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 word mind is normally used as a noun. The mine. Back in the early seventies when people started coming out here, I kiddingly started a club. If you want to hang out here, you had to join the I Don’t Mind Club. That’s mind as a verb. Would you mind if I borrow your car? Would you mind if I borrow your wife? I like mind as a verb. It’s kind of neat. We don’t have to use it that way. What does it mean to mind? It means what I just said. If I come up to you and mention a word, your mind goes blah blah, like a leaf drops into a still lake. The mind starts going, doesn’t it about everything until there’s wavelets on top of wavelets, on top of wavelets. Until you don’t know what it’s like to not have those wavelets.
You are always minding. It’s always saying something that is the verb use of the word mind. You are minding. You don’t need anything, a leaf from outside to drop into your lake. It does just fine by itself. In fact, each one of the ripples, you mine the ripples. Then they cause other ripples that you mine and then other ripples that you mine until there’s nothing going on in there except ripples. So much so that most people have no idea that they’re minding everything. They mind everything. Do you mind what happened to you yesterday? Yeah. Do you mind what happened to you 20 years ago? Yeah. Do you mind what your mother said? Yeah. Do you mind the sister? Yeah. This is a beautiful use of the word mind because we are so lost in it. We don’t even understand what’s going on. Spirituality is about quieting that to where you are no longer minding.
How does one get there? Through force, through meditation, through discipline, through renunciation. There’s so many things that people teach you. You get there. By not minding. That doesn’t mean you stop the mind. You stop minding until you stop minding. You will not stop minding. Do you mind the weather? Do you mind when it’s hot? Do you mind when it’s cold? Do you mind if you drop something on your pants or your blouse? Do you mind the driver in front of you that they didn’t use their blinker? As long as your minding, that mind is going to be making ripples. So the answer is not to suppress ripples. The answer is not to be able to sit there and be disciplined enough to make your mind stop making ripples. Why? There’s a reason it’s making ripples. You don’t fight that. You deal with that. Buddhists say work at the root.
The root of why your mind is noisy and it is, is because you mind things and when you mind them, your mind minds. So the spiritual path is not about suppression. It’s not about renunciation. What is it you would renounce? Do you renounce things? You’re don’t mindd? No, you renounce things you mind. So that’s all you’re going to do. Well, the question is not to renounce what your mind is. Why do you mind? There is no reason to mind. You can use your mind to think. That’s very different. You can use your mind to logic. You can use your mind to create. You can use your mind through all kinds of, it’s a beautiful thing. It’s like a computer. The computer sits there until you want it to do something and then it does it for you and with you. That’s wonderful. What if it just started computing by itself?
Minding just you go there and spewing, okay? You can’t even use it because you can’t use your mind. You hear me? You have no idea how smart you are. I don’t care what they tell you. I don’t care what your SAT score is. I ask the following question. You’re about to take your SATs for high school to get into college. You’ve been studying, doing wonderful. You go in, you take the test. What just so happens that one day before the test, your boyfriend or girlfriend breaks up with you and starts dating your best friend. Do you think it will affect the score on that test? Right? Well then you don’t know how smart you are do you? Because you’ve always got that chunk going inside your mind. You have to use your intelligence on top of the garbage. Good luck. Do you get distracted by your thoughts?
I’m glad you said yes. Most people would say no, I’m not distracted by the thought because they are their thoughts. They think they are their thoughts. They don’t understand being distracted by their thoughts all the time. They think it’s supposed to be that way. So what it means to work with yourself spiritually is to question not what do I do about the fact that I’m mine? Why do I mind what your mind says to you is I mind because it does. And then it says to you, how do I get things the way I want that I mind that they’re not that way or whatever the heck it is and it’s just busy in there on top of itself doing all that garbage. The question is why do I mind? Let’s start with small stuff. Why do I mind? Why does the mind, mind how the driver in front of me is driving? Why does it mind? I like to drive aggressively.
Basically I’ll pass somebody. I still do. I still let ’em do it. The person who’s driving a little bit slow five miles on the speed and whatever it is, so it’s two lane highway. It’s not all that safe, but I’m safe. I watch and I pass and I get going five miles above the speed limit. He’s going five miles under and I get to a stop sign. He pulls up right behind me and sometimes he gets embarrassed that he passed and then the person pulls right behind me. The person must think I’m a schnuck. I’m minding to pass. I’m minding what the person thinks about me. I’m minding how he’s driving. Can you relate or should I be ashamed? Do you see what I mean by the word mind? You mind everything, don’t you? So you start, I’m telling you, I’ve done this for 55 years.
You finally catch on. It’s not about what you’re doing about this, about your clothes, about what you eat, about what you believe about renunciation, about anything, what you’ve done in your past about your karma. It’s not about any of that. It’s about why do I mind everything? Because as long as I mind everything, I’m going to mind and know what spiritual ego is. Regular ego is I mind what people think about me. I mind this, I mind that, blah, blah blah, blah, blah. Okay? Spiritual ego is I mind whether they think I’m spiritual, I it’s all the same. The question is why am I minding things? Because if I didn’t mind, what would happen if you didn’t mind? Lemme ask you a question. Sometimes the lines on the road are yellow and sometimes they’re white. Do you mind never even thought about it? Well, that’s beautiful.
You’re at peace with the white and the yellow lines. What? It could be that way about everything doesn’t mean you don’t interact with it. It just means you don’t mind. And if you don’t mind, you’re clear When you interact with it, if you mind, you’re disturbed when you interact with it. What would it mean to not mind? I’m glad we’re discussing this. Let’s start with the simple stuff. The driver’s driving in front of you two lane highway. It’s busy. You can’t do anything. They’re driving 10 miles an hour below the speed limit and you’re in a rush. Everyone there? Yeah. Okay. Do you mind? Yeah. Okay. Is the driver in front of you creating the disturbance side your mind or are you create a disturbance inside your mind? What if you didn’t want to go to work and you got caught up in an accident, not yours, but somebody else said you held up and you had to be life for work. Do you mind? Nope. Thank you. Thank you.
You see, you’re doing it. You decide when to make yourself neurotic. It’s so rich, isn’t it Such a simple discussion? Well, why would you decide to make yourself neurotic? Is it fun to be neurotic? Is it fun to worry? Is it fun to get anxious? Is it fun to get uptight? Then why are you doing it? No. The drivers in front of me is doing it. They are not. There’s a line in the new book that Oprah said was your favorite line in living untether.
It said, the moment in front of you is not bothering you. You are bothering yourself about the moment in front of you. Well, she just said to you, it’s just something that came out of somebody’s mouth. This a sound. Why did it bother you? Because you decided to let it bother you. This is called waking up. Wake up. You’re doing it. The world is not doing it. You’re doing it. You are minding things. Do you have to? Of course not. I’m sitting there holding something that’s heavy and my arm is hurting. There’s absolutely no reason the world of holding that except I decided to and I’m complaining, oh my God, my arm hurts. How long do I have to hold this? Well, why are you holding it? I don’t know. Stop holding it. Stop minding. Stop bothering yourself. So you start practicing. This is called learning. This is spiritual practice. Meditate all you and you should. I’m not telling you not to meditate all you want to, all the mantra you want, do all your ana everything you want real spiritual practices. The driver in front of you is driving slower than your mind wants it to. Can you relax instead of complaining? Because complaining it does no good except cause you disturbance. Alright, let’s get real. Have you ever talked to the driver in front of you?
Thank you. Thank you. Make me feel better. Have you ever talked to the driver in front of you? Nice blinker buddy. Come on. You see the street sense? 55 miles an hour. Are you going 40? Did they hear you? Did it affect their lives one iota? Did it affect yours? Yes.
Okay, so now we’re having a nice honest discussion about spiritual growth. That is not an entirely intelligent thing to do. I went through business school, right? Cost benefit analysis. Have you heard of it? What’s the benefit of doing that inside your head about the driver in front of you? Zero. What’s the cost? 100%. Oh, let’s make that decision. You get thrown out of any board meeting ever sat on. Okay? Why are you doing that? Why are you not paying attention? Why don’t you make rational decisions? Spirituality is not irrational. It’s completely rational because I’m defining this as spirituality going to tell you a secret. When you learn not to mind naturally you will be at peace and will feel Shakti and God pouring inside of you without doing a single thing. It’s always pouring inside of you. That’s where you get to realize that it is always pouring, pouring Shakti rising up bliss beauty all the time.
Well, why don’t I feel it? Because you’re busy hanging out with your mind. Whatever I stare at, so I’m experiencing. If I stare at you, I don’t see anybody else. If I stare at your nose, I don’t see anything else. Basically whatever I stare at, that’s my life, isn’t it? Isn’t that my world? If I’m not conscious of it, I don’t see it. If I’m conscious of it, that’s all I see. You are staring at your mind all the time. Therefore that’s what you see. The fact that God and complete ecstasy is all around you. You’ll never know that until you stop staring at your mind. So to learn, for the mind to be naturally quiet so it doesn’t distract you and keep your consciousness is spiritual practice. It’s the core spiritual practice. They can give you practices. I’m telling you the daily moment to moment things that you can do that stop that mind from doing what it’s doing.
You’re telling it to complain it’s hot. I don’t like that it’s hot. Oh my God, why is that to be so hot? Maybe I shouldn’t live here, but I like living here but I have a good job, but it’s hot. Whatcha doing? What is all that about? It’s meaningless. Learn to not do that. And that is a spiritual practice and it’s something you can do every single moment of your life as a regular practice every single day. And I’m telling you, when you learn to do that as a spiritual practice, learning not to mind about meaningless things, every morning you wake up, you’ll be a different person that woke up the morning before. That’s how fast you will grow because every day you have an opportunity to practice. Not minding, okay, but you practice every day minding you go out of your way to practice minding you justify minding.
Yeah, but he is driving slow and it made me late for where I was going to. It didn’t help one iota to complain, it didn’t do anything. It didn’t fix your life. It messed up your life. And so what you do is you start practicing this thing called, I don’t mind, who wants to join the I Don’t Mind club. How do you do it? You do it by practicing. So here I am, you’re driving behind somebody and whether you can pass ’em or not is not relevant. We’ll get down to advanced course. Let’s say you can’t pass them, it’s not safe. You can’t pass them. Alright? You’re still mind. You still do it. Don’t do it. Spiritual is not about doing something. It’s always about not doing something, not getting, not doing, letting go of what you have. So it’s about not minding, it’s not about getting what you want, it’s about letting go of what’s causing you to not be okay.
So you need things because you don’t need anything. You’re complete and whole within yourself. Look at me. You’re looking for love. You’re looking for it in all the wrong places. It’s inside. It’s always there. There’s so much love flowing inside of you right now that you pass out. If you tuned into it, Roman Krishna, he’d walk around, he’d think of God, his arm would go flying up in the air. Every hair in his body would stand on in tears, would pour down his eyes. They had to walk behind him because if any moment that sent him into ecstasy and love, he’d fall over backwards. One of his disciples had to walk behind him all the time in case the master went into love ecstasy and fell backwards and stayed there for days. Not bad. I don’t mind that.
So if you learn to not mind, then the mind will not create all the noise. Then you’ll not be distracted by the noise and you’ll not have to do something about the noise to try to fix the noise. Your spiritual state is your natural state. It’s filled with love and God and joy and Shakti all the time until you decide to mind about something. Well, I can’t feel love if I’m sick. Who said so? You did. I can’t feel love about, I don’t get to corner off. If somebody else did, how can I feel love? Then by not minding, I don’t mind muscles of I’m glad you got the office. I’m telling you it’s all about practicing not minding. When you mind something, you want something to change outside so that it’s more comfortable inside and your mind gets more still because it got what it wanted.
Good luck. It’s always minding, isn’t it? It will not stop and in fact you are reinforcing it by saying I’ll get you what you want so you can feel okay. You become a slave to it. It’s like a kid throwing a tantrum and the answer is get him what he wants. Now, I don’t want to meet the kid when he grows up. Well, I don’t want to meet your mind when it grows up because it won’t ever grow up because you keep giving it what it wants. You keep thinking the answer is to get what it wants to get what it’s minding about. I don’t like what you said to me. Don’t ever say it again, promise me, okay, I feel a little bit better, but I still mind that you said it, don’t I? This is personal discussion, isn’t it? It is not about struggling with yourself.
It’s not about doing or getting. It’s about wondering why do I need you are a great being. You’re God consciousness, Robert, you say use it to go to God. You are already there. I’m telling you, you are already there. You’re in the highest state. It could possibly exist staring at what your mind is doing. Therefore, all you experience what your mind is doing, it’s not like you’re going to go get enlightened. You are, you’re me, you’re one. Your conscious, your awareness that is aware of my words is the awareness and consciousness that created the entire universe. No is creating the entire universe. There’s only one consciousness, but that consciousness is staring array of that consciousness. The focus of that one consciousness is staring at your mind and your heart and it’s not doing so well and it’s addicted to staring at it. You’ve never not stared at it unless you went into de meditation or something happened.
Exactly, exactly the way you wanted, the way your mind wanted. Somebody you always were attracted to you didn’t even know they knew you existed since kindergarten. They were your dream and all of a sudden one day in high school they walked up to you and just said, I’ve always been too embarrassed to talk to you, but I think you walk on water and I’ve always thought that since kindergarten what happens to you, you say things like it touched me to the depth of my being. I felt I was in the presence of God. You were you because you stopped staring at your mind. It got what it wanted and it was so stunned. It never happens. It blew my mind. Look at your words. It blew my mind and therefore it released your consciousness from being distracted by this noise and you felt this.
Boom, my heart went, boom. You feel all this Shakti, they don’t understand. They don’t understand the word shakti. A yogi understands word shakti. When you feel love that Shakti, when your heart blows, open that shakti. When your heart closes, you block the shakti. It’s all Shakti, it’s all Shakti, all your energetic experiences, every chakra, everything, all of it. It’s just Shakti that managed to flow but it doesn’t keep flowing does it? It’s the mind has to get exactly what it wants in order for it to shut up so that the energy can flow, but then it comes right back. The most beautiful experience you ever had is a problem with you. Why? Because you want to have it again. It bothers you. Does your mind mind not having happened again? No mine’s for sure. I’m going to mind the fact that I had a nice experience.
It’ll bother me for the rest of my life. I never had it again. I want to have it again. Okay? What it’s about is learning to not mind more things. The things you don’t mind, you’re free about to go and work for them. You have to go out and struggle and suffer and worry and suppress if you don’t mind. Okay? A cloud is passing by outside. It’s a cloud, any other cloud, but it reminded you of the cloud you saw when you were young with your grandfather and he talked to you about it and now he’s dead and you loved him so much. You mined that cloud. It’s not a cloud to you, is it? It’s something to mind and your mind starts. How about a cloud to get it to where you’re not doing that to your poor mind, what do you do? We’ll start with the driver in front of you.
These are what I call spiritual techniques. You might as well be on a meditation pillow. When you’re driving with that person in front of you, your mind will start. Do you have to let it do that? Of course not. Of course not. Breathe. Breathe first. Use your rational mind to ask the following question, is this worth bothering myself about? Is there a benefit to bothering myself about that? And your mind very int intelligence says, no, there’s no benefit to bothering myself. Then why bother yourself? Why bother yourself if there’s no benefit to bothering yourself? And don’t sit there and say, I’m not bothering myself. That driver’s bothering me. It is not. You’re bothering yourself about the driver and there’s nothing you can do about it except learn to not bother yourself. How do you do that? Breathe. Breathe. Do a mantra, but I found worked with me is I’d sit there and think, Mickey, you love your grandmother.
That’s your grandmother. The last year she’ll ever get to drive. So she’s very cautious, driving very slow and do you want to tailgate her or beep at her or send bad vibes because you’re complaining or do you want to say that beautiful last year she gets to drive. Just make it nice. You get to do anything you want with your mind. If you leave it alone, your mind is not nice. Listen to me. If you leave it alone and don’t do anything with it, your mind, the default is not nice. Why would God make a mind? Everyone’s asked me that. Why did God put that voice inside my head bothering me all the time? God did not put that voice inside your head. You used free will and you chose to put it there. Why? I don’t know, but you did. Why is the default state take a breath.
Why is the false state of your mind negative And it’s that’s why there’s a thing called positive thinking. It’s a spiritual practice, isn’t it? Positive thinking. Why? I guess the thing’s negative, if it wasn’t negative, there’s no need for positive thinking. Why is it negative? It’s so easy to discuss. Have you had experiences in your life that were not pleasant? Have any of you had experience in your life throughout your life? Various experiences that were not pleasant. They just weren’t pleasant. What did you do with them? I’m telling you what you do with them. I know you very, very well. They came in, you experienced them. They came and you experienced them and you did not like the experience. Who didn’t you? You self consciousness awareness. You that was aware of it and have will you have the ability to push it away? You have hands in there using No, no, go away.
I don’t like this. Yes or no? Do you ever do that? It’s called suppression, not Freudian level, but it’s called repression. Suppression resistance. You can resist things in there, can’t you? If it is not comfortable to you, you resist it. It’s a natural reaction. Throw something at me to protect myself. This comes inside. I protect myself. What do you think happens? It’s energy. Everything’s energy. It comes in. You feel the vibe, you feel the energy, you feel the experience. The event didn’t come in, the energy of the event came in. It came in and you resisted it. What do you think happens to that energy when you resist it? Energy is moving. It’s coming in. If you left it, it would pass right through you. It would pass and pour into your consciousness. Be an experience you had just you have experiences all the time.
They come in, they pass by you, drive by cars, trees, this and that. They’re just coming in and passing through. You’re not seeing them, you’re just experiencing them, but you’re open. Experience them. What happens when you’re not open? What happens when you don’t like the thing that’s coming in and you use will to resist it? Use your inner hands to resist it. The answer is very, very simple. It stays inside of you. I didn’t need Freud to tell me that yogis thousands, thousands of years ago knew about some scars. It creates a pattern of energy inside of you that stays there for how long? Go ask psychology can the fact that it took your blankie away too soon bother you when you’re 55 years old? Can the fact that your parents got divorced when you were three or four and you didn’t like your stepdad so much bother you when you’re 60, it’s still in there.
You know that, don’t you? Does it come back up? Does any of those things that bother you in the past ever come back up? Do you hear words have smell, see a billboard, see somebody’s blouse or their hairstyle or the color of their eyes come back up. What’s that telling you? And it’s still in there. Why is it still in there? Because you held it in there. Everything we’re discussing so far is saying you’re the doer. So maybe holding it in it wasn’t so smart, but I didn’t want to feel it. Well, good. Don’t want to feel it now so you can feel it for the rest of your life. Do you understand how absurd it is to store every single thing that ever disturb you inside of you, you’re going to be disturbed. I’ve just explained to you why the default state of the mind is negative.
You stored negativity inside of you. You’re holding it down. What happens when it comes back up? You push it back down. That’s my favorite line. We don’t talk about that subject around your father. What’s wrong with daddy? Daddy is a mess. Daddy stored some stuff down there and you don’t want to be around when you touch it. He’s not nice. Okay, so basically you get to the point where you understand you have stored this stuff inside of you and now you’re in trouble, aren’t you? Do you stored it inside of you and now you have to find people that don’t hit that stuff. I don’t like when you wear that. I don’t like my God, my uncle wore bow ties and it wasn’t very nice. I hate bow ties. Stop it. You’re taking the garbage you stored of you and then dumping it on the world that the whole world is supposed to behave to match your junk or to not match your junk.
That’s what your desires and preferences are like I give talks, the third name patriarch, one of deepest spiritual writings ever written starts off with the following line. The great way is not difficult for those who have no preferences. We can change it to our vernacular. The great way is difficult for those who don’t mind says the same thing. Where did you get your preferences? Do you have preferences? Are you serious about ’em but you like what you don’t like? Where do you think they came from? You think you is one day sat down. I think I’d like No. You have suppressed your experiences from the past. Some of them positive, you held onto them, you clung. It’s called Buddhist clinging. You clung to the ones you like and you suppressed the ones you didn’t like. And I’m telling you, the ratio is like a thousand to one of ones that you bothered holding onto that you liked versus every day the driver, the weather, the this, the that.
Every single experience what somebody said what they meant. I know what you meant by that. Whoa, you make a mess in there. You understand that? So it’s probably a hundred thousand, a million to one of things you stored in there because you didn’t like it versus one you held it. Ooh, that was so nice. See, you’re going to mess in there. That’s what your preferences are. You did not decide your preferences. You suppressed things that you didn’t like. Now you don’t want them to happen again and you don’t even want things that remind you of them to happen again. So you’re practicing your piano when you’re young. Your parents made you play the piano, you went into a recital and you just blew it completely. It was just so embarrassing. It was ridiculous. You got tight, you just couldn’t handle it right now you don’t play the piano.
This I can assure you. And now you don’t like people that play the piano really well. And now the word recital gives you a stomach ache. Now it’s not just piano. Why would people be into instruments? Right or wrong? It spreads. It’s like a virus down there. Listen to me. You got computer viruses. They spread. They get into all kinds of stuff. When you hold that thing down there, it spreads. It’s got a whole area of sensitivity. It doesn’t be exactly. Your mother says something to you you didn’t like. Now, if you go to see your mother and she says that again, it bothers you. But also if you go to see your mother and she says anything, it bothers you. And also on Mother’s Day, you’re bothered. People are, people are don’t do well on Mother’s Day. Some people do very well on Mother’s Day.
It spreads to everything. It goes out there. It can get so extreme. And don’t you doubt what I’m saying with you that you don’t want to have children? I don’t ever want a child to go through what I had to go through. It’s not worth it. I’m not bringing a child down into this world now. Not funny is it? Are we a mess? And guess what we think the solution is to go to the disturbed mind and say, what do I need to do? What do you want? So you’re not disturbed. You don’t go to a disturbed person and ask how not to be disturbed. They don’t know how not to be disturbed. They’re disturbed. You’re going to get terrible advice. The advice will be tell her not to say that. Don’t ever go talk to her again. Stay away from that. Don’t move there.
Don’t go back to the state that you lived in because it’ll remind you. Okay? So you get to the point where you realize you did this not consciously or willfully. You weren’t evolved enough to handle things. You were not evolved enough to handle mommy. You’re not evolved enough. Perfectly reasonable. You were a little kid, but you’re not a little kid anymore, so you don’t need that stuff in there anymore. But you don’t know that there’s just so reactionary when it comes back up. You just push it back down. You’ve always pushed it back down and you avoid your mother and you avoid this. In other words, you buy into the result of having held that stuff in there and now your whole life is being governed by the junk that you stored inside. That’s why the mind is negative. It’s trying to release that stuff and you won’t let it.
You keep pushing it back down. So now it’s just talky, talky, talky and that’s why it mines everything because it’s not comfortable. If you’re comfortable and you’re driving, let’s say, alright, you just had the most beautiful spiritual experience you’ve ever had, but you have to go to work, you’re still stoned, you just pouring through your being. It’s nice stuff, alright? And you’re driving the driver in front of, you’re driving 15 miles hour, the speed limit. Oh, a chance to relax. It doesn’t bother you one single iota, nothing can bother you. Why? Because you’re fine. How do you get to that state? You practice just like you practice an instrument, you practice a sport, you practice not minding. If I say practice being okay, you don’t know how to practice being okay, but practice not minding. Since you’re the one who’s minding, you can practice not minding, okay, so you’re behind the car, you do something about grandma or you just get high enough to sit there and say, oh boy, chance to go to God.
I’m not going to mind. Your mind is not against you. It seems like it is because it’s so impossible to live with, okay? It’s not. Your mind is a computer. It loves you. Your mind is trying to make you be okay, right? Careful, careful. She might be talking to somebody else. Check. Check who she’s talking to. Look at her phone, look at the numbers. No, no, seriously, you’re doing this for her because it never does stuff like that, right? It’s trying to help you. It’s the mind trying to figure out how the mind can feel better, but it’s not against you in its own way. It’s trying to help. You need to talk to it. You are the self, you are the consciousness. You have a layer of your mind that is higher than that lower layer of your mind. You have many layers of your mind now you know that you can be thinking one thing and doing something else is going on down there.
The lowest level of your mind, that root fault level is because of all this stuff you suppressed inside you up there that I’m talking to now you’re clearer, you’re not enlightened, you’re not sitting in witness consciousness absorbed establishing itself, but you are clearer than that little schnuck down there. Help her talk to her. You’re driving behind the car. She’s started. I said, Hey, hey, you’re okay. Remember last time we pulled up and they pulled right behind us when we bothered took our lives to pass, right? Talk to her like a child, like you would a child. And then when things happen like you have to go visit your mother and you get along with your mother before you go quiet down, sit down and say, I’m going to handle this time and doesn’t matter what she says. Doesn’t matter what goes on. I’m going to watch this energy and I’m going to let it go.
I don’t want to carry this stuff inside of me. Mommy is my guru. Mother’s my guru in that situation. She’s going to hit my stuff. I don’t want the stuff in there. It’s in there all the time making me make decisions and bother me about things when I’m not with my mother. I don’t want it in there. So when I go visit mommy, I’m going to use that as though she’s my guru and she knows where my stuff is. Bet she does and sometimes she does on purpose. You know that. Alright, and I’m going to go there and I’m going to let go. I’m going to hold the hand. I’m going to talk to myself. I’m going to work with it and I’m going to go into that situation and I’m going to walk out as conscious. When I walked in, it’s a video game.
Pacman’s in there trying to eat you, shows how old I am. Alright? It’s a video game in there, isn’t it? Have fun. You sit there and say, okay, I got this thing in here about driver of a mom. I don’t care what it is and I’m going to work it through how I don’t have to purposely. So many people say to me, do I have to go down there, find and purposely pull it out. It will find you. It will come up naturally during the course of your life. You don’t have to go find it. You just have to be willing to let it go when it comes up. I’m giving you 50 years of experience. You don’t have to go there. You don’t need to find out why it’s there. You have to analyze it and find out what was the moment that got no, no.
You just have to be willing to let it go when it comes up. It’s just energy. I told you when you use your will and you have will, it’s a power of consciousness. Focused consciousness is a power of will when you use it to push away something inside a thought, a feeling that energy has to go somewhere, but when it hits the block of your will, energy can’t be created or destroyed and it has to keep moving. Energy by definition doesn’t sit still. It’s momentum. It’s moving. How do I push it away? But it stays there. It circles around itself. That’s how energy can move and stay at the same place. Okay? That’s what’s happening. That’s a definition of a samskara or a karmic pattern, A seed. You push that energy away, it’s circling around itself. It has all the smells that touch the emotion.
Everything is packed in there and when it comes back up, you can feel the same as you felt when you were five years old and emotionally start crying about something that happened when you were five. When you’re 55, you held it in there. You held the exact energy that was trying to pass. The energy of the experience is now stored inside, circling around like that. It will get hit. It doesn’t want to be in there just like your body does not want bacterias and viruses inside of it. Therefore there’s an entire immune system, isn’t there? White blood cells that lymph nodes, all kinds of stuff to try and purify and keep the body healthy. Your mind is so much higher than your body. The subtle vibration of mind and heart of emotion. They have their own purification system. They don’t want that junk in there.
There’s this love trying to come up. Your heart is trying to exude love. Your mind is exuding creativity and inspiration all the time. It doesn’t want that garbage stuck in there blocking it. Those are called blockages. You created them by holding that energy inside those patterns. So now it can’t express itself. It wants it out. It’s always trying to push out. That’s why they analyze dreams. Because in dreams, your consciousness is not focused on resisting this stuff. Therefore it comes up, doesn’t it? That’s why it’s always trying to come up. It’s your friend. Your mind is trying to be an asset. Your heart is trying to be an asset, but you shut all that stuff down there and every time it comes back up, you try to push it back down. Can your heart hurt? Has your heart ever hurt? Ever have a relationship that didn’t work out so good? Does it still hurt? Can it still come back up? You hear the person’s name, not even just the name Ben, that was your ex bam. Heart hurts. That’s because you stored it down there. The answer is not to avoid people named Ben.
You avoid the situations that hit your stuff. That’s a complete opposite of what’s supposed to be going on. You don’t want that stuff in there. If you have that stuff in there, you’re going to mind all kinds of stuff. It’s going to keep pouring up and it’s trying to help you by pushing it up and you’re just fighting it and pushing it down. You’re trying to find people, create situations that match your stuff. Do you understand that? I play that dating game thing on the computers that you go there to find a proper date. They ask you questions. Well what kind of food do you like? Do you like a tall person, short person? What kind of religion do you prefer? Do you like somebody who likes to take risk or likes to be very cautious? What kind of car do you like but you’re not answering about a person, you’re answering about you. Where do you think you got those answers? Oh, but I feel warm. If I think about somebody driving a Ferrari, right, I feel totally closed. They’re polluting the environment and wasting all that money. They could have fed people and it’s FaceTime your stuff inside. You’re trying to find, you look in the mirror, have a date.
Is it not true? You’re trying to find you. What if you go out and they forgot to ask, does he slurp of soup and Uncle George slurp of soup and you hate Uncle George or you love Uncle George. So you go there, all of a sudden there’s some soup slurping going on. You either open or close based on what? Based on your stuff you held in there. It’s running your life. It’s your preferences, your hopes, your dreams, your concepts, your views, your beliefs. Everything is built on top of that garbage that you stored inside of you. Your parents made you go to church. Either you go to church and you feel good about it or you’ll never step foot in that place ever again. So your parents are still running your life. No, I resisted that yet. They’re running your life, alright? You don’t want that stuff in there and that’s what makes it show you mind.
So you learn not to mind. How do you do it? I told you, you practice. So the driver, I give you all kinds of things you could do. Get to the point that you like when it comes up. You don’t get into a spiritual head where I’m not supposed to have mine. I’m not supposed to mine. I’m not supposed to have trouble. I’m supposed to be open, supposed to love everybody. I don’t. I’m supposed to love everybody. No, no, no, no, no. You have to love that. When you’re driving behind somebody and they’re driving 15 miles below the speed limit, your stuff is coming up. Why you want it to come up? I’m going to cry. You want it to come up the same way that you want your fever to get a certain level high so it can kill the bacteria that’s in there.
You don’t want to get into an ice tub because your fever went up a couple of degrees, made a lot of degrees. I’m going to talk about that. And within reason, if it goes up 99, a hundred, 101, it’s purifying your body. Is it not? There’s a reason it’s doing that. There’s a reason this stuff is coming up. You don’t avoid situations that hit your stuff. You naturally allow situations to unfold. You welcome it to come up. Does it hurt? Of course it hurts. It was stored with pain. It’s going to come up with pain. Can you handle it? That’s when you’re spiritual. Spiritual verse says, I have a choice. Keep it in there underneath, bothering me, affecting my entire life under there. Spirituality is not about coping with it, it’s about getting it out. I care about you. I care about every one of you.
I know you don’t have that stuff in there and I know what it’s like to not have that stuff in there at least to some degree, okay? And it’s beautiful all the time, period. And it gets nicer and nicer every single day. You handle more and more things. That’s what I want for you. And you have to be willing to say, I don’t want this stuff in here. I don’t want to avoid things that hit it. I don’t want it in here. I don’t have to go out on my way to find to get a hit is it gets hit just fine by itself going through the natural state of life, but I’m going to reach the point where I’m going to learn to let it go. That’s what it’s all about. And so then you get into these different situations driving. It’s as silly as it is the car in front of you as your guru because it’s hitting your stuff.
That’s why I teach you a lot of times they teach you about how small the planet is. You’re probably bored about hearing how many earths fit inside the sun. 1.5 million. That’s a very big number. 1.5 million. Planet earth fit inside the sun. How important is it? The driver in front of you, how important is it what Somebody said there’s 8.3 billion people on the planet at any given moment. Most of ’em are saying something. Somehow you can handle all the other things that are being said, but not this thing that’s being said in front of you. The noise that a mouth is making in front of you is no different than all the noise that all the mouths are making all over the world at any given moment. It’s just something somebody’s saying. But you can’t handle that one because it happens to be said in front of you.
I hope you see that as absurd. You’re sitting in a plastic middle nowhere and there’s things happening and you can’t handle it. So like I pointed out, it may not work for you, but it always worked for me. So I’m sitting there behind traffic, so he starts doing his thing. I just step off the earth and look down at the earth. I was scooting around a little planet at 1.5 billion fit inside the sun and there’s 300 billion stars in your galaxy and that little sun is one of them. What exactly can’t you handle? That’s why I teach you this. It is a spiritual discussion. I’m sitting on a planet, driving around the planet having a different experience. That’s what you’re doing. You wake up in the morning and you go, I’m back. I wonder what’s going to happen today. You don’t wonder what’s happen today. You worry it’s going to happen today.
Do you see the difference? Who cares? What difference does it make? You’re only here for a few years. Go make a mess out of it. That’s what it means to not work with your mind. And that’s what it means to have that stuff suppressed in there so that the mind worries about everything. You care what’s going to happen today. It might happen to Herbie. It might not be what I want. I might not get what I want. I might get happy. What I don’t want. It might hit my stuff. What if I run into somebody that broke up with this seven years ago and there was somebody really nice and I feel jealous and I don’t know. I don’t one like it more real. Oh God, I can’t believe I said that yesterday. I wonder if it bothered him. I hope I didn’t bother him.
Should I call him? No, no, no, no. Maybe he doesn’t know. Maybe he didn’t hit him. If you call him, you bring it back. Whoa. Anybody got a mind like that? Isn’t that fun? You send a little plant spin, little nowhere. That’s what you’re doing. That’s what you chose to do with your time on the little planet earth. We have the James Webb telescope, the hubs out there. We have looked everywhere for millions of light years, got extra planets. No one saw any place ever that you would want to visit for more than five minutes. Go to Saturn, you’ll fall right through it’s gas, go to Mercury, you’ll burn up. There’s nothing going on anywhere. What was the last time nothing was going on around you? Nothing. Not what you like or don’t like. Nothing. Never. Earth is a phenomenal place to me. Earth is God’s idea of Disney world. It creates a whole universe. 300 billion stars in one galaxy and there’s 2 trillion galaxies. And now they believe that almost every star has a planet or two spinning around it. And you landed on one that has all this stuff going on. There’s colors and shapes and sounds and people and music and animals, and all you do is be neurotic. All you do is complain. I always wonder why people don’t want to die. All they do is complain. Well, they’re here.
Start learning how to not be bothered so that you can enjoy your time on earth. You don’t need things to be a certain way for you to be okay. Look at me. Yes, you need some food, clothing and shelter does not need to be a mansion, not be a nicer than somebody else’s. You just need some food, clothing, and shelter. Now, enjoy your time on earth. It’s not hard. It’s because you suppressed all this stuff and now you’re a mess. And now you need to impress people. You need to have them. You don’t need people to like you except that you don’t like yourself. What does it mean to be accepted by somebody? Wow, thank God. I wasn’t sure I was acceptable. Right or wrong. And the more they dote over you, the more they love you, the more they want to do things for you.
You feel better, don’t you? Why you not feel wonderful all the time? You dropped on the nicest planet in the entire universe, as far as we know. And all things are happening. It’s exciting. There’s things to do. There’s computers, there’s do anything You want to ride a bicycle, drive a car, anything you want to do, it’s unbelievable. But what if my new car got a scratch on it? The moment in front of you, not bothering you or bothering yourself at the moment in front of you. Now you get to have a scratch on your car. Isn’t that nice? It it’s art, it’s artwork. Sometimes art looks like a scratch. I’ve seen it. Will you please stop it? Okay, but you can’t, while you have that stuff suppressed down there. That’s why the mind is spewing these negative things and why it has all these preferences.
You need things to be a certain way for you to be okay because you stored that junk down there because you’re not, okay. How’s that? Well, you’re not okay because you store the junk down there. So spirituality is about every minute of every day is not about just the time on your meditation pillow. Every minute of every day life is going to come toward you because you have senses. Thank God. Otherwise you wouldn’t know there’s anything out there. And the sensors are going to pick up sight, sound, taste. They’re going to pick it up, aren’t they? And they’re going to send it back to you in here. It’s going to send it back to you. So you get to have an experience, a gift from God. Go to Mars. There’s no experience. There’s just red dirt blowing around round. Okay, here, there’s all these experiences.
Everyone is a gift. Everyone’s a gift. There’s a snake. Wow, there’s a rattlesnake. Oh my God, it’s so scary. What an experience you’re having. Experiences are you not? There are gifts. The alternative, it’s to have nothing. It comes in and you let it go through. If you don’t, you hold it in there. And I’m telling you that your ego, your ego, super ego, all that stuff that Freud talked about is the stuff you stored in there. Somebody told you how to behave. Super ego. Body’s telling you all kinds of garbage coming up into your mind about your animal instincts and all that stuff. Mine comes up in a mind. So society put it in there, body put it in there. Their mind doesn’t have animal instinctual needs. It’s a mind, but it receives the messages from the body. The mind says, I’m hungry. You are not.
You don’t even have a mouth. You don’t even know how to eat. That is the body sending messages, creating thoughts in the mind. That’s what the it is. I like Freud. What’s the superego? Society has laid a trip on your head. That’s sixties vernacular. Okay? And so you have thoughts in your head formulated by mommy and daddy and preacher, and then you’re trying to live in there with all this noise. So you develop this thing called a self-concept. Who am I? I’m the one who goes to church. I’m the one who doesn’t go to church. I’m the one that had this experience. I’m the one that had that experience. I’m the one that likes this. And you develop an ego. And ego is just a pattern of thoughts that are created in your mind. Just like a super ego. Just like the did. They’re just hanging out their mind and you’re trying to be okay in there. And it’s not easy, is it? Because you start all this mess in there. So spirituality is about welcoming. Every day you wake up in the morning and you remember this talk, you say, I’m back, and you’ll see fear and anxiety and all kinds of stuff, and you look at it very nicely and you say, hi, morning. Your days are numbered.
That’s all you. Don’t fight. Don’t fight. You don’t fight, you don’t fight with your mind or fight with your heart. Just I’m work in process. WIP and your days are numbered. We’re going to work this out. Then get up. Go about your business. Go your dharma. Just brush your teeth, take your shower, my just take your stupid shower. I want for record. Just eat something. I told you, I don’t know how many years. It’s got to be at least 30, 40 years. Go to my closet, open it up. There will be about six or eight of these shirts and six or eight of these pants all exactly the same. I don’t have to think about what to wear. Get it simple. You don’t need things. Be okay inside and you won’t care if people like you and they will love you because they haven’t ever met somebody that’s okay inside.
It doesn’t matter what you look like. It doesn’t matter what you’re wearing. You’re emanating a beautiful energy. People are attracted to that, but you don’t need them to be. You don’t even want ’em to be. You are a beautiful being. You have made a mess. Undo the mess by letting it go. How? By letting it go. There’s the ultimate. I don’t mind. Okay. She said something to you. Did it hurt? Yes. I don’t mind. Whoa. I was willing to let it pass through. Should I have to say she’s sorry? I have to figure out why she said it. I have to figure out if that means our relationship’s going south. I don’t mind. I don’t mind. I’m okay. I can handle it. I can handle it. If you can handle it. Your relationship will be simple. If you don’t freak out because somebody didn’t act exactly the same when they came home as when they left or didn’t do what they wanted ’em to do.
And you just, that was okay. It’s okay. I’m okay. I’m okay. Beautiful. I can handle it. That’s a great mantra. I can handle it because you say I can’t handle this, I can handle it. I don’t mind. Oh, I’m giving you a nice mantra. I don’t mind. It isn’t a mantra for you. I don’t mind. I don’t mind. It’s raining. I don’t mind. I’m going to get wet. I don’t mind. Can you do that? Can you practice? Not minding, just keep letting go. And what’s going to happen is your stuff’s going to start coming up. You’ll start being able to handle small stuff every day. That’s easy. Low hanging fruit. And because you’re not shoving more down there, listen to me, there’s a warning because you’re not shoving more on top of what you have down there. It’s going to start coming up by itself.
There’s that honeymoon part of the path where you start, oh, this is much better. Oh look, I’m so happy. And then this stuff’s going to start coming up. What happened? Your stuff started coming up and that’s what’s supposed to happen. Welcome it. Love it. Talk to it. I can remember I went through all the stages. I can remember one really amazing stage because I used to fight with it. And then I looked at it and I apologized to it. I looked down at him that I stored down there over the course of my life. And I said, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I’m sorry that I shoved you down there. Apologize to your lower self. Don’t fight with your lower self and don’t try to make you lower self, your higher self. Just look at it for what it is. This suppressed energy that you shoved down there that has been a mess for a long time.
Apologize to it. Reach your hand down and say you don’t have to be down there. I want to help you up. I’m sorry I shoved you down there. Let’s work together. I’ll stop power to stop. The Gita has a line. It said, one should raise the self with self, not trampled down the self for self that can be self’s. Friend can be self foe. It’s talking about higher self and lower self uppercase Atman. Lowercase one should raise the lower self with the higher self, not trampled down the lower self for the higher self that could be lower self’s friend can be self foe, no fighting. Just reach down there, apologize and don’t put more down there. You wait and see what happens to you. Live a life like that. That’s true spiritual growth. And you’ll start being happier and happier. And then stop being afraid. What if you knew to the bottom of your being that you could handle anything that will ever happen to you for the rest of your life? Would that be nice? Good. You can.
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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