E222: Unconditional Freedom

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: Mm-hmm. Jai guru dev, jai masters. There are words—probably all words—that have so many different meanings. And it’s not that the word has different meanings, it’s that we make different meanings inside ourselves out of the word. That’s an interesting study, to see what a word means to somebody. So there’s one word. Freedom is a word I seldom use without thinking.

It’s freedom. And I assure you, it means something different to all of you. Okay? And that’s good. That’s fine. But there are really very, very different meanings of that word. So one is, obviously, if you’re in bondage physically, you want freedom. You push for freedom. You yearn for freedom. That’s one level of freedom. Another level is—there are many layers.

I’ll skip a lot of them. Free to do what I want—most of you think that is freedom. Freedom for yourself. Freedom to do what you yearn to do. Freedom to do what you dream to do. Freedom to do what you haven’t been able to do. Freedom—lots of things can be bonding you from that, right? You can be in a relationship that doesn’t let you be or do what you want to do.

It can be a job that doesn’t let you do what you want to do. It can be a life that doesn’t let you do what you want to do. And you have this feeling: “If only I could be free. If only I was free to express myself, only free to be what I want to be, free to do what I want to do, free to not have to take care of the kids.”

Just free. Free not to have a husband or wife bothering me all the time. Free to—free financially. How about financial freedom? I want to be free financially to do the things I’ve always dreamt to do, or at least free from the burdens of finance, of debt, of problems. How about that one? How about be free of problems?

None of those are freedom. None of those are real freedom. Why? What they’re about is that you’re not free to be free unless certain things happen. It’s called conditional freedom, all right? There is such a thing as unconditional freedom, and I’ll talk about that. But let’s talk a little bit more about conditional freedom.

What does it mean? There are conditions, right? If these conditions took place, I would feel freer. If these conditions don’t take place, I won’t feel free. If those conditions take place, I really don’t feel free at all. I feel I’m just bound. I’m bound, okay? And so you have conditions. And what do you do? You try to make those conditions happen.

Now the question becomes, are you free to try to make those conditions happen? You’ve already set conditions on your freedom. Now you’re free to try to make them happen. What does that mean? Well, unfortunately, they all include the outside world. They all include other people, correct? It’s not freedom within yourself.

We’ll discuss that in a minute. But obviously, you feel you need freedom, and therefore, I need you to behave the way I want you to. I need my boss to behave the way I want him to. I need this job to be the way I want it to be. Now, I’m not free because I have these conditions on my freedom, right? And they’re very difficult conditions.

Has anyone ever reached them? For a minute. You hear me? Seriously. People have trouble in relationships. People have trouble—even relationships that you thought would be the one special person, and you’re, “Oh my God,” your soulmate, right? Doesn’t always work out, does it? Answer me. Same thing with your job.

Same thing with whatever you always thought you wanted to do, okay? It doesn’t always work out. There’s a law—you guys know I almost did a doctorate in economics, right? And I learned a law, and it’s a standing law. It’s called the law of diminishing returns. Ever heard of it? The law of diminishing returns.

It’s an economic law. We studied that in graduate school, all right? What does it mean? It means if you don’t have anything, you might really want it. If you get it, you feel really satisfied. If you get more of it, “Oh, well, thank you.” If you get more of it, “Hey, leave me alone. This is boring. It’s not what I want.

It’s not doing it.” Right or wrong? Does that happen or not? If you get the most perfect meal that could ever exist—I flew them over from France or wherever, the chef, right, made you exactly everything you ever dreamt of, and we made it there, and you had it, and it was just perfect. I mean, perfect.

“Do you want it again for dinner tomorrow night?” “You bet I do.” “Can you afford it? Can I keep him here, he or she here?” “Yes, I’ll do that for you.” “Wow, it’s really good. It wasn’t exactly the same as last night. There’s a little flavor slightly different, but that’s okay. Differences are okay.” All right. “How about next night?”

“Sure. Let’s try it. Let’s try it again.” Well, why are you trying it? Okay. To see if it’s as good as the one before. You start comparing, yes or no? So all of a sudden now you want it for the next night, I guess. How about for breakfast, lunch, and dinner? No. No, thank you. I’ll take spinach or Brussels sprouts.

Okay? And you just start realizing there’s a law of diminishing returns, isn’t there? Take a breath. Guess what? You ain’t breaking that law. Get a new car, the one you ever dreamt of. I finally got that car. I borrowed. I did everything. You take everybody for rides. You show it off. You get in it like, “Wow, look, it’s got everything I ever wanted.”

It’s all right. How long before it’s a car that you go to work with? Does that wear off, yes or no? It sure does. The law of diminishing returns. So what’s that about? If the conditions that make you feel free happen, you can feel free for a while. It doesn’t last, period. And you all talk about freedom in your rich world, richest country in the world, and you still don’t feel free.

So no matter how much you get of conditional freedom, you’re not free. Why? Because you have conditions, and you have to meet those conditions, and everyone else has to meet those conditions, and they won’t, and you won’t, and if they did, it gets boring. So that’s not real freedom. Freedom is not freedom for yourself.

It’s freedom from yourself. What does that mean? It means forget the outside. There are conditions outside that make me feel better—absolutely, for a while. I have to keep changing them, so it has to be more interesting. And there are people outside that make me feel stronger or freer for a while, then you get used to it, you look for some more change, this, that.

The problem is you’re not free inside, and you’re trying to compensate for that lack of freedom by finding things outside that make you feel freer. But those are conditional. I won’t belabor that point, but come on. How hard is it to get them the way you want them? Have you ever gotten them the way you want them?

And has it ever lasted very long? So you struggle. Well, that’s not freedom. You’re having to struggle. To do what? I have to struggle to be free. Well, then you ain’t free. Okay? You got a major problem here. So what does it mean to be free, really free? It doesn’t mean you don’t continue to work outside to help others be free, to do good works.

No one’s saying that, right? But if you’re not free, everything you’re doing is to make you feel free, and that’s very selfish and doesn’t really work, because then the other people have to behave, everyone else has to behave the way you expect them to, so you feel free. What is inner freedom? And again, it’s not something you like to talk about.

Freedom from need, freedom from want, freedom from conditions, freedom to be free inside completely, absolutely, unconditionally. No matter what happens outside, no matter what goes on, you are free. That’s called free of yourself, free from yourself. Well, why do I need to be free from myself? I don’t think you need to ask me that question.

Free from the mess that goes on inside. Free from the fears, the anxieties, the tensions, the desires, the likes, the dislikes. Come on, man, pretty messy in there, isn’t it? And what you’re doing is trying to find freedom for that which is not free outside by making conditions be a certain way outside. There are some very, very wealthy people.

Have you noticed, if you read the papers, not all wealthy people are having a really fine time of it? But I believe I once read that there are more divorces in Hollywood than anywhere else in the country. Why? They’re not free inside. What does it mean to be free inside? And let’s just imagine for a moment, you wake up in the morning and all you feel is the joy of being alive.

No conditions, no “what I want to happen today,” no “what I’m afraid might happen today.” How would you like that? How would you like to be free of fear? I’m not talking about… A master once said—Yogananda once said, his guru said—”When I talk about free of fear: if a lion jumps at you, feel fear. But don’t feel fear because somebody didn’t say something, or you think somebody might not say something, or because something might not be the way you want it, or the weather might rain today.”

Ready? Here’s the fear: it might not be the way I want. Okay, that’s the basis for discussion. It might not be the way I want. It might be the way I don’t want. That’s a condition for fear. And guess what? You have it all the time. Is it true that things might not be the way you want? I wonder—have you ever had things not be the way you want?

Is it true that it might be the way you don’t want? Have you ever had things be the way you don’t want them? Between those two things, you’re not free. That’s what makes them conditional. Let’s repeat that again: have you ever had things be not the way you want? Well, yeah, I would have to say so. Have you ever had things be the way you don’t want?

Yes. That’s like a major part of what goes on in there, isn’t it? Right? And you’re afraid of that. You’re afraid of that happening. So now you’re not free to be—you have to go out and try to make them not happen. Either try to make it happen or try to make it not happen. That doesn’t sound like much fun.

And it sure doesn’t sound like freedom. That does not sound like freedom. That’s somebody who has you in bondage. What does? Your likes and dislikes. Because I have likes and dislikes, things might not match them or might match them. Freedom—let the cat out of the bag. What if you didn’t have likes and dislikes?

What? You can’t even imagine such a thing. What if I didn’t have likes and dislikes? What if I was so free inside that however the world unfolded outside did not challenge my freedom inside? It was unconditionally free. Now again, that doesn’t mean you don’t go outside and do stuff. It doesn’t mean that you just sit in the mountains somewhere and be free.

“I’m free. I’m free to be free.” No. And they didn’t—the great ones didn’t, okay? It means I’m free to be free of myself, so now I can help others. Now it’s not about me getting conditions the way I need them to be so I can be free. That sounded really selfish. “I need things to be a certain way so I can feel free.”

That’s my freedom? Well, one, you’re not free, nor is anybody else. Ever lay a trip on people’s heads? Ever try to manipulate people? Ever try to get people to do what you want them to do and not do what you don’t want them to do? That’s what you’re doing. And the word manipulation is the right word. You’re attempting to manipulate even your spouse, your husband, your children—especially your children.

How do you get them to be the way you want them to be, the way you thought they were supposed to be, et cetera, et cetera? You have concepts and views and opinions and preferences and hopes and dreams. Do you have those things, by the way? Concepts—you know what they are? Views, opinions, preferences, hopes, dreams.

You’re not free. Because you’re not free until those things happen. What do you mean by dreams? “I dream that someday things will be the way I want them to be.” What is a dream? “I have dreams. I have hopes.” Even hope sounds so wonderful. “I have hopes.” Shh. What do you hope? “I hope it will be the way I want.”

Not a single hope you’ve ever had that isn’t about “I hope someday my ship will come in.” What does that mean, someday my ship will come in? I hope it’ll be the way I want. Trouble is, your ship doesn’t look like her ship or her ship, right? It doesn’t even look like it was a year ago. Your ship changed. You know what I’m saying?

Wake up. I’m terrible. Those are not spiritual words, hope and dream. It’s way beyond that. What if you’re unconditionally okay? Then you don’t have hopes. You’ve already reached the state. You don’t have dreams. It’s already so… What did Christ say? “Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that leaveth the mouth of God.”

That’s a yogi talking. What do you mean? What does bread mean? It doesn’t mean food. It means the outside world. You don’t live just by what’s coming into your senses from the outside world. You live off the flow of the Shakti, off the flow of spirit that’s pouring inside of you all the time, unconditionally.

That’s the word of God. The word of God, meaning there’s this energy, this beautiful energy. “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that leaveth the mouth of God.” A yogi feels that all the time. How would you like to feel that your energy is so free to flow that nothing stops it? You’ve had high energy.

You’ve felt energy rushing inside of you. Every one of you have at some point, and it’s beautiful, isn’t it? You ever hear a song that’s just so beautiful you melted into it? Is that beautiful? During that time, did you hope it was different? Was there that hope? Did you ever dream that they’d play a different note than they played?

See, hopes and dreams are still mind. There are still conditions. Again, I’d like to someday give a talk where we just have a really deep talk, and then you forget it when you walk out these doors, right? But you should hear it once, once in your life. Do you see why I’m saying this? Hopes and dreams are wonderful things.

If you’re depressed, I hope that you’ll get what it is that makes you not depressed. But what if you’re not depressed? What if you’re filled with love and joy all the time? What if, because a bird goes and tweets, your heart melts and literally melts? What if you wave your hand across your heart and so much love comes pouring out and stays as long as you want while you want to lay there, and it will never go away?

That was your fourth chakra opening. These are real things. Don’t just study them. Please don’t just study them. Experience them. And so there’s this energy inside of you. Have you ever felt down? Ever felt up? That’s how you use the words. “I was so high, no drugs. I was so high. Oh my God, I couldn’t even see straight.”

And he kissed me. She kissed me. I melted. Have you ever had something touch you to the depth of your being? Ever use those words? “It touched me to the depth of my being. I felt like I was in the presence of God.” You were, because it made it all the way in with no conditions, and the energy flowed freely.

Ah, you said the word free. The energy was free to flow. In other words, there was nothing stopping it. That’s what freedom is. It is the inner state that there are no blockages to the energy flow inside of you. I’ll repeat that. That is true freedom. There are no blockages inside of you that are blocking the natural flow, and it is natural.

It is your natural state. It’s everybody’s natural state, all the time, period. I did thirty years of prison work, maximum security prison. It was every one of those wonderful people. It was their natural state. Did they kill people? Did they do this? Did they steal? Yes, they did that at one point in their life.

It doesn’t matter. Everybody’s natural state is ecstasy. Everybody’s natural state is a total free flow of Shakti, of spirit. I like the word Shakti—it’s a yoga word. I hope you don’t mind if I use “spirit.” This energy is yours. It’s there all the time. It is unconditional, and it is pure ecstasy. You say you had this moment at the sunset or the kiss or something, “I melted.”

Have you ever melted? And don’t be so quick to say yes, because some of you have never melted. And if you did, it’s a very rare experience. There’s always a little bit of something holding back. Be careful. Don’t go so fast. Careful. The sunset’s beautiful. “Can I move here? Can I get my house near here so I see the sunset all the time?”

You just ruined it. That’s not a free flow of energy. Your thoughts immediately blocked that total freedom of melting into your being and into God and into just everything and nothing. You hear me? You are capable of that state. How often have you felt that state where you just melted completely, and there was no mind bothering it, and there was no fear bothering it, there was no need bothering it.

There was just complete freedom for the energy to flow. There are people who have never melted ever in their entire life. They’re busy thinking, they’re busy fearing, they’re busy controlling. Well, if you’re controlling and you’re thinking, then you’re not melting. You’re controlling and thinking. If you think about what would make you happy, you’re not happy.

And it takes joy to feel joy. It takes love—you go, go look for love. I hope you have gone around the block enough times to realize if you’re looking for it, you ain’t finding it. Why? Because what you’ve done is said, “I don’t have it, and I have conditions that I think will make me get it.” No way. Love is something you experience spontaneously within yourself.

The heart opens and all this Shakti, all this energy, comes pouring out. It’s really beautiful, okay? You can’t make that happen. From meeting somebody, yeah, for a minute. “Oh my God, she blew me away.” Yeah, how long did that last? I don’t know. “We got married in Vegas and we got divorced two hours later.” I don’t know.

It didn’t work out so good. Am I speaking to you? Do you understand what I’m telling you? There is a flow of energy inside of you, which you have felt very rarely, which is total freedom. The freedom to be free, the freedom to be unconditionally free. And again, I put a caveat. Don’t think that’s selfish.

It’s not selfish. When you feel that, everybody feels that. Anyone you meet feels that. Anyone you deal with feels that. You raise the whole world, because you’re not dumping your stuff out there trying to manipulate and control everybody, saying, “I’m being selfless.” You’re not being selfless. There are people who give a lot, and they put their names on the buildings, and they won’t do it unless they can put it there in big letters.

And by the way, I’m not talking about anybody in particular. A lot of people do it. Well then, that’s not selfless. So “selfless” is a very interesting word. You cannot be selfless unless you’re whole and complete within yourself. If you have need, you cannot be selfless, because you’re going to try and satisfy that need.

It’s going to sneak out there some way or another, right? It’s going to find its way to leak out that you’re trying to get something. You’re trying to take care of yourself. The only time you’re not trying to take care of yourself is when you’re completely whole and complete within yourself, in a state of total wellbeing, of love, of joy, and you are capable of that state.

No one tells you that. You are the greatest being that ever walked the face of the earth. Again, I’m a nice Jewish yogi, but the more I grow, the more I like Christ’s teachings. Not that I don’t like my other teachers—I love those too. But I see, in all the great masters in India, their teachings, the gurus, everything, the great masters—they’re what Christ taught.

That’s pretty neat. So what did he say? “That which I am, so also are you. As I sit by the throne of my Father, so you shall sit by my throne. And these things which I do, you should do, and even greater things.” What is a throne? It’s a state of consciousness. “As I sit by the throne of my Father”—my consciousness, my inner being, is merged with the divine.

“As I sit by the throne of my Father.” Isn’t that beautiful? “As I sit by the throne of my Father, so you shall sit by my throne. And these things which I do, you should do, and even greater things.” You’re a great being, every one of you, and nothing you’ve ever done will take it away, and nothing you will ever do will take it away.

It is what is in there. Well, why don’t I feel it? Why do I have all these needs? Why do I have all these desires? Why do I have all these fears? Why do I have all this stuff? There’s a world out there. How long has it been there, here on this planet? Four and a half billion years. I want you to go into the corner and count to four and a half billion.

We calculated that out once before. It was like, you know, seven thousand lifetimes or something—you can’t do it. That’s how long this thing’s been here, being here. There’s been an outside world out here, even on this planet, forget since the Big Bang, all right? So four and a half billion years, it’s been out there.

It’s been out there the whole time, okay? Is it in front of you? Does it unfold in front of you? How often is there a world in front of you? And by the way, when you go to sleep, there’s still a world in front of you. It’s just made up by your mind. There’s always something in front of you. How often—go back to the outside world—how often is the outside world exactly what you want it to be?

It’s been here for four and a half billion years, and the other question I like to ask you, that I don’t think anybody gets—I don’t know why, maybe I’m wrong, maybe you do get it—this moment that’s unfolding in front of you: are there other moments going on at the same time that are not unfolding in front of you?

How many? Right? Eight hundred billion zillion, million raised to the thousandth power. That’s how many other moments—you, you pick up a certain amount; how many are going on everywhere else that you’re not experiencing? Ever think about that? No, you only think about whether the moment in front of you is what you want it to be.

Wow, that’s pretty narrow-minded, to say the least. Your frame of reference got pretty small, didn’t it? Out of the hundred billion zillion things that are going on, the only one that matters to you is the one that’s going on in front of you. And I don’t want to pick on your ego, but is that the truth? The one that matters to you is the one unfolding in front of you, even though there are 800 billion zillion going on everywhere else.

Guess what? There is nothing special about the moment unfolding in front of you versus all the other moments that are going on. They’re just the moments that are going on. They are the result of this law of cause and effect that’s been going on on this planet for 4.5 billion years, and it’s caused everything to happen.

It caused the chemicals to put together and make life, and then crawl out, and the monsters come out, and dinosaurs and all kinds of things, and you guys show up and you do all kinds of weird things. Is that not what’s going on? Laws of cause and effect make the next moment be what all the other moments were before.

That’s the outside world. That’s science. That’s why there is science. If it’s random, I don’t know—nothing to study. We study the laws of cause and effect. Why do you get sick? There’s a cause. You ate something bad, you got a virus, right? Okay, so this law of cause and effect has been and is and will be creating the moments in front of you and every other moment.

They’re of course different, because they’re the sum total of their causes and effects. Is this a spiritual discussion? You bet it is, because it challenges the stupidity you have going on inside your mind, which is that the moment in front of you is special. You make it special because you say it’s special.

How about this? There are 700 billion trillion moments going on everywhere, and that’s just on Earth. Are there moments going on everywhere else? Are they the result of cause and effect? Have they traced the Big Bang? Can they create all of creation from the Big Bang, pretty perfectly? It’s all cause and effect.

It’s going on everywhere. And you have this moment, which is part of the everywhere, happening in front of you. Answer me: is there anything special about that moment? I’ll tell you what—if you think there is, turn to the left. Uh-oh, it’s a different moment. You missed this one. Is that right or wrong? Please understand this absurdity of ego.

That’s the core of ego. It says, “I am special.” Who said? Nobody else seems to agree. You’re busy trying to convince everybody else of that all the time, aren’t you? All right, well, maybe you’re not special. Oh my God, you just said it—it’s the most important thing. There is a part of your being that is the highest thing that ever walked the face of the earth, and it’s completely free, and is one with God, and is one with Christ, and one with Buddha, and one with Krishna, and one with everything that ever was, okay?

That’s pretty great, but it’s not the part you’re hanging out with. You’re hanging out with the part that says, “I’m special.” And the reason you think you’re special is because the moments that are unfolding in front of you—the only reason they’re special is they’re happening and unfolding in front of you.

At some point, you will wake up and look at it that way. Here’s an extreme: there’s somebody standing there in this moment, the moment you’re in, yelling at you. They are not yelling at you. There’s just somebody there yelling. They’d probably be yelling anyway. They’d probably yell after you leave.

They’re probably yelling before you got there. They’re probably yelling inside for their whole life, and they’re just letting it out. It has nothing to do with you. It’s just the moment that’s unfolding, and you happen to be standing there. The moment in front of you is just the moment that is going on, and you happen to be standing there.

Isn’t it true, if you look up, you look down, you look left, you look right, you’ll see a different moment? Okay, so how important is that moment? You could have missed it. Sneeze while the moment’s going on—you won’t hear what he said. Okay. Why am I belaboring this? Because that junk that’s going on inside of your head—here’s how it happened.

Okay? You drop down, and you’re here. Here I am. What is here? Your consciousness, your awareness of being. It is, of course, limited to your senses. Not inside, but outside is limited to what your eyes and ears and nose and taste and touch can pick up. Not everything—a very, very small frame of reference. It comes in.

Is everything outside the same? Some things outside are ice. They’re hard. You don’t want to fall on them. Some things outside are water. They’re fun to swim in. Ice is not fun to swim in. Same stuff. And then there’s vapor, a nice steam bath or something, or you don’t even notice it, okay? Not everything outside is the same.

It’s all the same, really. It’s those quantum vibrations, all right? But it doesn’t appear the same. We don’t experience it the same. Is that okay with you? There are lions and tigers and bears and peacocks, and there are just fish, and there are elephants, and there are mosquitoes. There’s everything, okay?

Okay, so there’s everything out there. They don’t all have the same vibration. If a butterfly’s flying around you or a rattlesnake’s rattling in front of you, they don’t feel the same. Did you know that? You don’t have to do anything to make them not feel the same. They are not the same. Just like ice, water, and steam—they’re really the same.

Sorry I laid it on your head. But they don’t appear the same. They don’t come in the same. Fine, I’ll give that to you. So it comes in, and when it comes in, it has a vibration. Right or wrong, the rattlesnake rattling in front of you does not feel the same as a butterfly flitting around you.

That’s normal. The Buddhists say everything has its nature. That’s what they mean. It’s not wrong, it’s not good, it’s not bad, it’s not right, it’s not wrong. It just is what it is. Everything has its nature. It comes in. Are you okay in there—the consciousness, the end user, you who’s in there? Are you okay with every single vibration that comes in?

Is the butterfly just as welcome in there as the rattlesnake? And the answer is no. Why? Because you resist them. You are not—I don’t want you to feel bad about this—you’re not evolved enough to handle reality. There’s an insult for you. You’re not evolved enough to handle reality. You in there are not evolved enough to handle reality.

All reality comes in; your senses pick it up—at least the part in front of you—it comes in, and you do what? A great being, it comes in and it passes through. Well, then what? Then the next moment happens. It’s called be here now. Because if it doesn’t come in and pass through, then you just created something inside of your mind and heart that catches your consciousness, so you miss the next moment.

If you’re not totally open, the moments don’t pass through. So some of them stay. They stay for one of two reasons. Either you’re not evolved enough to handle the rattlesnake’s vibration, okay? So you hold on to it. You hold on to that which you don’t like. Your mother did something, your father did something, your uncle did something.

You didn’t get what you wanted in school. There was a bully in fifth grade, right? You actually say, “I can’t handle this, so I’m going to keep it.” This food makes me sick, so I’m going to keep eating it. Literally, that’s what you’re saying: I can’t handle it. If you can handle it, you let it go. What does it mean?

“I can handle that.” It means you can let it go through. That’s exactly what “I can handle it” means, doesn’t it? “It’s going to rain tomorrow.” “I can handle that. We’ll just play inside.” “It’s going to rain tomorrow.” “Oh, no, I planned everything, and the whole party’s going to be outside.” See, “I can handle it,” “I can’t handle it.”

What do you do if you can’t handle something? You decide to keep it so it bothers you for the rest of your life. Isn’t that silly? Who came up with that idea? “Let’s keep that which bothered us the most so we can be good and bothered.” And that’s what’s inside—the stuff you kept that you couldn’t handle, across all these little meaningless moments in your life.

Why are they meaningless? Because there are 800 billion zillion going on everywhere else you could have experienced. It just happened to be the one you experienced. So it’s enough that you just focus on this one moment that’s coming and going. It doesn’t stay anyway, does it? Not a single atom stays in the same place, not to mention a quantum field.

It’s just all moving through. There’s not a single moment that repeated itself in your entire life, okay? And so here you are, having a moment, and you can’t handle the moment of having a moment. I like that—of having a special moment. You are having a special moment. It’s the one you’re standing in front of.

That’s the only reason it’s special, because you’re standing in front of it. It’s like I said, you blink your eyes, you won’t see it. It can’t be that special. So what happens is the moment comes in and you can’t handle it. And so there are two reasons you can’t handle it. One you understand, the other you don’t even want to hear.

One: you didn’t like it. It wasn’t comfortable, so you pushed it away. Do you push things away? Do you push things away? That’s what Freud meant by suppression—more strongly, really pushing things away. Hide it, okay? But if you push it away, you’ve pushed it away. You resist. I like the word resistance.

Do you resist things inside? Has there ever been a moment of fullness in front of you that you resisted? What happens when you resist it? It stays inside. I’m sorry, I don’t like to push things on you, but I’ll make a statement. I’ve been around the block a few times. If you push it away, it stays inside.

Why? Because you didn’t let it go through. It has to pass through. The Colorado River, unfortunately or fortunately, cannot make it past the Hoover Dam. Therefore, it’s blocked, and the water stays there all that time, trying to—you know, it’s always trying to get through. If there’s a crack, they have to stop it right away.

Why? Because for all those years, since the ’40s, the ’30s, whatever, right, that water is trying to continue its natural flow through the riverbed. If you resist energy, it has to go somewhere. It has to do something. Energy cannot be—I’m not going to be a physicist. It’s called metaphysics, all right?

Energy needs to move. It doesn’t stand still. Energy will never stand still. There’s not a single bit of energy that ever stood still. That’s what they call potential energy. That’s what physicists call potential energy, meaning what? It’s blocked, but the energy’s still there, and it wants to release.

That’s all I can see potential energy as, right? As opposed to expressing energy, kinetic energy. It’s potential energy, meaning if you give it room, it’s coming back. And that’s what’s inside of you. If you push that away—anything—if you push it away and resist it, it needs to continue flowing. But how does it do that?

If energy can’t stop moving, what does it do? If you put a block in the face of that energy, do you know how it moves? It cycles around itself. It’s still moving. It’s not going anywhere. That’s how energy can move and stand still. In yoga, we call that a samskara. If you never understood that word before, I use it in my books.

That is blocked energy that has the entire vibration of why you blocked it. It stays there because it is that energy. It’s the energy that came in that was a rattlesnake, and you couldn’t handle it, and you pushed it away. If you let it go, who lets it go? You. Who’s blocking it? “Well, maybe my mother’s blocking it.”

Your mother’s not in there. “But she said something that made me block it.” Yeah, but you’re the one who blocked it. When I give this talk, I always forget to talk about the foundational level. Who’s in there but you? Are you in there? Is anybody else in there with you? Husband, wife, kids, mother, father, preacher, rabbi?

No. You’re in there. So if it’s blocked, you blocked it. I’m not blaming you. You’re the only one in there, and you have the ability—do you have the ability to push things away? You use this thing called willpower. You have a power inside, will. You push it away. When you push it away, it cycles around itself. What does?

The exact energy that you couldn’t handle when it came in, because you didn’t let go. And anything you do that with, even the tiniest thing—you have a friend, you say hello to them when they’re walking by the plaza or something, right? “Hey, Sally, how you doing?” They don’t even turn their head. They don’t acknowledge you’re even there.

You can’t handle that, can you? Forget the rattlesnake. You can’t handle somebody not saying hello. You start thinking, “Well, why didn’t you say hello? What did I do? I didn’t do anything. I thought she was my friend. Why would a friend… Friends say hello to each other, right? Come on, don’t they?” Yeah, of course they do.

Right? I watch a movie and everyone says hello to each other. You couldn’t handle it, so it got stuck in there and started making a lot of commotion. That commotion is it attempting to release. That’s what that commotion is. It got blocked in your heart. It got blocked in your psyche, and it’s trying to release, and so it talks a lot.

And sometimes you say, “Well, oh my God, maybe George told her something I said about her three years ago. No, he wouldn’t have done that. Should I call George and ask? No, no, don’t bring it up.” You’re trying to release the energy. It’s called rationalization, right? Okay, I’ll give you the bottom line, right?

Finally your mind’s doing da-da-da-da. And finally it says, “Wait a minute. She told me she just bought some new earbuds the other day. She was probably wearing the earbuds,” and you don’t see them. They’re a new kind you don’t see—they go all the way in. All right? How do you feel now? Much better. “I can let it go.”

What are you letting go of? What I blocked. Now it can come in. Do you do that? Do you do that, right? Except you usually end up with a negative, I guarantee you. Usually your mind will find a negative reason as to why that happened and bother you forever, and then you’ll store that. You’ll not only store the energy you couldn’t release, you’ll store the negative reason you decided was why it happened.

And then the next time you see Sally, literally, you see her walking down the corridor, your heart goes—yes or no? That’s that blocked energy attempting to release. It’s getting stimulated. It didn’t sit down there quietly, okay? And then all of a sudden you say, “Oh, wait. Oh, I need to go to this room,” and you avoid.

Have you ever avoided Sally because she didn’t say hello? Or because she’s wearing something that you don’t approve of, or the same thing you’re wearing? Oh, let’s say you’re at a party, you’ve got this beautiful outfit, and somebody comes in wearing the same outfit. You avoid them, don’t you? I thought this talk was about freedom.

It is about freedom. This is called not freedom. You’re not free to wear what you want. You’re not free to have Sally not say hello. You’re not free to get a blemish on the side of your cheek when you’re going to senior prom in high school, are you? You’re not free. That’s what freedom means. It means free—not doing something about it so you feel freer.

They don’t want you to do something about it because you feel freer; you don’t feel free, okay? So stuff comes in and you block it, and that’s the truth, and you’ve blocked a lot of it throughout your entire life. Your sister got the color bike you wanted. Now you don’t talk to your sister. That was at Christmas in fifth grade.

I know people in families where family members don’t talk to each other for 20 years, 30 years. “I don’t talk to her.” “Why?” “Well, I don’t know. She did something. I don’t even remember what it is, but she did something. I don’t even want to think about it. It bothers me so much. I don’t want to think about what it was.” I’m glad you’re laughing.

Is anybody willing to say that this is the truth? So because you blocked it, it didn’t go through. What if you don’t block it? Have you ever driven by a white line in the road? Do you know some of them are yellow and some are white? Is that okay with you? You don’t do a thing—it just goes through, unless you have something going.

I don’t want to tell the story, right, about the person who was painting the lines who got fired because he dripped too much, right? Now, every time he sees any drips on a line, he looks for them. You can get a scar about anything. Anything you block because you couldn’t handle it, anytime you say, “I can’t handle this.

I don’t want…” My favorite is this: “I don’t want this to have happened.” That’s really funny, because it had to happen for you to not want it to have happened, and it will never not have happened. How much of that do y’all do in there? Everything. Based on what? Based on what you blocked before. You don’t want things to happen.

That’s the same thing—like, “You know I don’t like talking about that. Why do you keep talking about that? I don’t have to put up with this. If you talk like that about that subject, I told you don’t. I’m leaving.” Ever say that to anybody? Ever hear somebody say that to you? In other words, you weren’t able to handle something from twenty years ago, and now we can’t talk about it.

I’ve literally had people tell me they don’t like Christmas. Why? I don’t know. What do you mean? “I get depressed on Christmas.” Why? “Well, something happened on Christmas when I was young, and it was really painful. It really hurt me. My uncle died on Christmas, and I’ve never liked Christmas ever since.”

Can that happen? Answer me. Can that happen? About how many things? Everything. Anything. How much have you got in there? How much have you done that about over the course of your life? They’re just moments unfolding in front of you. They’re not special. They’re just moments, and you couldn’t handle them. You can handle every other moment but the one in front of you.

Isn’t that amazing? You never suppress a single thing about all the moments you didn’t see, even though they’re going on. That’s what’s happening. So now you have this blocked inside of you. That’s your blockages. Those are your blockages. That’s why you don’t feel free, and it is the only reason you don’t feel free, because you have all this junk blocked in you, and now you’re saying freedom means “if my junk gets matched.”

If the moment that’s unfolding in front of me, one in seven hundred billion, happens to match the stuff I have inside of me, whee! And if it doesn’t, rrr. And if it matches the stuff inside of me that I don’t want matched… If you ever said to somebody, “You know I don’t like to talk about that,” say it to life.

“You know I don’t want you to behave like that. I know you know I don’t want you to rain when I don’t want you to. You know I don’t want you to say what I want to hear.” Wow, because that’s what you’re doing. You’re looking at life and saying, “You can’t be the way you are. You have to be the way I want you to be.”

There’s a moment here. You have made up in your head what you want. What do you mean, made up? You made it up based on your past experiences. Where else did you get it? If past experiences bothered you, you don’t want it to happen again. Past experiences you like, you want them to happen again. Same thing. See, you’re stored with these preferences.

They’re not holy things, yet you’re out there worshiping them. You’re out there saying, “My preferences matter. I want to get what I want, and I don’t want to experience what I don’t want.” You’re serious about that. In fact, you think your whole life is about that. You think your whole life is about getting your preferences and avoiding what you don’t want, yet those are the things that are driving you crazy.

Because you have a preference, and something happens, you’re afraid it won’t happen, you’re afraid it will stop happening, you’re afraid somebody else will have it happen to them when I want it to happen to me. They’re wonderful things, aren’t they? No. What if I didn’t have a preference about something?

Then it’s like the white line on the road. I can still experience it. I can still deal with it. If I see something in the road, I can help pick it up and take it away. I can still interact with the world, but not out of preference, not out of the fact that I have stuff inside of me that can’t handle stuff.

I’m free. Who said that to you? That’s a deep talk. I’m wasting a lot of words because somebody said it in four little sentences. Buddha. And what did Buddha say? Buddha said, “All life is suffering.” Is he right? Come on. Suffering doesn’t mean you’re sick and you’ve got cancer. Suffering means you’re not okay.

That’s Buddha’s first noble truth. All of life is suffering. And he woke up, and he said, “Yeah, pretty much everybody’s suffering one way or another.” And then he said the one that’s just so unbelievable, the second noble truth. He said there was one cause of all suffering. The cause of suffering is preference. He used the word “desire,” or they translated it as desire.

What is a desire but a preference? Then [unintelligible] said use the word preference. Okay, why? Because you think of desire as lust. “I have this desire. Of course I suffer. I’m caught in this.” No, no, no—preference. The cause of suffering is preference. That’s all we’ve discussed this entire hour. If you have a preference, you will suffer.

Well, what does it mean to not have a preference? To honor and respect reality. So Buddha said, “If you can handle what’s unfolding in front of you, you’re not suffering. If you can’t handle what’s unfolding in front of you, you’re suffering.” How do you decide whether you can handle it or not? You did it yourself.

You’re the only one in there. She can handle perfectly well what freaks you out. She can handle perfectly well what freaked her out yesterday. There was just one more thing. So somebody said, “April Fool’s. I told you it was April 1st when I said that.” Oh, okay, now I can handle it. You’re the sum of your learned experiences, and your experiences are so tiny, it’s ridiculous.

That’s Buddha’s second noble truth. That’s pretty deep truth. The cause of suffering is preference. “If you have a preference, you’re going to suffer.” What if I don’t have a preference on something? You’re not going to suffer. What if they paint the house and the color isn’t exactly the white I want? I was a builder back in my younger years.

You know how many colors of white there are? These little packets of colors you flip around, right? There’s an entire one or two or three—by now probably five—that are called white. Just shades of white. Well, what if it’s not exactly the shade you like? How do you tell? “I’m holding it up against…”

It’s like, “Oh my God, look, this is a little pink or a little…” Okay. What if it’s fine? It’s nice the way it is. Now you don’t suffer. What if you don’t like the exact tint? You suffer. If you have a preference, you’re going to suffer. And where did you get your preference? Based on my past experiences, which are nothing—I’ve been programmed by my past experiences, and now this is what you get.

This is the package. “Paul asked me to dance with him. Is it okay? We’re at the party. Can I dance with him?” Wow, I don’t want to see what goes on inside the husband’s mind at that point. “As long as we don’t dance too close, and it’s a slow song.” Wow, you go crazy because someone asked you that question, don’t you?

And then they’re dancing, and the hand’s, like, on the back, a little lower on the back. “No, no.” You have a preference where the hand is when they’re dancing, right? Am I hitting some things maybe? The cause of suffering is preference. What if you were open, completely open, and thought it was beautiful that somebody else dances with your spouse, just to see them both happy?

Both happy. Is that freedom? That’s freedom. That’s freedom to allow life to unfold in front of you. It doesn’t mean—okay, what if they’re really having something going on? You’ll find out, you’ll deal with it, you’ll deal with it. Guess what? I’m okay dealing with it. I’m okay. I won’t not deal with it, but it’s not happening.

I don’t know anyway, so it’s not happening. It’s not, okay? You just get to the point where you’re free. Would you rather be free, or rather be controlling everybody and everything so they’re the way you think they need to be so you feel okay? Which would you rather be? Because I’m telling you, you’re a great being, and when that Shakti’s flowing inside of you, you would not trade that off for anything.

How could I be so strong that I sit there and say, “Well, you know, I don’t have to worry about anything”? Why? Because I’m filled with joy. I’m filled with love. There’s nothing that can take—how would you like that? Nothing can take that away, because it’s inside of me. The only thing that can take it away is me, by blocking myself, and I don’t want to block myself anymore.

I want to be free. Okay? Now you’re free. Now you’re strong inside—not because somebody said so. Now, with your muscles, you’re strong enough to handle reality. If I can handle reality, I don’t have to be afraid of reality, because I can handle it. That doesn’t mean I don’t deal with it. It means when the situations unfold, I do my best to deal with them.

But they don’t bother me. They’re fun. They’re things I get to deal with. They’re challenges. How would you like to be an NFL football player and play the fifth graders? I’ll bet you win. That’s not fun. There’s nothing there. Life is a challenge. Why is it challenging?

It’s challenging to see if you can be free while it dances in front of you. That’s freedom. Freedom is the ability to handle reality—not to have to have it be the way you want it to be for you to be okay. Be free inside. I said that. It’s not freedom for yourself, it’s freedom from yourself. Which would you rather have?

Freedom to do whatever you want and then keep changing and figuring it out, or free from yourself? “I’m free. I’m open. I’m handling all of life. It’s so beautiful.” And when you do that, you’re not blocked. What does it mean, blocked? I told you, you store this garbage inside. So we have one minute left.

How do I get there? Can I be free? Every single one of you can be free. That’s the purpose of your life. Earth is a place that souls are sent to evolve. I said a moment ago you weren’t evolved enough to handle it. Well, you’re down here to learn to evolve. You’re down here to learn to handle it. You’re down here to learn that I look out at a world that is not of my making.

I wasn’t here 4.5 billion years ago, setting all the forces that cause everything to be the way they are, including the ones in front of me. And so I’m just okay. I handle—I respect reality. There’s another way Christ said it, but it’s really bigger now, right? “Not my will, but thy will be done.”

Ever heard that one? You’re saying, not thy will, but my will. You are. It has to be my way. For me to be okay, it has to be my way. The only way you’re okay is when you’re saying not my will, but thy will, and you’re saying it to nature, you’re saying it to creation, you’re saying it to the atoms that are moving around, right?

It’s just hilarious. Freedom means you are not blocked. You didn’t store any of this stuff inside of you. You’re free to wake up in the morning and be excited about what’s going to happen next and not… Have you ever heard the word worry? Do you worry ever? You know what you worry? I’m very psychic. You ready?

You worry that it’ll be the way you don’t want it to be, and you worry that it won’t be the way you want it to be. Isn’t that fun? Is that freedom? Freedom to worry? I don’t think that’s what we mean by freedom. When you’re fine inside, there’s nothing to worry about, because it’s going to unfold, and I love it.

I’ll deal with it. I’ll dance with it. I’ll be challenged by it. I’m going to play a football team that’s as good as I am, so I can really see how good we can be. I’m going to get better and better. It’s wonderful. Life is wonderful, right? Ma Yoga Shakti, who gave us the Durga statue—a beautiful soul—but the first time she was here, she said, “Problems are the nectar of life.”

I wasn’t ready to hear that yet, back in ’75, right? Guess what? Problems are the nectar of life. If you have a problem, it’s because you have a block. Otherwise, there are no problems. There are no problems. There are things to deal with, yes, and everybody has different things to deal with. And yes, can you have compassion for everybody else?

Of course you do. Of course you do. Understand that? And you do everything you can to help—everything you can do to help, but not to help you. You’re already free. Mother Teresa went and dealt with the lepers. Great beings handle things that you can’t even imagine. Gandhi, King—they’re examples of beings that did great things because they could handle it.

The path of non-resistance. I’m out of time. I’m out of time. I don’t want to be, because maybe you listened. And where did we get to? “The great way is not difficult for those who have no preferences.” But that’s hard for you to imagine, having no preferences. So I changed it slightly. I got a dispensation. [Unintelligible] said I could change it.

So now it says the following: “The great way is not difficult for those who prefer everything.” See? You can have preferences—just have all of them. 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.