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. People are taught and think that spirituality is about all these spiritual practices. And the reason you’re taught that is because they help a lot. Some people say they’re essential. But the same people say man minus mind equals God, and that’s the truth. Now, how you go about that and whether you understand that is what makes the difference.
There are people who meditate a whole lot their whole lives And they’re still caught up in ego Maybe they go deep. When they come back, there’s a story the great masters used to tell, that there’s this great yogi, very great yogi. He could enter the deepest states of samadhi and go away for days, and they would put mirrors under his nose and know they wouldn’t get frosted.
They wouldn’t, they wouldn’t get smoky. He wasn’t breathing. He went to a breathless state. People would come from all over, had all kinds of followers. Then he’d come back from his state, and he’d look around to his disciples and say, “Did you take care of what I asked you to do? Well, how come you didn’t take care of that?
I don’t understand. What’s ha-” He was still there. He wasn’t there when he was gone, but something was still there when he came back. So the masters use that as an example of what it’s really about, is what Christ said, dying to be reborn. When you’re truly gone, you’re gone. There’s no coming back. They say there has to be a thin veil, a very thin veil of false concept so you can interact with the world, but the veil is so thin, it just goes away in a minute, and it doesn’t do anything.
Told you, Ramakrishna, one of the great enlightened beings, was asked once, “Does a great master ever feel anger?” And he sh- I read, when I read it back in the ’70s, it shocked me. He said, “Yes. Yes, but it’s like writing on water.” If you write on water, what difference does it make what you wrote? Don’t make any difference.
Leaves no impression. It’s gone. So it was, “Yeah, it’s okay. There’s some human in there,” but passes right through. Doesn’t leave any impression. The key is, when it’s all said and done, with all your practices, with all your self-helps, with all your things you’re trying to do, and there’s a lot of different things, are you still there?
Is there still a you there doing it? All these questions about different medications, different techniques, about different relationships, about how does this work, and then one that, and should I be doing this or not? While you’re still there doing that, you ain’t going nowheres. There’s no answer to those questions other than making you more caught.
No, no, you shouldn’t be doing that, or you should’ve done this. So let’s talk about that tonight. Let’s call the talk, I don’t title the talks before I talk, but this is what’s coming out, Living With Ego. How would you like to talk about that? What’s it like to live with ego, and what do you do about it?
‘Cause it’s much deeper than you think it is. Let’s start off by what I mean by ego. Let’s make sure that you all came to the right talk. To the right temple, okay? You’re having a conversation with somebody, even a friend or even a significant other. When you walk away from that conversation, have you ever found that parts of it are still going on in your head?
“I shouldn’t have said that.” “Wow, I forgot to say that. That would’ve been so impressive.” Just shake your head yes. It’s embarrassing. Shake your head yes or no. Have you ever not? You’re gonna find out that’s witness consciousness. You think witness consciousness is, oh, you’re gone. No, no, no. Witness consciousness is being aware of what’s going on in there, and you are aware, do you know that?
You don’t wanna be. Well, let’s put it this way. You wanna be aware so you can fix it You want to be aware so you can judge yourself and judge others to try to make them be the way you think they should be. Well, I’m already lost. I’m just talking that much, I’m gone. Uh, there ain’t no spirituality in that, but that’s what it’s like to live in there, is it not?
Okay? And it’s not just the conversation you had. It’s the thought you had about a conversation you might have had 10 years ago, or you might have four days from now. It doesn’t stop, does it? Like we’ve talked about, your natural state of your mind is total stillness. Doesn’t mean you can’t create intellectual thoughts and so on, but this whole personal thing, which everything I just example I just gave you, are personal thoughts.
How do you know they’re personal thoughts? They have the words I, me, or mine in them. Saturn doesn’t have those. The galaxy don’t have those. Enlightened being doesn’t have those. A rock doesn’t have those. But we have those, a lot of those. Why did I do that? I shouldn’t have said that. It would’ve been much better.
Why did it have to happen to me? It wasn’t fair. What did I do wrong? This isn’t just. This is a thing. Why did she leave me? I, me. I thought she promised herself to me, and she was gonna be mine for the rest of her life, and now she left me with somebody else. What am I gonna do? It’s so unfair. That is what’s going on in there if you don’t do something about it, and it’s not fun, is it?
And you have dreams about it. If you do something during the day, then you have a dream at night. You’re afraid. You wake up scared and defensive. You ever get defensive? You ever gotten defensive of something that somebody didn’t say yet? I know where you’re going. I can’t say, I know where you’re going with that.
I’m gonna let him, I’m gonna let him say that. I don’t wanna hear that How can there be peace if that’s what’s going on in there? There can’t be. The way we try to fix it, and you’re gonna try to fix it, I mean, anything that’s uncomfortable, you try to figure out how to make it not be like that. So whether it’s uncomfortable outside, something’s hurting your body, so then you try to do something to make it better.
Or it’s uncomfortable inside, it’s the same thing. You’re gonna try and fix it. I like that word, you’re gonna try and fix it. How do you try and fix it? By manipulating the outside situations so that when they come in, they don’t stimulate an uncomfortable ego. Can ego get uncomfortable? It’s always uncomfortable, and it does not take much for it to get more uncomfortable.
But sometimes it can get comfortable It can when it gets what it wants. If your ego in there says, “She said she loves me. I wonder. They said that before, and then they hurt me. I wonder if she will hurt me. No, she said she’d always be true to me. God, I’m starting to feel I can trust her.” Oh, now it’s nicer in there now, right?
Until they do something that isn’t what you expected, and then, uh, another one of those. That’s what it’s like to live in there, and the way you try to fix it is to manipulate and control the outside so that when it comes in, it doesn’t disturb you. Or maybe when it comes in, it’s, it helps. It’s nicer. If the ego gets what it wants, it’s okay.
If it’s really surprised by getting what it never thought it could want, it can get really high. It can get very excited and feel inspired. “Oh, my God, I found something.” But that’s not normally what happens. Normally, anything that happens, it gives you trouble. It sits there and says, “It is a problem. It’s gonna be a problem,” blah, blah, blah.
Unfortunately, that’s what naturally goes on in there, and then you try to fix it. There is no fixing that. Let’s get this straight. I’m gonna let you off the hook. There is no fixing that, period. You can create situations, or try to, those situations can happen, that when they come in, they don’t bother you as much, and maybe they let you feel good for a short period of time.
But you worry it’ll go away. You worry that somebody’s not telling you the truth. You worry that you’re gonna wake up in the morning, you’ll look older. “My first gray hair. What am I gonna do? I don’t have gray hair.” All right? So it can’t be fixed like that. It can’t be fixed by trying to control the outside so that when it comes in, it matches what you’ve ego decided it wants inside.
I’ve been through that time and time again. How does the ego decide what it wants? You do have preferences, hopes, dreams. Okay? But where did that come from? You have had experiences in the past that have programmed your ego, that have programmed your mind. If somebody was nice to you, then you like that kind of person.
Not just the person. If somebody was really, really nice to you and you don’t see them anymore, and somehow that name shows up Come on. You’re programmed by your past experiences. Psychology says man is the sum of his learned experiences. It’s way deeper than that. You are not the sum of your learned experiences.
You’re the consciousness that’s aware that your mind, your psyche, your ego is the sum of your learned experiences, and so is your heart, so are your feelings. That which turns her on, turns him off, because he had experiences that hurt him in the past, so that hurts his heart. She had experiences in the past…
You understand that? That you’re programmed by your past experiences. They might as well type them in or use voice recognition. All right? The mind has impressions that impress based on the past experiences of whether they were comfortable or uncomfortable, and then there are lots of experiences, I showed you this before.
Probably 95%, listen to me, of every experience that ever came into your senses went right through. The white lines in the road, the clouds in the sky, the trees you drive by, the people you don’t know. It’s just, you see it, you have to be here now. You’re really almost there. It comes in, and just like Ramakrishna with his anger, it passes right through.
You don’t hold onto it. Congratulations. Look how close you are. I used to teach 99.9% makes it right through, because I really could justify that. Why? You’re out there on the field. There’s trees, there’s glades of grass, there’s leaves, there’s clouds, and then there’s this rustle below you. It may even rouse a little bit, or hisses.
Right? As of that moment, there’s nothing else happening in your world but that. Everything else doesn’t exist. It used to exist. It used to exist, but it went right through, until something distracted your consciousness to focus it. Now I’m focusing on that sound. I’m focusing on that rustle. So everything’s not the same anymore.
Some of you guys have deep Buddhist Zen teachings called the non-dualistic teachings. Ever heard of those? Non-dualism? I’m not gonna get into it. It’s very deep. It says not two There’s just one creation. There’s just atoms. There’s just quantum vibrations. They’re all the same. You see them as different, guess what I just said?
Because you’re programmed, and therefore, based on how the programming took place, you focus on different things. So you do- not duality, is ultimate multiplicity. I can’t even come up with a word that’s big enough for how much you’ve broken this world into. Not just male or female, it’s good and bad, and right and wrong, and religion, and this.
You’ve broken it into seven hundred billion pieces. Is it seven hundred billion pieces, or are they all atoms? I’ll make it easy for you. Are they all atoms or not? Okay, so what are you doing? Which of the atoms freak you out? And I’ve told them, I have to discipline myself not to do it, because I want you to know they are not atoms.
Okay? That’s not what’s there. That’s like saying, “Look at all this ice.” It is not ice. It is water moving slowly. It’s water vibrates… It’s H2O molecules vibrating slowly, therefore they bond closer and you see it as ice. It’s not ice, it’s H2O molecules. Well, what about steam or vapor? That’s not H2O molecules going slower.
No, it’s H2O molecules going faster. They’re fast enough to where they don’t bond together enough to manifest as water on this physical plane. You understand that? I’m not here to teach you physics. I’m here to teach you spirituality. So which vibration bothers you of the H2O molecules? And there are no H2O molecules.
Well, there are so. There’s hydrogen and oxygen. No, there’s not. There’s electron, neutron, protons. Right or wrong? Is it not true that every single element on the periodic table is three things? Electron, neutron, protons. And which one are you getting upset about? Which ones don’t you like? Which ones freak you out?
Which ones do you get lust about? Which one are you scared to death of? Which proton are you afraid of? Is it not electron, neutron, protons? And are you not freaking out? Why? What freaks him out doesn’t freak you out, and what freaks you out today didn’t freak you out yesterday. What changed? I had an experience.
I got programmed by a different experience. So that’s all that’s happening. Your mind is being programmed, and you’re clinging to certain things and not other things, because a good ninety-five percent, if not ninety-nine percent, ninety-point-nine percent, just go right through because it didn’t cause this commotion inside, either positive or negative.
So therefore, you’re seeing clearly. You’re seeing what is. Otherwise, it causes some commotion. You focus on it. I’ve taught you this a million times. If your consciousness focuses on something, it causes an impression to stay there. The more you focus on it and the longer you focus on it, and it’s the strength of it, means how deep the impression is.
So you have trauma. So what’s a trauma? An impression that happened some time ago that was very, very deep and it doesn’t go away. Why? You’re traumatized. No, you’re extremely fixated on focusing on something that happened ten years ago. Is it still happening? No Then why is it in there? Because you focused your consciousness on it and that caused it to put in.
Oof, can’t not talk about it. Right. You’re outside in the field. Where is the sunshine? Everywhere. It’s falling evenly all across the field. Take a magnifying glass. Don’t look through the magnifying glass. Hold the magnifying glass out in front of you. Anywheres. What does it look like when you look at the ground underneath that magnifying glass?
A focused dot of intense light, intense enough to set a leaf on fire. Whoa. Well, wait a minute. A minute ago, it was just a field of light. But when it focuses its power, it’s all the same power. It’s coming from the sun. But if it focuses its power, then it creates a tremendous different thing. There’s this focused thing.
When you focus your consciousness on something, it is exactly the same as that magnifying glass. Everything was the same. There were white lines, there were people, there were clouds in the sky until you hear a noise or somebody says something in the car next to you, somebody sitting next to you and burps inappropriately.
Didn’t think much of it. All of a sudden, all you hear is the inappropriate burp. You’re going to get in an elevator. There’s people, the elevator, you’re going somewhere. It’s really crowded. One more person tries to get into the elevator. Okay? And it left an impression on you. You talked about it. “But look, what an idiot.
They could have waited for the next elevator. They crammed it so much.” You focused on it. It distracted your consciousness to where now you focused on that one extra person instead of the whole rest of what’s going on. When you do that, it does the same thing as when that sun focuses down on that spot on the ground.
It makes a powerful impression on your thought patterns, and it stays there until you let it go. It’s not going away till you let it go. You’re the one who focused on it. There’s a reason you focused on it. Until that reason’s gone… People ask me about this. “Well, what if I have a, a deep samskara?” I call them samskaras, patterns that got stuck inside.
“It’s been in there since I was a child. Does it have to stay in there?” No, no. I don’t care what they tell you. No, no, it doesn’t have to stay in there. Well, how do you know? Because when it comes back up, you push it back down Because it’s not comfortable. That’s why you focused on it to start with, because it was uncomfortable.
It’s still not comfortable. Why? Because it burned an impression into your mind, into your psyche, and into your heart, into these vibrational levels of your being, mental, emotional, and so on. And so now when it tries to come back up, you push it back down. So now you think it has to stay down there. How long does it have to stay down there?
As long as you can’t handle the fact that it comes back up. Well, can I get rid of it without letting it go? I’m not gonna answer that. Of course you can’t, because you don’t let it go. So there are things that can help. I’m, I’m not taking away that there’s therapies and beneficial things that you can do to help let go.
All right? But in general, if you keep it, it’s gonna stay. So if you focus on it, it’s going to stay. Well, what happens is, as you go through the course of your life… As you go through the course of your life, you have experiences all the time. All the time there’s experiences happening. Is that wrong? Of course not.
There’s things happening in front of you. The part you don’t get, and I try, I c- I just keep talking about it because I can’t not, is wait a minute, every single moment that you’re having an experience, you’re missing seven hundred billion trillion that are going on at the same time somewheres else.
There’s no difference. I’m gonna say something I know you can’t handle. There is no difference between the experiences happening in front of you and the ones all over the universe, all over the Earth, all over everybody else, that are not happening to you. They’re just what’s happened. That’s what’s going on.
They’re… Why is it different because it’s going on in front of you than if it’s not going on in front of you? In every single spot on Einstein time-space continuum, there was something going on. Why is it so special because you happened to be standing there when that’s going on? That’s non-ego. When you’re able, and you’re not able to look at it, I know that.
People talk to me all the time about that. But it is personal. It is not personal. You take it personal, but it is not personal. It’s just that there were events that happened before, and they’re all throughout the universe, and they coalesce together to make the moment that’s in front of you. And the moment next to you and the moment, it, it’s doing the same thing.
Everywhere is. It’s not personal. It’s just what’s happening. And I happened to be standing there when that was happening If you’re standing there when somebody’s yelling, they’re not yelling at you. You just happen to be standing in a place on the planet Earth where somebody’s yelling. Probably if there was somebody else there, they’d still be yelling, right?
Because there were causes that caused them to yell. Yeah, but I’m the one who mentioned their mother, I didn’t realize they were so sen- Give me a break. You could’ve mentioned their father, their aunt. That’s… How’s that your responsibility? That’s not you, that’s them. They brought into the moment what they want to be happening at that moment.
Because of your past impressions, you brought into this moment what you want to be happening. Is that what’s gonna happen? Of course not. Why would that be what happened? There’s something happening everywhere. Why would that be what you want to happen at that particular moment where you happen to be standing?
It’s just there’s moments everywheres, and your consciousness is aware of the one that happens to be in front of you. If you were two minutes late, one, fi- five seconds late from how you ended up in that moment, you wouldn’t have been in that moment, and that wouldn’t be happening. It’d be happening, but not to you.
Like, how do I get it through to you? It’s not happening to you. You just happen to be there So why does it bother me? Because you’ve had past experiences that left impressions on your ego, on your mind, that have preferences, that you come into the moment knowing how you want it to be. “This is how I wanna be treated.
I don’t want anybody to talk to me like that. I, I wanted to get the A in the class.” When I was r- together with a bunch of friends, and they talked about some subject that I should know something about, I used to brag about it, right? And then I don’t know how I messed it up. I said something really stupid.
I was wrong. What do I do now? Say I’m wrong? No way. I told them I knew about that stuff. There’s no way I’m saying I’m wr- look at that. You brought you, your past experiences, your ego, your preferences, your hopes, your dreams, your concepts, your views, your opinions, your… You hear me? Those are powerful words.
But they’re all inside states. Your opinions are not outside. They’re inside. Your hopes, your dreams, your concepts, your views, your preferences, your likes, your dislikes, they’re inside. They can change in a minute. Somebody next to you has totally different ones. I wanna get it through to you. This is how you liberate yourself.
This is the essence of spirituality. Christ said you must die to be reborn. Die of what? The ego. And we’ll talk about what’s left, and we’ll talk about how to do it. But just at least get it, that it does not have to be like that. “Well, why can’t things be the way they’re supposed to be?” Well, just a minute.
What do you mean by the way they’re supposed to be? The way he thinks they’re supposed to be? The way you thought they were supposed to be yesterday? 10 years ago? So when you say, “Why can’t they be the way they’re supposed to be?” you mean me. You’re so cute. That is an ego statement. My impressions of my mind that built my ego and my hopes and dreams and concepts and views are now looking at a world that has nothing to do with me.
Turn to the left, there’s a different one. Turn to the right, a different one. Don’t even turn to left or right. Just get caught into thoughts for a while, while somebody’s saying something that you didn’t hear, and it was really insulting and didn’t bother you one iota. Dare to look. It has nothing to do with you.
It is the sum of all the causes that made the moment be the way it was at that time, and you happened to be there. I know it’s hard, isn’t it? But that’s what it means to not be caught in ego, to not be caught in the fact that my programming is talking in there all the time about what it wants and what it doesn’t want and what it’s afraid of and what it wished didn’t happen before and what it’s, oh, embarrassed.
Ever been embarrassed about something you did 10 years ago? You don’t even wanna think about it? How do you live in there? Not easy. But do you see? That’s just the sum of your learned experiences, and the world out there is the result of cause and effect. It wasn’t around when you were five years old, not at that moment.
So the moments out there, this is how I say it, but I know you don’t get it. The moments out there are the sum of their learned experiences, okay? It rained because of El Niño and La Niña and what the mountains were like in Spain, and then you sit there and say, “Why’d it have to rain on my birthday?” There we go.
There’s your contrast. “Oh, I don’t want it to be raining now.” That’s the sum of your learned experiences, but the outside world reality is the sum of its learned experiences, okay? I’m not trying to make you a physicist. It’s not happening out there because of you. You’re part of the input at that moment, but that’s so minor compared to all the other inputs that…
“Why is he yelling at me?” You really want an answer? You have a lifetime to understand all the things that happened to him that all accumulated together to cause this and cause the mind to think like that and cause this moment to unfold exactly when he had a call an hour ago that was really bad and his mother was yelling at him, and so all…
That’s why he’s yelling at you. You don’t really wanna know the answer when you say, “Why are you yelling at me?” Do you? I love it when you say that. “Why did you do that?” You don’t want an answer. ‘Cause you can’t understand the answer, ’cause those aren’t the things that happened to you that happened to him or her, and you’re expecting an answer that fits you.
“No, I, I’m listening. I’m open. I’m open. Just explain to me.” You’re not open. You’re full of your stuff, and that person’s full of their stuff, and the reason they said what they said at that moment is what their mommy d-… Formative years, okay? What mommy did. That person is a sum of their learned experiences.
You know that. You understand that, but you don’t live it. What you live is, “I don’t care. I don’t care that he’s a sum of his learned experience. I can’t, I can’t handle what he did. I don’t wanna talk to him ever again, but if he can explain it good enough and apologize in a way that I understand…” All ego.
Take a breath. Have I told the truth? Is it fun living in there? Are your relationships fun? No. Why? Because you’re not trying to have a relationship with another person. You’re trying to have a relationship with yourself, and the other person should be projecting that onto you that always matches what you want, right or wrong.
Says what, wears what you want, says, uh, every single thing has to be what you want. And if it is, I love you. If it isn’t, I think I can do better.
It’s truth, isn’t it? Truth’s a serious thing. All right, so now you see where ego came from. The ego is the sum of your learned experiences. That’s where your likes and dislikes, and preferences, and hopes, and dreams, and concepts, and views, that’s where they came from. You did not make them up. And guess who agrees?
Freud. And your mother? What was your relationship with your mother? What difference does it make? I’m 45 years old. It matters, doesn’t it? Because that stuff’s still in there. Why? Because you held onto it. So as long as you got stuff in there that left the impressions based on your past, that’s how you’re gonna think about what happened, you think what’s happening, and what you’re gonna think about that you want to be happened or don’t want to be happen.
Anybody worry? Does anybody know what the word worry means? I never defined it for you. I think every one of you know what it means to worry. And what do you worry about? What does your ego, your mind, personal mind, I me mine, what does it worry about? That what I want might not happen. I worry, don’t I? That what I don’t want might happen.
Look at how similar you all are. You’re exactly the same. You all worry about the same thing, that what I want might not happen, and what I don’t want might happen. Now you understand what’s going on in there. That’s what the ego is. What… And then we’ll go one step deeper. The ego is made up, not of all your past experiences, the ones that distracted you enough to where you held onto them.
They made those impressions of the magnifying glass. It burned impressions into you. They stay there. And there’s one further step. Aside from being so distracted or holding on, you’re in there. How do you know? Because you know that’s going on in there. You all laugh when I talk about it, because you know that’s going on in there.
How do you know? Because it’s not me. It’s something I’m looking at. It’s something I’m aware of. I’m aware that there’s worrying going on in there. I’m aware that I’m uptight. I’m aware I get scared. They sit there and say, “Oh my God, since she left me,” or, “He left me, my heart is in turmoil. Oh my God, there’s so much pain and it feels like there’s a volcano and razor blades going on in there.”
Okay, we can listen to that, and you should feel compassion, but the right question is, how do you know? Wait a minute. How do I know what? How do you know that your heart is burning? Because it’s burning. How do you know? Because I’m aware and see it burning. I feel it. Who does? Were you in there when it was feeling love?
Is the same you in there that’s now feeling the burning? Who are you? That is the essence of spirituality. Who is in there noticing that the mind’s going crazy? People write me and they say, “My mind just won’t stop.” How do you know it’s crazy in here now? How do you know? Because I am in here aware of it.
Okay, very good. That’s witness consciousness. That is the self. That’s the consciousness itself being aware of what it’s conscious of. But what happens is, if those patterns keep repeating enough to where that’s what’s going on in there, when you wake up in the morning, you’re afraid of this, you haven’t been able to work, the thing, feeling secure, it’s enough to draw your consciousness down, and you start identifying…
I’m gonna cry to say this. This is the deepest thing I’ve ever teach you. You start identifying with what you’re looking at. The subject, you, starts identifying with the object, what you’re looking at. That’s called false identification. Why? It’s not who you are. You’re the one who’s looking. You’re the one that’s noticing that it got weird in there.
Does it get weird in there? How do you know? Because I am in here. But if it happens enough for long a period of time and it’s strong enough, you say things like, “I am scared. I am jealous. I am insecure.” Whoa. You just defined yourself. You know the English language, subject, verb, object. But there’s a special verb called I am.
Spanish is ser. I like that Spanish differentiates the verb estar from the verb ser. Wow, I wish English had that. What’s estar? A temporary state. What’s ser? What I am, an identity. But we use the word all the time. Why? Because we’re so lost, uh, we literally define ourselves. No, no, no, I am insecure. You are not.
You are not. You’re looking at insecurity. You’re looking at an insecure ego. I am so angry. No, you’re not. You’re looking at anger. Was it there five minutes ago? No. Will it be there five minutes later after you’ve thrown things all over the place and calmed down? No. But then it’s not who you are. I am his wife I am her husband.
Really? What were you before you met? You’re programming yourself with the very words and thoughts that you have to a lie. Like nowadays in the papers and all over the place, in the web, there’s all these lies, all these false stuff. You don’t even know what’s real anymore. Well, that’s what’s going on in there.
If it says it enough times, that’s who I am. I am a Republican. I am a Democrat. Can it change? That’s not who you are. It’s what you happen to be thinking at that time. How do you know? How do you know you feel that way? Because my heart changes. So how do you know that? Who’s in there? The answer is you are, but there’s this false identification.
What does psychology call that false identification? They have a name for it. They actually admit that this is going on. Do you believe that? You know what they call it? The ego. Well, what is the definition of the ego? The false self-concept, the concept of yourself. I am attractive. No, you’re skin and bones.
You’re a bunch of atoms floating around, right? I’m not attractive. Um, and you just define yourself by what you’re looking at, and they call that your self-concept. She has a weak self-concept. She has a strong self-concept. Remember I said, what’s it like to live with ego? What’s a strong… You say a strong self-concept, good thing to have, isn’t it?
You’re gonna suffer just as much as someone who’s got a weak one. Why? Because you have to prove yourself all the time. Anybody listening? Remember the top of the talk? What it’s like to live with ego. And I’m gonna tell you a secret. You don’t want to You don’t want to. It’s no fun at all. It… You have to chase it your whole life.
You hear me? You have to just keep chasing something that makes you feel okay. And as you get older, yeah, the chasing’s too easy. Unless you don’t have the self-concept of, “I’m a young, virile, popular person.” Right? You have the self-concept of, “I’m in here, and look how amazing it is. This body changes by itself.
It used to look like a 15 years old, now it looks like an 80-year-old. Wow, how did that happen? By itself. It must be natural. It must be fun. I wonder what it’d be like to be 80 and not have the brain power that you had before and not be as successful as you were before.” I’ve met great yogis. You measure them because you know how much popular they are and how much good they do in the world.
No, no, no, no, no. I’ve met great yogis that were very, very popular. Lot… People came from all over the world to be with them. And when they got older, they lived in a trailer. And guess what? They didn’t see the difference. There was no difference. They had no trouble. Which one you wanna be? The one that’s clinging, grabbing, trying to hold onto your self-concept, or the one that’s enjoying their life, enjoying all the different stages of their life?
Do you understand that? But ego doesn’t, doesn’t let me talk like this, okay? Because it doesn’t want it to happen, does it? You wanna always be the best version of yourself based on what? Ready? What other people think. That’s what the best version of yourself is. I’ll prove it. Be rich And everyone’s wooing all over you, and you drive a Hummer that pollutes the environment, and this, that, and the other thing, and then all of a sudden you’re in a p- period of time where people are not liking you doing that, polluting the environment or being ultra-rich, more rich than other people, and so on, right?
Well, what happens to your self-concept? Now you’re embarrassed to pull up with your Ferrari. Can it happen? You hear me? So it’s like this thing of who you’re trying to please. There’s no such thing. You’re gonna go crazy. You don’t win with ego. There’s no self-concept you can pick that works for everybody.
Have you noticed? You’re a different person around your parents. You’re a different person around your ex-wife. You’re a different person around your current wife. How are you gonna win? You win by letting it go. Now we’ll talk about that, all right? Now you understand ego. It is based on the impressions that got made based on your past experiences, and the ones that were strongest, you identified with, and you built this self-concept.
Here I am, and you don’t really say, “Take me or leave me.” You say, “Tell me how I need to change so you’ll take me. No, don’t leave me. No, no, no, I love you. I can’t live without you.” Right? “Just tell me. I can change. I can change.” In other words, well, I, I made myself up, I can make up another one. Hey, you’ve all been there, especially in high school, when you’re trying to formulate that stupid self-concept, right?
How are you deciding that you’re popular? How are you deciding that you have a good one? Other people are telling you, “You’re popular. Everybody wants to be with you. You’re unpopular. People don’t want to be with you.” You’re letting other people’s self-concepts judge yours. Well, where’d theirs come from?
The sum of their learned experiences. And it just… You’re just… How are you gonna deal with all this? How can you be such that other people, that are the sum of their learned experiences, are judging you, who’s trying to make up how you wanna be, and everybody’s different, and everything’s different? How quickly can public opinion change?
Anybody notice? It’s scary. It’s scary. Can you do one thing and somebody make a big deal out of it and all of a sudden nobody likes you? You know darn well it can happen, that’s why you’re scared to death to be in there. Can you do one thing and all of a sudden everybody decides, “Wow! Wow, she’s special.
Look what she did.” And now you’re afraid to do anything ever again, ’cause it might not be as good. You like living in there? Isn’t it fun? And then you literally take the concept, if I’m good at things, they’re gonna accept me. Good at what things? Who’s gonna accept you? Then what you do is you pick your friends as those who will accept you.
Have I been clear enough about ego? Isn’t that fun? No, it’s not fun. It’s absurd, and under no condition… That, I, I like people who sit there and say, “I’ve decided to go to some exotic place in Nepal to find myself.” You are the self who’s looking for yourself. You better look under the bed. Maybe he’s there.
You’re literally looking at a mind that’s saying, “I need to find myself. I woke up, and I need to find the real me.” And you literally struggle. Is it the one that wants to get married or the one that doesn’t want to have children? Is it the one who wants to have wealth so that I can donate to others, or the one that doesn’t want to get…
follow the money at all? You’re gonna find them all in there at some point. Do you understand that? Depends on who you’re dating. God, I hope you’re listening. Why? Because I care about you. I don’t want you to have to live in that junk. That’s not a nice place to live in. It will never be okay. It can’t be, because you’re saying okay is based on how other people look at you, and they’re totally different than you, and they’ll change in one second, won’t they?
You’re madly in love with somebody, and they’re madly in love with you, and all of a sudden they come home, and there’s this cold feeling when they walk in the house. Ever feel it? And you say, “What’s wrong?” “Nothing.” “What’s, what’s wrong?” “I, I talked to Sally this afternoon. She gave me a call.” “Which Sally?” What does she tell you?
Can Sally tell him something that turns you off completely, that when you walk in the house… She told me something I never thought you would’ve done. You’re in fifth grade. They go back that far nowadays. Yeah. Right? They really literally do. I’m glad you’re laughing- No … ’cause that is what it’s like to live in there, and you lose.
You will always lose. Just getting old, you lose. Opening your mouth to say something, never ever be afraid to talk ’cause you might say something not impressive or say something wrong or bother somebody. I like that. Some people say, “I don’t wanna ever bother anybody.” Good luck- … ’cause you don’t have any idea what will bother them, ’cause they’re the sum of their learned experiences and you’re projecting the sum of your learned experiences onto them and bothering yourself.
Can’t believe I said that. It probably hurt them so much. I didn’t want to ever hurt anybody. Should I call them? No, because then you put emphasis on it and… They don’t even know what you said. They’re just going about their business. They do not have going on in their mind what’s going on in your mind.
How could they? In fact, I- I’ve literally had situations in my life, and you have also, where I give a talk or do something like that and something in my mind says, you know, that she wasn’t smiling. She probably didn’t do very well with that. And three years later, I run into the person in the supermarket and they look at me and they say, “What you said that night hit me so deep, it changed my life.”
Anybody listening? Ever been there? You don’t know squat, and that’s a wonderful… Ram Dass said, “Becoming nobody,” that’s what it means. You don’t know squat. That’s the truth, and the reason you’re trying to figure it out is so you can figure out how to not hurt anybody else or how to please somebody else.
So how do you deal with this? We just did. The fact that you’re willing to listen to this talk- And take a look at what it’s like to be in there and have an ego. How sensitive is that thing? Anything you say, anything you do, anything you wear. Go on, go to a party. They say, “Ah, don’t worry about your wearing,” but they really meant, you know, business formal, not tuxedos or anything, and you go there in schlump.
“How you doing?” “I think I need to leave. I don’t fit in here.” You show me the person who just walks right in who couldn’t care. Einstein, he couldn’t care less. The hair’s all over the place. The clothes are schlumpy. You hear me? Why? Because he’s, he’s caught in his mind, but in the intellectual mind. He’s not thinking about what I said or what I didn’t say and that kind of stuff.
Right? How do you free yourself? By noticing how bad it is to live with that and not identifying with it. If you identify with it, you’ll make every decision based on that. This is who I am. I’m young, I’m a thing, and I’m popular. Now go out there and make it be that way so you feel okay, as opposed to, I wasn’t sure how I would do.
Played the guitar really well. They, they seemed to really like it. Okay. I don’t care. That’s not who I am. I’m not a great guitar player. I’m a person that went out there and the guitar happened to play well that night. It could have not. The strings could have broke. The audience might not have liked rock.
They wanted Beethoven. You came… You stopped in the wrong studio. Like anything could have happened. How dare you own it and make it part of your ego? And you did. Why? Because it felt good. And you don’t normally feel good. Of course not, because ego does not feel good unless it gets what it wants. Now you’re caught.
Now you’re identifying, right? So you ask somebody, “Who are you?” “I’m the person who played Dorothy in the fifth grade and everybody clapped.” That’s not who you are. That’s an experience you had. Yes or no? How dare you define yourself as the sum of your learned experiences? Your psyche is the sum of your learned experiences.
Your ego is the sum of your learned experiences. You’re the one who notices. That goes for everything. I was married. We were in love. Obviously, you got married. You must have been in love. It’s now years later, and we’re getting divorced, and it’s not really nice. That’s generally what happens. Who are you?
The person that was in love or the person who’s getting divorced? I’m the person getting divorced. I never want to see that person ever again. You change your identity by what hits you the most or latest. It’s kind of weird, right? Well, who are you? I don’t know. Well, maybe we need to find out. You are the one who notices You are the one who noticed that you were happy until so-and-so said something, then you got upset.
Were you there noticing? Were you there noticing upset? Can you stay centered and notice the mess that you’re looking at down there? Or do you have to get pulled into it and try to fix it? There, that’s the bottom line. You must die to be reborn. Say, I say, “Well, or are you getting divorced? You need to be kind to that person.”
That would kill me. There you go. Christ said you must die to be reborn. Let you who’s without sin throw the first stone Right? Don’t stop doing anything, just notice. That’s my teaching at this point. I’ve been doing this for a very long time. Stop the ego. You’re not going to stop your ego. That’s another self-concept.
“I don’t have an ego. I’m finished. I’m enlightened. I’m the greatest being ever walked the face of the earth. I don’t have an ego.” Okay, it’s called spiritual ego. That is worse than the others, because you think you’re that, okay? So what do you do? Is just notice. You notice and you relax to the best of your ability and you breathe.
And when she says, “Okay, I, I think I did well. I think I’m, I’m popular,” don’t shut her up. Don’t push her down. Just nod. Eventually, I got to a point where whatever he’s saying, been there, done that. Maybe I had to go through them experiences to get to the point, “Eh, I’ve been there, done that.” It’s like you learn that it’s not there, and it starts to thin out.
Life helps you. Life is sandpaper. You have experiences. Good, bad, good, bad. You like the good ones, not the bad ones. No, no, no. You will get to the point where that which doesn’t go your way is as beautiful and as important as that which goes your way. You don’t call one a miracle. “It’s a miracle. I met this person that came together, and we had such a relationship,” right?
“It’s a miracle. I met this person. They almost destroyed my life. They took all my money. Boy, did I grow.” You don’t see a difference. Only your ego sees a difference, because it decided what it wants to happen. Otherwise, wow, Earth is a place that souls are sent to evolve. I will repeat that. Earth is a place that souls are sent to evolve.
Did you evolve through experiences that didn’t always work out the way you wanted? Did you get stronger? Did you learn to handle things? Did you learn to not judge as much? You are growing through every experience if you don’t identify with, “I want it, I don’t want it.” It’s just bring it on. It’s hard for me to stop, because I gotcha.
But this is so deep. I’m talking against the essence of who you think you are. But it’s not who you are. How would you like to sit in the seat of self, and no matter what happens down there, it doesn’t pull you in? It’s happening. There’s still insecurity, there’s still fear, there’s still this. They just pass right through.
That’s just a natural human emotion. Somebody say, “I love you, I love you, I love you.” Just kidding. That’s not fun. But it just passes right through. You’re centered. You’re clear. Nothing will ever touch you again Doesn’t mean you won’t feel emotion. What you’ll feel is beautiful Shakti pouring up inside of you, and you’ll never go down ever again.
You are… That is who you are. In the yogic scriptures, teachings, they have a name for the self, Sat-Chit-Ananda. Sat-Chit-Ananda, that’s the nature of the self. What does that mean? Eternal conscious ecstasy. That’s who you are. That’s what’s back there looking at the junk. When you are able to let go of that junk, it doesn’t stop.
It’s a permanent state. That’s what an enlightened master is. They’re liberated, free All right? How do you do this? I don’t need a long lecture. You wake up in the morning and you say, “I’m back.” How do you know? “‘Cause I’m in here.” Is she still there? Yeah, she’s still there. She’s talking about what happened yesterday.
She’s talking about what she hopes will happen tomorrow. But I’m in here. What are you gonna do today? I am gonna go through every moment of today and handle it, not suppress it, not cling to it. Just be aware and honor its right to exist, and process it by letting it go, letting it pass, so that the next moment’s free to be there, and I’m there with it.
So be here now. What do I do if I get pulled down? Don’t judge. Just do the best you can, and don’t you ever feel guilt. Don’t you dare, right? Y- you’ve just taken on the most difficult task that could ever exist in the history of humanity, harder than the greatest athletes that ever did anything, right?
You’ve taken on liberation of the soul. So don’t you dare judge along the way. So you get back up, and you just do better. And you will do better because you have practice. You practice. Practice makes perfect. Keep letting go. Then in the evening, don’t judge. Sit down. I don’t care if it’s five minutes, 15 minutes, I don’t care.
And look. Did anything get stuck in there? Is there anything still going on in that mind that wants to talk about what I did wrong or how excited I am that maybe I’ll get the raise? You know, is the day over? The day is done. No, it’s not. It’s living on there, right? Can you let go then? Can you then see it’s just stuff that got caught, and that’s okay.
I can let go now. She said she loved me. It was so exciting, right? And tomorrow we will see what unfolds. If she says, “Just kidding,” it’ll hurt a little bit. It’ll just hurt a little bit, and I’ll let go. And if I can’t let go right away, I’ll just work on it little by little, relaxing through it because I don’t need to own it.
I’m fine. I’m filled with love. I don’t need that. I don’t need somebody else’s approval for me to be okay. You don’t want to earn their approval. That’s ridiculous. All right? Okay. It’s hard for me to stop, right? But do you get it? So you don’t say, “I don’t care what you think of me.” That means you do care, right?
You just literally… That’s okay. I see that someone cares in there. That’s my ego. I got one, and I can let it go, and it thins out, just keeps thinning out over time, and then it’s so much easier to live in there. Oh, thank you for listening, really. If you understand this stuff, you got some work to do. Every book I’ve written, I have four of them now, are all about how to do that work, how to liberate yourself, free yourself, and live a full life.
Oh, Jai guru dev
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.
