E229: Stop Chasing Life and Start Living It

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, Jai guru dev, jai masters. There should be a little warning sign that you look at each day of your life that says, “Be careful. You’re always running after something, always running away from something.” Whoever got what they were running after, whoever avoided what they were running away from? That’s a deep question, ’cause the answer is nobody.

There’s not a single thing that you ever wanted, that when you got it, you didn’t want anything else. Not one single thing ever, and that’s true of everybody. For a short period of time, you get what you think you wanted, but it’s never enough, and we’re gonna discuss why. And if you have fears, and anxieties, and tensions, and you try to run away from them, you will never succeed.

They go with you. These are truths you know. You have fears inside of you that have been there since childhood, maybe caused by childhood, and that was a long time ago, and you’re still trying to get rid of them, still trying to avoid them, trying to avoid them getting stimulated so you don’t have to feel that fear anymore, or anxiety, or tension, or insecurity, all that stuff. So what is going on?

One, that we’re so blind that we keep running like the hamster on a wheel as fast as it can and don’t realize we’re not getting anywhere. No one has ever gotten anywhere. And then you end up being afraid of death. Why? Because you think there’s a bucket list. There’s just, “If I had just done this or that, I would have found it.

It would have worked. If I had just avoided this problem that I’ve had, I would be fine.” That’s the illusion. Illusion, delusion, and error. So what is actually going on? You’re intelligent people, and you know what I just said is true, and if you just keep running, you’re just gonna keep running. There always has to be something else to run after, and there has to be something to run away from, and you think that somehow, someday, your ship’s gonna come in.

Well, I’m not gonna be the Grinch that stole Christmas, but there ain’t coming in because there ain’t no ship once you understand what’s going on. So what is going on, and why does it appear that it can be reached and avoided and what’s actually happening? What are you really looking for? If you really looked inside and stopped with the right husband or wife or third child or the kid who went to Harvard or Yale or finances that I don’t have to worry about anything anymore, go on, give those answers and go look around at all the rest of the people that have it and see what’s going on. Otherwise, you look deeper and you say, “Okay, what am I really looking for?”

And the answer is peace, love, inspiration, liberation, freedom. The freedom to live life. Not to get life, not to avoid life, but to live life. To be totally okay all the time and never have to fear anything and never have to need anything, just to be fulfilled to the bottom of my being all the time. Well, who would say that’s not what they’re looking for?

Nobody. Okay? They just say that’s a pipe dream. No, it is not Unfortunately or fortunately, listen to me, it happens to be your natural state. That is the natural state of your being, a state of complete peace, complete wellbeing, complete overwhelming unconditional love, tremendous energy flowing inside of you that sh- creates inspiration to express it, and you just dance with life.

How would you like that? All right? It isn’t amazing if I tell you, that is who you are. That is what’s going on in there. “Well, I don’t feel it.” Why? Now you come down to why. Why don’t you feel it? And the answer is very, very straightforward. You’re a conscious being. That’s the foundation of all spirituality, though people don’t say it.

They don’t understand it. What do you mean? If you weren’t conscious, there’s nothing more to talk about, is there? Okay? If you weren’t conscious, you wouldn’t know anything exists. You’re not conscious, not aware. There’s this stuff called awareness. It’s a real thing. You know that. Why? Because you’re it. Tag, you’re it.

You’re an aware being. If you weren’t an aware being, we wouldn’t be having this discussion, and you wouldn’t be hearing it anyways, and you wouldn’t be running after anything. You wouldn’t be running away from anything because you’re not aware of anything. Fair enough? So awareness, your awareness, consciousness, is the essence of your being.

Take everything else away. I, I do this with you. Stand in a room where there’s pianos and music and a party going on and food and great architecture, and just look around. Are you aware of it? Yes. Are you aware that you’re aware of it? Yes. Take away the food. Take away the music. Take away all instruments.

Get them out of the room. Are you aware that they’re gone? Sure. You were aware they were there. You’re aware that they’re gone. Okay? All right, very good. Now take away the people. Take away all the people, have an empty room. Are you aware that there used to be people and now there’s no people? Oh, I see. So, so far you’re aware, no matter what’s going on, you’re aware that’s what’s going on.

Okay? Now take away the room, like magic just melts into the universe, and you’re there looking at all the stars and moons and galaxies, and you’re just there. Are you aware? Are you aware the room’s gone? Are you aware you’re looking at all that? Wow. What stayed through all those conditions? Awareness. Your awareness of being.

“I’m still aware. I’m aware. I used to be. I’m aware.” Do you understand that? Now take away your awareness. What happened? I can’t talk anymore because you’re not aware of anything. Awareness is the core of your being. It is what’s meant by soul, the seed, the essence of your being. Everything else is something you’re aware of.

Then there’s this stuff called awareness. It’s a magic thing, a magic thing that it knows that it knows that it knows. Have you ever thought about awareness? Most people never, ever. They just thought about what they want to be aware of and what they don’t want to be aware of, and just cut right down to the chase.

There are things you want to be aware of, aren’t there? Those are the things you like. There are things you don’t want to be aware of, things you don’t like. It’s the same awareness that’s aware of both. Something can come in front of it you really like, and you’re freaking out. And then two seconds later, it goes away.

Oh, my God. How do you know? How do you know it came? How do you know it went? Because you’re aware. Awareness of being is the essence of your nature, the essence of everything. And guess what? Everybody is aware, right or wrong. The homeless person, the wealthiest person on Nob Hill, they are both aware, and it is the same awareness.

What they’re aware of is different, okay? If I shine a light on something that’s beautiful, it illumines something beautiful. If I shine it on something that’s disturbed and broken, it illumines something that’s disturbed and broken. It’s the same light. Do I have to change the light, put a filter over it?

No. Light is light. That is its nature. Its nature is illumination. Its nature, by the way, is projection. Light radiates. Doesn’t sit in one place. Chair sits in one place, doesn’t radiate. Light radiates. It can stay in one… If here’s its source, but it lumines over there. That’s consciousness. It can be aware of things far away.

It can be aware of things close. It can be aware of your thoughts. You are aware of your thoughts. It can be aware of things inside. It can be aware of your emotions. It doesn’t have to go anywheres. Its nature is the same, and it is the same inside of everybody. There’s no higher or lower or better or worse.

There’s just what you’re looking at may be higher or lower or better or worse, but the consciousness that is aware of it is at its core just like light. It is the same. Okay? All light, by the way, is the same. Physicists know this. There’s photons, and they’re all the same, period. They’re just radiating photons.

Okay? And we wanna talk about the fact that there’s not even that, and to get into quantum physics. I won’t do it today. I like doing it, all right? But it’s all the same. Just like atoms. Every hydrogen atom is the same. You breathe it, she breathes it, doesn’t matter. It’s the same. And in the general sense, every electron, neutron…

Listen to me, because the physics will tell you this. Every single electron, neutron, and proton are the same. They have different positions of how they express their energies, different rings, whatever it is, but an electron is an electron, a neutron is a neutron, a proton is a proton. And every single thing you’ve ever looked at is made of electrons, neutrons, or protons.

Well, if every single thing is the same, what are you running after? What are you running away from? That’s what we’re here to answer, because you do understand it’s all the same. So what’s happening? How did this happen? How did it get so confusing? And why can’t I be at peace? If you add an electron microscope and put it over your eyes, you wouldn’t be upset by stuff.

You understand that? It would all look the same. It’d just be the same. Just light. That’s it. But you don’t have an electron microscope over your eyes, and so what happens is, and this, I don’t wanna get into physics, all right? The atoms and molecules that make up your eyes make up senses. They make up senses.

Same thing with your hearing, sight, taste, touch. They are special, special molecules, atoms. They’re the same, but they get put together in a way so that when consciousness looks through them, they appear different. A tree is the same as a dog, as a dog’s body, okay? At the end, they’re made of the same electrons and protons.

But they’re put together in a way, and our eyes are put together in a way, and our ears are put together in a way so that they create this thing called maya. You ever hear that word? Illusion, delusion, and error. It’s just, you know, they say, I’ve never studied this, right, that flies have very, very complex prisms and 80,000 things in their eyes.

And when they look out, they don’t see what you see. Lots of animals don’t see what you see. Not even close. The consciousness is in there. It’s experiencing. You can see they’re experiencing, right? But because the atoms are different, they see it different. So the, the end result is, and this is very deep, consciousness is consciousness.

Water is water. Light is light. It has its nature. The nature of consciousness is very unique. It is the only thing that’s aware of itself That pole is not aware that it’s there. AI is not aware that it’s so smart. It does not have self-awareness, and self-awareness is an extreme unique thing, and you’re it.

You are self-aware. You don’t need anything to make you aware, but you’re so caught up what you’re aware of. See the difference? Right? You’re very, very concerned what you’re aware of. You are more concerned of what you’re aware of than you the fact that you’re aware. I have living proof. Watch your life every minute.

It’s not like you’re, “Oh, I’m aware. Oh, look, there’s a bird. Oh, look, there’s a thing. Oh, look, there’s a rich house. Oh, look, there’s a poor house.” It’s just I’m not just a witness of noticing what I’m noticing. You are very involved in what you’re noticing. Have you noticed? Okay. How did it get that way?

That’s something I’ve watched my whole life. How did it get that way? ‘Cause mind is mind. Mind is not your mind, your mind, her mind. It’s just mind, right? It’s a piano. It can play different sounds. It’s a piano. A mind is a mind. It has the ability to create thoughts, right or wrong, has the ability to have nice thoughts and not nice thought.

It doesn’t matter. It’s mind, and everybody’s mind is mind, but what they fill their mind with differs, but mind is mind. You can change your mind in a moment, can’t you? It’s a split moment. All of a sudden, you have a different mind going on. “I thought I liked you. No, I don’t. You said something I didn’t like.”

It changes instantaneously, right? Are you aware that it changed? Yeah, but you don’t, you don’t care. You don’t pay attention to the most important part of your being, the part that if it’s not there, you’re not there. That’s why it’s called your soul, the essence of your being. Without it, there are nobody there.

Nobody’s home. With it, you’re aware of all these different things. The problem is, and that is the essence of the fall from the garden, you’re more interested in what you’re aware of than you are of the awareness itself. If you took upon yourself the challenge that what your life is about is something called self-realization.

Realizing who’s in there, not what it’s aware of, but what is the nature of awareness, right? And you’ll start to get back there and realize, “Yeah, I’m in here. Where’d you come from? I know where your body came from. I know where your thoughts come from.” And we’ll talk about that in a minute. Her, her thoughts are the sum of her learned experiences, went on a bet, all right?

Went on a bet that all of her thoughts are the sum of her learned experiences. She’s had experiences, and she made a whole mental thing out of them, and her thoughts are all about that, all about I, me, mine. What is I, me, mine? The whole universe? No. It’s I, this little, tiny, little thing. It’s so cute. It’s I.

Where did the I come from? I made it up, and I change it all the time. Tell me you want me to be, I’ll be that way. Ooh, boy, that’s something else. I, me, mine, okay? That’s such a small part of the universe. I, I thought about it the other day. I can’t even talk about it. How small are you out of the 8.3 billion people that are on the planet right now?

I don’t know, one out of 8.3 billion. Well, that’s pretty small, right? But you’re not even that, ’cause you are watching your mind so thoroughly that that’s what you see. You don’t necessarily see what’s going on out there. You see what’s going on in your mind, and then you project that outside. There’s a nice person.

There’s an un-nice person. There’s somebody I believe in. There’s somebody who’s old. There’s somebody who’s young. What are you doing? You’re just seeing. No, I’m not just seeing. I’ve built concepts in my mind over the course of my life about what I like and what I don’t like and what I believe, what I don’t believe.

That is so small, and you know that’s what you do, and you stare at it. You stare at it. You don’t look… stare at the world. You don’t stare at everybody. You don’t stare at your husband or wife, your children. You stare at your mind and see what your mind has to say about your children and about your wife or husband or your teacher or your finances or your boss.

It’s constantly active, telling you, “I like this. I don’t like this. This should happen. This shouldn’t happen. That’s terrible.” You do that with the past. Your mind says, “That should not have happened.” What? What happened? It doesn’t matter. It should not have happened. That’s really adorable. Why? Because it did happen.

It did happen, or it wouldn’t be saying it should not have happened. And then you’re inside your head staring, the consciousness that someday you will understand does not have to stare at your mind, just like the light doesn’t have to f- come into a, a total focused beam and shine on one thing. It’s a light.

It can shine anywhere. Your consciousness is not tied to staring at your mind. That’s your ego. Somebody once asked Yogananda, a great enlightened master, “What is the ego?” People write books about that, don’t they? He did it in one sentence: the masquerading self. The consciousness having built a mask out of mind, a set of thoughts, and you hold it in front of your consciousness and say, “This is me.

Here I am. Take it or leave it.” No, here you are, the consciousness. Hold… You do hold that mask, don’t you? Ever get defensive? You notice how strong you’re holding onto that mask? See, that’s it. That’s what the ego is, is a mask made of thoughts that you’ve had, experiences you’ve had, so many learned experiences, and your consciousness holds it in front of itself so strong that it can’t look at anything else.

It just looks at me. If I were to honestly ask you what matters in your life, and you tell me anything other than me, you’re lying. That’s all you ever think about. That’s what you want. That’s what you dream of. That’s what you fear. Me. And it’s okay. Don’t get embarrassed, right? Get, get, start understanding what’s going on.

Why? Because you’re staring at what you made in your mind. And where did that come from? Your past experiences. There’s not a single thing that you believe or don’t believe that is not influenced by your past experiences. Go to church and have a wonderful time and see Christ in all the glory, right?

You’re a Christian. Hear me? Go to church and be bored to death, and don’t like the fact they’re talking about the only way and all that kind of stuff. You ain’t having nothing to do with it. Which experience did you have? Depends. Could have either right or wrong. You wake up, and you realize it’s not the way you think it…

It’s like things happen to you. You had experiences, and you held onto them, and you built a self-concept. That’s what it’s called, a self-concept. That’s the ego. You built one in there, didn’t you? Now you know what you like and what you don’t like and who you like and who you don’t like and what you believe in.

You develop these patterns in your mind based upon these meaningless experience that you had. Your experiences are meaningless. Why are they meaningless? Because the same time you’re having that one experience, there are 700 billion other things going on that you’re not experiencing, and you think that yours is more important than all the rest that you missed.

Why? Why would it be more important? It’s just, there’s nowhere else. There’s one everywhere else, and you had that one, and that’s the most important. You don’t understand how he talked to me. I don’t have to tolerate that kind of thing. So you have an experience, and you couldn’t handle it. It didn’t feel good, or it did feel really good, and you want it to happen again.

And so you held onto it, and you built this model inside your head, inside your mind, that this is what I like and what I don’t like, and I want it to happen again, what I don’t want to happen again. I started by asking you, “What do you want with your life?” I guarantee what you’re gonna write down, if I ask you what do you want with your life, are things that you liked, things that you liked before.

You’re not gonna write down the things you didn’t like. And I’m trying to tell you, it’s just, it’s absurd that the same moment you were having something you did like, something could be happening to the left that you wouldn’t have liked. It’s like, it doesn’t matter whether you liked it or not. It was an experience.

And why’d you even judge it? It was just, I’m here on a planet spinning in the middle of nowheres and there are things happening everywheres. But somehow I think that what’s happening in front of me is more important than what’s happening everywheres else in the whole universe. Come on, yes or no? How often do you think about the rest of the universe?

Never. How often do you think about the rest of the world and everybody in it? Nah. How often do you think about you? Now you understand ego? It is this collection of thoughts in the mind and heart that you have held onto as the moments of your life went by and you built a model of yourself. What I like and what I don’t like, and who I like and who I don’t like, and what I want to happen, what I don’t want to happen, and more than that, what should have happened and what should not have happened.

That’s really big of you. Now you’re God. How dare you say it shouldn’t have happened? It happened. It’s never gonna not have happened. I don’t want it to have happened. There’s an I for you. I don’t want it to have happened. Look at me. Ever say that? It shouldn’t have happened. You wanna bet? I’ll bet if you got it down to science and studied the thing called cause and effect and watched every single influence and response passing through time and space, that event had to happen.

It’s science. Doesn’t mean you like it, doesn’t mean it’s right, wrong. Nobody’s talking about that. It’s just that’s what is happening. That’s what happened. Now we’re talking about why it gets so confusing in there. The main reason it’s confusing in there is because you are the consciousness that is so distracted by what’s going on in there, the stuff I just talked about.

All right? The fact that you’re in there having experience is great, that’s wonderful, but it’s meaningless. Look up, you have a different experience. Look to the right, you have a different experience. Every moment of your life. There’s a car accident, that’s the example I always use. Terrible car accident, and you’re riding shotgun in a car, and you fell asleep two minutes before you drove by the accident.

Are you traumatized by it? Is that gonna be the rest of your life if you fell asleep and didn’t see it? What if you didn’t fall asleep? How absurd is that, right? Just arbitrary moment. Okay, the problem is not what’s going on, and the problem is not that there’s consciousness of what’s going on. The problem is that you have the ability in there, you, you who’s in there.

I’m not gonna get into it. I’ve discussed it in my books a lot, but will is the center of will, the cause of will. You have a power in there. Do you not? Can you push thoughts away? Answer me. There must be a power in there. Freud said you suppress things. Who does? With what power? If you get down to quantum physics, there’s four fundamental forces in the universe: strong nuclear, weak nuclear, electromagnetic, and gravity.

Those are your top physicists all around the world for the standard model of physics that say those are the forces that create the universe. That is the only forces that exist, and they’re wrong. W- well, you got… You have will inside. They didn’t mention will as one of them. Here, if I pick up this glass, did I break the law of gravity?

Yes. Did it utilize electromagnetism to hold the glass together? Yes. Who picked the glass up? How did that glass get picked up? Was it strong nuclear, weak nuclear, electromagnetism, or gravity? None. Me. I did it. I have will. I can make things happen, can’t I? How’d they miss that one? That’s a rather major force to miss, that there can be this intervention.

It’s like divine intervention that came from nowheres. Where’d that pick up from? That glass picked up. Oh, my God. I’ll tell you the truth. Go study physics. They will not say one word about will. No explanation of it. It is the power of consciousness focusing. Just like if you take a magnifying glass out to the field on a sunny day, hold it a distance from you, and you’re gonna find out that that which is light everywheres comes down to a single dot that can burn a leaf.

That is the power of concentration It concentrates that which was everywhere, is all over the field, it concentrates it down to a single point. When you concentrate your awareness, it has the power of will. It has a power, just like that, that magnifying glass had a power, and you use that ’cause you concentrate all the time.

On what? Some people say, “No, I don’t concentrate.” You do so. “No, I get distracted all the time.” What does that mean? What does it mean to get distracted? You concentrate on a bunch of different things at once. Your concentration won’t stay in one place, but you’re still concentrating. You’re still focusing your consciousness and, and it just goes, “Oh, squirt, bup, bup,” okay?

It’s adorable. But I’ve, I said I wasn’t gonna talk about it. That is the power of will, the power of focused consciousness. And you know it, you just don’t even pay attention. You wanna do a math problem in your mind. You wanna think of something, and it’s complicated. What do you do? Concentrate. What, concentrated orange juice?

I don’t understand. It’s just Minute Maid? What does that mean, concentrate? If you concentrate your awareness on an inner object or an outer object, then it focuses and has a power. Has a power. You can do math in your head. You used to be able to. Getting old, right? You, you can, you can do things with your mind, yes or no?

But you use concentration. Otherwise, you’re just all scattered, right? So that is the application of the power of will, of focusing this stuff called consciousness onto a given object. The problem is you don’t have a lot of choices nowadays Your awareness goes to what distracts it, doesn’t it? It gets distracted by your thoughts, but not all thoughts.

Special thoughts distract it. It gets distracted by what Freud calls suppressed things. What are those? They’re not even there. Oh, yes, they are, and they distract your consciousness, either subconsciously, pulling it down when you don’t even know what’s going on there, or during your dreams, or when you’re awake, and you see it coming up, and you try to push it back down.

You deal with it every moment of your life. There are things that distract your consciousness. They ca- By distraction, I mean the focus of your consciousness goes somewhere else from where it was, okay? And it goes to what makes the most noise. Of course. That which makes the most noise outside, light, sound, distracts you, does it not?

Same thing inside. Have something come up, remembering your boyfriend or girlfriend that dumped you in high school, and you’re 50 years old. All of a sudden, that’s what you’re thinking about, and then all of a sudden you think, “Well, this could have worked out. Why’d they treat me like that?” But that’s 30 years ago.

Doesn’t matter. It caught your attention ’cause it was loud. It distracted your consciousness. Then that’s what’s wrong. I started the whole conversation saying, “What do you want? What do you want?” I don’t want that. I don’t, I don’t want to be distracted by something that will never happen again. That doesn’t seem very smart at all.

I couldn’t handle it when it happened, and now I can’t handle it comes back up. You got stuff in there like that? Of course you do. And it distracts the heck out of you. So now what do I have to do? Now I have to mold my life to fit what I want to distract me or I don’t want to distract me. I like being distracted by you.

If you like me and you’re showing up, let’s just hang out together. I get distracted by something I like. Then something else happens that I don’t like, it distracts me just as much, if not more. I don’t want to do this. I don’t want to go. I don’t want… All of a sudden, you’re thinking only about that. It distracted the focus of your consciousness.

So your consciousness, which is, is the holiest thing in the world, awareness of being, you have no control over it Not accusing you. I’m just asking you to pay attention. If a thought comes up, you go, “Bye-bye.” I was following a train of thoughts. What does that mean? Toot toot. What does a, what does a train of thoughts?

One comes up, it distracts you. It caused another one to come up, another one to come up, another one to come up. Next thing you know, bye-bye. You’re lost. In what? In your train of thoughts. Ever get lost in thought? Ever not? Okay? And so these things are so powerful now. Why? Again, I can’t help myself. Why?

It’s understandable. You held onto that which bothered you the most throughout your life. It’s bad enough you only had this tiny experience. You held onto the ones you didn’t like. You held onto the ones that hurt you, and now they’re still there, and so they’re causing your mind to talk about them because they’re very distracting.

And then you fight with them. Then you try to mold your life so that it doesn’t hit them. I don’t want to live in Arizona. Why? I want to get married. I, I work in Arizona. No, I can’t. I can’t. I can’t. I can’t. Why? Because there are rattlesnakes in Arizona Yeah, there have always been rattlesnakes in Arizona.

Yeah, but I saw a rattlesnake once in the zoo. It scared the heck out of me. I’m not going there. Holy mackerel, you let it run your life. Do you understand that? And you think it’s rational. I really did see a rattlesnake. It really did scare me. So what? So you had experience. Turn to the right, and there won’t be a rattlesnake.

You won’t have the experience. You can go get married. You think I’m kidding. I’m not kidding. It’s like all your opinions, your views, your likes, your dislikes. Well, yes, I want to get married, but I don’t want to have any children. Well, I want to get married, and I want to have children. No, no, then we’re not meant for each other.

Well, why don’t you… I don’t want to talk about it. What? Why don’t you want to have children? I don’t want to talk about it. But I love you, and I, I want to talk about it. Okay. Okay, I’ll talk about it. When I was young, four, five, six years old, my parents got divorced, and basically, it was a very difficult time for me.

All right? Didn’t like my stepfather, and I didn’t get to see my brother and sister. They went… It was, it was a terrible thing, and I will never bring a child in this world to go through that again. No way I’m having a child. I don’t want them to go through that. Does that sound rational to you? I hope it doesn’t.

You understand that? It’s like, so you had some experience. Everybody had an experience. What if your stepdad was nice? And now you’re letting it mold the rest of your life, and you think it’s rational. It’s not rational in any way, shape, or form. It’s just what we call a samskara, a pattern that got left in your mind because you couldn’t handle it at the time, and now it’s running your life.

In other words, you got distracted by that so much that 20 years later, when you’re about to get married, you can’t. But this is who I am. I’ve always been this way. You don’t understand. I’ve been like this ever since I was little. Well, let’s see. You’re 45 years old. You were little when you were five, and you want that to determine what you’re doing now.

That’s a really rational position. But you do it all the time because you really have those feelings, because you stored them And so you start understanding what’s going on. What’s going on is you’re a mess. You made a mess in there, didn’t you? And it’s trying to come back up, and it affects your life, and it determines where you live and who you marry and with your children and, and what job you have and whether you like your job, whether you keep your job, and everything.

It’s, it’s just everything based on these impressions that you’ve had, which are, like I said, meaningless. You think that the experiences you had are God. They’re the most important thing in the world. They’re truth. I can feel them. Of course, you can feel them. You stored them, okay? And a great being… Let’s start talking about…

Because at the end, we’re gonna talk about how great you are. A great being does not do any of that. They’re way more rational than that. People say spirituality is not rational. Spirituality is very rational because the scripture says, “Yes, I was passing through life, and in the moment that I happened to go by and I was there, that’s what was happening.”

That’s how important it is. And when someone else at that moment have a different experience, okay, so what? Wow. If you can say that and mean it, and handle whatever’s happening… You say, “Oh, look, here it come. Ev- every life’s a meaningless fall.” But it rained. Yeah, I know. When you can handle reality, when you can handle life, it doesn’t get stuck inside.

Well, why does it get stuck inside? ‘Cause you hold it there. It’s your will that holds onto them ’cause you couldn’t handle them, so you focused on them. And so now you have all this suppressed stuff inside, and you built this model of yourself, and you think it’s important, which is fine. There is a party that’s very, very important, way more important than that, the consciousness itself.

That which experienced the experience is higher than the experience itself always. If the experience didn’t happen, you’d still be there. If you were unconscious, you wouldn’t be there, which is more important. So you wake up, and you realize, “This is what I’ve done. I’ve held onto these patterns. I let them determine my ego, let them determine my conscience, my views, my opinions, my preferences, my hopes, my dreams, my values,” everything, all based on your past experiences.

And then you look at it, and now you say, “I wanna be happy.” Good. I want you to be happy. You should be very happy. The only way I can be happy is if everything is the way I want it to be. That’s my dream, that everything will be the way I want it to be. I just spent some time showing you this I want, where it came from.

I always ask you this question at this point. What is the probability everything’s gonna be the way you want it to be? How about zero? Why would it be? You made up how you wanted to be based on your past experiences. This moment’s unfolding in front of you. What does it know about your past experience when you were growing up?

Nothing. It wasn’t there. It has nothing to do with it. How can you even think for a moment that the moment in front of you is supposed to match what you made up inside your head? And you notice it doesn’t, and that’s why you have tension and anxiety and worry and fears. I’m afraid. What are you afraid of?

I’m afraid that what I want to happen won’t happen. Oh, okay. What are you afraid? I’m afraid that what I don’t want to happen will happen. Not very good. You can’t have a nice life. I’m sorry. Yes, sometimes it matches, but it doesn’t last inside of you or inside of everything else. Life is a motion picture, not a snapshot.

And so what is the answer? Is to wake up and realize you are the self. You’re the consciousness. You’re the awareness of being. Yes, you are aware of what unfolds outside and comes in. You weren’t able to handle it when you were younger. Let’s evolve. This is fine. So what you did when it came in is you pushed it away.

You used your will to push it away, which meant you’re gonna keep it. That’s what suppression is, to push it away. And when it comes back up, don’t you push it back down? You try to, don’t you? I don’t want to experience this. Don’t talk like that. You know I don’t, Ken. It’s adorable. And so you start waking up to realize that’s what’s going on.

That’s why I’m not happy. Not because I’m not getting what I want But because I’m not paying attention to who’s in there, I’ve lost my sense of self and I’ve married this ego. I’ve married this, this maniac that’s the sum of its learned experiences and I am not the sum of my learned experiences. I am the one that had the experience.

Can I repeat that for you? Are you not? I had the experience. The fact that I couldn’t handle it and I stored it inside, okay, but I am the one had the experience. Then you more and more start catching on that that’s what made the mess, that you stored all this stuff in there and now you stored it in there.

Only time you’re happy is if the outside world or inside world matches how you want it to be. It’s not just the outside world. You guys are hilarious. Here, I’m madly in love with somebody. I want to marry them, but I went to sleep last night and I had a dream. I had a dream that they weren’t really a good person and that in their past life they killed somebody, but they’re not telling me and they claim they don’t know

Didn’t even have to happen outside, it happened inside me. Okay? It’s like, what’s the answer? Why don’t you find out who’s in there? And rather than what you’re being distracted by, than trying to fix yourself by getting what you want so you’re not so distracted or whatever it is, why don’t you just come back and say, “I’m in here.

I notice there are thoughts that are disturbing. They’re disturbing because I made them disturbing. It’s not even happening anymore, but I held on to them. Why don’t I work with that?” That’s your spiritual journey, which is, “I don’t want that stuff in here. I am not the sum of my learned experiences. I am the awareness that’s aware that there is the sum of my learned experiences in there, because I held it in there, right?

And it’s driving me crazy. Why don’t I let it go?” There you go, the essence of the teachings. Let it be, let it be. Speaking words of wisdom. What do you mean? If it comes back up, be aware. That’s the purpose of me talking to you. Are you aware now where that stuff came from? Psychology’s right, it is the sum of your learned experiences.

But you’re not the sum of your learned experiences. You’re the being that had the experience, and you’re the being that’s having to deal with the fact that you stored it when it comes back up. So what do I do? You learn to let it go. What does that mean? I’ve written books on it, and people do very well.

What does it mean, let it go? What does that mean? Really, what does it mean? It means I’m in here, check. I’m aware, check. I have thoughts, check. Some of them I like, check. Some I don’t like, check. They’re still me, whether I liked the thought or I didn’t like the thought. It’s always the same being. Now what?

Now something comes in and hits something in here that I stored. It does that, doesn’t it? Can hit your stuff, right? What do you do when it hits your stuff? You push it back down. You avoid the person from then on, right? Well, what if you didn’t do that? What do you mean? What if you said, “I don’t want to carry that stuff in me for the rest of my life.

That doesn’t seem like a very nice life. I don’t want that in me. But it is in me, I’m not gonna deny it. It’s in me. Well, if it comes up, I don’t have to push it back down. I can let it go.” What do you mean? I couldn’t handle it when it happened, but that’s over. Happened a long time ago, most of it. You hear me?

Freudian psychology will show you that. Childhood, all kind of stuff left these impressions. Now it comes up. Do I have to push it back down? No. I heard Mickey’s talk on this. He said I shouldn’t push it back down. Good, you heard something. What if you don’t push it back down? It will hurt. I mean it’ll hurt.

It will not be comfortable. Why? It was stored with pain, it’s coming back with pain. Do you understand that? Y- you literally can get all upset, literally emotionally, mentally upset about something that happened to you when you’re five years old and you’re 55 right now. Yes or no? You stored the whole thing in there.

It’s called a samskara, a pattern. You stored it. You didn’t wanna feel it, so you pushed it down. When it comes back up, it has the full vibration of what was stored down there. Have you noticed? Yes or no? What if you said, “I don’t wanna sit on top of volcanoes and avoid the rest of my life. I don’t want that stuff in there.”

Okay, now that’s very deep. So you question, “What do I do? What do I do? Do I have to go to therapy every moment of my life to work all this out?” You’re welcome to try, okay? Or you can do the following. This is what I found works, and other people seem to, because people are doing very good with the books.

All right? What? Don’t start with the big stuff. Don’t you dare, or you will quit instantaneously. Start with the tiniest little thing that it’s silly that you can’t handle it. It’s raining. Yeah, but it’s my birthday. Why does it have to rain on my birthday? It doesn’t know it’s your birthday. It’s not doing it on purpose.

It just happens to be raining, and it happens to be your birthday. Can you handle that? No. Yes, you can so. If you want to, you can handle that. The big stuff, okay, you’re not ready yet. The divorce, the this, the that, the car accident, whatever, okay? But the fact that it’s raining and it happens to be your birthday, or you can handle that.

You can sit there and say, “Oh, okay. You can rain on my birthday,” and that’s rather big of you to tell God, “It’s okay, you can rain.” To- tell the force of meteorology, right, “Okay, do your thing.” You can do that. That’s letting go. That’s all I mean by letting go. It comes up, your mind starts resisting. Relax, just let go.

Understand that if you learn to let go of that, you’ll be able to let go of something a little bit bigger, ’cause you’ll learn how to let go. If you’ve never played tennis in your life and every ball you hit goes into the net, but you keep practicing the very simple things to get the ball across, someday the ball will go across, and then you’ll get better and better, okay?

It’s the same thing with this. Made me cry, ’cause nobody teaches you this, right? You don’t have to tackle the big stuff first. Don’t, ’cause you will not stay with it. Something will hit hard enough and you’ll go bananas. Go south. But the simple stuff, you use it like learning an instrument, the piano, learning a, a sport.

Of course you’re not good at it right now, but you can get good at it, but you better start with the simple stuff. Start with the scales, not with Tchaikovsky. Please, you won’t do very well. All right? But if you start simple, you will succeed. And what does that mean? I can let go. Look, I let go. I went through the rest of the day without bothering myself because it rained on my birthday.

Congratulations. That’s one less bother you have. Then what’s gonna happen is something will happen. There’s usually a driver in front of you. The driver in front doesn’t always drive the way you want them to, do they? They go 15 miles over the speed limit. They don’t use their blinker. They swerve a little bit.

They keep stepping on their brakes. Do you ever complain? Have you ever talked to the driver in front of you? “Hey, buddy, nice blinker.” Only I do that? Yeah, all do it. You know it. All right? What good is that? It gets you upset. The driver doesn’t hear you. Nothing changes. Then don’t do it. What do I mean don’t do it?

Learn to handle the experience without resistance. That’s what letting go means. It means don’t use your will to focus on that while you’re driving down the road. Do a mantra or listen to some nice music, but don’t focus on the darn thing, or it will leave a big impression inside of you. Two years later, you’ll see a car like that.

“Oh, there he is again.” It’s not reasonable. And so you start practicing this thing called letting go. But what it means is cease to focus your consciousness on it, and it will go away. We said that unless you focus on it, it doesn’t stay there. Ever drive on the LA expressway, freeways? All right, I could really pick anything, but take the LA freeways.

They’re v- very dangerous. Lots of people that drive really fast and really crazy, okay? Everybody does it all the time. They don’t think about it. They are used to it. Get used to it. It rains when you don’t want it to rain. Person drives different than you want them to. Fine. I don’t have to focus on it. I don’t have to bring it home at night and complain about it and talk to people about it.

You start to find out the more you talk about it, the more you focus on it, the longer it stays. Have you noticed that? As opposed to you get to the point, you say, “I don’t want this stuff in me, so the first thing I’m gonna do is not put more in.” Very good. That’s my teaching. At least don’t put more in. See how hard they get rid of it right or wrong.

How do you not put it in? Instead of resisting, relax. That’s literally… Relaxation means you’re not focusing your will, focusing down on this thing and fighting with it. You just relax. It’s judo. Relax. Let it go. Let it go. At first it’s difficult, then it becomes easy. And the minute you can do it with that level of disturbance, it extrapolates.

That’s a big word. That ability to handle disturbance goes throughout your entire life. Goes not just for the driver, it goes for how hard it is. It drives what somebody said to you, what somebody didn’t say to you. All of a sudden, it, you become the duck that the water rolls off the back. You made something greater of yourself, something that can handle reality, something that can handle life, and you will be much happier and so will everybody around you because you don’t come home complaining all the time about everything everybody does, and then it gets bigger and bigger until eventually you catch on, “Wow, I’m happier than I was before.”

Of course you are. Why would you not be? You’re not storing all this garbage inside yourself. This is the work of your life. It’s the evolution of your being. Consciousness doesn’t evolve. It just ceases to be pulled down. Do you understand that? People always ask me, “I thought God’s perfect. If consciousness is God, how come he has to evolve?”

God doesn’t have to evolve. He just has to be distracted by your garbage, be pulled down. And as you don’t get distracted, next thing you know you’re happier. You don’t have to go on vacation. You don’t have to go here. You don’t do this. You have to have a buc- there’s no bucket list. Here’s my bucket list.

Get rid of this stuff. Have a bucket list. All right? That’s the Buddhist, empty mind. That’s my Budda- that’s my bucket list, empty okay? I don’t want all this stuff. Open heart, empty mind, that’s a bucket list. Yeah, see, it all fit, didn’t it? Okay? Keep letting go. Then what’s gonna happen? Something bigger’s gonna happen.

Is there a bigger thing? Yeah, there are bigger things than the driver in front of you, and the heat, and the temperature, and so you’re not saying hello. There are some bigger things can happen, and the tendency is to close down and resist them. You will reach a point in your growth that before you do that, you understand the cost of doing that.

No matter how difficult the situation is, if you close around it, it will stay there, and you will leave another deep impression inside. You understand that? And you have to carry that for the rest of your life. At some point, you become great enough to say, “No, I can handle this. Yes, it’s disturbing. Yes, I am comfortable with the disturbance if it means I don’t have to keep it, if it means I learn to handle things of that level of disturbance for the rest of my life.”

Of a liberated being. That’s what it means to be liberated. You’re free. You’re free to exist. And what happens is, and this is the great secret, as you let go of your garbage, not only does it naturally become nicer because you’re not fighting it, this energy starts flowing inside of you. What energy? The energy of love.

Well, why would energy of love flow? Because you’re not blocking it. And all of a sudden, the energy of inspiration. You’re gonna be inspired by everything. Everything, doesn’t matter what it is. It’s just, wow, I get to dance with the world. I get to dance with God. Ev- everything is happening. And you start feeling all this inspiration, all this love and all this joy, and then something big happens, and you decide, “Is this worth going down over?”

And I want you there. I want to see you when you get there. And the answer is no. It’s a rhetorical no. Why would I go down when what I want is up? Why would I let anything bring me down? You don’t have to fight it. Just let it go. Let it go. Still deal with it, but not because you can’t handle it. It’s not that you don’t interact with life.

You don’t interact with life to make it be what you want. No, it doesn’t make it worse. You’re fighting with reality. You look, get clear enough. Still can bother you, so just be, be clear enough. Be above it. Look at it and say, “What can I do to help?” Not help me. What can I do to raise the energy of this situation?

That’s what you all call saints, right? Someone that doesn’t think of themselves at all, and all they do is try to help life, help the universe, everything. It’s just… It’s a great being. They’re fine inside, so what they bring out is beautiful. And eventually, and I’ll stop here Now you’re s- it’s called becoming established in the seat of self.

I’ll repeat that. Established in the seat of self. Nothing pulls you out. Nothing’s strong enough to distract your consciousness from this beautiful energy it’s feeling that’s actually flowing up, called the ascent. It’s flowing up and feeding you all the time, and I’m, I’m not going back down. That’s all.

I’m not going back down. I don’t care what it is. I don’t care. Do what you want. I ain’t going back down, right? And so you’re established there. That is not a high state because it’s still individualized consciousness focusing on yourself as an individual. You’re not focused on your ego, but you’re still aware that you’re separate.

Light is not separate. It’s all the same, and that’s, that’s enlightenment. When you get to the point that you’re not being distracted at all enough to where your consciousness is not being pulled down to a point or even to a focus at all, it returns to the source. It returns to the source of consciousness, which is God, which is the creator of the universe, which is everything, and that’s an enlightened being.

So, maybe I could stop there. Very good. 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