UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT: The following transcript may contain typographical errors or other mistakes due to inconsistencies in audio quality, background noise, or other factors. We cannot guarantee its precision or completeness. We encourage you to use this as a supplement to your own notes and recollection of the session.
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: Jai Guru Dev, Jai Masters.
The most important thing in all of creation, including every one of your lives, is consciousness. Without consciousness, awareness, nothing has any meaning. People like to believe what has meaning. Consciousness has meaning. If something exists and nothing is ever conscious of it, it really doesn’t exist and it has no meaning. It’s not complicated. Spirituality is not complicated. It’s very, very simple. Consciousness is the beginning end of all meaning of everything. What is consciousness? They ask the quantum physicists, what is the quantum field? I like a lot of quantum physicists. I like reading about this stuff and they don’t know. They know it’s there. It has to be there because they see what happens because of behavior within it, but the underlying field which underlies all of creation, they don’t know what it is. They don’t even try to know what it is. I mean, they’ll try, but they admit, I don’t know what it is.
I just know that if it gets agitated and there’s little waves wavelets that happen in it, that it’s of those wavelets that these apparent particles pop out and everything gets created. I don’t know what the field is, right, and no one except an enlightened master knows what consciousness is. Why would an enlightened master know a consciousness? What is enlightenment? You are conscious of what you’re conscious of. You’re conscious of what you’re aware of. It is not hard. You’re aware of your thoughts, aren’t you? You’re aware of your emotions. Sometimes you wish you weren’t. You’re aware of pain, you’re aware of your body. You’re aware of what comes into your senses. You can know those things because you’re aware of them, so the awareness is behind everything. The fact that they can study and learn more and more and go from Aristotle to new and Einstein and quantum beyond is because the mind is capable of tremendously brilliant thoughts, but if the consciousness isn’t there to be aware of the thoughts, they have no meaning.
So behind it all is awareness, is consciousness. That’s what’s back there. The problem is we are so entranced and distracted by and just completely absorbed in what we’re conscious of. We’re so aware of what we’re conscious of that we don’t pay attention to consciousness, but that’s what’s behind everything. If there’s a light that’s shining on an object and the object is either so gorgeous and attractive or so scary, you are not aware that you are looking at it, you are absorbed in it. You are just lost in it. You get lost in it. What gets lost in it? Consciousness. Use the word you. I get lost in it. I wish you knew who the I was, what you have done, and it’s not your fault. Don’t worry. Everybody else did it too. What you have done is your consciousness is absorbed in a collection of thoughts called your ego, your self-concept.
They’re thoughts. I like this. That’s a thought. I don’t like that. That’s a thought. This happened to me yesterday. That’s a thought. This is what I grew up with. These are my parents. They’re thoughts. They’re just thoughts, okay? And you are aware of the thoughts obviously, or they wouldn’t matter, but you’re aware of them. You’re so aware of the thoughts that are about your self-concept, your ego, that you are lost in that. And when you use the word I, you mean that you don’t mean I the consciousness? You mean I the ego. This is No, no, I was serious about this. I really like this. I don’t like what you did. That’s not consciousness. That’s consciousness. Being aware of a collection of thoughts, your ego thoughts, a collection of thoughts that use the word they stole your identity, how you like that. We’re talking about false identity, identity theft.
That’s what ego is. It’s stole the self is who you are. The ego is not the self. The ego is what the self is looking at, but it looks at it for so long and so constantly that it identifies with it. It passes its sense of self, its sense of identity onto this thing. It’s looking at if you can get that you’ve understood the deepest thing there is to know you are not your ego, you are not your self concept. That’s even psychology. They don’t pay attention to what they’re saying. They call it a self concept that’s so beautiful. In other words, the self has formed a concept of itself, a concept of something that’s not real. A concept, something you made up in your mind, what a concept is. What’s your concept of what Germany would be like? Well, it up. You’ve never been alright. You just form a concept in your mind, and so who’s aware of the concept? The self. Somebody wants to ask yoga nun an enlightened master. We’re going to do all this in this talk. What is the ego? Wow. They asked an enlightened master, what is the ego? He didn’t write a book, one sentence, the masquerading self, the consciousness held a mask made out of thoughts over itself.
Now, if you’re smart and you would say, why would it do such a thing? That’s what we’re going to talk about this talk. What is the relationship between self consciousness and ego mind that which it looks at and why did that happen? By the way, that move from seeded in the consciousness itself into seated in the thoughts of ego is what’s meant by the fall from the garden. Someday you will know that to the bottom of your being. Why? Because you’ll do it. You’ll get out and you’ll fall back in. You’ll get out and you’ll fall back in, and when you’re out, it’s ecstasy, it’s love, it’s peace, it’s joy, and you’ll fall back in and it’s hell. Excuse me. The Bible says when you fall from the garden, you were fine. You were always fine in ecstasy. Now you must work by the sweat of your brow to be okay.
That’s literally go look it up. That’s when you fall from the garden. You must work by the sweat of your brow. Do you not every single day work by the sweat of your brow to be okay? I don’t care how you defined, okay? I don’t care what is you’re trying to get or trying to do. Do you not regularly stress and work and worry and be anxious about what you need to do and what everybody else needs to do for you to be okay? Yes or no? That’s what it means and that, so now you understand consciousness. That’s what’s meant by self consciousness and what it’s looking at. The trouble is if it knew it was looking at it, it could stop looking at it. But if you identify with it, you’re so associated with it that you think it’s you no longer have a detachment.
You no longer have a separation. I’ve projected my sense of self onto this ego. So you’re going to say ego is the masquerading self. What’s the mass made out of? Thoughts, isn’t it? It’s out of thoughts. Okay. It’s so beautiful that you get that. An enlightened master knows what consciousness is. Why? What does enlightenment mean? I don’t want to get the detail. What does enlightenment mean? You are no longer identified with that collection of thoughts. Did I have another concept that I’m nicer than I used to be? No. That I decide I don’t want to place again? No, they’re no longer projecting your sense of consciousness, your sense of self onto a collection of thoughts. I don’t care what collection of thoughts they are. Nice thoughts, bad thoughts. It doesn’t matter. They’re thoughts. You’re no longer married to them. You’re no longer, you’re not married to your ego that would still have a separation.
I am married to that. You think you’re it. This is who I am. This is what I must do. Am I doing good? I doing wrong. What did I do wrong yesterday? Oh my God, I feel so guilty about having yours. Just I need mine. Okay. The sense of self has completely identified with the ego, with those thought in the case of an enlightened being, that identity is broken. That’s all. The consciousness is no longer staring at the mind to the extent that it identifies with it, it’s able to take it off. It’s able to stop looking at it. You’re not capable to stop looking at your mind. That’s why you’re trying to meditate. It’s not that easy, is it? Is it it? Okay, and I love meditation. Don’t get me wrong. It’s wonderful. What is guided meditation? I can’t stop identifying with my mind, so I’ll give my thoughts to you so that you can create my thoughts while I’m meditating.
I’ll meditate. I’m a fuzzy you created and they’re much nicer than the ones I was creating, and so it’s a wonderful thing, okay? And it’s beautiful. I’m not knocking it because the alternative is just identify with your garbage. Identify with ego. So enlightened. A truly enlightened man, A lot of people run around, they talk enlightened. They talk about this, that and the other thing, right? A true enlightened, sad guru, enlightened master just doesn’t look at the mind just like you can look at her, but you don’t have to look at her. You can look at your mind. You don’t have to look at your mind. It makes me cry or even say it. You’re the consciousness looking at the mind. Well, why do I have to look at the mind? Because it’s very strong. Do you understand that? The mind is extremely strong. One thing we’re going to talk about today is why?
Why is it so strong? Why? If you look over there at that picture, you cannot look at the picture. Why can’t you not just look at the mind? Don’t look at the mine. You’re there looking at the mind. You understand that you are there looking at the mind all the time. Everybody, everything. They’re looking at the mind. Okay, what’s a nice person? A person whose mind is kind of nice is what they’re looking at. They end up behaving kind of nice. What’s a really, really mean Hitler terrible person? Someone who’s looking at a mind that’s really, really mean and terrible. That’s all. What’s a mass murderer? Somebody who’s looking at a mind that’s so disturbed. Then it makes a murder. What’s an enlightened being? Someone who’s not looking at the mind. What’s a saint? Someone’s looking at a really saintly mind,
A really nice mind. It always says really nice things and really kind to other people and et cetera, et cetera, right? That’s not an enlightened master. It’s an enlightened master. Very rare thing. Someone who got out. It’s called jta, liberated being you’re liberated. You’re completely free. Who’s capable of that? If you are conscious and you are, you’re capable of not looking at the stupid thing in psychology. They talk about fixated. You become fixated on something. That’s all you can think about. That’s all you. Oh, you’re so fixated on this, right? You’re fixated on your ego. Everybody’s fixated. They’re just saying the ego got fixated on something that’s third hand. If the ego is so fixated on something, that’s all it thinks about, she left and she left me. I can’t think of anything. I dream about it. All I can think about I right now, the I who’s not real, I you are fixated on your eye and your eye is fixated on her.
So all psychology deals with, except for part of psychology called transpersonal psychology, where they used to struggle in the sixties. That was pretty big. We were hippies, was transpersonal psychology there. You got it. They were touching. They were talking about the self. They were talking about. There’s a part in there who’s beyond the personal that’s looking at the personal. It’s very interesting field of psychology. It’s called yoga called spirituality. There’s no, there’s very little difference in transpersonal psychology and spirituality. So basically you are staring at your ego. That’s where I want to get you. If you walk out of here today, you’re not going to be enlightened, but at least you understand. You have a comprehension of what’s going on. You are conscious. Yes, got it. Check. Of course you’re conscious. What am I conscious of? I am conscious of myself, my ego first. Then everything else I’m conscious of looks through the ego.
That’s my wife, that’s my child. I don’t like what you said. You’re not my friend. You’re my friend. I me mine. That’s because the consciousness is completely and never stops. Staring at the ego. It stares at this ego and then the ego forms concepts and views and opinions and preferences. Those are thoughts. Conscious views, opinions, preferences, hopes. Hopes and dreams are not spiritual. Of course, they’re not spiritual. They’re thoughts. Do you have hopes and dreams are the same as his, are the same as they were 10 years ago? Of course not. They’re just thoughts. Is it the same consciousness that’s aware of the thoughts that were there 10 years ago and that are there today? Of course it is. There’s just one consciousness. It doesn’t change. Well, what if I have multiple personality problems? Well, that means your mind has split. You have these kinds of thoughts.
You have those kinds of thoughts and they don’t talk to each other, but it’s the same consciousness that looks at both of them. But you’re so fixated on what you’re looking at that now you have a mental illness, you have a problem. They call them mental illness. Everybody has a mental illness. Everybody, they’re lying to themselves. Every time you use the word I, you’re lying to yourself, okay? You’re saying this is what I am and I don’t like what you said. That’s so beautiful. I don’t like what you said. That’s amazing. What’s happening is my consciousness is so absorbed in my mind in that part of my mind, the ego that when what you said came in, that part of my mind got really disturbed, didn’t it? Can the mind get disturbed? Talk about this the other day. Can the mind get disturbed? Can the mind be fairly calm?
Yes. Can you have a good hair day, bad hair day? Can you have a bad mind day? Can you have a good mind day? It’s just you are there staring at this mind. You’re there staring at this and the core of what you’re staring at is the ego. Let’s take a moment, right? I keep talking about mind and egos like different things. They are different things. There are different things. Mind is a field of energy. Just like the world is made out of atoms is made out of energy. There mind is not made out atoms, it’s not made out of sabotaging particles. It’s a very, very high vibration rate of energy beyond what our instruments have been able to measure. Yet there was a time in which infrared ultraviolet, they couldn’t measure it. They didn’t know it was there. Do you understand that entire part of the electromagnetic spectrum, it was this big now it was this big.
There was always that big. They just found instruments that could measure it. They have not created instruments that are sensitive enough yet to measure the vibration rate of mind. Okay? Others, some people, and by the way, it includes you by the way. We’ll talk about that in a second. Some people, what we call psychic, they’re sensitive. They call that psychic are sensitive people. They can see your thoughts, they can feel your thoughts. Every one of you have done it. You’re sitting in a car driving, no one’s talking. You’re sitting there with somebody and all of a sudden you have a thought and the moment you have the thought, they say the same thing you just popped in your mind. It’s not about Uncle George. You ever think about him for 20 years and all of a sudden the person next to your mother says, have you thought about Alco George?
Okay, phone rings. You know who it is. No logic, no nothing. You walk into a room where people were arguing, but they stop when you walk in. Can you feel it? Alright, you’re all sensitive. You have the ability to pick up that higher vibration rate. Why? Because you’re the highest conscious. The highest vibration is there’s nothing higher. But because you’re conscious, if you’re not so lost in staring at yourself, you start feeling other things because they’re all there. So basically someday, and I don’t want to be around by the way, they will eventually develop machines. Scary to think about instruments that will know what you’re thinking and that’s not
Alright. They movies about that. They start policing based on your thoughts of what you’re thinking of doing, not what you did. Wow. So basically the mind say on the subject and topic, mind is the field of energy. That’s all it is. A field, a very, very high vibration rate of energy. High doesn’t mean good, it just means a high vibration rate of energy in which thoughts are capable of forming. I swear to God, I’m getting so sensitive. I’ve lived field because I’ve looked into this low level of physics, quantum physics stuff. But what is a quantum field? A field of energy. No, they say it’s not energy. A field energy can manifest in that field, but it’s just a field in which energy can manifest. Excitation can happen, waves can happen out of that field. This all forms, all of this. You should understand at least enough to understand what they’re saying.
You don’t have to be a genius physicist to understand that. They’re saying that these vibrations throw off certain qualities of electromagnetism, magnetism or this or that and they form together and they make this. Your mind’s the same. It’s a very high vibration rate of energy out of which these things call thoughts can form. Have you noticed thoughts form in that field of energy, an ocean can become or it can have waves. Where did the waves come from? They’re the ocean. They come out of the ocean, they go back in the ocean and when they’re out of the ocean, they are the ocean making a wave within itself. That’s what the mind is. It’s a field of energy in which thoughts these call thoughts can be created. There’s two main categories of thoughts, visual and auditory. What do you mean auditory? Does your mind talk to you?
Yes or no? You shouldn’t have done that. You shouldn’t have done it. Oh my God, you’re in so much trouble. Well, what should I say? I don’t know. Does it talk to you? Are you aware that it talks to you? The consciousness is aware that this field of energy, this field, high vibration can create thoughts that are, I call ’em auditory. Can the mind create visual thoughts? Can you see a boat? Can you see the Empire State building right now? Empire State Building. Wow, that’s not talking to you that neat. It’s the consciousness is conscious, so it’s conscious of any vibration in the mind and some vibrations in the mind are like a vibration rate of voice or auditory and some vibrations in the mind. Create form, visual and your consciousness to try. How hard is it for you to see your thoughts? No, you can’t even make ’em die.
You can’t even die. By the way, while I’m talking about it, some meditation techniques and teach everything, try to teach you to stop your thoughts. First of all, when I talk about anybody else, you do whatever works for you. Don’t ever listen to me. I’m not telling you because I don’t tell you what to do. I don’t. Don’t give techniques like that. But they tell you to stop your thoughts. A great master has not stopped their thoughts. They have stopped looking at their thoughts and enlightened being once said, I’m so excited to tell you, you can enter the highest state of samati while your mind is still talking. I remember reading that in the seventies. What’s he talking about? Alright. That’s like saying you, you’re distracted by a dog barking when you’re trying to meditate. A dog can be barking, you can still go into meditation.
Of course, just don’t pay attention to it. It’s the same thing with your thoughts. You’re not trying to stop your thoughts. I mean at the beginning, yes, do whatever they teach you, alright? But ultimately you stop being distracted by your thoughts. Who’s being distracted? The self. What if you’re not distracted by your thoughts? What if they just don’t interest you anymore? Been here, done that, right? And it just doesn’t distract you. It doesn’t make any difference. It’s like wind or anything like that. Then your consciousness is not being drawn down and it can go into the higher states. So that’s higher than stopping your thoughts ceasing to be distracted by your thoughts. Ultimately that’s the highest state. Then nothing can bring you down. If you’re controlling your thoughts, something will get it. You hearing something will happen. They’re not right. You’ll have to, a person who’s controlling their thoughts has to change their entire lifestyle so that nothing disturbs them.
So the thoughts come back. You understand that they have to go into isolation, they go into cave, blah, blah, blah. Can’t get married, no children, no money can’t, don’t do anything. Don’t do anything. Stop it. It creates thoughts. A great being could live in the middle of New York and not be distracted. They’re liberated. See the difference? Their consciousness is not being drawn down into it. They’re free. They’re free completely. So beautiful. That’s enlightenment. They’re completely free. So basically we come to a number of places you can go with this one and where I want to go. Why are you so distracted by your thoughts? We’ll finish what we’re saying. Mind is the field. It can create any kind of thought. It can create equals mc squared. It can study quantum field. It can look into the universe and see Galaxy can do all that stuff, right?
Or it can pay attention to this one part of mine. It’s just a part of mine. It’s not the mine, it’s a part of mine. It’s like a computer can run lots of programs, can it? Same computer can run this and run finance and run movies and run this. It can do anything. You just put a program in it. That same exact computer mind runs that program. What your ego is is just a program within mind that’s about you. You can still do math, but it’s going to come back to you. You can study and discover things and let’s say you worked your whole life to discover a particular planet or something out there and all of a sudden you got your mind was just out there the whole time, didn’t think about yourself, didn’t need you. Were just totally alright. Then all of a sudden you discover it and all of a sudden this other part of your mind says, will they name it after me?
Well, I win a Nobel Prize. Better yet, wait a minute. He said he discovered he did not. I wrote about that three days before he did. You see the difference? One is abstract mind, intellectual mind, open mind. The other is this ego mind. It’s just a part I swear crying when I tell you it’s just a part of mind. It’s just a part. It’s like one wave comes up in the ocean. It’s just one type of thinking as a type of thought. But we pay a lot of attention to that part as opposed to the other parts. Why? Because when the self drops into the body taught this, when the self drops into the body, and don’t ask me when the self, the consciousness drops into the body. Where did the body come from? Every one of these topics, I would just keep you here for a week.
Where did the body come from? One single cell. Two cells came together microscopic and you nor your mother or father did anything. After that, it made itself, it started multiplying into readily dividing. It divides better than multiplies. It starts dividing. Dividing became multiplying. It’s cute, it starts dividing and then there’s more of them and they all come out. They know what to do. They create livers, the livers and pancreas and then spikes intestines and blood all by themselves. Nobody does it. That’s where your body came from. OMG, and then the self. At some point the self drops into the body. Why? That’s getting into all kinds of discussions. I’m not going into that discussion. It drops into the body and then it’s in there and then it comes out. There’s your body, you’re in there, you’re in there. Since you’re a little, you’re in there a baby, you’re in there.
You have all kinds of experiences. What happens when the self soul, that is what’s meant by soul, the self, the soul, the consciousness drops in and is aware that it is locked inside of this tiny little thing. Just imagine it’s not true. But imagine that it was free before. Okay? Now you get into reincarnation, you get into all kinds of discussions that I want to talk about, but it drops in and now it’s, oh my God, oh my God. It’s receiving all these messages that I didn’t receive before sites that this, that every single, oh my God, it’s very overwhelming. It’s way overwhelming. Do you understand that? Except for a very, very high evolved being. I have talked to beings that were so evolved that they were conscious, completely conscious within the womb, aware of everything. They were feeling aware of everything and they came out and they were not like a normal child.
Alright? I told you, I talked to ti, gave us the ferta, this beautiful saint right there. She told me as a child, as a 2-year-old, a three-year-old, she could not imagine why kids wanted things. She never wanted anything in her entire life. She was just in there looking out like the Buddha. She was born in a very high state. Okay? Alright, but you drop in and I want, I wanted to talk about, and we are, thank God. It’s overwhelming. It’s overwhelming. It’s closest to this. You think you know who you are. You have a life. You’re a certain age and so on, and you get in a car accident or something happens. You fall off a bicycle and you bash your head and you get total amnesia, total amnesia. You have no idea who you are, where you are, where you were. Anything that happens, you don’t understand that you total amnesia.
That’s panic. V. There’s no more panic. That’s so important. It’s so spiritual to talk about that state. The self is still there. You’re conscious, aren’t you? But you don’t have a place to rest. You used to rest on your mind and this is where I live and this is my wife and these are my kids and this is where I’m going and these are my dreams and these are all the experiences that happened to me in the past. Even if they’re bad, you know who you are right now. You get that stuck on the head and get amnesia. You panic because no one that doesn’t. You completely panic. Oh my God, I dunno.
Alright? No know where to sit. There’s a line again, we talk about the Bible. The truth are so deep. Christ once said, the following birds of the air have nests. Fox of the earth have holes, but the son of man has not where to lay his head. That is so deep. That’s what we just talked about. He’s free. He doesn’t have to have a home like that that he sits in, that he relates to. This is me. No, I am God. I’m the consciousness. My father and I are one. So I have not a place to lay my head. So when you get amnesia and hope you don’t, don’t have a place to lay your head. You’re still conscious but you’re grabbing for one bud. Talk about grabbing my God. You’ll grab onto anything you possibly like if they take you away from where you fell or your bicycle and then you see your bicycle, it’s me. You identify with that one thing that you had an association with. You understand that because when you came to there it was and you want to grab anybody, understand the panic. That’s what happened when you dropped in the body. The soul panics. So what does it start to do? Grab on to external objects that it can call mine. That’s where mine comes from. Mommy picked me up. Whose mommy? Mommy, the one who picked me up. There’s a thing in biology called imprinting where a duck grows up next to a cow and behaves accordingly.
That beautiful. That’s what happens. You imprint, you imprint the self imprints on the crib, on the blankie, on the mommy, on the daddy. Do they not in psychology? Talk a lot about when the blankie gets taken away. What would psychology say to a parent? And we’ll put you in jail if you do this, by the way. So listen to me. If a parent every single night put the kid in a different crib and had, is that what happened to you? Okay, put the kid in a different crib and get picked up by a different mommy. Alright? Speaking a different language. You don’t want to meet that kid when they grow up. They were not able to develop a self concept. They developed a self concept by clinging. It’s a beautiful, the deep spiritual understanding of this. So you grabbed onto mommy, you grabbed under crib, you grabbed onto blankie, grabbed onto toy ducky, grabbed onto these things, and you start then to relate to what you grabbed onto.
Who are you? I’m the one that has my mommy. And that’s not just when you’re little, who are you? I’m his wife. Oh, mg you are not. Who were you before you got married? You didn’t exist. You’re the self. You’re the you’re soul. You’re defining yourself by the experiences you had. You would still be you if you didn’t have those experiences. You just would’ve other experiences. But your ego is made up. I’m the one who played Dorothy in the third grade and the play and everybody clapped. I’m the one that my first piano recital when I was six, I really blew it and I hate the piano. Eye, eye, eye. Look at what you’ve developed. So you grab onto this because you’re panicked, because you don’t know how to define yourself. And so you falsely define yourself with this mask that master talked about. That is how you built that mask.
And you hold it in front of yourself, don’t you? And what happens now? You are arresting your consciousness completely on that set of thoughts called your ego. How do you know? Watch. Okay, let’s say you’re doing okay, having a nice day, having a good time walking around with your husband or wife. Everyone’s wonderful holding hands. All of a sudden somebody comes up and says, what are you doing with him? That’s my husband. How are you doing? How are you doing? Even if it’s April fools, it’s like you are having a problem in there because it didn’t match where you’re sitting as pulling the chair out from under you. And what if you found out, I don’t like to talk about it. Sometimes it happens that this guy’s got two lives and tell each other, right? You going to have a major problem? And you know what you’ll say, how am I supposed to handle this?
Wow, that’s so good. How am I supposed to handle this? See the, I can’t handle this because it doesn’t match what the I thought was going on. Don’t you like things to match what you thought were going on? Yes or no? What happens when they don’t match what you thought were going on? You get lost, you get scared. In other words, the mask is not working anymore. What if you are holding a mask because you’re scared to death and holding a mask in front of you so nobody sees you and then somebody takes the mask off. You panic that which was behind the mask, that which was the reason for the mask doesn’t work anymore. That’s why ego is so strong. And that’s why generally psychologists teach you. Develop a strong ego. Develop an ego that can handle this world. Develop an ego that’s able to be strong enough.
We got people out there. You see them strong enough that nothing can touch it. I’m right, but you’re wrong. No, I’m not wrong. They lie. Just make it. Nowadays. We make a player whatever they want. It’s hilarious. I know it’s not so funny. Laugh, do. Do they not just make up whatever they want? Just say it. Yes or no. I didn’t say anybody specific. They’re not political. It’s just that’s what I really figured out to do. And I have a big megaphone. It’s called the internet. So I get to tell a whole lot of people what I made up and why did you make it up? I can’t handle it otherwise. So therefore you create alternate realities with your mind. You have to laugh. You have to laugh If you’re spiritual, you don’t get upset by this stuff. But this beauty of talking like this, you understand what’s going on now.
Do you understand what’s the right way to deal with all that compassion? If you’re not in it and you realize you can step back, you’re not out, but you can step back. You have compassion for people who can’t step back. They never saw any of it. They don’t see any of it. They’re completely lost in that mask. And it better be right, because I can’t handle when it’s wrong. I can’t handle it. I mean there are situations, the little ones, you go to a party with your spouse. When you’re having a little discussion with your friends and you say something stupid, it happens. You just say something stupid, you’re just wrong. You read it wrong or somebody told you wrong and you’re sitting there and you just, what do you do? Say, oh that was stupid. No you don’t. You say no, you don’t understand.
I’m right. You like to be right. Don’t you like to be wrong? No, you like to be right. That’s ego. Now why are you so attached to that thing? Because if it’s wrong, it gets weird. It doesn’t work. It’s not work. It’s like the chair got pulled out from under you. I was solid. I was sitting here. I knew who I am. Well, I’m not the one who’s wrong. No sir, ever. That’s how ego talks. And why is it so strong about it? It hurts when the mind gets disturbed. Why do the mind get disturbed? Because it’s made out of this model. This make believe made up thing that you made up. And now if you can’t sit on it, it doesn’t work. And so if you can’t sit on it, a wise being says, good. I can remember when I was at that stage, I kicked the chair off front him.
Not nice, poor guy. Amazing. He’s still here, right? I was so serious about it. If he tried to sit down in there, boom. Kicked the chair off front him. No matter what. It was what it was. That’s all. I was so strict. It’s so stupid. And don’t do it. This is my younger, young years, early seventies, right? I was so serious about not sitting down there that if he saw somebody and tried to talk with them and then when we walked away, sometimes the little mind has something to say about it, right? Oh, you shouldn’t have said that. They’re not going to think nice save you this or that, right? And that little thing would start, is it just me? No one has that.
And don’t you dare do this, but I made him do it. I would take him by the pony that he had a ponytail. Then I would take him and walk up to that person and right look at the eye, say, are you judging me because of what I said. I said this stupid thing I would make. I wouldn’t let him just make up this stuff. He became neurotic. I’ll tell you this, it was not a very nice thing. The ego is like a person. It’s classic concept, right? There’s better ways to work with it than to lock it in a closet or beat it up or embarrass it on purpose so that it doesn’t bother it anymore. You’re right listening to me. They’re teaching the teacher to do that. But the net result is that if it gets disturbed and it’s not hard to get disturbed, why is it so easy?
Is it easy for mine to get disturbed? In fact, lemme ask you a question. Isn’t it really always disturbed at one level or another really way behind? Even if things are going right, doesn’t it worry they could go wrong? If someone tells you, oh my God, I love you with all my heart. I’ve never had this much love in my whole life. Isn’t there something in there that’s not so surely believe it, or that maybe they said it to somebody else once? I’m explaining to you the place where self touches ego. The self’s still back there watching this, but it’s so lost in it that it has no sense of itself. It has projected its consciousness. So totally onto this ego, onto this collection of thoughts. That’s it. That it doesn’t know the light shining on the object I told you. And the object is so beautiful or so scary that all you’re doing is you don’t notice the light.
You just notice the object. That’s what happened. It’s called false identification, right? You have projected your consciousness, your awareness of being yourself, your sense of self. When yoga under first touched the full state of enlightenment, he said all of a sudden his body was no longer this. It was the whole universe. He was expanding at the speed of light in all directions at the same time. And the entire galaxies and everything were his body. That’s you. That’s consciousness not fixated on this little, tiny, tiny little spot called your thoughts, your little ego. How small are you in relationship to what’s going on? There’s 8.3 billion people on planet earth, as I always tell you. 1.3 million earth inside the sun and there’s 300 billion suns in your galaxy and there’s 2 trillion galaxies. How small are you? And now we’re not even talking about your body. There’s this mine and you created a little set of thoughts, quote your ego and that’s your world.
You made them your universe that the only thing that matters, all that matters is that it’d be the way I want it to be and not be the way I don’t want it to be. That’s so beautiful. Now you get it where you’re God, you’re the entire universe staring at that. But so is everybody else. They’re like rays of light. The sun is individual rays shining down here. Every ray falls on something. So the universal consciousness, God, the consciousness is looking at your ego, your ego, your ego, your but not enlightened masters. They let go, they merged. That sounds so strange. What do you think Christ meant when he said, my father and I are one? Wow. What do you think that means? I have let go. And my consciousness is return to the source of consciousness. And that’s what God is. You let it have your own definition is the source of consciousness and not just the source of consciousness, the source of the universe when it’s all said and done.
But you can’t quote me on this because they don’t know this yet. Not only is the source of consciousness, that is what the quantum field is, it is consciousness manifesting as this field and then into form and then looking at its own form. Oh it’s, oh my God, that’s why there is no duality. That’s called non-dualistic. It’s all the same, but not where we’re at now. Alright? We’re busy staring at this tiny little ego that needs to hold itself together, devoted its entire life to getting everything outside of itself the way it wants it to be. It should know everything. It freaks out. If it finds out it didn’t know. Oh my God. You know how many things you don’t know, how many things you not know? Alright, so now that’s what happened in what’s behind the ego. First panic, second divinity, which again is another part of the Bible is Old Testament.
I saw it once, but I was getting ready for a Passover and I was with my daughter and we were looking for something new we could talk about. And I came to this part of the Bible in the Old Testament that said, after man was thrown out of the garden because he ate of the fruit of self-knowledge, ego. God took a cherub with a flaming sword and put it at the east gate of the garden. Lets men figure how to get back into the garden and eat of the fruit of eternal life like he ate of the fruit of self-knowledge. Whoa, are you kidding me? When you try to go back there and let that ego go, you going to face that charitable, don’t you? Total panic, white hot. Can it get really difficult in there? How difficult. Scared to death. Does it look like there’s an abyss? This the last place, the whole world you want to go is back behind there. That’s what’s meant by the charitable with a flaming sword. When you go to the other side of that, that’s liberation. When you can walk through that, let go when the self is no longer needing to hold this mask in front of itself. And that’s very deep. And lets it go. This goes through the fire. Okay, fine, I won’t wear the mask. Okay, have a zit on my face, okay? Have a zi.
Better yet, okay? I have a face that looks a certain way. None of you like your face, alright? Or if you do, it’s going to get old than you will not like that. So the beautiful, so basically, alright, I’m going to take down the mask. Ooh, how scary is that? If you wore it all the time. So you walk through that, you just go through that flaming sword, right? It’s white hot, it’s the last place you ever want to go. But if you want out, you go through that. And on the other side is peace is love and you’ll never come back unless you’re stupid enough to touch something, right? But you still interact in the world, but you interact from a place of non-ego. You don’t need anything. You filled with love, you filled with joy and you understand where everybody else is. And that’s where compassion, compassion is.
I understand what it took to get out. And of course they’re not out. I mean of course not everybody’s getting out so they’re suffering. So you don’t judge, you don’t hate choose. You just have compassion, really deep understanding of what’s going on. How do you yell at a baby for pee in their diaper? How do you get mad at somebody for being caught in their ego? Anybody? Everybody Judge. Not that you shall not be judged, that you who is without sin. Throw the first stone over and over. Christ taught the deep, deep, a nice Jewish yogi. But what Christ taught is all there is to learn. So do you now understand why things are the way they are? Do you understand why are the way they are inside of you? Do you not hold that ego together? Does it not freak out and get really, really uncomfortable when something happens that comes in that does not fit your self concept?
How uncomfortable can it get? Pay attention. You are not the ego. It is something you’re looking at and you do not have to look at it, but it is extremely powerful now you see why? Because behind it is the panic of my not knowing who I am. We talked about amnesia. I used to give another example. You’re driving home from work or school, you drive home, you pull into your street. There you are, you get out. Okay, your house is not there. And they took it out. No, no, it was never there. There’s no house, there’s no room, there’s no land, there’s nothing. And all of a sudden you go there and you go to your neighbor, you knock on the door. Yes, George, what are you doing here? I don’t know you.
How you doing? Not good. That’s right. If it doesn’t match this thing you built in there, you freak. And that’s why you try so hard to make everything be the way you want it to be. Why you think everybody should be the way you know what’s right, don’t you? You know how people should be. You know what religion they should believe in and what they shouldn’t believe in or you know that they should be open to everybody, everything, don’t you? And when it’s not that way, you’re very uncomfortable. And now you understand that the word compassion, the way I define it, is very, very deep. It means you understand. And all you understand is you got out, at least to some degree, you got out enough to see why people are in. Why? Because you were in and you see how you were when you were in.
And that’s how everybody is. Psychologist says, man is a sum, has learned experiences. There’s certain things, they’re so deep. Your ego is a sum of your learned experience. You’re not. You’re the self looking at the stupid thing, but your ego is something you learned. Experiences don’t say not mine. Oh yes it is. You’ve had these experiences and you decided what you like and dislike based on whether they were nice or not nice. And you developed this entire patterns and your parents were prejudice or your prejudice or your parents were prejudice or you not. Don’t even talk to your parents because they’re prejudice. Same thing. It’s just ego and it’s being molded by your experiences. But everybody has different experiences. So of course we don’t get along. How can egos get along? Everybody had totally different experiences throughout their life. If you fall in love with somebody and they tell you, oh my God, I’m exactly like you.
I believe in everything you do, they’re lying to you. It is not possible because you’re being molded by your experiences. And you just met them a month ago and they had all these 20 years of 30 years of experiences. So you understand why people think the way they do, why thoughts are the way they are, why ego is the way it is. Do you understand that everybody’s mind, ego is a sum learned experiences. How do you be mad at them? How do you hate them? How do you say they’re wrong? That’s why Buddhist said compassion was the highest state. You look out and you see why people are the way they are. So how do you interact with compassion? You compassion you understand? Just like you interact with a child. Come on, they’re child. And you basically look at it. And so you don’t give in, you don’t this or that.
You just understand the very first position is peace inside. I understand I’m interacting with the sum of this person’s learning experiences. Can I handle that? And most people cannot. Why? Because it doesn’t match the sum of your learned experiences. And so therefore we have wars and therefore have all this disharmony and conflict. But what I wanted to get to and I did, do you now see the relationship between self and ego? Self and mind. The self is looking at the mind. The mind has developed this ego that’s very, very strong. You see how strong it is? Why? Because there’s tremendous pain and suffering when it doesn’t get what it wants. It’s the most spoiled child that could ever exist. You think child bad, they throw a tantrum in ine. That thing is insane. The slightest little thing. I’m driving down the road and somebody doesn’t use their blinker or somebody’s driving five miles an hour slower than I want go.
Or I have to get out of the car and carry something and it started raining. How you doing? That’s how bad your ego is. Everything should be exactly what you want it to be, shouldn’t it? If it’s not, you suffer and a psychology teacher learn to cope. No, you do not teach. Learn to cope. Get out, stop staring at the stupid thing. And other people teach you how to get what you want. No seriously life coaches, how to get what you want, how to find what makes you passionate, how to find love. Alright, I’ll tell you how to find love. Let go of you.
Who said that? Rumi? I won’t get the quote exactly right, but Rumi said the following, it is not for you to seek love. It’s for you to seek and find all the obstacles you have put in her place. You are made of love. That’s who you are. It’s not for you to seek God either. Let go of what’s keeping you from God. And that’s what I always teach you. I it’s about letting go. It’s not about getting what you want, it’s about letting go of what’s keeping you from being in a state of joy and ecstasy and love all the time, which is the fact that you’re staring. I didn’t go into detail this time, but you are staring at your ego, are you not? And if it doesn’t get what it wants, oh my God, hell to pay. And if it gets what it wants.
And so all of a sudden you’re a puppet of the ego. Who is God? Oh God, that’s who’s in there looking at that thing. That’s what’s meant. Baba used to say, meditate on the self honor, worship your own being for God dwells within you as you. And that’s the truth. And who else said that? Christ. He did not. Yes he did. He said The kingdom is within you. What does that mean? It means the kingdom is within you. It’s within you. Who’s looking? The seer, the witness. That’s it. You don’t have to die to go to the kingdom. It’s basically you learn. How do you do that? I have one minute. Here’s your technique. Let go of yourself. Who else said that? Oh, I don’t know. Somebody said, you have to die to be reborn. Is it all making sense to you now? Beautiful. So basically you understand, every day of my life, I have a choice.
Every minute of my life I have a choice. Protect the thing that’s destroying me and keeping me from myself. Protect the ego, protect it, defend yourself. Argue, fight, manipulate, control, figuring out how to get what you want there. Just devote yourself to the ego. Okay? Mazel stuff. Good luck. Or you can’t let it go all at once. Ramos used to teach. You can’t rip the skin off a snake. That’s the molt. And so basically, it’s the same thing with ego. You’re not going to rip that thing off, but you all now understand more what’s going on, right? God descended is staring at that ego, which is a summary learned experiences which are meaningless. Everybody’s got one. Don’t worry about it. And what you do is every day, every minute you let go. What does that mean? It’s raining. I don’t want it to be raining.
Now it’s raining. It’s called reality. And you’re getting a little ego. You’re not getting upset. Your ego is getting upset. That’s witness consciousness. It’s everything they’re teaching. That’s what mindfulness supposed to be. You are in there watching this ego. Are you going to defend it and build it and keep it? Or are you willing to let it go? If you want to go higher, you’re going to let it go. Alright? And so how do you let it go? It’s raining. Oh my God. It’s okay. I don’t care how you work with her. I don’t care. You have a little kiss in the head like a little kid. Have fun with it or do something. The Gita is really beautiful, is very deep. And it says, one should raise the self with self, not trampled down the self for self. That a self friend can become self foe.
And it’s using ottman capital case and ottman, lowercase, the higher self you, the consciousness. The witness can be self friend. You should raise your lower self for the self. Don’t beat it up. Don’t hate it. Now you can understand, know where compassion starts with yourself. You have compassion that this ego formed itself and now you’re caught in it and you learn to raise it. So when it’s raining and you don’t want to get out, be nice to it. Hold it, talk to it about the rain. Hey, you know it’s raining. There’ll be fresh produce in Publix when we go there. I use examples all the time. Everything I teach you is this. How to let her go instead of protecting and grabbing and fighting and making it think it has to be the way you want. Just every moment. Keep watching it and let go.
Just let it go. Let go. And it thins out. And the more thins out, the more beautiful it is inside. And eventually that’s all there will be inside of you is divinity. Is greatness, is love his beauty. But like I said, the essence I wanted to get across here, and we did. I don’t ever talked about that level. What is the relationship between self and mind? You see it, it gets pulled in self and ego because the ego mind is the problem. Mine’s not the problem. Do math, do calculus study, read, create. Mine’s wonderful. But that part, that little program of mind called ego, that’s a problem. And we stare at it, don’t we? Okay. Work on these things. Free yourself. Free yourself every minute of your life. Liberate yourself, Ja.
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.
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