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. Spirituality and spiritual growth becomes easier as you go deeper in time and go richer. Just like when you become very good at a sport, you don’t have to try as hard. You’ve raised to the point where all the things you used to go wrong, you know how to do, you’re better at it, better at, better at, and you can play at your highest level without struggling.
You just get used to doing your best. You, you, you raise your level, goes up naturally, and once it goes up, that which is below it is not an effort in any way, shape, or form. Believe it or not, spirituality is exactly the same, and it just depends on how mature people are in their spirituality. And I’ve read of others, not just my own growth.
I heard a story of one of the modern great gurus, very, very high being, that he was giving initiation to somebody, and he said, “Come meet me at 2:00 at my house and I’ll give you initiation.” And the guy walked in, disciple walked in, and the master was watching TV and doing something, and the disciple walked up, the master stopped for a second and said, “Oh, blah, blah, blah, blah, okay, wait, wait.”
And, and, and the guy got Shakti. He said, “The guy got full initiation.” It didn’t take anything for that spiritual person to bring the energy down, release it, and go about his business, which was watching TV. There’s a lot of stories like that. You understand that? Okay. Now, you’re taught the disciplines of meditation, of mantra, of renunciation, of tapasya, whatever it is, because you’re lost.
You’re gonna stay with your habits in the beginning. Just like when you start to play a piano or, or, or, or do a sport, you’re not gonna do well, and someone has to coach you and teach you how to hold your hand, how to get your footing, how to do all this kind of stuff. Eventually, it becomes second nature to you, just like the wrong way or the way that didn’t work was second nature to you.
Do you understand? Habits are second nature. You don’t have any trouble continuing smoking. You don’t have trouble continuing drinking. You’re wired that way at that time. In order to change that, you have to put in efforts. You put in effort, okay? Use will, and it’s an important part of the path. Just don’t think that that is the path.
It is said that in the end, there’s no use of will. If you are there using will, you are still there, and that is not the highest state. The highest state is merger. Your ego no longer exists. The sense of “I” no longer exists. You’ve merged back into the oneness, and there is no will involved there in the final step.
In fact, Muktananda Baba, I heard him once teach, he was all about the guru, and he once taught, I heard him teach, that the guru can take you to a certain level, and when you reach that state, you have to let go of his hand and walk across by yourself. And when you get there, you’ll find out he was there waiting for you.
That is teaching you that when it’s said and done, it’s not about doership. In the beginning, it is. Otherwise, you’re just doing the habit that you have, but it’s very important to understand, to not look at the path as a continuous struggle. In the end, it is not a struggle, so I thought we’d talk about that a little bit.
Well, what do you mean in the end it’s not a struggle? Let’s start from where I usually stop. Why are you having trouble? Why are you not okay? Why do you need things to be happy? Why need to get your way? Why need people be the way you want them to be, especially in relationships and finances and business and all that kind of stuff?
Why do you need things to be a certain way for you to be okay? The answer is very simple: because you’re not okay. If you were okay, you would not need things to be a certain way to be okay. So the question is not why do you need things, why do you want things, why do you have desires, and, and avoiding fears, and all that kind of stuff.
Why is it like that in there? It’s like that in there because you’re not okay. You’re not okay in there, and therefore, you need outside and inside e- even, you know, positive thinking is a beautiful thing to do. Why do you need it? Because otherwise, it’s negative. If you don’t do anything in there in the beginning, you’re gonna find out your mind is pretty negative, right?
It’s afraid it’s not gonna get what it wants, or afraid it’s gonna get what it doesn’t want, and then it tries to figure out what to do about it, and so on. That’s because you’re not okay. These are stages of maturity. In the beginning, it’s I’m not okay, and I gotta do things to be okay and teach me how to do them, how to win friends and influence people, how to be attractive, how to make people like you, how to be successful in business.
You hear me? So you do that work. You have no choice because you’re not okay. So your not okay-ness will drive you to doing the work. Go a little slower. Do you, do you see that, right? If you were okay, you’re not doing anything. If you’re in a relationship that you feel completely secure about, and it’s the perfect person for you, and everything’s just ideal, you don’t have to do anything, right?
It’s just wonderful. It’s fine until something goes wrong. Then you go to marriage counseling, and you do this, and you look for somebody else. And why? Because you’re not okay. Everybody got the foundation? All right. So normally, a normal human being, as sad as it sounds, but a normal human being is driven by the fact that they’re not okay.
And you don’t like hearing that, okay? You’re driven by the fact you’re not okay. Otherwise, you’re fine. You’re fine. What do you want for dinner? I don’t care. That’s fine. Thank you. There, you’re fine. But what if you really like one dish and not another, and you didn’t, didn’t like that dish before, and we have it every day, and now you’re not fine.
So you want it to be the way you want it to be so that you can be better than you are now, so you can be okay. It really is about being okay, and you are very busy trying to be okay. Can you all relate to that? Every minute of your life, you’re trying to be okay. Your finances, your relationships, your issues, your problems, your looks, your weight, your everything, how long your eyelashes are.
Come on. Okay? You’re trying to be okay, and that’s ’cause you’re not okay. I don’t… I keep saying it, but can you get that through? There’s only one reason you’re trying to be okay: ’cause you’re not okay. If you are okay, you’re not trying to be okay, but that doesn’t sound very Western. You’re constantly taught try to be okay.
Try to win. Try to get people to love you. Try to have good relationships that you trust and so on. Why? Why? Because if I don’t trust you, I’m not okay in the relationship. If I, if I don’t know what you’re gonna do, and I don’t feel, feel secure in the relationship, I’m not okay. Right or wrong? All right? So you can’t…
It’s hard for your mind to break through this fact that the reason you are driven as much as you’re driven is ’cause you’re not okay. There are people that don’t care about their finances. There are. There are people that don’t care about their finances. They care about other things, but they don’t care about their finances.
I don’t care. I can live in a nice house, not a nice house. I, I couldn’t care less. Then they’re okay with their finances. They don’t… They’re not driven to be successful and earn a lot of money and become a billionaire and be Forbes top something list. It doesn’t mean anything to them. There’s only one reason it doesn’t mean anything to you, is you’re okay.
What if I’m really not okay, but I’m, I’m making believe I’m okay? What’s that called? I always forget what that’s called. Spiritual bypassing. They used to call it premature transcendence. Same thing, spiritual bypassing, right? In other words, you’re not okay, but I’ll make believe I am. No, I’m doing wonderful.
No, you’re not, okay? Deep inside, it’s gonna come back and bite you. Why? Because you’re really not okay. You’re just making believe you’re okay. Some people get off on what’s called spiritual ego. If I can present myself in a way that others think I’m okay, I’m okay. You are not. It, it’s conditional. You need other people to respect you.
You need other people to clap. You need other people to invite you or pay you, whatever the heck it is. You’re still looking, even though you’re not saying it, you’re looking deep inside for what do I need to do to be okay? There is a state, and we’re gonna get there, in which that is not going on inside about anything.
How would you like to go there? Okay, so that’s the first stage, and you have to be honest with yourself. I mean, yes, we, we stress success. We trust financial success, relationship success, e- everything, career success, all kinds of things, and they’re about why do you need that? Because I’m not okay. Just get that as a foundation of spirituality.
You have to start… Buddha say you have to start at the root. That is the root. I’m in here, and it ain’t okay in here by itself. I have to do things to make it be okay, don’t I? So you have this, this energy, this willpower that you’re using constructively. I’m not saying, I’m not telling you not to do it. You do.
You do where you are, and you’re gonna do it anyways. Ram Dass, I love Ram Dass. He used to say when he’d give a three-hour talk, he was in a big audience. Everyone loved Ram Dass. At the end, he’d say, “You heard everything I said? Don’t listen to me. Just get out of here and do what you’re doing.” He was a wise man, because you’re gonna do it anyways.
I mean, I have to add guilt to it. So basically, you start off with the understanding. The witness sees that it’s really not okay in here. It can be okay if I get what I want. If I get what I want, I’m okay. If I avoid what I don’t want, I’m relieved. I’m okay. But that’s a lot of work, isn’t it, to figure out how to get it, what I want, and how to keep it, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
All right? Enough? You got that foundation? That that’s how people are. That’s how everybody is. Okay, but there’s another stage. Next stage is you take a look at that, and you realize who’s ever okay? You have these really rich, powerful people now. You read about them all the time, all over the place. Do they look okay?
You really wanna take over their life? It doesn’t sound like a whole lot of fun to me, okay? If you were number one on Forbes richest person in the world last year, you’re not doing well if you’re number three. I guarantee you, you would watch their behavior. Nothing’s enough, is it? We now have trillionaires.
Forget millionaires, forget billionaires, and it’s not enough. And that doesn’t just go for these big people. That goes for you. When was the last time, be honest, when was the last time you got what you wanted and never wanted anything else? How long did it last? It doesn’t. It can’t. Why? ‘Cause you’re putting it on top of the fact that you’re not okay.
You’re trying to sit there and say, “I’m not okay, but if this happens, I will be.” No, it’s a conditional state. You have to keep trying to get something in order to be okay. You have to run as fast… You know what you’re doing? You’re running away from yourself. You’re like that hamster on the wheel. You ain’t going nowhere.
You seem like you are. You’re trying hard, but it can’t work, okay? So what’s the next stage? You wake up a little bit. Doesn’t have to be a lot. You wake up a little bit. Some people have a midlife crisis. What does that mean? I’ve worked my whole life to be okay. I’ve got the family, I’ve got the kids, I’ve got the work, I’ve got the career, I’ve got everything.
Shh. I’m still not okay. I have to be afraid of losing it. I have to be afraid of always getting up the ladder higher, more… You know what I’m saying? It doesn’t stop because you got the corner office. Somebody else is up on the fifth floor. It doesn’t stop. Go on your looks, that’s a wonderful way to do it, right?
And then worry about the fact you’re getting, “Oh my God, there’s a gray hair.” Now you’re busy. You’re always busy. That’s where tension and anxiety comes from, is you are busy trying to be okay. All right? So what’s the next stage? At some point, spiritually, personally, whatever, you wake up a little bit and you recognize, you know, I’ve done pretty good, but I’m not okay.
I’m not okay. I still worry about things. I still have anxiety. I still feel pressure, yes or no, to make things be a certain way, and it doesn’t seem to go away. And so you start questioning that entire process. It doesn’t mean that you’re not learning how to be okay. It means you question the methodology you’re using.
If you need things, it’s called conditional well-being, if you need things to be okay, they will not last. Everything changes. People change. Your age changes. Your thoughts change. Your beliefs change. Ever change your mind? Have you ever changed your mind? Okay, well, change your mind, you better go looking for something else because it doesn’t want it anymore.
Okay? It’s just, it’s a natural process. The question is, do you know that? Or do you think, “Oh, now I was with dolls, and now I’m with this, and now I’m with cars, now I’m with houses.” Right? It’s just the next thing that I have to be struggling for to try to be okay. At some point, that’s the first step, you notice that.
I don’t have to teach it to you. You notice this isn’t working. Well, not the particular job, not the particular amount of payment, not the particular way I look, not the particular way that somebody treats me. The whole thing of trying to get this to make me feel better, that is conditional upon, it’s conditional upon other people. Right?
You know, let’s say you feel really good about yourself. You’re a great instrument. Let’s play in an orchestra, right? And you go and you play solo and everybody boos you. How you doing? Okay? It’s conditional, and that’s what you notice, that everything you’re doing… I’m not pushing this on you. Just so, have a talk.
You start to notice everything you’re doing is conditional. Your wellbeing is conditional. Why? ‘Cause you’re not okay. Well, how do I be okay if I don’t get things that make me feel okay? You try to find out why you’re not okay, and the mind will say, “Of course I’m not okay. I don’t have my finances the way I want it to be.
I’m getting older. I don’t want the gray hair. This person used to love me,” and you never close your eyes, right? It just, it doesn’t feel the same anymore, and that’s why I’m not okay. That is not why you’re not okay. You’re not okay to start with. You tried to use these things to make you feel better about it, and now they’re not working, and you’re saying that’s why you’re not okay?
So when Buddhists say you work at the root, it means something very serious. You look and you say, very simple. I use a lot of words. I don’t know, I just got into that. The Buddha was very simple. All right? Are you okay? No. Do you struggle to be okay? Yeah. And do you think that’s gonna make you be okay? Well, I’ve been around for a while, hasn’t done it yet.
Hasn’t done it yet. You hear me? Okay. And so what, what can I do? What, what’s another methodology to be okay, instead of trying to put something on top of you’re not okay to feel better temporarily? The answer is, find out why you’re not okay, and that’s becomes very, very deep, by the way. That’s a deep point in your path.
Do you believe, at some point not believe, it’s understand because you’ve experienced it, that your natural state is not okay, and you need to do things to make it be okay? Or do you understand that your natural state is complete ecstasy and total wellbeing all the time, and there’s something wrong that doesn’t feel like that?
Because those are two totally different directions in life. One is I gotta go out and get stuff, and one is I gotta get rid of stuff. Because what you’ll find out, if you get to that second stage, right, where you see there’s joy in there. Why do I need someone to love me to feel love? Either it is their love expressed on me that makes me feel love, or I have love inside of me and somehow they help bring it up.
Somehow they stimulate the feeling. But it’s inside of me all the time. Why don’t I feel it? And that’s the next stage in your, in your spiritual growth. It’s not about what do I do to feel it, it’s why I don’t feel it. And every great master, Christ and Buddha and everybody, has taught you that you’re the most beautiful thing ever walked the face of the earth.
Do you understand that? Right now, not later, not someday, not if you meditate enough. You are right now the most beautiful thing to ever walk the face of the earth, filled with Sat-Chit-Ananda, eternal conscious ecstasy. That is the nature of your being. Well, why don’t I feel it? Now, that’s a nice question.
Now you’ve asked the right question. Not what do I need to do to feel it? Why don’t I feel it? See the difference? It’s a totally different path when you wake up to that level. And what you’re gonna find out, and it doesn’t take long, as you wake up, you look and you say, “How did I screw this up? What in the world have I done?
It must be me, because I’m the only one in here.” Let me get that straight. There’s no one else in there, stop blaming everybody else. You are, you have the sole occupancy of this apartment in here, and it is the way you made it. Ooh, that’s powerful talk. But my mother… I don’t care what your mother did, she’s not there anymore.
You don’t understand, but my first husband was like… It was a terrible situ- Where is he now? I don’t know, he died five years ago. Well, then why is it still bothering you? And you start to look, and you see something. You see, which I teach you all the time- You have decided to take that which bothers you the most and store it inside of you so it can bother you for the rest of your life.
It’s called Freudian psychology. That’s what Freud taught, isn’t it? He just didn’t have that witness consciousness level, all right? But that’s what he said. He said things happen to you in your life, traumatic experiences, difficult experiences, heartaches, right? Different things happen, and did you let them go?
Did they happen and then be over? No way. Not if they hurt enough. They ain’t never gonna be over. I’m keeping that sucker. I wanna remember what that felt like and make sure it never happens again. And you know you’ve done that. I don’t have to teach you that, do I? Have you held onto things that bothered you in the past, yes or no?
More than once or twice? How about every day? Every day. The driver in front of you doesn’t drive the way you want. You call out to somebody who’s a dear friend of yours, “Hey, Sally, how you doing?” And doesn’t even turn her head. You’re going cra- what did I do wrong? I thought we were friends. And then what do you do?
Next time you see Sally, you walk around the corner to make sure you don’t see her, because you don’t wanna deal with it. That is why you don’t feel okay, period, and that is the only reason you don’t feel okay. There is no other reason. Here, I love when the sun shines. Okay? It’s not shining anymore. It is so.
There’s a cloud in the way. It’s always shining. It’s been shining exactly the same for four point five billion years. You have a blockage in the way between the sun and your consciousness, your awareness of being. It’s called a cloud. That is what you built inside of you. If you never learn anything from what I try to teach, that’s what you built inside of you by storing those clouds.
You stored all the darkness that ever happened to you. You stored everything that ever hurt you, and the more it hurts you, the more you stored it. But even the little things mess you up. You know it. Why? Because something ha- little happens. I always use the example of the driver in front of you is driving fifteen miles over the speed limit.
You’re in a rush, right? How are you doing? How are you doing? Come on, be honest. You’re talking to the guy. Come on, buddy. Look at the sign. It’s a 55. You’re going 40. What’s going- They don’t hear you. They don’t. But you hear you, and you can go tell everybody when you get to the office, “You should have seen that idiot.
They’re driving fifteen miles above the speed limit.” And then you go home and tell your spouse. What are you doing? It’s over, and it shouldn’t have bothered you to start with. It’s just an event that’s happening in creation. But you let it bother you, and then you store it, and it’s there. If you are in Germany five years from now, and a car that looks very much like that car was driving like that is in front of you, you turn off.
Your heart goes… I’ve been there before. Why? You stored it, and anything that looks like it hits what you stored. You don’t have to store that stuff. It doesn’t- does it make any sense to store that which bothers you the most so it can bother you for the rest of your life? Does it bother you for the rest of your life?
Does it come back up? You see a billboard. You see two people holding hands after you broke up with somebody. It hurts your heart. You stored it. Okay. That, like I said, usually I get to the, at the end of a talk, I talk about this. I’m laying down the groundwork of why you’re not okay, and I’m telling you that is the only reason you’re not okay.
There is no other reason you’re not okay. Well, that’s a tough one, isn’t it? All right? Things happen, and then they’re not happening anymore. Even something happens, you know, you, they’re sick and they have to amputate something, all right? I’ve met plenty of amputees. I l- I, I so respect them. They, they, their hand is in a hole it isn’t, r- right or something, right?
And they stick that hand right out there and shake your hand. Oh my God, I love that person more than anything in the whole world. They didn’t let it bother them. They didn’t let it determine their life. Do you understand that? How are you doing at that? If somebody says one word that bothers you, you have trouble handling it, seeing them again.
You wanna say, “Why’d you say that?” Right or wrong. So you have the ability to handle life. You’re in there, and that’s a whole nother talk. I c- can… I’d like to talk about everything, but I can’t, all right? What do you mean you can’t handle life? If you can’t handle life, of course you’re not okay. Why? Life wins.
Called reality. Yes, it is raining. Yes, it is your birthday. Can you handle it? “No. Why does it have to rain on my birthday?” It doesn’t know it’s your birthday. Reality is not personal. Do you understand that? Seems like it is, doesn’t it, right? You take it personal. Reality is never personal. There’s not one single thing in reality that has to do with you.
It has to do with all the things that made it be that way. You understand that? Weather’s a perfect example. It doesn’t know it’s your birthday. It’s meteorology. Go study, study why it’s raining, and you will not see your birth date in that book one single place anywheres. But yet you do that, and then you resent that, and now you don’t even like your birthdays anymore because of the rain on your cake.
I’m not exaggerating, folks, and that is why you’re not okay. There, how’s that for the simple reason why you’re not okay? Not what do I do about it? Stop doing that, and you will be okay. Is that spirituality what I just said? That seems weird. One of the deepest sentences ever written in spirituality, and it’s recognized that by that by very high beings, is the first sentence in the Third Zen Patriarch’s treatise on Faith Mind.
Beautiful. Just tiny little booklet, right? And the first sentence says, “The great way is not difficult for those who have no preferences.” There’s nothing that I talked about so far that doesn’t say that. You don’t want the driver in front of you driving the way they are, therefore, you’re in trouble. You have a preference.
It’s not because the driver’s driving that way, it’s because you don’t want them to be driving that way. What if you don’t wanna make it to work on time and you would love to have an excuse, and you get to take a photo of this person driving, a street sign by me, right? And you get to show the boss instead.
You’re the happiest person ever lived. Oh, boy, I don’t have to do that meeting. I didn’t want to do it. It’s about your preferences. It’s about the fact that reality unfolds. I’m telling you, it has nothing to do with you. Nothing? Well, I can’t say nothing, but things unfold because of all of the things that made them be that way.
You have to be a scientist to understand the law of cause and effect. Things happen. How many things happen that cause the moment in front of you be the way it is? I don’t know. Every single thing. Every single thing that ever happened to everybody and everything made up the moment that’s standing in front of you.
How much does it have to do with you? Well, I’m there noticing it. Well, mazel tov. And that’s why I don’t like you teaching karma the way you’re doing, all this kind of stuff, all right? ‘Cause you say, “Oh, it wouldn’t happen if I was good yesterday.” I- just leave me alone. I wouldn’t think like that. Just it has the right to be the way it is.
The question is, can I handle it? And guess what? If you can handle it, it does not leave karmic seeds. Karmic seeds are equivalent to what you suppressed, stuff you held inside yourself. It comes back because it replays itself, and treat people accordingly, the whole thing. If you’re okay with things and you can handle them, there’s nothing in there.
The seeds are gone. And that’s the way to look at karma. It’s not about good and bad or right and wrong. It’s about the fact that you can’t handle things, and then you store them inside of you, and you behave accordingly, and which causes everybody else to behave accordingly, and it becomes a mess. So it’s much healthier to own it, all right?
And don’t talk about past lives. It’s so funny. “Michael doesn’t believe in past lives.” I not only believe, I know it’s true. I couldn’t care less. I got enough problems with my current life. Why do I wanna go blame my past life? Oh, I behaved that way. I couldn’t help myself ’cause four lifetimes ago, you don’t understand what they did to me.
What are you doing? If you can handle it, you don’t talk like that. You only talk about that with the stuff you can’t handle as an excuse. Otherwise, I didn’t even notice. So it’s all about the great way is not to follow those outward preferences. It’s not the event. It’s not reality. It’s the fact that you didn’t want it to be that way, and therefore, you stored it, or you kept it, you clung to it, you whatever.
You do all kinds of stuff, don’t you, when things are not the way you want, and you think the answer is to get them to be the way you want. Now we see the difference between those two stages of growth? That’s a big difference. I’m gonna fight to keep my stuff. Don’t talk to me like that. I told you never to talk to me like that.
You know I can’t handle that. No, go away. Oh, it’s wonderful. Let me keep my stuff. Wow. Wow. We’re having a nice talk, right? As opposed to the whole reason I’m not in ecstasy, that’s a great way, total enlightenment, total well-being, to say the least. I’m not that way because I couldn’t handle things from the past, so I stored preferences inside of me.
That’s something. Look in your eyes, how much can you really hear what I’m saying, right? Do you know why you like and dislike the things you like and dislike? You did not make it up. You had past experiences, and they left impressions on you because you held onto them. Now you know what you like and what you don’t like.
I like that which happened before that made me feel good. I don’t like what happened before that made me feel bad, and I really, really don’t like what happened before that really screwed me up. You’re programmed by your past experiences. You know what’s neat? Because that sounds like I’m having a weird talk here, right?
What does psychology say about all this? Man, I guess women also, I’m sorry, man is the sum of his learned experiences. That is a basic premise of psychology. Your psyche is the sum of your learned experiences. They are completely right. It’s programmed. What else could it be, right? Do you like? Answer me. Do you like it or not?
I don’t know anything about it. Then you, okay, fine, you’re liberated. Here comes the Oh. You follow me? But if somebody says you liked Sally who ran off with your husband three years ago, right? And you hear the word Sally anywhere, it’s gr-, because it left an impression on you. So it is because you stored these impressions from your past, and don’t give me justificat- oh, anybody would…
I don’t, I’m not interested. I just made a statement. It’s not fair. Okay, that’s right. Is reality fair? Answer me. Have you been around the block yet? Is reality fair? It is what it is. You know what reality is? It’s the sum of its learned experiences. That’s called the law of cause and effect. Don’t blame it on God.
It’s just things happen, and they cause other things to happen, and then they cause other things to happen all over the place, and then they end up in front of you. Ah. I like the way they say, “How could you say something like that to me? Why did you do that?” Listen to me. You ever said that to somebody, right?
You don’t want the answer. It would take a lifetime to explain to you why that happened because you have to know all the cause and effects that not affect him, but affect everybody else that affected him, and his thoughts, and it’s pretty complicated stuff, isn’t it? So eventually, you reach the state where you say, “Oh, I get it.”
It’s not personal. I take it personal because I have these likes and dislikes and preferences and hopes and dreams, and if it doesn’t match me, I’m not happy. And therefore, like I said, I keep falling back to the earlier stage. Therefore, you think the answer is to get it all to be the way you want so you can be happy.
No, I don’t think so. I think the answer is to honor and respect reality, so you don’t have to store it inside of you, so you can be empty and whole and feel love all the time, not conditionally. It’s just who you are. It’s your being. As I kinda started in the beginning by saying spirituality is not hard.
You make it hard. The beginning’s hard because you’re lost. But once you reach this stage I’m talking about where you catch on, it is not about getting what you want. I’m sorry. Yes, you can use the law of attraction. Yes, you can use drugs. Yes, you can manipulate and dress certain ways. You can drive with the car that you think somebody else would want.
Go on, try to impress the girl you’re gonna pick up and pull up in a Rolls-Royce, and she is the most base level. What are you wasting resources driving something like that? You don’t even know what somebody will want. That… God, I could talk about any of this for hours. You understand that? How do you know what somebody else wants?
Is it not true that they are the sum of their learned experiences? Did you have their experiences? Are you the sum of their learned experiences? You’re the sum of your learned experiences, and they’re totally different from your childhood all the way up. You have no idea what somebody else wants. You can’t possibly.
You just project what you want onto them. That’s all you have, the sum of your own experiences, and you do do that, don’t you? You think you know how you can be attractive or this. It’s just, phew. Is anybody listening, right? And then you make a complete mess of your life by trying to get it the way you think they want it.
It’s the net result. We’re now at a stage where you woke up enough to where you notice it’s not about getting what I want, it’s about letting go of the part of me that can’t honor and respect the reality that’s unfolding in front of me. All right? And that’s where I get into my talks, which I won’t. I’m being disciplined to say to you, have you noticed you’re sitting on a little planet in the middle of nowheres, floating through black, empty space, wanting things to be some way you want?
It’s like, what a funny thing to do. Why don’t you just have a good time? You’re on a planet for a while. It’s a really nice planet. It’s a nice planet. Go some, go to Mars, go to Jupiter, go somewheres else. Ah. It’s no fun at all. There’s nothing happening. It’s a happening place. And guess what? You don’t have to stay.
Well, you complain so much about everything, you’d think you’d be happy to leave. You complain the way everybody and everything is, and then you complain that you can’t stay. And so you get to the point where you’re not like that, where you sit there and say, “I have a problem,” not they have a problem.
Reality does not have a problem. Otherwise, you have to show every single thing that happened before that made it be the way it is. I’m not saying that, okay? Look at someone like Hitler. It’s, it’s, yes, it’s, it’s not nice, but they’ve studied him inside and out, I guarantee you, how he got that way, and what his parents were like, and what was this, and what experiences he had that made him be that way.
The net result is, do you understand that? That, that things are the way they are because they’re that way. Doesn’t mean you can’t do anything about them. We’ll get there as we go to the higher states. But when you’re in that state that the only way it can be okay is to get it the way you want, well, I’m sorry, Hitler did exist.
I’m sorry, Genghis Khan exists. I’m sorry, people do terrible things. “But I can’t be okay when people are doing terrible things.” Okay, then you’re not okay. Tough love. You have to start with reality. Why? Because it’s what’s real, okay? It is what happened. You can’t even handle what’s happening. You can’t handle what happened.
That’s all, it’s Freudian psychology. You can’t handle what happened. Well, that’s silly. It’s never not gonna have happened. How you gonna be okay if you can’t handle what happened? You can’t. Let’s go complain about the fact that it happened. There shouldn’t have been wars. That was ridiculous that Japan attacked us.
Well, I’m sorry, it happened. It shouldn’t have. I do- I can’t, I’m not gonna talk to you. There’s no such thing as shouldn’t have. If you take all the factors that caused that to happen, it should have happened. Doesn’t mean you don’t do anything about it. I’m just saying, if you’re gonna carry inside of you everything that you don’t like that happened, that is happening, and you ready?
Ready now for the good one? That might happen. You’re not gonna be okay. You’re bothered by what happened, you’re bothered by what’s happening, you’re bothered by… M- mind can think a lot of things that might happen, can’t it? You will never be okay. I don’t understand. Wake up. And you sit there and say, “How did this, how did I get this weird?”
Because you didn’t handle reality. You didn’t handle the fact. What if you handled everything that ever happened in the past? You wouldn’t worry about the present, ’cause you know you can handle it, and you would not even think for one iota what might happen. You’d wait and have fun with whatever happens, ’cause you’ve learned, “I can handle anything.”
The great way is not difficult for those who have no preferences. That’s a bottom line, deep spiritual teaching. Now, I have, some years ago, caught on that you can’t handle that. They write me, “Well, isn’t that a preference? Don’t I have preferences?” Okay, fine. I’m serious. I looked at it. I was talking to somebody once, and he said, “No, I like my preferences.”
I go, “Okay, I, I don’t want to take anything away from you,” right? And so I wrote him back. I’ll never forget that, all right? I told him, “I’ve looked at it differently now. I think you’re right. You’re right to like your preferences. So I’m going to change that first sentence. Thich Nhat Hanh gave me special dispensation to change that sentence.
And so now what the sentence that I like is, “The great way is not difficult for those who prefer everything.” Is it? That’s exactly the same as preferring nothing, but it’s a lot more digestible to you. So instead of trying to get rid of what you like, add to it. Like everything. This is the spiritual path.
You don’t have to renounce. You don’t have to get rid of everything. You don’t have to not get married. You don’t have to not have children. It’s not about renunciation. It’s the opposite. It’s about complete acceptance of every moment of reality that unfolds in front of you, fully embracing it, participating in it, and it all is equal.
Well, then that’s non-dual. You’ve heard of non-dual philosophy. That’s non-dualism. It’s all the same. Everything’s the same. You’re that way about certain things. I told you, have you ever noticed that I talk about white lines in the road? Sometimes they’re yellow. Have you noticed? Sometimes they’re dashed and sometimes they’re solid on one side, solid on the other side, solid on both sides, or they didn’t paint them well and there’s a whole big gap and you can’t tell what it is.
Are you okay with that? When was the last time you got anxious about all that? The great way is not difficult for those who prefer everything. I love it. It’s neat that the lines are different colors, that the lines are spaced different. Okay? It’s neat that it’s raining. It’s raining. Oh, my God, look, water falls out of the sky.
It waters plants. It does all kinds of things, right? It’s not raining. Wow, is it beauti- It’s all wonderful, isn’t it? Until you say it’s not. Who decides what’s not wonderful? You. That which you say is not wonderful, he thinks is great. It’s all about you in there. What is the distance between what you want and what is, or what you don’t want and what is?
And if you think the answer is to get it all the way you want and never be the way you don’t want, have fun, because you won’t. You will struggle, suffer every moment of your life. We will worry. That’s… You getting it now? That’s where it all comes from. What if you’re okay? Then you’re okay. I started off by saying you’re doing all this work and driving yourself crazy because you’re not okay.
If you are okay with reality, you are okay. You didn’t store that stuff inside of you. Therefore, to be okay is not about getting what your preferences want. The okay is to look in there and say, “I don’t wanna carry this stuff inside of me.” And all of a sudden your spiritual path becomes getting rid of things instead of getting things.
There was a Buddhist teacher back in the ’60s, ’70s, we used to study him, and he taught that. He said, “Spirituality is never, ever about getting anything. It’s about losing everything.” Now, you see why? It’s all about letting go of the garbage you stored inside. And if you do that, there will be less and less things that…
Forget preferences. You will stop judging. I didn’t judge the white lines or the yellow lines. Why? Because I don’t care. It’s fine. All right? And you can start getting that way. And that, that’s something I once gave a whole lecture on, this I don’t care stuff. Because that doesn’t sound… I don’t care. I don’t care what you do.
I don’t care what you… That sounds very cold, right? But what if you reach a state where I don’t care if the lines are yellow or green or white. I don’t care. Is that cold? It’s, I’m not judging. I’m okay. Not only I’m okay, I don’t even notice that there’s a problem with you slurping your soup. I used to slurp my soup.
You slurp your soup. You don’t even think anything about it. I don’t care that you burped in the elevator when it was full. I ain’t going out with you again, burper. That was embarrassing. I don’t care. You hear me? It’s a nice I don’t care. It’s a liberation. It’s a freedom. What does that I ca- I don’t care mean?
I don’t have to do anything about it. Can I do something about it? Sure. We’ll talk about that in a minute. That’s literally a very high state where you’re done, you don’t care, then you can help because it’s not about you anymore. Oh, God, this is so deep. Right now it’s all about you. What do I need to do to be okay?
What do I need to do to not be bothered by that? Everything’s about me, me, me, me, me. Who do I wanna date? And what, what do I want them to be like? And what… It’s all about me. Well, what about when you’re okay, then it doesn’t need to be about you. You don’t even know it’s not about you or is about you because there’s nobody in there doing it.
That’s the white lines. I like that one. You don’t do anything about the white lines. You know when they’re double, you don’t pass, but you don’t make a thing out of it. I can’t believe it’s double. It’s been double for so long, and now they, and now they change to yellow. What is yellow? Why’d they change it to yellow?
They’re yelling at me. They don’t like me. Yellow’s a warning. What’d I do wrong? Hello, hello, hello, right? If you don’t care, you don’t even notice. How’s that? All right? So little by little, you practice the teaching of acceptance. It’s called acceptance. That’s where we’re at, acceptance. Like if I call it surrender, surrender is the same as acceptance, but you don’t see it that way.
What does surrender mean? If I am resisting something because I personally don’t like it, let that go. Let the thing go? No. Let your like and dislike go. Accept the reality. Surrender to the reality of what is. What is acceptance? The same. Accept the fact that the lines are the way they are. Accept the fact that you were really, really nice last time we went out, and this time you don’t seem to be as nice.
What’s that mean? You had a bad day. I’m not judging. Hear me? But, but they say those little one-liners, love, love means never have to say you’re sorry. Yeah, I’m not that kinda, you know, Hallmark-type guy, but I used it, all right?
What does that mean? It means I’m not judging you. It means my being is deeper that, okay, you had a bad day. Okay, you said something that wasn’t so nice ’cause you had a bad day at work. I don’t care. It doesn’t affect my relationship with you. It doesn’t affect my relationship with me, all right? The great way is not difficult for those who prefer everything. I’m perfectly happy that you go through what you… In fact, I love the fact that you’re going through what you need to go through, and I’m glad to be there and help you with it.
And of course, you’re gonna have bad days and good days, and I’m fine. I’m here to serve. I’m not here for me. I’m not here for you to be the way I want you to be. I’m not here for you to be et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, right? I’m just here. I’m fine, and you can’t make me not be fine, therefore, I’m not vulnerable.
People talk about being vulnerable. Being vulnerable, what does that mean? It means that that person can behave in a way that hurts me. I’m vulnerable. What if they can’t behave in a way that hurts you? What if they just behave the way they are? They had a bad day. Your kids did drugs. You had to go to the principal, had to do all these things.
You okay? Now we’re getting to the nice point. If you’re like that, and you’re always okay, why would you do anything? Why even get up in the morning? You’re fine. ‘Cause I told you, you get up in the morning now to get some stuff done to make sure you can get, get some work and get it the way you want it.
You hear me? I gotta make some decisions. That is my favorite. I gotta make some serious decisions. About what? If you’re okay, no matter what, there are no decisions. There’s just reality unfolding in front of you, and you’re dancing with it. You see the difference? There are no decisions. What you mean by decision is, I think one way will make me happy, the other will make me sad.
Which one should I do? I’m trying to figure it out and guess what will make… Here. What’s the decision? What will make me be okay, and what will make me be worse? Isn’t it? Tough decision, isn’t it? That’s because you’re not okay. It all is built on a foundation, I’m not okay. We’ve now raised you up to the point where you did this work on yourself, and there are very few things that you can even think about, and you don’t even bother, that would make you not be okay. That’s pretty neat.
How’d you like to wake up in the morning that way? I told you, how’s it, how’s it great being wake up in the morning? I’m back. Oh, boy, what’s gonna happen today? Couldn’t care less. It’ll be fun. It’ll be exciting because I can handle anything. All right? Now, at that stage, why would you bother doing anything?
It’s so beautiful. Now that you’re okay, you’re filled with love. Why? Because that’s what’s in there, is those clouds are not in between your awareness and what you stored in there. You’re okay. You’re filled with love. You’re filled with joy. You’re filled with ecstasy. You’re filled with God. You’re filled with this experience of beautiful energy pouring up inside of you.
Do you understand that? Right. The funny part about it is Christianity, Christ teachings are based on that. Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that leaveth the mouth of God. They’re not talking about bread. You don’t live off the outside. It’s not all about what’s coming in that’s feeding you, but by every word that leaveth the mouth of God, that Shakti, that spirit, that s- beautiful flow of energy, that is the natural state of your being that’s going on all the time.
All the time, no matter what. And then what happens is some big things happen that challenge you to stay there, and now you’re ready. When you get to the point, you say, “I don’t care. I ain’t going down. I’ve been down before. I’m, I’m not going back down there. I’m not going back down there. I don’t care what I need to go through.
I don’t care what I need to let go of. I am not going back into that mess of trying to fix everything to be the way I need it to be. I’ll just go through it.” And you find out that when, when you go through those big ones, whatever you go through liberates you. It liberates you. Then now, you imagine you can go through the worst thing that ever happened to you, the worst ever, even close, and you went through it.
Then basically, you’re free. You know you can handle anything. So basically, when you reach that state, you do do things not because you need to, not because you want to. It’s just there’s nothing else going in there except for love, so anything you interact with, it’s sort of like, “How can I help?” Not help me, not make it so it’s the way I need it to be or not be the way I don’t want it to be.
You hear me? There is no such thing anymore going on in there. There’s just total wellbeing. They call that a saint. It’s just a natural state that you’re so filled with love that the only thing that comes out is, “How can I help?” And you don’t have to ask, by the way. You’re so clear that you can see the energy flow between people, between events, and so on, and you look to see, even if it’s just a little, what can I do to raise it?
Not to get it the way I want or keep it from being the way I don’t want, right? Even the worst possible situations you can be in, you’re not thinking of yourself. You’re just looking, okay, okay. Like Anne Frank, the Diary of Anne Frank, those of you, we read it for Passover, right? Beautiful young girl, they got arrested by the Nazis and her family’s got put in the concentration camps.
And she wrote this amazing thing about she’s not gonna… The darkness can’t last. Behind it all, there will be light. Then she dies, some- she’s killed some days later, right? But they have that, what she wrote, right? That’s how you get. You get high enough to where no matter what it is, how can I help others?
All right. So we took a journey. We started with, you’re not okay. You need to look at that, and everything you’re doing is to try to be okay. It’s fine. It’s not wrong. It’s not about renunciation. It’s about waking up. It’s about awareness. You start noticing, okay, yeah, I can get things sometimes the way I want.
I feel happy when I do. I can meet somebody, makes me feel love for a while till they slurp their soup. Or till my parents don’t like them, or until a girlfriend says, “Oh, you ever talk to S-S-Sol?” She dated him, and, “Oh, my God, did she make a mess.” Anything can change it, can’t it? Because it’s conditional. And you reach the point where you realize, I don’t want to be the sum of my learned experiences.
They’re already over. Why would I want to keep them inside of me? Literally, I do not want to be the sum of my learned experiences. But you are. No, I’m not. No, I’m not, right? You can completely let go of your past. Why would you not? It’s not happening anymore. Okay? How do you do that? Let’s just take a second.
True path. Will it come back up? Yes, it will. What do you do when it comes back up? You shove it back down. Well, I don’t know. That’s not very wise. I don’t want it in there. I’m not gonna shove it back down. What are you gonna do? I’m gonna go through what I couldn’t go through when I was six years old, my parents’ divorce, whatever the heck it was.
I now am much more mature and much more clear, and when it comes back up, it’s gonna have all those feelings it does and all that stuff I stored. I’m going to relax and breathe and welcome it up. I told you, these are stages you reach. Wasn’t that long ago, I reached a stage to realize it’s not just a matter of letting it go.
It’s just not a matter of welcoming it up. You reach a point of looking down there and apologizing to your lower self because you shoved that stuff down there. But now you’re clear, you’re open, you feel love, even for the lower self. You raise it, you look at it, and you literally apologize. I am so sorry that I shoved you down there.
I will do everything I can to help you up. Once you raise the self with self, not trample down the self, for self, it can be self’s friend, can be self’s foe. That’s the Bhagavad Gita. The higher self raises the lower self. Okay, so we had a nice talk. You see it? The path is very different than the way people think it is.
It’s about cleansing the garbage you shoved down there and what’s gonna be left down there is a flow of Shakti. I always like to end with Yogananda’s teachings. He s- he wrote once, “Oh, what hast thou done to me? Wave upon wave of endless ecstasy saturates me day and night, throng upon throng.” There you go.
That’s what’s inside of you right now. 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.
