relax, and you’re gonna fail. And that’s fine, because it’s not failure, it’s growth.

I always tell you: you go to play the piano, you’ve never played before. The piano teacher gives you scales. You didn’t fail. You’re practicing. You can’t sit there and say, “I have to do the scales perfectly, otherwise I failed.” You’re supposed to be trying, and when you’re trying, you’re gonna make mistakes. And by making mistakes, you will learn to do it better. Take up a sport, see how good you are at it. Go play some ping pong with good ping pong players — you can find them. You’re not so good at it. You’ll have to learn to concentrate, can’t hold the racket right, all kinds of stuff. But you learn with every single ball that comes across that net. You’re better. You’ve had the experience of how to deal with the slice, and how to deal with this, how to deal with that. It doesn’t mean you succeeded. But because you tried and did your best, you got better. The best that you can do is a very honorable thing. It’s a wonderful thing.

Forget ping pong. Let’s say you’re in a relationship and you always end up in these fights and you don’t wanna, and you see the pattern of how it happens. You go in next time and do the best that you can to rework the energy. And if it ends up in a fight, fine. Just do the best you can each time, and I assure you at some point you’ll be a good ping pong player, a good tennis player, a good piano player, and good at “I can handle the relationship.” Because you practiced. Are you allowed to practice? And this whole key is your willingness to do the best you can.

But people give up. “I can’t handle it. I can’t handle it.” There you go. Can’t handle what God gave you to handle. Can’t handle the reality of the situation that’s facing you. No. There is no “I can’t handle it.” There is: “I will march into that the best that I can, and if I fall down, I will get right back up, having learned more because I fell down.” You hear me? Kids learning to ride a bicycle — the father takes off the training wheels, that kid’s gonna fall. And every time they fall, they become a better bike rider, because they’ve learned that sense of balance. It can’t be talked to you — you have to practice. It’s the same thing with all the stuff I’m talking about.

So you get to a point where you realize, no matter what it is — I don’t care what it is — inside my heart, my position is: I can handle it. I step back and handle it. If you fall, that’s fine. That’s what it means to practice. Don’t judge yourself. Don’t feel negative — that’s how you get in trouble. You think it’s supposed to be perfect, that the first time you do anything… no, no way, shape, or form. You just do your best, and then you get up and you do your best. And if you keep doing that, wait and see what happens.

And so that’s how you evolve. That’s how you grow. That’s the meaning of life. And it comes from your heart. The root of the mind is in the heart. The heart is the center, the core of your being. So you learn to work with it. And I’ve given you some clues. One is, don’t ever say “I can’t handle it.” Well, the first one is no suppression. The hierarchy: suppression is the worst. Now temporarily, if you had to put something aside, that’s fine — but come back and deal with it. But literally suppressing so you don’t have to deal with it, that is the lowest form of yoga. That’s the slowest form of working with the energy, because it’s gonna stay in there and it’s gonna spread like a virus in there, and it’s gonna keep coming up in different ways. The next thing you know, you’re yelling at somebody you don’t even know because of something that happened five years ago. So suppression — no. Temporarily, you may be in a situation where it’s gonna blow up, and you just step aside. “Hold it down, down boy, down boy.” But you go down and do your work afterwards. Bring it back up. You do not want that down there.

Expression is the next level. Believe it or not, other than what I said — this momentary thing — expression is better than suppression, which is why psychology is based on expression. “Take up a sport, do something to let the energy out.” And they’re not wrong. Expression is better than suppression. Guided expression is better than wild expression. But basically, that’s a level. But neither of them are close. It’s transmutation — that’s the essence of yoga, the understanding that you don’t have to suppress or express. Just take a step back.

“Simon says, take a step back.” Back into what? Into the one who notices the anger, the one who notices the jealousy. And don’t say, “I can’t handle it.” Say, “Not only can I handle it, I want to handle it, because I don’t want that in there. I can handle it — it’s difficult, but I can handle it.” And you start using affirmation: “I can and I will.” That’s how powerful I was. In yoga — “I can and I will. I can and I will handle it.” May not handle it perfectly, but that’s what I’m telling you. “I can and I will.” His guru, the being of great will, used to tell him — when his master would tell him something’s gonna happen and you were sure — you sure would say to him, “Sooner the sun and the moon should change places in heaven than this won’t happen.” I ain’t playing around. I ain’t quitting. Doesn’t matter. “I can handle this.” You start using affirmation like that, and you grow. You grow. You fall down, you get up. Then what? Then it’s not only “I can handle it” — it’s “I want to handle it,” because I’ve seen what there is underneath that. All that disturbed energy that I have to struggle with — that I can handle. It’s really beautiful energy that’s hitting the rocks that I stored down there, and it’s pushing them up. Till you go through bad times, you welcome that. “I love it, man. Yeah, bring it on. Bring it on.” Is it hard? Yeah. Does it hurt? Sure. So does childbirth. It’s just worth it. You hear me? And you literally start looking at it that way. And when you’re that open, it doesn’t hurt as much. Why in childbirth — what are you taught to do? Relax. Relax, relax, relax. It’s the same thing inside of you.

It’s like, if you relax around it — “I can handle it, I want it, literally. I can handle it. I want it out. I do not want this in here. And I’m welcome to go through whatever it takes, and I’ll relax through it all day, all night. I’m just letting it go.” That’s your next step.

And I told you there are deeper steps even than that. Not “I can handle it,” and not “I want it out.” Once you get far enough back, you look in there and you see what a mess you made of your heart. One of the most beautiful instruments ever created — love, devotion, caring, compassion. That’s a beautiful instrument. And you shoved all that junk on top of it. But now you’re far enough back, and you’re not saying “I can handle it coming up.” You look in there and you apologize to your heart. “I am so sorry that I shoved all that stuff in there on top of you, because I couldn’t handle the reality of my life. I’m sorry.” And you mean it. That’s a part of your being you shoved in there. You understand that? It’s like a piece of your psyche — you took a piece and shoved it down there, and you apologize to it. It’s really beautiful when you get to that state, and you put your hand down — instead of to push it down, you reach your hand down into your heart to give her a hand, to help her up. She’s just a part of your being that was a child that couldn’t handle stuff. That’s what all your suppressed stuff is, and you’re there now as a big brother, big sister, to put the hand down.

And you literally — people talk about reaching down there. They call it the dark side of yourself, or all kinds of names. I don’t get into that stuff. But you have the natural feeling that, “I’m sorry. I’m truly sorry that I shoved him into a closet. How can they help?” And you’ll find out it doesn’t let go right away. But eventually something really beautiful happens. When something happens that disturbs that part of you, it’s amazing to watch. All of a sudden, instead of closing, it reaches up to you. Now you’re reaching down to it, and it realizes it’s got a big brother, a big sister to help it. And it’s seen it enough times that when it gets hurt, it reaches up and says, “I need a hand.” And that’s when the Shakti changes direction. All of a sudden, instead of reaching down, everything’s going up. And that becomes a whole. There are many stages in your growth, I’m telling you. You wanna go through these, don’t you? Wouldn’t that be nice?

She’s freaking out in there, and instead of throwing stuff around or suppressing, she realizes there’s something deeper in there that can help her, and she reaches up for that. So that’s what they’re saying — you can’t do it alone, you need God’s help. So in that case, you’re reaching up for a notion of God that can pick you up. But the beauty is, really, that is God in there. Your highest being is in there, and you’re literally reaching up for help. And it’s always there, because you’re always there. If you can be clear, it can come up. If you get down into it, it’s muck and mess. So you just constantly get to the state of bringing the energy up.

And we could stop. We’ve gotten nowhere in the hierarchy. I call it the launchpad. Your consciousness is now calm enough to sit on a launchpad and wait for the launch. Nothing brings you down. You’re clear. From that point, it goes up by itself. When — especially, especially — once the lower self starts reaching out for the higher self. That’s a beautiful stage, and you just help it up. And then all of a sudden the energy changes direction. You start feeling this tremendous pull all the time — 24/7. In the mornings it’s going on, you go to bed at night, it’s going on. You learn to live with it, and it’s pulling you up instead of the forces pushing you down. And then eventually, little by little, it takes care of itself.

The final stages of the growth of your path — they are not actual will, they’re not things you’re gonna do. They’re the complete surrender of letting go of yourself, of any sense of the personal self, to realize you are holding yourself down by being separate. When in truth, the whole universe is inside of you. And as it pulls you up, eventually it takes a great being to let go. Those really great ones, when they merged, they let go. The ego fell apart. There was no sense of individuality, and there was no littleness left. There was just the whole universe of consciousness. And that’s what enlightenment is.

So there — I hope that helps you. And what it’s all about is, are you willing to work with your heart? Or are you caught in thinking your mind’s gonna solve the problem of the heart? The mind cannot solve the problem of the heart. It just comes up with temporary, hopeful solutions — the heart feels a little bit better. It didn’t solve the problem of why the heart is the way it is. That’s all about purification. It’s about welcoming, releasing, helping, growing. Alright, I hope that helps.

Tami Simon: Welcome back 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.