{"id":25388,"date":"2026-05-10T14:46:40","date_gmt":"2026-05-10T20:46:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/resources2.soundstrue.com\/?post_type=transcript&p=25388"},"modified":"2026-05-10T14:46:40","modified_gmt":"2026-05-10T20:46:40","slug":"e181-the-art-of-handling-reality-the-true-inner-work","status":"publish","type":"transcript","link":"https:\/\/resources2.soundstrue.com\/transcript\/e181-the-art-of-handling-reality-the-true-inner-work\/","title":{"rendered":"E181: The Art of Handling Reality\u2014The True Inner Work"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"image_print\"Print Transcript<\/span><\/a><\/div>

Tami Simon:<\/b> 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.<\/span><\/p>\n

Michael Singer:<\/b> Jai guru dev, jai masters. What does it mean to do the inner work? There are so many techniques to start with. We talk about witness consciousness, objective observation. That isn’t just to start with \u2014 the further you go, I don’t care how long you’ve done it, you’re gonna find out that is your way out when all is said and done.<\/span><\/p>\n

Can you notice what is going on in there without doing anything? You don’t try to notice here \u2014 open your eyes. Do you see the room? How hard was that? That’s how hard it is. That’s what witness consciousness is. It’s the exact same thing happening inside instead of outside. It does not require will, it does not require effort, it does not require techniques to see what you see. Does it? Inside, there’s stuff to see. There’s a lot going on in there. The question is, can you objectively see it? Can you just notice: he’s being neurotic, he fell in love, his heart is closed, his heart is open, he’s feeling anger, he’s feeling jealousy, he’s feeling insecurity. They are happening. You use the words all the time. You do notice, don’t you? When you feel anger, do you notice anger? When you feel jealousy, do you notice jealousy just going on inside of you? You do notice, or you wouldn’t know what’s happening. That’s how simple witness consciousness is. That’s how simple what Christian mystics called objective observation is \u2014 the ability not to make things happen, but to objectively see what’s happening. It is so easy it’s ridiculous. You can’t not see. You see every minute. Do you see your thoughts? Can your thoughts be negative? Can they be positive? Can they be insecure? Can they be secure? Can there be big ego stuff? Can there be scared stuff? Yes or no? How do you know? Every one of you can tell me.<\/span><\/p>\n

You can sit and say, “God, I’m having so much trouble with my mind.” I told you once \u2014 you do not want to come to me for therapy. Sometimes they write and say, “Does he do one-on-one?” No. Why? Is he too busy? No. You don’t want to be there with him doing one-on-one, because you’re gonna come and say, “I broke up \u2014 my girlfriend or boyfriend left me and my heart is killing me, just killing me. It’s never been this bad.” I will listen \u2014 I don’t know, maybe 20 seconds \u2014 and I’ll ask you a very simple question: how do you know? How do you know your heart hurts? Eventually you will yell at me and say, “Because I’m in here and I see it!” And I’ll congratulate you and send you home, because you are in there and you do see it.<\/span><\/p>\n

Come on. This is our starting position for a deep spiritual discussion. What’s happening is you are in there and you do see it. Otherwise you wouldn’t know what’s going on. Imagine you go to traditional therapy and they lay you down on the couch and you just start talking. “Last week I had all these problems inside. I felt insecure, and then someone came and talked to me and I felt better about it for a little while, but then that thought came back.” You are describing what’s going on in there, aren’t you? How do you know that’s going on in there? Because I’m in here. That is literally witness consciousness.<\/span><\/p>\n

The problem is, under almost all circumstances \u2014 we’ll qualify that in a minute \u2014 what you are looking at is troublesome. It distracts you. It draws you into it so that even though you’re in there noticing it, you don’t want to be noticing it. And so you’re actually resisting the experience that you’re having. And that is the core \u2014 a psychology, a Jungian psychology \u2014 because you’re experiencing it.<\/span><\/p>\n

Before I never talked about who’s experiencing it. When I first woke up back in ’69, ’70, ’71, and I saw that I was in there \u2014 I was really first woke up \u2014 I went to the stacks at the University of Florida, the graduate library where all the books are. I grabbed every single Freud book I could get my hands on. I’ll never forget that \u2014 trying to see if he knew he was in there. And he never talked about being in there. Obviously he did self-analysis, but he never questioned who is in here, never \u2014 who is in here noticing that I notice? It’s just what I notice. So you get pulled into what you’re looking at.<\/span><\/p>\n

Who does that \u2014 you in there? Just like you can get distracted out here \u2014 a noise, somebody says something \u2014 next thing you know, you’re not in here noticing. But you are. You got pulled into the object of consciousness as opposed to the seat of consciousness. You are always in the seat of consciousness.<\/span><\/p>\n

Let me go further, just so we have your attention. Your consciousness is divine. It’s one with the whole universe. There’s just one consciousness, but that consciousness can get distracted \u2014 on your thoughts, your emotions, your body. It pulls down from its unity because it gets distracted, and then it stares at your thoughts, your emotions, your body for the rest of your life. Does it have to? Of course not. It’s just fixated. It’s staring at that.<\/span><\/p>\n

You’re always staring at your thoughts. You’re always staring at your emotions. What if you weren’t? Do I have to make them go away? No. That’s where all of it gets weird. I’m sitting here looking at the field and there’s a snake, or a noise, or something happening, and it’s distracting me. So I don’t see the field anymore \u2014 I just see the thing that drew my consciousness down to focus on that. Do you have to have that happen? Of course not. They can crawl by. This can happen, that can happen. My consciousness doesn’t have to get fixated and drawn down to where it stays staring at the thing after it crawled away. That is the foundational psychology.<\/span><\/p>\n

The fact is, you’re out in the field. There’s grass, there’s trees, there’s clouds, there’s weather, all kinds of stuff, and you’re aware of it all \u2014 until you see a little snake, or you see some rustle in the grass. Now all of a sudden, that’s all you see. I’m not teaching you anything \u2014 I’m just helping you realize the reality of what’s going on in there. You are conscious, but consciousness can focus, can’t it? It can get distracted and focused down to a given point, or it can step back and see the whole field.<\/span><\/p>\n

So when you get pulled down into it, we call that getting lost. We call that becoming non-objective about what you’re looking at. And at some point, if you stare at enough, you forget who you are. You’re busy identifying with what you looked at. It’s called \u2014 and the two biggest words I use when I teach, they don’t sound spiritual \u2014 distraction and identification.<\/span><\/p>\n

Can you identify with something you’re looking at? “That’s my car. Don’t sit on it.” All of a sudden there’s a car out there. I don’t know how it became yours. Did you make it? You had nothing to do with that car. You wanna see ego? You’re sitting there, walk into a showroom, whole bunch of cars are there, a bunch of people are there. You look at the cars, you drive different ones, you do different things. Then finally you sit there and say to the salesperson, “Okay, I want that car.” And the salesperson says, “Okay, come on in here.” You sign the contract and you walk out. How did that become yours now? If anybody’s getting into the car, you tell them to get out. They were getting in a minute ago. How did it become yours? That is identification.<\/span><\/p>\n

The truth of the matter is it’s the same car. It’s the same relationship between your consciousness and the car, but you identified with it. You used the words “I, me, mine.” “That’s my car and I don’t want you on it.” That is not objective observation. That is the consciousness staring at and identifying with what it’s looking at so strongly that it projects its sense of self onto the thing. That’s what it means to get lost. That’s the fall from the garden. I guarantee you, if we had enough time to talk about it, that is what is meant by the fall from the garden \u2014 you are with God. Your consciousness is merged with the universe. God created the creation and he is God experiencing the creation he created. Everywhere, omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent \u2014 it’s just one consciousness experiencing all of creation at the same time. That sounds crazy, right? What does the Bible say? “Not a hair on your head moves that God isn’t aware of. Not a sparrow falls from the tree that God’s not aware of.” What does that mean? God is the sparrow. God is the tree. God is the hair. Understand, but the truth is there.<\/span><\/p>\n

So when consciousness gets caught in focusing, it’s like little rays of consciousness pull down and get distracted by what happened to you. What happened to you? And then if you get distracted enough, you don’t come back.<\/span><\/p>\n

So what happens is: here you’re looking at the grass, the clouds, everything’s beautiful, beautiful day. We’ve had beautiful days recently, right? There they are out there. And then there’s this rustle in the grass. I guarantee you, if you see that rustle in the grass, you’re no longer looking at the clouds. You’re no longer feeling the weather. You’re no longer saying it’s a beautiful day. You are fixated on that. Okay, well, that’s bad enough \u2014 your consciousness got distracted, and instead of seeing everything, you just focus on one thing. But it gets bigger than that. Because I guarantee you, when that rustle stops, you’re still thinking about it. You become scared to take a walk in the woods because there might be a snake there. So now not only couldn’t you handle the experience of reality unfolding in front of you without pulling your consciousness down and focusing on it so strongly that it became everything \u2014 when it stops, it’s still inside of you. The snake is inside of you. That’s ridiculous \u2014 it went away a long time ago. But it’s in there for the rest of your life. “I’m not moving to Arizona. He wants to get married but he lives in Arizona. I’m not moving to Arizona.” “Why?” “Well, there are rattlesnakes in Arizona.” That’s just one tiny example of what it means to be you.<\/span><\/p>\n

So not only did you get distracted so much by the experience that you got pulled down into it \u2014 who are you? “I’m the person who’s experiencing a snake.” No, you’re not. You’re God, looking down into God’s creation and getting distracted by some little thing down there. That’s who you are. “My Father and I are one.” But I said, that which I am, so also you are, and these things that I do, you should do \u2014 and greater things. So why can’t you just experience it? Maybe it doesn’t feel good. And then when it goes away, it’s gone. Because not only wouldn’t you let the focus go away from the object, you won’t let the inner experience pass through. So you hold onto it \u2014 it’s called clinging. You hold onto the inner experience, so now you’re in trouble, because your inner experience no longer matches the outer reality. It matched what it was, but it’s not that way anymore. That’s suppression, repression, denial \u2014 all that stuff that Freud talked about. He didn’t talk about it like this, but that’s what he talked about.<\/span><\/p>\n

You have inside of you your past \u2014 your whole past. Well, the vast majority of every single thing that came into your senses went right through: the clouds, the white lines on the road, the people you don’t know, the cars on the road. Just think about it. How much just goes by? I said, open your eyes \u2014 there’s the room. Well, that’s how you are on the expressway, that’s how you are in a busy mall. It’s just going through. You face it and it goes through \u2014 until someone who looks like your ex is walking with someone new, and you haven’t seen him for a year. All of a sudden, that’s all you’re thinking about for the rest of the day, the rest of the year. You didn’t let it go. You let most things go, but the ones that have power \u2014 the ones that have the ability to distract your consciousness \u2014 don’t mean distract your consciousness to focus on something other than everything. If I see the room, I see the room. But if she’s doing something I don’t like or do like, all of a sudden I don’t see the room anymore. Why did I go blind? No \u2014 I focused my awareness on that one object.<\/span><\/p>\n

And when you focus your awareness on it \u2014 I’m telling you, I’ve done this for a very long time \u2014 it stays. All you have to do is get distracted by something, and the tendency will be, because it was strong enough to distract you, that it makes an impression on your mind and your heart. And unless you learn to let go, it will stay in there. For how long? Your stepfather when you were five said something or did something, and you’re 55 and it’s still there, isn’t it? It comes back up the minute you hear his name, the minute this happens. That’s what it’s like to live in there. It’s not supposed to be like that.<\/span><\/p>\n

The way it was made was: the consciousness is open, it experiences God’s creation, and some things feel good and some things feel bad. I always use the example of a rattlesnake and a butterfly. A rattlesnake has its nature. When it’s out there being a rattlesnake and it comes near you, that will not feel so good, especially if it’s rattling. Things have their nature, and when consciousness experiences them, it experiences their nature. Fine. When a butterfly flips around and lands on your arm, you wish people were watching. It has a totally different vibration. That’s not you \u2014 that’s not something you have to renounce. That’s not wrong. We’re not practicing denial. We’re not practicing renunciation. Hear me? No. You’re experiencing reality, and that’s what you do. You experience it. And when it comes in, of course it feels different. A storm feels different than a balmy day. Night feels different than day. Somebody saying something nice feels different than somebody saying something mean. They have their vibrations. There’s nothing wrong with that.<\/span><\/p>\n

And that’s where a lot of people get really lost in spirituality. “I’m not supposed to have these feelings.” There are natural feelings. If something hits your arm and it hurts \u2014 no, it doesn’t. Yes, it does. Stop it. I can liberate you from having a spiritual ego. If something hits the arm, it hurts \u2014 that’s fine. But does it stop hurting a little bit later? Can you handle that? It hurt. Are you willing to say, okay, fine, it hurt? I’m playing volleyball and I’ve got a black-and-blue mark when I blocked the spike, or playing football \u2014 you do all kinds of things that don’t feel so good. Is that okay? And the answer’s sure. If I’m playing a sport and something happens, I don’t quit, I don’t run away. If it’s too bad, I step aside because I should. And then what happens? It comes in and it passes through.<\/span><\/p>\n

Somebody says something \u2014 somebody’s in a bad mood, your spouse, your friend, whatever. They’re in a bad mood. They ate something bad, they heard something bad, a phone call was bad, and they’re not very nice when they talk to you. Is that okay with you? It is just an experience like any other experience. Does it feel good? No. Is it a comfortable vibration? Is that okay with you?<\/span><\/p>\n

This sort of comes down to what it means when I teach surrender and acceptance. People that misunderstand these things think that anything that happens in the outside world, just let it be and don’t touch it and don’t change it. That’s not what surrender means. Surrender means inside. When an event takes place, you’ll have an experience inside. Is that okay with you? Because it better be. Why? It feels what it feels like, to talk truthfully. “I’m a truthful person.” No, you’re not. “I don’t want to have had that experience. I want something to come back that I like. I’m not willing to accept reality.” What has happened is experiences have happened. I focused on them, and when they stop happening, the impression that got left \u2014 I held onto it.<\/span><\/p>\n

Let’s have a talk that most people won’t agree with, and I don’t care. Ready? There is nothing, nothing inside of you that’s making anything stay inside of you. If it stayed inside of you, you held it there. You hear me? If it is still inside of you, your conscious will said, “No, no, no \u2014 this ain’t getting past me. I don’t want this in here.” And you pushed it away. Or you clung to it \u2014 “I want this in here. I don’t ever want it to go away. I love her so much. I can’t wait for her to come back.” So you held onto the impression, or you pushed the impression away. In both cases, you did that. You don’t take ownership \u2014 I know. And this world won’t talk to you properly. “Oh, you poor thing, that happened to you five years ago. How did you handle that?” No \u2014 it was five years ago. Did it happen again? No. Will it happen again? No. They all died. Then why? Why do you have that inside of you? No one will talk to you like that. But that is the essence of spirituality. Why? Because that’s what keeps you from experiencing God \u2014 because you’re busy experiencing that. You can’t experience God. You are God, caught in experiencing that. It keeps pulling you down.<\/span><\/p>\n

If something happened five years ago that bothered you, or felt really good and can’t happen again \u2014 or if you’re afraid it will happen again \u2014 it now became part of your non-reality. Do you keep holding onto it? When it comes back up, do you push it back down? Do any of you have things in there that are so uncomfortable that you know they’re down there, but there’s no way you’re letting them back up? And not only do you not let them come up by themselves, you literally \u2014 instead of willfully letting them go, fine, it happened five years ago, let it go \u2014 instead of doing that, you try to create an outside world \u2014 people, places, things, events \u2014 that never hit your stuff. That’s literally how you devote your life to saying, “I don’t like this and I like this and I don’t like that. I really can’t handle that. So you better behave and you better be the way I want you to be, and I don’t wanna live in this area.” You literally try to manipulate the outside world so that when it comes in, it doesn’t hit your stuff, or it does hit your stuff if you want it to be nice. That’s what you’re doing in there.<\/span><\/p>\n

Whereas spirituality says: why is that in there? So you get to the point where you realize, why did I do that? Why do I have stuff in here that happened 20 years ago and hasn’t happened since, and yet I’ve tried to pattern my life so it doesn’t stimulate that again? Can you relate to that? Do you understand that what you’ve done now is devote yourself to non-God? Make it look as spiritual as you want \u2014 it’s not. Spirituality is when you stop staring at the garbage you stored in there and you, quote, be here now. Here’s reality. Here it comes in. I didn’t say it had to feel good \u2014 things have their vibration. Can you handle that? That’s what I’m saying. Does a terrible storm feel different from a balmy day? Of course it does. Does a rattlesnake feel different from a butterfly? Of course it does. Does a relationship that’s going sour feel different than one that’s wonderful? Of course it does. The question is, can you handle the reality of what is going on instead of pushing it away and saying, “I will never forgive you for the rest of my life. You hurt me so terribly.” I’m gonna say that again. People say that: “I will suffer for the rest of my life.” Does it feel good? No. It feels very disappointing, doesn’t it? It feels like a loss.<\/span><\/p>\n

Can there be loss? Yes, there can be loss. Can you handle it? But handling it doesn’t mean you manipulate it so you don’t feel it. Handling means: I am willing to feel it. I am willing to go through the experience. You said something or something happened \u2014 it did not feel comfortable. I understand the nature of my being enough to know that if I focus on it and suppress it, it will stay inside of here for the rest of my life. Therefore, what I need to do is relax. I need to be in here, be conscious of the reality that’s going on. Not necessarily to like it \u2014 I’m just conscious of it, I’m aware of it. And as much as possible, give it the space it needs to pass through.<\/span><\/p>\n

Will it pass through? Yes. Can everything pass through? Yes. What’s a traumatic experience? It’s not one that doesn’t pass through \u2014 it’s one that is so disturbing that you don’t let it pass through. I’ve had people come here from the military with PTSD, and I don’t try to do therapy or anything like that, but they told me about coming to the talks. It went away. It’s only in there because you can’t handle it. Do you understand that?<\/span><\/p>\n

And so basically, everyone here \u2014 I’m gonna say it, I’m in big trouble here \u2014 everyone is capable of handling every single thing that ever happened to them, is happening to them, or will happen to them. Why? It’s just consciousness experiencing an experience. It is not good or right or wrong, better or fair \u2014 it’s just what is. The storm came through and my house got blown down and all the neighbors are trying to help. This is an experience I went through. It happens here in Florida. We go through experiences. And I love it when someone comes here and tells me, “I went through an experience and it was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever been through. All the neighbors came together. We didn’t even know each other, and all of a sudden we’re crying, we’re helping each other, we’re feeding each other.” That’s the reality. Do you understand that? Every single thing that happens, happened, or will happen \u2014 you are capable of handling, the moment you inside stop deciding you can’t.<\/span><\/p>\n

Alright, now those are big words. Then we start talking about \u2014 which I’ll go through a little later \u2014 how do you get there? Because you’re not there. Fair enough. Why am I not there? Why can’t I handle it? What’s actually going on that keeps that stuff stuck in there?<\/span><\/p>\n

Answer me \u2014 would you like it if everything that happens to you from now on, you know you’re capable of handling, and you just wake up in the morning: I’m back. I have no problem to solve because I’m fine. I’ll go to work because that’s my nature and right action. I have responsibilities, I’ll do them, but I’m fine. But what happens if I go to work and I get downsized, get fired \u2014 AI took over my job? You’ll go through what you need to go through. Which would you rather have \u2014 a beautiful house and wonderful things but you’re neurotic about it, you can’t pay the bills, this and that, afraid of losing your job, “What will I do then?” \u2014 or be in a state of absolute freedom and joy every moment of your life, without a worried thought going on in your head, not because I know it will all work out, but because I know that I will be okay with whatever happens? That’s the difference. It’s called unconditional wellbeing. That is your nature. The Self is just eternal joy and love \u2014 that’s what’s in there all the time. Do you understand that? No, I don’t understand that. Why? Because I’ve stored all this stuff inside of me from the past and it is blocking my energy flow, and I can only feel okay if something happens outside that doesn’t hit my bad stuff or does hit my good stuff.<\/span><\/p>\n

What’s the good stuff? The stuff that you liked from before that you want to happen again. What’s wrong with something that happened before that you liked? You want it to happen again? Do you ever hear of disappointment? Do you ever hear of anxiety? Can positive experiences create disappointment if they don’t happen again? Can you feel anxiety because you really like something and it’s not happening again the way you want it to be? And now you understand positive and negative samskaras. These things you stored in there are called samskaras \u2014 patterns of energy that you clung to. And I hate teaching you this, but once I teach you that, I say, don’t worry about it. You can go clean the positive ones someday. You’ll notice what I’m talking about.<\/span><\/p>\n

I mean, I’ve been at this, what, 55 years or so. And you start noticing, “Gee, I’m gonna pay for the fact that I liked that.” The example I use is: you go to a restaurant. Unbelievable \u2014 whatever kind of food you like, vegan, this, that, whatever it is. That night it was perfect. Whoever the chef was, and the waiter, and there wasn’t too much noise, and the music was exactly the right kind \u2014 what a place. It was like heaven. Don’t go back. And don’t get all your friends to come. “Oh, wait till you see what it’s like. Come with me tonight.” “Well, it wasn’t that way last time.” “The people weren’t as nice.” “Oh, the noise level was much more manageable.” “Yes, or no?” So that’s what happens with positive experiences. There’s nothing wrong with the positive experience. Spirituality is not about renunciation \u2014 spirituality is about total acceptance. I accept that this took place and it was a beautiful experience. Thank you, God. And I understand I’m not waiting for the exact same thing to happen again, because it’s not going to. And I’m not just talking about restaurants. Go get in a relationship and melt because somebody hugged you or kissed you for the first time. Don’t try to make it feel that way the second time. There’s no such thing \u2014 the second experience is never the same as the first. Why? You have an expectation. You now have something to judge against it. “It felt more real last time.” And you realize you’re in there screwing it up \u2014 the fact that you’re looking for it to repeat what you felt last time, instead of just saying thank you. It will be whatever it is. It doesn’t matter. I love the fact that I had this beautiful experience. “It didn’t feel as real as last time.” You hear me? And that’s what you’re doing in there. You’re making a mess.<\/span><\/p>\n

Because there are things that happen that you couldn’t handle. It’s not that they happen. I’m being very strong with you guys tonight. There are things that happen that are not just, are there not? Yes or no \u2014 are there things that happen that are not fair, not just, not right? Do they happen? Have they always happened? Well, you better be okay with them. Otherwise you’ll spend your life trying to avoid them, as opposed to: I can handle it. That’s where I want you. I can handle \u2014 no matter what happens. I’m not asking for it, I’m not making it happen, I don’t have to do that. Don’t worry \u2014 life will take care of it.<\/span><\/p>\n

Start with the future. Can I look forward and understand I can’t control the universe? I don’t make the \u2014 we’ve talked about it a million times. When somebody says, “Why did my husband leave me? Why did this happen? Why did that happen?” Do you understand that when you say that, there’s no way in the world you actually want the answer? Because if you want the answer, how many days or months would we need just to talk about one event? Why did that happen? “Well, she received a phone call yesterday that left her in a bad mood, therefore when she went and talked to him she said something mean, and then this happened.” In other words, what happens is the sum of all the events that ever took place, coalescing together into the current moment. Then how can you ask why did that happen? Maybe it’s astrology, maybe it’s the vibration \u2014 Mercury’s retrograde, I don’t know. Do you really wanna know? Because there are hundreds of millions of things that happened before that caused the next thing to happen, that caused the next thing to happen, so that everything in front of you \u2014 every event that happens to you \u2014 is a result of all the causes that coalesce together, both psychological and physiological. And you sit there and say, “Why did that happen?” It happened because of all the forces that happened to coalesce together. Are they right? No. Are they wrong? No. They just are.<\/span><\/p>\n

As the Zen master says: “The flowers are red, the water is blue, the grass is green.” Go home, grasshopper \u2014 things are what they are. It has nothing to do with you looking at them and saying, “But it doesn’t fit what I wanted.” Of course it doesn’t fit what you wanted. “Well, why can’t things be the way I want?” Ready? They weren’t meant to be. They’re not supposed to be. How could they be? What he wants is different than what you want. What he wants tomorrow is different from what he wanted today. One person says something in between and you’ve got a totally different attitude about everything. How in the world can you think that what’s happening in front of you, all the time, every moment, for the rest of your life, is gonna be the way you want? Guess what? It’s not. How is it gonna be? It’s gonna be the way it is. You should be honoring and respecting what is, and then dealing with it from that point of view.<\/span><\/p>\n

I teach all the time: have you ever said in your life, “I can’t handle this. I can’t handle what you said. I can’t handle what you did. I can’t handle what happened”? Then you’re not the right person to be there. You just admitted you can’t handle it. Drive by a car accident and say, “No, no, I can’t handle the sight of blood.” Well, then you’re of no use. As opposed to, “I don’t want to, but I can handle it. I can help \u2014 be of service to life, to humanity, to God, to anything.” You better be able to handle the reality that’s unfolding in front of you, or what’s happening is hitting your stuff and you’re freaking out.<\/span><\/p>\n

And see if you can get this one: from that point forward, when you say “I can’t handle it,” every single thing you’ll be trying to do is make it be a way that you can handle. That doesn’t mean you’re serving the event. That doesn’t mean it’s a high thing to do. It doesn’t mean there’s an outcome that’s meaningful. That’s the most personal thing in the whole world.<\/span><\/p>\n

So you eventually get to the point where you say, okay, future \u2014 I don’t know what’s gonna happen. Is that okay with you? It doesn’t mean you don’t work, it doesn’t mean \u2014 if your job is being an appointment scheduler and you’re scheduling for the future, do the best you can. Your job is being a parent, you have to take care of the kids \u2014 do the best you can. But not because you can’t handle it \u2014 because you can handle it. You’re not the right person to deal with it if you can’t handle it. It came inside, you’re clear inside, and you’re looking outside and saying, not “What needs to change so I’m okay?” but “What can I do to help?” You don’t have to try to be like that. That’s what happens when you’re done with yourself. It comes in, it hits you, you experience it, you let it go. Maybe you need to relax a little bit to let it go.<\/span><\/p>\n

The answer is always relax. The answer to anything that comes in that you have difficulty with is not to make it relax \u2014 that’s not what it means. Anger can’t relax. Joy can’t relax. Fear can’t relax. It’s not their nature. You in there that’s experiencing it \u2014 you’re in there, I told you, you’re in there experiencing it. Can you relax? “Well, no \u2014 I feel fear. Can you relax?” Where do you learn that you in there can relax in the face of fear, in the face of anger? And guess what happens? It does what we call in yoga, transmute. You just gave the energy room to pass through, and what came up as anger becomes love. It literally turns into love. It’s just energy, it’s just Shakti. But you’re blocking it, and when you block it, it hits everything and it shoots around in there and drives you crazy.<\/span><\/p>\n

So the answer ultimately is relax. Can you relax, honor, and respect the right for the event to be what it was, and then see what you can do to help? It’s not that you don’t interact \u2014 but you don’t interact for you. It’s not an ego-based situation. “I’m not okay. If I feel sincerity about your apology, I’ll feel better.” Is it fixed? No. You do it again, it’s coming right back up.<\/span><\/p>\n

What if instead it came in \u2014 you said something, it didn’t feel good \u2014 and instead of thinking, “What can I do to make you do something that makes me feel better?” what if I’m clear enough to look out there and say, “What can I do to help the situation? Help me help the situation. There was some reason you said this, some reason you did this. Am I clear enough to not get caught up in my own stuff to be a servant of life?” That’s a saint. You hear me? The only thing they’re doing \u2014 and they don’t have to try, it’s not like you’re doing it once you’re done with yourself \u2014 that noise is not in there anymore. All that’s in there is you’re feeling the energy and you’re responding, you’re reacting, you’re interfacing, you’re serving. The word is serving. You become a servant of life. But you can’t be a servant of life if you can’t handle life, because you have to protect yourself, you have to manipulate everything.<\/span><\/p>\n

So now we get down to: how do you go about this? First \u2014 is it possible? Of course it’s possible. The only reason that what mommy did when you were five years old, and you’re 45 now, is that mommy’s still in there doing that \u2014 she’s not doing that. But if it comes up, it feels like she has done that. You did that. Yoga calls it a samskara \u2014 it’s a pattern of energy that came in. Mommy’s not there anymore, but the energy came in and you didn’t let it go through. You pushed it away, you suppressed it, repressed it, whatever you wanna call it \u2014 I call it resisting. Give it any psychological name you want. You resisted the experience. You’re in trouble.<\/span><\/p>\n

I guarantee you, when you use your will to push that energy away, it has no place to go except inside of you. And that’s something I taught way back when I wrote my first book, <\/span>The Search for Truth<\/span><\/i>. What does it do? Well, the energy has to move. Energy can’t stand still \u2014 you know that. It forms a circle around itself, still moving. It circles around itself because it hit a block, like something hitting the wall of a dam. The water circles around because it has to move. That is what a samskara is \u2014 a pattern of energy that had the emotions, the thoughts, the smell, every aspect of it. You pushed it away. And with your will \u2014 literally with the power of your will. You all believe you can attract things to yourself with the power of your will. Well, why don’t you pay attention to what you’re really doing with the power of your will every single minute of your life?<\/span><\/p>\n

People say work at the root. The root is you couldn’t handle what happened. It’s not your fault \u2014 you’re five years old. It’s not about blame or shame. It’s about the right understanding. So you pushed it away, didn’t you? You pushed away what your sister said, what your father did, whatever it was \u2014 school, getting bullied, things happen. Can you handle them? That’s the question. Because if you can’t handle the energy when it comes in, you’re going to push it away. You feel attacked. And so you feel this protection mechanism and you push it away. I’m telling you what that energy does \u2014 it’s still there. It cycles around itself because you won’t let it go through. And it built a samskara, it built an impression and pattern that is still down there exactly like it was.<\/span><\/p>\n

That’s where your moods come from. Every single one is due to these patterns that you stored down there. And you do it all the time \u2014 not just at age five to age 50. Every single day, something happens in your life that you don’t like and you don’t deal with it well. You sit there, you have a friend, you say hello and they didn’t say hello for whatever reason. Next time you see them, you avoid seeing them because you don’t wanna feel it again. You don’t wanna bring up the thing, ask why they didn’t say hello. Or you do wanna see them again, and you go out of your way to see them and ask them why \u2014 this thing is still running your life. It should have just gone through. Who cares? I tell you, there are 8.3 billion people on planet Earth. One of them didn’t say hello. You’re getting pretty picky. And then you find out later that they had earphones on and they didn’t hear you.<\/span><\/p>\n

Do you do what I’m talking about? I’m telling you \u2014 you do it constantly, every single day, and you’re storing these patterns inside. They’re called your soft spots, your sensitivities. But you own them. You don’t sit there and say, “That’s something that happened and I couldn’t handle it.” You say, “That’s who I am. I’m the person they told not to sing in fifth grade. I’m the person that played Dorothy in the fourth-grade play and everybody clapped, and it was one of the finest moments of my life, and every time I think of <\/span>The Wizard of Oz<\/span><\/i> my whole heart melts because I stored that experience down there. And now the only time I’m happy is when people are clapping.” Come on. I’m just giving you examples. You have your own examples, don’t you? I’m telling you, they’re running your life.<\/span><\/p>\n

And so I’m running out of time. I gotta get down to the solution. But first I want you to understand \u2014 do you see the problem? The problem is you didn’t handle reality. How do I know it’s reality? Because it happened. If it didn’t happen, fine, we don’t have a problem. It did happen. Then you make it more complicated because you store this stuff in there. It creates a veil, it creates a filter. Everything that comes in now has to pass through your stuff, so you don’t even experience it like it really happened. If somebody just walked by and Sally didn’t say hello, but that happened to you \u2014 you got rejected in high school, right? Now, 40 years later, a tiny thing happens and it hits that rejection. So you can’t even see reality. You have to see it through the veil of what you stored inside. And the same thing happens inside out. When you think about things, you worry that what happened before that you didn’t like might happen again. She doesn’t worry about that because it didn’t happen to her.<\/span><\/p>\n

This is the ego. This is the bane of your existence. But you’re sitting there serving it. You’re sitting there saying, “I need to get everything so Sally does say hello and everything’s the way I need it to be so I can be okay,” as opposed to: I stored every single thing that ever bothered me inside of me, and I’m wondering why I’m bothered. I had a relationship \u2014 it was very beautiful until it wasn’t. Now I’m in a new relationship. “Nothing better remind me of the old relationship. I can’t believe \u2014 that’s how he held this fork.” You have this stuff that you stored in there.<\/span><\/p>\n

What’s the answer? Don’t store it. Let’s get down to true spiritual growth. Things are gonna happen today, are they not? I am okay with that. That’s how you start your morning. You wake up in the morning and you say, there’s gonna be a day that unfolds. It has something to do with me \u2014 it has to do with cause and effect. If I’m driving my car and somebody crashes into me from behind, it’s cause and effect. There’s a reason \u2014 the guy’s brakes didn’t work, or he wasn’t paying attention, or he was looking at his phone. There are reasons, and they have nothing to do with you. So little of it has to do with you, compared to all the forces that coalesced together. A hundred million things had to happen before that for that car to bump into you from behind. The reasons that everything unfolded exactly the way it did \u2014 and you’re sitting there saying, “Oh, what did I do wrong?” No wonder you’re a mess. No wonder you’re neurotic.<\/span><\/p>\n

You just sit there and say, “I don’t know what’s gonna happen today.” Isn’t that fun? It’s an adventure. It’s not supposed to be the way I want. Why? Because the way I want is based on the garbage I stored inside. And the way I don’t want is based on the garbage I stored inside. A realized being realizes this and says, “I don’t want this stuff inside of me. I’m not gonna renounce that something happens that I tend to like, but I’m not gonna hold onto it. I’m not gonna say, oh, I hope everything I want happens today. I’m gonna sit there and say, I hope the day happens today,” and have fun with it. Which way are you better off? What’s the probability that everything’s gonna be exactly the way you want all day? When’s the last time that happened?<\/span><\/p>\n

What’s the probability that if you’re open \u2014 it’s called being open \u2014 and you sit there and say, “Bring it on, because I can handle anything. And if I can’t handle it, it means I have something wrong inside of me, and it’s a growth experience.” So nothing can go wrong all day. It can only either pass through and you experience it and have fun with it, or you learn from it. That’s what life is. That’s the spiritual path. Notice it’s not about getting what you want. It’s about letting go of the part that’s clinging to this garbage from your past that is determining what you think you want and what you don’t want.<\/span><\/p>\n

So now the day unfolds and you’re excited about it. There’s nothing to think about. “Wow, I get to brush my teeth.” Would you please have fun? You are only saying you can have fun conditionally \u2014 if everything is unfolding the way you want, you’re having a good day. What is the probability that everything’s gonna unfold the way you want? Zero. Why would it? There are all these causes that happen that have little to do with you. And you just learn to say, “I’m okay. I can handle this. I can handle this.” That’s a wonderful mantra. It’s raining \u2014 I can handle that. The car in front of me is driving slower than I want \u2014 I can handle that. The person next to me is not talking and I’m feeling uncomfortable \u2014 I can handle that. Can you handle the reality of the moments unfolding in front of you? “I have to get out and deliver these papers and it’s raining. It wasn’t raining five minutes ago. Why is it raining now?” Because it’s raining. And you sit there and say, “I can handle this. I can handle it.” You do that with everything. “I can handle it. I’m okay with it.” And eventually it doesn’t become “I can handle it” \u2014 it becomes, “Wow, this is neat. This is neat.” If I’m not complaining about it, it’s just what is.<\/span><\/p>\n

Okay, I’m almost out of time because I’ve talked about the future. Do you worry about the future? Come on, look at me. Do you know what the word worry means? I just told you \u2014 it has nothing to do with what’s actually happening. You can do anything you want. But John Lennon in one of his songs said, “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.” Then why are you doing it? Why are you sitting there worrying that it won’t be what you want? It won’t \u2014 it will be what it is. How about looking forward to it instead of being afraid that it might hurt you? How could you be afraid it might hurt you? Because you had a different experience in the past that hurt you, and now you don’t want it to happen again. You project your past \u2014 and pretty much your negative past, by the way \u2014 you project all the stuff you stored in there into your thoughts about the future, and now you’re afraid of the future.<\/span><\/p>\n

Things can go wrong, can’t they? No, they can’t \u2014 they can just happen. “Well, what if I plan a wedding? I took the risk, I’m having it outside, and this is a giant wedding and everybody’s coming, and the weather forecast says it’s going to pour tomorrow. How can that be okay?” Because it is. Have fun. Laugh. What if I’m already outside and it starts pouring and everybody’s getting wet? It’s fun. Little kids running around saying “Stop it!” It doesn’t have to be the way you decided it needed to be for you to be okay. What you need to do is stop deciding how it needs to be for you to be okay, and you’ll always be okay.<\/span><\/p>\n

Who taught you that? The Buddha. What are the Buddhist four noble truths? Very simple \u2014 take me one minute. One: all life is suffering. Rich people suffer, poor people suffer, sick people suffer, healthy people suffer. Women suffer, men suffer, old people suffer, young people suffer. Yes or no? So what’s the second noble truth? The cause of suffering is preference. It’s normally translated as desire, but don’t do that. What is a desire? A preference \u2014 it’s the way I want it to be. What a preference is \u2014 what a desire is \u2014 but we think in the West that desire is greed, extreme preference. No, no, no, no. That’s not what he taught. Any preference will cause you to suffer. If I want it to be a certain way, I’m gonna worry that it doesn’t turn out that way. That’s the cause of all suffering.<\/span><\/p>\n

What if I get sick? Go see the doctors, check out how the MRI machine works, try to read an MRI \u2014 they’ll show you, it’s kind of fun. Learn. Use every single experience that happens in your life to grow, to learn, to evolve. What if I’m dying? What’s wrong with dying? Everybody does it at least once in their life. I used to know someone who called death a “once in a lifetime experience.” I thought, that’s a positive thing \u2014 a once in a lifetime experience. Think of anything better than that? “Well, what’s gonna happen after I die?” You ready? Here we go. He’s supposed to know so much, right? What’s gonna happen after I die? You’ll find out. What are you worrying about? I don’t understand. And that’s what Buddha’s teaching you \u2014 that no matter what it is, if you are open, you’re not judging and preferring and not preferring. If you are open, then things are fine. You don’t suffer.<\/span><\/p>\n

What was the third noble truth? How to end suffering. You’ve got books, you’ve got teachers, you’ve got all kinds of modern and ancient techniques. He didn’t do that though. He said how to end suffering: end preference. If you stop having preferences. But I’ll qualify that for you. You’re scared \u2014 that means renunciation. “I can’t like things.” Guess what? Don’t worry about not having preferences. Just prefer everything. It’s the same thing, isn’t it? If you prefer everything, you won’t have any suffering, you won’t have any problems.<\/span><\/p>\n

And so you get to the point where you wake up \u2014 that’s the future. You should not be worried about the future, but you do. And I’m begging you \u2014 I’m telling you, stop. Just watch. I dare you to step back and watch the neurosis going on inside your mind, because an event took place in your life 20 years ago and you’re afraid it will happen again. How many things do you worry about that never happened? Check it out. Keep score. Over the course of the last 10 years, how many things have you worried about that never happened? You’re wasting your life. “But it could have.” Did it? And eventually you look at it and say, okay, I can handle reality.<\/span><\/p>\n

So now you’ve got your future taken care of. It’s not that I know what’s gonna happen \u2014 I don’t care. It’s gonna be fine. Why? Because I said so. Because I can handle it, it will be fine.<\/span><\/p>\n

And what about the present? I’m here now. It’s what’s happening. I’m not going to use the present to store more junk in here, am I? Why do you want more stuff in there? And so you wake up in the morning and you make a commitment to yourself. You sit there and say, “I’m gonna have the events and experiences I have through the day, and I’m gonna handle them. I’m gonna let them pass through.” What if they don’t? “I’m gonna work on letting them pass through.” What if it gets me all caught up and I fall down and I make all kinds of noise, screaming and yelling and carrying on? You’ll come back. You do come back. Just try to stay as long as possible without falling into it, and come back as soon as possible. And you’ll see \u2014 these aren’t the hard techniques. If you do that, that gap between being pulled down and coming back will get smaller and smaller until it goes away. That’s called becoming established in the seat of Self. It’s not strong enough to pull you down. “Been there, done that, didn’t do much.” So I can handle it. I’ll handle the problem and let go.<\/span><\/p>\n

And then the biggest one I save for last \u2014 which is the past. The future: good, I can handle it. The present: I can handle it, I’ll deal with it, I’ll work with it. What about the past? It’s over. It’s over. It had its day. It was tough. Fine. Thank God it’s over. Throw a celebration. But the problem is you can’t handle that it happened. Why? It’s a big topic. It’s called the evolution of the soul. You learn \u2014 earth is a place where souls are sent to evolve. How do you evolve? By going through the experiences of your life and learning to handle them. That’s how you evolve. Exactly like Darwin \u2014 adaptability. That’s how animals evolve, through adaptability. Well, start adapting inside. Adapting into what? Reality. And what you do is just start with the little things \u2014 the weather, somebody not saying hello. Just little things that are bothering you that are stupid to bother you. There’s no benefit. Learn to handle those. Next thing you know, you’re stronger and stronger. Next thing you know, you can handle anything.<\/span><\/p>\n

I wanna look in your eyes. I wanna see you. And you just know \u2014 you just know \u2014 “I can handle anything.” Why? Because I’ve handled it all before. What about the stuff I stored in there? It will come back up, won’t it? Let it go. There’s your work. I started this conversation about inner work, didn’t I? Now do you understand your inner work? Now do you understand why things are the way they are? Now do you understand why your consciousness can’t merge back?<\/span><\/p>\n

Yoga’s merger \u2014 Meher Baba said it was like a drop of water that fell into the ocean. Find it. Well, you can’t \u2014 it merged. That is what happens to your consciousness as you let go. It merges back from where it came from. What did Christ say? You have to die to be reborn. He didn’t mean physically die. He meant die of this garbage that you stored in there.<\/span><\/p>\n

I tell you, be careful \u2014 I could just go on forever, and some people say, “I wish you would, because the minute I leave it stops.” If you stay with this level of understanding, it will take care of itself. Just keep your consciousness in a reasonable place, and then little by little let go of what’s pulling it down. Next thing you know, you feel all the Shakti starting to rise up inside of you, just spontaneously \u2014 all this energy. Why? Because you’re not blocking it anymore. It’s already in there. You don’t have to go find it. To find God is to stop looking down, and you’ll find out that looking up, everything’s there. But you can’t, because it pulls you down. Alright, enough. I’m stopping.<\/span><\/p>\n

Tami Simon:<\/b> 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 \u2014 waking up the world.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"template":"","meta":{"_expiration-date-status":"","_expiration-date":0,"_expiration-date-type":"","_expiration-date-categories":[],"_expiration-date-options":[]},"class_list":["post-25388","transcript","type-transcript","status-publish","hentry"],"yoast_head":"\nE181: The Art of Handling Reality\u2014The True Inner Work | Sounds True<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"E181: The Art of Handling Reality\u2014The True Inner Work | Sounds True\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Tami Simon: Welcome to the Michael Singer Podcast, presented by Sounds True in partnership with Shanti Publications. 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