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. The path is much more subtle than human beings tend to be. They talk about it’s neither doing nor not doing. You lost everybody in that. It seems how can it be neither doing nor not doing? That’s the essence of it. Eventually, you will wake up totally to realize how strong the ego is.
Don’t belittle it. Don’t kid yourself. Don’t think you can talk your way out of it or just say you’re above it. The ego is very, very strong. The ego is the essence of Maya. What does that mean? It means that this world as you see it is not as you appear to see it. It’s not like you get to see it the way you see it and then do something to adjust to it, do something to be spiritual.
If you’re in it, you’re of it. It takes very, very clear eyes, clear consciousness to realize it is not what it appears to be, period. The amazing part is you sent your scientist out and said, “What is out there and where did it come from?” And I swear to you, they came back and said, “Nothing.” They did. They came back and said, “No, there are no pianos.
There are no people. There are no trees. It’s an illusion. There’s just this field of energy.” You wanna call it God, they give it a neater name, quantum field. You know? Call it what you want. There’s a field of energy, a field of light. Really, a field of light, because energy is light, light is energy. A field of light, undifferentiated, omnipresent light.
That is what Einstein, the quantum physicists, everyone has gone down and looked as far as they could with the eyes of clarity, and they said, “That’s what’s out there. That’s what it is.” The discrepancy between that and what you interact with is ego. You see what you see because you want to see it.
Everybody sees something different, not… They see form, but one form jumps out at you and it means nothing to the other person. One tree is so important to you, it’s, “Oh my God, I, I’m s- losing sleep over it.” And the other person sees millions of trees, and that’s just one of the trees. And by the way, I didn’t mean trees, I meant people.
Because that’s how it is. You are seeing what you’re seeing because you need to see it. You want to see it. It is not what’s there. What’s there is what the scientists say are there. The scientists are right. What is there is nothing, and they can explain to you how it went from nothing to appear to be this.
But nothing times nothing is nothing. And nothing plus nothing is nothing. And nothing rearranged by nothing is nothing. It’s still nothing. Example I always give you, hold water in your hand just so your mind gives up here. Hold water in your hand- I’m gonna ask you honestly, multiple choice. A, in your hand you have water.
B, you have H2O molecules. C, you have hydrogen and oxygen atoms. D, you have electron, neutrons, and protons. E, you have quarks, leptons, and bosons. F, light, quantum field, nothing, unmanifest. That’s what’s going on. That you can understand. Your mind can understand the logic of that. It is all of those things. It is none of those things.
It is… How can it be everything at once? How can it be electron, neutrons, and protons plus hydrogen and oxygen atoms? Well, because we have this way of saying that if electron, neutrons, and protons hang out with each other a certain way, we call that hydrogen and oxygen atoms. Okay? And if the hydrogen and oxygen atoms on their own, having nothing to do with you, have laws that join them together so that they form water molecules, they form molecules that your eyes see that as water, which is an illusion.
It’s not water. But look at it through a microscope. Where’s the water? I’m begging you, wake up. It’s right before you all the time. And so you basically realize, if I look at it not through the microscope, it’s water. If I look at it through the microscope, theoretically, it’s molecules of hydrogen and oxygen.
Which is it? You don’t get to do that. The point is, it’s not water, and it’s not hydrogen and oxygen molecules. It’s not hydrogen and oxygen. It’s not electrons and protons. It’s not quarks and leptons, bosons. It’s just light. It stayed light. The rest is an illusion. Why is it an illusion? Well, if you go to a magic show and they have you wear special glasses, they can do it without the glasses, but let’s say you wear special glasses, and it makes everything look different.
Everything’s going on. It’s different. What’s that all about? It’s because the illusion is created by the glasses you’re wearing. Well, these hydrogen and oxygen atoms and molecules are being looked at through your eyes, which are made of molecules. And therefore, the way your eyes distort what you’re looking at, lie to you, illusion what you’re looking at, it appears to be that these molecules are water.
That’s the game. That’s God’s game. You gotta bust the guy. All right? He created an illusion. Do you understand that? If you were not looking at it through the exact eyes that you’re looking at, it would not look like that. Well, which way is it? It’s not. All right? It’s not. If I got these magic glasses and I put them on and they create this tremendous illusion, like your, your virtual reality or Quest, well, which is it?
Is it when you look through there or when you pick it up and look? Which is it? Well, it depends on the eyes you’re looking through, okay? Just depends on what you’re looking through. So these eyeballs that got created, not by chance, by the way, perfectly created for the game, so that when consciousness looks through them, it sees this.
Take the eyeballs out and see what you see. Okay? Nothing. Put magic glasses over the eyeballs, see what you see. It changes. Well, which is it? It depends on what you’re looking through. If you’re looking through the regular microscope, it’s molecules. If you’re looking through an electron microscope, it’s, it’s atoms.
If you’re looking through whatever. But you don’t get to ask which is it really. You don’t get to say it’s really the way I see it through my eyeballs, but it’s not the way I see it through a microscope. This is what you have to do with your mind. You have to realize what you are looking at is an illusion.
It’s not there or not there. See that? That’s what they talk about, right? The, the Third Zen Patriarch says, “Do not argue for the existence of things, and do not argue for the non-existence of things.” That’s like saying, “I want you to argue. I want a debate. Is it electron, neutron, or protons, or is it atoms?
Is it molecules or is it water? Go on, debate it. No one wins. Don’t get into that. Is it there or is it not there? N- I think already you see there’s no answer to that. So you can’t build your life around this illusion that you’re seeing through your eyeballs, but that’s what happens. Because you see it the specific way you see it, and because our eyeballs are tuned s- very similar to each other, certainly different than a, a fly’s eyeballs.
Right? Looking through this fly’s eyeballs, you got like 86 different facets and 8,000 you see f- little pieces. No animal sees it the way you see it, okay? So don’t think for a moment that what you see is real. It is just what you see at this moment, okay? And what proves it more, it’s not just that you look through your eyeballs.
You wished you were actually looking through your eyeballs, then at least you would see what your eyeballs see. A camera, like a camera. Camera, if you take a picture with a camera all the time, go back to the same spot, you’re gonna take the same picture. That’s not what’s happening with you. You have behind your eyeballs a filter, literally, a slip a filter in of a many different colors.
You put in a happy filter in, everything you look at looks happy. Put a sad filter in, look at the exact same thing next day, it looks sad. Okay? This is unbelievable. So you have the filter of mind, which is looking through the filter of eyes, which is looking at nothing, whatever level you’re looking at it.
So you wake up and you realize this is not real. It’s just not real, period. And so what happens is because you keep seeing it persistently the same, despite your filter, although your filter filters it, but at least your eyes tend to see it the same, it comes in and you build a whole thing inside your mind as, “I’m gonna cry.”
You build a whole thing inside your beautiful mind. You have a beautiful mind, a mind that was able to build microscopes and telescopes and, and split atoms, and, oh my God, you have such a brilliant mind. It can study the nature of things, but that’s not what you do with it. This comes in exactly the way you see it through the filter of your emotions and your stuff, and then you build a whole thing.
A- I mean, it is so big, this thing you built. It’s called ego, self-concept, a mental image of what’s going on. That’s what the self-concept is. It’s not a thing. It’s a mental thing. It doesn’t exist in the world of atoms. In your mind, which is at a whole nother level than this world that we just spent all our time talking about, you have this mind and you have free will.
And what you did with that free will is build this thing, this menagerie inside your mind that says, this is the way I am and this is the way she is and this is the way that is and that’s the purpose of this and that’s the meaning of this and just a whole thought universe you built inside your mind, which is the self-concept, which is the ego, which is the ego mind and so on.
And now when you look out, you don’t even look through your eyes really. I mean, yes, you’re looking through your eyes, but you have to first, your consciousness has to first look through that entire menagerie of mind that you built. I like this. I don’t like this. I don’t like what he’s doing. I don’t feel good.
This whole thing. And then you look through it and you look out through the eyes and everything looks different. People you used to like, you don’t like today. People you used to not like, yeah, not so bad. I watched a movie a year ago, I didn’t like it. People write us. I read The Untethered Soul three, four, five years ago, whatever it is.
I must not have been ready because I just, I didn’t get anything from it. I, I didn’t finish it, right? I picked it up the other day. Oh my God, I’ve read it three times since. And what is that about? Your mind. It is not about your eyes. They see it the same, and it is not about what’s happening out there, because nothing’s happening out there.
It is about the fact that you have built this thing. I wish you would just see its size. It’s so big, you can’t see it. Just like a fish doesn’t know it’s in the water. A fish does not know it’s in the water. Even, I don’t know if the fish knows. But if they know anything, they don’t know they’re in the water.
Why? They’ve never been out. So their frame of reference doesn’t see not water, doesn’t see water or not water, because it’s never seen anything else. You have never seen anything else but your mind. Do you understand that? And don’t you kid yourself. You’ve never seen anything else but your mind. When you’re kidding yourself, you say, “Oh, this part of my mind’s nicer than the other parts.”
It’s still just the same stupid game. It’s the same stupid game. It’s a game of self-concept, right? Well, I’ve grown a lot and I like everybody and I’m fine, and if I have anything inside of me that, what is that? What’s all that noise? Why is it talking? What’s that got to do with what’s going on? Nothing ever, has nothing…
First of all, there’s nothing going on, so therefore it can’t have anything to do with what’s going on. I’ve already said to you, there’s nothing down there. Reality, scientists have found reality. Newsflash, it’s not there, okay? There’s just a field of light, there’s a field of energy, and everything’s coming out of that.
And then the consciousness tries to look at it through this field of energy made these eyes, but it can’t even do that because in the mind, mind, understand mind. That “my mind’s bothering me”? No, the one who’s saying “my mind is bothering me” is your mind also. Just as I showed you there’s these layers of the quantum field, then the quarks, leptons, the bosons, and then the electrons, neutrons, protons, and then the atoms, and then the molecules.
You know, it’s like there, they’re all at the same time. Your mind, your mind has all these layers. I went through this before. Freud broke them up into id, ego, superego, but he never went beyond. You have these lower layers of your mind, and your body layers, and all this noise from your body, and stuff like that, okay?
There’s just a base layer that the mind receives all this stuff and builds all these concepts. I, I don’t like this, I, my body likes this, I don’t like this taste, I like that… You know, just build all this garbage in your mind about, well, your body. You have a body. Why do you need to have a mind body? I just don’t understand.
All right? You have this body. It will talk to you. It will let you know things. But you think about it instead. You build a mind body, and you actually live in your mind body, not your body, okay? Then you build concepts, and you build rights and wrongs and views and opinions and what I like and what I don’t like, right?
And then you build a spiritual ego. Ooh, that one is the worst of all. You build on top of all that. I’m pure, and I’m good, and I’m clear, and I’m clearer than he or she is, and I’m a teacher, and I have a thing, and I can help people. Whoa, whoa. If it’s talking to you, it’s not you. And I assure you, that one’s talking to you.
Do you get that straight? That’s talking to you just like any other one. And you just keep building these layers. The mind is as big as God. It’s infinite. You were created in the image of God, and one thing he gave you is this phenomenal mind. He got a phenomenal mind. He dreamt all this up. Still not here, but he dreamt it all up.
So you have dreamt up all this in your mind, layer upon layer upon layer upon layer. And then when your consciousness, which is God, looks down to experience creation, it can’t see it. It looks at it through the veil of mind, and that’s what it sees. So spirituality is not about any of this. True spirituality is about realizing I am the consciousness, and I can’t see, because if I look down, I see mind.
That’s what I see, period. That’s a clear consciousness. When I look down, I see mind. Not this mind, that mind, happy mind, sad mind, moody mind, not feeling good mind, not feeling good. No, no, no, no, no. When I look down, I see this ocean of mind. And when I look out through the ocean of mind, I think I’m looking at reality, but I’m not.
I’m looking at the reflection of my mind I don’t see a color, I see a color I like. I don’t see a person, I see a friend or an enemy. I don’t see a political statement, I see one I believe in or I don’t believe in. All you see is yourself. You are just seeing the reflection of yourself. I know sit there and say, “But my way is right.”
That’s hilarious. If your mind is in there saying, talking, first of all, if it’s talking, it’s already your mind. But if you’re looking down at that mind and it’s got all these philosophies and views and opinions and politics and say, “I’m right,” that’s hilarious. That’s hilarious. But don’t you want to hear what I’m right about?
No. How do you like that? If you think you’re right, I’m only hearing about what you think. I don’t want to hear what you think. Everybody got a thought. Everybody’s got a mind. Everybody’s got an opinion. But boy, you’re adamant, isn’t it? I’m right. This is right, and I’ll prove it to you. That’s mind. That’s just the illusion of mind, and you’re looking down.
The reason the world is the way it is, is because we are interacting with it at this particular level, and everyone thinks they’re right. Everyone thinks they’re right. Okay, hey, if I’m hungry and my family’s hungry, it’s okay to steal some bread and, and take some things. That’s not wrong. I’m supposed to feed my family.
People think like that. Fine. Whatever you think. Whatever you think. You can think any way you want. How can you argue with how somebody thinks? They think any way they want. It’s like everybody’s wrong Everybody’s wrong. Why? Because they just made this stuff up in their mind, put it together in a way that makes sense to them, and then they’re looking out through the eyes and projecting that onto what they’re seeing.
It’s a magic show. It’s a joke. God has played a major joke with himself. He wanted to have fun with himself, so this is what he did. He made quite… What is a video game? Hey, your video games aren’t always so nice, are they? They got all kinds of people getting killed, all kinds of stuff going on. You were left to make video.
Well, God made one, too. That’s what he did. And basically, your mind is that. You did that. Then you project it onto the world, and then you want to talk to me about spirituality. Then you want to talk to me about righteousness. Then you want to talk to me about who’s right and who’s wrong. As Lao Tzu, a wise man never argues.
Why? Because they know this. How do you like that? That’s why. What are you gonna argue? The person’s got their mind. That’s what they made up. So you made yours up, right? It’s ridiculous. Are you willing to realize you are not right or wrong? It’s just absurd. The game is dumb. The whole thing, all right? It’s not based on reality.
It’s based on illusion, delusion, and error. Now you understand Maya? Have I talked enough? That’s what everything I talked to you about way back in the Upanishads is what they mean by Maya. This is God’s Maya, and then you, you make it way worse by building Maya within your own mind. That’s all… That’s the only thing that can be in your mind is Maya, because it is interpreting what you thought you saw and putting it together in the way you think you want to think about it, right?
What’s your alternative? The alternative is this thing called spirituality, real spirituality, not pseudo-spirituality. It is realizing, you know, that’s true. But we just said it’s true. I have built all these concepts, views, and opinions in my mind and fight for them just like everybody else fights and become part of the problem, if you will.
And I do project how I see things in my mind out onto the world. That’s what they are. You know, somebody sees a snake, “Ew, it’s disgusting. I don’t want to get near it.” Somebody else, “Wow, what a fascinating creature.” Which is it? Whatever you say it is, man. Really what it is is the quantum field manifesting.
It’s the way you are perceiving the quantum field at this moment. So you wake up. Who’s willing to live at that level? It’s not easy. Christ said you must die to be reborn. Now you know what he’s talking about. You have to die of the entire self-concept and of the habit of looking out and projecting yourself onto the world and then fighting with yourself, trying to get yourself or stay away from yourself.
It’s just hilarious. The world is a mirror. That’s what they say. The world is a mirror. Very few people understand that. It’s a mirror for the same reason in the book I make a thing out of the Rorschach test. I really got into it, okay? All right, fine, there’s this inkblot. Well, an inkblot is nothing. It’s just an inkblot.
But why does it work? Because somebody projects what they’re used to seeing in their mind onto the inkblot. There’s somebody fighting here, somebody having sex here, somebody– my husband leaving me here, whatever the heck it is. See it? There’s the line. And God, why are you showing me that? It’s painful for me.
How did you know? It’s like it’s an inkblot, right? And the next guy that comes in, he goes see something else and see something else. I ask the question in the book, how is it that the same inkblot works for all the patients? Isn’t that miraculous? What an inkblot. Who painted that thing? It’s just a stupid inkblot.
You are projecting your mind onto the inkblot. That’s why it works for everybody. The world is exactly the same. It is exactly the same. You’re doing the same thing. There’s nothing out there. Yes, your eyes make it look the average to look like something fine, but you understand underneath– e- but first, that’s nothing.
It’s just what you happen to see. But underneath it is not even that way. But when you see it, you can’t see what’s there. You can’t just see. You project yourself onto the inkblot of life. That’s how I want you to see the outside world. It’s a giant inkblot. It is nothing. That which means something to you means nothing to her, just like the inkblot.
If one patient walked in who was freaking out over the, the husband and wife fighting, the parents fighting on the inkblot, somebody else with sex, somebody else with whatever, death. It’s death. See, it’s black, it’s death. Why are you showing it, right? If they walked in and heard what the other patient was saying, they’d go, “He’s crazy.
That’s not there. How could you see that?” Hear me. Wake up. Do not continue to live in this delusion and error. So how do you wake up? You can’t change the world to make the, the… It’s not, it’s not a question of getting somebody to paint an inkblot that looks good to you, is it? That’s not the solution. So that’s not the purpose that Mr.
or Mrs. Rorschach, whatever her name was, developed this inkblot thing. Let the patient come in and tell you what you want it to look like, and have an artist, like one of those sketch artists that the police have, to do the inkblot so it looks exactly the way so when a person looks at it, they feel good.
How’s that for a solution? That good? Good psychologist? Good psychiatrist? No, you would never do that. That’s what you’re doing with the world. That’s exactly what you’re doing. You are looking out there and seeing what you are projecting onto it, and then you are going out there and trying to make it look like the way you want it to look when you project it.
That was a long sentence. That’s what everybody’s doing, and there’s only one world out there, so they’re all fighting how to make it look the way to make them feel good when they project onto it. Wouldn’t it be nice if everybody had fancy cars? Wouldn’t it be nice if people shared the world and didn’t bother buying fancy cars?
Okay. Uh-oh, what do we do with the cars? Stop thinking you’re right. It’s beyond right. It’s this thing called clarity. So basically, in order to see, you have to be willing to let go of yourself. But nobody else, I don’t care. You’re gonna sit around and wait for everybody else, you’re gonna be here a long time.
But they’ll take advantage of me. How can the quantum field take advantage of you? How can atoms take advantage of you? How can inkblots take advantage of you? When I’m not looking, they’ll change the inkblot. Okay. You see what I’m saying? Any way you think about it is just the way you’re thinking about it.
It’s illusion, it’s delusion. There’s nobody that can happen. There’s nothing happening. The only thing that’s ha- I told you, this is how you get from this talk. What is happening? You are projecting this world you built inside your head out of what you thought you saw out onto that world, and then deciding it has to be a certain way for you to be okay.
There. Can they take advantage of you? Sure. Just have it not be the way you want it to be. Just have somebody leave, have somebody show up, fall in love with somebody else when you shouldn’t. Just, oh my God, there’s so many things that can happen that don’t match your inkblot concept, that when you project it out, there isn’t what you projected.
Go watch the politics. Watch all of them talk. All they’re doing is pushing themselves. It’s amazing. Just pushing their views, their opinions to what it is that they need to see in order for them to be okay, and they get very upset when they don’t see that. So you wake up and you realize, “That’s not a game I’m gonna play.”
What game? The game of projecting my mind out into the world, which is what you’re doing, and then seeing things that I like and seeing things that I don’t like. You did that. There’s no like or dislike out there, there’s just atoms, but you projected it out there. Now I’m gonna go out there and use my will to manipulate so that it looks the way my illusion wants it to look.
Just remember that. Remember that once in your life. That is what you are doing. Do you understand that? That is what everybody else is doing. That’s what’s happening. You wanna grow spiritually, you gotta come back to self, not play around with the illusion of the mind and the concepts, and not play around with what it’s projecting out onto the inkblot of the world, and not even playing around with the inkblot of the world because it’s not even there anyways.
How do you do that? You’re not gonna do it by changing the world. Because how would you decide how to change the world based on how you project it out onto it? Who you like, who you don’t like, how they should be, how they shouldn’t be, how they should dress, how they should talk, just everything. Everything.
You don’t do that. Well, then what? Now I’m stuck with myself. Now I’m stuck with a mind that doesn’t like what’s happening. Well, maybe you better work with that. Maybe you better cool it. Maybe you better stop projecting your mind out into the world. How? Relax. Relax then. Don’t hang out with it. Just realize it doesn’t know what it’s talking about.
I’m gonna tell you, your mind never knows what it’s talking about. Why? Because you made a false mind. It’s like, it’s like you’re never right. Listen to me. No one has ever been right about that inkblot. No one ever got it right. There’s no grading, all right? No one ever got it right as to what that inkblot really looks like, right?
That’s the truth with your mind. It’s wrong. It’s wrong to have built all these concepts and views and opinions and preferences based on what you thought you saw, which was based on what you projected. I can’t even talk about it, it’s too hard. All right? It’s really sophisticated, isn’t it? It’s pretty complex stuff.
You project something out there, therefore you like it or don’t like it, therefore you build a concept inside about like and dislike. Pretty intense, okay? So you’ve got this mind. What do you do? Well, people teach all kinds of things. That’s why there are gurus. They teach all kinds of things. You know what the highest one is?
Yukteswar. Very simple sentence. An ignored guest quickly leaves. There is no faster way to transcend your mind than to not listen to it. Just as you wanted to get the world a certain way, those atoms out there, why you’re interested, I don’t know, because you projected yourself onto the inkblot, then you wanted to change the inkblot so you felt good.
Just as you wanted to do that, you want to get your mind to say nice things the way you want it to be so you feel comfortable with it and so on and so forth. You’re just perpetrating the same game, the same game. You’re not seeing things clearly. You made up this… First, you make up a mind, then you decide how it needs to be for you to be okay with it.
I’m gonna repeat that. You make up a mind. Your mind can do anything. You understand that? There’s nothing in there. You’re the only one in there. You make up a mind, then you decide how it needs to be for you to be okay with it. And then either you go outside to try and make people, places, and things be the way so the mind’s okay, or, or you’re very evolved, you come inside and you screw with your own mind and rearrange the furniture and do all kinds of things.
Well, what’s wrong with that? You’re the one who built the thing to start with, and now you’re in there saying how it needs to be, and you’re complaining that it’s not that way. That’s just absolutely hilarious. There’s a mirror. It’s perfect. You stand in front of it. You don’t like what you look like, but it has adjustments.
It’s a really amazing mirror. You know, it’s one of these digital mirrors. You adjust it, you adjust it, you adjust it. You get the right weight, right this, right that. You step in front of it the next day. Ew, I don’t like what it looks like. Who did that? You did. You did. You made your mind. How dare you complain about your mind?
The mind did not make itself. You made it. You made it out of what? You projected yourself out onto the atoms that are not there, decided to freak out over them because, you know, well, you’re not freaking out over them. You’re freaking out over what you projected onto them, the inkblot, and then that reaction was so uncomfortable that you built concepts inside your mind that I don’t like that, and I don’t want to look like that.
You built this whole preference system, and now you’re freaking out over it because it won’t let you go to sleep, and it won’t let you be happy, and you don’t like your husband anymore, and it’s, you don’t know what to do. And you’re complaining about your mind. You go to the guru, “My mind’s bothering me so much.”
That’s hilarious. You’re doing all of it. An ignored guest quickly leaves. What does that mean? Are you willing to just let it go? It’s gonna talk for a while till you get out. So what? That’s the highest state with your mind. I don’t feel good. I’m tired. I don’t like it. People talking at me. I don’t hear a word they’re saying.
Only the echoes of my mind. So basically, you just don’t listen to it. Now, you may need help learning how to not listen to it, but it’s not about listening to it. It’s not about picking which part you wanna be. It’s about literally… That’s what witness consciousness is, learning to realize, “I shouldn’t be listening to this thing.”
It’s just all part of this mess that we’ve been talking about. I, I spent a lot of time building it for you. It’s unbelievable that you’re gonna listen to that mess. Can you relax in the face of it? I don’t care if it’s happy, I don’t care if it’s sad, I don’t care if it likes what’s happening, I don’t care if it doesn’t like what’s happening, I don’t care if it’s in a good mood, I don’t care if it’s in a bad mood.
I don’t care. I don’t care. I don’t care. That’s how you have to be. I don’t care. I understand. I made a flaming mess out of you, and as long as I’m in there and letting you tell me what to do about it, and letting you express yourself through my being, I ain’t getting out. The only way to get out is to be able to, I’m in here, you’re over there, I kinda hear you like the crickets, but that’s about as much attention as I’m paying to you.
There is no way in the world I am letting that mess that I made because of what I projected on the world and then they didn’t like what ha- I, I don’t wanna do it anymore, right? It’s too complex, right? I ain’t doing it. I’m just not doing it. If I have but one life to live, I ain’t living it that way. And so you learn over time, gradually, it’s not gonna happen all at once, to let go.
That’s what letting go… You’re now at the state, you understand what letting go means. The mind has something to say. I don’t care. You mean I have to stop it from saying it? No, I do not have to stop it from saying it. I couldn’t care less whether it says it or not. I couldn’t care less whether it’s happy or sad.
I couldn’t care less whether it’s attracted or repulsed. I couldn’t care less whether it likes something or doesn’t like something. I couldn’t care less whether it slept or didn’t sleep. I couldn’t care less whether it feels good or feels bad. I don’t care. I don’t care. Not mean to it, I don’t care, right?
I literally… That’s, that’s caring, okay? I literally, I don’t care. I’ve seen enough of this. I’ve seen enough of what the mind has to say and how it projects itself outside and then likes people and doesn’t like people and has good days and bad days. There are no good days, there are no bad days. There are no happy days, there are no sad days.
There’s the mind doing its mind thing that you made it do and you taught it how to do. You built that thing, and then there’s you inside, who has decided, “I want out.” I want out. You go, wanna go use your life to try and make the inkblot of the world look the way you want it to look when you project onto it, you have fun.
You go out there. I’m not a teacher, not anything. You just go about your business. You have a good old time, but I ain’t going out there with you. Say that right now. All right, fine. So you’re trying to divorce yourself from the world, but what about your mind? I don’t care. I don’t care. What about your feelings?
I don’t care. I don’t care. They’re just the result. The feelings are the same. They’re just the… Explain that in the new book. The feelings are just the Shakti hitting all the mind stuff and stuff that you built in there, causing all these vibrations to go all over the place, and you can’t handle them.
Well, you better handle them. You better just sit there and say, “Fine. Fine. That’s the way the heart is. That’s the way the mind is. That’s just the human state that I built because I couldn’t handle things and projected,” and I already told you. I just made this a mess. I am going to sit in here and relax through everything and anything.
Whatever the mind wants to throw up, that’s what it does. It throws up. Whatever the mind wants to throw up, I don’t care. Spiritual, non-spiritual, I don’t want a self-concept. I don’t want anybody to think of me any way. I have no future. I’m not waiting for something to happen so that I can express myself.
I don’t care. It’s not real. If it’s not real, why would I care? You understand that? This is what the masters have taught you, illusion, delusion, and error. Maya. Why would I get involved in what my mind did about what’s not there, what I projected onto what’s not there? It’s crazy. So you learn to relax in the face of whatever your mind does, whatever your emotions do, whatever the perception of the inkblot is for the moment.
You just relax. You fall back. You relax first, and then you fall away from it. You fall away from it, not the world. Not your mind, not the emotions, all of it. You just fall away gradually, and eventually, if you will keep falling away, it will stop pulling you into it. You will lose interest in it. What did Ramakrishna say?
“The world has lost its salt.” That’s not a bad thing. That means you understand it had no flavor to start with. I projected the flavor onto it. So if I can relax and lean away from whatever the mind is saying… You remember, you built your mind. Don’t you ever doubt that. God did not give you a pre-built mind.
You were given clear mind. You were given God’s mind, and you did this. So own it. You built it, you can let go. And so you relax behind whatever the mind says, you relax behind whatever the heart does. You just keep relaxing until you’re comfortable. You will never get totally comfortable, but reasonably comfortable with what can get created for and against, yin and yang, as it gets created.
I want it, I don’t want it. They make a lot of noise. You be comfortable behind. If you’re comfortable behind, they will cease to distract your consciousness as much. You won’t get pulled into it. If you’re not pulled into it, you get to remain in your seat of consciousness, and there will come a time eventually, if you work on this, that you have relaxed so deeply and they have so little pull on you that you fall back, you fall in, you fall away.
How about that? I don’t call it back or in. You fall away from where you’ve been hanging out. What is there in the room other than the TV you’re lost in? A lot, but it’s outside of where you were lost. “In my father’s house, there are many mansions.” So there’s a whole universe behind where you’re caught, and you just decide That’s where I’m going.
And so you keep always working on letting go. There’s never a time that that’s not what you’re doing, no matter how you feel, no matter what’s happening, no matter what befalls you. That’s what Christ’s teaching was, his life. No matter what happened, he let go. That’s the world. This world is not real. He taught that.
And so basically I started with the physics, then I went to the psychology, and then you’re at spirituality. It’s just that simple. But your mind, instead of thinking about these inkblots and what you want, it’s allowed to think about the physics. It’s allowed to think about the reality of what’s going on.
That’s what Vivekananda taught, the Vedantic teachings, all right? Is you’re allowed to use your mind for jnana yoga, to think of these high-level things. That won’t bind you. That will help liberate you. But when you build this whole self-concept in your mind, it binds you. Who’s willing to get out? Who’s decided, “I don’t wanna live my life the way these stupid people do”?
It looks crazy. Just read the paper every day. Turn on the news. So that’s yoga. That’s spirituality. Are you willing to live at that level? Are you willing to continue to look at the world, which is an inkblot, and project onto it what you like and what you don’t like and what you want and what you don’t want, and then suffer, go through all your little moods and things because you’re tied into it as real?
You wanna talk about deep teachings? These are the deep teachings, and this is yoga. This is what the great ones taught. Do you understand that? Complete transcendence, non-duality, all the Buddhist teachings, all the really deep teachings are founded on what we just talked about. Are you willing to devote your life, every second of it, no games, to let go of the illusion that you have created when you look out there at that inkblot?
One thing you walk away from this talk, there’s just an inkblot out there. I already showed you. It’s not real. Electron, neutron, proton, everything, right? You are projecting yourself onto it. I wouldn’t devote my life to that. I wouldn’t give it one second, not an eye blink. All right? You c- keep letting go and let go of the model you built and get comfortable in there behind all of this, then it will all happen.
That’s where the Shakti exists. That’s where it pulls you up. That’s where you feel this tremendous power in the seat of self. You don’t want the mind to be your power, and you don’t want the world to be your power. Free yourself. Liberate yourself. What did Krishna say to Arjuna? “Be thou a yogi.” Hmm. 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
