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, Masters. There are two very, very different ways that a person can achieve a beautiful state in life, beautiful state under being. They end up in the same place, but they’re very different in techniques and methodology. Which one follows? One is, I want to feel joy. I want to feel love. I want to feel God. What do I need to do? What techniques do I need to do? What beliefs do I need to have? What do I need to go? What do I need to meet? What has to happen for me to achieve this? The other is I want to feel joy. I want to feel love. I want to be close to God. Why aren’t I not? What do I need to do to get that? Why don’t I have that? Those are very, very different and my experience is that the second one works a lot better.
The Buddhists say work at the root as what we’re talking about. If someone says to you, feel love, feel more love, you say, yeah, I’d like to do that. Well take this drug or go to this place or meet somebody. Do something that will make you see you feel love and someone says to you, feel more love. Why don’t you now what I need to do to make it happen? Why don’t you feel more love? That’s a very, very deep path. Why? Because it doesn’t involve going somewhere to doing something and involves noticing why you don’t feel more love. That’s interesting. How do you do that? And it’s a very personal path by the way, because every one, you have a different answer. You’re your own book. You’re in there. Only you know why you don’t feel love. How do you walk that path? It’s really beautiful.
I found it to be very, very beautiful. Sometimes you feel love. Every single one of you at some point has felt love, okay? Don’t look at the person next to you. Did it last forever? Say no. Okay, why not? If you are capable of feeling love, it means love is inside of you. You’re capable of feeling it. Why did it stop and every one of you will come up with a different answer. It stopped because he stopped treating me a certain way. It stopped because I got sick. It stopped because my mind decided I wanted to achieve things in my life and it stopped because, and you really believe that? That because is a very good answer. It stopped because yes, I feel love but not as much as I want to, and so I went out to find more. There are reasons it stopped, and guess what?
Every single of those reasons starts with I did it. I decided to not be the right person. I decided I don’t like the way they’re treating me right now. I decided this. I decided this. I decided this. I decided this, and the love stopped. Okay? Even if somebody, okay, let’s say you’re in a relationship. I’m going to be very heavy on you tonight, so you’re in a relationship, it’s really loving and somebody cheats on you. Somebody goes out and does something else. Did that stop the love? No, you stopped the love. You sat there and said, I ain’t feeling love for you. If you’re doing that, there are no way. In other words, I’m not going to feel love if this person says this does this dresses comes out with a bow tie on. You hate bow ties. You stop the love. That’s what you’re going to see.
I’m not saying there aren’t reasons. I’m not saying everybody in the whole world would agree with you, but understand the love is inside of you. How do I know? Because you felt it. It’s not out there. If you really love somebody hold, you feel it in here. You try to get it out there. You try to hug tight enough and this and that to try and get it from out there, right? But it’s in there. Is it not? It’s in here. That means you are capable of feeling love. If you have ever felt love, it means it’s a sort like can your hand work? Yeah, but right now it’s not working real well. Yeah, but it can work. You can feel love, period. And I’m going to let the cat out of the bag. You can feel love all the time no matter what happens, period.
You can feel love and it can increase regularly until it blows you away. It can’t even see straight. Every single one of you are capable of that right now, and there’s only one reason you’re not experiencing that because you won’t let yourself. Is anyone else in there? Mommy in there, daddy in there, grandpa in there? Anybody in there? Only you’re in there. There’s no one in there but you. You’ve been in there yesterday. Were you in there a week ago, 10 years ago? You live in there. That’s your house. No one else is in there. If it’s not nice in there, I’m telling you, you did it. I’m not saying there’s not reasons. I’m not saying it doesn’t make sense. I’m not saying you can’t make me cry with the terrible things that happened to you, but you’re the one inside that owns your inside.
Nobody else is in there. If it got messy in there, you are in there making it messy because of what happened outside. There’s that line in that book that Oprah said was her favorite, my new book, the moment in front of you is not disturbing. You are disturbing yourself about the moment in front of you if somebody talked to you, not nice. He said, I love it. I love that. My father used talking that way. When he was kidding, he sounded just like him. Oh my God, do it again. Now all of a sudden it didn’t stop anything, did it? You’re the one who processes what comes in. You’re not the one who does what comes in. Lots of things go on that you’re not doing, but when it comes in, you’re the one who processes it. That’s your house. That’s your house. If there’s peace of crushed all over the place in rats and mice, that’s because that’s what you let happen.
So basically if you don’t feel love, it’s because you stop the flow of love and you’ve done it numerous times in your life. Oh, I went out thinking we just got along really well. Are you going to go it again? No, no. I’m afraid of getting hurt. Oh, very good. Congratulations. But I have reason I got really hurt. Somebody dumped me and they did this terrible thing and it took me years to get over that. Well, I don’t want to go through the good, have all the rationale and basically what you’re saying is I don’t want to feel love. I’m a Buddhist tonight. Then cut to the chase. I don’t care what reason you give. What you have said is it’s not worth feeling love. I don’t want to feel love. I’m willing to not feel love in order to not get hurt. You’ve all done it and I’m willing to not feel love if I think that maybe you might hurt me ever. I’m keeping guard. Literally they said I’m open my heart complete to anybody. I don’t trust them. I don’t trust anybody, but you’re crazy. Oh, I’ll have relationships. We have children, we have love. We have a really nice life, but there’s no way I’m taking down the guard. I did that in high school or junior high and I’ll never forget what happened. Can you relate? Okay. In other words, you’re saying, I don’t want to feel love enough to open, to have the door of my heart open.
I don’t want the door of your heart open. I’m very greedy for you. I want the door to be taken off the hinges and thrown away so that nothing that ever happens in your entire life can stop the flow of love. You mind if I talk to you that way? I want you to feel love, joy, fullness, God all the time no matter what happens for the rest of your life. It’s called unconditional wellbeing. The other is conditional wellbeing. Things that you have to do and make happen and get in order to feel this inside unconditional is I’m in here. This is my house and I’m going to feel love. You do what you want. I’m going to feel love. Now let’s get a little closer. You’re in an intimate moment. You love this person, they love you, but they had a bad day, but it’s just not an intimate moment and there you’re hugging.
You just say to the person and you’re feeling it. I love you so much. I’ve never loved anybody this much in my entire life. I love you so much. It actually hurts. I just feel all this love pouring out of me over to you and then you stop. So they can say that back to you, don’t you? Okay, what if they don’t? You don’t feel love anymore. Or if they say, oh, I’m sorry, yeah, I love you too and they encounter this and you close. You’ve never done that. Look at me, don’t blush. That’s what we do. We close our hearts, but I thought she wanted to feel love. You wanted people to come in. Don’t close the door. The example I used, forget the door. There’s beauty outside light. Oh, it’s beautiful landscape. You look out the window, you love it, right? But the other day somebody drove by two or three times and it kind of concerns you, right?
That what’s going on? Why somebody stalking me or what’s going on, right? And so you close the blinds. I don’t want them looking in. You know what that means? You got no more landscape. You got no more light. Them not looking in means you’re not looking out. You’ve just traded off the light and beauty in your life. For fear, we’ll take a vote. For each one of you, which would you rather feel fear or love? Guess what? They’re mutually exclusive. Which would you rather do? See light and beauty coming through your windows or closed blinds, darkness and have to put artificial light out there. See, if you look down right to it, you’re going to see you do this. Don’t you just rationalize that it’s reasonable. I’m much better off with bars on the windows and everything closed, and then I can buy nice lights for inside until the soul has a chapter like that, doesn’t it?
This is what you did. You chose to close your heart, you chose to close your mind, and what spirituality about is not I won’t close if you’re the way I want you to be, of course I’m close. I don’t want to get hurt. I need to find someone I can trust. I need to find someone who will always be loyal. I need to find someone that will always be the way I want them to be whenever I want them to be that way. That’s tough, man. You just define love as something really interesting, alright? No, no. If you go out there and say, I will only open my heart if I can trust, if you’re safe, if you behave the way, how do I know I could trust you? You behave the way I expect you to all the time. But what if somehow I say something you didn’t expect me to say?
How do I know what will happen next? I hope you’re relating. So in order to feel love, unconditional love, you have to have unconditional openness and that is freaky to people. You have to sit there and say, I choose love over fear. I choose love over this, over this, over that, over jealousy, over all these different things which we would rather feel fear, insecurity or love, which one you want, then choose it and you don’t. No one ever talked to you that way. Mommy surely didn’t tell you to choose that okay thing for you to feel love gets safe first and make sure it’s safe because that heart is very sensitive and if it gets hurt, you can be screwed up for the rest of your life. Thanks mom. Thanks dad. You screwed me up. So spirituality is about this extreme thing of saying, I like what we got.
I’d rather feel love than fear. I’d rather feel love than jealousy or insecurity. Those feelings are very nice and love is really nice. Well, who gets to choose that? Only you. You’re the only one in there. You choose your environment, but doesn’t it take risk? Risk. You take risk all the time. You do all kinds of things to try and get what you want. Look at an Olympian. To win a piece of medal is gold and they sit there and kill themselves for years and years to get what does it do for you? Alright, open your heart and feel love all the time that does something for you. So the work they did to win that medal is nothing compared to what you get if you do the work to keep your heart open. Is it? That becomes a gift every moment of your life, spirituality is willing to take that journey.
Remember I started, what do I need to find love? What do I need to find? God? What do I need to have a good life? What do I need to be happy? No. Why don’t I feel love? Why aren’t I happy? Why don’t I feel the presence of God pouring through my being every single moment of my life? Guess what? Only you know because you have felt something to stay with love and you shut it off. That’s your work not going to the mall. You’re welcome to do it and finding somebody or doing something or wearing white or people think I talk against meditation. I do not. I meditate. Okay? It’s just even if you meditate an hour a day, what are you doing when you’re not meditating? Closing, protecting myself trying to find something that make me feel good. In other words, you’re not doing the work the rest of the time.
So I always say I’m here to talk about what to do when you’re not meditating. Yoga on to everybody, all the great ones. Do you want to want to meditate? Go there, do your courses or everything. So it’s not true, I’m not talking against it, but I really would like for you to take the ownership of the fact that only you are closing down your stuff inside. You can reach a state inside with a Shakti and some of you don’t even know what the Shakti still feels like, but some of you have felt it. How would you like to feel it all the time? I would like to feel just rushes of joy pouring up through your being out the top of your head, out your forehead, pouring out your hands. That is who you are and it’s only one reason to don’t feel it because you are closing.
Why are you closing? Because you’re scared, because you think you have to protect yourself. You think you have to control things. You think you have to have everything to be the way you learned it needs to be for you to open. I’m going to repeat that so you get it. You’ve learned at different times in your life what opened you, sorry, treated a certain way. You won the lottery, Beverly clapped, something happened and you opened and you felt love and you felt joy and you felt happiness. That has got programmed in you that that’s how you get that. Now what you need to do is go out and find that opening catalyst again so that you can feel love. You need to find somebody who can feel love. You need to have a job that will make you feel inspired. Whereas what we’re talking about is if you’re not inspired and you don’t feel love, it’s because you’re closed.
But your mind wants to say, yeah, but there’s nothing opening me. I’m depressed. I don’t have the job I want. I don’t have a relationship that I want. I wanted to have children and now the biological clock is ticking and I better find somebody. And you hear me? You are putting conditions on your openness based upon your past experiences, but I had those experiences. I know you did. I tell you all the time, yes, you had experiences, how many you have, how many experiences were going on at the very moment you were having the experience, you programmed yourself over 700 billion zillion. So if you had those experience, you want something different or you don’t want something. So what’s the big deal about the experience you had? You’re putting too much weight on it. I’m talking straight to you. You mean you put way too much weight in your past experiences, why They’re statistically insignificant, but I had a boyfriend in high school and he did this and it hurt me terribly.
Okay, I understand. I’m sorry I can’t go back in time. There’s nothing I can do. I am not denying that happen. I’m not denying it hurt. How many other experiences could you have had during that moment that were going on everywheres else, hundreds of billions of zillions. You just happen to have that experience with that person. You’ve let that program your life to say, I don’t want that to happen again. I need to protect myself from that. I wonder when I talk like that, can you hear me? I understand how much you own your past experiences. That’s ridiculous. They’re random. They’re random. You just happened to be in a spot where that was happening. If that person who hurt you in high school, everybody gets hurt. Okay? That’s what goes on in high school. So you’re in high school, you’re having this thing so on and all of a sudden you see him or her walking with somebody else holding hands.
Well, why is that happening? Because somebody introduced him to her and she said something nice to him before you saw them something. What if that didn’t happen? What if somebody had not introduced that guy or growl to this other person five minutes before you saw them? Then they wouldn’t be walking by holding hands and you wouldn’t have got hurt and then go back and say, well, how did the other person know this person, introduce them because their father had played golf with his mother. It’s all absurdly random. It’s all absurd. And if any one of those things change, you would not have had that exact experience. How can you put that kind of weight on your past experiences? And I’ll give you the answer. Watch. It’s the only thing I have that is what I experienced in my life. Therefore, what else am I going to listen to that programmed me with the data that I had?
You’re exactly right, but if you sit there and realize your data was meaningless, but it is meaningless, I know you won’t buy this. Your past is meaningless. They’re just experiences that were happening. They’re happening all over the universe and you happen to be standing in a place where that one was happening. I always wonder, will you listen? Because that’s a great breakthrough where you stop owning the meaningless memory stuff that you have that made impressions on you. Did it make impressions? Yes. Did you have the impression from the things you weren’t experiencing? No. Therefore, the ones you’re experiencing has 100% weight and the rest have zero. That’s not good statistics. Who are you going to vote for next year? Now I know who’s going to win. She told me I had the direct experience. I asked somebody. Now you look at that and you laugh.
That’s what you did with your past experiences. You said that experience made an impression on me, none of the others did. So I’m going to live my life based on the one out of 700 billion that I happened to experience. It will determine my entire life how I believe, what I think every single thing. Now I’m asking you, is that rational? Is that statistically meaningful? Okay, I like the word, I learned it in college. I took advanced statistics in college and there was that word statistically insignificant. Is it not true that that one experience you had at that moment compared to all the experiences everywhere that were going on that you could have had is a statistically insignificant experience, but you own it as if it’s God. It has molded your life and molded your thinking patterns and molded your behavior. Right or wrong? If I got that through, I did my job.
Why? Because you’re wise enough to understand that’s what screwed you up. The fact that you didn’t give the proper weight to what’s going on and you let that make an impression on you and you kept the impression your entire life and said, no, I know what’s going on. I got hurt before. I’m not stupid. I wasn’t born yesterday. If you hadn’t seen this person walk on that person, you’d be fine. The extreme example they used to give here, 12 years old, 10 years old, and your little brother’s eight years old and you’re in the back of the station wagon. We didn’t have SUVs in the station, wagons in the back of the station wagon. Your parents going on vacation, they’re driving, you’re driving down the highway and you’re playing. I spy. Sure you’ve heard of the game. I spy the kids, right? I spy a bird, I spy this.
I spy an elm tree. And all of a sudden your sister says, I spy an oak tree. And you turn to the right. And in that exact moment, a terrible car accident takes place. I mean bodies ripped apart, just a terrible, terrible experience, blood, everything. And it’s so intense that it traumatizes you. Can that happen? Can that happen? What if she said, I see a butterfly and you looked up to the right. You didn’t see that or on the other side of the car, I see a Plymouth driving by than you’re a totally different person the rest of your life. Now that’s insulting. Is it not? You’re the highest species walking on this planet. One arbitrary moment happened in your life, 800 billion, zillion, other things were going on, but because that was the moment you saw, you will never be the same person that you’re capable of being.
No, no, no. I will not accept that. That is absurd. Isn’t it? Unacceptable. So look how random that is. That’s just ridiculous. You’re a great being. Then when you’re young, you weren’t able to do it maybe, but I’m talking to you as a yogi, as a spiritual person to sit there and say, fine, it’s a terrible experience. You got to see it. You now know more than other people know you saw a terrible accident. You’ll drive more carefully. You do something right, but no, not I’m traumatized. I’ll never talk again the rest of my life and I’ll never ride in a car and I’ll never ride an airplane. And you guys are crazy taking the risk. What’s wrong with you? How many people die a year in a car accident? That’s who I am now. Why? Because when I was eight years old, I saw one experience.
You are capable of not having these momentary experiences that just happened to be passing in front of you, govern your life. Well, what you sit there and say to me is, okay, I understand, but it’s the only thing I have. That was the experience I had. That’s the data that was put into me. If I have a computer, it can only do what the data is and that was the data that could put in. So ask a question. It’s going to do it based on that data, but if that’s what the computer, you all use AI nowadays. Many lot of guys do it right? Okay, what if you used AI and it only took one piece of data about the question you’re asking about? It goes across the entire web reading. Every article was ever written for this in the world. I’ll do the best.
What if it took one article that you were talking about and gave you the answer? Would you ever use it again? Then why are you using your stuff? Because what it did, and so you look and you see, I asked you do you go out and try to find what will make you be okay or do you understand why you’re not okay? I just explained to you why you’re not okay. You were programmed by these meaningless experiences. Random just happened to be happening and you’re living your entire life based on that you got hurt and so I’m not going to date again. Your parents got divorced when you were young and it was a terrible thing. You didn’t like your stepfather, stepmother and so on, and now you’re going to get married. And the number one criteria in your marriage checklist when you go on web to find somebody is do you want to have children? No. Why? I will never put a soul through what I went through. And how do I know that? Just because I’m in love, people get divorced and so I don’t want to have children.
Do you see how ridiculous that is? You stored one stupid piece of data. What if your stepfather or stepmother was great and your father was drunk and the divorce helped you tremendously, you loved you, you got some step brother and sister and you got along great. You can have different experiences. The trouble is you put 100% weight on the experience you had and you put zero weight on all the experiences that you could have had, but you just didn’t had an experience. Can you change that? Yes, yes, yes. Don’t you dare let them tell you this is permanent. It’s not permanent. There’s nothing inside of you but you. That’s a true statement by the way. There’s nothing inside of you but you. Have you ever changed your mind? How quick can you change your mind? Boom, change your mind. How quick can your heart open and close?
It can change any way you want in there. There is nothing solid in there. I don’t care what they tell you. There’s nothing solid in there. It’s thinner than error. It’s thinner than e thread. It’s thinner than anything. It’s just mine. Mine can go across the universe or it can get hung up right here. You can do anything. Anyone with mine? Okay, so that’s in there. So you have chosen to hold you in there, have chosen to hold on to things that happened to you that were either extremely painful and difficult or that were very nice and you defined yourself as the person that doesn’t want this to happen and I want that to happen. And so now you’re conditionally, okay? Whatever the world does either matches what you want to whatever degree and to whatever degree it matches you open, you can get blown away.
Just you meet somebody or something happens to you, oh my god, I just, wow. Right? And you can get closed so hard in one second that you’ll never be the same. So the world’s going to unfold and based upon your past experiences, you are going to either open or close depending on how well it matches what you want. Are you catching on? You are doing this. What’s the option? Instead of saying, what do I need to have happen for me to be okay, you ask why am I not okay? And when you look in there, I remember the first time I looked in there when I woke up, it was a mess in there. No wonder they’re not okay. He’s scared of everything. He gets embarrassed. Oh my God. He’s judgmental and there are only certain things that he likes it right or wrong. It’s really pretty weird in there.
So of course he’s not okay. How can that be okay? It is only okay if it’s exactly the way he wants for the time. He wants it to be the way he wants it to be. You hear me? Oh, I thought I liked her, but she sneezes too much and my uncle sneezed and he was not nice. I’m not kidding. It’s that tenuous. It’s that absurd. And you look and now you have found the answer, why am I not okay? Not what I need to do to be okay. I keep coming back to that because you’re trained because let your mind think, what do I need to have happen outside for me to be okay inside? It’s all about goal orientation. It’s all about getting things. It’s all about manipulating, attracting to yourself, all that kind of stuff. It’s all about getting and not getting outside so you can be okay inside spirituality wakes you up, says that’s ridiculous.
If you’re not okay inside, then your mind is going to tell you what to do to be okay. And there’s nothing that makes the outside be that way. It wasn’t made for you, it’s just doing his thing. Why did he have to do that? Why did he do that? We were doing so good. Why did he do that? He did that because he’s just some of his learned experiences the same the way you’re the sum of your learned experiences and he behaved in accordance to the garbage inside of him and just like you’re now judging and behaving in accord to the garbage inside of you. So there’s no question why did he do that? Well, you know why everybody did everything? Because they had past experiences that programmed in a way that seemed reasonable to them at the time. So instead of going out there and wasting, wasting your life, trying to manipulate the moments and people and everything in front of you for the rest of your life to be a way that makes you feel okay inside, you work inside.
That’s spirituality. Rumi once said yesterday I was clever, so I was trying to change the world today. I am wise, I’m changing myself. That is the essence of what’s called the inner work. You caught on. I made the mess. The world did not make the mess. The world unfolded. I couldn’t handle it and because I couldn’t handle it, there were people. It’s extreme. Let’s say you’re the 8-year-old kid, you see the car accident, you know what effect it had on them. I want to grow up to be a surgeon. I want to be a first responder. Wow. I want to be able to help people that have accidents. I’m so inspired, oh my god, that governed changed me to wanted to help. That could happen couldn’t it? You don’t have to be traumatized by things. It turns out how you process them. Every single thing that happens, you are the one who processes it.
It happens because it happened. Why did that have to happen? Why did he run the light? Well, I don’t know. His child was crying. He turned around in the back and at that moment he didn’t see the light. There’s reasons and they have nothing to do with you do they? Except right at that moment in a car accident. How do you blame everything on that? There’s reasons why both those cars hit at the same time. I once made a statement that I know you hate. There’s no such thing as an accident. There is. So this car ran the light and I was driving back there. We had an accident. No, you had a resultant experience based on all the experiences that made those two cars be in that spot at the same time. And there are a lot of things that caused that to happen, including the coffee maker that was cheap and therefore it took 15 seconds longer to make your coffee and you would not have been in that spot at that moment.
How can you call it an accident? I’m telling you, we’ve just programmed ourselves to be miserable, alright? Because we sat there and said, I program based on these ridiculous past experiences and now I have to have the moments in front of me unfolded away. That opens me. Why? Because I’m closed. You have to meet somebody who makes you open. Why? Because I have to meet someone. Oh my God, I felt such love in his presence. I want to view him all the time. This house, oh my God, it turned me on so much. It reminded me of this and that and the kitchen was like we had in my house and you just had these little program things and now something opens you I want it. I don’t want anything else. I want it. Good luck. Have you found out it doesn’t happen the way you want it to be?
Who has found that out yet? That the moment in front of you does not always unfold the way you want it to. You got to work pretty hard to get that to happen, don’t you? And a lot of times you don’t like the way the past was and it happened in your past. You don’t like, right? You don’t want it to have happened. Why set up? I lose. I lose. I guaranteed I lose. I don’t want it to have happened. I don’t want her to have done that. I don’t want that to have happened. I don’t want my parents to have to have gotten divorced. Well, there’s no time machines yet. It happened. You got to be okay with it. No, I’m not okay with it. Fine, then don’t be okay, then wait for some situation to unfold. They died. Your parents are dead and so on.
But you go to a medium psychic, right? And they get contact with mommy or daddy and then you’re sitting there, you had this problem your whole life and all of a sudden your mother says, I want to tell you I died before I could tell you I’m so sorry that we got divorced and that you didn’t like the step husband. I wish I could change that for you. Are you okay? Can I help? Okay, now I feel better. You’ve set up a lose lose situation in your life by letting these absurd moments program you and then deciding things have to happen. That will open me. Why? Because I’m closed. Why are you closed? Because you closed. Why did I close? Because events happen that I couldn’t handle, therefore I closed myself and I’ll protect myself the rest of my life. I don’t want them to happen again and I don’t want to feel ’em again.
I don’t want to think about it again. Fre a name for that suppression, repression, denial. I just call it resistance. I don’t care if it psychologically hits those measurements. You resist events that you don’t want to have happened and I’ve taught you this. I’m not going to spend it. I have other thing to talk about tonight. You don’t happens to you resist them. Anything you resist anything, the driver in fringe not driving the way you want. You get upset. I’m telling you, if you see a car that looks like that three weeks or years later, I ain’t driving behind that person. You are in a different country. It doesn’t matter. That comes back up. So you stored paint inside of you and now you wonder why you’re not okay because you store all this garbage inside of you. If you store every single thing that ever disturbed you and you did by resisting it, you stored it.
If you stored every single thing that ever disturbed you inside of you, you’re going to be disturbed. That’s what happens. That’s what’s in there and it is what’s in there. You understand that and you have to work hard to not have that happen again and to have something else happen that makes you feel better about it. Like somebody comes up, if I was with you that never would’ve happened and I will protect you to the best of my ability the rest of your life. And I have money and I have posture and status and I adore you. Okay? I’m feeling a little bit better now until he sneezes.
Now, do you understand what I mean? You have a choice. If I want love, am I going out there to try and find things that will make me feel love? Or am I coming back inside and saying, what the heck have I done in here over the course of my life to make it so I don’t feel love when it’s my natural state is your natural state. Take the blinds off the windows. It’s light. But what if something’s a little scary? Deal with it. Deal with it first. Find out. Does it need to be scary? Take a little risk. Don’t sit there and close down immediately because you had a past experience and I swear I hear you talking. You say, but I actually experienced that before you did and I did. But there was 800 zillion other things that were going on at the moment.
You experienced that. Don’t let that govern your life. I’m serious. There are teachers that teach you to push through your stuff. I don’t want to be intense like that. I want you to let go of your stuff, not push through. I better remind those teachers anything that helps you fine. But my experience is the gentle way is what lasts. It’s not like I’m strong enough to push through this one thing with mommy and daddy. That’s what psychiatry does. Fine. It’s good. I’m not talking against it, but I’m telling you, you can learn not to store stuff in there just like you can learn tennis or learn to play the piano. It’s just something you learn. Nobody ever taught you that they didn’t even tell you’re capable. It’s just all your poor thing or go to your room, don’t behave like that. You can learn to understand what I’ve taught you here and if you do, I’m very proud of you and impressed you because it’s not easy to listen to.
You are trained and driven to make things be the way you want so they make you feel better inside. That is not spirituality. Spirituality is you’re the highest being ever walked. The face of the earth number. Whatever happens to you can never change that. You are a great being filled with love, filled with light. You’re so beautiful and you have messed it up. You have closed it. There’s nobody else in there. By not being able to handle the situations that happened to you. Don’t feel guilty. You’re a kid, you didn’t know these things. But by not being able to handle the situation that happened to you, you stored garbage inside of you and that has blocked you. Just like closing the blinds blocks you. And even though it seems rational and everybody tells you it’s rational but funny, everybody told you of course you got hurt.
Oh my God, I would never put up with that. But then if they meet the Dalai Lama, they say, wow, look at him. He can handle anything. Isn’t that beautiful? Right? You don’t understand. You’re him. You’re capable of that. So we admire someone that can handle stuff, right? But then we tell our friends, of course you couldn’t handle that. You poor thing. Oh my God, I would never put up with that. Okay, so how do you work with this? You first understand there’s nothing wrong with having an aspiration. There’s nothing wrong with being inspired by something. There’s nothing wrong that I tell you. If somebody comes to you and offers you food, here’s a dish that you’ve had before and you really like it. Here’s another dish you had before and you really like it and they say to which one do you want? Don’t come and say, Mickey says, don’t have choices.
Don’t have preferences. Choose one. Have a good time. Or if one of ’em made you sick before and the other one’s nice, don’t do dare sit there and tell me teachings. They says, just take the one, make you sick. Be strong. No, don’t be stupid, right? If you’re offered these two things and there’s no price, take the one you like. There’s nothing wrong with having an experience, past experience and a preference. It’s another thing to sit there and say, I am not eating again until you bring me the food the way I want it to be that I had before. I don’t care what it costs. I don’t care what it is. I was spoiled brat. That’s a very different thing. That’s not something’s offered and you choose the one you want. Big deal. I met somebody, I felt love for them. Well, I guess that’s wrong because I had to meet somebody.
It is not wrong. Use it to grow. Use it to understand that you could have been open all the time. This opened you good, mazel tough. Let it open. You then don’t close. Every single thing can be used spiritually. So it’s not about no choices, it’s not about no preference, but it is about sitting there saying, I can’t be okay unless I get my preference. That’s different than something that’s offered to you and you’re going through it. It’s not about renunciation. I say it all the time. You see the difference. You’re not renouncing anything. You’re using everything to go to God. So yes, if you fall in love, that’s wonderful. Fall in love, have children get married. You’re going to have situations you need to go through that are not much fun. Do you understand that? Yes. Maybe you notice then that’s why you got in the relationship, not as a thing of itself, not okay. You made me feel love. So unless you keep making me feel love, I’m out of here. I used to feel love in your presence. Now. I don’t know. I changed. You changed irreconcilable differences. What’s on the divorce statement? No, no, no, no, no. You enter the relationship, you felt love. Watch to see why it goes away and don’t let it. You’re making it go away. But what if it’s extreme? What if she’s doing this and cheating and running around, right? First look and decide do I want to close?
No. Are you willing to use the situation to let go of the party that can’t handle the situation? Now once you have said yes, I’m willing to use it. That’s 50 to 60, 70% there. Now, do you stay in the situation if it’s not healthy and it’s not working and it’s not good for your growth? Nobody’s saying you have to stay in the situation, but they are sitting there saying you’re not running away from the situation. You can’t handle it. Yes, I was abused. I don’t like physical abuse. You get on that one quickly, right? But even psychologically, somebody’s doing this and doing stuff right? That’s not healthy. That environment, the environment’s not healthy for you anymore. Not you can’t handle it. I can handle it, but it’s not healthy. That’s a very different thing. God, I’m talking to you serious. It’s not, I can’t handle it.
If you can’t handle it, I’m sorry. You need to learn to handle life. If you run away from this one, there’s going to be another one. Learn to get stronger. I can’t play tennis against this guy. Say he’s too good. I’m not going to play ever again. Tennis, no. Play one notch down and practice more, right? Just try work. But that doesn’t mean that you would stay in an environment that is unhealthy. But if unhealthy means he won’t do what I want, he argues with me all the time. He doesn’t agree with me. Now you’re not healthy, so you do the best you can to use the situation. All situations, business, relationships, car, every single thing. Can I handle this? Now we’re talking about how do you do this inner path that says, okay, I understand. I don’t want to spend my life trying to make every single thing be the way I want and the only time I can feel love is when it is right.
I’m going to suffer otherwise. No, no, sorry. Does that mean you have to leave your life? No. Well, your life’s a wonderful place to practice getting free. How’s that? This is the gentle path. So what does that mean? It means you ask constantly, can I handle this? And if your psyche says, no, it’s not right, it’s not fair. Mary’s husband got rich and mine and I always wanted to be rich. Okay, spoil brat, okay? You throw yourself a tantrum like a little kid. Can you handle the situation without getting weird? The tendency is to get weird. Is it not anyone listening? We’re all the same. Hear me? There are different things that affect us different way. We’re past programming, but we’re all the same. So spirituality says, don’t be so quick to go change the darn situation because there’s going to be another one. Can’t play tennis with this guy.
Try to somebody else. That would be a problem with that one. You’re a quitter. Instead you sit there and say, can I handle the situation? And the general answer is going to tend to be I don’t want to. Why should I have to? There’s mine talking to you and that’s why I give you those examples. What if you look there to this lower self, this thing you hang out with that has this problem that we’ve been discussing all night. What if you said to it, Hey, hello. Excuse me. Excuse me, sir. Ma’am, what if you didn’t have the experiences that you had in your life? Would you have trouble handling what’s happening now? No, it was because my mother did this and my father did this and my boyfriend when I was in high school. If that hadn’t happened, I guess I could handle bow ties.
So you just use this to help you say, I can learn to handle this. I would like to learn and I want you to learn to handle everything, anything. I would like you to wake up in the morning and know to the bottom of your being, there’s not a single thing that can happen today that I can’t handle. There’s not a single thing that happened today that won’t hit my stuff. They can’t say that. Or you’re busy beaver out there controlling, manipulating, worrying. Look how it creates everything, doesn’t it? What if somebody does something they don’t like? What if this happens? What if that doesn’t happen? You worry. It builds worry. It builds anxiety. It builds tension. Stress, okay, that’s what you’re stressed about, that something might happen that I don’t want to happen or something might not happen that I want to happen. This undercuts all of that.
It sits there and says, I wake up in the morning and bring it on. How you like to be like that doesn’t mean you don’t go to work, doesn’t mean you don’t get married. It doesn’t mean you don’t have children. It doesn’t mean anything. It means you sit there inside yourself and know I can handle anything, not be strong enough to push it away because it comes in and it passes through. I didn’t store all this garbage inside of me throughout my life. That makes me weird. That makes it so I can’t handle things. Okay, so you start with, I can handle this. Well, let’s say you’re not ready to say that. Fine, just realize I’m in here. I can handle it, but I’m not ready to do it right now. Fine. But at least accept that that’s where you want to go. Not I want the corner office, not I want to be famous, not I want to be rich, not I want to have a good relationship.
Doesn’t mean you don’t have those, but that’s not my aspiration. That’s not my polestar. My polestar is I’m fine and I will always be fine and I can’t handle anything that happens and baby bring it on there. That’s where I want you. Okay? And then when things happen and they hit your stuff and Les will hit your stuff because you let go of your stuff, right? But if it does hit your stuff, watch your attitude. Ready, bring it on. Bring it on. Bring it on because I don’t want this stuff inside of me. And if you found something inside of me now you say it a different way. You want a piece of me here? Here it is. I don’t want it. You’re welcome to take it. Okay? And so you’re willing to let go of the garbage you stored inside that life is hitting.
So I’m standing at the window and somebody walked by and I don’t know who they are. There’s a story. Somebody once told me that their grandmother lives in New Jersey in a high rise, 30, 40 stories up. And she looks out the window for she goes to bed at night and literally he told me she hasn’t been able to sleep. Why? Because there was a car parked on the street, 40 stories down that she didn’t recognize. Now that’s a good starting point for the practices. Let’s handle that. And you start with little things that you don’t realize you’re bothering yourself about. That is not even a risk. That’s ridiculous. You’re going to find out the vast majority of stuff you worried about throughout your life did not happen.
Or you worried it wouldn’t happen and it did happen. Oh, it’s a miracle, alright? It’s like we waste our worrying. Did I tell the truth? Is it not true? You’ve worried about things. Think about it every day that you worried about things and there was no reason to worry about him. So your work isn’t going out there and trying to make sure there’s nothing to worry about. That’s ridiculous. My insurance will do this and guarantee and sign licenses, they sign marriage’s, licenses. I will be faithful to you for the rest of my life until death do us part. I like that one 50% of all marriages end of divorce. And so you realize the work is not making the world outside unfold the way you want and not unfold the way you don’t want. That’s an endless job. It can always change and you know it and that’s why you’re insecure and that’s why you’re afraid.
It’s not the world that made you be that way. It’s that you allowed yourself to be programmed with these preferences and these concepts of views and opinions and hopes and dreams, and then you want the world to be that way. Instead, you come inside and you start with the very simple things and you sit there to the grandma who looks out of the street and sees the car. She don’t know grandma. It could be anything. It is your mind that decided because you watched the movie with the slasher in it. I told you not to watch those. Right? Freddie and Elm Street, whatever it is. And so you think it’s Freddie, right? It’s probably not Freddie and it’s not Elm Street. Anyway, that’s not the name of your street. Dare to handle it, dare to handle the heat, dare to handle the driver in front of you.
Dare to handle. If somebody says something, you weren’t sure whether it was insulting or not, what they meant by that. I say if you think somebody said something that was insulting to you, I guarantee you to you it was insulting. The fact that you wouldn’t even think that way means you’re thinking that way. You’re ruining your life. So instead you come and you start practicing saying, I don’t want to close. That’s the highest thing to say. I don’t want to close or I can handle this same thing. I can handle this. I don’t want to close. And so when your mind starts saying, yeah, but he’s driving 10 miles below the speed limit and you need to get somewhere and you’re probably going to be late, but there’s no way to pass Mr. Mind or miss mind. How about we don’t bother me about it?
How about we accept that this is the reality of the moment and we’ll be okay? You’re generally okay, aren’t you? You’re five minutes late. Didn’t make any difference. I like he likes to rush by and to pass people and so on. Then he gets to a stop sign and they pull right behind him. These are the times you practice every moment. What’s going on in real life because your teacher, because it’s teaching you to let go of this garbage is stored inside, and the more you let go, the less sensitive you are, the more you let go. Then the next time you’re driving behind somebody, you don’t bother passing them. It didn’t do anything. You learn. You learn, you learn. You learn that you’re okay. It’s okay. All of a sudden, your boyfriend or girlfriend’s walking with somebody hand in hand and literally instead of you freaking out and all that stuff gone in your mind, you sit there and your mind says, God, I wonder who she is. I’ll ask him when he got home. Whoa. That’s kind of nice. You find out. It was his sister, they never told you about.
You become more centered. You become more capable of not bothering yourself, right? The boss says to you, I want to see you tomorrow morning. I really need to see you tomorrow morning. Have a nice night. What did that do to help you or the situation that you worried and angst yourself about and thought about what it could be about and what did anybody say? It didn’t do any good. It made you less capable of handling the situation that took place. You can learn not to do this. That’s the inner work. And as you work with yourself to let go. I told you I was teaching lately. I never used to teach this right back in the old days, right? Treat the lower self like a child that’s been abused. Of course you have problems. Your parents mistreated you. I’m here to help you. You can deal with your lower self that way.
So with your ego, don’t beat it up and don’t hate it. Realize you locked her in a closet for all these years, all the stuff you didn’t like from childhood, all that stuff. You pushed it down there in the dark. Own it. And sit there and say, I get to the point where you see the stuff coming up. Instead of being afraid of it or pushing it back down or wishing it wasn’t there, apologize to it. I am so sorry that I was unable to handle this when it took place. Let me help you. I mistreated you. I was not awake yet. I wasn’t conscious enough yet. I didn’t realize the repercussions of not liking things and pushing them away and suppressing or having preferences, stupid little preferences throughout your life that people you didn’t like. People you do like people didn’t like. They sit at a table with you.
You move as a kid. You hear me throughout your life. You did this. You ruined your lower self To have all these preferences and likes and dislikes and fears and anxieties or help her, talk to him, raise it. Don’t let it just be the way it is. Bring the energy up. It’s really yoga. What you’re doing is bringing the energy up. It’s bringing the energy up. You can literally do that when you see it. Start getting weird. Put your hand down where the energy is getting weird and just offer it up. Raise it up, offer it up. You don’t realize you’re actually moving through the chakras. You’re moving from the lowest chakra, which is fear and survival, but you made fear and survival about somebody rejecting you. Animals don’t do that. Okay? So you move this into ego, ego survival as opposed to physical survival.
And then you get into the other stuff and then you go through all the different centers and just keep offering it up. There are so many things you can do to change it inside every moment of your life. It’s a real time journey. You do all the rest, every moment of your life, you get scared, you suppress, you, deny you do all this stuff every moment of your life, don’t you? Well, instead, start transmuting the energies to do that, which lifts you instead of pushes you down. If something comes up from the past that you don’t like dealing with, it it but it hurts. Yes, it does restore with pain. It’s coming back with pain. Like it, love it. Don’t even just accept it except it’s not good enough honor, respect it, love it. Help it. Worship it. Why? Because it’s what? Standing between you and God.
Let’s say you really love somebody with all your heart and there was an obstacle for you to get to see them. What would you do with that obstacle? Run away. Oh my God, there’s something in the way. I guess I can’t go there. No, you deal with that thing to get it down. It’s just a hurdle. And so that’s how you start to be about yourself. It’s your change, your whole philosophy. It’s a whole question of attitude. It is not about getting what you want and avoiding what you don’t want. It is not about that. That’s a meaningless life. It’s meaningless. So basically you just don’t devote your life to your preferences. You don’t devote your life to getting what you want. Don’t deny. It’s not the renunciation honor life. It gives you things that’s wonderful, but inside it’s about cleaning up in there. That’s the meaning of your life.
You’re supposed to be growing, evolving spiritually. How do you do that? Each moment? Dare to see the patterns, because the patterns are not that healthy, are they? There’s patterns in there. Offer them up, let go. Realize, I don’t want this inside of me, and don’t put any more in. Okay? So again, back to where we start this talk. There’s two ways to live your life. One is to believe I need to be okay and have love and beauty and light and everything. I need to go out there and find things that will make me feel it. The other is, I need to go in here and find out why I’m stopping it because it is a natural state and you just do this work inside. Okay, thank you for listening. Jai.
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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