E231: The Personal Mind is the Real Problem

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. Eventually, especially if you aim yourself towards spiritual growth, at some point you’re gonna realize that the mind can be a serious problem altogether, not to mention on your spiritual ascent. Why? Why would… Somebody once wrote me and said, “Why does that voice talk so much?

Why is all the thoughts in my head going on all the time? And why are they negative?” Because they are. That’s the first thing you realize when you wake up. There is a voice in your head talking to you. Before you’re awake, you think you are that voice. You don’t get any distance at all. You’re just … That’s it, and you do whatever it says.

If it says, “I don’t like this,” you don’t like it. If it says, “I do like it,” you go after it, and that’s that. That’s just who you are. You are that voice talking. That’s who you are. People think that. Well, you’re not. You’re aware that there is this thing in there talking to you. If I ask the question, do you have thoughts?

That’s a simple question. Do you have thoughts? Everybody says yes. But then I ask them the next question, they don’t like it. How do you know? How do you know you have thoughts? I throw a ball at you, you know there’s a ball coming at you. If you see the sunset, you know you saw the sunset. How do you know you have thoughts?

And the answer is because I’m aware of them. It’s not hard. Not a … It’s not a tough test. I’m aware that there are thoughts. Are you sure? Yeah. Why are you talking to me like this? I’m aware that there are thoughts. Who’s aware that there are thoughts? There’s a case of subject, object. You are the awareness, and what you are aware of is thoughts.

You are the awareness, and you’re aware there’s a hand. You’re the awareness, you’re aware there’s a pillow. You’re the awareness, you’re aware there’s another person. Not so difficult. You’ll probably get an A on that test, but you fail because you’re not paying attention. Okay? So basically, yes, you have thoughts.

N- n- nobody can tell you you don’t have thoughts. You know you have thoughts. The question is, who knows that there are thoughts? If you go deep in meditation, if you’re lucky, there aren’t thoughts. Okay? Maybe you’ve been there, and you come back, and you do an amazing thing. You said, “I went so deep there were no thoughts.”

How do you know?

How do you know? If you are your thoughts and there are no thoughts, then you ain’t there. But the truth is, you are there when there are thoughts, and you are there when there aren’t thoughts. What is that telling you? You’re independent of your thoughts. You are a conscious entity. That’s what you are.

That’s called the self. It’s so funny, the words, the word self is supposed to be such a spiritual, oh my God, the self. What is it trying to say? You, hello, you in there. You, the self, you yourself. Talk about you yourself. That wasn’t some weird thing off in the mountains somewheres or in a cave somewheres.

You are the self. How do you know? Because you know that you know that you know that I am that I am. You’re aware. Okay, so what’s… Why talk about this? Because if you don’t talk about it and you don’t wake up, then you are busy being your thoughts. That is what you do. It makes me cry. It’s sad. That is what you do with your life.

You do with what your thoughts tell you, and you sit there and say, “Well, what else am I gonna do?” Be you. Be the one who notices the thoughts. Your starting position is at least, yes, I don’t have to think I know the thoughts. I see the thoughts. Why? Because I’m conscious. That’s the key. We use that word so loosely.

I am an aware, conscious being. That is exactly what you are. An aware, conscious being that is aware that you have thoughts. Do you have emotions? You sure? How do you know? Because I experience them. Who does? Me. Am I my emotions? I don’t know. They’re weird. They come and they go, and so I’m still here. I’m here if my heart hurts.

I’m here if it feels filled with love and excitement. Same person, same being, the self. So you’re in there. You are independent of what you’re aware of. You are this thing called awareness. There’s a thing in the universe called awareness. Otherwise, there might as well not be a universe. If nothing’s aware of anything, why bother?

Go have somebody play the most beautiful music that ever was, but don’t be aware of it. Did it exist? I don’t talk about philosophical things. Didn’t exist to you. But if you’re aware of it, then it exists. But if it’s terrible music, I’m aware it’s terrible. Well, it’s beautiful music. I’m aware it’s beautiful.

But if music stops, I’m aware it stopped. Or it starts playing again, I’m aware. I’m an aware being. Hello. All right? That’s who you are. You are the aware being. Were you aware yesterday? Are you sure? Were you in there yesterday being aware of what was going on? What about five years ago? What about when you were five years old and you looked in the mirror, were you aware that there was a reflection?

Yes or no? Did the reflection look like what it looks like now? No. Are you aware that it’s different? You are an aware being. I don’t do retreats. You know I don’t, right? I just hang out here, okay? If I did retreats, you would not wanna come, because I would do this for the solid three days until you’d finally yell, “Yes, I’m in here.

Stop it.” “Otherwise, I wouldn’t hear you talking.” Right? So that… You don’t, but you don’t realize an awareness is a thing. It’s an entity. It’s an essence. It’s a nature. It is that which is aware. The, the wood is not aware. Tell you a secret, AI is not aware that it’s so smart. It’s just smart, okay? It’s just there.

Nobody’s aware. You’re aware of it. What if you weren’t aware that AI was so smart? You wouldn’t be afraid of it. You wouldn’t use it. You would use it. I don’t know. But the fact that you’re aware of it, right? You’re the one that’s aware. I’m a computer guy. You know what we call you? The end user. You’re the end user.

When it’s all said and done, the computer do whatever it wants, but if nobody knows it, doesn’t mean squat. Doesn’t do anything. But if you’re aware, you are the final recipient of the object, okay? Before we’re done, we’re gonna talk about awareness. Where does it come from? We know where your body came from.

Single cell knew how to make itself and multiplied out and made this body. Okay? Where did the indwelling being come from? What is awareness? And like I said, before we’re done, we will talk about that, right? And guess who knows the answer to that? Not the philosophers, not Einstein. You, because you’re it.

How can you not know about you? That’s who you are, the aware being. You already admitted it. You’re aware of your thoughts. You’re aware of your emotions. You’re aware of your body. You’re aware of the world unfolding in front of you. You’re the aware being. So I ask you, oh, well, what is awareness? You go, “What?”

You’re not paying attention. Yogananda called enlightenment self-realization. You realize that you’re in there, but you were always in there. Yeah, but you don’t realize that you’re in there. Why? Okay, so now we talk about the mind again. Why is the mind a problem? It’s a wonderful thing. It can think, it can create, it can do all kinds of wonderful, wonderful things.

Glad I have one. I don’t know about you. All right? The problem is if you watch your mind, you will see that it’s almost always negative. What do you mean? I practice positive thinking. Why? Because if I don’t, it worries, it thinks what could go wrong, it thinks what I did wrong. It looks back and it think I was wrong the whole time.

I was just making believe I was… You hear me? Pay attention to what that thing talks about, will you please? Right? It’s as though the mind thinks its job is, listen to me, the mind thinks its job is to find out what’s wrong and then find out how to fix it. What happens if you don’t find out what’s wrong?

You don’t have to fix it. So the problem is that it thinks everything’s wrong, doesn’t it? Including you, including the size of your nose, including what your teeth look like, including the fact that you’ve burped, including the fact that you’re getting older, including the fact that… Huh? Come. Come on.

I’m not trying to bring you down. You already did that for yourself. All right? So you’re sitting there looking at a thing. You call it a problem solver. No, it’s a problem maker in an attempt at solving. It made the problem. She’s talking to Sally. She’s not talking to me. So what? Well, that’s a problem. Who said?

Me. I said it’s a problem. I want her to be talking to me, not Sally. You’re creating the problem with your mind. If your mind does not create the problem, there is not a problem. Okay? Well, I used to live in this beautiful house, and then the mortgage came, and the bank took it away, and so on. Now I live in a much simpler house.

Okay, that’s called a fact.

Who made it a problem? You. Your mind. Your mind made it a problem. What if the mind didn’t? What if the mind said, “I feel so much better”? What if it said that? So the mind is a thing that can think, that can create thoughts. There’s no question about it. You have a mind. You have a mind. Who has a mind? I’m gonna keep going back there.

You have a mind. The problem is that you listen to it. Why? It’s so negative that it’s scary. It thinks about what’s wrong, what was wrong, what could be wrong, what will be wrong. It’s, it’s busy doing that stuff, and that distracts your consciousness. Why? Why does the mind do that? Can we touch…? Does it do that?

We, we admit to me, I know you like to think you’re spiritual. Do you admit that that thing makes up problems and tries to solve them? But you don’t think it’s making them up, because they seem real. Watch. I mean, come on. You wanna get real? It might rain tomorrow. It might rain tomorrow. I don’t want it to rain.

Did you … Is that a problem that it might rain tomorrow? No, it’s a fact. It’s not even a fact yet. It’s a maybe. Okay? But you made it a fact, and then you worried about it, and then you thought what I’m gonna do about it? Right or wrong? You see what I’m talking about? Will you please pay attention? How often do you do that?

How about all the time? Why is the mind that way? Why? Because it is that way. So now we got two facts. You’re in there, and you’re aware of a mind that creates problems and then gets anxious about trying to solve them, and so on and so forth. And that’s what’s going on. Why is it like that? Why, why would God make a thing like that?

Well, God did this thing called free will, and he gave it to you, and you have free will. Free will means you’re in there, and you have a power. You can push a thought away, can’t you? You can hold onto a thought, can’t you? You can get fixated on something. You have a power inside of you that is all-powerful, and what that power does, usually, is the world comes in.

You have will. What are you going to do when that comes in? You act. How do you act? With will. You have power. You can do things. Do you understand that? You’re not innocent in there and have just nothing you can do. All right? You’re vulnerable. No, you react in there. That’s willpower. So the normal reaction, unfortunately, to a normal human being is as follows.

It comes in. You’re aware of it. You’re aware that it came in. Do you just let it come in and go through? You do with some things. How about if I told you a secret? You do with almost everything. I guarantee you, if you gave me enough time, I could prove it. 99% of every single thing that ever came in through your senses went right through.

Really? What about the lines in the road? How many of those still in there? What about people you don’t know that walk by? What about cars that drive by that you don’t know anything about them? Nothing. Just goes right through. Did you see it? Sure. Did you experience it? Yes. Are you aware? Yes. Did you do anything about it?

No. Why would I do anything about it? You understand that? It’s just I’m in here, it came in, I experienced it. I did something, I experienced it. Was it hard to experience it? I, I, I do the experiments with you all, and I don’t know if you all get it. Like right now, do you see me? Do you see what’s in front of you?

How hard was that? You better go meditate. Better do some mantras. How hard was it for you to see what’s in front of you right now? Zero. Took no will, took no effort. It came in and it went through. What if I said something you don’t like? Is that gonna come in and go right through? No. Why? What if I said it in a language you don’t know?

It’ll go right through. Are you catching on? Okay. What happens is 99, probably 99.9% of every single thing that ever came in through your senses went right through. The grass, the trees, the leaves, the wind, the rain, the clouds. Come on. You see them all the time. They go right through. So let’s take an example.

You’re out there in the field, there’s grass. There’s road, grass, trees, clouds, wind, everything, and then there’s this rustle in the grass. Shh. Okay? Did that go right through? No. Could have been a snake. Could hurt me, but then it didn’t go through. The- when it goes right through, it means that, then, then the next thing happened, the next thing happens.

Be here now. That’s what be here now means. Really, it’s much, much simpler than you think it is. Be here now means you’re here now. Well, what if something happened and I get, I get attracted to it? Then you’re not there the next moment. You’re, you’re there in the past moment. You’re not being here now. So it comes in, grass rustles, and all of a sudden, that’s where you are.

But, but there’s a next moment after that. Not for you, because you held it inside your mind. I’m, I’m going very slow for you. I’m not saying it’s wrong. You hear me? Don’t judge. Just follow truth. All the other things came into your mind and into the self, into the experiencer, experienced them. Okay?

Everything. I’m telling you, that’s nine-point-nine percent, maybe ninety-point-nine-nine-nine. Okay? Almost every… Look, look right now. Look, look through the windows. How much you seeing? Is the seeing stuck there? No. You’re still seeing it, but it, it didn’t get stuck. It just went through. It just, okay, that’s what is.

Guess what? It’s always that which is. But if something comes in that’s different, I’m gonna be very bad right now, nothing is different. It’s all the same. It’s all a bunch of atoms floating around. And there are a number of them, look at the periodic table. What? You know, ninety-eight, ninety-six natural atoms make up every single thing, including all the stars and moons and galaxies and everything like…

Wow, real different, isn’t it? It’s not different at all, but it’s different to you, and we’re talking about that. All right? So it comes in and you’re in there, and for some reason, some things distract your awareness. They pull your awareness down to them instead of what’s… Oh, it’s so deep, I can’t even say it.

Instead of what came in, coming in and being what is as it passes through, touching your consciousness so you’re aware of it, and then the next thing happens, and the next thing happens, right? Instead, something quite different happens. It comes in, this one comes in, and you go down to it. Oh, God, it, it’s gonna be deep meditate to understand that.

It didn’t come up to you. You grabbed it before it came up. Stop. Don’t hold hands. Who said you could hold hands? Anybody getting it? So in other words, there is a state in which, and it happens to be, it happens to be how it was made, was meant to be, when they talk about heaven, right? This total… God created the heavens and Earth and is enjoying it.

So you created everything. Everything exists. It’s all the same. It’s all the same. Red, black, blue, green, they’re just light, right? Everything’s the same. Everything’s the same. It’s all creation. That’s what it is. And it comes in through your senses so that you can experience it, and it comes through it.

I’ve talked this before. Ever turn the corner and see a sunset that is so shockingly beautiful that it blows you away? What does that mean, blows you away? It means all the junk that was going on in your mind beforehand ain’t going on right now. What’s happening is that thing is so awesome that it comes all the way in.

Touches you, doesn’t it? You say things like, “It touched me to the depth of my being.” You know how beautiful that is? It touched me to the depth of my being. That means it came in and touched the consciousness itself and merged into it like a river into the ocean. They became one. You became one with the moment.

You merged with the moment. Why is that not happening all the time? Because some things that come in that start primal, make-believe your mind’s pure, that don’t have all the junk in it yet, some things come in and they scare you. I don’t know what the word is. All I know is that consciousness comes down to meet them instead of allowing them to come up and merge with you.

Now we’re talking spiritual, the deep, deep teachings. When the experience and the experiencer become one. It’s not I’m the experiencer experiencing the experience. There’s just one thing all merging back together. Okay? Okay, but sometimes that doesn’t happen. How about a lot of times? Sometimes that doesn’t happen.

What happens? It distracts my awareness as it’s coming in. That means my awareness got pulled down, got distracted. It got pulled down to that rustle in the grass. Where was it before? Wherever it was. Okay? Maybe it was merged. That’s wonderful. Now it’s not merged because the conscious focused down on that particular thing.

That’s your power of … I, I’m gonna get into it. I’ve written all kinds of things on it. That is what will is. Will is concentrated awareness, concentrated consciousness. When you want to stop a thought in your mind, you have to concentrate, and these things happen by themselves. They just … They, they, they distract your awareness, so it focuses on the rustle in the grass as opposed to the leaves and all the rest of the things.

You understand that? So instead of being expansive, it contracts down to that object. And when it does that, it makes an impression on the mind that, that stays, at least for a moment. Because you concentrated on it, that thing will be there the next moment even though it’s not there now. Th- there’s just reality, but then there’s this mind that grabs onto a piece of reality and then makes it be reality even though it’s not there anymore.

You got one of those? Now you understand mind. Okay? Fine. Fine. Trouble is, this is not fine. Why? Because the vast majority, meaning almost everything, that distracts your consciousness is out of fear, this, that. Really fear has a lot to do with it. You understand that? That little rustle in the grass. So what?

There’s rustle in the grass. Could be an ant. Could be anything. No, it’s a rattlesnake, isn’t it? You know that. It’s a rattlesnake until I check it out, make sure it’s not a rattlesnake, or till I run away and never know what it was. It’s so funny. It’s so funny. You run away, you know what it was. It was a rattlesnake. It’s- the mind will do that, wouldn’t it?

‘Cause that’s what you thought, and you held onto that thought. If you’re getting this, it’s everything I ever wanna teach you. Now do you understand your mind? Forget mine. Mind is just this thing that receives and passes through. But when the consciousness uses will to focus on an object, it gets stuck in the mind.

That’s this membrane impression. So now you were walking in the field, it’s wonderful out here, you always loved out here before, but now th- there was a little snake. The snake went by. It wasn’t a rattlesnake, you know, a little garden snake, right, went by, but it scared you. Now you’re afraid to come out here and you’re afraid to take walks in the woods.

There could be a snake. There always could’ve been a snake. But you held onto that impression, so now you’re not okay. How often do you do that? You do it with everything. Absolutely everything. It comes in, and your consciousness comes down to it and focuses on it, and it makes an impression, and those impressions last.

This is literally, at the extreme, Freudian psychology, all of Freud’s teachings. What do you mean? Mommy did something when I was young or didn’t do something when I was young. I’m now 55 years old. It probably happened when I was two. It’s still in there, and you think that’s natural. Well, of course. What she did was terrible.

It was 50 years ago. She’s dead. It’ll never happen again. You’ll never be two ever again. Mommy will never do that ever again. Doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. I didn’t like it. It hurt me. Therefore, it’s still in there. All right? So you’re basically saying, “Here’s my philosophy in life. If something bothers me, I keep it.”

That’s, that’s Freudian psychology, right? Okay. Very good. And if it really, really bothers me, I really keep it. No, it’s not funny. It’s funny, but it’s not funny, right? Like, you can get traumatized that this happened to you and it was scary and terrible and painful and whatever it was, but it’s over. Now, then we’re not talking about it.

We, we’ve talking about it, right? It’s over. Thank God it’s over. But no, no thank God it’s over. It will be the center of my life for the rest of my life. But it only lasted five minutes, and it was 20 years ago. It’s never left me. It’s there all the time, comes up in my dreams. It’s all I ever think about.

Anybody talks to me, they might as well be doing the same thing. It has the same feeling. That’s traumatized. What does that mean? It got stuck. And don’t sit there and tell me it’s normal. It- they- that’s not normal. Happened for five minutes, five, 20 years ago. Why is it still in there? Now, I’m not belittling the psychological problems because they’re real, right?

But they’re real because you don’t understand. They’re real because nobody told you, “Hey, you can let it go.” How? How can I let it go? By letting it be what happened. By accepting and honoring, respecting that I’m here, I’m a conscious being, and that event took place. Not happening anymore, thank God. And we’ll all shrink together and make sure it doesn’t happen again, okay?

But that doesn’t matter because you’re gonna hold onto it, aren’t you? Well, why does it get stuck in there? Because you hold onto it. Will, you, you, your will gets fixated on it, and every time it tries to come back up, you push it back down. Is it fair? Can we talk about it? I know it’s not nice, okay? But it’s real.

It’s what’s really going on, okay? And you’ve had experiences in your life, not necessarily traumas, right? But you’ve had experiences in your life that have left strong impressions, right or wrong. Okay, now what do you do with those impressions? And they tend to be the negative ones. How many really, really positive things do you get traumatized about?

Okay? Truth is you can. If you really want… If something happens so beautiful, so special, and you want it to happen again, and it doesn’t happen again, your, your whole life’s messed up. The point is, holding on to it is basically saying, “I’m not willing to let the rest of life take place.” It made an impression in my mind, and that is what is my reality.

That’s how strong the impression was. It’s not reality by definition it’s not. It’s something you held on to that was once real for at least a moment, right? But now you made it permanently real by holding on in this thing called mind. That’s why the mind is so negative. What do you mean? How many times have you done that?

I’m telling you, you watch, you do it 100 times a day. I don’t like what it looks like. I don’t like that I got a B. I should’ve gotten an A. I don’t like… Look at them, they’re in love. I wish I could be in love like that. And what are you doing with those things? Holding on to them. So you’ve taken all the things that have happened to you that you held on to, you hold on to them, and what do you think it’s gonna be like in there?

If you store everything negative that ever happened to you inside your mind, everything you look at is gonna look negative, and you have to worry about the fact that it will come back up at some point. What do you do when it comes back up? You push it back down, and don’t tell me you don’t. You don’t want to experience it again, so you push it back down.

That’s why your mind is the way it is. Makes me cry. It doesn’t need to be that way, but it is that way because you made it that way, and you keep it that way. You make sure you keep it that way. You only hang out with people that say things that when they come in, they feel okay to you. And people who say things that you don’t like when they come in, you don’t hang out with those people.

In other words, it becomes your life. The stuff you stored inside your mind becomes the meaning of your life, right? People sometimes say, “Well, what’s the meaning of life?” Oh, let’s get philosophical. Let’s not get philosophical. Here’s the meaning of your life. Get what you want, avoid what you don’t want. Come on, who’s gonna be honest?

Get what you want and avoid what you don’t want. Get what I want, woo, I feel good. Get what I don’t want, ugh. Now go out there and make it be that way. Good luck. Have fun. You wonder why you’re neurotic. Just go out there and try to make life be what you want it to be. Have you noticed it doesn’t do it by itself?

You, I know you notice it doesn’t do it by itself. You have all these courses, you know, coaches and stuff, you know, how to get what you want, how to attract to yourself what you want. It’s all about get what I want, avoid what I don’t want. Okay? And I, I, I can’t get into it, it’s a whole nother discussion, but I’ve had it many times, which is why in the world would the moment unfolding in front of you be the way you want?

It’s gonna be the way it is. That’s history. It’s called cause and effect. There’s entire years and years of people and things that caused that moment to be that way. You didn’t even meet them. They were in Japan and putting the brake pads on three years ago, and your car’s like three years old, and then, and the person, the poor mechanic had a fight with his wife the night before and was really upset, and didn’t torque the shoes down just exactly as much as they should’ve been, and now three years later, you’re driving down the road and the brakes do not stop as well as they could’ve, and you hit somebody.

Things are the way they are because of what everything that had made them be that way. How’s that for a philosophy? Things are the way they are because of everything that made them be that way. It’s called science, cause and effect, physics. And you’re saying, “I want the moment unfolding in front of me to be the way I want, not the way it is.

No, it doesn’t get to be the way it is. It’s supposed to be the way I want.” Guess what? You’re wrong. It’s not supposed to be the way you want. It’s supposed to be the way it is. Oh my God, he said that. And you know how you know that? ‘Cause you put out a lot of tension and anxiety, manipulation, and power, and control, and planning to try to get it to be the way you want.

Therefore, you admit that you know it’s not gonna be the way you want. You know it in the bottom of your being it’s not gonna be the way you want, and now you have to worry about it. What am I gonna do about the fact it’s not gonna be the way I want? Isn’t this fun? It’s because it’s called truth, and you shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.

If you pay attention and you sit there and say, “Okay.” First of all, how did you decide what you want? Forget how it’s gonna be. How did you decide what you want? I just told you. You held onto all these past things and built a concept of yourself. I’m the one who likes redheads. I’m the one who likes women.

I’m the one who likes men. I’m the one who likes tall men. I’m the one who likes people who are vegetarian. I’m the one who likes vegans. I’m the… What do you mean? Who knows then what a vegan is? Well, I’ve had experiences with them. I this, I that. So you, you just built this concept inside your head based upon what you stored from the past.

Where else is it gonna come from? What does psychology say? Man is a sum of his learned experiences. You hear that, you don’t even think anything about it. Are you imagining how powerful that is? How many experiences have you had? Oh, a whole lot. How many have you not had? How many were going on at the same moment you were having an experience everywhere that you were not having?

Oh, I don’t know, 700 billion zillion. And you think you know something. You didn’t experience anything. Oh, yes, I did. You experienced one of 100 billion trillion things that if you’d looked to the left, you would’ve seen something else, and you finally wake up and realize the mind is the way it is ’cause you made it that way.

It’s not the mind’s fault. The mind has the ability to create, and it can create thoughts and create emotions and create music and create art. It can create everything and anything. It can do anything. I like Microsoft. Their motto used to be, “Where do you wanna go today?” You can go anywhere you want.

That’s what’s true with your mind. Do you understand that? I spend time regularly trying to teach you that this bowl of dirt you’re on, this really important thing you hang out with for a few years, that’s been here for 4.5 billion, you’ll be here for 80 or 90, real important, you’re real important, all right?

That 1.3 million Earths fit inside the sun. That’s how important you are. And how big are you on the planet Earth? W-What, what part of it all are you? And 1.3 million Earths inside the sun, and the sun is one of 300 billion stars in your galaxy, and there are two trillion galaxies. How important are you?

You can think like that. Where do you wanna go today? I wanna go there. That’s where I hang out. I don’t wanna go out here. “Oh, I don’t like the way that… How am I got a mosquito bit me? Oh, my God, I’m getting old. I don’t wanna think.” What the hell you want to do that for? Your mind can go anywhere you want.

But you can’t anymore. You can’t anymore because you got distracted by these things in your past, the sum of your learned experiences, right? And you held them on inside your mind. You kept them there, and you built this concept of yourself called the ego. That’s what the ego is. It’s a concept of yourself.

It’s not who you are. It’s something you made up based on your past experiences. And so you finally come down, and you see, no wonder it’s a mess. I stored every single thing that ever bothered me, and the ones I really liked didn’t happen again, so I had to store them, too. All right? So in general, it’s, it’s not so much fun.

Most people wake up in the morning, they wish they didn’t. You wake up, and the first thought is, “What’s wrong?” How many of you will admit the first thought, “What’s wrong? What did I do wrong? What’s gonna go wrong? What could go f-” Okay. So you… Do you understand what’s happened here? So now you have that garbage, and it is garbage.

Why? It’s not reality. It’s all the stuff you chose to store. You didn’t, you didn’t choose to store it. You got distracted and stored it because you focused on it. And so now it’s, it’s a problem. We got problems down there. And now you spend your entire life trying to avoid the… You don’t e- you don’t know it’s a true statement if I say to you, you spend your entire life trying to avoid yourself. Trying to avoid that stuff that’s in there so it doesn’t come back up.

You know, it’s out of the exper- I don’t want to experience it again. But 99% of them, you’ll never happen again anyways because they can’t. Things don’t repeat themselves. So now you understand the mind, and that’s why the mind’s a problem. The mind is not a problem. The mind’s a beautiful, beautiful gift that was given to you, and you can do whatever you want with it.

But now you can’t, because on its own, it generates thoughts. You don’t get to choose your thoughts. If you try real hard, you can. Do mantras and just focus on it and think, right? Otherwise, what happens if you stop doing that? You go deep in meditation. Let’s be honest. Go… They may believe you can go deep in meditation.

I don’t wanna know about that. I wanna know what happens when you come back. I wonder how long it takes before the junk, it just starts coming back up. You come out of meditation, you fall. It’s so beautiful. The phone ring. Who’s that? Oh, my father-in-law’s sick. What? Oh my God, I, I don’t know how to answer it.

I’m sorry. Nice meditation. I’m glad you had a good time. Does it have to be like that? Of course not. Of course not. And now you come down to talk about, well, how do I get out? What can I do about this? Because it really is that way, and the answer’s not to get what you want. Have you ever gotten what you want?

And how long did it last? When was the last time you got what you wanted and never, ever wanted anything ever again? Never, ever for anybody. Why? Because getting what you want doesn’t solve your problem. Half the time you don’t even want what you thought you wanted. Go look back five years, ten years. You want the same thing?

How about yesterday? All right. I’m sorry to point it out, all right? But it’s, this is how it is. What do I do about it? Let’s get down to solutions. Doesn’t take much. Solutions do not take long. You are in there. We said that in the beginning. You’re in there. You didn’t stop being in there just because you’re noticing all this other…

The fact that you’re noticing all of this other stuff means you’re in there. That is the solution. That is the only answer. That is the answer, period. What? Be aware that you’re in there. But I am in here. Yeah, but you’re not aware that you’re in there. You’re too fixated on what you’re aware of instead of you who’s in there being aware.

They call it the witness, the objective observer. You are in there. But, but if my heart hurts. You’re aware that your heart hurts. But what do I do about it? Oh, I don’t want to answer you because you don’t want to hear nothing. What? What…

I have a crystal clear lake. It’s just crystal, mirror clear. All right? I love it. A leaf drops in it. That creates ripples, doesn’t it? I don’t want the ripples. I like that mirror clear lake. What do I do about it? Jump in. Get the leaf out. That’s not gonna work too good. Okay, I understand. I’m not stupid, all right?

Blow real hard, to make the ripples go away. Oh, no, there’s more. Anything you do creates more ripples. If you do nothing, they go away by themselves. Yes or no? The same thing is true with everything in your life. That’s a very high state. Okay? My heart hurts. There’s a reason your heart hurts. It’s that junk you stored in there, right?

Because something you wanted to happen didn’t happen, somebody disappointed you. Okay? Let’s go do something about it and see what that does to your life. Okay? Especially if he was just in a bad mood, he or she was in a bad mood, they came home, they, they weren’t very nice when they came home, went and slammed the door in the bedroom to be alone, right?

And you got hurt. There, your heart hurts. What are you gonna do about it? Advise something. Leave it alone. He gets to be in a bad mood. She gets to have had a bad day. It’s not personal. It’s not personal. You don’t know what the person went through that day. You don’t know what happened before they came home.

You don’t know anything. What if you sat there, the heart hurt, it’s humanness, right? And you got stuff in there, and you let it go? You let it go. And so that when the person comes out of that bedroom, there’s this cheerful, loving, supportive person waiting for them, not some angry, “Don’t you treat me like that.”

That is equivalent to let it settle, let it go. Somebody wrote a song at that once. Let it be. Let it be. Singing words of wisdom. That’s what it’s saying, right? Let go and let God. Forgive. Non-judgment. Let go of yourself. Let go of this false ego that you built that wants everything to be the way it wants it to be and thinks that that’s the meaning of your life, as opposed to, I would like to spend five minutes not having one of those talking to me.

What if you could walk through life experiencing reality? Who says it’s reality? The Bible. Let those of eyes to see, let them see. Let those of ears to hear, let them hear. In other words, open your eyes and open your ears. What you’re experiencing is reality. What’s reality? That which is … I defined it in one of my books, I think, Living Untethered, big philosophical question.

W- well, what is reality? That which already happened. You ain’t gonna make it not happen. It ain’t never gonna not have happened, right or wrong. That is reality. Can you handle it? Of course not, because it isn’t what I wanted it to be. That’s the problem, right? You want to have a beautiful life? Be open to life.

Be open to reality. Be open to experience this amazing planet, this amazing universe. Like, you live on a planet in a universe that a single fertilized microscopic cell knows how to make a baby. The doctors don’t do it. The mother didn’t do it. The father didn’t do it. Nobody did it. It sat in there and took Twinkies and, and, and Coca-Cola and knew how to break it apart chemically and make it into blood and, and brains and cells and nerves and, and, and the pineal gland, wherever that is.

That’s pretty amazing, isn’t it? And you live in a world like that and all you do is complain? Eventually, you wake up and you say, “Th-this is how a great being lives. Wow. Wow. Wow.” And every single thing that happens is just like, “Wow. Wow.” Just, isn’t it beautiful? And you know what happens? ‘Cause I said the answer is the self.

The answer is to stop clinging. Stop grabbing and holding on to things. Let them come through. Does that mean you don’t deal with things? It does not mean that. I always like to have time to make sure we talk about that. Life is an interactive sport, but life is not supposed to be what you want it to be. Let’s say you’re playing a football team, and you have in your mind what they’re gonna play next, and you play that.

You have the defense, you play against that. Good luck, ’cause you don’t know what they’re gonna play next. But it’s not like you’re supposed to stand there and let them run over you. But what does it mean it’s an interactive sport? You don’t have a preconceived notion of what’s gonna happen. You’re present with the moment that’s unfolding.

Oh my God, that’s called the Tao. I’ve heard something like that. I heard a rumor there was something like that. The way. What way? The way it is. Okay? In other words, I’m in here, clean, clear, no concepts, opinions, views, likes, dislikes, preferences. No, no, I don’t have those. Gotta install all that stuff in me.

I’m open. I’m here. I’m willing to, and ready to have the experience that’s taking place, letting it to touch me to the depth of my being, and here it is unfolding, coming in. Let’s dance. Not let’s fight. Not let’s suppress. Let’s dance. Let’s harmonize. Let’s dance. You’re welcoming me. So that if, if you’re playing a, a sport and the other side starts doing something, you’re s- you’re conscious.

You’re so aware. You’re present. Like on the tennis court, you better not be thinking what happened a minute ago, even the previous play. You better be right there. Correct? That’s what great athletes are, in the moment. It’s called in the moment. And so we’ve talked about being in the moment, haven’t we? So you come in, this is how you deal with life.

You first let go of your garbage. It’s not supposed to be the way you want. That’s something you made up based on your past experiences. Well, didn’t everybody else make up based on their past experiences? Well, no wonder there’s war. Who wins? The strongest person, the richest person, the meanest person? I don’t know.

I don’t wanna talk about it. All I know is that no two of you want the same thing, and if somebody tells you they do, they’re lying to you, ’cause they’re the sum of their learned experiences, you’re the sum of your learned experiences, and you ain’t had the same experiences. Not even close, have you? No one.

And so you wake up and you realize, okay, that’s the problem. The problem is that I have the sum of my learned experiences inside my head. What should you do with your past experiences? Let them be your past experiences. Deal with them. Let them go. Let them go. They don’t need to be in there anymore. Yeah, I need to protect myself.

You do not. The self can’t be… Oh, that, that, the Gita echoes in my mind. Weapons reach it not, waters can’t overwhelm it, fires can’t burn it. You can experience a fire, but then you’re experiencing it. You can experience water, but then you’re experiencing it. The self, nothing touches the self. It’s transcendent.

It’s like light shines on an object. Light is not the object. It illumines the object, but the light is not the object. The object goes away, the light’s still there. That is the nature of conscious- we’re talking about consciousness. It’s called the light of consciousness, isn’t it? That’s why, because its quality is like light.

It is shining on your thoughts, on your emotions, on your body, in your world. It is aware. It’s awareness. It’s the light of awareness. If your thought goes away, you’re still there. If your thought changes, you’re aware of change. You’re always there. So there’s nothing, I don’t know, there’s nothing to be afraid of. If it can come in and pass through, what are you worried about?

Okay? Life unfolds. When you’re present, the funny part about it is, when you’re present, you do way better with it, ’cause you don’t have these preconceived notions, you hear me? Desires, and fears, and anxieties that affect how you deal with things. Just get all anxious about something and then try to talk about it.

You know, you’re not the right person. But give me a clear person, let the universe come in, and see what they can do with it. ‘Cause they’re always gonna do the same thing. They’re gonna raise it and do whatever they can, not to get it the way they want, just to raise the energy to a higher level. They’re at a higher level, they’re clearer.

Can I help clean it up, clear it up? Not get it the way I want. We’re busy trying to get it the way we want, ’cause we think we’re right. You know you think you’re right, ’cause you have evidence. I’m not, I wasn’t born yesterday. I’ve had that experience before. I know what happens, you know, people go out with other people and, and no, you keep them close.

You hear me? All right? And you, ’cause you had an experience, you think you’re right. You have evidence. I told you, you missed eight hundred billion zillion experiences the same time you were having one, and that’s your evidence? That’s ridiculous. A great being lets go of their self. That’s called die and be reborn.

Ever heard about that? That’s what Christ talked about, isn’t it? Literally dying of the personal self. Can you believe that someone actually talked about that? He did, right? You die of the personal self. Like, my favorite line of his, I’m a nice Jewish yogi and I, I love Christ teachings. My favorite, “Forgive them, Lord, for they know not what they do.”

That is so beautiful. The first is, I ain’t gonna worry about it. You know, they’re screwed up, it’s all right, but they don’t even know who they are. They don’t even know what they’re doing. It’s okay, right? That’s your attitude, period. Now, you already see now from this talking, you don’t know what you’re doing, do you?

Come on, you a mess? It’s a mess, and you’re busy trying to make it be okay even though it’s a mess. Okay? And you finally catch on, you realize, well, that’s how everybody is. How do you judge them? How do you get mad at them? Forgive them, Lord, for they know not what they do. It’s pretty powerful stuff, isn’t it?

All right. Do you understand you’re a very great being, period? You are the highest thing to ever walk the face of the earth right now, but you’re staring at the lowest thing that could possibly be, everything that ever bothered you. You made a collection, and you’re staring at it, and you wonder how you’re gonna be.

So you learn to let go. But letting go doesn’t mean you don’t interact. You do interact. You interact. You’re clear. The world’s unfolding. You see what you can do to help. You become a servant of reality. That is your dance with God. God has created the heavens and Earth, then came down to play. Let’s see what we can do.

It’s, it’s always about raising, it’s always about helping, it’s about serving. But not that j- because you wanna be good, right? A great being doesn’t think they’re good, they don’t think anything, anything. There’s nothing else to do but to sit there and raise the energy. All right. It’s hard to stop, but I hope you listen.

You are a great being. Don’t think ’cause we’re talking about the mess you created in there. You, who’s looking at the mess, are the highest thing that ever walked the face of the earth. There’s nothing higher than consciousness. It, it’s what gives meaning to everything in life, consciousness, all right? And you’re it.

You’re the greatest thing that ever was. The deep yoga teachings, they, they say, “Aham Brahmasmi.” I am Brahma. I am that. That’s who you are. That there’s a name in the yoga tradition for you back there, who’s in there. Hello, in there, right? Sat-Chit-Ananda. Eternal conscious ecstasy. Oh, that sounds like fun.

Well, then, that’s who you are. Why are you busy looking at what you’re not and making a complete mess out of everything and everybody else? So what do you do? Just relax through what you used to push away. Been doing that for 55 years. When it comes in, some of it you’re gonna react to. Very small, but you’re gonna react to it.

Relax instead. What do you mean relax instead? Relax instead. N- no, y- relax instead and see what happens. You’ll start to drift back ’cause it’s not pulling you down. You hear me? You have to tense to be pulled down. If you relax in the face of what you would’ve resisted, it can make it through. Not all at once.

Little by little, and then you end up being you, and you start to literally experience this flow of Shakti that intoxicates you day and night. You are Sat-Chit-Ananda. Okay. I love you. Will you work on yourself? You can liberate yourself. You can free yourself. Christ said, “My Father and I are one.” And then he said, “As I sit with the throne of my father, so you shall sit by my throne.

And these things that I do, you shall do these and even greater things.” In other words, you’re there too. You’re where I am. Come on up. All right? 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.